Chris Coons Decries ‘Utter Lack Of Fiscal Responsibility’ Of GOP Budget, Warns Of National Debt Impact

At a Senate Democratic press briefing on Tuesday, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) spoke about the GOP budget reconciliation bill.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Senator Schumer. Donald Trump promised in his campaign he would reduce

00:07costs facing working families on day one. Instead, he's pushing House Republicans

00:14to pour more gasoline on our national debt and deficit and inevitably raise

00:19costs for borrowing and for all the American people. Moody's has already

00:24sounded the alarm on the utter lack of fiscal responsibility in the House

00:28reconciliation bill by downgrading our national debt for the first time in over

00:34a hundred years because the Republican proposal would add so much to our

00:40national debt. It increases the debt by over 7% over the next decade. Jobs will

00:46fall by more than 800,000 and recent polls show that 90% of Americans are worried

00:52about a recession because of this most expensive bill in American history. What

00:58are its priorities? Well, it throws something like 13 million Americans off

01:04of health care whether because it gets rid of tax cuts that make the Affordable

01:08Care Act affordable or because it changes the way Medicaid works for our country.

01:13That'll impact every single American. Wait times and emergency rooms will go up.

01:17The costs will be spread out and all of us will bear higher health care costs. At the

01:23end of the day, I can't think of a faith that teaches that it is good to take away food from hungry

01:30children and seniors, to take away access to health care for those who are at the dawn

01:37of life or the end of life, and to take those resources and instead give them to those who are

01:42already among the wealthiest in our society. Penn Wharton, which has a detailed model of how budget

01:48proposals will impact our economy and our country, says the poorest fifth of Americans will lose a

01:54thousand dollars next year if this bill passes, while the top 1% will each get at least four

01:59hundred thousand dollars. At the end of the day, all these numbers amount to one thing. The

02:04reconciliation bill that the Republicans are trying to send over from the House is a bad

02:09deal for America. It's a bad deal for working families. It's not righteous, it's not just, and it's not sustainable.