During Friday’s House Budget Committee hearing, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) discussed the increase in the deficit in the GOP budget proposal.
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00:00I thank the gentleman, and now recognize Mr. Bobby Scott from the mother of all states, Virginia.
00:08Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:14I think the gentleman from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is telling you that Virginia is the Commonwealth.
00:22Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:23It's hard to take my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seriously
00:26when they come here and give speech after speech after speech complaining about the deficit
00:32and then support this reconciliation plan that increases the deficit.
00:38But this should not come as a surprise because every single Democratic presidential administration since Kennedy
00:46has left for their Republican successors a better deficit situation than the one they inherited.
00:51And every single Republican presidential administration since Nixon's
00:56has left a worse deficit situation for the Democrats than the one they inherited, all without exception.
01:04So here we go again.
01:05A Republican president following a Democratic president.
01:08The Republicans are here to make speeches about deficits and debts,
01:12and then again set to increase the deficit in national debt just like clockwork.
01:17So the reason we have all this debt is because Democrats have not been able to clean up the Republican messes
01:24as quickly as they make them.
01:27This bill not only increases the deficit, it makes working families pay a price.
01:33As a ranking member of the Committee on Education and Workforce,
01:35I'm particularly outraged that Republicans want to fund tax cuts for corporations and billionaires
01:41by making cuts in educational and nutritional programs.
01:44This bill uses taxpayers' money to take resources from public schools, which serve 90% of the students,
01:51and divert them to private schools.
01:54The bill also harms children's access to school meal programs.
01:58It makes it harder for students to afford a college education.
02:03So there's nothing fiscally responsible about this budget,
02:07and working families and middle-class families will pay the price.
02:11Programs that keep kids, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities from going hungry
02:17and ensure that students receive a quality education should not be on the chopping block.
02:22And after weeks of statements from Republican members that the budget they voted for twice does not cut Medicaid,
02:31this bill will rip away health care from millions of Americans using Medicaid
02:35and makes health care more expensive for everyone else.
02:38This big, bad bill is a collection of bad policies.
02:43It kicks millions of people off their health care,
02:45threatens food security for millions of families,
02:48makes it harder for students to afford education,
02:51and diverts taxpayer resources from public schools.
02:54It does all of this to give corporations and wealthy billionaires a tax cut,
03:00and then it makes our debt worse.
03:03I urge my colleagues to vote no on this legislation.