00:16Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for coming to the floor.
00:21Wait, we'll put this up when we begin.
00:24Okay.
00:27Eh, we'll leave it up.
00:28I thank my colleagues for coming to the floor all day today.
00:36I thank them for speaking so fiercely, so clearly about what's at stake for the country.
00:42And the American people deserve to see this debate.
00:46That's why we last night forced a reading of the bill.
00:50Republicans don't want people to know what's in the bill.
00:54They want to hide it.
00:56They know it's not popular.
00:58We all know it's not popular.
01:00We all know it's totally against what people want.
01:03But a small cabal of very wealthy people and hard MAGA people run that show.
01:10To the detriment of the party itself and, of course, to the American people.
01:17So we forced a reading of the bill last night and allowed people to catch up because the bill was just put on the floor right before the reading started, the amended bill.
01:26So we're here today to continue to shine a light on how bad this bill is, and this debate will continue.
01:36Soon we'll turn to Votarama and bring amendment after amendment after amendment to the floor so Republicans can defend their billionaire tax cuts,
01:46so they can try to explain their massive cuts to Medicaid to people back home.
01:53Why kids who need health care shouldn't get it so there can be tax breaks for billionaires.
01:58Why middle-class families who have someone in a nursing home who's now going to be removed from that nursing home because it's going to close, what they're going to do.
02:08And to try and to sell to parents and kids why they're making unprecedented cuts to SNAP.
02:13Taking food from hungry babies for a tax cut for wealthy people, what kind of world do these Republicans live in?
02:25It's a slanted world. It's really a corrupt world.
02:31Kids will get $5 a day to feed themselves. You can't buy a dozen eggs for $5.
02:37And then they're killing millions of good-paying jobs. It's estimated, and by the way, the clean energy cuts are even worse.
02:45Before this, it was estimated 850,000 jobs would be lost in America on clean energy alone.
02:53Over a million jobs in health care.
02:56Two million jobs approximately lost.
03:00At least two million lost because of this bill.
03:04That could create a recession.
03:07So this has been a long few days in the Senate.
03:11But the hardest choices for Republicans are still in front of them.
03:15Because we know that so many of our colleagues on the other side aren't happy with this bill.
03:23Tillis is not an exception.
03:25There are many others who think the same way he does.
03:29Well, they ought to vote, their principles, their conscience, and what's good for their constituencies.
03:33Our side is going to give our Republican colleagues a chance to do the right thing in front of this chamber and in front of this nation.
03:42The American people deserve to know exactly, exactly what's happening right now in the United States Senate.
03:49Because right now, Republicans are concocting the ultimate rush job.
03:55They're trying to pull off a sneak attack on this chamber and on the American people themselves.
04:01The bill before the Senate is utter poison.
04:03Some Republicans are trying to rush through a bill that they released less than two days ago under the cloak of darkness written behind closed doors.
04:13Molded in order to appease Donald Trump and the very special, powerful interests.
04:19Earlier today, my colleague from South Carolina came to the floor with a pretty interesting looking floor chart.
04:28Where he claimed that his bill somehow reduced the debt by $500 billion.
04:33What a joke.
04:35The budget chair respectfully needs to check his math.
04:38Because not one hour ago, the JCT confirmed this bill does not reduce the debt.
05:07It explodes it.
05:09It explodes it.
05:11That's what it does.
05:14Here's what his chart should have looked like.
05:17$4.5 trillion deficit explosion.
05:24According to the JCT, the Republican bill explodes the debt by $4.5 trillion.
05:31As this chart, drawn slightly better than Lindsay's, shows.
05:37For those keeping score at home, my colleague got his math wrong by a whopping $4 trillion.
05:46All this, all this, just so billionaires are rewarded while millions lose their health care break.
05:53$4.5 trillion deficit explosion.
05:56And that's not just an abstract concept.
05:59What does that mean?
06:01The average American will pay more to buy a home.
06:04The average American will pay more to buy a car.
06:07The average American will pay more on their credit card debt on issue after issue after issue.
06:13Prices will go up because of this deficit, because of taxes for the billionaire.
06:17That's $4.45 trillion.
06:22Also, some people, wealthy people, God bless them.
06:26They made a lot of money.
06:27Okay.
06:27They don't need a tax break.
06:29Let it be known that this bill is the death knell of the supposed party of fiscal responsibility.
06:41We always knew that this was a sham.
06:45And now this bill ends the charade of Republicans caring about the debt for all time coming.
06:51When they say they have to cut health care on any bill or food stamps on any bill because it reduces the deficit,
06:57we will know it's utter hogwash because of $4.5 trillion they're doing now for tax breaks for the wealthy.
07:08So, Republicans want to move quickly.
07:12That's why we're here on the weekend.
07:14That's why they released a bill in the dead of the night.
07:17All because they want to hide the truth from the American people.
07:20You know, it's hard to believe, my colleagues, this bill is worse, even worse, than any draft we have seen thus far.
07:29Every time the bill comes to the floor, a new bill, a new amendment, the hard right handful over on the Republican side,
07:36we're not voting for it unless you hurt kids more, you hurt people who need health care more,
07:41you hurt rural hospitals more, you hurt clean energy more.
07:45And the Republican leadership folds and does it.
07:51And the more mainstream, the handful of more mainstream Republicans who know how bad this is right now,
07:57haven't had the backbone to oppose those changes.
08:00We hope they find them.
08:02So, this bill is worse on health care, worse on SNAP.
08:09It'll kill 900,000 good-paying jobs and clean energy.
08:13Folks, you don't like paying your electricity bills?
08:18You'll pay 10% more on your electric bills because of this big, ugly betrayal.
08:25It'll also kill a million health care jobs.
08:29You put it all together and there's no other way to put it.
08:31At the very last minute, the Senate Republicans made the bill more extreme
08:36to cater to the radicals in the House and the Senate.
08:42Republicans want to hide the truth so badly, in fact,
08:45that they're even ready to blow up the Senate rules to get it done.
08:52Senate Republicans are doing something that has never been done before in this chamber.
08:56Never.
08:57By Democrats or Republicans.
09:00Using fake math and budgetary hocus-pocus
09:03to make it seem like a gargantuan tax break for billionaires
09:07is going to cost virtually nothing.
09:10That's insane.
09:11It's delusional.
09:12Current policy baseline doesn't take into effect
09:17that actual budget numbers show these cuts expiring.
09:20So when you put them back up again,
09:22the deficit increases.
09:24It's simple math.
09:25Second-grade math.
09:28But our colleagues,
09:30just again,
09:33in a frenzy to help the billionaires,
09:35are willing even to do that.
09:40Republicans know it.
09:42That's why they're squirming.
09:44You can see sort of the faces come on the floor.
09:46They don't look very happy
09:48because they know how bad this stuff is.
09:50And they can use whatever budgetary gimmicks they want.
09:53Republicans can use whatever budgetary gimmicks they want
09:57to make their math work on paper.
10:00But you can't paper over the real consequences of adding trillions and trillions to the debt
10:07in one fell swoop.
10:08And CBO, nonpartisan, everyone who looks at this,
10:14says it's going to increase the deficit.
10:17Not the so-called party of deficit hawks.
10:20That's out the window.
10:24So, what's going to happen when they pass this bill, if they do?
10:27Hope they don't.
10:29Our children and grandchildren are going to be faced
10:31with a lifetime of higher borrowing costs.
10:35As I said, mortgage costs, cost to buy a car, costs for a credit card,
10:40harder to start a business, every one of these will get worse.
10:44And the economic ceiling of this country will close in on itself.
10:48The economic engine that's been the driver of American innovation
10:51and growth and optimism for so many generations
10:54will sputter and ossify with this $4.45 trillion deficit explosion.
11:04It's deeply irresponsible to future generations,
11:07to our children, to our grandchildren, to pass this bill.
11:11And that's not just members on this side of the aisle saying it.
11:14Independent experts across the political spectrum,
11:17many of them very conservative Republicans,
11:19but who are at least honest about what they're doing, say it too.
11:25And plenty of Republicans in both the House and Senate have said it.
11:28It remains to be seen if their words and their actions will align.
11:33And the question is asked, has to be asked,
11:36why is this even happening?
11:38Why is this nightmare of a bill moving forward?
11:45Why are Republicans forcing our country down this ruinous road
11:49when they know the fiscal harms, when they know this is a rush job?
11:52Well, we know by now.
11:55Tax cuts to billionaires and corporate special interests.
12:00And not just another round, but in fact, they make them permanent.
12:04Our children, our grandchildren are going to be saddled with these cuts
12:09so that a handful of billionaires get a big break.
12:16While working people lose their Medicaid,
12:19while hungry kids lose access to food funding,
12:23while clean energy jobs that support so many Republican communities are taken away,
12:28I'd say to my Republican friends,
12:31when that plant that makes batteries or wind or solar
12:35or the person who's employing hundreds of people to put panels on people's roofs
12:38all fold and the people lose their jobs,
12:42don't shrug your shoulders and say,
12:46I don't know why that happened.
12:47And you made it happen with a nasty bill.
12:51It just makes no sense.
12:54We need more energy.
12:55AI, everyone says we need more energy.
12:58And to take away
12:59the cheapest, quickest way to put more electrons on the grid,
13:04solar, makes no sense,
13:06except we know Donald Trump
13:08has an irrational, infantile
13:11mania against clean energy.
13:14So they all listen to him.
13:17It makes no sense.
13:22This bill
13:23is sabotaging of America.
13:28It's the sabotaging of America.
13:30It's antithetical to what the country needs.
13:32It's antithetical to what the American people demanded last fall.
13:36And our Republican colleagues don't even want
13:38to tell the American people the truth.
13:41That's why Democrats are here on the floor today,
13:44sounding the alarm,
13:45setting the record straight.
13:48I also must say this.
13:50The way this bill is being passed
13:51so deeply violates the spirit of the Senate.
13:54The majority forgets
13:56that this chamber is unlike any other institution in government.
13:59It's meant to facilitate debate,
14:01careful consideration,
14:02sound judgment,
14:03honest numbers.
14:04We're supposed to resist the passions of the radical extreme.
14:09We're supposed to hold a line against policies
14:11that will devastate our country.
14:13We're supposed to resist the gravitational pull of extremists
14:17like Donald Trump,
14:18who gets these little bugaboos in his head
14:20and then wrecks America because of it,
14:23and they all go along.
14:26Senate Republicans are turning their back
14:29on the Senate's longstanding tradition
14:31of debate deliberation.
14:34By rushing this bill,
14:35by upending the rule of the chamber,
14:38by engaging in what amounts to accounting magic
