At today's House Appropriations Committee hearing, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) spoke to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
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00:01First of all, let me say that Congress is being taken for granted in the policies being pursued.
00:10I think, frankly, some illegal things are being done.
00:14I'm not by you. I'm just talking about the administration in terms of federal employees.
00:17I represent 77,000 federal employees who came here to work for the government, and that's why they're here.
00:24However, I've worked very well with Republicans throughout my career, which is now in its 45th year.
00:39I want to do that some more because I think that's the best sense of the country.
00:44I believe you're one of those who has a shot at keeping us on a somewhat even keel.
00:57I mean that as a compliment, but obviously it's also a concern.
01:01When you say, and I want to reiterate this, that we have a spending problem, and I retort to you, no, what we have is a paying-for problem.
01:17If I make a million dollars, I can spend $999,000 less taxes, but if I make $500,000, I spend a million dollars.
01:30That is a paying problem because I don't pay for it, and I accumulate debt.
01:34That's how debt goes.
01:35Now, I was here in the Reagan administration some period of time ago.
01:40We were told that the tax cuts that were passed in 1981 were going to pay for themselves.
01:46They did not.
01:49It perhaps will surprise you.
01:51Maybe you know this figure.
01:53The largest increase in the national debt was under Ronald Reagan, the only president who had a triple-digit, 189% increase in the national debt during the course of his term.
02:05It might also surprise you that Clinton is the only one who was 30% or lower since Ronald Reagan.
02:19Clinton is the only one who balanced the budget.
02:22Now, one of the reasons we did so is because we had bipartisan objectives.
02:31The Republicans wanted to cut taxes, which is their mantra, and we wanted to invest, as we call it, as opposed to spending, in children's education, in people's health care, in safety, et cetera, et cetera.
02:46If we continue this logic that we have a spending problem and discount taxes as spending, when we did the tax increase under George, excuse me, in 2017, you may recall,
03:09the Republicans gave themselves a $1.5 trillion headroom.
03:15The reason it was limited to that is because the senator from Tennessee wouldn't go higher than that.
03:22So, in other words, a $1.5 trillion unpaid-for headroom to give a tax cut.
03:28That is spending, because you're cutting prices while increasing costs.
03:39That's what costs you deficits.
03:43Some of my Republican friends, I'm a strong supporter of national defense,
03:48but I do not delude myself that raising $150 billion in national defense expenses don't cost taxes.
03:57We don't have $150 billion to either cut taxes with or to spend money with, so we borrow.
04:08And when my friend talks about hypocrisy, we all know if you spend more than you get, you go into debt.
04:21And that's what we do as a country on both sides of the aisle.
04:27And we need people like yourself to be honest with those with whom you work and honest with the Congress of the United States
04:36in terms of the ramifications of the actions.
04:40I know you are a strong supporter of permanent increase.
04:44You're not a strong supporter of paying for it.
04:46And you can cut all of non-defense discretionary spending, and you won't get there.
04:55And this game that Mr. Musk has played, he had no sense of the ramifications of the actions he's taken.
05:03He knew how to do it.
05:04He was prepared.
05:06As one article in the Atlantic Journal said, the blitzkrieg, which our speaker calls flooding the zone,
05:14been pretty effective at that, just trying to watch where the ball is and see if he can respond.
05:19But Mr. Secretary, I have a lot of questions.
05:21I'm going to send them to you, ask them to you, and I would like to take some time with you on that.
05:25I have great respect for your background and your abilities, and I am really praying that you will bring a voice of reason and rationality to our deliberations.
05:40My time is over, and I appreciate the chairman's forbearance, but this is serious business, very serious business.
05:49And I agree with you, a $37 trillion debt is not sustainable.
05:56And we all have to do it, but we have to do it together.
06:00That's the only way it will get done.
06:04Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
06:05You have a response, Mr. Secretary.
06:07Congressman, thank you for that.
06:08And I would note that while President Reagan substantially increased the defense budget, the Clinton administration was able to capitalize on the peace dividend.
06:22But as you said, the defense budget dropped dramatically post-default of the Iron Curtain, which contributed to the fiscal soundness.
06:33And through, as you said, through bipartisanship, working with Speaker Gingrich, they worked together.
06:43So I would hope that we could do that again.
06:45Which, by the way, cost Gingrich's job.
06:48The right wing of his party was incensed that he did that.
06:53And what it did was had a rational policy because both sides participated.
06:58So, well, and the senator from Tennessee is actually my neighbor.
07:04So I see him quite often.
07:08And, look, there are ramifications here.
07:11You're not talking about any current senators from Tennessee.
07:14He's left.
07:15No, I know.
07:16Okay.
07:16Senator Corker.
07:17I want to make sure we had the right Tennessean.
07:18Senator Corker.
07:19Yes.
07:20Yes.
07:21He's my neighbor.
07:21So, and I look forward to inviting a bipartisan solution.
07:30Thank you, sir.
07:31With that, our time has concluded.
07:32I'd like to thank you, Secretary Besson, for being here today.
07:35There may be some members, as the ranking member Hoyer has indicated, who have questions.
07:39They're going to submit.