Josh Hawley Calls For New Air Force One To Be U.S.-Built Jet, Not Gift From Qatar

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Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) responds to the gift of a plane from Qatar to serve as Air Force One.

Transcript

00:00I want to ask just what's your initial reaction is to the Ways and Means bill that you saw

00:08unveiled yesterday in the House, and if you have any concerns about specific provisions

00:12you want to see change to? Well, this is the tax provisions you mean. Yeah, so I think that

00:16Chairman Smith from my state has done a really good job here with the cap space, so to speak,

00:21that they gave him. He's increased the child tax credit. I'd love to see it be higher. He'd love

00:25to see it be higher, but it's up to $2,500 per family, so that's good.

00:30I'd like to double it. I'd like to take it to $5,000, so I hope the Senate will do even

00:34more than that. I thought that was good. No taxes on tips is in there. No taxes on overtime

00:38is in there, which is my bill in the Senate, so I think some really good things. I'd like

00:42there to be even more tax cuts for working people, and I hope maybe we can improve on

00:48that in the Senate, but I thought the Chairman, with the space he was given, he could only

00:51work with the instructions he was given, and I thought he did a good job. There have been

00:55some real changes, some sea changes in terms of how Republicans deal with tax cuts over

00:59all, that these are a little bit more centered around families, like you noted, raising the

01:05child tax credit. I think some people in the business community feel like they didn't go

01:09quite as far. Do you think that that dynamic may shift here in the Senate, given the fact

01:14there's a little bit more of an old-school Republican tinge when it comes to Republican tax policy?

01:19No, I hope not. I hope that we'll go in the opposite direction, that we'll double down on

01:24working-class tax relief. We should increase the child tax credit even further. We ought

01:28to make the child tax credit fully applicable against payroll taxes, so if you're paying

01:31payroll taxes, you ought to be getting a tax cut out of this bill. Remember that two-thirds

01:35of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes, and those are our voters, so we've

01:40got to deliver tax relief for them. And on the Energy and Commerce title, do you have

01:43any concerns about the Medicaid changes? Yeah, I do. I mean, I think that I'm glad they're

01:48not doing changes to the contribution formula. I'm glad they're not doing the per capita

01:51thing that they talked about. There's still, there's a lot of cuts there that are over,

01:56work requirements, totally fine. The anti-fraud provisions, great, totally fine. I think there's

02:02a lot of savings there. That's all fine by me. But I'm concerned about some of their other

02:05proposals. They have a cost-sharing proposal in there. I think we need to look at really carefully

02:09where they're making beneficiaries pay more. These are working people in particular who

02:14are going to have to pay more. They're fiddling with the provider arrangements, the provider

02:18tax in particular. That could have a big impact on my state and lead to reduced coverage. So

02:22I've got some concerns, and I think we need to look really, really careful of that. I continue

02:27to maintain my position we should not be cutting Medicaid benefits. Senator, do you think the

02:31Medicaid reforms in the House bill could affect rural hospitals in particular? I'm worried

02:35about that. Yeah, I'm worried about that. And we've seen a lot of them close in my

02:38state, Alex, and I don't want to see any more close. We're a majority rural state in Missouri,

02:42I'll be honest with you. We are already, as it is, we are struggling with rural health

02:46care coverage. And Republicans, we need to be making that better, not worse. So I think

02:51we need to take a really close look at what the House is proposing here. Maybe it'll be

02:56fine, but I think we want to look at that really carefully.

02:59The debt ceiling increase, $4 billion, Secretary Besson has said mid-July. Do you think that

03:04the Senate is capable?

03:05Senate is capable.

03:06Senate is capable.

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