00:00The president has called Medicaid, Medicare, and child care little scams and said, quote,
00:05we're fighting wars. We cannot take care of daycare. I'm just trying to understand that. Is it your
00:12position, since you're asking taxpayers for another half a trillion dollars for the war,
00:17that American families should be forced to give up child care and health coverage so that you can
00:22have one and a half trillion dollars for this budget? Senator, that's not my department. I
00:28certainly support this, and I also support the president's efforts to find and remove fraud
00:33wherever possible, in a general sense. And we do that in our department as well. I'm not talking
00:38about fraud. I actually asked whether an American family should lose their health care or their
00:44child care to pay for this budget. That is literally what the president suggested.
00:51The president has proposed a historic $1.5 trillion budget that will defend the nation and confront
00:56threats like Iran, which previous presidents allowed to happen, as Senator Graham pointed
01:01out. Previous administrations said they wanted to take care of this problem, and they did not,
01:06and he's doing it. The question in front of this committee, the question in front of the American
01:08people, is what are they being asked to give up for this one and a half trillion dollars? That's
01:14where I was talking about. And lastly, Mr. Secretary, your budget request cuts through Trump's ramblings,
01:21and really, to me, makes the truth clear, that you and the president don't value families as much as you
01:26value defense contractors. You want to increase the war budget. Let me finish. I meet every family at Dover.
01:32Okay, don't tell me we don't care about families. We sure do. And we take care of them in every
01:36way we
01:36possibly can. I'm asking you about taxpayer dollars that everybody has. So when we've been to war before,
01:42we have asked people to do victory gardens. We've asked them to pay more. You are not doing that.
01:47You are taking one, asking for one and a half trillion dollars, which means something else has
01:51to be given up. That is what this committee is looking at. You want to increase the war budget
01:55for the next year by half a trillion dollars. That is taxpayer money that could be used to feed families,
02:03or build new affordable homes, or wipe out some diseases completely, or increase child investments
02:0920 times over. But you are asking us to blow it all on war, and that's not even counting the
02:14money that
02:15you have spent bombing Iran, or that you may still request in a separate supplemental. And to me,
02:21this budget wasn't even strategically crafted. One and a half trillion dollars. It's like the
02:25president decided that was the number, and you all filled in the blanks. So what I'm here today to say
02:30is you asked for a massive laundry list of unnecessary spending. It's a huge payday for defense contractors,
02:38and you still don't even ask to give DoD civilian workers a pay raise. And to me, this is absurd.
02:43I know you do not care
02:44what I have to say. So let me quote you someone you might actually listen to, President Eisenhower.
02:51He said, every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense
02:59a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in
03:05arms is not
03:06spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its
03:14children.
03:14That is what this budget proposal is asking. It's going to leave Americans cold and hungry
03:19to fund Trump's war and make defense contractors a fortune. So that is why I hope this committee
03:25throws that in the trash and comes together with a budget that works for all American families. Thank you, Mr.
03:31Secretary.
03:32Mr. Secretary, the war in Iran has not only cost 13 American service member lives, it is also costing
03:39American taxpayers dearly. Tens of billions of dollars and counting, and that's money that could
03:45be helping people perhaps get health care. But instead, we're paying for bombs dropped in a war
03:50that American people overwhelmingly oppose. Now, earlier this morning, I know that your team testified
03:56Trump's war with Iran cost $29 billion so far. That is $29 billion blown on a war of choice,
04:03and that's what it would have cost, actually, to save the ACA tax credits. But as my colleagues have
04:09already stated, what is concerning as well is it seems quite clear that that cost estimate is
04:15suspiciously low. Now, your acting comptroller suggested that damage to U.S. facilities was not
04:21factored into that figure. It is clear that there has been extensive damage to American military access.
04:28New reporting from the Washington Post and others indicates that Iran has hit at least 228 structures
04:35or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites. Can you tell us what the cost of damage done to
04:43U.S.
04:43facilities is because of this war? Well, I think Jay covered pretty clearly what we can or cannot share,
04:50but I would simply respond that, and I think it's an important point, considering what the president
04:55is undertaking is, what is the cost of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon? And the fact that
05:00this president's been willing to make a historic and courageous choice to confront that, it comes
05:04with cost, and we recognize that, and we honor that. I understand what your judgment is. We have a judgment
05:07as well, and I'm asking if you can tell us, and at what point you can tell us what the
05:11cost of damage
05:12done to U.S. facilities is because of this war. Yeah, ma'am, thanks for the question. So for future
05:18posture, at least, we don't know what that's going to look like. We don't know how we're going to design
05:21these bases. The damage to date, you do not have any cost estimate on it at all. For the military
05:26construction, I don't have a cost estimate to provide you at this time. Well, when will we get
05:30that? Again, it depends on what the future posture is, how we decide to construct those bases. To date.
05:35You know what has happened to date. We can't get that number, and that is a real concern to us.
05:39Our job
05:39is to appropriate dollars, and we're just told it's coming, it's coming, and we don't get it, so it's very
05:44hard to do our budgets. And right now, Mr. Secretary, people are paying four or five, even six, seven
05:50dollars for gas, and American taxpayers are now on the hook as well for paying for this disastrous
05:56war. You're spending families' hard-earned tax dollars on a war that many strongly oppose, and
06:03you're forcing people to pay more at the pump, and yet you're not even providing a real breakdown for
06:09the cost of this war so far. We have no real details, you have indicated that, and yet now you
06:15want
06:15Congress to send you $1.5 trillion more. To me, that is unacceptable, and I hope our Republican
06:23colleagues will join us in not only rejecting that absurd request, but in insisting that the
06:29American people get the actual answers on how much money, their money, we are spending on this.
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