US Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee Talks 'Big Beautiful Bill' - podcast episode cover

US Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee Talks 'Big Beautiful Bill'

Jun 04, 202512 min
--:--
--:--
Download Metacast podcast app
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episode description

US Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee discusses the "Big Beautiful Bill", tariffs, SALT, debt ceiling, and more. Hagerty spoke with Bloomberg's Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Speaker 2

Return to Republican Senator Bill Haggerty of Tennessee, who is back with us on the program. Senator, we appreciate your time. As we just heard our colleague Tyler, they're outlining that various portions of your body have demands as to what it will take to get them to a yes vote on this legislation. What's yours? What change do you need to see for you to vote for this package.

Speaker 3

I think the most critical thing to keep in mind, Kayley, is the fact that if we don't get this done, Americans looking at a north of four trillion dollar tax increase. I was talking with Kevin Hasset at the White House yesterday. His projections are that that would yield a six percent decrease in our nation's GDP. That would be terrible for America. Frankly, be terrible for the world economy. We can't let that happen.

The main interest I have is making certain that we stimulate more capital investment in America, because more capital investment will be get more jobs, more jobs, more economic activity. This will have a very power of impact on the economy, and frankly, it's something that the Congressional Budget Office completely misses in their analysis. They missed it at an incredible level back after the twenty seventeen tax cuts and jobs after passed. In fact, they missed it by north of

a trillion dollars worth of revenues. So I think that my colleagues need to certainly take into account the fact that this is a pro growth bill. This tax package is going to stimulate more economic activity here in America. We will see growth that's not captured in the CBO estimates, but will have a material impact on our economy, on our well being, and frankly in terms of going the right direction to reducing the deficit.

Speaker 1

Will Senator, We've got a lot of questions about what's inside, and it's great to have you back on Bloomberg. You mentioned the CBO, so I do have to ask you about that. Two big headlines today coming out of the Congressional Budget Office. First, the Republican tax bill that cleared the House. They say would add two point four trillion dollars to US deficits. But that same Congressional Budget Office, which I know Republicans criticize a lot, is not projecting

the Trump tariffs. Will cut the budget gap by two point eight trillion. Do you buy that number? And if so, is this bill paid for?

Speaker 3

Well? In the first case, what they do is static analysis. They don't take into account the dynamic of investment in the economy that we yield grow. So I think that's patently wrong. And the second, with regard to tariff revenue, it's possible, but we're not nearly to the end of our trade negotiations, Jamison Greer. Our trade rep working is hard out to try to bring together a significant sea change and the way America is treated on the global stage.

I think we're going to make great progress, but it's very hard for me to say right now, and I don't know how the CBO is able to say this. Where we're going to land on tariff revenues as well.

Speaker 2

Well, yeah, it is worth pointing out the CBO was only scoring tariff revenues through where tariff stood as of May thirteenth, and we already know changes have been made since then. There's still some legal questions around whether or not AIPA is going to stand, Senator, so we have

to bear that in mind. We've heard from the Senate Majority Leader John fun that there's going to have to be some adjustments made to the salt cap, something that House Republicans from those salt districts say, what essentially mean that the deal dies when it returns back to the House, knowing that the debt ceiling lift is also attached to this legislation. Do you see risk around making changes like that? Could that bring the US closer to the brink of default?

Speaker 3

Well, I think there's always risk in any situation like this where you have a complex bill. Kyley, We're going to have a conference meeting right after I'm on with you now to begin the process of talking through where the Senate is going to land here, and I do expect that there'll be improvements. It will be different, they'll be deeper cuts, and we'll start to see texts coming out on Friday. What I don't want to do is

try to get ahead of those who are negotiating. As you know, the Finance Committee is going to the White House right now to meet with President Trump. This is a process that's under way. But I can say this

at a very high level. My colleagues in the Senate want to see more cuts, more definite reduction, but at the same time, I've been encouraging everyone to move expediously to make certain that this happens extremely quickly, because the United States economy needs certainty, and with that certainty, we're going to see more capital investment. The longer this takes again, the less certain that we've got, and that's going to have a negat impact on capital investment here in America.

Speaker 1

With that in mind, Senator, I'd love to explore the idea of permanence with you, because we're hearing about this a lot more now, the likes of Steve Danes and others who say, no, we need to make permanent certain business tax breaks, specifically the full research and development deduction, bonus depreciation, and interest expensing. Are you on board with making them permanent?

Speaker 3

Certainly I am. I agree with the premise completely, And you know, Steve Danes is a business person just like me. We understand the importance of being able to make long term plans with respect to capital investments. That's what's driving Steve's Steve's position, I think he's exactly right, and we need to extend these as far as we possibly can. Permanent is the best possible answer we could achieve.

Speaker 2

Senator. Of course, well, you and your colleagues are working on reconciliation. There is also active, actively underway, an effort to advance the stable coin legislation, the Genius Act. Last time you were on with us, we talked about some of the various amendments that we're being put forward, which

you said are being worked through. Have you had direct conversations more recently with either the Majority Leader or Senator Roger Marshall about whether or not the Credit Card Competition Act is going to become a real factor here.

Speaker 3

Yes, those conversations are under way. I certainly respect the process that we're addressing, but right now this really isn't about policy, nor is it process. We're just trying to get floor time right now to get this processed. We have brought agreement, Kayley, with respect to the content of the stable coin legislation, my Genius Act, and this is going to, I think, take us into the twenty first

century in terms of upgrading our payment systems. It's going to have very desirable effects taking the US economy into the digital assets arena, keeping innovation here, lowering risk here in America, and putting in place guardrails that will protect consumers because every one of these stable coins will be backed up dollar for dollar with US treasuries. Very positive outcome here, We've got very strong support.

Speaker 1

So okay, what's the timeline, Senator, and what does it mean for the Clarity Acts coming out of the House, Joe?

Speaker 3

The timeline is the key issue right now. The window is closing on us to get this done because we've got to turn our attention to reconciliation. As I mentioned, we're going to a conference meeting, our first broad conference meeting, to talk about the Reconciliation Bill. We need to get the Genius Act passed. We need to get it on the floor. And that's where my discussions have been with the Leader and with my colleagues, is getting that time

on the floor as soon as possible. I like to start it today tomorrow, but I like to get that time on the floor as soon as possible because then we can turn our attention to dealing with the Reconciliation Act and getting more confirmations across the floor.

Speaker 2

And when will your attention, Senator turned to market structure And when the time comes to actually look at a market structure bill, how can do you expect it will be to the Clarity Act that was just introduced in the House last week.

Speaker 3

Well, there's been a great deal of good work that's been done in the House. A lot of questions that come up in the process of building the stable coin legislation that have been more appropriate to market structure. We're focused on it. We've already begun the process of building it here in the Senate. Again, as I mentioned, a lot of it's natural outgrowth, outgrowth of the stable coin legislation that we've been pushing forward. So we're going to

turn our attention immediately to that. But I think the most immediate thing that will happen is the Reconciliation Bill coming to the floor of the Senate. In the meantime, I pledged to President Trump I would get this done in the first one hundred days if I possibly could. We've exceeded that by a bit. But President Trump wants

to see this legislation on his desk. JD. Advance was at the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas just last week saying he wants to see a clean bill in front of him on stable coin legislation in front of President Trump, and I think we can get there.

Speaker 1

Interesting, as you bear down on the reconciliation, tax and spend legislation. Here, Senator, I know it's going to be an important day, and you're walking into this meeting after we're done with our conversation to begin hearing from Republican members of the House who apparently didn't have enough time to read the whole bill. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green says she's a no, having not read a section banning states

from passing their own AI regulations. Mike Flood, Republican from Nebraska, doesn't like this idea making it harder for judges to hold officials and contempt of court. They both did see it in the first pass. Have you had a chance to read that bill?

Speaker 3

Having gone through the entirety of the bill, we're in the process of reviewing all the texts that just came over in the past couple of days. But again, we're moving on it. The Finance Committee is at the White House negotiating it right now. The text is in process, and it's an item that's in motion. I understand that there may be items here that not everyone is happy with, but at the end of the day, we're going to have to compromise and get it done. I'll come back

to the original point. The American economy needs this certainty, and I'm going to be working my heart out to make certain that we deliver the best possible product we can here. But I'll remind you as well, this isn't the last bite at the apple. We'll have the opportunity to have another reconciliation process coming up fairly soon. So we're going to find a number of other opportunities to improve the situation you're in. The American economy achieves some

of the other objectives our legislators, and we can. If we don't solve it all here, we'll have another opportunity to do that well.

Speaker 2

Senator, you will have an opportunity as soon as tonight to vote for the confirmation of Mickey Bowman to be the Fed's new Vice CHAIRFF Supervision after the closure vote passed earlier today. This comes just day after the FED officially lifted the asset cap on Wells Fargo starting today. Is this a new era of banking regulation in the United States?

Speaker 3

I certainly think so. Michael Barr took us in exactly the wrong direction, and I'm very glad to see someone with the sensibilities of Mickey coming into this position, She's going to do a great job. What we need to do is return to the overarching mission of making certain that our capital markets are as competitive and safe as

they possibly can be. Get out of the business that these extraneous policy issues, whether it regards climate or other sorts of issues that essentially make the US economy less competitive, and the goal plating that Michael Barr attempted to do making US a subject even more regulations than the Europeans only Hamper's American Capital Formation. Mickey has a very different point of view, and I'm very excited to see her come into this role.

Speaker 1

Well, it is interesting seeing this asset cap lifted on Wells Fargo today. Senator, your colleague Elizabeth Warren, who's going to be with us a bit later this hour, is asking for five years of exam reports from the Bank as a member of the Banking Committee, having suggested that they have not gone a year without breaking the law. Statement says, it's stunning the Fed could not wait till the company went a full year without breaking the law

before wiping its slate clean. Should she get those documents, should the committee see them?

Speaker 3

I'm all for transparency, Joe, And I'm all for having committee members have access to the information that they need, but I'm not about to respond to something that Elizabeth Warren has said just based on what she probably doesn't have. You know, she didn't have access to the documents at this point, so I don't understand her leveling these accusations, but she's wont to do that.

Speaker 2

Well, I wonder, Senator, if you'd like to respond to something President Trump has just said, as he shared with us on True Social that he spent an hour and fifteen minutes on the phone today with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He suggested that phone call will not lead to an immediate peace with Ukraine, but went on to say that Putin believes or suggested he could participate in discussions with Iron And of course, the US approach to Iran is

something I know you feel quite passionate, passionately about. Is it appropriate for Russia to be stepping in here?

Speaker 3

Well, I think you understand well the fact that the previous administration removed all of the maximum pressure campaign that we had imposed on Iran. We had ran to a point where they were ready to deal. Their reserves were below ten billion dollars. As soon as the Biden administration came in, they stopped enforcing the sanctions. They put Iran in a position to fund terror. We saw what happened with Hamas, we saw what happened with Hasbalah, we saw

what happened with the UTIs. We're bringing that situation back under control. We're putting back in place at maximum sanctions, and we also have the opportunity to get the world behind us, and I think the world should be behind us to ensure that Iran does not have the capability to threaten the rest of the world as they seem

to want to do. President Trump has every right to seek out other world leaders, to find allies wherever you may, but at the end of the day, it's going to be up to us to take the leadership position to deal with Iran and to make certain that they don't have the capability or the capacity to threaten the rest of the world as they have in the past. And understand this, they're behind all of the terror and all the disruption in the Middle East. It's got to come to an end.

Speaker 1

A deep dive with Republican Senator Bill Haggerty of Tennessee. Senator it's good to see you, and we appreciate all of your time. Today on Bloomberg TV and radio,

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android