Wyden talks about drug prices, TikTok at KTVZ, pitches child tax credit legislation at Bend news conference

(Update: adding comments at Wyden news conference on child tax credit at Boys & Girls Club of Bend)

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Senator Ron Wyden held a news conference Tuesday about expanded child tax credit legislation at the Boys & Girls Club of Bend, speaking about why it's important to Central Oregon families. Parents and officials with area nonprofits also spoke about the legislation's potential impact.

Parent and Vice President of Development for Boys & Girls Club of Bend, Alice Ivy, spoke about how the child tax credit personally impacted her and her family.

"When it first came around a few years ago, was incredibly impactful. I had two small children. We were in the throes of COVID, and the financial strain that we were facing was palpable inside our inside my family. And it helped us make ends meet a little bit better."

According to Wyden, "Nationwide, food insecurity among families dropped by about 25%, thanks to the expanded tax credit."

Wyden held the gathering to promote the expand tax credit passed by the House at the beginning of the year through the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. The proposal would allow taxpayers to use their income from the previous year to calculate their child tax credit.

Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler said she believes it would have an immediate impact.

"We're going to be seeing ripple effects across the community," she said. "When you bring kids out of poverty, that lasts for a generation, the effects of that. So this is very important and I'm happy to support it."

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 16 million children would benefit. For nearly 40% of those children, their family’s gain would be $1,000 or more. Twenty five percent of those children would gain more than $1,400 in the first year.

Boys and Girls Club of Bend CEO Bess Goggins says the nonprofit sees the impacts families face.

"As things are shifting federally and at the state level, the local economy, we're hearing from our families that when they're struggling, we're hearing about it. When they're having a hard time making rent, when they're having a hard time buying quality groceries, they are sharing that with us."

She also said the nonprofit is consistently "seeing an increase in requests and an increase in applications for financial support" by families in Central Oregon.

Concluding the news conference, Wyden said, "Child poverty, in my view, is not something forced on us. It is a policy choice. It is a choice that is made by elected officials and communities, to decide what's important to them, We just want to get the yes, for all the reasons that these families, you know, we're talking about."

The senator said he is encouraging bipartisanship in the Senate to approve the legislation. he says the next crucial steps are to spread thee message over the next three weeks - before taxes are due - about how this legislation can help children and families.

Wyden talks tax credit, drug prices and TikTok during KTVZ in-studio Interview

“A lot of Oregonians think D.C. might as well be Mars, for all the connection it has to them,” Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Monday evening on one of his visits to NewsChannel 21, but the first to our revamped studios.

But responding to questions from Anchor Lee Anderson, Wyden focused on his priorities that he believes are Oregonians’ as well, such an expanded child tax credit. The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act passed the House earlier this year.

“We have 160,000 Oregon children who depend on this,” he said, with “families walking an economic tightrope.”

Also in the bill, Wyden said: “low-income housing, which we badly need in Oregon, and incentives for small business, like a research and development tax credit.”

“It’s gonna be tough to get it through the Senate, but we’re going to be pulling out all the stops,” Wyden said, also noting: “It’ll come up right before tax season.”

Wyden was next asked a "hot-button" question: whether he believes the Chinese company ByteDance should be forced to divest of the social media app TikTok or lose access to U.S. markets, as the House recently voted. Anderson pointed out that a lot of creators in Bend and elsewhere depend on the platform, some for their sole source of income.

“I’m very much thinking about those folks,” the senator said, noting that national security issues prompted him to support keeping it off government devices – but also knowing the First Amendment rights issues involved in the debate.

“I have got to weigh all those issues, and I am going to spend some time thinking it through,” he said. “I’m not convinced the bill that passed the House would pass the Senate.”

As for drug prices and his targeting of pharmacy benefit managers – “the middleman” – Wyden said people will come up to him in Fred Meyer and ask, “Ron, what’s a PBM?”

Wyden said that role “used to make a lot of sense, when there wasn’t a lot of data and the like.” But he said they “now are taking dollars that ought to be going to our small pharmacies and seniors.”

“We got a big vote out of the (Senate) Finance Committee,” the senator said. “This is going to be essential, to hold down pharmaceutical prices, and it’s one of my top priorities.”

“We won by a narrow vote – 26-0,” he joked. But we’ve still got to go through all of the Senate procedures,” to curb the PBMs who he said have “jacked up senior prices” for the drugs they depend on.

When Anderson brought up it being an election year and asked what can be done in such even more partisan years, Wyden joked, as usual: “I heard there was a rumor there was an election coming up – is that true?”

“I’m a little bit of a contrarian, as usual,” the senator said. “I think the best politics is to do good policy,” which he said allows you to go back to your home district and show you’re working on issues that Wyden argues are not “about a D or an R behind your name,” but that most Americans would agree upon.