00:00I was speaking with a Republican strategist about this bill and Speaker Mike Johnson's role here in the negotiations, and she said he essentially had to herd cats.
00:08You have to compromise with Republicans here on this point.
00:11You have to try adding this to make sure it had enough votes to pass, and it did.
00:16But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that this could add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
00:24And this is an issue that Elon Musk really was a pain point for him.
00:28After officially departing his position as special government employee, he posted this on X, quote,
00:34I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore.
00:36This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
00:41Shame on those who voted for it.
00:43You know you did wrong.
00:44You know it.
00:45What are your thoughts on his criticisms here?
00:47I think it's appropriate to be absolutely terrified of the growth of debt.
00:55Because you're on the cusp.
00:57You know, when you have to finance $6 billion a day, as we do today, in just a handful of years, we're borrowing almost $10 billion a day.
01:07And the political class doesn't tell the truth.
01:10I hate to say it, the media class particularly doesn't tell the truth because they're journalism majors.
01:15They weren't on budget or accounting majors.
01:17And look, the bill is not really pork-filled.
01:25It's a structural problem.
01:27How do you get up in front of an audience and say, the next decade, the vast majority of debt,
01:32so the baseline was $22 trillion of borrowing, is interest, and healthcare, Medicare.
01:40Unless you're willing to do things to sort of modernize how we deliver these services,
01:47well, that now requires policy, and policy that's going to disrupt bureaucracies and business models.
01:53So the criticism of the borrowing of the bill, and look, our math is actually bigger than $2.4 trillion in borrowing.
02:01It's absolutely, I think, appropriate, and we need that push from those who are actually concerned about the debt and deficits and demographics,
02:13because for so long, the Army's folks in our hallways here are in our office demanding more spending.
02:21They don't give a damn about the future, about the financing costs.
02:26It's basically, you know, our business, our group, we want spending through the tax code,
02:32we want regulation that stops our competition, or we want direct handouts.
02:39And how do you build a political culture that actually cares about markets and economic growth and fiscal constraint?
02:48And those don't really have constituencies right now.
02:51I want to talk about that fiscal constraint part, because for years we've been hearing,
02:58hey, when it comes to the national debt, we are on an unsustainable path here.
03:02But when you're looking at this bill, if it's adding trillions to the national debt,
03:07I mean, how do you square that when someone says to you,
03:09hey, I thought you're concerned about this, even a deficit hawk is voting for this?
03:14I mean, what do you say to that?
03:15That's why you show up with actual solutions.
03:19One of my criticisms of even some of my brothers and sisters I work with,
03:26they passionately are terrified of the numbers.
03:31It's almost impossible to explain them to the folks at home,
03:34because how many people can see the difference between a million, a billion, a trillion?
03:38They just don't see 12 zeros in their head.
03:40So that's why if you ever pay attention to what we do in our office and with the Joint Economic Committee,
03:47even our position on ways and means, is we actually show up with solutions.
03:53It's not enough to say we're spending too much money.
03:57As you talked about my floor speech last night,
04:00in that floor speech, there was functionally $3 trillion of savings,
04:06maybe $3.5 trillion of savings, in actual legislation, not a concept,
04:12not some ethereal economic theory,
04:16actual legislation that we're getting scores on,
04:19and we already have preliminary scores on.
04:20And my argument is for the Senate,
04:25even someone like Mr. Musk and the team around him,
04:30to people like me, show up with actual solutions.
04:34And that's actually one of the things I'm proud about,
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