Jack Bergman, A Budget Committee Republican, Asked Point Blank If The Big Beautiful Bill Will Pass

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Congressman Jack Bergman (R-MI) joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its likelihood of passing.

Transcript

00:00Speaker Mike Johnson wants to get what President Trump has touted as the one big beautiful bill

00:05across the finish line in the House by Memorial Day.

00:09Speaker Johnson said this morning there's an agreement right now on SALT.

00:13Depending on an income level, there's a $40,000 cap.

00:16There's also a chance that there is a House vote on the bill tonight.

00:20The House Republicans can only afford to lose three votes.

00:23As of now, it looks like there's three people that aren't voting, that are no votes as of now.

00:28Do you think, A, we're going to see a bill tonight, Wednesday night, and B, do you think this is passing?

00:34Where are you on this reconciliation bill?

00:37Well, I'm on the budget committee, okay?

00:39So I've got more time, personal time invested in reconciliation because we started as the budget committee

00:46right after the election in November to build the framework for the budget resolution that we ultimately passed.

00:55And when we did this framework, we basically did it as the Republican majority sitting in a room, putting it together,

01:04and the debate was among our Republicans.

01:07Then when we brought it to the floor, the debate occurred between the Democrats and the Republicans on the budget committee.

01:14But the point is, in our Republican deliberations, a couple of points.

01:20Number one, we want to make sure that we, kind of going back to my comments a minute ago on the Veterans Administration,

01:29we want to make sure we're not wasting money or spending money that doesn't need to be spent.

01:36So you heard the president said it countless times yesterday, and we've been saying it for a long time,

01:43waste, fraud, and abuse.

01:45And the idea of moving forward with this budget, number one, if you're a fraudster, and I'll say this to anybody,

01:53if you're defrauding the government, we're coming after you, okay?

01:56Because fraud is criminal, and we're going to prosecute.

01:59The abuse of budgetary responsibilities happens because the oversight of different departments is not close enough to say,

02:12hey, you're in charge of this particular line item, you're abusing what you're supposed to be doing.

02:18Where the real savings can come here, and we've identified literally in the trillions,

02:26is in the wasteful government spending, the improper payments, the checks that go out,

02:33or pots of money that are there but haven't been utilized, that are being sometimes reprogrammed

02:39to keep the money out of the sight of folks like us.

02:42So those of us who've got so much time invested in this, we know, is it going to be perfect?

02:48Absolutely not.

02:49But the one thing I can guarantee you in this case is that there will be no cuts to Medicaid

02:56for people who need Medicaid and what Medicaid was designed for, okay?

03:03So some of the language, the rhetoric that's out there is just a flat, it's a lie.

03:09But we are right there on this bill to do the one big beautiful bill as we've come to know this

03:19here in the House to make sure that the Senate does what it does.

03:24Because not that we don't trust the Senate, but if we don't do our job in the House,

03:28we have to put the guidelines and the guardrails on what the Senate can do coming back to us.

03:34There are good people over there in the Senate.

03:35They're all working hard.

03:36They got a lot on their plate.

03:37But this is, you know, a once in a generation, I think, chance to bend that curve, to reverse

03:45the curse, to really begin to draw down the wasteful spending that occurs just naturally

03:53in a bureaucracy that is allowed to just keep spending.

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