During Wednesday’s House Appropriations Committee hearing, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) questioned Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent about cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill.
00:06I'd like to yield five seconds to the gentlelady from California, Ms. Sanchez.
00:11Thank you, Ms. Moore.
00:12I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the nonpartisan policy research
00:17Yale Budget Lab analysis, which shows that $3,000 cut to household income because of Trump's tariffs.
00:26Without objection.
00:27I yield back to Ms. Moore.
00:29The Yale Budget Lab is staffed by former Biden officials.
00:33Where's the gavel, Mr. Chairman?
00:35He's taking up my time.
00:40Proceed, the clock's moving, Ms. Moore.
00:43I want to join my colleagues on a bipartisan basis in regaling the life and times of Charlie Rangel.
00:52And actually, Mr. Chairman, were he alive today, today would be his 95th birthday.
00:59And, you know, even if it weren't his birthday, I would have to have thought of Charlie Rangel at this moment and the last real close personal conversation that I had with him.
01:12When I considered your testimony here today, Mr. Secretary, and some of the other sorts of inquiries and comments of my colleagues here, when they talked about the averages, the average taxpayer is going to receive this or that.
01:31It's sort of like the, you know, the example that you almost gave here.
01:35You know, one taxpayer gets a million-dollar tax refund, another one gets a one-dollar tax refund, and then the average tax refund is $500,000.50.
01:47This is, I had a Jesuit education, so we learned about the tyranny of averages.
01:54You ignore the distribution and outliers.
01:56You mask variations and inequalities.
01:59It's asymmetrically distributed.
02:01It's skewed.
02:02Because you have heard my colleagues talk about the real impact.
02:08Somebody under $50,000 a year is going to get $265,000 versus others that get millions.
02:18That is not a question.
02:19That was my comment.
02:20Okay, so you and Doge were focused on eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.
02:28So let me just sort of outline some of the waste, fraud, and abuse that you found, and tell me, yes or no, was this what you found?
02:36$641 billion in subsidies for the ACA.
02:41$764 billion in Medicaid cuts.
02:44$300 billion in SNAP cuts, and then triggering a half trillion dollars in Medicare cuts.
02:51Was that all waste, fraud, and abuse?
02:53Yes or no?
02:55Again, ma'am, it's very difficult to give a yes or no.
02:58Those are the cuts.
02:59Okay, I'll move on.
03:00You're not going to answer.
03:02Very difficult.
03:02What I'd like to know is the $2.4 billion in debt and the tax increases of $4.5 trillion, is that not spending?
03:16Are tax cuts spending and creating, especially, not just adding to the debt, but the interest rates on the debt, is that or is that not spending, yes or no?
03:27Are tax cuts, if I give you a tax cut, am I spending out of the Treasury to do that?
03:34Yes or no, Mr. Secretary?
03:36Not if we create more income than the nature of the debt.
03:39Okay, we're talking about a gambler's fallacy with projecting growth that's never been proven by anybody, anything.
03:47So I will move on because I see my time is waning.
03:51Let me ask you some more questions.
03:53Do you think that a problem we have in our tax code is that we have $700 billion a year in a tax gap because, you know, the weary wealthy are evading illegally their tax responsibilities?
04:13Is that or is that not waste, fraud, and abuse?
04:16Would you characterize that as waste, fraud, and abuse?
04:20I mean, I'm just a simple question.
04:22Is that waste, fraud, and abuse?
04:25My priorities are collection, privacy, and customer service at the IRS.
04:29Okay, but you didn't, we're not collecting that.
04:31And you cut 31% of the budget from the IRS that would have actually, you know, processed these claims.
04:42The largest budget cut was in the IT department that began its, the modernization in 1990.
04:54Okay, the true cost of economic security has determined that 50% of Americans are financially insecure.
05:0350% of Americans.
05:04So do you think that any of them are going to suffer from the cuts in Medicaid, SNAP, and ACA not to have these resources available to them, yes or no?
05:14I believe that they will be better.
05:16Better off without these resources.
05:17Under this tax bill, just as they were under President Trump's last term, as they were, as opposed to the ravages of inflation under President Biden's term.
05:26Well, let me just ask this.
05:29Why is this bill designed to take away some of the benefits that you claim people are going to have?
05:35They expire, like the senior tax credit expires, all of these things that these families are supposed to get.
05:42If you're so into uplifting their needs, why do they expire?
05:48No tax on tips?
05:50No tax on tips expires.
05:52Sorry?
05:52It expires, and it's not really a decrease on tax on tips.
05:57If you would like to join me and make it permanent and have your Democratic colleagues do it, then we would welcome you to join us.
06:08Excuse me?
06:09We would welcome you to join us.
06:10I'm ready to join you right now.
06:12Are you going to accept an amendment?
06:13Time has expired, Ms. Moore, by over a minute.
