David Kustoff predicts tax cuts and Obamacare repeal

Feb. 20--Recently sworn-in U.S. Rep. David Kustoff told a lawyers' group in Memphis Monday that he expects Congress to quickly enact tax cuts and replace Obamacare.

"We've got a chance over the next three to six to nine months, with health care and tax reform, to do it, and frankly to do it in a big way," said Kustoff, R-Germantown. "There will be a lot of checks and balances. What it comes out looking like, it probably won't look perfect, but it's going to give the American people the relief they need. That's what the 2016 election was all about. They're tired of the way government operates. They're tired of paying their money over to the government."

He said Congress might rapidly pass the 2017-2018 budget to make time to deal with the tax and health care issues and said Republicans should act fast because they control the presidency, House and Senate.

Kustoff said he supports tax cuts on small businesses and individuals and also called for an end for "inversions," transactions in which companies avoid taxes by moving their headquarters overseas.

He said he's hearing complaints from people facing higher health insurance premiums and expressed concern about big insurers pulling out of the health care exchanges. He said he supports legislation that would allow people to purchase health care on exchanges across state lines: for instance, someone in Memphis could sign up for health insurance offered not just in Tennessee, but in Arkansas or Mississippi.

The new congressman spoke to a group of around 30 people in a meeting room at Jason's Deli on Poplar Avenue near Highland Street in East Memphis. The event was organized by the Memphis Bar Association's probate and estate section -- attorneys who deal with wills and trusts.

Meanwhile, about eight protesters held signs near the shopping center entrances calling for Kustoff to hold a broader town hall meeting. Kustoff and his staff said he planned to meet privately with the protesters later this week.

Both Republican and Democratic members of Congress have faced vocal crowds at town hall meetings this year, urging them to act as a check on President Trump. Kustoff said he's been talking with lots of people since his election, mentioning in particular a meeting with a largely African-American audience in Brownsville on Martin Luther King Jr. day.

He said people shouldn't get caught up in whether a meeting where he speaks is technically a town hall. "I just call it a meeting. If people want to come they can come and attend."

That said, not every meeting is open to the public -- Monday's meeting at Jason's Deli was for bar association members, said Matt Buyer, chairman of the probate section of the Memphis Bar Association.

Kustoff, a former U.S. attorney, was one of 13 Republican candidates who jumped into the congressional race last year when then-incumbent Stephen Fincher announced he wasn't going to run. He and other candidates spent big sums of money on TV ads, an effective way to raise their profiles in the district, which stretches from East Memphis to the outlying suburbs and through much of rural West Tennessee -- all or part of 15 counties.

Kustoff won 27 percent of the vote, enough for victory in the Republican primary. The state legislature had withdrawn the district boundaries in 2010 to facilitate a Republican win, and Kustoff easily beat his November general election opponents.

In the discussion period with the attorneys Monday, Kustoff took some technical questions about taxes and regulations. Mark Miller 57, a local representative of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, asked if Kustoff supported bringing back some parts of the Glass-Steagall Act, a set of banking regulations that was largely ended in 1999.

Kustoff said he would, though after the meeting, his office said he'd misspoken and that he would not support bringing back Glass-Steagall.

Before Kustoff's talk, protester Mary Green, 56, a Germantown homemaker, said she wanted a more open process to talk with the congressman about issues such as sanctuary cities legislation, Obamacare and funding for Planned Parenthood.

"I want to talk to him. I want to hear what he has to say . . . He's here, and I'm a constituent and I'm not a lawyer," said Green, who said she's a Democrat.

She also said she'd attend the private meeting that Kustoff's staff offered, but said the limit on the number of people -- 10 -- wasn't ideal. "And who am I to represent?"

Another protester, Bartlett resident Andy O'Neill, 60, who works in a distribution center, held a sign that said "Kustoff investigate Russia / Trump."

He said that if Trump has broken laws, Kustoff must act. "He has to meet his obligations and hold those people's feet to the fire who break laws." O'Neill said he's keeping an open mind on whether Trump or others have broken laws.

O'Neill said he's a Republican and cast his presidential primary vote last year for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Among Kustoff's scheduled appearances in the district this month is a members-only meeting Thursday with the Greater Memphis Chamber.

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