'Stop Lying To The American People!': Chip Roy Calls Out Fellow Republicans Over Senate Budget

2 days ago

At today's House Rules Committee hearing, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) slammed the Senate GOP budget reconciliation bill.

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00:00back. Mr. Langworthy. No questions, Madam Chair. Okay. Mr. Roy, you're recognized.

00:08I thank the chair. I want to thank both of the witnesses. I want to thank you for

00:18putting perspectives out there that I think are important to hear from both of you.

00:22I think I want to congratulate our chairman for sitting here.

00:30Being here, leading in, I think, a difficult position and situation. The fact is, I think

00:40this debate lays bare why the American people have lost confidence in Congress, because Congress

00:46has been failing them for decades, and in particular, in recent years. Both parties,

00:53both parties, are failing the American people. Here we have laid bare the problem. We have on the one

01:03hand, I believe, a responsible budget put forward through the work of our chairman on the Budget

01:11Committee and others that worked hard on it. That I believe credibly lays out a path to budget

01:20neutrality in what is supposed to be the process and reconciliation of dealing with tax policy and

01:26spending policy. I believe it is a credible place. We debated that independently. I don't need to go in

01:32the weeds on it, but it is broken down into spending reductions, tax policy that has revenue impact,

01:39and then assumed economic growth that makes up the balance. In roughly two trillion-ish in spending

01:46reductions, two and a half trillion in assumed growth for four and a half trillion of revenue

01:51impact on tax policy. Now, we're being criticized for assuming that growth, that two and a half percent

01:57growth, which is the sweet spot between historic three percent growth and the languishing 1.9 percent

02:04growth we've been in for a while. And I believe that was a responsible path forward. But my colleagues

02:10on the other side of the aisle want to politicize, very specifically politicize the fact that Medicaid is

02:17a part of that conversation and should be and must be. Because Medicaid is delivering subpar outcomes.

02:25Medicaid is not delivering health care that the American people deserve. Medicaid is costing

02:33infinitely more money. It has skyrocketed from $409 billion in 2019 to $618 billion in 2024, an increase

02:41in 51 percent in just five years. A third of the growth in Medicaid's 60-year history was in the last

02:47five years. It is going to be well over a trillion dollars by 2035. This has been recognized as a

02:55problem from both parties. And it's spitting out of control for a number of reasons, the majority of

03:01which stem from Obamacare's expansion population and the amount that we are now subsidizing the able-bodied,

03:09which is empirically true, that we have Medicaid expanded and going heavily to the able-bodied at

03:17the expense of the most vulnerable. We have rates at a 90 percent FMAP rate as compared with the

03:23vulnerable population of 50 to 70 percent, which is out of whack. And everybody actually knows this to

03:30be true. And yet my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to specifically and purposely

03:35politicize this. They want to make this all about taking away Medicaid benefits. What we're trying to

03:41do is figure out how to make the balance, the budget of the United States get anywhere in the zip code of

03:45balance, which we haven't done for almost 30 years, 25 years. We have essentially money laundering schemes going on,

03:56where states have concocted these schemes using provider taxes and funneling the money, getting

04:02the federal dollars, using that money to then prop up and subsidize people who are here illegally,

04:08put it into their budget, and then they brag about it. California literally bragged about how they're

04:13scraping federal dollars on the back of this scheme. Joe Biden agreed that that was true. He was

04:20literally quoted as saying, it's a scam, Biden said. The states are gaming the system. That's

04:25former President Biden. So why can't my colleagues on the other side of the aisle just say, you know

04:30what, that's a problem. Let's come together and fix that problem. We can stop the process. We can fix it.

04:40I can go through a whole bunch of stuff on Medicaid, but my point is just there are legitimate solutions

04:46to Medicaid that would deal with improper payments of about a trillion dollars worth of Medicaid

04:51improper payment. We could make serious changes to how waste, fraud, and abuse occurs. We can end

04:59what is happening with respect to the money laundering scam. These are all things that we could do

05:04and save money and still try to retain what you need for the most vulnerable under the program. Now,

05:12I concur with the gentleman from Texas, my colleague from Texas, about where we should put most of these

05:17kinds of programs. I believe in civil society. I believe in state and local government. I believe

05:21we do better when we do it locally. I don't believe the federal government does it efficiently. I think

05:25that is borne out by looking at the numbers and including the subpar care. And I'm not just making

05:32that up. Study after study talking about the extent to which Medicaid delivers worse care than alternatives.

05:39Studies show Medicaid expansion caused enrollees to delay care because appointments were not available.

05:45A study in health affairs found Medicaid patients experienced higher hospital readmission rates

05:49than privately insured patients. I can go through study after study. But we also know the money is

05:53being wasted. The fact is, of course, we should reform it. Of course, we can make it better.

06:01Now, that's on my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

06:03But I have to say something to my colleagues on this side of the aisle.

06:10You cannot have a one-way ratchet on tax cuts

06:15and ignore the spending side of the ledger. And my colleagues in the Senate, for sure,

06:22and some in the House on this side of the aisle, want precisely that.

06:26The Senate budget does that. The Senate budget is all tax cuts and no spending cuts.

06:37Now, we're told, trust us. There's a promise. There's a promise of spending cuts.

06:43Well, excuse me if I don't trust Washington. Excuse me if I don't take somebody at their word that,

06:49oh, trust me, we're going to cut something. Just vote for this next thing and we'll cut it. Trust me.

06:53I've never seen that happen. And by the way, the math still doesn't math.

07:01Because all I'm hearing from my Senate Republican colleagues is, well, maybe we can get a trillion

07:07dollars in savings. That's what I keep hearing. All right. If it's maybe a trillion dollars in

07:12savings and if the Senate plan, through the use of the policy baseline and additional tax cuts on top

07:18of the top policy baseline, is somewhere in the five and a half trillion dollar range total,

07:245.X trillion total spending, I'm sorry, tax cuts. Will somebody do the math for me?

07:32Because if you have a trillion dollars of spending reductions, which is what they're saying they

07:36hope to achieve, oh, trust us, even though we don't put anything in the bill requiring achieving the

07:42spending restraint. That by my math leaves a gap of four and a half trillion dollars,

07:48even if I take them at their word that they'll get a trillion dollars.

07:52So on our side in the House, we estimated two and a half trillion dollars of growth from tax cuts

08:00or associated with tax cuts and regulatory policy. Well, that to me leaves another two trillion dollar

08:05delta by my back of the envelope math. That's a problem. So to my Democratic colleagues, we have a,

08:15I believe, responsible House budget, even if you disagree with it, where we should sit down and figure

08:22out how to find savings, reform Medicaid to make it work better, eliminate improper payments, stop the

08:29gaming by California, stop the the Medicaid money laundering, get the dollars going to the people you

08:36actually wanted to go to. And to the gentleman from Massachusetts, make SNAP work better.

08:42Whatever we can do as a responsible government, as Congress, we can and should do that. And to my

08:48colleagues on this side of the aisle, stop making up math. Stop lying to the American people that you can

08:54just magically put something on a board and say, oh, it all pays for itself. It doesn't. Put pen to

09:00paper, get an eraser and a pencil and put it down on paper and come show me. And that message for me

09:05goes to the White House, to my Senate Republican colleagues and to the leadership on this side of

09:10the aisle. Come show me the math. But I can promise you, while I will vote for the rule out of respect for

09:16the chairwoman and the process, I will not vote for this bill because it is not responsible. Because the

09:24Senate instructions are what will carry the day. We all know that. So it's all a joke. Because

09:30there's nothing limiting, there's nothing limiting the spending on the Senate side. And there's nothing

09:36but high side on the tax side. Does Chairman have anything you want to add to that?

09:44I'm sitting here thinking about how I could add to it, but I can't. I can just say,

09:50uh, I, uh, appreciate you laying that out in an intellectually honest way

09:57because we are at an inflection point and this is going to be the last best opportunity.

10:04And it's at a point that if we don't do what was done in the House bill, as you

10:10uh, laid out, um, in this balanced budget resolution format, um, I think we're going to consign

10:19our children to a very different future than, than, than what we've experienced in this great nation

10:26of ours. So I, I appreciate that sobering, um, framing of this moment at this stage in this process

10:36and what's at stake. And I appreciate it very much. I think the chairman now you're back.

10:42Thank you, Mr. Roy. Mr. Norman, you're recognized. You know, I, I think this is a perfect example of,

10:50we just, we're, we're in two different.

'Stop Lying To The American People!': Chip Roy Calls Out Fellow Republicans Over Senate Budget

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