LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Lawmakers have been up all night debating President Trump's massive budget bill. Democrats are hoping to slow down Republican efforts to pass the budget that would allow them to implement much of Trump's agenda. Democratic Congressman Greg Casar of Texas joins me now to talk about this.
Good morning, and thank you for being on the program.
GREG CASAR: Good morning.
FADEL: So what are your major objections to this bill?
CASAR: Right now, we aren't just fighting over what's in the bill but whether the American people get to know what's in this bill. Republican members of Congress are trying to ram this through with no scrutiny. They started their hearing this morning at 1 in the morning under the cover of darkness. They're lying about what's in it because they don't want the American people to know all the objectionable things in this bill. The Republicans know that taking food assistance away from working-class kids to pay for tax cuts for billionaires is deeply unpopular. They know that passing the biggest Medicaid cut in American history is deeply unpopular and dangerous. And the latest news from overnight is that their bill will also trigger the biggest Medicare cuts in American history.
So your question to me is what's objectionable in the bill? Virtually everything in this bill is all about making life worse and more expensive for your average person while making things better just for the richest people in the country. So our job is to expose this bill, bring it into the sunlight. And that's why Democrats have been there all night asking questions with more and more Democrats showing up to drag this out into the morning so that there can be some sunlight on this horrible bill.
FADEL: So you're saying they're lying about the impacts it would have on food benefits, Medicaid, things like that?
CASAR: You hear the Republican members of Congress on TV do this all the time. They go and say, well, you know, these big Medicaid cuts, and then they catch themselves and say, oh, I mean Medicaid reforms. What they're really talking about - take all of their double speak away. What they're talking about is closing rural hospitals. Closing addiction treatment centers. Leaving 4 million school-age kids without food assistance. It's horrible, but we can still stop it. Remember just eight years ago, when they were going to, you know, end Obamacare, you had Trump in the White House, Republicans in control of the House and Senate. But then the American people marched. They called. They demanded better. The Republican majority is very slim. And if there's enough public pressure and Democrats make sure that the American people know what is actually going on here, then we can stop this horrible bill.
FADEL: Now, the Republicans argue that really, spending is out of control. There have to be cuts here. I mean, without a majority in the House, what impact can Democrats have on the budget process? I mean, is the strategy just to publicly speak about it?
CASAR: We have to do more than just speak about it here in Washington, D.C. That's why I, a progressive Democrat from Central Texas, recently flew to Colorado and went and spoke in Colorado's 8th Congressional District represented by a Republican - a Republican who refuses to have town halls with his own constituents. And there were nurses that came and asked questions that they wanted to ask of their Republican member of Congress that came and got to talk to me about why is it that Republicans are trying to close their hospitals, cut their health care? There were everyday people coming and saying, I need a tax cut a lot more than Elon Musk needs a tax break.
And so we can go and actually speak to everyday voters - conservative, independent, Democratic alike - and make the case because the Republican majority is extremely slim. They're having a lot of trouble passing this bill. And to your question about if spending is out of control, look, the Republican plan here actually doesn't reduce this deficit, it blows it up. The Republican plan, ultimately, is about tax cuts for billionaires and then cutting health care and other essential services for the American people. This isn't the kind of bill that's popular with Republican voters. This is the bill that only really helps the richest Republican donors and leaves all of the voters behind.
FADEL: Representative Greg Casar of Texas, thank you for your time.
CASAR: Thank you very much.
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