One Big Beautiful Bill
Mr. President, as I said earlier and I predicted earlier, our Democrat colleagues have come out totally mischaracterizing this bill. So let me just go through this again very slowly so that they can watch it and listen. The question really…
Mr. President, as I said earlier and I predicted earlier, our Democrat colleagues have come out totally mischaracterizing this bill. So let me just go through this again very slowly so that they can watch it and listen.
The question really is, Is this a bill that helps working Americans or is this a bill that helps billionaires? Again, let me just pause on the irony that it wasn't too long ago when they were saying millionaires until they themselves realized that they became millionaires. Forgive me. Different topic.
If you take out a car loan for an American-made automobile and you can deduct that interest, the bill, in the text, specifies that you cannot make more than $100,000 per year. I think by definition, somebody who makes less than $100,000 a year is not a billionaire. So it is indisputable that that part of the bill does not help billionaires; it helps working Americans. Notice that was not addressed.
Second, no tax on overtime. I don't think there are a lot of billionaires that punch a clock. That is clearly something that helps working Americans.
No income tax on tips. Once again, I don't see a lot of billionaires serving us at restaurants or taking care of us at nail salons or barbershops. It is clearly something that helps working Americans. As I predicted, they did not address that particular provision.
No tax on Social Security, and that is capped at $150,000 in income-- again, by definition, not a billionaire.
A $5,000 tax increase is prevented. That does not help billionaires; it helps working Americans that don't want to see their taxes go up. They didn't address that.
Now, when 10 million illegals invade this country and drive down our wages, drive up our housing costs, do you think Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk is worried about the price of housing? Jeff Bezos just had a $55 million wedding in Italy. I don't think he is worried about his housing costs going up.
I don't think there are a lot of criminal aliens who are going to Beverly Hills or Palo Alto or Martha's Vineyard to buy homes. They are going to places like Springfield, OH, where we saw our average rents go from about $1,000 to two or three times that amount because we had a surge of 18,000 aliens in a city of 50,000 people. Insurance prices went up because we had a massive amount of car accidents and crashes. That is the real world. That happens, and that affects working Americans. What this bill does is it deports them.
Now, what isn't said by my Democrat colleagues is that they have a lot of their friends that love criminal-alien labor. They can't complain. They get paid a lot less money. That doesn't benefit working Americans. Working Americans don't have five gardeners and three nannies and a house in Martha's Vineyard, but my Democrat colleagues' friends sure do. Go spend a summer in Martha's Vineyard; you will see exactly what I mean. You will see decadence unlike anything you have never seen in your life--$30, $40 million homes, private jets to get there. Do you know what they do? They sip cappuccinos in the morning, talking about climate change when they heat and cool their homes 365 days a year. That is who funds the Democratic Party today. It is quite sad, honestly, because the Democratic Party used to be the party of the working class. It used to be the party that would champion the things in this bill.
There is a $2,200 child tax credit. Do you think that billionaires are really going to think about $2,200 as a child tax credit as something that is really going to motivate them? Do you think billionaires are going to rush out and get married and have kids because they are going to get a $2,200 child tax credit or do you think it is going to allow them to buy groceries?
The Democrat leader spoke about SNAP benefits and taking food away from children. Those are the kinds of hyperbolic statements that I think all of us here in the U.S. Senate should be above. Nobody is suggesting that we take food literally out of the hands of children, but what their policies did do over the last 4 years--inadvertently maybe; I will give them credit--was raise grocery prices to the point where working Americans had to make a decision at the cash register on whether to buy something or not.
I saw it with my own eyes. I saw it with my own eyes when I went to Giant Eagle in Westlake, OH, and I would see people come in to buy groceries, and they would have to make a decision--maybe the bigger cereal box, they can't do it. They have to go to generics instead of the Kellogg's because their grocery bill is just too high. Imagine what that feels like. You are a working American. You worked your whole life. In front of your children, you have to say look at them and say: I can't afford to get you cereal today. I can't afford to get you that extra snack you want.
They drove up the price of inflation. The One Big Beautiful Bill will lower it. They didn't talk about that.
They didn't talk about the $1,000 fund that goes in for American citizens. Again, do you think billionaires care whether $1,000 goes into a fund that could be maybe $100, $200,000 when those kids turn 25, 30 years old? I don't think that makes a difference to Jeff Bezos. I think his children will be just fine. It is something that helps working Americans. Again, they don't address that.
At least be honest about your objection to the bill, and their objection to the bill is pretty straightforward: They don't want President Trump to get a win.
Let's talk about healthcare. Do you think the billionaires worry about their healthcare premiums? Working Americans do. What are we doing? We are preserving these healthcare programs for the people who need them. We are strengthening Medicaid.
What they have allowed to happen is that States have been gaming the Federal Government, drawing down funds to pay for other projects and other benefits. And the people who are going to be eliminated from the Medicaid system are illegal migrants. We shall see whether in this bill they object to that provision, because in our current draft--again, they don't refer to this--it says that you cannot receive any welfare programs unless you are an American citizen. They will have the opportunity to object and remove that from the bill. That doesn't help billionaires, but it does crush working Americans.
They didn't talk about the dangers all over the world. Congo and Rwanda just signed a peace deal in the White House yesterday. Pakistan and India averted a massive war. We now have a cease-fire between Iran and Israel. In 6 months, President Trump has brought peace and prosperity around the world. But our military was depleted because they insisted on funding a proxy war with Russia. We are fixing that.
They didn't talk about the investment in the Coast Guard. They would leave that out because, again, they want you to think that this bill is about billionaires. It certainly is not.
They didn't talk about the air traffic control system. My colleague has been here almost as long as I have been alive. He had the opportunity when he controlled this Chamber, controlled the House, controlled the Presidency, to fund a modernization of our air traffic control system. He didn't do it. He isn't talking about that.
Let's talk about the Green New Deal--the green new scam. Let's talk about that for a second. Let me just walk you through it if you are not familiar with what this is.
Let's say that you want to build a solar project, for example, in London, OH. You can go out and buy acres of land for way more than market value. Why? Because the Federal Government will pay you 30 percent of what you think the project is worth.
Let me just repeat that for a second. Let's say that a project is going to cost you $10 million to build. The Federal Government will pay you 30 percent of what you think it is worth. That is in the Inflation Reduction Act. It is what they call fair market value.
So let's say you find a friendly appraiser that says: Hey, this solar project is really worth $30 million. The Federal Government will write you a check for $9 million of the $10 million it costs to build that project.
If you are really savvy, you then go to a bank and say: Hey, look, I have this project that is worth all this money. Can you give me a loan?
Maybe they get half--$5 million. Before it produces 1 electron, you have put $4 million in your pocket. Do you really care if the project succeeds? Why would you? You just made out like a bandit.
This is why the Inflation Reduction Act, when it was passed, was supposed to cost about $1 trillion, and it is costing exponentially more than that. These are scams on the American people.
Now, in Ohio, we have thousands of years of natural gas, thousands of years--the cleanest energy you can imagine, the most abundant, reliable energy. What did the Democrats,
through the administration, do? Completely kneecapped it--and liquid natural gas exports; made it virtually impossible to explore for new natural gas; removed permits from Federal lands; canceled the Keystone Pipeline. Who did that affect? Do you think that billionaire buddy of one of my colleagues who has a compound on Martha's Vineyard cares if his energy price went up 30 percent?
By the way, he doesn't even pay the bill. He has somebody who he knows that has somebody beneath him that has somebody beneath them that actually pays the bills. He has no idea if his energy price went up 30 percent. It wouldn't even affect their life.
I was with somebody in Martha's Vineyard a couple or 3 years ago. They gave a quote that I will never forget. I want to put this into the Record. It was a quote from one of my Democrat colleagues. Now, in the spirit of decorum, I will not mention their name, but here is the quote.
In front of a $35 million home that most of the guests flew their private jets to, that had several boats anchored--with, by the way, gigantic outboard engines that used probably 30 gallons of gas every 5 minutes--they said the following quote--are you ready, Mr. President, for this quote? ``If you want to live like a Republican, vote for a Democrat.''
Think about how callous that is. He said the quiet part out loud.
I am proud that the Presiding Officer and I are part of a new Republican Party. I think the Presiding Officer and I represent a new vision of the Republican Party, a party that is about helping working Americans actually live a better life. That is why I am here. I know that is why the Presiding Officer is here, and I know that is why the Presiding Officer and I are so proud of this bill.
And, again, I will close with this, and I know there is lots of noise out there right now all over this building. We have an opportunity for the first time--first time--in American history to say that in this Chamber, in this Congress, with this President, we are going to make the lives of working Americans better the way I just outlined.
And while my colleagues--I don't expect them, it would be kind of, quite honestly, odd for them to agree with us on everything. Just don't lie. Just don't come out here on the floor and say this is a bill for billionaires. This is a bill for working Americans. And I would challenge any of my colleagues that are going to speak that when they make those statements, reference the page number and the exact line in the bill that helps billionaires, just point that out.
And by the way, on these solar scams, we are not banning solar panels; we are not banning windmills. What we are saying is we are not going to make you filthy rich if you build one of these projects. But if you want to build a solar panel project somewhere in Ohio, you can do it. You are just not going to do it with massive subsidies from the Federal Government.
So, again, I will urge all of my colleagues, let's unite as a party. Let's show the American people that Republicans have the ability to govern; that we can come together to pass a transformative and historical bill.
I yield the floor.