'This Is A Betrayal Of The Middle Class': Amy Klobuchar Torches Big Beautiful Bill

Forbes Breaking News

On the Senate floor, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) slammed the Big Beautiful Bill.

Transcript

00:00Minnesota. Mr. President, I rise today along with my colleagues from Illinois and from Wisconsin,

00:06and you just heard from Senator Baldwin, about the effect of this budget bill on the Midwest.

00:15I guess I'd start by asking the same questions that our colleague, Senator Tillis, who just

00:23announced he wasn't going to seek re-election after the president threatened him with a primary

00:30and after he took a vote and had the audacity to ask the questions that had to be asked about this

00:38bill. And you heard him today. He talked about how he had talked to the hospital association in his

00:45state, how he had talked to the governor's office, how he had gotten the actual data on the effects

00:53of Medicaid in North Carolina. And then he asked the questions, how hard is it to see the impact

01:00of these proposals? And he asked, what's wrong with putting a little daylight on what's going on here?

01:08So that's what I'm going to do in my few minutes here, put a little Midwestern daylight on what's

01:15going on here. That is that under this bill, 17 million people would be kicked off their health

01:23care because of the Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act changes. That was 16 million people until

01:30we got the updated numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. That's a nonpartisan group. It also

01:38drives $4 trillion in debt. It used to be 3.4. Now it's up to $4 trillion. And what will that mean?

01:48That will mean big time in the Midwest, where I have so many of my own constituents wanting to buy

01:55their first house. It's going to mean major increased interest rates. It's going to mean difficulty in

02:03buying all kinds of things for which you would take out loans or for small businesses. All for

02:09giving a bunch of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. $400,000 for multi-millionaires.

02:18Our colleagues are going to raise costs and take health care and food away from millions of

02:24Americans. So my colleagues have talked about, Senator Baldwin and Senator Durbin, talked about the

02:31effect that this bill has in the Midwest when it comes to health care, the closing of the rural

02:38hospitals. The Midwest has a huge number of these rural hospitals, about half of them, that would be

02:43forecast to close. She talked about the Medicaid cuts. So I'm going to talk about a different piece of

02:50this. And this is the impact of cuts to food assistance. There is no avoiding the facts. Here they are.

02:58About a month ago, the House passed a budget bill, as you know, that cut nutrition assistance by nearly

03:05$300 billion. It put the country on track to eliminate SNAP for 4 million Americans and reduce

03:13benefits for millions more. I was hopeful that we would go in another direction. And while there were

03:21some changes made by the Republicans on the Agriculture Committee that I appreciated, it still

03:28amounts to over $185 billion in cuts from the SNAP program. And let me remind you that the vast majority

03:38of people on SNAP are older Americans, people with kids, veterans, people with disabilities. We were just

03:46out on the Senate steps with a number of those people and the groups that they represent and faith

03:53leaders talking about this very subject. Why them? Why give tax cuts to the wealthy on their backs?

04:03We know that the impact of the big, beautiful betrayal of a bill will be even more stark in the Midwest.

04:10In the Midwest, here are some examples. Americans use SNAP benefits. Nearly 155,000 people in Nebraska,

04:20and let's face it, that is not the biggest population state, but 155,000 Nebraskans use SNAP.

04:28About 190,000 people in Kansas, 260,000 people in Iowa, 660,000 people in Missouri, 700,000 people

04:43in the state of Wisconsin. Senator Baldwin just talked about the impact of health care there,

04:49but 700,000 people in my neighbors in Wisconsin. Nearly 1.5 million people in Michigan,

04:58use SNAP. And in Minnesota, 450,000. So yes, those people will be affected greatly by this faux shift

05:09to the state. And unfortunately, while we tried to fight part of this, the state shift,

05:15we were not able to get that changed in the last few days. This means certain states, I'm just going to

05:24give you some example, hundreds of millions of dollars are supposed to shift over to states in

05:30the Midwest, when 41 of the 50 states in our country have balanced budget amendments. So what are they

05:37supposed to do? Cut infrastructure? Cut law enforcement? When the majority of these cuts,

05:44and this is why this is such funny math, are shifts to the states. And it's why governors, especially in

05:50the Midwest, Governor Kelly in the state of Kansas, has been speaking out big time on this, why they are so

05:59concerned about these shifts. In addition, and this is not something everyone thinks about when they think

06:06about SNAP, but we think about a big time in the Midwest, farmers and grocers. Over a third of

06:13America's farmland is located in the Midwest. That includes more than 722,000 farm operations,

06:21which is more than one-third of farms nationwide. So why would farmers care about this? Well, they will

06:30lose revenue, because Americans won't be able to buy their products. And that loss, that's a SNAP

06:35program, right? It buys food from America, just like international organizations were buying food from

06:41America with USAID. That's been cut. Or the Trump tariffs, which drive up, dry up markets in places all over

06:50the world because of retaliatory tariffs. That's hitting our farmers. Input costs, inflation, you name it.

06:58And now, this on top of it. In addition, this is going to be a big hit to our grocers. In many rural

07:07counties throughout the Midwest, their independent grocery store is the lone grocer in the country,

07:15country, and just in the county. So in 76 counties nationwide, they don't even have a single grocery

07:23store. And half of those are in the Midwest. I recently visited an employee-owned grocery store in rural

07:32Long Prairie, Minnesota. Population, 3,600. Businesses like that operate on tight margins, and they usually serve not just that

07:41county, as you can see from the numbers I just provided you, but with the surrounding counties,

07:46or they may be the only one in town. Businesses like that, the cuts to SNAP, it's pretty significant,

07:54because that's sometimes the margin on which they're able to stay alive as a business.

08:01This would make it harder and harder and more expensive for those grocery stores. It could put

08:08them out of business, that's for sure. That's what the grocery stores believe. But it also hurts the

08:14individual people in their areas, because in the rural areas, you have an overwhelming number of seniors,

08:21you've got an overwhelming number of veterans, and you have just an overwhelming number of the people

08:28who are using these kinds of grocery stores. So SNAP supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and

08:34billions of dollars in wages at these independent grocers, farms, other industries, including

08:41more than 1,700 jobs in Nebraska, more than 1,900 jobs in Kansas, more than 2,600 jobs in Iowa,

08:50more than 7,000 jobs in Missouri, more than 6,000 jobs in Wisconsin, more than 13,000 jobs in Michigan,

08:59more than 4,000 jobs in Minnesota. We know that from farmers and truckers to local grocers,

09:07for every dollar invested in SNAP, about $1.50 of economic activity is generated nationwide.

09:16For many Midwesterners, this bill would make the difference between having a grocery store

09:22in their region or not. I mentioned the shift of billions of dollars of cost to states that will

09:29blow holes through the state budget. They won't be able to afford it. And sadly, our Republican

09:34colleagues know this, because 44 states, 44 states have this balanced budget rule. And they're going to

09:42be forced to choose between paying the cost for food and paying for critical services. That is why 23

09:50Democratic governors, all of them, just laid out in a letter to Congress. These cuts don't just

09:58increase state costs, they make it nearly impossible for states to effectively plan for these long-term

10:04budget impacts. Those are governors from Kentucky, with Governor Beshear, to Arizona, with Governor

10:13Hobbs. Across the entire nation, we heard from these governors. Not to mention the governors such as

10:23Governor Pritzker in Illinois, and Governor Walz in Minnesota, and Governor Kelly in Kansas, and Governor

10:31Whitmer in Michigan.

10:36Based on 2023 figures,

10:38the House and Senate version of this bill would shift. And it varies, because the bills are different.

10:47But this is how much money we're talking to. Between $16 million and $49 million onto the state of Nebraska.

10:56Between $61 million and $101 million in costs onto Kansas. Imagine the budget. And suddenly,

11:04oh, you got to do an extra $60 million. Too bad you have a balanced budget amendment.

11:10Up to $26 million in costs onto Iowa. Between $225 million and $376 million onto the state budget in Missouri.

11:20Up to $68 million in costs onto Wisconsin, where Governor Evers was also a signator of this letter.

11:26of this letter. Between $456 million and $761 million in costs onto Michigan. And between $43 million and $128 million in costs onto Minnesota.

11:41And those numbers are on top, on top of an increased administrative cost shift to states. It used to be

11:4950-50. Now it's 75-25. Hello states. You with strapped budgets. We're now making you pay 75% of administrative costs.

11:59Which would make it even harder for states to invest in the staff training and upgraded financial systems

12:04that would make the program more sound and reduce payment errors. It's not just the state budgets

12:11that will be affected. In many states, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, it is counties rather than the states

12:18that run the SNAP program. So I had a visit from some of the rural counties. And they talk about

12:25living off a margin, a thin margin, trying to help their taxpayers, trying to get this done. In states

12:31like Minnesota and Wisconsin, that believe in strong local government, big surprise, our states and a

12:37number of other sort of states with bigger rural areas have decided we'd rather have the counties do this.

12:42So now these cost shifts will go directly to these county governments. And you would not believe the

12:48numbers on what they would have to do to increase their taxes in these rural counties. They said we can't do that.

12:58So if that happens, they will have to raise their local property taxes or cut county services. In the past,

13:06we have said that if you're raising kids or taking care of an older relative, we're going to help you

13:11feed your family, even if you don't have a job. This reconciliation bill would change that. It would

13:17withhold food assistance from families raising kids over the age of 13 and adults 55 and up if they don't

13:25meet the new requirements. The Senate bill also eliminates an existing exemption for veterans, homeless

13:32people and former foster youth, an exemption my Republican colleagues supported in the Fiscal

13:39Responsibility Act just two years ago. So this is a shift among the party. The Republican Party actually

13:44said this was a good idea to have exemptions for vets and homeless people and former foster youth.

13:51Not anymore. These are people who are already struggling, veterans who have sacrificed to serve our

13:56country. I believe that when our veterans signed up to serve, there wasn't a waiting line,

14:01and when they're in this country and they need help with food or they need a job or they need a home,

14:07there shouldn't be a waiting line in the United States of America. So everyone that I've talked to

14:12about this, just as Senator Tillis was saying about Medicaid in North Carolina, and I've spent time on

14:19this. I visit all 87 counties in my state every year. I'm up to 49. So I've been able to talk to people who

14:26aren't political, who are Republicans, talk to people I just run into in rural grocery stores,

14:32in the vegetable line. I mean, I have talked to a ton of people. And what they have said

14:39to the store managers, to the food shelf volunteers, to those that take SNAP,

14:45that this isn't a good idea. That's what the public opinion polls say. Fox News poll, 60 percent of

14:52people say this bill is a bad idea. Two to one say it's going to help wealthy people and not them.

14:59Well, they're right about that. This is a betrayal of the middle class. And it only takes four of our

15:04colleagues, and four in the House, by the way, to stand up and say, we need to rewrite this thing.

15:10Let's start over. With that, I yield the floor.

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