'That's The Real Number Here!': Sheldon Whitehouse Unleashes On GOP For Raising Debt Limit In Spending Bill

Forbes Breaking News

During Senate floor debate, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) ripped into the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and Senate Republicans.

Transcript

00:00In this place where big money now rules, and in which fakery is now the order of the day,

00:11and numbers no longer have to be real, there is one point that stands out,

00:18and that is that the fakery on the floor is belied by the language of the bill.

00:30If these assertions were true, they would not need to raise the debt limit.

00:39All of this fun and games, all of this parliamentary mischief that is happening right now,

00:46crashes into the fact that in real markets, in the real world, outside of this fakery,

00:55the debt limit is actually a real thing.

00:58And I will take a moment to read from page 754 of this midnight monstrosity

01:09what it actually says, where it collides with the real world.

01:15Subtitle C, increase in debt limit.

01:20Section 72001, modification of limitation on the public debt.

01:29Line 20, the limitation under Section 3101B of Title 31, United States Code,

01:39as most recently increased by Section 401B of Public Law 118.5, 31 U.S.C., 3101 note,

01:49is increased by 5 trillion dollars.

01:595 trillion dollars.

02:04That's the real number here.

02:07That's where the rubber hits the road in real life.

02:13The maneuver that he's being pulled right now to avoid that fact,

02:19the fact that the debt limit has to be increased by 5 trillion dollars

02:23so that Republicans can give immense tax breaks to billionaires,

02:29has not been used for this before.

02:34I used it once.

02:35In the year 2000, a deal had been struck

02:40on how to score activities of the Power Marketing Administration.

02:45Does anybody really know about the Power Marketing Administration?

02:48It's a small thing.

02:51Over the years, the Congressional Budget Office

02:53started scoring the program differently

02:55than the Senate had agreed to in 2000.

02:59So in 2023 and 2024,

03:05Senate Budget Chair, me,

03:07and the House Budget Chair, Jody Arrington,

03:10on a bipartisan basis,

03:12invoked this section to have CBO

03:15return to the original Senate agreement

03:18and not the variation that they had created.

03:22This is what Section 312 has been used for,

03:26to resolve technical ambiguity

03:29to advance a bipartisan appropriation deal,

03:34not to create Senate floor fakery

03:38belied by the $5 trillion debt limit hike

03:42that Republicans are obliged to pass

03:45to make good

03:46on this huge billionaire blowout

03:51that we're forcing through the Senate floor now.

03:54I yield the floor.

03:59I yield the floor.

04:00I yield the floor.

04:01I yield the floor.

04:02I yield the floor.

04:03I yield the floor.

04:04I yield the floor.

04:05I yield the floor.

04:06I yield the floor.

04:07I yield the floor.

04:08I yield the floor.

04:09I yield the floor.

04:10I yield the floor.

04:11I yield the floor.

04:12I yield the floor.

04:13I yield the floor.

04:14I yield the floor.

04:15I yield the floor.

04:16I yield the floor.

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