Chip Roy Airs Grievences About Big Beautiful Bill, Calls Out 'Absurdity' Of Senate Provision

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At the House Rules Committee hearing on the Big Beautiful Bill, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) aired grievances about Senate additions to the legislation.

Transcript

00:00You're recognized. I thank the chairwoman. It is rare indeed that I have too many

00:07reasons to agree in this in this room, but I do have to go ahead and start with

00:11the absurdity of that provision that was added by the Senate in fairness to our

00:16chairman. It was not added on the House side, it was in fact the Senate side. It

00:22was clearly a mistake and shouldn't have been done. I just go ahead and state what

00:28it is. It's just absurd policy. Why would you penalize a state for having a lower

00:33error rate and encourage them to have a higher error rate, which I can I can read

00:36the provision to do nothing else. So let's just call balls and strikes here.

00:41That was a ball and it wasn't even close. A couple things here just to level set

00:48for the American people. I just go down the line real quick and none of this is

00:52that this is just level setting. We're all we're all here just reacting to what

00:55we're reacting to. Okay, there's not trying to put anybody in the hot seat or

00:58anything else. Can you just tell me whether you've been able to read the

01:01Senate bill as it came over from the Senate before testifying here today? Can

01:06we just go down the line? Yourself, have you been able to read the Senate bill?

01:10Just just within the scope of the agriculture requirement title. So the

01:16changes that were made there. You're able to read the changes to the bill.

01:19Summaries of them, the items that they made. Ranking member. No. Chairman. I am

01:26reading through it as we speak. You're reading the bill. I have not read through

01:30the entirety of it. You have not read it. You're reading through the bill while

01:33we're here. Correct. We continue. Ranking member. Actually, actually my

01:38answer is exactly the same as Jodis. Chairman. We're reading the wraparound

01:43amendment that affected our area. Briefly, not word for word, to get familiar with the

01:52changes before we came here and we'll be reading it tonight. Ranking member. My

01:58reaction is the same as Chairman Guthrie. We tried as quickly as possible to get

02:03through it, but we only had like an hour before we had to come here. So no, I've

02:06not been able to read the whole thing. Chairman Smith. Just to read summaries,

02:12particularly relating to our jurisdiction on ways and means. Thank you, Ranking

02:16Member. Chairman Smith. The tax provisions we've been following throughout the whole

02:20process. The bill that was, the language was dropped on Saturday. I'm very well

02:25aware of everything that's in that. The wraparound amendment, that was a couple

02:28hours ago. I know the details of it, but I know the tax provisions. I appreciate

02:35that. I don't intend to take a whole lot of time for all of our benefit.

02:42It's fairly well documented that I've got strong concerns and reservations about the

02:48bill. I do think a couple of questions merit observation. And so I'm going to ask, again,

02:56in a non-pointed, as a matter-of-fact, as I possibly can, way, to my friend from Texas,

03:03if it is our understanding that at least as you accept, as we accept the CBO analysis,

03:13even on a dynamic basis, assuming the Budget Committee's assumption of 2.6 percent growth and

03:19therefore 2.5 or 6 trillion of additional revenue created from that growth, that it would still

03:26leave us about $651 billion in additional deficit spending, still accounting for the defense and

03:34border plus up. Is that roughly accurate? That's accurate.

03:40And to the best of our understanding, and I think you answered this question earlier,

03:46to the extent that we had a framework in place that we thought was important to adhere to,

03:53are we within that framework?

03:56We are. The Senate's bill is about 450 plus, 450, I think, 5 billion outside of that framework.

04:06And that number is different because it does not factor in the defense and the border plus up. Is

04:15that correct? The 455? Yeah, that variance to the 650 billion. It's mostly the cost of tax policy

04:22being different than what it was in the House on a current law basis, on a current law perspective.

04:28The numbers we're talking about here in the variance with respect to the CBO calculation,

04:33that does not factor in interest. Is that correct?

04:37That's correct.

04:39And if we were to factor in interest, the number would be necessarily higher if those deficit numbers

04:45are correct, presupposing that they're correct, which these are all models. Is that fair?

04:50When you're, for every dollar you borrow, 50 cents on that dollar is going to interest,

04:57so it's a significant additional cost.

04:59Would it sound correct that if we're at 651 billion dollars of additional deficit spending,

05:05that if you use the CBO's own calculator at the CBO's own assumed 3.5 percent interest rates,

05:13which are far from guaranteed over the coming several years, that that would produce over a

05:19trillion dollars of interest, I'm sorry, let me restate that, over a trillion dollars total,

05:26when you take the 651 and then add in interest, that we would be in the $1.2 trillion range?

05:31You are in the ballpark.

05:34So that is the concern for those out there trying to observe what we're doing about the extent to

05:40which there's deficit implications to the legislation that was moved forward through from the Senate

05:45and sent to us. I think it's important, I might have a question here, just for level setting,

05:53because there's differences of opinion here in philosophy. My colleagues on the other side of

05:58the aisle have opined that, you know, kind of mock, trickle down and kind of impacted the

06:05implications of tax policy. We can have those differences of opinion about where we want dollars

06:11to reside, and we believe we want dollars to reside in the pockets of Americans. Whether it's the child

06:16tax credit, you can debate the policy, I've got some views on that, whether it's this doubling of

06:20the standard deduction, whether it's the marginal rates, which are lower for people in the lower end

06:25of the strata, and lower on people at the higher end of the strata. We can at least agree to the facts,

06:29those are all true, and that some of those impact people, hugely in numbers, people at the lower end

06:34of the spectrum. So we're talking about tax rates and tax policies that are helping working class and

06:40poorer Americans. We're also talking about tax rates that are, by definition, going to impact

06:45and help those at the top, upper end of the spectrum. You say, help? Well, they don't need

06:49the dollars to live, but the question is whether those dollars are going to create more wealth and

06:53jobs in their pockets, right? There's a philosophy on the right side of the spectrum that they do that.

06:58I adhere to that philosophy, that the money in the hands of the American people produces wealth.

07:02You produce wealth, you create jobs, you create opportunity. I think that's a good thing.

07:06Where I think I've got a problem is that the Senate wanted to embrace that part in full.

07:14They wanted to go whole hog on that. And they want to go, fine, we'll make tax cuts permanent

07:18over 10 years. Great. God bless them. I'd love to do that. I'd love to have rates that don't change

07:22and they're permanent and they're low. But by doing that, they're exposing the problem. And that problem

07:29is just simple arithmetic. And that is, if you do that, then you're going to have an issue with

07:36respect to revenue and with respect to spending. And the last point that I'll address, rather than

07:42in the form of a question, is the policy baseline. The policy baseline is a dangerous gambit. It is a

07:52dangerous gambit for either side of the aisle. Because to my colleagues on this side of the aisle,

07:58please, please come explain to me. When my colleagues on that side of the aisle are talking

08:03about what's going to happen with the Affordable Care Act subsidies, what's going to happen in future

08:12policymaking when it comes to things we disagree with, when you just assume what is current policy,

08:20rather than having us vote on said policy. I've seen a lot of messaging and rhetoric coming from

08:28very good friends of mine, talking about how it's somehow anathema or accepting leftist dogma to say

08:38and to ask the question about a policy baseline about whether or not that is foregoing our responsibility

08:45to do the math. You can believe that the current tax rates that are x, whether it's for the lowest

08:53bracket or the highest, should stay the same. And I take on face value that many of my colleagues,

08:58the administration and myself included, would like them to stay at that level or even lower.

09:04That's my preference. But if you do that, you have to do math. What will be the impact then on revenue?

09:12And my colleagues, I think in the Senate in particular, because God bless the House,

09:16at least we've created a framework by which we were trying to do dollar for dollar. I realize

09:20my colleagues on the other side of the aisle disagreed with that. But I want to give credit

09:23to the Budget Committee Chairman for trying to hold a line of saying that there ought to at least be a

09:28connection. That we ought to at least say, if we're going to do the tax policy, at least do the spending

09:33policy. Have the courage and the fortitude to do what you campaign on when you're talking about

09:38balancing the dang budget. Don't just talk about it. Don't talk about balanced budget amendments,

09:43and then go home and say, look at me. I got a balanced budget amendment vote. Did it fail?

09:47Did it? Yeah. No, it failed. Yeah. Is it law? No. Right? Well, I mean, I got you your tax cuts,

09:53but ignore, ignore that inflation that is a result of $37 trillion of debt.

09:59My colleagues in the Senate failed us. My colleagues in the Senate failed us.

10:07They sent us a bill knowingly using a policy baseline gimmick. They sent it knowingly.

10:16And they sent it knowing that it was going to have increased deficits.

10:20Last question. I'm sorry. It's for my good friend from Texas, who I don't really want to put on the

10:25spot here in a way that's beyond, I think, the core question, but this matters.

10:31Regardless of what one thinks about these policies and wanting to be able to have the economic growth,

10:36I want the tax cuts to be permanent. I want all this stuff. But is it fair to say that the lion's

10:43share of the deficits will be in the first five years of the 10-year budget window? Is that fair to say?

10:50Yes, that's fair. Is that relatively irrefutably fair to say?

10:56It's irrefutable to my knowledge. The only way to refute the idea that in the first

11:03four to five years of the budget window that we will have significant deficits to the tune of

11:08probably close to $2 trillion, $1.8 trillion, even on a dynamic basis assuming the budget committee's

11:14number, that you have to make up for it in the tail in the last five years of the budget window.

11:19The only way to do that, to the best of my knowledge, is to assume more revenue for tariffs

11:25and assume higher growth rates. So I think you have to assume, I haven't done the exact math,

11:32three to three and a half percent growth over 10 years, which I hope we have and we should aspire to

11:37get, and tariff revenue at the rate that we currently are bringing it in or more, which CBO has scored,

11:44two CBO's math, $2.8 trillion, I just did that from memory, something like that. So it'd be about $280

11:50billion a year. So you have to assume that tariff revenue and assume, call it three and a half percent

11:55roughly growth. Then you start to kind of wash out what we're doing in Congress by our choice.

12:04Everything we just said, we're leaving essentially administration to go carry out.

12:07If I'm characterized anything incorrectly, does anybody want to challenge what I just said mathematically?

12:20With that, I will yield back.

12:23Thank you, Mr. Roy. Ms. Ledger-Fernandez, you're recognized.

12:26Ms. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

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