Angus King: The Senate Should Give The Big Beautiful Bill ‘A Merciful Death’

Forbes Breaking News

In Senate floor remarks on Sunday, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) spoke about tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill.

Transcript

00:00Mr. President, this bill is a farce. Imagine a bunch of guys sitting around a table and saying,

00:12I've got a great idea. Let's give $32,000 worth of a tax break to a millionaire and we'll pay for

00:19it by taking health insurance away from lower income and middle income people. And to top it

00:25off, how about we cut food stamps, we cut SNAP, we cut food aid to people. It's a joke. I would say it

00:33was a joke, except it's not the least bit funny. I've been in this business of public policy now

00:39for 20 years, eight years as governor, 12 years in the United States Senate. I have never seen a

00:43bill this bad. I have never seen a bill that is this irresponsible, regressive, and downright cruel.

00:51The basic premise of the bill, as I said, is cut benefits for the American people, particularly

00:59in the areas of health care and food, in exchange for tax cuts for the very wealthy. Now, I know my

01:08colleagues are going to come to the floor because I've had this discussion before. They're going to

01:11say, oh no, this is a middle class tax cut. This is going to cut taxes for people in the middle class.

01:17Well, here's a little suggestion of how to get out of this mess. If you cap the tax cuts

01:25at people making $400,000 a year, which is a pretty healthy income, the cost of this bill

01:33would drop by 60%. And you wouldn't have any need to cut Medicare, I mean Medicaid. And by the way,

01:41there are Medicare cuts also built into this, and snap. $400,000. In other words, we're for the middle

01:49class tax cuts. That's okay. But just stop it at $400,000. And don't give the tax breaks to the people.

01:57A millionaire under this bill gets a $32,000 tax cut. A person making $5 or $10 million gets a couple of

02:04$100,000 tax cuts. I don't think they need it. They sure as hell don't need it as much as people need

02:12health insurance. So just to put a fine point on it, this bill is literally, and remember my $400,000

02:21suggestion, so we're taking care of the middle class. But with 60% of the cost above $400,000 in income,

02:28this bill is literally taking food out of the mouths of kids to give a millionaire a $32,000 tax break.

02:39That's the facts. They're ugly. And like I say, if we were talking about this at random sitting around

02:47at a lunch table, people would say, well, that's a joke. That's ridiculous. Nobody would suggest that.

02:51But here we are. And several of my colleagues, including Senator Tillis from North Carolina,

02:56have pointed out, there's no rush on this bill. We don't have to do this bill by July 4th

03:02or July 10th. There's no rush. These tax credits, these tax cuts don't expire until the end of the

03:08year. Let's take our time and write a decent bill. Let's kill this bill. It'll only take four or five

03:13senators on the other side. We can kill this thing and start over and write a decent bill

03:19on a bipartisan basis. And I think we'd find agreement on middle class tax cuts.

03:24But I think we could also do some things with expenditures that wouldn't be so bloody harmful.

03:33Medicaid. Let me start with hospitals. In Maine, I've talked to the hospitals. I've talked to the

03:40hospital association. I've talked to small hospitals, large hospitals. They're mostly running on a one,

03:46two or three percent margin. The analysis is that this could cost us two to five of our rural hospitals.

03:55And when a rural hospital goes out, several things happen. One thing is the economy of the town goes

04:01with it. In most of these small towns, the hospital is the major employer. So you're talking about the

04:06economics of those jobs in a small town that will make a huge difference in that local economy.

04:14The second thing that happens is a loss of services for everybody in town, not just the Medicaid people.

04:20That hospital closes. Everybody in town is going to have to drive another 30, 40, 50, 100 miles

04:26to get care. And they're going to have to not only there may be closures, there will certainly be

04:33cutting of services. We already have a serious problem in Maine of obstetric services. We've got

04:39a county with no obstetric services. And that's only going to get worse under this bill. The hospitals

04:48are pleading with us to not do this. And again, do we really need to do this to give a millionaire a

04:54$32,000 tax break? It doesn't make any sense. Now, I've talked about hospitals, but let's talk about

05:02people. The analysis is 60,000 people in Maine would lose their insurance coverage. 40,000 under

05:12Medicaid, about 20,000 under the Affordable Care Act. And I want to, we've had a lot of personal

05:18stories tonight. I want to tell a story about myself. When I worked here in the 70s, I had insurance,

05:26it was employer-supported insurance. We paid part of the premium. I had insurance as a junior staff

05:33member in this body 50 years ago. Because I had that insurance that covered a free checkup,

05:40I went in and had my first physical in eight years. And I wouldn't have had that physical if

05:46the insurance hadn't have covered it. I wouldn't have been able to spring for it.

05:51I had that physical. And the doctors found a little mole on my back. And they took it out.

06:00And I didn't think much of it. And I went in a week later, and the doctor said, you better sit down,

06:04Angus. That was malignant melanoma. You're going to have to have serious surgery. And a friend of mine

06:12who was a doctor said, Angus, here's my best advice. Let them be as radical as they want in that

06:17surgery. And I had the surgery, and here I am. If I hadn't had insurance, I wouldn't be here.

06:27And it's always haunted me that some young man in America that same year had malignant melanoma,

06:33he didn't have coverage, he didn't have insurance, he didn't get that checkup, and he died.

06:37That's wrong. That's immoral. So the idea of cutting health insurance from people is just,

06:46oh, well, they just won't have coverage for their doctor's visits. No, people die when they don't

06:51have health insurance. There's statistical analysis to bear that out. So this isn't any joke.

07:00And by the way, people say, well, we're talking about fraud in Medicaid. Listen,

07:06almost a trillion dollar cut in Medicaid, 15 million people being cut off 60,000, 40,000 in the

07:13state of Maine. That isn't fraud. That's cutting people who need the care. And I don't understand

07:22the obsession, and I never have. And I stood right there and watched John McCain cast that vote to save

07:27the Affordable Care Act, along with my colleague Susan Collins. I don't understand this obsession

07:33with taking health insurance away from people. I don't get it. Trying to take away the Affordable

07:41Care Act in 2017, or 2018, and now this? What's driving this? What's the cruelty to do this,

07:54to take health insurance away from people knowing that it's going to cost them?

08:02It's hard to calculate the cost up to and including losing their lives. Okay, let's talk about SNAP.

08:09Let's talk about SNAP. The average benefit for SNAP is $6 a day. You feed yourself on $6 a day. The average

08:19cost of a meal in the U.S. is about $10.50 a day. So we're already below cost, if you will.

08:28And here's what it means in my state. 20 percent of the children in my state are food insecure.

08:36And we're talking about cutting SNAP and taking dollars away from those kids. And I was interested

08:43in that. And I thought, oh, that's pretty bad. I'm worried Maine's 20 percent. 20 percent of our kids

08:49are food insecure. So I did a little research. In Arkansas, it's 24 percent of the kids

08:55who are food insecure. In Iowa, 17 percent. South Carolina, 14 percent. Michigan, 19 percent. Missouri,

09:04another 19 percent. That's one out of five kids

09:07are food insecure. And we're going to cut that food in order to give a millionaire a $32,000 tax cut.

09:17Mr. President, that's not only bad policy, it's downright immoral.

09:24Okay, what's the other problem with this bill? There are so many, and I, you know, so many problems,

09:30so little time. It's irresponsible. It adds about $4 trillion to the deficit. And by the way,

09:37this current policy thing doesn't pass a straight face test. A seventh grader knows it's nonsense.

09:44You've got to borrow the money to pay. If the if this bill doesn't pass,

09:49then there isn't a $4 trillion hit on the budget. If it passes, there is. And the thing that really

09:55gives a lie to this nonsense is also in this bill is a $5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling.

10:01If it's not really debt, then we don't need to increase the debt ceiling. It's a sham. Voodoo budgeting.

10:11So I don't want to hear any more from my colleagues about deficits. I don't want to hear any more

10:18crocodile tears about deficits. We're mortgaging our future. I hear all this, this, this drama

10:26about deficits from people who are voting for this bill to add $4 trillion to the deficit unnecessarily.

10:36I'm just saying of a famous New Englander, your actions speak so loud, I can't hear your words.

10:44Your actions speak so loud, I can't hear your words. Your actions are you're adding to the deficit

10:51unnecessarily. So don't talk to me about deficits. Now, the first rule, if you're in a hole is stop

10:58digging. And we're in a hole, Mr. President, we're in a hole. So you stop digging by not passing this

11:07bill or not passing it in the extreme form that it is to give the tax benefits 60% of the tax benefits

11:13to people making over $400,000 a year. The reason what's driven the deficit, if you go back and look

11:20over the last 20 years, there are three things. One were the unpaid for Bush tax cuts. We had major

11:27tax cuts and then a war that we put on the credit card. The unpaid for Trump tax cuts in 2017 and COVID.

11:35Now, COVID was an emergency. And the financial crisis in 2008 and 9 and 10, that were emergencies.

11:43That's where you run deficits. But you don't run deficits when times are good. And that's exactly

11:49what we're doing here. If you're in a hole, stop digging. And by the way, the Committee for a Responsible

11:55Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group, has said, and I haven't heard this mentioned, this bill will

12:01actually accelerate the insolvency of the Social Security Trust Fund and the Medicare Trust Fund.

12:11There's a nice thing for you. It'll make those funds go insolvent sooner than would otherwise

12:18be the case. Gutting the IRS. By the way, I have another suggestion for my colleagues. You want to find

12:26$600 billion a year? Enforce the tax laws against cheaters. That's the estimate. $600 billion a year

12:36is left on the table because cheaters, mostly high income, are not paying the taxes they owe. The poor

12:45stiff that gets a 1040, he has to pay it. Everybody knows what he's making. But it's these people with

12:52the fancy lawyers and accountants. And I'm not talking about tax avoidance here. I'm talking about

12:57stone cold tax evasion. $600 billion a year. That would be nice instead of cutting Medicare

13:07and Medicaid and food stamps. Another piece of this bill that hasn't got much attention is ICE. The

13:15current budget of ICE is $9 billion a year. Under this, they're increasing it $75 billion over four

13:22years. That's an additional $18 billion a year. They're tripling the budget of ICE.

13:30They're tripling the budget. We're dangerously close, Mr. President, to creating a federal police force,

13:35which we've never had in this country and we shouldn't have. And by the way,

13:39I have never in my life seen a law enforcement officer with a mask on. I don't get where that came

13:48from. A law enforcement officer wearing a mask. Where I come from, people that wear masks are not

13:55the good guys. And I don't understand that. But to triple this budget, you wonder where that's going to

14:02take this country. So let me go back to the beginning. All this damage to give a tax break

14:10to a guy that's making a million bucks. The chairman of the finance committee wasn't here, I think, when I

14:15said this. Mr. Chairman, if we limit the tax cuts to people making $400,000 and less, it will reduce the

14:25cost of this bill by 60 percent. It will ameliorate the need for any cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. It would

14:36also minimize the hit on the debt and the deficit. There is no rush to pass this bill. Let's kill it,

14:46give it a merciful death over the next 24 hours, and then start over writing a responsible bill

14:52to deal with the expiring tax cuts for the middle class and deal with issues within the federal

14:59government that should be addressed. But this bill is not the answer. It is a sham. And it is a shame.

15:08And it is embarrassing to even be debating this bill. It should never come before us in this form.

15:14I hope that enough of my colleagues will

15:17this bill will see that this is an unnecessary damage to the citizens of this country and the

15:23citizens of their state. Every state's citizens are going to suffer.

15:28And this is something that we in this body can and should prevent. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

15:38Mr. President,

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