00:10No one asked for the biggest wealth transfer in American history
00:15from the poorest people in the country to the richest people to ever exist.
00:21No one asked for the biggest ever cuts to Medicaid
00:25to kick 14 million people off of health insurance
00:29and raise out-of-pocket costs for 20 million people.
00:34No one asked for food assistance to be slashed for millions of children
00:38and low-income families.
00:40No one asked for higher prices at the pump or on their electricity bills.
00:46No one asked for students across the country to lose federal financial aid.
00:51No one asked for any of this.
00:54And I really mean that. That's not just a rhetorical flourish.
00:57I don't think Trump voters asked for this.
01:02I know Harris voters did not ask for this.
01:06I don't think anybody really wants this.
01:08I think the reason that all of these crazy, harmful policies are about to be enacted
01:20is for one simple reason, and that is to generate enough revenue
01:25to satisfy the insatiable desire for tax cuts for people who make more than $4 million a year.
01:34They are literally taking money out of food assistance and Medicaid and Affordable Care Act, monthly subsidies.
01:40By the way, you don't know if you get a subsidy or not.
01:43You just go on the exchange and you pay the thing.
01:48The thing is, that thing is probably $400, $500, $600 a month less than it used to be because of the subsidies.
01:56So it's one thing to say, 14 million people are going to get kicked off of Medicaid, and they will.
02:01It's another thing to say, because of those Medicaid cuts, a bunch of clinics and hospitals in rural communities are going to shut down, and they will.
02:09I think what's a little underrated is many, many more millions of people are going to pay not $50 more a year, not $100 more per month, but many hundreds of dollars more per month.
02:22Why?
02:23Because when you yank that money out of the system, it is what is called a pay-for.
02:29It means it generates a ton of revenue.
02:31How does it generate that revenue? By screwing regular people.
02:37They are racing to pass a bill that does all of these things, that raises the deficit, excuse me, the debt by many, many trillions of dollars.
02:49And I think the problem that some of us have, and I really appreciate the presiding officer, and when we agree, we work really well together.
02:58And when we disagree, we are at least able to stay civil.
03:03And so I'm trying to take the edge off of this.
03:06But one of the reasons that it sounds like I'm frothing at the mouth and saying a bunch of partisan talking points is that it's kind of hard to believe that any political party would actually do this on purpose.
03:20It is quite hard to believe that you would cut food assistance and cut healthcare and cut help for regular working people in order to shovel money to people making more than $4 million a year.
03:31But that is exactly what they're doing.
03:35It is as if they designed this bill in a lab to make the maximum number of people angry.
03:42It's unpopular, it is unnecessary, and they're doing it anyway.
03:48Hospitals serving rural and low-income communities will be forced to shutter because they won't be adequately compensated for their services.
03:56And by the way, again, not a talking point.
03:58Go and visit any rural clinic or hospital.
04:01Ask them what percentage of their payer mix comes from Medicaid and what would happen if they lost a big chunk of that.
04:08A lot of them say, the big ones, the biggest relative, but in the state of Hawaii, our big institutions say, well, we could stay afloat.
04:15We just have to deliver a lot less care.
04:18And then everybody would end up in the ER, right?
04:22The Queens Medical Center, the sort of number one trauma center right in the middle of Honolulu is already bursting at the seams.
04:29You've got multiple people in the hallways, all of the rooms, all of the beds are taken.
04:36It was just a couple of months ago that they finally figured out a way not to release the psychiatric emergencies right onto Punchbowl Avenue in their hospital gowns.
04:48That's before they do this to the hospitals.
04:52After the ACA passed, you go on the exchange, select a plan, and pay a fraction of what you used to pay.
05:02And I think one of the things is that the Obamacare is now so old that people forgot how horrible it was before then.
05:09Really horrible.
05:11And so now you just go on and you're kind of irritated because it's still money and it still feels like too much.
05:16And it still feels like your HMO or your provider, you know, kind of nitpicks you and, you know, doesn't cover a bunch of care and the co-pays are too high.
05:24But it is way, way, way better than it used to be.
05:28And so this whole enterprise is for one single purpose.
05:32And that is to generate enough money to cut taxes for billionaire corporations and people who make $4 million or more in revenue.
05:42It's very, very few people benefiting and tens of millions of people being screwed.
05:51There's little in this bill that will help regular people who are already struggling to meet their monthly obligations,
05:59but there are plenty of rewards for the ultra-wealthy.
06:02Millionaires stand to gain roughly $70,000 in tax cuts while billionaires in the top 1% will see close to $300,000 in benefits.
06:12And how do they find that money to shovel to the millionaires and billionaires?
06:16I don't mind a millionaire or billionaire.
06:18I know, like, two billionaires. Not close, but I've, like, met them.
06:22And I'm sure I know many millionaires.
06:24There are a number of colleagues in the Senate who are in that category.
06:27So it's not, like, I'm not trying to demonize anybody.
06:30I'm just saying, do they need $300,000?
06:33Because I know people who need $300.
06:36I know people who actually won't be able to stay on any health care at all if these subsidies go away.
06:44This is not the closing of loopholes.
06:47This is not fiscal discipline.
06:50And I want to make this point as clearly as I can.
06:56We would be in a harder position to argue against this bill if it were actually deficit neutral.
07:02Right?
07:03Because traditionally the accusation against Democrats is they want to bust the budget and Republicans want to be responsible.
07:09But this one's weird because this is, like, under the guise of, we've got to do austerity.
07:14We've got to do tough stuff.
07:15We've got to cut.
07:16And then they come up with a bill that actually increases the deficit over baseline even when they do their kind of nonsensical accounting where they basically have stopped counting the tax cuts that are in place because that, oh, no, that's the baseline.
07:31And so the whole enterprise, and everybody needs to understand this, they are making everything more expensive.
07:39That is food.
07:40That is medicine.
07:41That is groceries.
07:42That is gasoline.
07:43That is electricity.
07:45And the reason they're making it more expensive is because they are either indifferent to the suffering or, more importantly, they just need the money.
07:55And they don't need the money to, you know, we've raised taxes in the past as a country to fight a war.
08:02Right?
08:03To beat Nazism.
08:05Or we've raised taxes in the past to shrink the deficit.
08:09Or we've raised taxes and raised costs for people to invest in something important.
08:14That's not what we're doing here.
08:16We are blowing up the budget and we are harming regular people in order to provide tax cuts for people who literally didn't ask for it.
