Budget

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, last night, almost every single House Republican signed their names to what would be the largest Medicaid cuts in American history. The havoc, the damage that that would do to tens of millions of American families would be almost unprecedented when it comes to Medicaid.

Why did Republicans do it? So they could cut taxes for the billionaires club. The Republican agenda is quickly taking shape. Under Donald Trump's Republican Party, billionaires win; American families lose.

Last night proved that Senate Democrats are right. It doesn't matter if Republicans go with 1 bill or 2 bills or 50 bills. The endgame for Republicans has always been the same: cutting taxes for billionaires and forcing American families to pick up the tab.

Now the attention returns to the Republican Senate. Republican Senators know these billionaire tax breaks are unpopular, particularly because it will push deep, nasty cuts to Medicaid. When I hear the Republican leadership talk about the bills they propose, they never mention the tax cuts to billionaires, which is the crown jewel, in their minds, of what they are doing. But they are afraid to mention it because they know how unpopular it is with the American people.

They know it is going to increase the deficit by up to $5 trillion. These deficit hawks over on the other side of the aisle and the House are willing to increase the deficit by that much.

So what are they doing about it, knowing how high it would increase the deficit, rising interest rates, rising costs, risk of economic downturn? What do they do? Instead of facing the problem head-on, they are resorting to budget gimmicks to hide the true cost of their billionaire tax cuts.

They want to use something--some of them--called a current policy baseline. In essence, current policy baseline is an attempt to magically turn $5 trillion of deficit spending into zero dollars on their balance sheets. The deficit would still be there. It would still go up by $5 trillion in actual terms, but this sleight of hand, this hocus-pocus, says it is not going to appear on a balance sheet because we are calling it current policy baseline.

Congress--Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative--has never used a ``current policy'' baseline for reconciliation and for good reason. Any junior high school math student could tell you their current policy baseline gimmickry is utter nonsense. It is an attempt for Senate Republicans to hide the true cost of their billionaire tax cuts from the American people.

At least House Republicans are being honest about the outrageous cost of their tax cuts in terms of the deficit. In fact, the House Freedom Caucus is being far more honest about the deficit than our Senate Republican colleagues. Maybe the Freedom Caucus should send the debt clocks that Representative Thomas Massie wears on his lapel to the Senate Republicans.

What happened in the House last night and what happened last week in the Senate is only the beginning. Democrats are going to fight these billionaire tax cuts tooth and nail. Democrats are glad to have this debate because the American people will be aghast when they learn what is really in the Republican tax bill, and that is tax breaks--huge tax breaks--for their billionaire buddies who are all doing well, God bless them. The last thing America needs is another tax break for them--who are so rich already.

Americans are worried that with these tax breaks, inflation is going to get worse. Americans are worried that Donald Trump will start a trade war with our allies and make trips to the grocery store an utter nightmare.

We learned yesterday, for instance, that consumer confidence saw its biggest drop last month in 4 years--in 4 years. So this idea that the Republicans can hide what they are doing to the American people is not working, and we Democrats are going to make sure that Americans know exactly what they are doing in terms of their tax breaks for billionaires hurting the average American.

The issues that Americans are actually worried about are costs, are inflation, are getting decent healthcare. But what are the Republicans spending their time on here in Congress? Cutting taxes for billionaires and then hiding the true cost on the deficit with a sleight of hand.

They are also slashing away at Medicaid and SNAP and so many other services that bring down the cost of living. This is absolutely not what the American people signed up for, and Republicans know it because they don't talk about it.

Talk about how close to $2 trillion in your plan goes to the very wealthiest in America. You can't talk about it. Do you know why you can't talk about it? Because you know how unpopular it is.

Yes, it is true that the small number of very wealthy, greedy people who want their taxes even lower has a disproportionate hold on the Republican Party in the House and Senate. So they are doing it, but they are afraid to talk about it.

And for sure, when it comes to these tax cuts, when it comes to the cuts in Medicaid, and so many other bad things their budget does, Democrats will fight tooth and nail to prevent them.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source