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Floor Speech

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Mr. HUSTED. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the facts about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That was my first reconciliation process as a new U.S. Senator. It was a great experience. I very much enjoyed the 36 hours straight of no sleep. I think that was a record for me. But we got a lot accomplished.

I want to share with you and the people of Ohio about why I believe it is a good bill and I supported it, because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it is known, is uniquely tailored to support Ohio workers and families. I really believe that it serves them well. And the facts support it.

First of all, I think it is important to reflect on why it was necessary. The budget law that we passed extended the 2017 tax cuts, which were going to expire. They needed to be renewed. It also made important investments in national defense and border security. But if we failed to pass it, we would have seen a $4 trillion tax hike on the American people, something that would have been devastating to their pocketbooks and our economy.

I believe that people and States do a good job spending the money that they have. I believe that people will spend smarter when they have more money in their pockets rather than putting that money in the control of the Federal Government. I come to this conclusion based on both my life experiences and 25 years of State government in Ohio. It is from that perspective I want to focus on what I believe the One Big Beautiful Bill means in real-world terms for Ohio families, workers, and taxpayers.

The BBB results in more take-home pay for Ohioans, more money in their pockets. More take-home pay means independence. Government dependency means less independence. That is why this bill focuses on really allowing workers to keep more of the money they earn.

Let's dig into this a bit. The tax cuts that were cemented for workers and job creators will leave the average Ohio household with an estimated $7,000 more in take-home pay. And more specifically, the Council of Economic Advisers estimates the bill will increase take-home pay for the average family with two kids in Ohio between $6,900 a family up to $11,700 per family. That is more aftertax wages--taxes going down, wages going up, more money in your pockets. That is what it means.

We made no taxes on tips and no taxes on overtime a reality. Ohioans work hard, and that is a change that they can feel legitimately in their pockets.

I was on a telephone townhall last night. One of the ladies who called in said: Hey, I want you to know my husband is a line worker. He works a lot of overtime for the utility company, and that eliminating tax on overtime pay will mean a lot to our family--more take-home pay.

I understood that. It is another aspect of the bill that is very important for working people.

We increased the child tax credit up to $2,200 per child. If we had failed to do this, it would have dropped down to $1,000. It is now up to $2,200 per child. That benefit alone will serve 1.3 million Ohio families. It is good for them. It is good for families with children who are trying to make ends meet. It is just another part of this bill that makes life easier for them.

We also made the standard deduction permanent--$31,500 for couples and $15,700 for single filers. Who does that affect? Just 5.3 million Ohioans who will benefit from that increase.

We also remembered Ohio's seniors by expanding their annual deduction to $6,000. I know I heard from many Ohio seniors, as this bill was traveling through the process, who said: Hey, do this for us.

It is tough for many seniors who are on fixed incomes who trying to make ends meet and pay property taxes. Every little bit helps, and we helped those senior citizens by increasing their annual deduction.

We need to remember what would have happened to workers and families if we had failed. It is always the other side of every piece of legislation: OK. What is in it? Well, what would happen if we didn't get the job done? Well, that would have meant, for the average American family of four earning $80,000 a year, that they would have owed an additional $1,700 in taxes. The savings delivered for the Ohio household--an average Ohio household--is even bigger. For Ohioans, it will be $2,140. It is a big flip between what you would have lost and what you are now getting in return, what you are saving.

Our work is creating more Ohio jobs. It is always on the top of my mind. I have always believed that if you have a good job and if you have a good economy, you can pay your mortgage, buy a car, and save for your future. Frankly, that is just part of the American dream. So when we are creating jobs, we are creating opportunity. We are creating that pathway for the American dream, and we do this in the bill.

I am going to brag about Ohio for a minute, if the Presiding Officer would allow me, because recently we were named the fifth best State in the country to do business. I know we compete against States around this country and around the world, and Ohio has come a long way from the 39th worst State to the 5th best in the Nation. I was very proud to take part of that when I was Lieutenant Governor and speaker of the house.

That is good for our State, but what about our entire country? How do we make it so that businesses are going to perform better? Particularly for small businesses, what did we do in the bill? A 20-percent small business tax deduction.

It all adds up. Small businesses have to make tough choices, and when you have this predictability--when you know you are going to get, instead of a tax increase, a tax cut--then you start to think: OK. I don't have to close the doors. I might be able to hire a new person. Those benefits that I was worried about, as to whether I could provide healthcare or not, I can do that now.

All of that benefits them when businesses have the predictability and they know that their tax bills are not going to go up but that they are going to go down.

Almost all of Ohio's businesses are organized as small businesses, and they will be able to get access to this. That is 842,000 Ohio job creators who would have lost that deduction if we had not passed the bill.

It is estimated that the One Big Beautiful Bill alone is projected to create 1.2 million new U.S. jobs a year over the next decade. Those numbers can fluctuate, but the bottom line is that it is good for job creation, it is good for America, it is good for the American workforce, and it is good for the American worker.

I want to talk about manufacturing for a minute. We talk about ``made in America'' and that we want to do more ``made in America.'' Well, I always said this about Ohio: You can't do ``made in America'' without doing ``made in Ohio'' because we are literally part of the American supply chain. So what is good for manufacturing is good for the State of Ohio.

To that end, we made sure that this legislation gave job creators the freedom to immediately expense investments in new factories, capital investments in machinery and equipment and in research and development. No, that is not something the average person sees directly, but it is something that the employer does; it is something that the employer knows--that they now have predictability in how to allocate their capital, that they can afford to invest in new machinery and equipment.

When you invest in new machinery and equipment, what does it do? It makes you more competitive on a global stage. It puts you in a position that you can hire people, compete, open new markets, and improve the quality of the product you have so that you not only can outcompete your competitors but you can win and create jobs. This is a big boon for States like Ohio. It helps our manufacturing culture, and it is important.

Another piece of this, another piece of the Big Beautiful Bill that a lot of people might not know about is something that I care a lot about.

For decades of my life, I have been working on issues surrounding workforce development. How do we help people get the skills they need to compete for the jobs of today and tomorrow to earn higher pay? to have job security? In many cases, we want to do this without having the cost of going to college. We want to help people earn the credentials that lead to jobs without their having the cost or the debt that oftentimes college creates. Well, in this bill, we allow for Pell grants to be used for workforce credentials to land good jobs.

I know I have something here that I received from the Ohio Association of Community Colleges and some college trustees or some community college trustees who talk about how it will help them expand workforce programs to the people of our State. It is a good, positive change that we made in allowing Pell grants to be used for workforce credentials, not just for college.

It also will help families from an educational point at the K- through-12 level. We talked about Pell grants at the postsecondary level; let's talk about the K-through-12 level. One of the things I did when I was the speaker of the house in Ohio is to create the EdChoice Scholarship. At the time, it was 4,000 students. Now it is over 100,000 students who can go to schools of their choice using that program. But I know it is still not enough. We can still do more to support families who want, with their own wisdom and freedom, to be able to choose a place to send their children because, frankly, there is not a decision that you make as a parent or as a guardian about the future of your child, frankly, that may be more important than the school they attend. It may be for an academic reason, it may be for a workforce reason, but it could be for a values reason that you want your child to attend a particular school. It could be for a safety reason. This creates a school choice tax credit that will help create more scholarship opportunities for parents and children to attend the school of their choice.

Then, finally--something that is very near and dear to me--the Big Beautiful Bill supports Ohio families and vulnerable children by making the adoption tax credit partially refundable up to $5,000. As an adoptee, as somebody who started my life in a foster home, this is important to me. For a child who is looking for the support of a forever family--now we have made it just a little bit easier for them to find that family and to support that family. It is a really important component of the bill. Every little bit helps when you are trying to support a family.

Now I want to talk a little bit about things that are being said about the bill that just aren't true as it relates to my State. I want to start with Medicaid.

There are some whoppers of a lie being told about Medicaid right now. Frankly, it is bothersome because I believe, in many cases, these lies are being used to scare some of the most vulnerable people in our society--pregnant mothers, children living in poverty, people with disabilities, the elderly.

I want you to know you are protected. You are protected. This bill supports strengthening Medicaid to make sure those services are there for you--the people the program was originally designed to serve.

I want you to know that Ohioans will have access to more healthcare resources because of the Big Beautiful Bill than ever before. Let me explain this because there is a lot of misinformation out there. Some people are scared, and they deserve to know the truth about it.

This package is sending more Medicaid dollars and more support to rural hospitals in Ohio than ever before. That is a fact. Ohio has historically been one of the more responsible States in its approach to Medicaid. We haven't maxed out some of the tools that States have available to them to draw down funding on Medicaid. That means that Ohio taxpayers have been subsidizing States like California, which has been drawing down the maximum amount of Federal dollars and, frankly, has been using them to pay for healthcare for people who aren't even citizens of the United States--in many cases, even for illegal immigrants. That should not be the priority of the American taxpayer and certainly not the priority for the Ohio taxpayer, and this budget bill levels the playing field in that respect.

I am going to give you a little more detail on it because I think this is important. Not only do I want to share with you the facts about how Medicaid is being supported but how.

First, in Ohio, the State government--the Governor and the legislature--raised the provider tax, which they were allowed to do under this bill. In doing so, they are going to be able to draw down 60 percent more Medicaid funding as a result of that provision. What does that mean practically for Ohio hospitals? It means, for most hospitals in Ohio, they will receive 24 percent more reimbursement than they did the previous year. As a result, Ohio will be, frankly, taking in more Medicaid money than ever to serve those populations. Those are facts.

I have received numerous pieces of communications from hospitals around the State of Ohio. This is one from four rural hospitals thanking Senator Moreno and myself for what is in the bill, what is in the Big Beautiful Bill, because it is helping them in those rural hospitals make ends meet.

That doesn't even include the third priority that we worked on, which is a rural health transformation fund that makes available $50 billion over the next 5 years to support rural hospitals. Ohio is going to receive its first windfall from that amount of money--$1.3 billion--for our rural hospitals, and it is going to help because I know they struggle from time to time. Sometimes their business model does not work as well as it does in a more heavily populated area.

But it is important that we know those facts to be true and that the scare tactics are wrong. People who have depended on Medicaid should know it is going to be there for them.

Nationally, even though Ohio will be getting an additional amount of funding for Medicaid, the whole country--every State--will be receiving additional funding because the Medicaid budget increases by 3 percent a year long into the future.

Changes like these are significant. But I want Ohioans to know that they are protected and that their hard-earned money that they have been using to fund Medicaid will no longer go to things that I know they don't approve of, which is paying for healthcare services for people who are in this country illegally.

I know that according to CMS, of all the projected Federal taxpayer losses under the provider tax that happen across the country, 95 percent of those losses come from four States: California, Michigan, Massachusetts, and New York, which have been maxing out the credit card of this country through the way that they operate their Medicaid Programs.

Every State does it differently. Some States are more responsible than others. We need to have a system that protects the long-term interests of our Medicaid Program. Ohio shouldn't be punished for their bad policies, and this bill levels that playing field.

I want to reemphasize that Medicaid for children living in poverty, those with disabilities, caretakers, and elderly Ohioans is protected. Don't be scared by the lies. The truth is that no one that Medicaid was designed to serve will see benefit cuts.

You may have heard people say: Well, some folks are going to lose their benefits.

I want to share some facts on this. It was in the Wall Street Journal, I believe, today. It shows that we have 2.8 million people-- 2.8 million people--in this country who are dually enrolled in Medicaid; meaning, they are in one State and another, which means: What are we doing? We are paying Medicaid premiums for the same individual in multiple States. It is a waste of money. Frankly, it is hard to believe that this has not been cracked down on before, because this money that we are talking about is hard-earned tax dollars in a country that has a $37 trillion national debt, and here we see it wasted in this program. Not to mention that there is a high number of people on the program who are not even eligible, further jeopardizing the long- term sustainability of the program.

Then, finally, I want to talk about something I have been working on for quite a while. I know when the Federal Government, under ObamaCare, put in place the Medicaid expansion provision, it provided free healthcare, provided free benefits, generously provided by the hard- working people of this Nation, for healthy adults who are able-bodied who didn't have children. This bill says that if you are a healthy adult who is able-bodied, without young children, that now you are going to have to work 20 hours a week in return for your benefits. That seems to be a pretty reasonable request. It is part of the social contract that if you can contribute to your own success in life, that you should do that.

People of this country are generous and good-hearted and they want to make sure that people in need have access to healthcare. But if you are capable of working, and you just refuse to do so, now, you are going to have to start doing something in return for those benefits. And that means you can get an education, committing 20 hours a week to your education. You can volunteer at the library, cleaning up trash in your local park; or you can get a job and start to build your career and start to contribute to your own independence in life.

That is a simple request that most people in this country support. I know Ohioans support it--that if you are going to receive generous, free healthcare from your neighbor, that you should do something in return if you are capable of doing it. In this Big Beautiful Bill we now have that standard in place for the people of this country.

I also want to add that in the bill we made communities across this country and Ohio much safer by securing the border--big investments in making sure that we secure the southern border, we don't let drugs and people who are not legally allowed to be in this country come across.

But we also did it at the northern border. Ohio has a northern border, Lake Erie. There is money in there to prevent some of the things that we have seen even at our northern border.

But this failure at our southern border has led to millions of people coming into this country illegally, people like Luis Naula-Candelario. Earlier this year, he was arrested in Ohio. He was a criminal alien from Ecuador. He was not legally allowed to be in this country. He was wanted in his home country for murder. He was living in Pickerington, OH, not far from the city of Columbus.

We have people all across this country who are here illegally, and there is money in this bill to find them, arrest them, and deport them, particularly those who have committed crimes either in their home country or in ours.

And this will help support law enforcement to protect more communities around our Nation and, certainly, in our State.

The Big Beautiful Bill keeps America strong by investing hundreds of millions of dollars in Ohio manufacturers that produce the next generation of weapons.

Also, our national security is supported in this bill. Our defense industry has done its part throughout the course of American history to defeat enemies around the globe, but every generation faces a new threat. We face threats from China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea.

Ohio is a manufacturing State. We are the heart of it all, but we are the heart of defense manufacturing in many ways. This bill will help our State defend America and defend American interests.

I actually toured, recently, a company in Ohio, late last year, that makes the bunker-busting bombs that were dropped in the very successful endeavor into Iran recently by our brave Air Force pilots and crew. That 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb, along with many other weapons, is manufactured in our State. We are very proud to have a State that makes so many things that help preserve and maintain our freedom.

Last but not least, we are also safeguarding our future by making sure that we are lowering our deficit. I will say, I was concerned, as the bill moved through the process, about what was being said about it, about how it was going to exacerbate and add to our deficit, because we were hearing a lot of people quoting the Congressional Budget Office, saying that it was going to add $3.4 trillion to the national debt. But when it was all said and done and the Congressional Budget Office reviewed the law, the final assessment is that it actually reduces the deficit by $366 billion--good news.

Right now, the U.S. taxpayer is shelling out $1 trillion a year to pay interest on our debt, which also drives up our inflation. To help pay for our current debt and the benefits we protect, we need laws, we need legislators, we need leaders who are going to make sure that this is top of mind. I have been and intend to be someone who thinks about those issues.

So while it is good news that we did not increase the deficit and that we brought it down mildly, modestly, there is still more work to do. I don't want to leave by saying that this is good enough. There is more work to do to preserve the future for our children and grandchildren by acting in a fiscally responsible way.

Ohio's interests drove my work and support for this bill from start to finish, and it is clear that it will lead to more jobs, lower taxes, higher wages, and more freedom and prosperity for Ohioans, and that means that they can live their lives with more confidence and certainty for everyone who calls our State home.

I know my colleagues will have many different takes on this bill, but this is what it does for my State. It is a good bill that supports Ohio workers. It is pro-growth, it is pro-family, and it is pro-Ohio. I know that the working people of our State will benefit from what we accomplished in the passage of this legislation.

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