Mark Kelly Warns: The GOP-Backed Budget Resolution Is A Hand Out To ‘The Wealthiest People In The World’

yesterday

On Friday, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) delivered remarks on the Senate floor regarding who the Republican-backed budget resolution will affect most.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00The senator from Arizona. Mr. President, across Arizona I am hearing from

00:07families who are doing everything right. They're working longer hours, sometimes

00:14two or three jobs, budgeting carefully, trying to save for their families and

00:20their children's futures. But they're still paying more at the grocery

00:25store, and more for rent, and barely making it from one paycheck to the next.

00:33One emergency, whether it's a car repair or a medical bill, could throw the entire

00:40monthly budget out of whack. That's what people are living every single day. So

00:49when they hear that Congress is once again debating another tax cut, but not

00:57for them, for billionaires and giant corporations, they wonder, who in

01:03Washington really cares about me? Who is Washington working for? This is a handout

01:12to a tiny fraction of some of the wealthiest people in the world, people

01:18who already have more money than they could spend in a lifetime. If you raise

01:25taxes on the billionaires and multi-millionaires, which is what we

01:31should be doing, they'd still be billionaires and multi-millionaires. But

01:37once again, Republicans want to instead cut their taxes, and working families are

01:45going to be the ones left holding the bill. Because this debate, it's not about

01:54numbers on a spreadsheet. This budget is about what gets cut to pay for those tax

02:02breaks. It's about which kid doesn't get a meal at school, which family loses

02:11their home to cover medical care for their kid or their parent, which patient

02:19skips the medical care they need because Congress decided that billionaires

02:27needed a bigger tax break. We don't need to guess what that looks like.

02:35Arizonans are already telling me. Angela from Phoenix works in school nutrition.

02:42She called my office to speak out against these budget cuts, and I'm going

02:47to quote her directly. This is a quote from Angela. I work in school nutrition,

02:52and I see how many students benefit from the school breakfast and national school

02:58lunch program. The national school lunch program is actually the second largest

03:06food nutrition assistance program behind SNAP. And when students participate in

03:12these school meal programs, their families benefit and the community

03:17benefits. This is still Angela here. If we keep making these cuts, we're going to

03:24harm people that are already hurting. People are already struggling out there.

03:33We're already struggling. We need these programs invested in, not divested from.

03:42And for what? To give cuts to rich people, to billionaires, while all of us

03:52suffer. It's not right. Mr. President, Angela is absolutely right. And Desiree

04:02from Phoenix wrote to me. She said, this is a quote, I am a hardworking Arizonan

04:09who is watching my family and community struggle while the wealthiest Americans

04:17get even richer. I have family members who are disabled and rely on government

04:23assistance, programs like SNAP and Social Security Disability Insurance. These

04:30aren't luxuries, she said. These are lifelines. And yet, their benefits are

04:37being cut while billionaires and massive corporations get even more tax breaks.

04:44This is still a quote from Desiree. Every time a tax policy favors the ultra wealthy,

04:50it takes food off the tables of families who are barely getting by. It forces

04:58people with disabilities to make impossible choices between rent,

05:02medication, and groceries. This is not the Arizona I believe in, she said.

05:11This is not the America I want to see. We need leaders who fight for us, the working

05:18people, the families who are doing everything right and still falling

05:24behind. We need tax policies that are fair, that hold the wealthiest accountable, and

05:32that protect the programs that keep our most vulnerable from being pushed even

05:39further into poverty. This is story number three from Nicholas. Now, Nicholas, he's a

05:46medical student from Arizona and he wrote to me about what these cuts would

05:51mean for him and his partner, who are both about to graduate with hundreds of

05:58thousands of dollars in student debt. And Nicholas said, Congress must pass a

06:06budget that benefits Americans instead of slashing funds to essential life-saving

06:13programs like Medicaid to finance tax breaks for the wealthy. He said, this is a quote,

06:22I would not have been able to afford health care during medical school

06:27without Medicaid. My partner is in the same position. Please consider people

06:33like us who rely on these programs so we can stay healthy and continue serving

06:39our communities as future physicians. And Lexi from Phoenix, who has had nine open

06:47heart surgeries. She's now in heart failure and she's disabled. Medicaid and

06:54SNAP are the only way that she can access the care, medications, and the food

07:01she needs to stay alive. Lexi said in this letter, she said, removing programs

07:09such as Medicaid and SNAP would be terribly detrimental to people like

07:14myself with disabilities. And she said, I myself, along with other patients with

07:21congenital heart disease, whether they be adults or young children looking to

07:28stand a chance in the world, would pass away. She said, she and others will

07:37die. She went on, in a way, I feel as this letter will be pushed aside and ignored.

07:49However, I am hopeful that this letter will actually hold to something for the

07:58members of the 119th Congress to actually make, to actually take a stand

08:05against Mr. Trump and his administration and their life-threatening agendas. Mr.

08:16President, every single one of these stories is a reminder of what's at stake

08:19here. These are the voices we should be listening to, not billionaire donors, not

08:29corporate lobbyists. And by the way, Elon Musk shouldn't be rigging the federal

08:37budget to give himself another tax break. Why is he allowed to do that? I'd

08:47rather listen to Nicholas and Desiree and Angela and Lexi. These are the people

08:54we should be listening to, not an unelected billionaire working for

09:01another billionaire, trying to give billionaires more tax breaks. Mr.

09:08President, Arizona families, they're paying attention. I'm sure Kansas families

09:13are as well. And they're asking us to do the right thing. These are the people who

09:21will pay the price if Senate Republicans move forward with this plan. And it's a

09:28steep price. And let's be clear, this is not the first time that we've seen this

09:35playbook. This is a rerun. In 2017, President Trump signed into law the so-

09:46called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That's what they called it. It slashed the tax rate

09:53for big corporations. It showered benefits to the top 1% and promised big

10:02things. It promised higher wages for workers. It promised a

10:07manufacturing boom and stronger economic growth. Now you want to know what really

10:14happened? Workers didn't get big raises. There was no manufacturing boom. Instead,

10:22corporations used the money to buy back stock and enrich their executives and

10:31their shareholders. Big surprise. According to the Center on Budget and

10:39Policy Priorities, the top 5% of earners received nearly half of the tax

10:46benefits. Think about that. The top 5%, they got half. A family making $30,000 a

10:55year, you know how much they got? 130 bucks. But those in the top 0.1%, the ones

11:04making more than $5 million, they got a $278,000 tax break. The rich got

11:13richer. Everybody else got screwed. And now, some of my colleagues, they want to

11:22do it again. They want to extend those tax breaks permanently. And they're

11:28trying to hide the true cost of this using a gimmick called the, get this, the

11:37current policy baseline. This is a pretend way to make these tax breaks

11:45look like they don't cost anything. But Mr. President, we know better. I think the

11:54American people know better. And according to the Committee for a

11:59Responsible Federal Budget, extending these tax cuts like they're planning to

12:03do would add over $4.5 trillion to the debt in the next 10 years. And that

12:11would add up to about, over the next 30 years, it's $37 trillion. That means

12:18doubling our current national debt. Doubling. Just to give a tax cut to rich

12:26people. And the Congressional Budget Office, who is the gold standard for this

12:31stuff, says that would push our national debt to 214 percent of GDP by 2054. 214

12:41percent. That is an economic disaster for our country. And all of this for what? So

12:49someone with more money than they can spend in a lifetime gets even more

12:56money? Let me put this into perspective here, Mr. President. The median household

13:04income in this country is about $80,000 per year. It would take 1,245 years, about

13:1315 lifetimes, for someone making that much to earn $100 million over 1,200

13:23years. And yet, some of my colleagues think that those are the people who need

13:31a tax cut. And this isn't just about tax policy. It's about the kind of country we

13:42want to be. Do we want to be a country that hands billionaires another break

13:49while a kid goes without lunch in school? Where a retired veteran living on Social

14:00Security is told there's no money left for him, but there's plenty for the

14:07wealthiest Americans. That's the choice in front of us. Because this budget

14:14doesn't just fail working families, it punishes them. It says if you're doing

14:23everything right, if you're working hard, if you're raising your kids, if you're

14:28paying your taxes, you're on your own. That's not just bad policy, Mr. President.

14:36That's wrong. And let's be clear, this Republican math is not fair. And

14:42Arizonans, my constituents, are seeing through this. I guess they probably are

14:49in Oklahoma as well. Everyone in this chamber should think about their

14:55priorities and the priorities of the people they came here to represent. So

15:01let's stop wrecking the finances of working families just to hand out more

15:07tax breaks for billionaires. Let's build an economy that actually works for the

15:12people who make the economy run, instead of imposing tariffs that are actually

15:19just tax increases on everyday goods families depend on. Let's bring back

15:25manufacturing and support union jobs. That's what will make Americans better

15:32off. And Arizonans didn't send me here to be a rubber stamp on a bad deal. They

15:41sent me here to fight for them and to stand up for them. And I'm going to keep

15:48doing that. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mark Kelly Warns: The GOP-Backed Budget Resolution Is A Hand Out To ‘The Wealthiest People In The World’

Category

Transcript

Recommended