Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Republicans Trying To Hide The True Cost And Cruelty Of The “Big, Ugly Betrayal”

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the “Big, Ugly Betrayal,” which will kill millions of jobs, gut healthcare for over 16 million Americans, and take food off families’ tables. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks:

I thank my colleagues for coming to the floor all day today.

I thank them for speaking so fiercely and so clearly about what’s at stake for the country.

The American people deserve to see this debate. That's why last night we forced a reading of the bill.

Republicans don't want to know and don't want people to know what's in the bill. They want to hide it. They know it's not popular. We all know it's not popular. We all know it's totally against what people want.

But a small cabal of very wealthy people and hard MAGA people run that show, to the detriment of the party itself, and of course, to the American people. So, we forced a reading of the bill last night and allowed people to catch up because the amended bill was put on the floor before the reading started.

So, we're here today to continue to shine a light on how bad this bill is.

And this debate will continue.

Soon, we’ll turn to vote-a-rama and bring amendment after amendment after amendment to the floor, so Republicans can defend their billionaire tax cuts and so they can try to explain their massive cuts to Medicaid to people back home.

They will have to explain why kids who need health care shouldn't get it so they can give tax breaks to millionaires. Or why middle class families who have someone in a nursing home who is now going to be removed from that nursing home because it’s going to close what they’re going to do.

They will have to try and sell to parents and kids why they’re making unprecedented cuts to SNAP.

Taking food from hungry babies for a tax cut for wealthy people – what kind of world do these Republicans live in? It's a slanted world. It's really a corrupt world.

Kids will get $5 a day to feed themselves. You can't buy a dozen eggs for $5.

And then they're killing millions of good-paying jobs.

And by the way, the clean energy cuts are even worse.

Before this, it was estimated 850,000 jobs would be lost in America on clean energy alone, over a million jobs in health care. That’s two million jobs approximately lost, at least two million lost, because of this bill. That could create a recession.

So, this has been a long few days in the Senate, but the hardest choices for Republicans are still in front of them. Because we know so many of our colleagues on the other side aren’t happy with this bill. Senator Tillis is not an exception. There are many others who think the same way he does.

Well, they ought to vote their principles, their conscience, and what's good for their constituencies.

Our side is going to give our Republican colleagues a chance to do the right thing, in front of this chamber, in front of this nation.

The American people deserve to know exactly what is happening right now in the United States Senate.

Because right now, Republicans are concocting the ultimate rush job.

They are trying to pull off a sneak attack on this chamber and on the American people themselves.

The bill before the Senate is utter poison.

Some Republicans are trying to rush through a bill that they released less than two days ago, under the cloak of darkness, written behind closed doors, molded in order to appease Donald Trump and the very special, powerful interests.

Earlier today, my colleague from South Carolina came to the floor with a pretty interesting looking floor chart.

Where he claimed that his bill somehow reduced the debt by $500 billion. What a joke.

The Budget Chair respectfully needs to check his math, because somehow, Lindsey Graham, the Chairman of the Budget Committee, said that his bill reduces the debt by $500 billion.

The Budget Chair, respectfully, should check your his math. Because not one hour ago, the JCT confirmed this bill does not reduce the debt. It explodes it. It explodes it.

That's what it does. Here's what his chart should have looked like.

A $4.45 trillion deficit explosion.

According to the JCT, the Republican bill explodes the deficit by four and a half trillion dollars, as this chart, drawn slightly better than Lindsey’s, shows.

For those keeping score at home, my colleague got his math wrong by a whopping four trillion dollars.

All this, all this, just so that billionaires are rewarded while millions lose their health care – four point five deficit explosion.

And that’s not just an abstract concept. What does that mean?

The average American will pay more to buy a home. The average American will pay more to buy a car. The average American will pay more on their credit card debt. On issue, after issue, after issue, prices will go up because of this deficit and because of tax cuts for the billionaires.

That’s four point five trillion dollars all so some people – wealthy people, God bless them, they made a lot of money – can get a tax break.

Let it be known that this bill is the death knell of the supposed party of fiscal responsibility. We always knew that was a sham, and now this bill ends the charade of Republican caring about the debt for all coming time.

When they say they have to cut health care on any bill, or food stamps on any bill, because it reduces the deficit, we will know it’s utter hogwash because of four point five trillion they’re doing now for tax breaks for the wealthy.

So, Republicans want to move quickly.

That's why we're here on the weekend.

That's why they released the bill in the dead of night.

All because they want to hide the truth from the American people.

You know, it’s hard to believe, my colleagues, but this bill is worse – even worse – than any draft we have seen thus far.

Every time the bill comes to the floor, a new bill, a new amendment, the hard right handful over on the Republican side says they’re not voting for it unless you hurt kids more, you hurt people who need healthcare more, you hurt rural hospitals more, you hurt clean energy more. And the Republican leadership folds and does it.

And the mainstream, the handful of more mainstream Republicans who know how bad this is, right now haven’t had the backbone to oppose those changes. I hope they find one.

So, this bill is worse on healthcare.

It is worse on SNAP.

It will kill 900,000 good paying jobs in clean energy.

Folks, you don’t like paying your electricity bills?

You’ll pay 10% more on your electricity bills because of this “Big, Ugly Betrayal.”

It will also kill almost a million health care jobs.

You put it all together and there’s no other way to put it: at the very last minute, Senate Republicans made the bill even more extreme, to cater to the radicals in the House and Senate.

Republicans want to hide the truth so badly, in fact, that they're even ready to blow up the Senate rules to get it done.

Senate Republicans are doing something that has never been done before in this chamber. Never – by Democrats or Republicans.

They are using fake math and budgetary hocus pocus to make it seem like their gargantuan tax breaks for billionaires is going to cost virtually nothing.

That's insane. That is total delusional.

Current Policy Baseline doesn’t take into account that actual budget numbers show these cuts expiring, so when you put it back up again, the deficit increases. It’s simple math. It’s second grade math. But our colleagues, again in a frenzy to help billionaires, are willing even to do that.

Republicans know it too. That's why they're squirming. You can see sort of on the faces on the floor – they don’t look very happy because they know how bad this is.

They can use whatever budgetary gimmicks they want to make their math work on paper, but you can't paper over the real consequences of adding trillions and trillions to the debt in one fell swoop.

And CBO – nonpartisan – and everyone who looks at this says it’s going to increase the deficit. The so-called party of deficit hawks, that’s out the window.

And what will happen if they pass this bill? If they do, I hope they won’t.

You know what's going to happen if Republicans pass this bill at a time like this?

Our children and grandchildren are going to be faced with a lifetime of higher borrowing costs.

As I said, mortgage costs, the costs to borrow a car, cost of a credit card, the cost to start a business will go up.

The economic ceiling of this country will close in on itself.

The economic engine that has been the driver of American innovation and growth and optimism for so many generations will sputter and ossify with this four point four five trillion dollar deficit.

It is deeply irresponsible to future generations, to our children, to our grandchildren, to pass this bill.

And that’s not just members of this side of the aisle saying it.

Independent experts across the political spectrum, many of them very conservative Republicans who are at least honest about what they’re doing, say it too.

Plenty of Republicans in both the House and Senate have said it.

It remains to be seen if their words and their actions will align.

And the question has to be asked, why is this even happening? Why is this nightmare of a bill moving forward?

Why are Republicans forcing our country down this ruinous road when they know the fiscal harms, when they know this is a rush job?

We know why by now – tax cuts to billionaires and corporate special interests.

And not just another round, but in fact they make them permanent. Our children, our grandchildren are going to be saddled with these cuts so that a handful of billionaires get a big break.

All while working people lose their Medicaid, while hungry kids lose access to food funding, while clean energy jobs that support so many Republican communities are taken away.

I say to my Republican friends: when that plant that makes batteries or wind or solar closes, or the person employing hundreds of people to put panels on people's roofs all fold and people lose their jobs, don't shrug your shoulders and say, I don't know why that happened.

You made it happen with a nasty bill. It just makes no sense.

We need more energy because of AI. Everyone says we need more energy. And to take away the cheapest, quickest way to put more electrons on the grid – solar –  makes no sense.

Except, we know Donald Trump has an irrational, infantile mania against clean energy, so they all listen to him. It makes no sense.

This bill is the sabotaging of America.

It is so antithetical to what the country needs.

It is so antithetical to what the American people demanded last fall.

And our Republican colleagues don't even want to tell the American people the truth.

That's why Democrats are here on the floor today, sounding the alarm, setting the record straight.

I also must say this: the way this bill is being passed so deeply violates the spirit of the Senate.

The majority forgets that this chamber is unlike any other institution in government.

It is meant to facilitate debate, careful consideration, sound judgment, honest numbers.

We're supposed to resist the passions of radical extremes.

We're supposed to hold the line against policies that will devastate our country.

We're supposed to resist the gravitational pull of extremists like Donald Trump, who gets these little bugaboos in his head and then wrecks America because of it, and they all go along.

Senate Republicans are turning their back on the Senate's longstanding tradition of debate and deliberation.

By rushing this bill, by upending the rules of the chamber, by engaging in what amounts to accounting magic to hide the cost of their bill, Republicans, simply put, are accelerating the erosion of the Senate.

Senate Republicans are turning their back to what makes this institution great.

More importantly, they're turning their back on people on their own constituents, on their own communities, on people struggling to afford going to see the doctor.

What do you do if you have a child with cancer and you don't have health care? How can we put people in that position?

Or families who have to choose between paying for groceries or paying for prescription drug costs, or families who are watching their electricity bills go up and up and up, or families who are paying more and more costs.

America, you don't want to pay higher costs. We don't want you to on our side of the aisle. The Republicans are making it happen. You will pay more and more and more.

And about the future? They're not worried about our kids' livelihood. They're not worried that kids won't be able to find good-paying jobs.

Families are worried about the future of this country, but the Republicans are not.

And Americans are worried about the continued radicalization of leaders in government. And here’s a shining example.

So, the bill is the wrong answer for the American people.

By every objective standard, it is deeply irresponsible.

It is a violation not only of how the Senate is supposed to work, it is a violation of the promise that Republicans and Donald Trump when they campaigned made to the American people to look after their issues, not those at the very top.

So, I implore my Republican colleagues, there's still time.

Abandon these terrible policies.

We'll continue to have this debate in a real way, not jamming it through in the dark of night.

My Democratic colleagues will continue exposing the truth.

And if Republicans go down that road, we will continue to make sure today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, that the American people know exactly what happened here.

I assure my Republican colleagues that this vote will not be forgotten.

Their betrayal will not go unanswered.

This bill must not stand.

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