'I'm Not Exaggerating': Chris Deluzio Sounds Off On GOP's 'Reckless' Big Beautiful Bill

Forbes Breaking News

On "Forbes Newsroom" Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA) spoke about the Republicans' Big Beautiful Bill, and its impacts on working class Americans.

Transcript

00:00I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is Congressman

00:04Chris Deluzio, a member of the four-country caucus. Congressman, thank you so much for

00:08joining me. Hey Brittany, thanks for having me on. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, President

00:13Trump's nearly 1,000-page domestic policy legislation, was signed into law last week

00:19on 4th of July. You, along with every Democrat in the House, voted against it. So to start off

00:24the conversation, can you talk to us why you don't support this agenda? Well, I think it's pretty

00:31easy. The bill will take away health care and more from a lot of Americans to pay for pretty

00:35reckless tax giveaways, some of the richest, most powerful corporations and people who have ever

00:40lived, and all while jacking up our debt in the order of trillions of dollars. And I think it's

00:46important here, it wasn't just all Democrats who voted against the bill. You had some Republicans

00:50vote against the bill as well. It tells you there was some bipartisan opposition here, which I shared

00:57the concerns on all those fronts, whether it was health care or food assistance, the fiscal

01:02irresponsibility. I actually was just meeting with some of the leaders of the building trades in

01:08Western Pennsylvania, around Pittsburgh, talking about their concerns around the job-killing parts

01:13of this bill. Even the National Building Trades Union called it perhaps the biggest job-killing

01:19bill in the history of this country. And it did that, the bill, by taking away all of these tax

01:25credits that were investing in lots of good new energy sources that now will see those jobs go away.

01:32And so I think all those things together really punched a wallop here, packed a wallop that could

01:38really hurt a lot of people in my part of the world and all over the country. To your point, some

01:42Republicans in the House and Senate voted with Democrats against this bill. Senator Lisa Murkowski,

01:49she voted for it, but this is what she said while defending voting for the bill. Do I like this bill?

01:55No, but I tried to take care of Alaska's interests. But I know in many parts of the country, there are

02:00Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. What do you make of that type of thinking

02:05here that, hey, I mean, this is helping the constituents I serve in my state, but other

02:12Americans aren't going to be served by this bill? What do you make of that?

02:16Well, certainly lots of Americans are going to get hurt. And I think a lot of Alaskans will too.

02:20I don't represent Alaska, but I can see the numbers on the healthcare cuts and all the rest or what it

02:25would mean for her constituents, just the same as it would mean for mine. And I think our jobs are to

02:30fight hard for the people we represent and to fight hard for the country. And I look at this

02:35as the bill isn't, isn't just bad for Western Pennsylvania, where we see there are a bunch

02:40of hospitals at risk of closing. I've been hearing about concerns around nursing homes too.

02:45Again, lots of folks who will lose, they'll lose their healthcare, but that's playing out all

02:50across the country. And so to me, standing up for Western Pennsylvania means the same as standing up

02:55for all Americans and voting against this bill. And again, I think it's important that you saw both

03:02some Republicans and all Democrats oppose the bill. So to see that bipartisan opposition mattered.

03:09Economists largely have the same takeaway when it comes to this legislation,

03:12that the poorest in America actually stand to lose money when you factor in different cuts to

03:17different programs, and the richest in America will become richer. In your private conversations

03:22with Republicans, how are they squaring that?

03:25You know, I think they're doing some magical math around the cost of the bill and the way

03:32the tax giveaways at the very top are going to happen. And I think they're better suited than me

03:39to describe their rationale for supporting the bill. But the impact on the deficit and the debt is pretty

03:44clear. We're talking trillions of new debt that my kids and everyone's, you know, kids and grandkids

03:52for generations to come will be stuck paying for. And I'm someone who thinks hardworking people,

03:57working class people in this country could use a tax cut. I'm all for bringing down taxes for

04:02hardworking people. What I'm not for is taking away health care and food assistance to pay for tax

04:07giveaways for powerful and profitable corporations and for people, and I'm not exaggerating, people who

04:13make billions of dollars a year. We could have easily passed a tax cut bill targeted for working

04:19class and middle class Americans. And we didn't have to do anything like take away health care to pay

04:24for tax giveaways at the very top, all while jacking up the debt through deficits each year. So I think

04:30it's fiscally reckless. And I really don't understand why the Republicans went down this path.

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