[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 112 (Saturday, June 28, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3608-S3610]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL
Mr. MORENO. Mr. President, as I said earlier and I predicted earlier,
our Democrat colleagues have come out totally mischaracterizing this
bill. So let me just go through this again very slowly so that they can
watch it and listen.
The question really is, Is this a bill that helps working Americans
or is this a bill that helps billionaires? Again, let me just pause on
the irony that it wasn't too long ago when they were saying
millionaires until they themselves realized that they became
millionaires. Forgive me. Different topic.
[[Page S3609]]
If you take out a car loan for an American-made automobile and you
can deduct that interest, the bill, in the text, specifies that you
cannot make more than $100,000 per year. I think by definition,
somebody who makes less than $100,000 a year is not a billionaire. So
it is indisputable that that part of the bill does not help
billionaires; it helps working Americans. Notice that was not
addressed.
Second, no tax on overtime. I don't think there are a lot of
billionaires that punch a clock. That is clearly something that helps
working Americans.
No income tax on tips. Once again, I don't see a lot of billionaires
serving us at restaurants or taking care of us at nail salons or
barbershops. It is clearly something that helps working Americans. As I
predicted, they did not address that particular provision.
No tax on Social Security, and that is capped at $150,000 in income--
again, by definition, not a billionaire.
A $5,000 tax increase is prevented. That does not help billionaires;
it helps working Americans that don't want to see their taxes go up.
They didn't address that.
Now, when 10 million illegals invade this country and drive down our
wages, drive up our housing costs, do you think Jeff Bezos or Mark
Zuckerberg or Elon Musk is worried about the price of housing? Jeff
Bezos just had a $55 million wedding in Italy. I don't think he is
worried about his housing costs going up.
I don't think there are a lot of criminal aliens who are going to
Beverly Hills or Palo Alto or Martha's Vineyard to buy homes. They are
going to places like Springfield, OH, where we saw our average rents go
from about $1,000 to two or three times that amount because we had a
surge of 18,000 aliens in a city of 50,000 people. Insurance prices
went up because we had a massive amount of car accidents and crashes.
That is the real world. That happens, and that affects working
Americans. What this bill does is it deports them.
Now, what isn't said by my Democrat colleagues is that they have a
lot of their friends that love criminal-alien labor. They can't
complain. They get paid a lot less money. That doesn't benefit working
Americans. Working Americans don't have five gardeners and three
nannies and a house in Martha's Vineyard, but my Democrat colleagues'
friends sure do. Go spend a summer in Martha's Vineyard; you will see
exactly what I mean. You will see decadence unlike anything you have
never seen in your life--$30, $40 million homes, private jets to get
there. Do you know what they do? They sip cappuccinos in the morning,
talking about climate change when they heat and cool their homes 365
days a year. That is who funds the Democratic Party today. It is quite
sad, honestly, because the Democratic Party used to be the party of the
working class. It used to be the party that would champion the things
in this bill.
There is a $2,200 child tax credit. Do you think that billionaires
are really going to think about $2,200 as a child tax credit as
something that is really going to motivate them? Do you think
billionaires are going to rush out and get married and have kids
because they are going to get a $2,200 child tax credit or do you think
it is going to allow them to buy groceries?
The Democrat leader spoke about SNAP benefits and taking food away
from children. Those are the kinds of hyperbolic statements that I
think all of us here in the U.S. Senate should be above. Nobody is
suggesting that we take food literally out of the hands of children,
but what their policies did do over the last 4 years--inadvertently
maybe; I will give them credit--was raise grocery prices to the point
where working Americans had to make a decision at the cash register on
whether to buy something or not.
I saw it with my own eyes. I saw it with my own eyes when I went to
Giant Eagle in Westlake, OH, and I would see people come in to buy
groceries, and they would have to make a decision--maybe the bigger
cereal box, they can't do it. They have to go to generics instead of
the Kellogg's because their grocery bill is just too high. Imagine what
that feels like. You are a working American. You worked your whole
life. In front of your children, you have to say look at them and say:
I can't afford to get you cereal today. I can't afford to get you that
extra snack you want.
They drove up the price of inflation. The One Big Beautiful Bill will
lower it. They didn't talk about that.
They didn't talk about the $1,000 fund that goes in for American
citizens. Again, do you think billionaires care whether $1,000 goes
into a fund that could be maybe $100, $200,000 when those kids turn 25,
30 years old? I don't think that makes a difference to Jeff Bezos. I
think his children will be just fine. It is something that helps
working Americans. Again, they don't address that.
At least be honest about your objection to the bill, and their
objection to the bill is pretty straightforward: They don't want
President Trump to get a win.
Let's talk about healthcare. Do you think the billionaires worry
about their healthcare premiums? Working Americans do. What are we
doing? We are preserving these healthcare programs for the people who
need them. We are strengthening Medicaid.
What they have allowed to happen is that States have been gaming the
Federal Government, drawing down funds to pay for other projects and
other benefits. And the people who are going to be eliminated from the
Medicaid system are illegal migrants. We shall see whether in this bill
they object to that provision, because in our current draft--again,
they don't refer to this--it says that you cannot receive any welfare
programs unless you are an American citizen. They will have the
opportunity to object and remove that from the bill. That doesn't help
billionaires, but it does crush working Americans.
They didn't talk about the dangers all over the world. Congo and
Rwanda just signed a peace deal in the White House yesterday. Pakistan
and India averted a massive war. We now have a cease-fire between Iran
and Israel. In 6 months, President Trump has brought peace and
prosperity around the world. But our military was depleted because they
insisted on funding a proxy war with Russia. We are fixing that.
They didn't talk about the investment in the Coast Guard. They would
leave that out because, again, they want you to think that this bill is
about billionaires. It certainly is not.
They didn't talk about the air traffic control system. My colleague
has been here almost as long as I have been alive. He had the
opportunity when he controlled this Chamber, controlled the House,
controlled the Presidency, to fund a modernization of our air traffic
control system. He didn't do it. He isn't talking about that.
Let's talk about the Green New Deal--the green new scam. Let's talk
about that for a second. Let me just walk you through it if you are not
familiar with what this is.
Let's say that you want to build a solar project, for example, in
London, OH. You can go out and buy acres of land for way more than
market value. Why? Because the Federal Government will pay you 30
percent of what you think the project is worth.
Let me just repeat that for a second. Let's say that a project is
going to cost you $10 million to build. The Federal Government will pay
you 30 percent of what you think it is worth. That is in the Inflation
Reduction Act. It is what they call fair market value.
So let's say you find a friendly appraiser that says: Hey, this solar
project is really worth $30 million. The Federal Government will write
you a check for $9 million of the $10 million it costs to build that
project.
If you are really savvy, you then go to a bank and say: Hey, look, I
have this project that is worth all this money. Can you give me a loan?
Maybe they get half--$5 million. Before it produces 1 electron, you
have put $4 million in your pocket. Do you really care if the project
succeeds? Why would you? You just made out like a bandit.
This is why the Inflation Reduction Act, when it was passed, was
supposed to cost about $1 trillion, and it is costing exponentially
more than that. These are scams on the American people.
Now, in Ohio, we have thousands of years of natural gas, thousands of
years--the cleanest energy you can imagine, the most abundant, reliable
energy. What did the Democrats,
[[Page S3610]]
through the administration, do? Completely kneecapped it--and liquid
natural gas exports; made it virtually impossible to explore for new
natural gas; removed permits from Federal lands; canceled the Keystone
Pipeline. Who did that affect? Do you think that billionaire buddy of
one of my colleagues who has a compound on Martha's Vineyard cares if
his energy price went up 30 percent?
By the way, he doesn't even pay the bill. He has somebody who he
knows that has somebody beneath him that has somebody beneath them that
actually pays the bills. He has no idea if his energy price went up 30
percent. It wouldn't even affect their life.
I was with somebody in Martha's Vineyard a couple or 3 years ago.
They gave a quote that I will never forget. I want to put this into the
Record. It was a quote from one of my Democrat colleagues. Now, in the
spirit of decorum, I will not mention their name, but here is the
quote.
In front of a $35 million home that most of the guests flew their
private jets to, that had several boats anchored--with, by the way,
gigantic outboard engines that used probably 30 gallons of gas every 5
minutes--they said the following quote--are you ready, Mr. President,
for this quote? ``If you want to live like a Republican, vote for a
Democrat.''
Think about how callous that is. He said the quiet part out loud.
I am proud that the Presiding Officer and I are part of a new
Republican Party. I think the Presiding Officer and I represent a new
vision of the Republican Party, a party that is about helping working
Americans actually live a better life. That is why I am here. I know
that is why the Presiding Officer is here, and I know that is why the
Presiding Officer and I are so proud of this bill.
And, again, I will close with this, and I know there is lots of noise
out there right now all over this building. We have an opportunity for
the first time--first time--in American history to say that in this
Chamber, in this Congress, with this President, we are going to make
the lives of working Americans better the way I just outlined.
And while my colleagues--I don't expect them, it would be kind of,
quite honestly, odd for them to agree with us on everything. Just don't
lie. Just don't come out here on the floor and say this is a bill for
billionaires. This is a bill for working Americans. And I would
challenge any of my colleagues that are going to speak that when they
make those statements, reference the page number and the exact line in
the bill that helps billionaires, just point that out.
And by the way, on these solar scams, we are not banning solar
panels; we are not banning windmills. What we are saying is we are not
going to make you filthy rich if you build one of these projects. But
if you want to build a solar panel project somewhere in Ohio, you can
do it. You are just not going to do it with massive subsidies from the
Federal Government.
So, again, I will urge all of my colleagues, let's unite as a party.
Let's show the American people that Republicans have the ability to
govern; that we can come together to pass a transformative and
historical bill.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from the great State of
Minnesota.
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