Jeff Merkley Blasts Senate Republicans Over Reconciliation Plan: 'Families Lose, Billionaires Win'

2 days ago

At a Senate Democratic press briefing on Thursday, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) spoke about the budget reconciliation plan from Republicans.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you very much, Leader Schumer, and to my colleagues who are going to lay out some

00:05of the specific points, but let's understand this.

00:09The Republican plan is simply four words.

00:13Families lose, billionaires win.

00:16They want to cut programs for families in health care and housing and education, things

00:21that help create a living wage job, $1.5 to $2 trillion, what?

00:26To fund more tax giveaways to the very richest Americans.

00:33It's a great betrayal, certainly, of the American family.

00:38And in the process, they're going to put an enormous burden on the generations to come.

00:44$37 trillion is the bottom of what the range might be that their bill will cost.

00:50$37 trillion.

00:51You know, our current GDP, annual amount we produce each year is only around $30 trillion.

00:59They want to put additional debt of $37 trillion.

01:03Or let's look at the current debt.

01:04In 249 years since our independence, we have run up a debt that is just shy of $37 trillion.

01:13That's how big, in one decision, one bill, in one year, they want to increase the burden

01:19on the generations to come.

01:21This is really sickening.

01:24The economists point out that that burden will reduce the economy in the future, that

01:28it will raise interest rates in the future, that that burden will reduce the ability to

01:32have the foundations for families to thrive in the future.

01:35It's so sickening, every one of my Republican colleagues who has talked about fiscal responsibility

01:41should rush to the bathroom and throw up in the toilet.

01:45That's how sickening this situation is with additional debt.

01:49Now, we've heard about a magic wand called section 312.

01:56Section 312, interesting, has never, ever, in the history of our country, ever been used

02:03on a reconciliation bill.

02:06Never used.

02:07It's only been used on narrow anomalies in regular spending bills to solve naughty little

02:12problems of estimate.

02:14It is a completely inappropriate vessel to use just by precedent, but also recognize

02:21that in reconciliation there are explicit instructions called the Byrd Rule on how you

02:26estimate the impact of debt, the impact of any policy option or any revenue option on

02:33the amount of deficits that will be created.

02:35Those explicit instructions are ones that we will turn to when we get to the reconciliation

02:40bill.

02:42Section 312, totally inappropriate.

02:46There are three pillars that came in 1974.

02:49Realize back then we were adding about $6 billion, not trillion, $6 billion to our debt

02:54each year.

02:55$6 billion in deficit.

02:57And folks said, oh, my goodness, this is so high.

03:00Let's do a couple things.

03:02Think about these three pillars.

03:04No additional, no reconciliation bill can produce any additional debt in a ten-year

03:09period.

03:10In fact, it has to reduce the deficit.

03:12In any given year after the first ten, it cannot increase the deficit.

03:17Third pillar.

03:18We have to have honesty.

03:19No smoke and mirrors, no gimmicks.

03:21That honesty means we're going to create the Congressional Budget Office and we're going

03:24to use those nonpartisan estimates.

03:27Back in 1996, the Republicans struck down the first pillar and said you can, in those

03:31first ten years, you can increase the deficits.

03:34Now today they're striking down the second pillar, saying no deficits year by year after

03:39the first ten years.

03:41And the third pillar, that is the use of nonpartisan numbers generated by CBO.

03:46If you care anything about fiscal responsibility, you would be a hell no on this bill.

03:52Fiscal responsibility is being thrown overboard.

03:55No, they have a plan.

03:58Families lose, billionaires win.

03:59We have a plan too.

04:01Families win and billionaires pay their fair share.

Jeff Merkley Blasts Senate Republicans Over Reconciliation Plan: 'Families Lose, Billionaires Win'

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