Stacey Plaskett Confronts Scott Bessent Over Rising Costs On American Families

Forbes Breaking News

At today's House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) discussed rising costs to Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent.

Transcript

00:00for being here today. Miss Plaskett. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witness

00:08for being here this afternoon with us, making yourself available and answering questions

00:14and engaging with the members of this committee. I first wanted to share that, you know,

00:22I think back on the last administration, this administration, the transition,

00:28there's always going to be changes, ideas and changes, mechanisms in which we're done. But I

00:36think we need to talk truth about what the numbers were in each one of those. Now, we know that at the

00:43time of President Trump's inauguration, unemployment was at less than 4%. Inflation was below 3%.

00:52And the numbers that have been put out about where inflation is now has not really changed

00:59month to month. When we look at CPI, the Bureau of Labor statistics, those numbers have not changed

01:06significantly from the downward trajectory that happened from 2020. We have continually gone down

01:15in inflation. Economic growth at the time of inauguration was at 2.8% in real terms. And that

01:23was, according to world analysis, one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The bottom 20% of

01:34workers saw the largest real wage gains during the Biden administration. We're going to give Jacket's

01:42jacket here in this committee. Additionally, we have seen since January 20th, that the stark market

01:50overall has gone down 1.3% and gas has gone up. Ma'am, that's incorrect. Excuse me, let me, let me,

01:59let me get something straight with you first here. I've seen you interrupt everyone. When you come to

02:05someone's house, you respect their rules. And in this house, we don't interrupt individuals. And you're not

02:12going to interrupt my time. I'm going to give you time to respond. You may want to jot down some notes

02:18about things that you don't agree with me on, so that you can respond to them at that time. But while

02:24I'm speaking, as the person holding this time, you will refrain from speaking, sir, until I am done.

02:30I look forward to responding. Until I am done. And then I will give you time to speak.

02:34I look forward to facts. Thank you. I'll look forward to your response, whether they're factual

02:39or incorrect either. Now, one of the things that I noticed, um, that the president, our present

02:46president has said that he was going to do, was going to bring down the cost of living. But as we

02:52all know, costs have not gone down. Whether they have remained stagnant at the amount that they were

02:59at the time of the inauguration or before, or they have gone up, real costs have not gone down for the

03:07American individuals. I know that my colleagues want to talk about in this bill, what is happening in

03:13terms of their support for the American worker. There's a discussion I hear from several colleagues that

03:19if this legislation is not passed, it will then trigger the largest tax hike. That's because you made the

03:27largest tax cut in 2017 with this bill. And it's not to say that we cannot negotiate, as Congress has

03:34used to do, something in between there. It does not have to be this bill. It could, in fact, be something

03:41in between there. But that's not what we're doing here in this discussion, in this Congress at this time.

03:47Additionally, we have seen that, you know, there's discussion about overtime taxes, overtime, um, the credit

03:54that's going, we know that only 12% of hourly workers receive overtime. And then the discussion

04:02about tips, which is only going to affect 2.5% of American workers, and only 40% of tip earners

04:09actually file federal taxes. So we are not going to affect everyone that we need to affect.

04:17Unfortunately, everyday Americans, the outcome of the supposedly strategic legislation that we have here

04:24is very predictable. We're watching the cost of bread, bacon, butter rise, egg prices continuing to

04:31go up, and the rising cost is not going to happen. Um, one individual who I follow, James Sirwicky,

04:39a classmate of mine, actually, from prep school, who was at Yale, uh, discusses that there's no

04:47acceleration of economic growth in this legislation, because there's not being meaningful cutting of

04:54tax rates. We are going to be reducing spending, that's correct, but there are intended consequences

05:00to that as well. Additionally, let's talk about Doge, $2 trillion, $1 trillion, $150 billion. Those were

05:09what we said the savings were going to be. I'm concerned that with this legislation as well,

05:14we are not going to see the real numbers. The numbers that are put out are not going to be,

05:20in fact, the real ones. Um, Mr. Chair, I yield back. Mr. Morian.

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