Murray: “Things have never worked this way—where one party so egregiously ignores the precedent, process, and Parliamentarian, and does that all in order to wipe away trillions of dollars of costs for a bill that could just be the most expensive legislation this body ever passes.”
***VIDEO of Senator Murray’s remarks HERE***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Budget Committee, took to the Senate floor to speak out against Republicans’ use of a so-called “current policy baseline” to hide the true cost of their deficit-busting tax cuts for billionaires.
Republicans’ 940-page reconciliation bill—the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—which they released in the dead of night, cuts more than $900 billion from Medicaid—$100 billion more than the House bill. About 17 million Americans will lose their health care, more than 300 rural hospitals could close, and more than 500 nursing homes could close. The legislation makes the largest cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in history and will rip away nutrition assistance entirely from more than 5 million Americans and shift tens of billions of dollars in costs to states. The legislation also increases the debt by at least an estimated $4 trillion dollars—a trillion more than the House bill. About two in three Americans oppose the bill.
Senator Murray’s full remarks are below and HERE:
“I have been here a long time. Not only have I been the Budget chair, I am the longest serving Democrat on that Committee.
“And in my 33 years here in the United States Senate, things have never—never—worked this way, where one party so egregiously ignores precedent, process, and the Parliamentarian. And does that all in order to wipe away trillions of dollars of costs for a bill that could just be the most expensive legislation this body ever passes.
“Forget Senate procedure for minute, math—Mr. President—has never worked that way.
“I taught preschool, and I’ll tell you: even our littlest kids knows the difference between a trillion and zero.
“It doesn’t take a preschooler to tell you they’re using magic math. Or that you can’t just ignore the rules you don’t like.
“How many times have my colleagues cried about the debt? How many times have they told me ‘I know you want to invest in child care, Patty—but we got to get this budget under control?’
“But now that it’s tax cuts for billionaires and corporations—suddenly the budget doesn’t matter anymore! Suddenly the rules do not matter anymore.
“Suddenly, a couple trillion goes away with a sprinkle of fairy dust, and bypassing the parliamentarian and precedent isn’t really bypassing if you just close your eyes and just pretend real hard.
“Have you no shame?
“If you think you can look the American people in the face and tell them ‘we have to bring down the debt’ after passing what might be the most expensive bill in history—if you think you can do that, and then be taken seriously?
“Well, you know what? If you believe that, maybe you are foolish enough to think that zero and a trillion are the same.
“Mr. President, I can’t believe this is what we’re doing today. Because I can tell you right now, if this happens, we will all laugh you out of the room, because we have never seen anything like this. Not in my time here in the Senate. Not in my time on this planet!
“We are not going to let anyone forget that you’re trashing the rules in order to pass this egregious bill. I yield the floor.”
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