Speaker 1: For what's developing.
Speaker 2: This is just developing out of the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Now right now, it's developing.
Speaker 3: Fifty five KRC the Talk station. It's at five, the
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Speaker 3: happy Tuesday, Daniel Davis deep dive at the bottom of
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the fifty five KRC Morning Show. Bradley J.
Speaker 3: Bright, Bart's deputy news director and former Capitol Hill staff
Speaker 3: or bookmarket b R E I T b a art
Speaker 3: dot com. You'll thank me for doing so. Welcome back,
Speaker 3: Bradley J. It's always a pleasure talking with you, Brian.
Speaker 2: It's great to be with you. Like going on in Washington, for.
Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, there is, you know, if you're a betting man,
Speaker 3: and we'll dive into some of the details of what's
Speaker 3: going on there. But they're still bickering over the amendments
Speaker 3: in the Senate. We don't have agreement among the Republicans,
Speaker 3: and obviously the Republicans are apparently setting up to be
Speaker 3: their own worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: If you're a betting man right now, do you think
Speaker 1: this thing's gonna actually pass.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, you put me on the spot right at
Speaker 2: the beginning. But I do think it's going to pass.
Speaker 2: I think they're going to find a way. It's going
Speaker 2: to be rocky. Right now. There appear to be four
Speaker 2: holdouts in the Senate for Republican holdouts, they can only
Speaker 2: lose three, so they're trying to entice a couple to
Speaker 2: switch over. Will they be able to do it? What
Speaker 2: will it take. We're already twenty three hours into this
Speaker 2: amendment voter rama, so there's been a lot of drama.
Speaker 2: Most of it has taken place off camera in those
Speaker 2: smoke filled back rooms of the Senate, but it is
Speaker 2: It is tense, there's no doubt.
Speaker 3: Well and what really bothers me, and this is when
Speaker 3: people's political stripe is truly revealed. Lisa Murkowski, for example,
Speaker 3: from Alaska. One of the things she's complaining about is
Speaker 3: one of the obstructionists on this thing moving forward is
Speaker 3: the medicaid and nutritional assistance cuts in the bill. And
Speaker 3: also she's pushing for slower phase outs of clean energy
Speaker 3: tax credits. That's the part that irks me. You'd think
Speaker 3: the Republicans will uniformly embrace the idea of phasing out
Speaker 3: those clean energy tax credits because it's a big boondoggle.
Speaker 3: I mean, those energy companies wouldn't exist but for the
Speaker 3: tax credits anyway, Who wouldn't be chasing our tail trying
Speaker 3: to pursue a carbon neutral world, which is impossible. I mean,
Speaker 3: your your thoughts on the energy tax credits alone, Bradley.
Speaker 2: Well, they say there are three political parties in DC, Republicans, Democrats,
Speaker 2: and appropriators. Lisa Murkowski is an appropriator. Her entire government
Speaker 2: philosophy is what can I do to bring home as
Speaker 2: much bacon to Alaska and to please my donors. When
Speaker 2: Biden passed those Green New Deal tax credits and actually
Speaker 2: started handed him out, he was very smart. He gave
Speaker 2: maybe around two thirds of them out in Republican states,
Speaker 2: and it's I mean, it's a golden handcut. You get these,
Speaker 2: you would think conservative states and a lot of conservative
Speaker 2: politicians addicted to that federal money and they don't want
Speaker 2: to give it up. Murkowski definitely falls in that camp. Look,
Speaker 2: this is a mature industry. We've been subsidizing wind and
Speaker 2: solar for decades and it still isn't viable. The technology
Speaker 2: isn't there, and most of the technology now comes from China.
Speaker 2: We need to get rid of that. Murkowski needs to
Speaker 2: get on board.
Speaker 3: Amen to that. Brother couldn't argue with that on that point.
Speaker 3: And you know, I go from the philosophy. You know,
Speaker 3: great ideas don't need coercion, and much in the same way,
Speaker 3: great ideas don't need tax credits. If it's a good idea,
Speaker 3: you're going to pursue it because it's in your best interest.
Speaker 3: And this is clearly not a direction we would normally
Speaker 3: go in.
Speaker 1: One of the.
Speaker 3: Things that may happen if they lose in more than
Speaker 3: one senator and you find yourself in a position where
Speaker 3: the bill can't pass, you can buy Senator Ran Paul
Speaker 3: back if you get rid of the five trillion dollar
Speaker 3: debt seal increased. I had seen that as a suggestion
Speaker 3: of what might happen today.
Speaker 1: Is that possible?
Speaker 2: In your eye, it's a possibility. Trump will be livid.
Speaker 2: The Democrats would have so much leverage for the rest
Speaker 2: of the year, particularly in funding the government, which we
Speaker 2: are going to have to do in some fashion before
Speaker 2: the end of the fiscal year at the end of September.
Speaker 2: So it would be so beneficial if Republicans could actually
Speaker 2: get this off the table right now through the midterms. Now,
Speaker 2: most Republicans disagree with the Congressional Budget Office, which I've
Speaker 2: written about. It just has a long history of promoting
Speaker 2: Democrat objectives and belittling Republicans and just being totally wrong
Speaker 2: on all its budgetary projections. But a lot of Republicans
Speaker 2: think that despite what the CBO says about the deficits
Speaker 2: in this bill, that because of Trump's tariffs, we're actually
Speaker 2: going to see the economy grow significantly. Uh So the
Speaker 2: debt the debt limit will not be as big of
Speaker 2: a deal as it has been in the past. Uh
Speaker 2: But look, the bottom line is they've got to find
Speaker 2: a way to get this done. You have to secure
Speaker 2: the borders. Uh or and and and do all this
Speaker 2: other stuff to protect the country or else we're not
Speaker 2: even the deaths it won't even matter. What what What
Speaker 2: does their deficit matter if you've turned into a third
Speaker 2: world country. Uh So I think that because of everything
Speaker 2: that's in this bill, immigration, border security, opening up energy,
Speaker 2: uh what it does on taxes, goodness gracious. Uh, I
Speaker 2: think that they've got to find a way to get
Speaker 2: this done. Uh preferably by extending the debt limit a
Speaker 2: little bit further. But we'll see if they have to
Speaker 2: uh do that to get Paul on board. Ideally not
Speaker 2: I think that they'll be able to get Murkowski on board.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad you bought up the CBO scoring and
Speaker 3: I agree with your your criticians of the cb CB.
Speaker 3: I don't understand. It's like the alchemy, your piece god
Speaker 3: to me. I don't know how they're able to project
Speaker 3: ten years hence you know what this is ultimately going
Speaker 3: to be by way of financial impact. But one of
Speaker 3: the things I heard by way of criticism is that,
Speaker 3: at least as I understood it, and Bradley Jay, if
Speaker 3: you could help me, and if I'm misunderstanding it, the
Speaker 3: CBO is viewing the extension of the Trump tax cuts
Speaker 3: as part of the problem. In other words, we're not
Speaker 3: bringing as much money as we would had the twenty
Speaker 3: seventeen tax cuts not been a part of it. So
Speaker 3: they're viewing it from the lens of pre twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: taxing levels and assigning debt to the reduced levels that
Speaker 3: we are currently enjoying right now. Is that's have some
Speaker 3: measure of accuracy in your mind baseball on what I've
Speaker 3: read or how I'm recollecting it.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of the discussion right now, and Democrats
Speaker 2: lost this battle. It was the first vote that was
Speaker 2: taken during this voter rama on how the bill would
Speaker 2: be scored. The twenty seventeen tax credits are set to
Speaker 2: expire at the end of this year. When you are
Speaker 2: scoring the rest of that year, or excuse me, when
Speaker 2: you're you're scoring throughout the rest of the ten year window,
Speaker 2: do you make the assumption that those tax credits would
Speaker 2: have been extended. That's what a lot of Republicans are saying,
Speaker 2: right They say, you need to look at the the
Speaker 2: political practicalities of this, and Republicans were never going to
Speaker 2: let a lot of those tax credits a fire. That's
Speaker 2: what Republicans are arguing. The cbo UH disagrees with that,
Speaker 2: but but the bottom line is that it is in
Speaker 2: the law that the Budget Committee chairman has the discretion
Speaker 2: to choose how it is scored. This, I mean, the
Speaker 2: Republicans and Democrats have have done this before. So it's
Speaker 2: just one more thing that Democrats are finding to pitch
Speaker 2: a fit about. It is nice to see Democrats actually
Speaker 2: worried about debt deficit however, disingenuous. Uh, but but they
Speaker 2: lost that battle and we're marching on. That's pretty funny.
Speaker 3: I have you laugh, literally out loud when I see
Speaker 3: the checky shumers of the world screaming about how this
Speaker 3: increases the hole we've dug ourselves in thus far by
Speaker 3: three point three trillion dollars and he's complaining about It's like,
Speaker 3: wait a second, when did he become a deficit hawk?
Speaker 1: It's like it's comical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they just were just a few years
Speaker 2: away from them passing as the inflation reduction Yeah, remember
Speaker 2: that one, the one that fueled incredible record inflation we
Speaker 2: hadn't seen since the Jimmy Carter era. Give me a break,
Speaker 2: these guys have no credibility at all on this issue.
Speaker 3: Now, Bradley Jay in terms of is this going to
Speaker 3: end up being because we're not cutting a huge chunk
Speaker 3: out of the government spending. I mean, if we're talking
Speaker 3: about any increase in the deficit, then we're not cutting
Speaker 3: enough because we have a spending problem. I would like
Speaker 3: to see, you know, every turn and you know, maybe
Speaker 3: lower spending so we don't have a hole being dug
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Elon Musk commented about this, He called you the porky
Speaker 3: big Party, the uniparty. He's planning on launching his own
Speaker 3: America Party if this thing passes this are are we
Speaker 3: missing an opportunity here to cut more? Or is he
Speaker 3: just he outside of the box of reality because this
Speaker 3: is not about discretionary spending. It can't be or wouldn't
Speaker 3: be part of the reconciliation process. So all the DOGE
Speaker 3: work on discretionary spending, as legitimate as it was, couldn't
Speaker 3: be addressed in this bill anyway. But could they cut more?
Speaker 2: Bradley, look, you know your stuff. You're exactly right. This
Speaker 2: bill deals with mandatory spending. It's a reconciliation bill. They're
Speaker 2: constraints on it. That's why you don't have to that's
Speaker 2: why it's not subject to the filibus to that sixty
Speaker 2: vote majority. At only need fifty votes. This is mandatory spending.
Speaker 2: In the appropriations process, we can start enacting a lot
Speaker 2: of those DOGE cuts. That's where we can really take
Speaker 2: the meat. Actsis some things, but we're very limited in
Speaker 2: how we can use reconciliation. It deals with spending in revenue,
Speaker 2: but we can't really enact these sweeping policy changes in it. Now,
Speaker 2: as I mentioned earlier, we have appropriations bills we have
Speaker 2: to pass before the end of the fiscal year at
Speaker 2: the end of September. The House has already passed one
Speaker 2: recisions package. It's been held up in the Senate by surprise, surprise,
Speaker 2: Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins. We'll see what happens next week
Speaker 2: if they can amend that and get it through the Senate.
Speaker 2: If so, we'll see further recisions package. Just today there's
Speaker 2: some news rough Vote is making a renewed effort to
Speaker 2: set up doing pocket recisions, which is basically where you
Speaker 2: send a recisions package right before the end of the
Speaker 2: fiscal year, and if Congress doesn't act on it, you
Speaker 2: just deem the recisions package and acted. There's also impoundment.
Speaker 2: There's going to be a court battle when Trump, I
Speaker 2: think inevitably does that. But Trump can just say, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm the chief executive. I don't have to
Speaker 2: spend this money. So there are many other ways that
Speaker 2: we can we can do these, We that we can
Speaker 2: find spending cuts, and there's a talk of doing more
Speaker 2: reconciliation bills beginning in the fall. So there are more
Speaker 2: bikes at the apple that we can get, and that's
Speaker 2: gonna be a key part of Trump's argument to a
Speaker 2: lot of these spending hawks in passing this bill before
Speaker 2: the Senate today.
Speaker 3: All right, let's assume for the sake of discussion today, Bradley, Jay,
Speaker 3: that does pass in the Senate. Uh, it's fate in
Speaker 3: the House because there is another critical vote over in
Speaker 3: the House on this thing.
Speaker 1: How do you see that going.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be tough, There's no question about it. Again,
Speaker 2: I think, because we'll have these other opportunities to cut
Speaker 2: some of the discretionary spending, a lot of the spending
Speaker 2: hawks will get on board. Keep it on. We don't
Speaker 2: know what this bill will look like right Still a
Speaker 2: few more Senate amendments on Medicaid and on those Green
Speaker 2: New Deal subsidies that we are likely to see probably
Speaker 2: this morning. But the House is getting ready. The House
Speaker 2: Rules Committee is meeting, well, it's supposed to meet today
Speaker 2: at noon, assuming the Senate has passed the bill by then.
Speaker 2: They're teeing up the first procedural vote tomorrow morning at
Speaker 2: nine am. There is going to be some intense pressure
Speaker 2: on some of these holdouts but look, Trump's been able
Speaker 2: to get it done so.
Speaker 1: Far, Yes he has.
Speaker 3: Now, I hope cooler heads prevail, you know, And honestly,
Speaker 3: if you're an elected official from a state liking Lisa
Speaker 3: Murkowski and you want to cut the Medicaid and she doesn't,
Speaker 3: of course, you know, make the argument to your people.
Speaker 3: You know, I went ahead and I signed on to
Speaker 3: it in spite of the cuts them Medicaid because it
Speaker 3: never should have been expanded in the first place. You
Speaker 3: got able bodied adult people who are capable of working
Speaker 3: on a program that was not designed to help them
Speaker 3: because they aren't on life's margins. You know, it's like, sorry,
Speaker 3: you know, we're gonna have to pare it back our
Speaker 3: Medicaid spending in this but it's good for the American
Speaker 3: taxpayer generally speaking, and it cuts it a large chunk
Speaker 3: of spending from the federal government. So in the final analysis,
Speaker 3: we're all going to benefit from it.
Speaker 2: Brian, you nailed it. I couldn't have said it any better.
Speaker 2: At some point, these politicians who've been in office for
Speaker 2: longer than some of us have been alive, need to
Speaker 2: put the actual needs of their country before their political needs.
Speaker 2: But look, this is Washington. We don't see a lot
Speaker 2: of that unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Bradley J.
Speaker 3: Right Bart, Deputy news director and former Capitol Hill staffer.
Speaker 3: It's always a pleasure to having on the program again.
Speaker 3: Remind my listeners to bookmark the site brightbart dot com
Speaker 3: so they can enjoy what you read and the rest
Speaker 3: of the wonderful reporting, fresh good reporting, and the reporting
Speaker 3: on things that you don't read in the mainstream media.
Speaker 3: Keep up the great work, Brad. I look forward to
Speaker 3: talking with you again real soon to say hi to
Speaker 3: the team for me. We'll do always great being with you, Bron.
Speaker 3: Take care brother eight nineteen fifty five care Ce the
Speaker 3: talk station and Daniel Davis deep dive situation not looking
Speaker 3: good for Ukraine. We'll hear about hear from Daniel Davis
Speaker 3: on that, plus his assessment of what's going on with
Speaker 3: Ron in Israel. After I mentioned, well, no, I'm done,
Speaker 3: I got to I spent a couple of minutes here
Speaker 3: hold on, be right back after these brief words.
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