catherine rampell, three questions. help me. you're the one with the intelligence on this. year '19. federal deficit, $310 billion, up $176 billion year-over-year. why? >> there are a few things going on. one of course as you mentioned is the tax cut. despite what was promised, the tax cuts sadly did not pay for themselves. wouldn't you know? we cut taxes, and tax revenues fell. so that's snake oil, still not working. but it's not only on the tax cuts. it's also on the spending side. so we had this grand bargain that democrats and republicans came to last year in which they decided they were going to increase funding for each other's pet projects, particularly defense, but not only defense. so you saw a big increase in defense spending. the country's also getting older, so you have more spending on medicare, for example. so that's part of it as well. and also interest rates are rising, which means that the interest payments on the debts are also going up. all of that debt not looking so cheap anymore. >> so the sell was, listen, if you cut the taxes, they will invest more,

and for that, i'm joined by catherine rampell, who is also a columnist for "the washington tst." erine, welco the "newshour". we heard the story about adrian mcgonigal you told from last fall. give me a sense how unique was his storks the set of circumstances at allowed him to fall will you the cracks? >> i will say that when we visited arkansas, we heard from a lot of people who were confused about the requirements, how they were to be record, if people were goi to prove that they were actually abiding by the requirements, as well as a lot of lack of awareness about whether the requirements even existe so he is byno means unique. even though who were aware the requirements existed expressed concern about the ability to meet them. people were working but maybe not enough hours oe r peoth trouble with transportation. >> walk me through the judge's decision this week that blocked arkansas, right, from continuing that program and also blocked kentucky from implementing the same work requirements, what was e co justification from blocking those, from the judge's perspective?ua >> this

this fall, catherine rampell went there to talk to him and see how the program was working.e's some of what she found. >> well, i just got out of the hospital. a >> reporteian mcgonigal's life is coming undone. >> they were wanting me to stay longer, but-- >> reporter: in the past few weeks, he's lost his job, his heth insurance, even his feelings of self-worth. >> without my medication, i o.can't really sleep good, >> reporter: he's worked all his life. but now, at the age of 40, he's entirely dependent on people likeis mom to get by. and he blames the u.s. department of health and human services. your status as far as? >> the arkansas works is concerned. >> reporter: thisummer, he had ntdecent-paying job at a chicken plant outside beonville. but when the trump administration allowed the state of arkansas to impose new work requirements on mecaid, he, like many medicaid recipients, got confused about how to report his hours. >> i thought that everything was od about this. i thought it was just a one-time deal, that you report it, and then that was it. >> reporter: he was wr