U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., laid out his thoughts on the reconciliation bill that passed the U.S. House and will now be considered by the full Senate.
Not surprisingly, the Senate has different designs on how an omnibus measure may be constructed.
Cotton emphasized the bill will eventually pass, but didn’t offer specifics on what senators are contemplating.
“We’re going to pass the bill. I’m sure that we’re going to make some changes to it, but we appreciate very much the work that the House had to put into the bill and how far they moved the ball down the field,” said Cotton, who appeared on this week’s edition of Capitol View.
“We’re also mindful that the House has a small majority and it took them a while to pass this bill, so we want to work cooperatively with the Speaker and with the President to make sure that what we do in the Senate can then pass again to the House and get to the President for a signature promptly,” he added.
Cotton agreed with Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., who in an earlier interview said he hoped the Senate would include Farm Bill provisions in the reconciliation bill.
“I do think that this bill will have a lot of the needful provisions of the Farm Bill, and then hopefully we can come back later in the year or next year and reauthorize the rest of the Farm Bill,” he said.
Regarding estimates that the bill will add $3.8 trillion to the deficit, Cotton said the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections are not accurate.
“I don’t go by the CBO estimates. I actually think that this is going to help bring down the deficit in the long run,” said Cotton.
IRAN, UKRAINE
The United States and Iran have been in negotiations to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Cotton said he is in line with President Donald Trump and Israeli leaders on the options to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear bombs.
“Iran has to surrender its enrichment capabilities,” said Cotton. “Iran draws a red line at enriching uranium and that may be one reason why it’s going to be hard to get any kind of deal and resolve this matter in a peaceful way. So what’s option two? Well, President Trump has been very clear that option two is the military option, and he doesn’t always speak like a traditional Republican who might say, ‘Oh, all options are on the table.’ As he said, and this is a near direct quote, ‘Iran can make a deal and live happily without death or there will be bombing,’ and that’s really what you see… President Trump has said he is willing to use military force either alone or more likely in conjunction with Israel.”
When asked if the U.S. Senate would support military action towards Iran, Cotton said he only sees two paths for Iran.
“I think there’s certainly support for either a deal that eliminates Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon or military action that eliminates their path to a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Another international military hot spot involves Russia’s war on Ukraine. Cotton said the blame for the war and the possibility for peace is very clear.
“The obstacle for peace right now is Vladimir Putin in Moscow, just like Vladimir Putin is the cause of this war. Ukraine was the victim of unprovoked aggression in 2022,” said Cotton.
In recent weeks, Putin has authorized numerous offensive attacks on key Ukranian cities and is reportedly adding more troops to border regions. Cotton said the options for Ukraine, with support from the U.S., include better defense options, stronger Russian sanctions, and pressure to squeeze Russian profits from oil.
“They’re going to lift the range restrictions on the long range missiles that Ukraine can do. So Russia can’t continue to assemble troops and ammunition depots just over the border and be held harmless, and I think President Trump recognizes that Vladimir Putin is the obstacle to peace,” said Cotton. “He’s tried to give it a chance, and you’ve seen in the last few days that he said that Vladimir Putin is that obstacle, and if he doesn’t come to the table soon and accept the ceasefire terms that both President Trump and President Zelensky are willing to offer, then you may see more sanctions imposed on Russia.”
Cotton thinks it may take more than sanctions, however.
“I think in the end, the only thing that’s going to cause Vladimir Putin to come to the table and negotiate is to recognize he has more to lose ultimately on the battlefield than he does at the negotiating table,” he said.
PINE BLUFF ARSENAL
For years, Sens. Cotton and Boozman, in conjunction with U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Hot Springs, have called on the U.S. Army to do more with the Pine Bluff Arsenal. In mid-May, the senators and congressman asked the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, to provide an explanation for why the Army was proposing cuts to the arsenal instead of investing more into it.
“The nation has a munitions crisis. We simply can’t produce enough munitions to meet our needs and the needs of friends in places like Ukraine and the Middle East and Taiwan, so we need to do everything possible to increase the rate of production,” he said. “Some of that solution is in places like the Highland Industrial Park in south Arkansas with private defense companies, but the Army has its own organic industrial base. In places like the Pine Bluff Arsenal right now, they produce white phosphorus ammunition. They could do a lot more. Other arsenals around the country could do more as well. We need an ‘all of the above’ strategy with both private industry and the Army’s own industrial base.”
Last week, Cotton met with the Secretary of the Army, and while communication appears to have been direct, the situation does not appear resolved. The three federal elected officials have called for immediate answers to questions about the Army’s plans.
“Now, the Secretary of the Army, I hope, understands this now that we’ve met with him last week, and also he knows that this is a pre-existing source of tension we’ve had with the Army bureaucracy. I think frankly, in some cases it just wants to offload its organic industrial base. In general, that’s not a solution because we have a dire munitions crisis. The solution is to use the facilities, the land, and the workforce that we already have to meet the nation’s national security needs,” said Cotton.
