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We spent all day yesterday telling you the House was planning to vote on its budget resolution. At least that was the initial plan, and House leadership wasn't making it firmly clear if they were still planning to go ahead with it, as there were four Republican holdouts who were suggesting they would vote no. You couldn't afford to lose four votes with the margin Republicans were dealing with last night.
So they bring this thing to the floor and then they pull it and members actually start to leave the Capitol.
Yeah, they were told to go home.
And then they're called back to vote again. And what happens. Three of the holdouts flip and the thing passes.
It's almost as if you were watching this in real time, as we all were.
Magical. Thirteen minutes passed. Donald Trump on the phone with the holdouts. I believe, Kaylee, he flipped two of the three holdouts that made this all possible two seventeen two point fifteen. The vote here remindingly one and a half trillion to two trillion dollars in spending cuts to pay for four and a half trillion dollars in tax cuts. The math is still hard for some members.
Here well, certainly Tom Massey, the one Republican who insisted on still voting no, being one of them. And we heard this question asked in the cabinet meeting that took place at the White House just a while ago about not cutting Medicaid. The President maintains that he doesn't want
to touch other than looking at fraud. The problem is the budget outline, which yes, did not dictate cuts to Medicaid, did say the Energy and Commerce Committee needs to find eight hundred and eighty billion dollars worth of cuts somewhere. The question is where, if not there, why.
We keep hearing about medicaid because it seems inevitable to those reading the tea leaves here. Donald Trump untruth social Following passage of the bill, I hope the House and Senator are able to agree on making the tax cuts permanent, he writes in all caps, exclamation point, and that's where we start with Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall, who is on Capitol Hill looking at the fine print and some very challenging math.
Tyler, what happens next?
Yeah, Hey, Joe, Well, I actually caught up with Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia on the Appropriations Committee, earlier today, and she told me she congratulates the House, but that her chamber has some adjustments to do. There's a few different issues at play here, but as you mentioned, tax cuts perhaps the most contingents this House plan calling for four point five brillion dollars that is likely only enough runway to extend President Trump's twenty seventeen
A tax plan. And we heard from the Senate Budget chair at Lindsay Graham, who called this bill neither big nor beautiful when it comes to tax cuts and says that he will work in order to try to make those tax cuts permanent. But also important to keep in mind here, there are a lot of other campaign promises when it comes to tax priorities that could be left out of this, including no taxes on tips, overtime paid social Security, a lower corporate tax rate for companies who
try to move their manufacturing to the US. So all of this starting to bubble up for Republicans to try to find some additional pay for Is and Joe and Kelly. Those negotiations are already in full are already in full swing. Bloomberg News reporting that House Speaker Mike Johnson Senate Majority Leader John Thune heading to the White House later today. In that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wilds is expected here on Capitol Hill for a lunch.
Shortly yeah, after leaving the cabinet meeting that just took place at the White House early Tyler, And as we just heard Elon Musk there with the rest of the Cabinet and the President talking about their efforts to cut costs, how is that working in tandem with the cuts that Congress is currently trying to find.
It's going to be very difficult, right because we are seeing potentially huge numbers when it comes to adding to the deficit. The Committee for a Responsible Budget estimating that this House plan at least would add at least three trillion dollars, and particularly when we are looking for those cuts you mentioned there. How President Trump has vowed that
Medicaid will not be impacted. But it's very difficult to see how the math outlined in this House plan would prevent that eight hundred and eighty billion dollars potentially could go towards Medicaid. If just for the exercise, all of that money was taken out of the program, it would slash the program's annual budget by ten percent over the next ten years. This get very politically fraught for Republicans.
I was struck by one database kept by NYU which found that thirty seven percent of House Speaker Mike Johnson's constituents in Louisiana or on Medicaid. This is going to be a tricky vote ahead.
Indeed, there's still a lot of work left to do. Last night was really just step one Bloomberg Styler kind of live on Capitol Hill for us. Thank you so much. Of course, I would point out that on this show or Balance of Power of the late edition yesterday, when we were still ahead of the vote and talking to lawmakers about that, we spoke with Congress and Brian Style of Wisconsin, who was sounding pretty confident it would pass last night, even though the face of a lot of people questioning that.
That's true, but also perfectly articulated the push and pull here between two sides within the Republican conference. Remember we're not even talking about Democratic members here. Some obviously concerned about the potential for cuts to Medicaid. We've spoken with some of them, including Nicole Malia Takis.
She ended up being yes.
Others don't think that we're cutting enough to make good on the promise of tax cuts and Donald Trump's request to make this permanent. That's another big ask, And how you get these two together in the same room is going to be interesting.
Yeah, this is how the Congressman phrased it to us yesterday.
To my colleagues on the right that say the reduction and spending is insufficient, I remind them that by passing this procedural vote today, it's simply a floor that we can build on the spending and saving reforms. To my colleagues that think it's too much, I would offer them to really look hard and make sure that we're not simply measuring the inputs into some of our key programs, in particular Medicaid, but instead we're measuring the outputs.
So for more we want to turn to another veteran of Capitol Hill. Former Congressman and former chair of the Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady is here with us in Oer Washington, d C. Studio. He's now a spokesperson for the Alliance for Competitive Taxation, making him a pretty good person to talk to about all of this. Mister chairman, welcome back.
Good to see.
I would ask you if you were surprised that this ultimately passed last night, but it also wasn't without its challenges, and it makes me wonder, if it was that hard to just get this done initially, how hard is the next part going to be?
Yeah, they I would like to tell you every steps easier, but it's not. It's just a different type of difficult. But there's no question House Republicans defied expectations, you know, delivered more quickly. I think then people expected lots of momentum,
you know, coming off the floor last night. Talking to members of Congress and leadership, tax writers, budgeted folks, they felt like, to Joe's point, they had found that common ground that's sort of that design that could move it through a near zero majority if you think about it, just unprecedent that way. So yeah, I don't think you can underestimate how important a step this is, not that
there's not more of them. And as the reporter said, you know, launching right away in those reconciliation discussions with the Senate in the White House, you know, I think they're hopeful that they can reach agreement, hopefully in March, but certainly by early April's when the two new special elections. I think that's right seat those two members from Florida. So it looks like that's the timetable, and that's that's a that too, is a pretty prompt timetable.
I'm sure you remember what it was like to get a telephone call from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
What do these members go through?
What did Victoria Sparks here when Donald Trump called the cell phone last night?
So I think they so one. I think to the House leadership credit, they had really narrowed the number of people who were on the fence to a very like a surprisingly small number. And I think that's because of the work they had done in Budget Committee earlier that had really struck this this deal. And so I think cong Truman Sparks wanted to know the president administration was serious about those budget cuts, you know, finding way.
Is that a happy call though?
Is it?
Hey, how you doing? Kevin?
I got a problem? Or is he upset? What he calls and puts on the pressure what he needs?
You know, one he says, you'd imagine direct You know, No, it is not threatening. People understand he's got a long memory. He's very successful in his primaries. You don't really have to say it much my experiences, he talks you through the need to move. In this case, it isn't even doing the tax cuts, it's giving creating the runway. It's a procedural step that allows you to build what tax your form you know, can land on, which is his
top priority. So normally I think positive. And they were on the phone quite a while, so clearly we had a good conversation.
Yeah.
Well, while we would all love to know what exactly he said on those phone calls, we do know what exactly he said on True Social this morning, which is that he wants his twenty seventeen tax cuts made permanent and he can hope both chambers can get their heads around that. The problem is, if you look at what was outlined last night, four and a half trillion dollars the Ways and Means Committee has in terms of headway,
that's just enough to extend the tax cuts. So how do they actually make permanence happen?
Yeah, so one music to my ears on the front that's clearly the most pro growth for the country and for families, certainly main street businesses. So that's a good thing. I think their House and Center Republicans are both headed the same direction on permanence. They're just coming at it from different directions, different baselines, sort of different designs on how they get their bodies together.
Tell us more about that, because the Senate wants to do current baseline right, So what difference does that make in the ultimate architecture of this pulse.
So the bottom line is today, if Congress spends, you know, our budget organization assumes that spending will go forever. If you have tax cuts, they assume they expire. So sort of different treatment of Congress's action and so current policy based on basically levels that was spending and says we assume in the budget those that current policy will go on unless Congress change. What that does is delivers a smaller deficit number for them to work through, allows them
I think a clear path to permanency. But I think to the House, I think on the fiscal side of this, the House is saying, you know, should we adopt current policy baseline, because now they're a current law. We still want to tether tax cuts to the spending cuts. So right now they sort of have a like rock climbers, they have this static line. You know, the higher the
spending cuts climb, the higher the tax space climbs. And so I think that'll be one of the key key discussions at the White House today.
We'll speak to that balance a little bit more because people hear a lot of jargon, they billion trillion nothing matters anymore. The difference between extending and making permanent. Knowing that we're talking about at the moment two trillion dollars in cuts, can we actually define that that cost between these two options.
So you've got to reconcile a lot designed and a lot of the numbers on the on these things. Permanency really, uh, Joe, is if you can pay for that for a decade, you know that that in effect creates permanency.
So that's.
No, no, no, it is not.
In fact, what number do we need to be talking about?
Well, great question. I think it's shaped by the President's new tax proposals and overtime on tips, on Social Security salt and because yeah, at the end of the day, you know, my bet would be it will be in some form because what I learned as Ways and Means Chairman is you know, you can pay attention to his tweets, but pay real attention to his campaign promises because that's
what he wants to deliver on. I know, the Ways and Means Committee has been preparing options for the President since day one on those proposals, so they'll have to find a way to accommodate those priorities for the president. Yes, they will add money to to that overall. Number one of the questions are those permanent you know what I mean? Or all are those like pilot tax cuts to go a number of years you know? And then are they're reassessed?
So yeah, lots of way to sort of turn the Rubik's cube, you know what I mean, to try to make this work.
Well, one thing the President made clear again and he actually said I've said this over and over when he was asked about it in the cabinet meeting today, is that he doesn't want Medicaid to be touched. I think he referred to it as a read my lips thing or that, throwing it back to the first President Bush,
I guess Christian. Yeah, well so I do wonder though, when you consider the pots that are available, if that is not one of them, how steep do the cuts everywhere else in terms of discretionary spending really have to get?
You know?
So two thoughts. One, I think the President, House, Republicans sent Republicans are all I think pretty much on the same page. Don't touch those Medicaid benefits, but touch the program that sends money to ineligible people, waste money goes to undocumented immigrants, issues like that. So there are significant numbers there, you know, that can really turn the turn the dial on savings while protecting Medicaid itself and then
the other cuts. If you think about it, just since COVID, our federal budget has grown by more than a third. It just exploded over the last four five years, and it's not sustainable. I mean, running two trillion dollars deficits just from the growth of that. So clearly they've got a right size it back down, you know what I mean to a more manageable budget over spending budget over time. And so I think that's where to your question, where
else do you need to go? You know, you would start with where have we grown over the last four years? And do we still need to be spending the COVID levels in the non COVID world.
Just in our remaining moment.
You're one of the principles of this group Coalition for North American t Yeah to protect, to renegotiate the USMCA. Donald Trump says he's still headlong on Canada Mexico's tariffs April second.
Is that good for our economy?
You know it's not. In fact, I think the US Mexico Canada trading block is the most consequential trading partnership in the world. Has served us well in the past, and with the new agreement, President renegotiate even stronger, especially as we seek to compete against the Chinas of the world. And so I think what our goal is to create a framework to keep that agreement in place when it expires in twenty twenty six or is up for review.
And I think those countries are very willing to sit down work the problems with President Trump, whether it's border or fentanyl or Chinese transhipments. You know what I mean. In the US, I see a big willingness to try to figure out a way to keep this trading partnership going.
That's why some think they will never be implemented. Maybe you're one of them.
Yeah, hard to know.
All right, We won't try to fordict. Donald Trump's next move was with Kevin Brady. It's great to see your Congressman. Always a pleasure to have the Chairman with us here at the table in Washington. Will assemble our panel next on the fastest show in politics. Stay with us alongside Kaylee Lines. I'm Joe Matthew. This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at noon and five pm Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
First Cabinet Meeting for the forty seventh President Wednesday. Donald Trump convening the secretaries and the heads of various agencies at the White House today for the first time of this term. So far, and it wasn't just those who have actually gone through the confirmation process in the Senate
who were in attendance. Elon Musk was there as well, representing, of course, the Department of Government Efficiency and an effort to cost cutting, even though the White House also said earlier this week he is not the actual administrator of DOGE. That's someone else named Emy Gleeson, who's a holdover from
when this was still the US Digital Service. But nonetheless, it was DOGE that Elon Musk was there to speak about, and President Trump commended those efforts as well, including talking about the actual dollar figure they're ultimately targeting here.
One of the most important initiatives is DOGE, and we have cut billions and billions and billions of dollars. We're looking to get it maybe to a trillion dollars. If we could do that, we're going to start getting to be at a point where we can think in terms of balancing budgets. Believe it or not, something you haven't heard in many, many years, decades.
Actually, I'm not sure we've ever heard or seen a cabinet meeting that resolved into a round of applause, which all of the cabinet officials gave Elon Musk when they were asked openly by the President if they had a problem with them. He said he'd throw them out if they did. And Elon Musk did address the room sitting behind he wasn't actually seated at the table, and we
do want to be clear about that. There's fascinating reporting in the Washington Post today about the layer inside the Eisenhower Executive Office building right across the driveway from the White House, where Elon Musk's office has been set up. It's in the old Secretary of War suite, where rainbow colored lights emanate from the tower and keyboard of a powerful gaming computer he uses to conduct government business. Imagining
the Alienware machine right. A Maga hat and a placard reading doge sit in a large wooden desk, cord sneaking across the carpet into a surge protector.
It sounds like a dorm room.
Well, and if you were seeing on Bloomberg TV, on YouTube or anywhere else, Elon Musk in the back of the cabinet room, standing at the side of the table. He was wearing a hat, a baseball cap, and.
A tech support sex supports.
T shirt, saying that essentially the work they're doing in that building you just described is tech support for the government, looking at software and things that are outdated, that kind of thing.
Let's see how the panel feels about this.
They were listening and watching along with all of us an hour plus experience in the cabinet room. Jendi Shanzino is here Bloomberg Politics contributor, our Democratic analyst and senior Democracy Fellow with the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Congress, and Republican strategist Mora Gillespie is back Bluestack Strategy.
It's great to see you both.
Hear the optics that we're talking about, Genie are pretty remarkable. To Kaylee's point, Elon Musk said, I call myself humble tech support here.
Is that all he's doing in this administration?
Well, I think there may be more to it.
But I was so glad to hear that he too has wires everywhere. Since I have wires in my office, I thought maybe the healthiest man in the world ever could hide those wires.
So I'm glad to hear I'm not alone.
Yeah, it was quite a sight, and you know, he talked very deferentially to obviously the President as he normally would, and to the cabinet, given that we've heard. You know, there was some perhaps consternation about the email that went out. The President said, oh no, there wasn't, as you said, if there was, they could just say now and get out.
So they tried to present a very unified front. And I love the fact that Donald Trump said, you know, dojing is now a verb, because he said many secretaries are going to be doging in their own departments in the next few days or the next few weeks, including he said the EPA where he said Zelden is prepared to cut sixty five percent of the workforce, which is quite astonishing.
So there was some news made.
There, but certainly, you know, they were very clear optically that Elon Musk is not a member of the cabinet.
Well as Genie talks about the consternation or at least reported consternation over the whole email asking federal employees to justify their jobs or at least prove, if you were to use the word of Elon Musk, that they have a pulse by saying what they did last week. Mara, if there's not consternation there at the very least is confusionists. There's been some mixed messaging from department heads from the Office of Personnel Management specifically as to whether or not
a response is required. We heard the President describe those people, well over a million of them who haven't responded as being quote on the bubble today. Are these people actually at risk of getting fired or do we just not have clarity around that.
It does seem a bit confusing at the moment, and I don't know that this cabinet meeting answered some of those questions or alleviated that confusion. But I do think it's important that the DOGE entity gives the department heads a chance to clean house or to assess what's going
on in their own departments. Some of them, as the President did mention, only got in there one two days ago, so, you know, giving them a chance to take an assessment of what's going on at their department, identify some of those broadways and abuse issues, whether that's pointed out by DOGE through a coordinated effort or an assistance from Elon Musk and his department. Sure, but without allowing them even the chance, I think is what confused many and there
needs to be some clarity there. I am glad to hear that Elon Musk has an office there, because I think that coming in and making grands, sweeping gestures and blanket statements about all federal employees and without having had any experience is a little bit immature, because coming in there and saying, Naye, five things you did this week that varies based on week to week, and I don't
think that that's really an effective use. So he did try and downplay that, which I was glad to hear, and I do think that there's, you know, some importance there in recognizing the different nuances because government work, and at least from my experience, isn't necessary glamorous. I don't think that people are banging down the doors is nothing.
It's a money making machine. It's you know, people wanted to do the right thing for the right reason for the large part, and so I think it's important to remember that these are people who, while you know, went to work into government for attempts to leave it better than they found it.
Enter the gold card genie that would create a path to citizenship for anyone who pays five million dollars or more. This would be a placement of the older I guess the reinstatement of the old EB five visa program. Donald Trump today saying, if we sell ten million, ten million highly productive people coming in, they'll be young, they'll be talented. That's fifty trillion dollars. That means our debt is totally paid off. Did he just solve the puzzle?
He thinks he did.
And he pushed back a little bit on Lutnick. They are saying, you know, he was using another number. But you know, this could this could go much higher. And you know, with Donald Trump's usual bombast, it was very optimistic. And in the clip you just played, of course, Donald Trump said something which is just stunning that nobody in years has talked about eliminating the debt. In fact, he talked about it in twenty sixteen. He said he would eliminate the entire national debt. And what did he do.
He added over eight trillion dollars to it in ten years. And of course this brings us to where we are headed. You know, his gold card, which he is holding up as potentially a panacea for debt. Elon Musk talking about firing people, are identifying people who don't even exist who are receiving sums of money from the public dole.
As you know, Mora just said, this is not a money making thing.
And of course you eliminate the entire federal the federal employees, you're only at five percent. So the numbers they're using don't add up. And if Elon Musk really wants to make an impact, go after the contractors, because that is what some people referred to as the deep state. But of course he can't do that since he himself is thirty eight billion in as a federal contractor at this point.
So lots of what they say sound very exciting and if they worked, would be incredibly, you know, wonderful, But the numbers, as usual, are not adding up here.
Well, and we of course know what they were saying in that cabinet room today, in part because it was live, but also there were reporters there asking questions about the subjects that we've talked about in many others that we simply don't have the time to get to all of those who were in the room, which of course has some space constraints considering you're just tuttled around a cabinet table.
Part of the White House Press Pool, which had some changes effective today more Genie, as you're well awares, the White House is now picking the group of outlets that can actually be represented in that pool, and today two of the wire services Associated Press and Reuters were not part of it. Instead, Newsmax and Blaze Media were added instead. Have Post also wasn't allowed to participate this time. That
slot went to Axios. We should note Bloomberg also is a wire service and was allowed to participate in the pool today. But this is obviously a change in the way this has always been done usually. More that is the White House Correspondence Association that is coordinating this. In wire services which distribute news to outlets all across the country have always all three of them had a seat
on the plane or a spot in room. What does this do to the way in which the information coming out of this administration in this White House is going to spread?
Yeah, if you listen to the Press Secretary talking about it, you would think, yeah, sure, And if you're a Republican you would think, of course we should have decided to have you know, who gets to be in the room. It's a privilege, as she said, and all these things I don't know that they're going to have the same tune in for eight years from now, when let's say the Republicans don't win and they're not in the presidency. But you've now allowed this to be the case. You've
allowed this to be the norm now. And so how will these members of the press feel, or how will these members of the public feel if they're Republican and now the Democratic president in control is dictating who can be in the room covering news the way that he
wants it or she wants it covered. I think that it s it's a terrible president moving forward, and there is a need for objectivity, and if nothing else, I wish people would look at it without having their Republican or Democratic lens on and think about it from the standpoint of the freedom of the press and just the important of having objective lenses in the room asking tough questions and you know that they're free to answer however they feel. But this, this has caused for concern.
There was a time earlier in my career in a different spot, Genie was my job to get a satellite radio channel assigned to the radio pool. It was not easy and it ended up resolving in a vote among my peers. It was a successful voter. We started as part of that rotation. What is the difference between the White House picking who's in the pool and the self policing White House Correspondence Association.
Well, there's a big difference, you know.
The number one is that the White House, as more just mentioned, Republicans may not be happy who the next Democratic president or White House chooses to put in that pool.
So it is very concerning, you know.
I think if we just think about it broadly, there is a reason that the framers of the Constitution put only one private business, if you will, into the Constitution, and that is the freedom of the press.
It's that important to democracy, all right.
Jeanie Shanzano and Mara Gillespie our political panel today. Thank you so much for joining us as we follow what's happening at the White House also on Capitol Hill or we'll be going next after the passage of that House budget resolution last night. This is Bloomberg.
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We weren't sure we'd be talking about results from a vote, but it did happen last night, even after at one point lawmakers were cleared from the House floor, they were sent home, they didn't have the votes. Thirteen minutes later they did two seventeen two point fifteen, Kaylee. A big victory, one of many that will be required for Speaker Mike Johnson to close the deal on Donald.
Trump's Yeah, a big victory, if not a big margin of victory. This thing did come down to the wire. It was very, very close, and arguably there is still even harder work ahead because this was, as we heard from lawmakers ourselves yesterday, just a blueprint. Now they actually have to iron out where these spending cuts are going to come from, whether the tax cuts will be made permanent as the Senate wants. It's still a lot of
work left to do. In joining us now with a look from Capitol Hill is Republican Congressman Troy Downing of Montana, who represents Montana's second district. Congressman, thanks so much for being here on Bloomberg TV and Radio. Obviously, last night was a little bit dramatic, and I do wonder what you're hearing from your colleagues today on the path forward, given how much arm wrestling, including phone calls from the President, needed to happen just to get to the blueprint pasted.
Well, I'm going to tell you I'm really happy with how it turned out. And I think it's a healthy process. I mean, we don't just all, you know, automatically give an answer. We need an opportunity to talk about to you know, air our grievances for lack of a better word. And I think it's a healthy process. But then we understand this is a team sport. We had to get come together and actually pass this. And I think there's
been you mentioned it briefly, a lot of misconception. I mean, this resolution really is almost a procedural part, you know, on the budget where the real work begins on the committees. And you know, we're ready to start doing that work.
Obviously there's a lot of work that's gonna you know, come of that, but I think it'll go through that same process where we will you know, debate in the at the committee level, figure out you know, where we come together to get this all together and I'll ultimately get this into a bill to you know, uh, really make some changes that Donald Trump promised that we all ran on and that the American people want, and I'm excited about the opportunity to do this.
It does say a lot about the potential drama when just passing the instructions requires so much angst. Here, Congressman, we just had a conversation with Kevin Brady, the former chair of the Ways and Means Committee, who is charged with helping to get the Trump tax cuts not just extended but made permanent. He suggests this idea of cutting two trillion dollars in spending is not nearly enough to pay for what the president wants.
Do you agree, Well, here, here's the thing is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts, it needs to be extended.
That's that would be a twenty six percent tax increase to Montana's if we don't get that extended, and that goes across the board, you know, from you know, from every strata of taxpayer, and you know, one of the things that's really important to a lot of my constituents is making sure that that death tax isn't repealed, because that could potentially start taking production agriculture out of production as airs and farms and ranches in Montana have to
sell to pay their taxes. Everybody thinks that this is some you know, wealthy loophole, where the reality of it is is a lot of these you know, farmers ranchers Montana are very you know, land rich and you know, capital poor, and this would just start to start to destroy them. But I do think that we all ran on this. You know, the American people want it, and we need to extend these I've heard that the Senate is likely going to you know, try to make these permanent.
I personally think that that's a good idea. I think that's positive, But we have to go through the process and see where we actually get with that.
Well, and part of this process, or at least part of the math, if you listen to the words of the President, may include revenue that will come in because
of tariffs he intends to implements. As you talk about your constituents in Montana how they would be affected by tax policy, I do wonder both for your constituents and for the small businesses that you hear from as you sit on the Small Business Committee, what you're hearing about the potential negative impact of tariffs that could go into places He once again today said twenty five percent on Mexican and Canadian goods.
That's happening, right, And you know where where the administration falls on the tariffs or not. Obviously in Congress we're not you know, we're not doing that part of it, but we are trying to be very thoughtful in.
Making and I'm sure you're hearing about it.
Oh, yes, of course we're hearing about it. And there's there's a lot of concern and where that actually you know falls or doesn't fall, you know, will continue to make sure that the administration understands what our concerns are. And I mean there's two parts of it. You talk about, uh, you know, the inflationary you know, potential of it coming in, but you can balance that in tax policy. You talk about nobody you know wants a trade war. What's that mean?
As you export, we need to be very thoughtful about how surgical we are in applying that because you know, coming from an agricultural state, a lot of my producers are selling abroad. We need to make sure that they're not disadvantaged. And these are the conversations we'll have with the administration to make sure that we are using a scalpel and not a sledgehammer when when he starts to push out this care policy.
Well, Congressman, our viewers and listeners should know before you got to Capitol Hill in this most recent Congress, you were a business owner, not just an Air Force veteran, but you were the founder and former CEO of a story solutions company. You also founded a web calendar company. You sold the Yahoo So you know what it's like to balance a budget. You know what it's like to
face a balance sheet. And I wonder how important it is to you for these tax cuts, whether their extended or made permanent, are paid for.
Yeah, well, here's here's the thing. Is coming from the private sector, you understand, you know, the fits and spurts of having to you know, balance your budget, you know, for lack of a better word, making sure that you know you can stay afloat, making sure you have access to capital, making sure you can you know, pay your expenses, all of that stuff, and sometimes you need to downsize and regroup. And I think that's an important thing to
think about. You see a lot of companies that get to a point where they have to you know, start to downsize as they restructure, and they always will not always, but often it will come back stronger. And I think
it's important to understand that. You know, one of the things that's going on right now with with DOGE is they're starting to you know, uncover all of this wasteful spending and I think a lot of the stuff that we're going to find and continue to find is that we're paying for a lot of things, overpaying for a lot of things. The most Americans had no idea that we were involved in. And there's a recent poll that
came out. I just saw it this morning. The shows between a super majority between seventy six and seventy seven percent approve of what the president is doing and rooting
out this fraud, waste and abuse. And so, you know, one of the issues there that I think is important is to you know, understand that that that that's going to start to release a lot of a lot of this potential and we're not you know, necessarily going to get fair you know CBO rating on that, and so I think it's important to keep that in your back pocket that we might see a lot more than most people expected, but the American people voted for Trump to
do what he's doing, and I'm I'm very supportive of that because in anything from private business to government, you need to root out, you know, wasteful spending, fraud, and abuse. And I'm happy that we're doing that.
Are there concerns, though, Congressmen, around things that could get thrown out with that bathwater when we consider the reductions in the federal workforce, specifically in the Office of Personnel Management just sent out a memo today that agencies have til March thirteenth to essentially outline their plans for large scale reductions in their workforces. Veterans like yourself make up
a large chunk of the federal workforce. Are you worried about the people ultimately who could be affected by this, Well.
First of all, you never want to see anybody being affected like that. Obviously the effect on that person, that person's family is important. But on the other hand, we have to figure out where we're spending money. I mean, we were elected to be stewards to you know, to the people that elected us, to the people of the United States of America. Making sure that we're being stewards
to the taxpayer money and doing the right thing. And so as we start to look at these programs, we're going to have, you know, very serious conversations about what is in the interest of the United States of America, what is stewardship of taxpayer dollars. And you know, there's going to be a lot of trimming of the fat that is going to be part of it. I don't discount the fact that this, you know, will affect some people, and you know, I don't discount that at all, but
it's something that we have to do. We're at the precipice where we just don't have the ability as a country, the funds to continue spending ourselves into oblivion. You know, I think about my path of you know, growing up without you know, without money, without you know, family connections, without means, and being successful because the opportunities I had as an American, and I worry about that being squandered
with a complete lack of fiscal restraint. And I think that that American dream, you know, this country that was so good to me when I'm growing up, is harder and harder to achieve for this next generation of the generation after I think of that brass ring of that American dream. I worry about how a young family starting out today ever has a path to buy their first house. I mean that that's the you know, the main part of that American dream, and we need to start clawing
that back. I think a complete lack of fiscal constraint, a complete lack of your stewardship for government funds, and you know, it just comes down to you know, economics, one on one. You keep pouring money into a system, it's not helping anything. It's an inflationary factor. And we need to start clawing that back so that we make it so that our kids have the opportunities that I did. We make it so they can buy that first house. We make it so they can be successful.
I appreciate the principle of what you're saying, Congressman, but I wonder if there should be a carve out for veterans and veterans services. Not only are you a veteran yourself, but I know you work with Warriors and Quiet Waters Foundation. The Post this morning reporting in Washington DOGE canceling government contracts, eight hundred and seventy five of them that includes support for medical and burial services, cancer programs and efforts to
recruit doctors for critical vacancies. Is there a space for nonprofit to fill this gap or are you worried about what's happening.
Well, obviously there's a lot of nonprofits that do fill those GAPSS. You know an upward of sixty five thousand veteran nonprofits in this country, and actually that's old data might be more by now, but let me just be really clear. I will always stand up and support our veterans, and to the point that we start to lose programs that they're depending on the then I will stand up to that because that that is something that that can't
happen under my watch. What I'm saying right now and what I'm hopeful for is we're starting to trim that fat that's not directly related to veteran services, but to the administrative side parts where we can actually, you know, trim the fat that is not directly related to services that we've promised and have been giving our veterans. And I will always stand up for that. The numbers that
you just gave me, it's first i've I've heard. So I'm going to refrain from talking about that un till I've had a chance to look at it.
Yeah, well, I appreciate your answering that question, sir, and we thank you for your service. That's Congressman Troy Downing, Republican from Montana's second District, with us LIDE from Capitol Hill here on Bloomberg.
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