on her and her three daughters. >> her life was a window into this big thing of abortion. the pro-life wish to say, look at her, look at the cost of abortion. she never had an abortion. what she actually is, she is a fascinating testimony to the cost of adoption. she struggled enormously, emotionally with what it meant to have relinquished her children to adoption. announcer: senator graham and representative smith are the top republicans on the senate house and a budget committee. they held a news conference today on president biden's spending plan.

they explained why they thought the build back better act should not become law. sen. graham: good morning. who likes charts? good. i'm here with congressman jason smith, the ranking member of the house budget committee, and we are going to put a fine point on this week. the good news for the american consumer, there is not going to be anymore inflation in your stockings because of build back better. i want to thank senator manchin and others for standing their ground. my belief is that build back

better never gets better. it will never get better, you cannot make this thing -- you cannot put lipstick on a pig, and when it comes to inflation and depth of spending, this thing is a monster pig. so, let's start with this idea. our democratic colleagues say that the cbo. score is fake -- cbo score is fake. she is growing on me, by the way. she does a good job. this is a fake score not based on the actual will that anybody is voting on. next.

it is lindsey at his best. you know he is waxing followers of donald trump. and marilyn must -- and differently must be the cbo. and republicans have a preposterous number. we know what the cost is going to be and it is nowhere near that. to my good friend senator durbin, i promise you that i am not svengali. neither one of us have hold over cbo. we did not make up the numbers. they analyzed the bill. i feel like i am on "wheel of fortune" here. there was another time when there was a different view of the cbo. the estimates, which, as you

know, the gold standard. no republican or democrat questions it. president biden, back in 2010 -- i want the american people to know that the score on the actual cost of the bill is not fake, it's real. the effect on the deficit is not fake, it is real. so let's talk about what they said about the bill in terms of cost. president biden said, my build back better agenda costs zero dollars. my plans are fiscally responsible, fully paid for. they do not add a single penny to the deficit. vice president harris -- let me be clear, our build back better act is fully paid for. it reduces the deficit by more than $100 billion over the next 10 years. december 2, 2021.

secretary yelling -- yellen, the boat back better plan is fully paid for, even more so. speaker pelosi, it is solidly played for -- paid for. bernie sanders, the reconciliation bill is paid for in its entirety. it will not have an impact on inflation. the white house chief of staff -- htis package has -- this package adds nothing to the debt. well, all lies. it is not paid for. if you do not believe me, let's look at what cbo said. cbo said the deficit will increase by $3 trillion. so when the president, vice president, the treasury secretary, speaker of the house, senator bernie sanders as chairman of the budget committee, and the chief of staff to the president say it's fully paid for and it will not

add to the deficit, cbo says that is not true. cbo says it will add $3 trillion towards the deficit. who do you believe, them or is cbo? and what happened? jason and myself asked the congressional budget office to score build back better, assuming that the 17 programs with the sunset clause would actually stay in for 10 years, which is reality. ronald reagan said the closest thing to mortality on earth is a government program. so we all know the spending programs that democrats are trying to put in, they do not want them to go away. if history is any judge, they will not go away. so when the cbo looked at these programs being spending for 10 years, not 1, 2 or three, it went to $4.9 trillion. the $1.75 trillion number is a

result of budget gimmicks. they artificially limit the length of the programs to get the number 21.75. if you do away with the gimmicks, as joe manchin said -- let's take a look. do we have that quote? this is one of the reasons that we decided to have cbo look at the bill. "what icr shell games and budget gimmicks at that make the real cost of this $1.75 trillion bill estimate to be twice as high, if the programs are extended or made permanent. that's a recipe for economic crisis. noe of us -- none of us should

misrepresent to the american people what the real cost of the legislation is." to my democratic colleagues, you have been misrepresenting the real cost of this bill to the american people, and cbo scored the bill without gimmicks. and it went from $1.75 trillion to almost $5 trillion. it is not paid for, without gimmicks it adds $3 trillion to the deficit. so i think that build back better is dead, not just for 2021, but forever. if my democratic colleagues, who have been talking about what they want, hold firm -- if you really do not want to vote for a bill that adds to the deficit, you cannot vote for availability back better -- for build back better. if you try to raise taxes to pay for the $3 trillion deficit spending, then you will have to massively increase taxes on an economy that does not need any

more tax increases. $5 trillion is the true cost. these programs never go away. i cannot think of a worse recipe for inflation than passing the bill that would spend $5 trillion. build back better declares war on fossil fuels, the green new deal component will increase gas prices, i think, by a gallon. at a time when it is hurting working people already. so, build back better, when it comes to childcare, it collapses childcare and makes it harder for the private sector to stay in the childcare business and it mandates increased cost and it is impossible for religious institutions to purchase paid in the childcare program drafted by build back better. they are talking about $12,000 to $13,000 additional cost to the consumer because they replaced the private sector with a government run childcare. this bill is inflationary.

it blows the $3 trillion hole and already a growing deficit. it's not paid for. this bill is twice the cost being advertised. this bill does not pass scrutiny. and it is not me saying that, it is the congressional budget office that used to be the gold standard. what have i learned? if a policy or a rule gets in the way of the liberal agenda, it will be shredded. senator warren is calling for packing the court, because she does not like at the makeup of the court. now, the cbo went from the gold standard to fake, not because of any change at the cbo, but because of the change in joe biden. the joe biden of 2010 does not exist. the democratic party of just a

few years ago does not exist. these folks are on a mission to grow this government, to replace the private sector everywhere they can, and they see this as their last best chance. they are acting as if there is a mandate for all of this. there is not. this is a 50-50 senate. the only thing between the american public and an inflation bomb is called build back better , a bill that adds $3 trillion to the deficit is a handful of democratic senators. here is what i tell my colleagues, the public is with you. west virginia's with you. it's not only a time, it is not only time to have a timeout in this bill, it is a time to bury this bill. this bill does not get better over time. there's some provisions in this bill that maybe we could have a

bipartisan agreement on, once inflation comes down and cools down. i do not mind having that discussion. but right now is not the time to add any more federal spending, grow the government and creating a problem for inflation. so, i am hoping that the highest inflation rate in 40 years, combined with the cbo score, will stop the madness. come back next year and we will focus on two things, lowering inflation and rebuilding the supply chain, rather than expanding the government anyway a way that would do more harm than good. congressman smith has been an indispensable partner in getting the cbo to score the bill without gimmicks. and i will now turn it over to him. i appreciate all of your leadership in the house. rep. smith: i want to thank

senator graham for your partnership on getting the real score of the build back better. we have heard a lot of conversation from the white house, joe biden's white house, speaker pelosi, and they have not been honest with the american people. they have not been honest with members of congress. they originally started with a $3.5 trillion piece of legislation. then they needed to scale it down to $1.75 trillion on paper. but we knew with the gimmicks, what they were doing, that they were just changing sunsets. they were not phasing out programs. when you ask them, do you not want to make these various programs permanent? no, we want to make them permanent. in fact, the white house has said they want all provisions to be permanent. so that is why senator graham and i asked cbo to score what

they are telling the american people that they are asking. and as it can see, it is the largest spending bill in the history of the u.s. at $5 trillion, it adds $3 trillion to the debt. $3 trillion. just this past week, the numbers came out that we were facing the highest inflation in 40 years. when you talk to people back home, who i represent in missouri, they are struggling to put food on the table or clothes on their backs or gasoline in their cars. they care about prices at the supermarket. this administration and members of congress on the democrats side have said that inflation is transitory, until just this past week. now the white house will say it is not transitory. the federal reserve even said that inflation is not transitory. so, we need to focus on inflation. the cure to inflation is not to

spin your way out of inflation, and that is what $5 trillion of new money does. the cbo score on friday came back with a several provisions i think we should look at. one, the house democrats said the child tax credit would cost $185 billion. the cbo score says it costs about $1.6 trillion. $1.6 trillion. the cbo score on friday also said that pre-k will cost $750 billion. but the house democrats, under the build back better bill, they say it costs less then half of that. then you look at the obama care subsidies. house democrats say $74 billion. under the score on friday, $220 billion. so, are they not wanting to make these programs permanent?

are they wanting them to sunset? or are they just creating a fiscal cliff, are they creating poverty track for the people of america, where if they get these programs, in a year they no longer have them? to me, it sounds like they have two choices -- that they can do, either pulling the rug out from underneath the american public, or pulling the wool over the eyes of the american public. one or the other, we are going to have to know something. people try to refer to this bill as the build back better bill, but over in the house we referred to a couple other b's. this bill, as i said, bankrupts the economy. it is the largest spending bill in our history, the largest tax increase in the history of the united states, and it will add $3 trillion to the deficit.

clearly bankrupting the economy. the second largest provision in the legislation is the tax cuts for the wealthiest of millionaires, the state and local tax deduction. it cost over $280 billion, that is their second largest provision. you make $20 million and you get taxpayer paid family leave. if you make a half million dollars, you get thousands of dollars in electric vehicle subsidies. it benefits the wealthy. an as senator graham saidd, it adds numerous new programs to the federal government. the cbo score is talking about the 17 additional programs. this bill that passed the house adds over 150, ove one hundred hundredr -- over 50 new programs. this bill bankrupts that the economy, benefits the wealthy

and builds of the washington machine. it's not too late. it's not too late for speaker pelosi to revisit this bill. in fact, she has not even sent it to the senate. she needs her members, her members, to vote under the true transparency of this bill, of what is accurate, and not under misrepresentation. happy to yield back to the senator. >> senator graham, part of the reason the child tax credit scored at $1.6 trillion last week is the expiration of like tax cuts and job tax provision, which resulted from your own budget deficit, which is identical to the one democrats are using, isn't that funny? sen. graham: i do not think it is funny at all. the democratic tax credit, i am willing to talk to them about how you could help working people. -- with the tax credit.

joe manchin does not like this provision. that does not mean he is against tax cut it. but exhibit a is they are pushing joe, if you do not vote for build back better, the tax credit goes away in december. under the bill, it lasts for one more year. what will they say at the end of that year? we need to extend it? if you extend the democratic child tax credit for 10 years, it's $1.6 trillion. count me in for trying to help families who are working with a child tax credit, but not this way. this is exhibit a of how phony the process is. go ahead. >> you go. >> yeah. are you worried the budget process needs to be -- where

they set an expiration date. but it turns out that the expiration dates are transitory. sen. graham: yeah. >> the cost is going to go up. now -- to the national debt. this bill is looking at 33. [indiscernible] these kinds of politics are unstoppable. sen. graham: the way to stop it is have the cbo score it and make an informed decision. if the american people want to support a $5 trillion bill, they need to be told it is $5 trillion. the largest spending bill in the history of the country, and they are trying to mask it to be $1.75 trillion. tax cuts, and 20 we passed tax cuts. we -- we believe that giving

people back their money is a good thing. but this bill takes more money out of the economy, grows the government. i think it will be incredibly inflationary. as two tax cuts score, you cannot score beyond a 10 year window. we believe cutting back will stimulate the economy over time, create more jobs, but the cbo said you cannot go beyond the 10 year window. so in 2017, i think that cutting taxes jumpstarted the economy. we were doing well until covid. we have the vaccine now, and hopefully we can get our footing with the new variant, and keep the economy open. so, what they have done is the y are lying to the american people about three things -- the cost of the bill by sunsetting these programs. some might have bipartisan support, but they artificially reduced the cost and it he

should devote again in the house based on the reality of the bill. they say it does not cost a penny. read my lips, it costs $3 trillion. so quit the games, click the gimmicks. that is not me saying that, that is senator manchin. so when you stop the games, the shell games and gimmicks, this bill, i think, is dead forever or should be. we are done. yeah. go. >> i have a question about the revenue. doe this include any anticipated revenues? how far do you anticipate those, because you are claiming revenue from programs that do not exist. sen. graham: if the cbo wants to supplement how this bill generates revenue, that is correct. apparently, they feel comfortable saying with all the revenue components, it is $3 trillion in deficit spending. but i want to know where it comes from. it was going to pay?

where does the revenue come from? i think that they look at the bill in terms of revenue generation, spending programs and in light of the fact that they will not go away. the reason jason and i did that is when you take the lie off the table that these programs go away, it doubles in cost. when you look at the effect of the deficit including revenue in the bill, it has a $3 trillion unpaid for component. yes? yes? >> how often have you spoken with joe manchin? sen. graham: i spoke to him when the numbers came out, i have not spoken to him since. so, he was the first person i called when the cbo score came out. and let's show the chart of the other groups that did this. the wharton school of business looked at the cost of build

back better, assuming the programs did not sunset, before cbo. and they found $4.6 trillion to be the true cost. joe had been working with wharton, unbeknownst to me, because he trusts them. and said, would you look at this without the sunsets? then, we got the committee for responsible federal budget, that's part -- that's seen as being honest brokers. they look at the bill without the sunsets, including the revenue, as $4.8 trillion. so when cbo came back using the same methodologies, they actually went to $4.9 trillion, and when you include interest, over $5 trillion. when you say the cbo is fake, you have to believe that the wharton school of business is fake. i do not think senator manchin

believes this is fake. so that would be a good question. joe, do you think this score is fake? do you think wharton is fake? d believe the committee is fake? do you believe this bill is paid for? i think he would say no. my conversations with him were short, but he was stunned that cbo would actually be in the ballpark, but actually be higher. when it comes to the deficit, wharton had 2.6, the committee for responsible federal budget had 2.8. and the cbo had $3 trillion. so i think what has happened is joe is convinced he was right about the true cost of the bill. with that came out friday -- with the inflation numbers coming out friday, that this is not transitory, now joe manchin

will be a hard sell on voting for this bill in a time of rampant inflation. but he will continue, i am sure, to find a middle ground. there is no middle ground, i think, for build back better. there may be middle ground for some of the provisions that we can look at, that we believe not to be inflationary, that can be rewritten in a fashion to do a better job. yes, sir? >> the conflict you might be alluding to on the child tax credit, the democrats have talked about moving something, that build back better may not be done in time for january 10, but would you expect the -- sen. graham: i think that both parties have been interested in helping working people with child care expenses, but not $1.6 trillion over 10 years, not the way that they wrote it. i guess what i am saying, and i

will let jason speak to this in a moment, that they are some things we may be could find common ground on, but what we are being offered to vote on in the senate, and what they voted on in the house, is a complete nonstarter, it is an inflationary bomb, it is a $3 trillion unpaid for bill that would do far more harm to the economy than anything it could help. >> thank you, senator. rep. smith: i was proud to work with president trump back in 2017 in the jobs act. i was serving on the ways and means committee and it was a provision that i pushed for. it went from $1000 to $2000. do not get confused, what they are trying to extend is their temporary child tax credit from the first reconciliation bill in march. it's not the tax and jobs act that expired. that goes to show that that is another temporary program, that

was supposed to expire now, that they are now trying to make not temporary anymore, which proves what we have said all along. also, they took out the work requirement in the bill. as senator graham says, there is a bipartisan approach on both sides of the building of a child tax credit that helps working families and of the working class. >> what about -- it's not going to work for democrats, this whole idea of having a continuous program would be, we do not want to include the millions whose income is at the threshold from the tax credit? sen. graham: they do not pay taxes. >> right. sen. graham: that is why. i think most americans would appreciate a tax credit, but most americans -- you have to have a tax liability. but we have programs for people who work. ronald reagan started, what is

it called? earn tax -- yeah, that was an idea for people who worked, but did not make enough money to pay taxes, but they got some help. that program already exists. which jason is talking about is a new program that is not what we did in 2017. i will speak for myself, i believe that climate change is real. electric vehicles are coming. there will be a day when most cars are electric in america and it will be good for the environment and we need to put infrastructure in place. we need to have a reasonable transition, not declare war on fossil fuels. we need to be able to extract fuel here at home so we do not have to buy fossil fuels from people who hate our guts. the tax credit for electrical vehicles in this bill is just unbelievably bad government. the increased tax credits for electric vehicles -- i think there is 4500 dollars of the

$12,500, that you only get if you purchase an electric vehicle made by a union plant, and that gives you one choice, michelle mute -- the chevy volt. we are making bmws in south carolina, they are making cars in west virginia, so build back better is offensive. if he really believed in the environment, what does it matter who makes the car? why would you want to punish companies that came to america to create good jobs for americans by taking their tax credit off the table and giving it to a union plant? because they are trying to reward political allies. this is another example of why this bill stinks. one last question. >> [indiscernible] do you think this is an effort to reshape -- is? sen. graham: good question.

i think that there is an effort by the liberal part of the party, which is now the dominant part of the party, to take this moment of having the house, white house and senate and to reshape america. the only thing that stops them is the united republican party. i am one of 19 republicans that worked with democrats to pass an infrastructure package, because i thought it made sense. every republican in the house and senate, that i know of, certainly in the senate, opposes build back better. that tells you about the quality of the product. why do we oppose it? we believe it is $5 trillion, not one point 75. we believe these programs will do more harm than good, grew the government. if you have a child in a religious day care setting, the childcare component of this bill is not going to be available to

these organizations because of the regulations, they will mandate higher wages, which in turn will increase costs to consumers and it will put people out of business. it is an effort to take over childcare, as they want to do with health care. so, yes, this is a road to socialism approach. and the democratic party is open any -- openly talking now about packing the court because they do not like the fact that the court is more conservative than they would like. the way that you fix that problem is you win elections. i voted for sotomayor, i have voted for just about everybody, but i will never support expanding the court because that is the end of the court. when we get in charge, will be expanded it yet again? they are willing to do a lot of damage to the structure of america, and we need to stop them. this is a fight worth having. if this bill ever became law,

there's no turning back. >> on the child tax credit, -- now find a way to keep it until january? sen. graham: the child tax credit does not need to be extended, there is a bipartisan proposal that could be worked upon to help people who work with thaad -- with child tax credits. rep. smith: i would follow up on your question, this bill, in my opinion, is all about more control on the lives of working-class americans. americans are facing numerous crises, whether it is border, whether it is the energy crisis, inflation, whether it is a leadership crisis in the oval office, they are facing all kind of crises. and this piece of legislation only makes it worse. in this bill, there are over $300 billion to push people not to work. and we have help-wanted signs

all across america. we cannot find enough people. we have a supply chain crisis. this is the last thing we need is for this administration, the washington democrats, to push of this legislation to make working-class americans' lives even worse. sen. graham: thank you very much. appreciate it. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [indistinct conversations] announcer: health experts testify on accelerating covid-19 vaccination efforts around the world. watch of the coronavirus subcommittee hearing tonight on c-span, online at c-span.org, or watch full coverage on c-span now, our new video app. ♪ announcer: get c-span on the go, watch the biggest political

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