Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led a press briefing on Thursday after the House passed framework for the Republican budget reconciliation.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Okay. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for coming. And I want to thank Senator Merkley.
00:09He's been such a leader on the issue of debt and what's happening there. And we'll hear about that
00:15in a minute. But now a few moments ago, House Republicans plowed ahead on a morally and
00:24financially bankrupt plan to gut Medicaid while cutting taxes for billionaires. Republicans did
00:32just what their boss told them to do. They closed their eyes and voted for a bill knowing damn well
00:39it will explode the deficit by $52 trillion and kick millions off health care. They voted it knowing
00:48damn well that American families lose and billionaires win. They voted for it knowing
00:54damn well it would gut critical investments for the American people. They voted for it
01:02knowing damn well it would mortgage our nation's future to deliver massive giveaways to the
01:07wealthiest Americans in the country. Republicans incinerated any credibility that remained about
01:16them supposedly being the party of fiscal responsibility. Last week, we sounded the alarm about how the
01:23Republican budget resolution was the definition of wasteful spending $37 trillion or so we thought
01:31of the national debt. I say or so we thought because this morning we have discovered it's even worse
01:42than we feared. This morning the Congressional Budget Office at Jeff's request released a new projection
01:50showing Republicans billionaire tax giveaways will actually add $52 trillion to the debt, not just 37 plus. It's gotten even worse, even worse.
02:03Why? Because Republicans in the Senate didn't just copy and paste the 2017 Trump tax bill. They added over a trillion more.
02:15This is the Trump's tax scam on steroids and it's going to bankrupt America, bankrupt America, all so they can give these tax breaks to the billionaires. It is just incredible.
02:28To repeat, today Republicans are plowing forward on their deeply unpopular agenda.
02:35While Elon Musk and Doge dismantle Social Security, Congressional Republicans are slashing Medicaid, all the while cutting taxes for billionaires, adding $52 trillion to the debt.
02:50The many individual pieces of the Republican agenda are bad on their own, but when they're put together they're utterly toxic.
02:57The struggles Republicans have faced so far are only a glimmer of what's to come. If they had it hard on the budget resolution, imagine how hard it's going to be on reconciliation with all their contradictory promises clashing with each other.
03:14It's no wonder there are shambles. It's no wonder that Senate Republicans are fighting with each other, that House Republicans are fighting with each other and House and Senate Republicans are fighting with each other because their agenda is so unpopular.
03:29They're doing what a small group of billionaires want against the American people's interest against what America needs.
03:46So today and going forward, the only question that matters is this, are they really going to sign their names to a bill that adds $52 trillion to the debt, slashes Medicaid, all so that billionaires can pay less in taxes?
04:03With Donald Trump changing his charity, like it's some kind of game of red light, green light.
04:10Do Republicans seriously believe now is a good time to saddle our children with debt that they'll never be able to pay off?
04:17If Republicans ultimately pass their reconciliation bill, interest rates in the future will soar.
04:24America's greatness will diminish, perhaps never recover.
04:28It would be a great decline in the American dream.
04:32So much for Republicans being the party of fiscal responsibility, that's out the window.
04:38And the worst part is that the Republicans can't even be honest with the American people about how expensive their bill is.
04:45Republicans continue to pursue budget fraud through this current policy baseline, something the Senate has never, never used before in reconciliation.
04:55In fact, when they tried it back in 2017, it was rejected.
04:59They avoided the question last week, but make no mistake about it.
05:06They're now full speed ahead on breaking the rules of the Senate and breaking their word to get it done.
05:13Why are Republicans doing it? It's simple.
05:16They want to cut taxes for billionaires and make our kids pay for it. Jeff.
05:22Thank you very much, Leader Schumer.
05:26When it comes to fiscal responsibility, Republicans have lost their damn minds.
05:33Now, back in 1974, all 100 senators came together to pass the Budget and Impoundment Control Act.
05:42And it had three pillars.
05:44The first is, within a 10-year period, it had to reduce the deficit.
05:50The second pillar was that in every year after the first 10 years, it had to be deficit neutral or reduce the deficit.
05:57And the third was we were going to have honesty on the numbers by creating the Congressional Budget Office and having impartial, independent, nonpartisan numbers so we'd have no more smoke and mirrors, no more gimmicks.
06:12We'd be honest with ourselves and honest with the American people.
06:17Three pillars.
06:18Well, the Republicans struck down the first of those pillars in 1996 when they said,
06:24we're going to use this filibuster-free pathway that even Robert Byrd voted for, for one reason, reduce the deficit to increase the deficit through tax giveaways to the richest Americans.
06:35Now they're poised to strike down the second and third pillars of fiscal responsibility, driving up deficits through reconciliation in years 11 and beyond, making tax cuts permanent.
06:47So now CBO has to estimate 30 years out the impact and abandoning the CBO numbers and saying that the Budget Chair in the Senate can create any set of fabricated numbers that Budget Chair wants.
07:04This is insane.
07:09Last week we really emphasized the fact that families lose and billionaires win.
07:15Two trillion in cuts to programs like health care and housing and education to fund additional tax giveaways to the richest Americans.
07:25And additional debt.
07:28But I asked for CBO with the updated bill the Republicans proposing to take an updated look at what the debt would be as a factor as well.
07:40And now we have the results as Leader Schumer has pointed out.
07:45It isn't 4.6 trillion over 10 years.
07:48It's 7 trillion over 10 years.
07:51It's not 37 trillion or more over 30 years.
07:54It's 52 trillion dollars.
07:57Let's keep this in perspective by understanding that the current debt run up by our predecessors over 249 years since the Declaration of Independence is less than 37 trillion dollars right now, about 36 and a half trillion.
08:13They want to add in a single vote 52 trillion.
08:18And that's assuming the conservative interest numbers that CBO is using.
08:23Let's consider what happened yesterday.
08:25Yesterday there was a little surge of loss of faith in the American economy.
08:30And at the same time stocks were being sold off, which normally means people move their money into bonds and interest rates drop.
08:39The reverse happened.
08:40People fled bonds as well.
08:42This certainly panicked the administration and led to the 90 day pause.
08:45If that happens in the future and interest rates are 1% higher than CBO is estimating, this isn't 52 trillion.
08:53It's now 76 trillion.
08:57Republicans are paving the path to death that will burden our children for a generation to come, hurting normal families.
09:08If we take and look at the fact that interest rates under CBO's analysis will go up.
09:15That means higher interest.
09:16Families have to pay on their home loans.
09:18That means higher interest on their auto loans.
09:21It means a shrinking economy.
09:23And the share of that shrinking economy will average $4,300 in current today dollars for a family 30 years out.
09:32So impoverishing families in the future.
09:36Cutting the program's families depend upon to thrive.
09:41Inflicting massive debt on the next generation.
09:44No matter how you look at it, the Republicans have lost their mind on fiscal responsibility and on the understanding that we need to strengthen, not diminish the foundations for families to thrive.
10:00Questions on this subject.
10:02Yes.
10:03So are you guys advocating to let the tax rates expire?
10:07And then secondarily, at what point does the parliamentarian question happen?
10:12I mean, because you're talking about how this didn't happen this time.
10:15At what point do you plan on posing that question to the parliamentarian?
10:17Look, the bottom line overall, in answer broadly to your question, is if you think they had trouble now on the budget resolution, they're going to have much more trouble on reconciliation.
10:28And one of the places they're going to have much more trouble is on the baseline, the current policy baseline, because the parliamentarian has far more say there because that will have to be part of their budget than it would be here because they didn't put it in their budget.
10:46Yes.
10:47So in relation to some of this meat of the forthcoming bill, Senate Republicans are proposing up to $175 billion in new border security funding.
10:57And what are your thoughts on that sort of security investment?
11:00Look, the bottom line is very simple.
11:02Their overall budget is awful.
11:04And it is huge cuts to Medicaid, to SNAP, to housing, to veterans, up and across the board, even cuts on Social Security when they indirectly heard it to give tax breaks to billionaires.
11:19And so the bottom line is it's a terrible budget, and we're going to fight it tooth and nail, the whole thing.
11:25Yes.
11:26So the debt limit does need to be increased probably by August.
11:30If they're not able to pass their bill by then, is there a chance for the Republicans to come negotiate a deal with you in return for some things that you want, like extending the health subsidies?
11:43We're not going to engage in hypotheticals.
11:46Let's see what they do in this budget.
11:48Okay?
11:49All right.
11:50Thank you, everybody.