At today's House Budget Committee hearing, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) tore into the GOP reconciliation budget bill.
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00:00Now yield three minutes to my friend and fellow Texan who's done a fantastic job,
00:06played a key role in fashioning the initial framework we call the budget resolution.
00:13And I want to thank him for his service and his friendship.
00:16Mr. Chip Roy, three minutes.
00:18I appreciate my friend from Texas, the chairman, and there my Democratic colleagues go again,
00:23telling things that are not true.
00:25The vast majority of Americans will get tax benefits under this bill.
00:28It's just simply false to say that that's not true.
00:31Hardworking Americans will benefit from the standard deduction increase.
00:34Hardworking Americans will benefit from child tax credits and lower tax rates.
00:37Stop saying things that aren't true.
00:40Those things are true.
00:41The fact is we have money in here for border to undo the damage of Joe Biden.
00:45We have more money in here for the defense to undo the damage of Joe Biden.
00:49But we also address Medicaid and Medicaid spending goes up.
00:52Stop lying.
00:53Medicaid spending goes up.
00:54My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are profoundly unserious when it comes to being real about what's happening with the numbers.
01:01I applaud Chairman Arrington.
01:02I applaud my colleagues on this side of the aisle for taking a step forward in dealing with the spending problem in this town.
01:08But I have to now admonish my colleagues on this side of the aisle.
01:11This bill falls profoundly short.
01:13It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits.
01:16The fact of the matter is on the spending, what we're dealing with here on tax cuts and spending, a massive front-loaded deficit increase.
01:25That's the truth.
01:27That's the truth.
01:28Deficits will go up in the first half of the 10-year budget window, and we all know it's true.
01:33And we shouldn't do that.
01:35We shouldn't say that we're doing something we're not doing.
01:38The fact of the matter is this bill has back-loaded savings and has front-loaded spending.
01:46Nowhere near the Senate budget top line, by the way.
01:50The Senate budget top line of $6.5 trillion, which, by the way, is what we were pre-COVID, inflation-adjusted, on interest, on Medicare and Social Security.
02:01And if we would reform Medicaid, we could actually get to the core of the problem.
02:05But we refused to do it.
02:07And I'm not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory when this is the budget committee.
02:13This is the budget committee.
02:15We are supposed to do something to actually result in balanced budgets.
02:19But we're not doing it.
02:20Look at what happens under deficits.
02:22By the way, this chart includes growth.
02:25This chart demonstrates economic growth.
02:28And right here, what do you see?
02:30Baseline in the orange columns are the deficits under the House budget, assuming growth.
02:38Only in Washington are we expected to bet on the come that in five years, then everything will work.
02:45Then we will solve the problem.
02:47We have got to change the direction of this town.
02:50And to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, yes, that means touching Medicaid.
02:53It went from $400 billion in 2019 to $600 billion this year.
02:58It will be over a trillion in the 2030s.
03:00We are making promises that we cannot keep.
03:02We do need to reform it.
03:04We need to stop giving seven times as much money to the able-bodied over the vulnerable.
03:08Why are we sticking it to the vulnerable population, the disabled and the sick, to give money to single, able-bodied male adults?
03:15We shouldn't do that.
03:16We should reform it.
03:18But guess what?
03:18That message needs to be delivered to my colleagues on this side of the aisle, too.
03:22We are writing checks we cannot cash.
03:25And our children are going to pay the price.
03:27So I am a no on this bill unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday.
03:33We're having conversations as we speak, but something needs to change or you're not going to get my support.
03:39I yield back.
03:46We've done a pretty good job of conducting ourselves professionally.
03:49So if you've got sidebar comments, either side, use your three minutes to sound off, okay?
03:57Mr. Chair, we're not allowed to use the word lying about one another, either.
04:02So that decorum should go both ways.
04:05Well, I'd encourage people not to say that.
04:09Everybody's got to be responsible for the things that they say in this committee.
04:13But I also associate myself with Mr. Chip Roy.
04:17A whole lot of work is still left undone, and I look forward to joining him and making sure that we strengthen
04:26many of these spending reform measures before the ink dries.
04:30But with that.