- 6/30/2025
During debate on the Senate floor, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke in support of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and took aim at his Democratic colleagues.
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00:00I recognize a senator from South Carolina. I am using and yielding time off the bill.
00:10Without objection. Okay thank you very very much. So the debate and eventual voting on the big
00:20beautiful bill has begun. Hallelujah. It's taken a while for us to get here. We're gonna have a
00:26debate worthy of a great country. We'll have what they think and what we think and
00:31we're gonna vote on this bill in the coming days and I'm excited about that.
00:37I've worked a long time with my colleagues to get to where we are today,
00:42sort of the American people. The debate is beginning right now regarding the big
00:48beautiful bill and I'll tell you why that's good news for you but let me take
00:52a little bit of time to talk about current policy versus current law. I know
00:56everybody's on the edge of their seat at home but here's what I would tell you
01:00about numbers and budget chairmen. I'm not the first budget chairman. There have
01:05been those who came before me. In 2008 Chairman Kent Conrad, a really nice guy
01:13from North Dakota, used a new baseline in the budget so he could get the farm bill
01:21in the budget. And Jared Gregg, a really smart guy, former budget chairman, said the
01:30chairman of the budget committee declared the new baseline under a new budget. The
01:35budget chairman has a right to do that. That's what I'm doing. I'm setting the
01:40numbers. The parliamentarian said that's my job as budget chairman. The resolution
01:46we're operating under to get us here, we voted to make that the case. So we're not
01:50doing anything sneaky. We actually voted to give me the authority to do this and it
01:56passed. But again I'm not the first chairman to change a baseline for
02:01different reasons. One to get the farm bill in and in another occasion Senator
02:08Sanders changed the baseline in 2022 when he was budget chairman under budget
02:17312 to issue a budget rule allowing the numbers to change to get more money for
02:24head start. So Senator Sanders, as budget chairman, directed a new rule be
02:30written to get more money for head start. So don't tell me you've never done this
02:37before in terms of changing the baseline as budget chairman. The budget chairman
02:42under 312 sets the baseline. This has been acknowledged by Republicans and Democrats. The
02:50baseline has changed in the past based on the budget committee chairman's desire. One
02:55to get a farm bill in and the other to change the numbers, a new rule to get head start spending.
03:02So this has been done before. But I'll be the first to say that what we're doing here
03:08is historic in a good way. In 2017 we passed the Trump tax cuts. They're due to expire in
03:18December. Why is that? Before I got here current law was the way to score or
03:25implement tax policy. After 10 years the tax cuts expired. Current law. As budget
03:35chairman, I've decided to use current policy when it comes to cutting taxes. If you use current
03:43policy, they never expire. So the policies that were created in 2017 would not end in December. They
03:51would continue. And that's a good thing for the American people. That's a good thing for the
03:58economy because it gives you certainty. So I made a decision as budget chairman working with my
04:04colleagues to look at tax cuts something important for the country. To give certainty to businesses
04:11and individuals and make sure after 10 years they don't arbitrarily go away and have a cliff.
04:18So I made that decision. My colleagues backed me up. And that's in the budget resolution governing the
04:24debate that we're here today. So why do we want to make the tax cuts permanent? Because if they expire
04:30in December, the average family of four in South Carolina will have a $1,700 increase. I don't want
04:38that. And I bet you people at home don't want that. So we have to deal with that. That cliff is coming.
04:45And not only do I want to avoid that cliff, I don't want to put us in that position ever again.
04:50So the tax cuts have generated more revenue for the government than CBO estimated in 2017.
04:58The one thing about our friends at CBO, I appreciate all your hard work you've worked really hard.
05:02When it comes to taxing, they always get it wrong about how much revenue to be collected.
05:07So when you look at the years that have passed since 2017, on the corporate side, on the individual
05:14side, the revenue to the government has actually grown because of those tax cuts. And that's a good
05:19thing. So cutting taxes means more money for you and your family. Our friends on the other side,
05:26if you're waiting on them to cut your taxes, you're going to die waiting. So they're never
05:31going to do it. Why are we doing it? Because they won't do it. We could never get 60 votes for this.
05:37So the bottom line is we're going to make these tax cuts permanent. And that's a good thing for
05:42businesses. Expensing will be allowed so you can invest in growing your business. You can buy new
05:48equipment. You can write it off sooner and that will get more activity in the economy. It's not me saying
05:54that there's a track record, Mr. President. You've been in business. This stuff works.
06:01They don't like it, but it works. If you're in business and the tax code encourages you to invest
06:06in your business, you will. This stuff literally works. And they hate it because money that could
06:15have gone to the government went back into the economy. What they don't realize, actually,
06:20the government gets more money. They just keep spending it. And we could do better on the spending
06:26side. And we are going to do better on the spending side. So this bill makes the 2017
06:34tax cuts permanent. It avoids a tax increase for your family that's coming in December if we don't act now.
06:41It secures the border. One of the reasons there are more of us than our democratic friends is how
06:51you screwed the country up for the last four years. We went from secure borders to completely open borders,
07:01absolute chaos. And that's why we're winning and you're losing. And you want to take us back to open
07:09borders. We're not going. We're not going back to your policies that allowed 8.3 million encounters at
07:18the border, 1.7 million gotaways, chaos to cities and communities. We're not going back to the policies
07:29that led to Lake and Riley's murder in Georgia, where the man convicted for murdering her was captured
07:36several times, released because there was no detention space to hold him in Texas. And he left
07:45a free man, went to Georgia and killed this lady. That's happened too many times and it's going to
07:51stop. Now, what are we doing to secure the border? We went from lawless borders to the most secure borders
08:00in six months because of President Trump. President Trump, you should be exceedingly proud. Holman,
08:07the whole team, you've locked that border down. But we want to do it in a way that it'll stay locked
08:14down for the present after you and beyond. So how do we secure the gains made by President Trump and his
08:21team? We're going to, in this bill, hire more ICE agents to expedite removal of people that shouldn't
08:29be here, particularly criminal elements. People are the dangers. We're going to finish the wall.
08:35Not one Democrat, maybe one, no way would get 60 votes to hire more ICE agents. No way we would get
08:45Democratic help to finish the wall. And we're going to go from 40,000 detention beds to 125,000. This
08:54secure the border is about $175 billion. New technology along the border, fiber cable, so we
09:02don't go back to the days of open borders. This is in the bill. To those of you who voted for us
09:09and President Trump to secure the border, we're delivering through this bill. And they would never
09:15do what we're doing. I'll be the first to admit, when it comes to securing the border, they're never going
09:20to do what we're doing. We're hiring more ICE agents. We're finishing the wall. And we're increasing
09:27more detention beds so we don't let people out that can go and murder. I'm very proud of this. I wrote
09:34this part. This is money well spent. This will secure that border in perpetuity. President Trump,
09:41this is your plan. It is in our bill. Well done. To my friends on the other side,
09:46you had your chance and you screwed it up big time. And that's why we're in charge.
09:52Revitalize our military. The world is a dangerous place. We have $150 billion in this bill to help build
10:03out the Golden Dome, to help improve the quality of life of men and women serving the military by
10:09improving their barracks and housing. They need the money, more weapons. It's in this bill.
10:16And we didn't have to get extorted to buy a bunch of butter to get $150 billion.
10:23We reduce government spending over a decade by $1.6 trillion. We're running
10:34deficits, national debt of 37 trillion. So what have we done here? In the last five years,
10:43from 2020, basically, to now, Medicaid has grown by 50%.
10:50So what's happened is that Medicaid was originally intended for children and poor families,
11:03children, and people who were disabled and couldn't work to provide health care. Count me in for that.
11:10Makes a lot of sense. Along comes President Obama. He expands Medicaid to include able-bodied adults for
11:18the first time. And what he did was he incentivized states to include these people in Medicaid.
11:27For every new able-bodied adult, you get 90% of the costs from the federal government, 10% from the
11:35states. And Medicaid has grown 50% and is going to take over Medicare because of what President Obama did.
11:43So what are we going to do? We're going to try to deal with that in a responsible way.
11:47What about this idea? If you're not a child, if you're not disabled,
11:56you're able-bodied, and you don't have any children under 14, we're going to have a 20-hour
12:01a week work requirement for you to stay on Medicaid. That's a good thing. It's a good thing for the
12:08individual involved to be working. It's a good thing for the taxpayer for them to be working.
12:13But that seems to be a crime on the other side, to ask somebody to work that can work.
12:20How many people out there are listening to this? I don't know how many of you are. But are you
12:24working every day? Are you going to work with kids? A lot of people do that, by the way. So one of
12:31the reforms in this bill is to introduce a work requirement to the additional population that
12:39President Obama put on Medicaid that was never intended on the original purpose of Medicaid.
12:45This work requirement is going to save a bunch of money. Finally, we're addressing the biggest scam
12:52I've seen in a very long time. Somewhere along the line, somebody figured out that at the state level,
13:00that if you tax doctors and hospitals and medical providers on the funds they get and take that
13:09revenue, you can actually get more Medicaid money. This is a money laundering scheme. It needs to come to an
13:19end as we know it. States have gone up to 6% of a provider tax. They take that tax revenue and they
13:29use it to get more money from the federal government. The hospitals and doctors don't lose. They get the
13:35money back. The state doesn't lose. They get more money. The only group that loses is the federal
13:41government and we're deep, deep in debt. So we're going to reform the provider tax system that I think
13:48is abusive, very abusive. As to Medicaid, it's on a growth trajectory that will overtake Medicare.
14:01Now is the time to put common sense reform in place, not only to slow the growth, and we're not talking
14:08about cutting Medicaid, we're slowing the growth, but try to create some sense of fiscal responsibility.
14:15So to our chairman of the finance committee, you have constructed a package better than 2017.
14:28You have included some growth elements in the package that will allow the economy to grow
14:35because it will be in businesses' interest to invest. And I want to applaud you for this growth package.
14:45Now what does this all mean? Current policy, current law. If you do what I have decided to do,
14:55make the tax cuts permanent, and you implement these reforms to Medicaid in other areas,
15:01because you will, over the next 10 years, reduce the deficit by $507 billion. That's CBO, not me. Now,
15:12how do you do that? You grow the economy and you begin to control spending in a common sense way.
15:20Most people can relate to that because they do it all the time. People at home sometimes have to
15:28work extra to meet the needs of their family and they have to tighten their belt. So what have we
15:35achieved here in the one big beautiful bill? We're going to make your border as secure as it possibly
15:44can be and never go back to open borders. We're going to put in place border security measures to keep it
15:52secure. We're going to make the tax cuts permanent so your taxes do not go up in December of this year,
16:01and we're going to add additional pro-growth policies to help our economy. We're going to reform
16:09Medicaid in a way that makes sense, deal with the waste, fraud, and abuse of that program so that there's
16:18more money for the disabled and children because the more money you give the able-bodied who can work
16:28is money, less money for children and people on disability. And one of the most perverse things
16:36about what President Obama did is that the reimbursement rates to states are higher for able-bodied
16:43adults than they are for disabled people and children. Ninety percent. So President Obama created
16:52a system to entice states, lure them in, to add people to Medicaid that are not disabled, not poor
16:59children, because his goal was to put everybody in the country under government-run health care, and the
17:05government reimbursement is higher for an able-bodied person than it is for a poor child or a disabled
17:13person. And we're going to stop that because that's not fair. It's not fair to the taxpayer and it's not
17:20fair to the population that we're trying to help. So we're going to control spending in a common-sense way.
17:30We're going to revitalize our military at a time of great need. We're going to give the secure the border
17:38and we're going to make the tax cuts that expire in December permanent so we don't have to deal with
17:45this every 10 years. It's a big beautiful bill if you believe in cutting people's taxes, securing the border,
17:58having a strong military, and controlling government spending. It is a nightmare,
18:05this bill for those who want to raise taxes,
18:12who want open borders, who want a weak military,
18:17and never want to control one dime of federal spending. This bill is your nightmare if you're for
18:24open borders. This bill is your nightmare if you want the government to grow without any limitation.
18:32This bill is your nightmare if you want a weak military because it's going to give us a stronger
18:38military. So why do we have this debate? That's what they, through years of effort, have done.
18:47The military is always the last thing that gets funded when they're in charge. When they're in charge,
18:54you have no border. Completely broken. Millions of people running through our country lawless. When
19:01they're in charge, there is no limit to growing the government. They entice everybody to grow the
19:08government. And when they're in charge, they're never going to cut your taxes in any meaningful way.
19:17The tax rates since 2017, the top rate has been 37. If these tax cuts expire,
19:26your taxes, if your family of four, will go up by $1,700. And we'll go back to the 39.6 rate.
19:32Okay. Here's a question for the country. How much should the federal government take of anybody's
19:41income? What's a fair share? 37% seems pretty damn fair to me. Over a third of what you make,
19:51that doesn't count state and local taxes. The number they would pick is probably a 90.
19:5730. So is 37% fair? I think yes. Most Americans think 25% is fair. You know, Jesus wants 10%.
20:15There is no number they won't embrace. So somewhere between 90 and 10,
20:2537% is fair. This is not rewarding the wealthy. It's creating a number that makes sense. 37%
20:40going to the federal government is a fair share. It's over a third of what you make.
20:47And that doesn't count state and local taxes.
20:54This has been long. It's been hard. But we're about done. In a couple of days,
21:00we're going to pass the one big, beautiful bill. President Trump's going to sign it.
21:06Mike Crapo and his staff deserve at least one day off. I cannot thank you enough for what you and your
21:14team have done to my budget, budgeteers. You have been terrific. You've worked really hard to CBO and
21:23joint tax and all these people. Hats off to your efforts to get us a quality product. To all of my
21:30colleagues who've rode the boat with us, we're about to reach the shore. And when this boat comes ashore,
21:38every family in America could have a sigh of relief. Your taxes will not go up this December.
21:45You'll get a Christmas present and not having a tax increase. To those who've been yearning for a
21:51secure border, it will be secure. To those men and women in uniform, you're going to get some help and
21:56you desperately need it. And to those who think we should do something about the government's growth in
22:00a common sense way, we've achieved that. I am very proud of this bill. I'm very proud of President Trump.
22:07I'm very proud of the Republican team that has gotten us to this point. And to my Democratic colleagues,
22:14we'll work together where we can. But nobody over here ever expects you to do anything
22:21about the border because you've proven you can't. Nobody over here believes you're ever going to
22:27reduce the size of government because you don't want to. So the bottom line is we're about to make
22:34history, Mr. President. This is your first term. I don't know what comes later for you. I hope you're
22:41here a long time if that's what you want to be. You're a great senator. You're a good businessman. You've
22:47made a real success story. Family from Columbia. You've created a lot of job opportunity.
22:59I doubt if you'll ever do anything more important than this. Senator Crapo, you've been here a while.
23:04You're one of the smartest guys I've ever met. Everything you've done all your life
23:08has led to this moment. This is what you were built to do. This is what you were meant to do.
23:23You're the right man at the right time to do what this country desperately needs to stay on track to
23:30be safe and prosperous. All my colleagues are going to vote for this bill. You should be proud and you
23:37should talk about it because it's going to make us all safer and it's going to make us all more
23:41prosperous. Me being budget chairman is a quirk in the history of the Senate. This is not my thing
23:51normally but I have really gotten into it and I've learned a lot thanks to my colleagues and I'm proud
24:00to have the honor of being budget chairman at a time I think it matters the most.
24:07Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following staff members from my staff
24:13and from Senator Merkley's staff be given all access floor passes for the consideration of the bill.
24:19Caitlin Wilson, Lillian Meadows, Scott Graber, Walker Turlock, Taylor Reedy, Democratic staff Mike
24:26Jones, Melissa Pistner, Josh Smith, and Tyler Eversinger. Tyler E-V-I-L-S-I-Z-E-R. I ask that
24:35unanimous consent. Without objection. With that I will yield to my good friend
24:41from Idaho. There's one more behind it. Huh? Wait a minute.
24:46Ask unanimous consent that the use of calculators, whatever they are, be permitted on the floor of the
24:54Senate here in consideration of the bill. Without objection.