Chairman Harris (00:00):
Thank you very much, Senator Scott. Look, the president won a mandate on November 5th. And the mandate, just as the Senator said, was to deliver on the economy and deliver on the border. The bottom line is that what Congress needs to show the American people that we are a hundred percent behind the President's mandate and the president's policy, and the letter indicates how we think it needs to be done. We do know that extending the tax cuts is incredibly important, but will require some hard decision to be made on spending reductions in order to control the deficit. But the first thing we need to do coming out of the box is we need to pass an emergency border bill. It has to be passed obviously, because we don't expect any help from our Democrat colleagues. While they're spending their time selling off border wall, we're going to have to actually pass a bill that makes us buy back border wall or buy new border wall because it's being sold off in addition to all the things Senator Scott said.
(00:54)
So we need to go ahead on a bicameral basis. The Republicans need to show we are behind this agenda. We need to deliver on a border bill as soon as we can because the American people expect it. And then we need to immediately turn our attention to improving the economy by making sure that the average American does not get a tax increase, that we deliver on some of the president's promises like tax on tips, and that we control the growth of the… I should say, control the growth of the federal budget, and therefore decrease the federal deficit. So again, this is going to be a bicameral effort. We are fully in support of what the president's agenda is, and this letter indicates how we think Congress ought to proceed. With that, I turn it over to Senator Mike Lee.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
In returning President Trump to the White House the American people could not have been more clear. They want operational control over the border again. They want our country to not be under invasion anymore. They want border security. Our reconciliation proposal today keeps the promise made for Americans. We are going to deliver real border security right up front and no more kicking the can down the road. And a vital part of that first reconciliation package, which will include border security, we've got a fantastic way of paying for it, of offsetting it through an appropriate mechanism that is tied to our lack of border security.
(02:24)
My legislation that'll be used as part of the pay for, is called the America First Act. What the America First Act does is to get the federal government to stop subsidizing illegal immigration, stop giving federal welfare benefits and other advantages that are supposed to go to US citizens and not to illegal aliens. If we can keep them out of the hands of those who aren't supposed to be here in the first place, we'll save an enormous amount of money. I mean, we're talking about a hundred billion dollars, possibly significantly more than that, depending on exactly how the score turns out.
(03:05)
Look, for years, we as Americans have been told that we don't need to worry about one thing in particular when there's illegal immigration happening. That don't worry they're not getting welfare benefits, they're not eligible for them. Well, there are some problems with that. One of the many problems with it, under this administration in particular, is that there are millions of people who have come in here and then have been papered over as if they were legal when in fact they are not. Through among other things, the illegal unlawful use of a technique known as immigration parole. Immigration, parole is there to be used for humanitarian or very specific public use purposes on an individualized basis, person by person. Never categorical.
(03:49)
And yet, what did this administration do? It used the law illegally. Ultra virus actions trying to paper over people who the administration invited and brought into the country unlawfully using immigration parole.
(04:03)
Now in July of this year, the Congressional Budget Office looked at this, trying to assess the overall cost of the open border policy of this administration, those who have come in just the last few years. And what they concluded was that Biden's failure, his adamant refusal, defiantly his refusal, to enforce the border, is adding a cost to American taxpayers of about $300 billion over the next 10 years. Of that amount, the CBO identified that most of this was coming in the form of refundable tax credits and Medicaid, but there were other significant sums that also factored into it, including SNAP Child Nutrition programs, supplemental security income, social Security, Medicare, and assistance for higher education. All of which account for some of this additional amount.
(04:57)
Look, in order to help President Trump fulfill his promise of restoring operational control of the border and to stop illegal immigration, any border package that we send to President Trump's desk has to include a prohibition on these government benefits going to people who are here unlawfully who were never supposed to be here to begin with.
(05:20)
We can send out all the money in the world to Texas for a border wall, but without a serious effort to stop encouraging more people to immigrate illegally. And without additional incentives, removing the additional incentives that are keeping people here, then we're going to continue to have a problem. So that's why this budget reconciliation bill is a big deal and why it's going to make a big difference for it, and I look forward to getting it done and getting these sums paid for and offset in the reconciliation bill. We're now going to turn to my friend and a colleague from the state where I was born, Andy Bixx.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Good job. Thank you Senator Lee and Senator Scott for organizing this, and Chairman Harris. Let me tell you what a difference it makes when you have a president who's committed to border security and the world knows it and takes him seriously. When I've been recently on the border, $5,000 per person was the going rate to come across. You know what it is now, it's in excess of $10,000. Why is that? Because we are going to secure the border. Why is it that the Philippine ambassador to the United States has warned Filipino illegal aliens to repatriate to the Philippines? Because he knows we're serious. That's what we're talking about, and we are going through this process. It's a Byzantine process, this budget reconciliation process. But the first thing that we have to do, which is consistent with President Trump's mandate from the American people because it's our mandate as well, is to make sure we do secure the border.
(07:05)
So when we talk about sanctuary cities, what does that mean for sanctuary cities? It means they need to come on board. Because if their law enforcement is arresting someone who's a criminal illegal alien, then that alien is actually safer in the jail. That community is safer and the ICE agents or the federal police agents are safer. And if a sanctuary city doesn't want to participate, then it's Congress's duty to ensure that they are not benefited by the federal taxpayer subsidizing their program. When we come to the first reconciliation bill and we're considering what we need to do, we up here have agreed, you have to make sure that you put the policies necessary and the resources necessary to implement border security.
(08:07)
We saw President Trump was more than capable of doing that. And I'll just give you one statistical data point there. The Yuma sector, the last year under President Donald Trump, about 8,500 people encountered for the whole year, whole fiscal year. You know what it was under this administration. They had weekends, they had days with more than 8,500 people encountered. This administration has brought in record numbers of illegal aliens, and the American people said in November, on November 5th, they said, no more. We have colleagues across the aisle who don't believe it. We have colleagues in our own party who don't believe that that's the mandate, but it is the mandate and we're going to do all we can to facilitate adhering to that mandate. And that's the message that I leave. And with that, I turn the microphones over to my friend from Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson.
Senator Johnson (09:09):
Thank you, Andy. First of all, I want to thank all of my colleagues here on a bicameral basis for attending this press conference. This group of individuals are leaders. There are others, but these are leaders in Congress who realize that it is immoral to mortgage our children's future, and we want to stop that. We also fully realize that Biden's open border policy represents a clear and present danger to America. But this is also a group of people who oftentimes, unfortunately get scorned because we generally vote no. Because the unit party is mortgaging our children's future. But we are a bicameral group of people who want to be part of the solution who vote no most of the time, but we want to vote yes. And I don't think Senator Rick Scott or this group has been given near enough credit for, first of all, tenacity of Senator Scott holding a weekly dinner where we talked about the debt ceiling.
(10:07)
None of us had ever voted for an increase in the debt ceiling. We talked for week after week after week. Finally realized, well, the only way we're going to get something for increase in the debt ceiling is if we are willing to support something. So it was the Freedom Caucus that actually had the bill and then very reasonable negotiation with their other house members to propose something that unfortunately, speaker McCarthy kind of frittered away that proposal. But anyway, we are here about solutions. And that is why we want to be very public that we support the two Reconciliation Bill solutions, starting out with a very rapid passage of something that provides President Trump the resources he needs to honor the promise he made to Americans. That the Americans support overwhelming margins to secure our border. But also being the accountant of this group, I have to provide a chart.
(11:04)
Senator Scott talked about the fact that our population, since 2019, has increased 2%, but spending is up over 50%. And this chart basically represents that. But I think what's notable about this, I put a baseline. If we would've grown our spending by a reasonable baseline in population growth, even with high Biden inflation, we would've gone from about $4.4 trillion in spending in 2019. And instead of spending almost $7 trillion this last fiscal year, we'd have been spending about 5.7. The difference of spending above that reasonable baseline. And again, how can anybody dispute they'd be reasonable to grow federal spending by population growth plus inflation, particularly when we're at 35, $36 trillion in debt. The amount of spending over that reasonable baseline represents $8.8 trillion. We further mortgage our children's future.
(12:01)
One final note, one of the techniques of the Uniparty in massively increasing spending is they've transferred discretionary spending into mandatory. Again, it's our budget, we don't appropriate that. It's just spending that occurs automatically. But most people here, mandatory spending think of social security, they think of Medicare or even Medicaid. The reality is because of the actions of the Uniparty since 2019, we've increased other mandatory spending. Again, not social security, Medicare, Medicaid, by about the same amount as we increased those three programs. Those programs have increased about 700 billion, other mandatory spending has increased by 680 billion per year. Again, off the books, we can't touch it other than reconciliation.
(12:51)
And so when Senator Scott talks about 2.5 trillion as being a minimum level that we need to cut spending in our reconciliation package, I'm saying we've got about a $6.8 trillion pool of 10-year money that we should be evaluating for dramatically reducing the size and scope of government. Because when government grows, our freedoms necessarily recede. And I say that's the other value we all hold. We think government is here to jealously guard our freedom, not cause and exacerbate more problems and mortgage our children's future. So with that, I'm happy to turn it over to Congressman Ralph Norman.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Thanks, Senator Johnson. I want to thank all the patrons behind me. Ladies and gentlemen, these are people who are willing to put their vote on the line for all the public to see and to solve a problem that the American people voted on November 5th, which is to seal the border. To stop the insanity that was deliberately done by Joe Biden. He did it to get a power base in his mind that would solidify him, his party in power forever. Guess what? It didn't work. It's not going to work now.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
And we agree a hundred percent of, Senator Lee, the pay-fors, we've got to have. I wish we had them in our continuing resolution that we are voting on today, which is insanity at best. Senator Scott, you've mentioned two trillion, not near enough. We have a math problem if we owe 36 trillion. How does cutting 2 trillion really make a dent? It's a teardrop in the ocean. So it's going to take some serious cuts, some serious readjustments, some serious votes that everybody behind me is willing to take.
(14:39)
And we are so excited about this new administration. We're so excited about the first tranche, hopefully in the reconciliation of border patrol agents, funding for putting Tom Homan in a position which there could not be a better man to enforce what he says about deportation and getting this board secure. I'm excited about it. I'm excited about the tax cuts. Hopefully on the second tranche that will extend what President Trump did that was so successful. And it's a great day in America, but it's going to take some courage that every one of these people behind me have, and we have got the plan that we're going to put out and hopefully the American people will see what we're doing and have an up or down vote on it. Thank you for covering this, and I would like to call on my good friend Clay Higgins.
Clay Higgins (15:31):
Thank you, sir. I appreciate the senators and my colleagues from the House from organizing this. The House Freedom Caucus is my colleagues, the most conservative amongst us in the house. We're proud to stand with these senators who commonly find themselves alone on the front line in this chamber.
(15:55)
So standing before you today, the most conservative members of the House and the Senate, and we are together to support a two-step reconciliation strategy. America must understand a reconciliation as a process is a unique opportunity to avoid the Senate's filibuster during the annual budget congressional budget process. This is our opportunity to reset our spending, to change the trajectory of spending, to reflect the priorities of the American people, and to advance conservative policy wins. President Trump was resoundingly elected by the American people, and the incoming administration must be provided with the proper resources to accomplish real change beginning in January.
(16:49)
The American people clearly demand that we stop the arterial bleed at our border, and finally build the wall and develop the assets necessary, funding the necessary manpower to enforce the laws that we already have on the books. We understand that necessary tax simplification and reform will come later, to ensure that the cost of living for working families is reduced. Promises Made, Promises Kept was a constant and admired theme of the first Trump administration. With this plan, we'll set up President Trump to do it again from day one in his next term. I thank that Senators and my colleagues from the House allowing me to speak today, and I'm honored to introduce Scott Perry, the next, Scott Perry. Where's the general? There's my general right there.
Scott Perry (17:50):
Well thanks ladies and gentlemen. First of all, credit goes to Rick, Mike, Ron, the senators that stand on the front line. Of course our chairman, Freedom Caucus, Andy Harris. This is to show you and the American people that Republicans have a plan, a plan to realize and to make sure that not only President Trump's mandate, but America's wishes are fulfilled, and that they can be fulfilled quickly and completely. And so, we're set on getting the border stuff done almost immediately, and it's going to be paid for correctly, and then we'll move on to the probably more complicated issue of making sure that people don't have to pay more in taxes than they should, and they don't have to pay more for the goods and services that they currently can't afford under a Biden administration. But the point is this plan has been put together with the great people up on this stage and others, but mostly led by Senator Scott and Andy Harris, and Republicans have a plan to make sure that President Trump's mandate, America's wishes are fulfilled. Thank you all.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Any of us can answer any questions that anybody has. Yes.
Speaker 6 (18:59):
[inaudible 00:18:59] a few times. We'll start there. Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, even some senators are now posting on X saying that they should not take up this bill. The House, it sounds like you [inaudible 00:19:08] vote on it today. You all don't usually vote for CRs. So what is your message to Speaker Johnson and why do you think you [inaudible 00:19:17].
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Over 1500 pages. The bills that never seen the light of day, none of us knew what was in them, people are expected to vote on very quickly. The, more regulation, I mean just wasteful spending. No pay-fors, right? It makes no sense. We won the election. This has got to change and people act like, oh, you can't balance a budget. So I balanced a budget when I was governor. I walked in a budget deficit. You do it by looking at every thing you spend money on. Look at every line of the budget, look at all the regulations. You can cut 20% of regulations. I'm very appreciative of what Elon Musk is doing and Vivek Ramaswamy, because we can do it. It's all doable. So I don't know. You probably want to talk about this.
Chairman Harris (20:00):
Let me just comment. Look, the American people don't send their representatives to Washington to vote on a 1500-page bill in less than 24 hours, that spends $110 billion, adds $110 billion to the deficit without the opportunity to offer an amendment to perhaps pay for this bill. The process is broken. I think that Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk recognize that if they are empowered to somehow reduce government spending and reduce our deficit, because as Elon Musk says, deficit equals inflation. That's the bottom line. When we do deficit spending, we're printing money, we are causing inflation. How are we going to change that, if one of the actions we take after November 5th is to take a vote on a bill that's a $110 billion direct addition to our deficit and our debt, without even a vote on a pay for. We have to change the way business is done in Washington.
(20:58)
Look, unfortunately it does look like we are probably going to vote on this today. I, they're whipping the votes over in the house to see if they have the votes to pass this. I think most Americans would view this as exactly what they think is wrong with Washington.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Do you have confidence in Speaker Johnson's staying on then?
Chairman Harris (21:14):
Well, I don't know. I'm only one vote out of 220. Look, I think the Speaker could have handled this differently at this point. I'm still supportive of the Speaker, but I will tell you that voices both inside the House Freedom Caucus and outside the Freedom Caucus have been very disappointed at what's happened this week.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
Anybody else want to say anything about the CR?
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I'll just quickly say, it is like Chairman Harris said, it's the way it was done. Not going through a rule, not letting us vote individually. And guess what was hidden in there, and I'm still livid about this. Pay raises for us. How does that square, what return on investment have we given the people of America other than 37 trillion in debt? It makes no sense and have no pay-fors? How does that work? No family or business would do that. And no family of business as has been mentioned. How do you, a speed reader can't read 1,547 pages in less than 24 hours. It's insanity.
(22:08)
Now the next question is, what are you going to do? Friday at 12 o'clock, the budget. I mean that's when the shutdown. Well look, it is what it is and we got to face it. But rather than saddle each one of you young people with more and more debt, it's insanity. And it flies in the face of the DOGE commission. That's what everybody's excited about. Yet here we do. This makes no sense.
Speaker 8 (22:35):
We need to realize that since November the fifth, since we got this mandate for President Trump, the House, if we pass this bill, worth $110 billion, we will have passed more than 300 billion in additional spending since November the fifth. That's the trajectory that we have got to stop. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
What else? Yes sir.
Speaker 9 (23:00):
Democrats found out how hard it was to do immigration policy changes because of the Byrd Rule previously. How are you guys going to get around, or is there a way to get around objections to immigration policies that would be Byrded out policy?
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Well, first off, if you look at what we're talking about, we're talking about spending and having pay-fors. That's what we're talking about doing. So we're not doing what the Democrats are trying to do, is completely change the immigration policy of the country. I think doesn't violate the Byrd Rule, if you secure the border and you pay for it. I don't know if anybody else wants add anything. Okay, yes.
Speaker 10 (23:42):
I just want to put a finer point on this. Does everyone here have the prerequisite that you need $2.5 trillion, at least, in spending cuts related to the elimination of the green credits in order to vote for the Trump tax cuts in the [inaudible 00:23:57] reconciliation bill?
Speaker 5 (23:57):
I don't think that's the way we look at it. These are examples, but I think everybody up here probably expects to get more.
Speaker 10 (24:03):
Keep in mind though, this is not that bill. We're talking about a different reconciliation bill, one that's likely to come up toward the beginning of the year. We don't expect the tax bill to come until a few months later.
Senator Johnson (24:14):
Let me also add, the way you ought to look at what's going to happen in '26 is a massive automatic tax increase. I think most Republicans will do everything we can to avoid a massive $4 trillion plus tax increase. Now, from my standpoint, as we do that, I think somebody else mentioned simplification. I'd like to simplify and rationalize tax code. That's going to take a longer period of time. But there's some people arguing, well, you have to combine border security with that in order to get it passed. I think there's a great deal of pressure right there, preventing that massive tax increase on the American economy. That'd be completely counterproductive. It'd actually in the end increase deficits because it'll do so much economic harm. So again, it's avoiding a massive tax increase is what, that's our top priority really, once we get past securing the border.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
I think we'll take one more question. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
Senator Baker has suggested maybe the tax, especially for this tax part of the reconciliation to the process, using a current policy baseline rather than a current law baseline. How does that fit into your objective about reducing deficits and [inaudible 00:25:23] when that would set the baseline [inaudible 00:25:25].
Speaker 5 (25:24):
Well, I think it's two different issues. One issue is, as Senator Johnson says, we've got to stop these massive tax increases, and using policy is a logical way of doing that. There's also opportunities to simplify the tax code. But on top of that, everybody up here, we expect significant reductions in the cost of government. We don't have a choice. If you just look at our economy, we have a $28 trillion GDP. All right? If you think interest rates are going down, we have to refinance $8 trillion of treasuries a year, plus we're losing $2 trillion a year. We have got to get to a balanced budget. Now are we going to get there in one year? I could. I did it as governor. I walked in, I did every year as governor. Everybody up here could probably do that. So we have to work with our college to get there.
Senator Johnson (26:10):
I have to chime in on this one. Sorry. What we do right now with spending policy that ends is we extend that policy based on current policy. It's only tax policy that ends. So again, everything in the way our rules are written, favors increasing spending and disfavors tax cuts. So we're just going to equalize that treatment. If we treat spending policies that end and we're going to extend those based on current policy, so there's no score. There's no score to doing that. There shouldn't be a score when we just continue current tax policy and prevent a massive tax increase. So again, we're just trying to equalize that treatment. It is totally within the jurisdiction of the budget committee. I serve on that. I think Chairman Graham hopefully would be supportive of that as well. It just makes common sense.
Speaker 7 (27:01):
Thank you, everybody.
Speaker 12 (28:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (28:09):
Good stuff.
Speaker 12 (28:10):
Sorry, I didn't know you were…
Speaker 13 (28:47):
Is this ringing?
Speaker 11 (28:49):
It was very quiet. No one really cares except for me.
Speaker 13 (28:52):
I thought it was on silent.
Speaker 11 (28:56):
I know you were taping so you couldn't hear me. It wasn't like disrupted or anything.
Speaker 13 (29:04):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 11 (29:04):
Get out of here. We're stuck in here.
(29:04)
You got it.
Bill (31:38):
There does not seem to be a lot of interest in the Social Security Permanence Act.
Speaker 13 (31:40):
There's a lot of reader interest in it.
Bill (31:43):
What's that?
Speaker 13 (31:44):
There's a lot of reader interest in it. Our stories on this has gotten -
Bill (31:49):
Have they really?
Speaker 13 (31:52):
A lot of traffic. Absolutely. People are reading this story. It's getting… We have a story today, it was our top story today. It's been a top story at the end of the week. They're out there. People are definitely -
Bill (32:05):
There's a lot of, people are so highly committed to this, which, like my civics teacher, American history teacher in high school, her husband worked at Exxon, she worked for the school system and she retires. He dies and her benefits cut to like $200 a month. Now she died somewhat impoverished. So imagine people looking at that and how committed they are to seeing this through. So, I'm not surprised that they're clicking on it. Anything social security benefits related. Isn't that interesting? Because I get my social security reform bill, which I have to reassure everybody doesn't cut benefits, it adds benefits, and so it's interesting to get that from you that maybe this could be a political winner. Everybody assumes you just touch social and you die. But now if you touch it in a positive way, it wins. You had a question for me earlier.
Speaker 13 (33:23):
It was actually on list. I want ask you about pushback. There were some people, John. Are you [inaudible 00:33:41]? It's old news now but I was curious about reaction to that pushback yesterday. Sounds like the bill is advancing. We've got, I was curious whether, yeah, I was wondering whether that pushback was going around, really want to officers, few them, but it sounds like it hasn't.
Bill (34:00):
Neither one or two dropped off, but we picked up others that were not co-sponsored. I think we had 12 co-sponsors or maybe 10, maybe had eight. Co-sponsors had 62, 13 and so we've lost one or two of those where we picked up more. Now the president coming out for it is helpful. The president announced his support today. I think in association with that Paternal order of police. JD flew back into vote. I think I better write some remarks. They allowed me to join at the last minute, so I don't have any remarks planned. We are meeting here, aren't we? Aren't y'all here? Hi Hannah. [inaudible 00:35:01] Okay. This is great.
Speaker 11 (35:49):
Senator Brown Collins are coming. So we'll get started and you can go first.
Bill (35:53):
That's great. Do you write a lot on social?
Speaker 13 (36:07):
Yeah, when there's something about sometimes we can't.
Bill (36:13):
At some point, maybe we'll give you a press briefing.
Speaker 13 (36:15):
For sure.
Bill (36:16):
We've written about it publicly.
Speaker 13 (36:20):
Big issue. A lot of people. So certainly welcome that.
Bill (36:25):
I'm always a little bit, like, whenever I get ahead of my staff, they take me out back and they beat me. So, maybe I can't offer this, but if you're interested, I'd love to.
Speaker 13 (36:33):
You should go.
Bill (37:19):
I was asking about to [inaudible 00:37:20].
Senator Brown (37:19):
Cassy, you're first. Hey, thank you brother. We got to over 70. Thank you. Got over 70. Got over.
Speaker 13 (37:26):
Whoa, these things to, isn't it great? Waste the vote against you.
Bill (37:30):
Right. And so Alex has told me it's picking up all kinds of clips online. I believe that.
Speaker 14 (37:35):
This is huge. It really is.
Senator Brown (37:39):
Give me what I said earlier.
Speaker 12 (37:40):
73 to 27.
Senator Brown (37:43):
73 to 27. Thank you again, Sherry. You have to choose which one goes second because I see she should. She said I should. So you choose one second.
Bill (38:09):
Shall we start?
(38:15)
We're obviously celebrating the passage of the Social Security Fairness Act, and I want to thank my colleagues who were the leads on this and they're allowing me to join, but they're also allowing me to go first and I thank you. And they allow me to go first because I have a telephone town hall scheduled back home to talk to people in Louisiana about weapon GPO. And this is about promises kept. I had a high school civics American history teacher, and Ms. Betty had worked her whole life in the, teaching public schools. Her husband worked at Exxon, her husband died. She's left a widow and her benefit is cut. Her social security benefit was cut to about 200 bucks a month. She would've been better off had she never worked than had she worked when it came to her social security benefit. Now she had her quarters, she otherwise qualified for social, but because of this bill, because of the previous law, the one that we're in the process of repealing her benefit was cut so dramatically.
(39:20)
Now that is true of public service employees through all walks of life. The nurses I worked with, the techs I worked with, the janitors I worked with in the public hospital where I practiced medicine for many years. So I just thank them for their leadership. I thank the house for sending it over as such momentum. And I'm just so thankful that we in the federal government are keeping a promise, a promise on earned benefits to return that which is due to the people who've given their lives to serve the public. With that, I will turn it over to one of my colleagues, again, giving them thanks for driving this and I'll go to my telephone town hall to speak to them more directly about this bill. Thank you, Senator Brown.
Senator Brown (40:07):
Thank you Bill. And Bill came. Bill's been very, very helpful in this. Thank you. We were talking to, well, we were talking to some Senate pages a moment ago, and Susan was talking to, and I walked over because she's the kind of person that engages with everybody around here. And I said to them, I said, Susan Collins has been working on this bill since before any of you were born. And I said, I've only been working on this for 10 years, I guess nine and a half years now. But Susan has really driven this and kept it alive, helped us to build this coalition and we expected pretty much 49 Democrats and a dozen 15 at the most Republicans today we got to 73 votes because people understand the fairness of this, of fixing this, that too many people, whether they're janitors at public hospitals, whether they're teacher's aides, whether they're police officers, firefighters, teachers, or whether they're a woman that I met at one of our hearings named Barbara Ward.
(41:03)
Barbara Ward has driven a bus 200 miles a day picking up disabled kids in Lawrence County, Ohio County, on the Ohio River, and she drives 200 miles a day doing this work. She's been doing it for 40 years. She is in her seventies and she just can't do it any longer and she retires. What happens to her? Her social security benefit would go from 2100 a month to 500 a month because those school bus drivers aren't paid much money and police and fire and teachers and school bus drivers and teachers aides and school cafeteria workers, most of them, at least many of them women, especially the lower paid jobs and how important this is. So this builds momentum. The House helped with. It builds a momentum that Susan and I, we as we built the coalition to do this. We're going to see this through the rest of the week. We'll stay here as long as we need to. I got nothing
Senator Brown (42:00):
To do in January, but that's not really the point here. But we are going to stay on this as aggressively as we need to. Susan's been a great partner in this. It's a wonderful way to end the year where we're bringing some equity. In my state it's 250,000 workers will be helped by this. It really is to me about this canary pen and about the dignity of work and fighting for workers, whether they're starting in the job, whether it's earning their overtime, whether it's a safer workplace or whether it's their retirement and how special it is. Senator Collins.
Senator Collins (42:34):
Thank you. Well first of all, I want to thank Senator Sherrod Brown for finally getting this bill passed and soon it will be on its way to the White House. I have worked on this issue for many, many years. In 2003, when I was chair of the Governmental Affairs Committee, I held the first Senate hearing to expose the horrendous inequity of two provisions in the social security laws. The government pension offset and the windfall elimination provision. Both combined created such inequities for people who had earned their social security benefits or who had spouses who worked in the private sector and earned their benefits. So the reason I stress the word earned so much is that we're not talking about giving social security benefits that were not earned. We're talking about people who worked at least 10 years under covered employment and thus are entitled to benefits either through their own work or the work of their spouse.
(44:01)
And I can't tell you how many school teachers, in particular in the state of Maine, have talked to me who had worked for years in the public sector in Maine as school teachers, under a system where the state retirement system did not include social security, but they were married to a spouse who worked his or her entire life in the private sector, 40 years in the private sector. And yet when that spouse dies, much to their surprise, the retired school teacher discovers that they do not get the normal amount of the widow's benefit or the spousal benefit. This causes tremendous hardship. This is truly not fair. And I can't tell you how happy I am that due to Sherrod's leadership and a bipartisan effort today, that we are finally after decades correcting this inequity.
(45:22)
It is going to make a huge difference, particularly to low-income women who are disproportionately affected. In fact, 83% of those who are affected under one of the programs are women. So I think that this is an enormous achievement to finally fix the unfairness of the social security system. And again, it has been great to have Senator Brown as a partner. Over the years, I partnered with Diane Feinstein, with Barbara Mikulski, trying to get this through. And finally, finally, we've accomplished it. Thank you.
Senator Brown (46:14):
Thank you all.
Senator Collins (46:17):
Questions.
Speaker 15 (46:32):
I was going to ask, are you concerned about the impact of [inaudible 00:46:33] the social security [inaudible 00:46:33]?
Senator Brown (46:32):
I don't have to answer any questions until next year. You go ahead if you want.
Senator Collins (46:36):
I met with Elon Musk for more than an hour and we did not discuss social security at all during that time. So I'm not aware of any plans in that regard. And in fact, President Trump supported this bill. JD Vance, the Vice President-elect, was a co- sponsor and came back for the vote, which was one of the reasons that we were able to get 73 votes for the bill. Yes.
Speaker 13 (47:11):
Do you have any idea how many people this is going to affect and what the average impact on the benefits is going to be? And then just looking ahead later this week, this is just closer on motion to proceed. What about the other votes? What's the timeline for getting this all done?
Senator Collins (47:21):
Well, as far as the number of people who are affected, although it affects 16 states disproportionately, Maine is one of those, because they have state retirement systems that do not include a social security component. And yet frequently, as I said, the spouse has worked under social security or the individual who's been a public servant or a school teacher, police officer, firefighter, has other employment that is covered. So the numbers are large. I don't have it right off the top of my head. It seems to me it was 650,000 for one. I'm looking at my staff for someone to-
Speaker 16 (48:10):
25 million Americans are in the programs, [inaudible 00:48:10] 25,000.
Speaker 17 (48:10):
If you've seen our [inaudible 00:48:16] report on US state by state.
Senator Collins (48:19):
Yeah.
Senator Brown (48:20):
We think it's 250,000 in Ohio. We're not quite ten times the size of your state, but at eight times, something like that. And in terms of working through the whole process, the fact that Susan delivered today so many more Republicans than we thought, this has, I don't know if it's tipping point is really an accurate sort of cliche, but the fact that we got 10 more votes than we really expected coming in means it's got more momentum, means that more people are going to say, "I got a lot of public employees in my state. Why would I vote against it now?"
(48:52)
And there's going to be pressure on people. You know how this place works. As Christmas gets near, people talk less except for right now when I keep talking. But so I think they're going to realize, people against us are going to realize this is going to happen and I don't see people making it longer and making it more painful in the middle of the night and doing all the stuff that sometimes happens here. That's my sentiment. I don't know.
Speaker 15 (49:22):
Senator Brown, does this have any personal significance to you, the timing of it?
Senator Brown (49:23):
No, it's one of those things. I mean, one of the things I've worked on here in the finance committee and just generally is his pensions and with my mine workers' pension, then what we did on Butch Lewis. And when you talk so much as I do about the canary and dignity of work, this fits right into it. I think we had a time last year, I mean Susan and I have been partners on this, but we were gradually increasing and increasing. And Chad Bolton, in my office has played such a big role in that working with Susan's office. And as the numbers got bigger and bigger, we saw more and more people supportive of it.
(49:59)
So people asked me a year ago, what's the future of this? I'd say, we're still trying. They asked me six months ago, I said, it's got a lot of momentum, but I don't know. They asked me three weeks ago, it looks like it could happen. So that's sometimes when… It's a big part of it is, the people from this have been talking to their… The way we passed the PACT Act, a whole bunch of veterans demonstrated. And these things, I mean this is Susan's idea and my help, but it really is the public push on this that gets us to do things around here.
Speaker 15 (50:39):
Senator Collins, if I may, I would like hear your response to [inaudible 00:50:35], his name is Aiden [inaudible 00:50:37], having some doubts about Tulsi Gabbard's nomination at meeting with her on the hill. Have you met with Gabbard? Where do you stand on the nomination? How are you feeling?
Senator Collins (50:49):
We can't stay on the topic? I really wish we could stay on the topic.
Speaker 15 (50:54):
I did ask him on topic question.
Senator Collins (50:56):
You did. That's true. I have met with Tulsi Gabbard. I met with her yesterday for about an hour. We covered a very wide range of issues. We talked about FISA, for example. We talked about legislation that she had co-authored in the house with Matt Gaetz that had to do with Edward Snowden. We talked about Ukraine, we talked about President Putin. We talked about her trip to Syria and her meeting with Assad. So I think we pretty much covered the gamut.
(51:38)
She's very much aware that the ODNI, which was created by legislation that Joe Lieberman and I authored in 2004, and that that is not a policy position, but obviously that individual, the Director of National Intelligence, chooses the intelligence that is presented to the president in his daily brief. So that's a very important role. And I, as with the vast majority of nominees, particularly ones whom I don't know, and I'd never met her before, I'm going to wait until the process is completed. The FBI report is done, the background check, the committee hearing, those are really important.
Speaker 15 (52:39):
Did you hear anything more from her at this point? Are you leaning one way or another?
Senator Collins (52:40):
I'm truly not going to take a position on a nominee without knowing the full extent of the facts, and that includes the public hearing.
Speaker 15 (52:54):
I have unrelated question. Do you have a plan yet to meet with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? And what do you hope to talk with him about?
Senator Collins (53:01):
I definitely want to meet with all of the nominees. He has not yet contacted my office to have a meeting, so I expect that'll probably occur in January.
Senator Brown (53:15):
I'm good. I have to step out. Bob Casey's giving his last speech, and I want to-
Speaker 15 (53:20):
I do have an real quick before you go. On this such bill, obviously it looks like it'll be successful, but the last time, or the reasons these provisions were enacted as part of a larger social security financing thing, obviously that will need to be addressed sometime in the next 10 years. Do you worry that, how do you protect these provisions going forward when social security will need to be reformed in the future?
Senator Brown (53:42):
I would only say once these benefits are there, it's a lot harder-
Senator Collins (53:45):
Exactly.
Senator Brown (53:45):
… for the opponents to take them away. So I would be very confident this will be permanent law. It will protect their benefits. As Susan said that they earned, E-A-R-N-E-D. They earned these benefits. You got to earn social security. You got to pay in 40 quarters, 10 years. They all did. They earned it. It should be in violet.
Senator Collins (54:05):
Absolutely. It's the matter.
Senator Brown (54:08):
Thank you.
Senator Collins (54:09):
Thank you. Thank you.