| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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| The Senate held party caucus lunches today. | ||
| Party leaders spoke with reporters after their meetings. | ||
| Here's a look. | ||
| Good afternoon. | ||
| Everybody having fun yet? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ask us about 3.45 Sunday morning. | |
| Yeah, okay. | ||
| Well, you can join our lunches. | ||
| It's very stimulating. | ||
| We are making good headway on the reconciliation bill. | ||
| As you all know, this is the legislation that we believe implements the president's agenda and makes our country safer, stronger, and more prosperous. | ||
| And if you look at how it achieves those objectives and certainly on the tax side of it, it makes it easier for American families to make ends meet by giving them significant tax relief in several ways. | ||
| It locks in and makes permanent the lower tax rates that were part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. | ||
| It allows for a permanent extension of the increased, the expanded child tax credit. | ||
| And it also makes permanent the increased standard deduction, which 90% of the people in this country claim. | ||
| And then on top of that, a number of President Trump's initiatives deal with no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, lower taxes on seniors in this country, and no tax on interest on new loans for cars. | ||
| So those are all things that the President has included. | ||
| They're included in our package. | ||
| They were included in the House package. | ||
| But we think they are important in terms of the message they center to the American people. | ||
| And that is that we want to allow you to keep more of what you earn so that you can spend it and make decisions that are in the best interest of your family instead of sending that money to Washington, D.C. Couple that with what it does on modernizing our military, making the country safer, what it does with respect to securing our border and making our country more secure that way. | ||
| These are all important aspects and components of the reconciliation legislation that's in front of us. | ||
| And we feel very good about the path that we're on and getting this across the finish line by the end of the week. | ||
| So with that, I will yield to our whip, Senator Barroso. | ||
| Republicans were elected to provide safety and prosperity for the American people. | ||
| Democrats lost the last election because they were the party of high prices and open borders. | ||
| The sooner we can pass this comprehensive economic plan, the sooner the American people will see the benefits that will come from this legislation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The leaders just talked about a number of those things. | |
| Higher wages, lower prices, lower taxes, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, lower taxes on our seniors. | ||
| All of these things are critically important. | ||
| Now, the Democrats have said they're going to do everything they can to defeat this bill. | ||
| If that happens, the American people will see the largest tax increase in the history of this country. | ||
|
unidentified
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We cannot allow that to happen. | |
| I've said it before, the Democrats are also the party of historically high taxes. | ||
| We're there to provide safety, security, and prosperity for the American people. | ||
|
unidentified
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We're ready to get America back on track. | |
| I really do think this will be an historic week because of what's going to happen with the American family, whether it's keeping taxes low, as we did in 2017, keeping those, whether it's the child tax credit making it permanent, which will give families a lot of reassurance as they move into paying their taxes. | ||
| We also create a savings account for every child born in this country. | ||
| Now, we talk about, you know, some of our, let's say, Social Security that's supposed to be in 2023 or 2033 have some difficulty, a lot of difficulties. | ||
| What if we start saving? | ||
| We have that savings account beginning the day you're born. | ||
| That's going to be really, I think, wonderful for families all across the country. | ||
| Helps with adoptions. | ||
| This is a family bill. | ||
| This is a family bill from beginning to end. | ||
| The small business tax credits that are in here are going to be made permanent. | ||
| Secretary Bessant believes, he said this to us today, as I believe, that this will be the biggest growth portion of the bill that will lead to a lot of capital expenditures, more people working at higher wages. | ||
| One other aspect of the bill, of course, is the border security bill. | ||
| Part. | ||
| This is very important. | ||
| I was privileged on Monday to host Secretary Christy Noam to come to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where we have the Advanced Training Center for our Border Patrol agents, where we train over 16,000 a year to meet the challenges on our southern and our northern borders. | ||
| And she talked a lot about the progress that the president has made in terms of border security. | ||
| But without this bill, that progress would be stopped in its tracks. | ||
| We need to move forward with border security to make sure that we're safer, but also those agents that we're training and the advanced training they're receiving in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia at the Advanced Training Center makes their job safe and the service they're doing for this country much appreciated. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Thanks, Shilly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you expect, even if the bill is going to pass, that you at least have two to three members on your side who would vote no? | |
| Could be. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why? | |
| Why? | ||
| Well, we've got a lot of very independent thinking senators and who have reasons and things that they'd like to have in this bill that would, in their view, make it stronger. | ||
| But at the end of the day, this is a process whereby not everybody's going to get what they want. | ||
| And we have to get to 51 in the United States Senate. | ||
| We are moving toward that objective. | ||
| I'm hopeful at the end that we'll have the requisite number of votes to pass it. | ||
| And we just had Secretary Besson, as you I know, heard from, come in and speak to us about why it's important to get the bill done and why it's important that we get it done in a timely way. | ||
| And so we're looking forward to progressing on the bill this week. | ||
| And hopefully when a push comes to shove and everybody has to say yes or no, we'll get the number of votes that we need. | ||
|
unidentified
|
As a member of the Gang of A, do you agree with the assessment from President Trump that the key nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran have been completely and totally obliterated? | |
| Well, I don't, I'm not sure I have, you might want to hear from Senator Cotton, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, an answer on the full extent. | ||
| But we know for sure that their nuclear program was set back considerably, and that is a victory not only for that region but for our country's national security interests. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On rural hospitals, some senators say that is not only the biggest sticking point, but that Senate Republican leadership does not have a plan to address it, specifically the provider tax. | |
| Can you guarantee that rural hospitals will not lose millions of funding and millions of Americans won't be left without insurance? | ||
| We are working on a solution for rural hospitals. | ||
| And that's something that's been in the works now for several days in response to a number of concerns that our colleagues have mentioned about ensuring that the impact on rural hospitals be lessened, be mitigated. | ||
| And I think we're making good headway on that solution. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How do you expect, can I ask you about the schedule? | |
| Text is going to come out Wednesday or Thursday. | ||
| Can you break it down? | ||
| Motion to proceed on the bill first vote on Thursday or Friday. | ||
| Can you provide any clarity there? | ||
| And you've got a couple colleagues who are outspoken with their complaints here. | ||
| How are you confident that you'll have the 15 votes you need to receive? | ||
| Well, I just think when push comes to shove, you're looking at whether or not you're going to allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. | ||
| And there are a lot of things in this bill, as I pointed out. | ||
| It modernizes the military. | ||
| It secures the border. | ||
| It brings tax relief to working families. | ||
| It has the biggest spending reduction in history. | ||
| And it restores energy dominance for our country. | ||
| I mean, I think there is so much good in this, and people sit down and evaluate how they're going to land in the end. | ||
| You have to recognize that this is a process whereby everybody doesn't get everything they want. | ||
| But I think we produced a bill working with the House, working with the White House, that will get the requisite number of Republican senators to vote for it so that we can pass it, get it back to the House. | ||
| Hopefully, they can take it up and pass it and put it on the The President's desk. |