NASHVILLE, TN—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) yesterday joined Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News to discuss Democrat negotiations over their big-government socialism package, rising inflation, and the Biden Administration’s failure at the southern border.
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Partial Transcript
Hagerty on ongoing Democrat negotiations over their big-government socialism package: “They’re putting an immense amount of pressure on my colleagues in the Senate to get this passed. Again, my Democrat colleagues in the Senate, the Republicans are involved in no way in this negotiation. This is all a circular firing squad that’s happening on the Democrat side. And if it were indeed true what Joe Biden says—that this costs nothing—then why is it so hard to negotiate? This is going to be a massive increase in taxes on the American economy, and we’ve already seen the inflationary impacts of it, Maria. Real wages are down since Joe Biden took place, they’re down 3 percent to 4 percent just since he took office. That’s a tax on every American here. So this bait-and-switch activity that Biden’s been involved in since the very day he took office is really taking hold and the American public is tired of it. And what we’re seeing is my Democratic colleagues are having a very hard time moving forward on this massive spending program.”
Hagerty on Democrats’ goal: government dependency: “Bernie Sanders started out with $6 trillion. They moved it down to $3.5. Now they’re talking numbers, as you mentioned, below $2 [trillion] around $2 [trillion]. But if they use budget gimmicks, like they do in Washington, where they score something rather than 10 years, for just 5 years or 3 years, that’s just a trick particularly if what we’re talking about is a government dependency program, which this bill is chock full of government dependency programs. What happens after a family has adjusted their style of living to the new payments that are coming from the government? Are we going to just put them on their heels and take it away? I think we all know what the answer to this is. By the time our children and grandchildren have finished paying for these government dependency programs, it’s going to amount to tens of trillions of dollars.”
Hagerty on rising inflation: “I think we absolutely will because the government will inject trillions of dollars more into the economy. The effect was pretty immediate when the $1.9 trillion package came through in March. What we’ve seen is month over month an increase in inflation here in America. It’s the most pernicious tax of all. They try to argue it’s transitory, but it’s not transitory. There are many aspects of it that may have to do with supply chain dislocations, but over the long haul, when they’ve killed our independence on energy, when they’ve raised our energy costs as dramatically as they have, every American feels this when they go to the pump. Every good that we buy has to be transported across America. Try to buy a house in Tennessee—up over 20 percent. This inflation is not transitory.”
Hagerty on Biden’s failure to secure the southern border: “It’s incredible that they even try, Maria, but you’ve done such a fabulous job—more than anybody—of educating the American public on what the mainstream media will not. Again, they’re giving a pass on what is a total lie—a fabrication. He [President Biden] has precipitated the greatest national security crisis that we’ve seen in our lifetimes at this southern border. Yet he can’t find time to go there? He can’t find time to even own up to this. This is a complete disaster of his own making. As you mentioned, they’re now on track to have over 2 million people crossing this border illegally. And they’re piping them into our homes, into our neighborhoods, into our cities. It’s just amazing what they’re doing. They’re turning every town into a border town right now.”
Hagerty on Biden Administration systematically resettling migrants into America secretly: “I’ve put forward legislation to bring this to a halt, to actually force them to disclose what they’re doing. We are in a position right now where our local law enforcement don’t have any information, our schools don’t have information. Will they be overwhelmed? Our hospitals don’t know how many people are going to arrive that are un-vaccinated, that are sick. The Biden Administration has been completely silent about all of this, because they’re trying to move these people through the dark of night, as you mentioned. We saw it happen first here in Chattanooga. My colleagues Marsha Blackburn in the Senate and Chuck Fleischmann in the House—we pushed forward immediately demanding that the Administration give us information. We put forward legislation now requiring them to do so. This is a massive problem, and it’s a security problem for our nation—one that’s got to be resolved.”