Rand Paul Refutes Speaker Johnson’s Claim That The One Big Beautiful Bill Won’t Increase Deficit

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) pushes back on Speaker Johnson's claim that the One Big Beautiful Bill won't add to the deficit.

Transcript

00:00The Speaker went on TV yesterday and was insisting that this bill would not add to the deficit.

00:07Is he being truthful?

00:09The bill increases the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

00:12This will be the largest increase in the debt ceiling ever in our history,

00:16and we've never raised the debt ceiling without actually meeting that target.

00:20So you can say it doesn't directly add to the debt,

00:23but if you increase the ceiling by $5 trillion, you'll meet that.

00:26And what it does is it puts it off the back burner, and then we won't discuss it for a year or two.

00:31So I think it's a terrible idea to do this.

00:33Also, we have to put this in context.

00:35In March, we voted to continue spending.

00:38During the campaign, Republicans said they were against Bidenomics and Bidenplation and Biden spending.

00:43In March, we renewed the Biden spending levels.

00:46So the spending levels we live under now are Biden GOP spending levels.

00:50They've all come into agreement.

00:52But come the end of September, when our fiscal year ends, the deficit's going to be $2.2 trillion.

00:57That's just not conservative.

00:59They're borrowing $5 trillion.

01:00That means they're anticipating the following year being over $2 trillion as well.

01:04So it's just not a conservative thing to do.

01:07And I've told them I can't support the bill if they're together.

01:09If they were to separate out and take the debt ceiling off that, I very much could consider the rest of the bill.

01:15Has this President called you? Have you spoken to him about this?

01:17I spoke to him this week. I had a lengthy discussion about that.

01:20How did that go?

01:21He did most of the talk.

01:22He didn't convince you.

01:24No.

01:25No.

01:26No.

01:27No.

01:28No.

01:29No.

01:30No.

01:31No.