U.S. Senator John Curtis (R-Utah) appeared on CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash to discuss a range of policy issues, including his proposed Algorithm Accountability Act, immigration, and healthcare.
Addressing his legislation aimed at social media companies, Curtis stated: “The goal is to get [social media companies] to be accountable. A lot of what happens with social media is very, very good. My daughters will tell you, they like things showing up that they want to buy. That’s not harmful necessarily, but it can be. If you make an automobile and have a bad product, we hold you liable. If you make a medicine and it’s a bad product, we hold you liable. Why don’t we have that same philosophy with our social media companies? Without that, there are no guardrails, right? There’s nothing holding them back. We know some very, very bad things happen with these algorithms.”
On the topic of immigration policy under the Biden Administration and its effects on cities across the country, Curtis said: “Going back to the Biden Administration, we were told it was compassionate to have an open border. It wasn’t. And now what’s happening in our cities also feels like it’s not compassionate… If I were mayor, the very first thing I would do is sit down with ICE and I’d say, ‘I want the bad guys out of my city, and I want my citizens to feel safe.’ Let’s do that… We’ve got to get rid of the bad guys and be compassionate at the same time. We can do it.”
Curtis also addressed current discussions over extending Obamacare Enhanced Premium Tax Credits: “This is not really a serious effort just to extend them for three years—something that has not been working, and was meant to be temporary from the beginning—this is not a good vote. We know we need a minimum premium for people, even if it’s a couple of bucks. We know we need a cap on income. This is not a serious effort. We know there’s flaws with these and we’re not willing to change those flaws, sadly. There are a lot of Republicans and Democrats talking about both two things: one, how do we actually lower the cost, not just of insurance but of healthcare; and then what do we do in the interim while we’re waiting to do that. Those are two questions that we’re not having thoughtful conversation about.”
