Melanie Stansbury Warns GOP's Budget Is 'Going To Cost The American People Trillions'

Forbes Breaking News

Speaking outside the Capitol, Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) spoke about the Republicans' budget which ultimately passed in the early Thursday morning.

Transcript

00:00Hey everyone, well it is the wee hours of the morning here at the United States Capitol

00:07and it's Thursday morning and we are about to take the final vote on this insane package

00:19that the Republicans have shoved through, not just in the dark of night through the

00:23rules committee, but literally we have been up all night taking votes on. And I don't even know

00:30how many days I've been awake at this point, but I just want to give you guys an update on what's

00:36been going down. As you know, this bill was called into the rules committee at one in the morning,

00:42two nights ago, I don't even know, at this point. And more than a hundred Democratic members of

00:50Congress showed up, fought, spoke for the American people, introduced more than 500 amendments in

00:59good faith, and not a single one of the Democratic amendments was adopted by the Republicans who had

01:06the votes to stop us. But at the 11th hour last night, literally at the 11th hour, the Republicans

01:13brought what's called a manager's amendment. And basically it was to make changes to the base bill,

01:20which is over a thousand pages. And while we were in the rules committee debating this bill for

01:27almost 20, 20, 20 hours, the Republicans were out here cutting side deals because they were arguing

01:35over the, every, all kinds of things about this bill. They went to the White House, the Freedom

01:40Caucus talked to the president and this manager's amendment somehow made this disgusting bill even worse.

01:47In fact, this bill now, because of that manager's amendment, kicks even more people off of Medicaid.

01:54It moves the date for doing that up by two years. So that would take effect at the end of next year.

02:01It would decimate the Affordable Care Act. It would affect millions and millions of our seniors'

02:08health care in part because of the ridiculous deficit spending in this bill, which is $3.7 trillion.

02:17It triggers a sequestration or a taking back of money from Medicaid. And yeah, I want to remind

02:25everyone that Donald Trump promised he was not going to touch Medicaid, but because they couldn't

02:32restrain themselves in these tax breaks for billionaires, they now essentially are cutting

02:39Medicaid by $500 billion, billion dollars in this budget. They also included additional kickbacks for

02:48oil and gas, especially for natural gas permitting. They accelerated the timeline for rolling back

02:53clean energy and climate provisions. Oh, and they also decided in the 11th hour to stop taxing silencers

03:02on guns. I just, I cannot, I just cannot. And you know, what is all of this in service of? We know what

03:11this is in service of. This is so Donald Trump and his friends can basically, you know, not have to pay

03:21state taxes on their $22 million mansions and they get a bigger income tax break next year. And, uh, they

03:31can get a gigantic corporate tax break for their corporations. That is literally what all of this

03:38is in service of. And it's going to cost the American people trillions of dollars. And at the end of the

03:44day, this is the thing that really gets me. I was like, all those folks are going to be okay. You know, even in

03:51this economy, those folks are going to be okay. But the real people that this bill is going to hurt

03:56are the people like in my district that I represent people on disability who are just struggling to get by

04:05whose Medicaid is going to be impacted. It's the seniors and the veterans for whom that little bit of

04:14extra breathing room they get from snap assistance helps them buy groceries. It's going to be the single mom

04:20who's going back to school and, uh, whose Pell grants are going to be hit as a result of this.

04:27Those are the people that are going to suffer in this country because of this bill. They are

04:32literally going to take food out of the mouths of children. And this bill will redistribute wealth

04:39from the poorest Americans to the richest Americans. It's a lot, but we have been fighting the good fight.

04:46There's still more time to go. We will vote on this bill here. And you know, I want to be real

04:54about it. We don't have the votes to stop them here in the house, but let me tell you who has been

04:59watching. It's those guys in the Senate. And so this bill is going to go over there and, uh, we just have

05:08to keep working and we have to keep fighting back and we're going to have to hold them

05:12accountable. And in the meantime, I want you guys to know that I'm here and Democrats are holding it

05:21down here at the Capitol fighting for the American people. So happy Thursday, everyone. I'm going to go

05:30in and vote. See you all soon.

Category

Transcript

Recommended