Washington, D.C. — In a video, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) breaks down the flawed Republican budget resolution up for a vote in the Senate tonight and their plan to provide tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.
View the video HERE. Download the video HERE.
Key Excerpt:
[…] Here’s where Republicans are running into trouble, and that is, they want to give massive tax cuts for super rich people and corporations. And why? Well, it has a lot to do with this promise that Donald Trump made to his rich donors. Take a look.
Trump (in clip): You all people that have a lot of money. I know 20 of you, and you’re rich as hell. We’re going to give you tax cuts, we’re going to pay you off our debt, we’re going to do all of the things that we have –
Schiff: So that was Donald Trump during the campaign saying, “Hey, I know my supporters are ultra rich, and with me, you’re going to have lower taxes.” So, that’s their priority. That’s really been driving Elon Musk and DOGE to make all these cuts, but that was child’s play compared to what they’re trying to do in the budget bill and the reconciliation bill that follows. So, they’re going to want to make massive cuts to health care for people. They’re going to go after Social Security. They’re going to go after our schools and our education. They’re going to go after whatever they can to fund this tax cut.
[…]
They’re going to cut taxes for rich people and large corporations, and they’re going to pay for it two ways. They’re going to pay for it with funny math that explodes the deficit, and they’re going to pay for it by taking away your health care, by taking away your vital services, by closing down your local hospital, by closing down your local clinic, by cutting special ed to your kids in school, and they’re going to do all this so that Donald Trump can meet this promise.
Read the full transcript below:
Schiff: So, I’m about to head to the Senate floor for a vote-a-rama, which prompts a very important question, what the hell is a vote-a-rama? Well, the vote-a-rama is part of the process known as reconciliation, which prompts another very important question, which is, what the hell is reconciliation? So tonight, I’m going to try to explain what this is before I head to the Senate floor. And bear with me, because this is complicated, but I’m gonna try to make it really simple.
So, let’s start with a very basic fact of life in the Senate, with the filibuster — there’s another term. The filibuster essentially means that even though we’re a membership of 100 people, in order to pass something, you need more than a simple majority. You need more than 51. You need 60 votes. Otherwise, you can filibuster, meaning you can talk to death, or you can prevent things from coming to the Senate floor. But there are some narrow exceptions to the filibuster, and one of them is a process called reconciliation. So, what is that? Well, it’s a two-step process. First, you need to pass a budget, and then second, you go to reconciliation. And the requirement has to be, if you’re going to evade this 60-vote requirement, the process has to result in something that is deficit neutral. That is, it won’t add to the debt and deficit. It’s got to be a fiscal matter. You can’t use reconciliation for unrelated policy matters. It has to be fiscal and it can’t raise the debt or deficit. So, that brings us to today. This device known as reconciliation begins with a budget bill in which both houses of Congress have to pass the same budget bill, setting out the broad parameters, telling committees you need to cut this amount or you need to cut that amount. And then it goes to the second bill, which is the reconciliation bill, where you actually have to set out in detail, “Okay, that means we’re going to cut Medicaid by 880 billion, and we’re going to cut something else by X billion, and we’re going to provide a tax cut that provides so many billion you actually have to go into particulars.”
Today is the budget bill. So, it’s step one in this process. And here’s the thing, here’s where Republicans are running into trouble, and that is, they want to give massive tax cuts for super rich people and corporations. And why? Well, it has a lot to do with this promise that Donald Trump made to his rich donors. Take a look.
Trump (in clip): You all people that have a lot of money. I know 20 of you, and you’re rich as hell. We’re going to give you tax cuts, we’re going to pay you off our debt, we’re going to do all of the things that we have –
Schiff: So that was Donald Trump during the campaign saying, “Hey, I know my supporters are ultra rich, and with me, you’re going to have lower taxes.” So, that’s their priority. That’s really been driving Elon Musk and DOGE to make all these cuts, but that was child’s play compared to what they’re trying to do in the budget bill and the reconciliation bill that follows. So, they’re going to want to make massive cuts to health care for people. They’re going to go after Social Security. They’re going to go after our schools and our education. They’re going to go after whatever they can to fund this tax cut. Now, a big piece of this tax cut is the continuation of Trump’s last tax cuts, which expire at the end of this year. Now, extending them alone costs trillions and trillions of dollars. In fact, the estimate is that if this tax proposal goes through, it will blow up our deficit and debt. It will add 37 trillion to the debt over the next 30 years. Now, to put that in perspective, that means the debt of the country will double. When you’re in a hole, and we are fiscally in a hole, stop digging. This would dig the hole twice as deep. So how can they do that if a requirement of reconciliation is that it be budget neutral or deficit neutral. How can they do that? Well, they have to use phony math. So, what’s that phony math that they’re going to use? Their phony math is they’re going to pretend that if they’re continuing existing policy, something called current policy baseline. If they continue current policy, it doesn’t cost anything. So, they’re going to engage in the fiction that they can extend the Trump tax cuts that expire at the end of the year, and it doesn’t cost anything. But of course, that may get them through this hurdle of reconciliation. It may get them to where they can pass this with just a majority vote. But it doesn’t mean the funny math is going to work for the American people. It will explode our deficit and debt. It’s a con. It’s a con. And reminds me, frankly, of this scene from “The Distinguished Gentleman.”
[Movie clip plays]
Schiff: So, that’s the con. They’re going to use this phony math. Now that takes us to this moment, the vote on this first bill, the budget bill. And then they’ll bring us the detailed reconciliation bill. But tonight we have the vote-a-rama, so what the hell is that vote-a-rama? Well, normally, outside of this process called reconciliation, the minority party, which are the Democrats don’t even get to offer amendments. They don’t have to be heard. The majority party controls everything. There are some very few privileged motions, but by and large, our amendments don’t get heard, except for in this process. In this process, we have 25 hours to offer any amendment we want. Now, why is that important? When they have the power to vote these things down? Because it allows us to force them to go on record. If you’re going to cut health care for seniors, then you damn well need to vote for it, and you need to be held accountable to your voters. So, we offer an amendment saying that nothing in this bill can reduce medical services to the elderly, and we force them to vote on it. We offer an amendment that says nothing in this bill can cut services to veterans at the VA, and we make them vote on it. We make them own it. We make them own it, so that when they have to face voters, when they go to town halls, they have to explain themselves. And good luck with that because these cuts will be devastating.
So, we’re going to have hours and hours up through the night of amendments that we’re going to offer and force them to go on the record. This is the first step in the process. If they get through this, and they probably will, then they’ll come back with this detailed bill, and that is where the rubber will really hit the road, because then we’ll know, with great specificity, how they are cutting the health care for the American people.
So, just to recap, two-step process, the budget bill we’re taking up now, then the reconciliation — the more detailed bill later. And top line, they’re going to cut taxes for rich people and large corporations, and they’re going to pay for it two ways. They’re going to pay for it with funny math that explodes the deficit, and they’re going to pay for it by taking away your health care, by taking away your vital services, by closing down your local hospital, by closing down your local clinic, by cutting special ed to your kids in school, and they’re going to do all this so that Donald Trump can meet this promise.
Trump (in clip): 20 of you and you’re rich as hell. We’re going to give you tax cuts.
Schiff: But I’m going to make a promise too, and that is, I’m going to fight this every way I can.
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