Speaker 1: I will say this before we get to our reporter.
Speaker 1: I did see Larry Summers on CNN this morning, and
Speaker 1: he was he's a democratic economist, but he was more
Speaker 1: than willing to call out all those other bills as inflationary.
Speaker 1: He was warning the White House this is gonna make
Speaker 1: inflation worse. He says, this is going to help with inflation.
Speaker 1: So right, well, and there was the big Chip bill
Speaker 1: as well. To discuss this. Uh my gosh, what a day.
Speaker 1: Sarah Westwood, investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner, joins us, Sarah, welcome,
Speaker 1: how are you. I'm great, thanks for having me. I
Speaker 1: can only assume that somebody but Joe manson a yacht.
Speaker 1: Is that how he changed his mind or would we
Speaker 1: have any idea how that came about. It's completely unclear
Speaker 1: how it came about. The win of it is certainly
Speaker 1: almost certainly earlier than yesterday afternoon. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: Republicans were really burned by the timing of his announcement
Speaker 1: that he was going to back this deal, because, if
Speaker 1: you remember, Mitch McConnell said, we are not going to
Speaker 1: offer support for the semi conductor bill, the chips bill
Speaker 1: that you guys mentioned unless you guys, you know, agree
Speaker 1: not to move forward on a reconciliation build. Does all
Speaker 1: this stuff fund climate change? You know that the Democrats
Speaker 1: have been wanting. And he held up that bill until
Speaker 1: he was pretty sure that build back better or some
Speaker 1: version of it was dead. Then he lent his support
Speaker 1: to it, and just a few hours later, Mansion and
Speaker 1: Chumor come out and say they have a reconciliation deal.
Speaker 1: So I think Republicans feel really burned right now by
Speaker 1: that bait and switch. And it's why House Republicans are saying, well,
Speaker 1: you may have tricked us in the Senate, but we're
Speaker 1: not going to support it in the House. And they
Speaker 1: are whipping against the Chips bill. Now, Wow, even though
Speaker 1: the Republicans like the Chips bill, they're just using it
Speaker 1: as a bargaining chip. If you'll pardon the use of
Speaker 1: the word chips too many times, Um, if you'll excuse me,
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying some pringles. Well that is kind of from
Speaker 1: from a Yeah, that's interesting from a drama standpoint, because
Speaker 1: I saw the headlines middle of the day that before
Speaker 1: the we're on the I'm on the we're broadcasting the
Speaker 1: show is centered on the West coast. So it was
Speaker 1: the middle of the day for me that the whole
Speaker 1: new bill back better paired down thing was dead. I
Speaker 1: saw the headlines that that was dead, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, just like Tony Dow the other day,
Speaker 1: was not dead. Briefly, Um, you were following that story.
Speaker 1: So so some Shenanigans are lying or is it? How
Speaker 1: upset are the Republicans about this? Republicans are pretty upset.
Speaker 1: I mean, they definitely feel like there was deception involved
Speaker 1: in in the way the details of the new Democratic
Speaker 1: Reconciliation Bill came out. And it's almost certainly was the
Speaker 1: case that Mansion and Schumer didn't magically arrive at this
Speaker 1: conclusion hours after the Chips bill passed. It's clear this
Speaker 1: deal probably came together in the days or even weeks
Speaker 1: before Chips advanced out of the Senate and then it
Speaker 1: was announced. Also not clear what part of this bill
Speaker 1: would be, you know, anti inflationary. I mean, it's subsidies
Speaker 1: for green energy, it's subsidies for solar panels and electric cars,
Speaker 1: it's tax increases on businesses. So it's not clear where
Speaker 1: Democrats are really getting this idea that it's going to
Speaker 1: fight inflation, and it's really bad timing for them to float,
Speaker 1: you know, more than three fifty billion dollars worth of
Speaker 1: government spending at the same time that we're getting these
Speaker 1: GDP numbers. That suggests to all sentient economists that the
Speaker 1: economy is now in a recession on top of the
Speaker 1: inflation that we're experiencing. So can you we've skipped to
Speaker 1: the politics, and the politics are are really interesting actually
Speaker 1: this time. But what is in this gigantic fourty three
Speaker 1: billion dollar bill just the quick drive by while the
Speaker 1: part that Democrats seem most excited about is a lot
Speaker 1: of the climate change um UH measures that are in
Speaker 1: this bill obviously, like I mentioned, their subsidies for electric vehicles,
Speaker 1: for solar panel production, for transitioning more towards clean energy.
Speaker 1: There's some new UH carbon emission regulations. I can just
Speaker 1: jump in and make These are my words, not yours.
Speaker 1: I just I get the feeling, you know. My My
Speaker 1: first thought when I hear those words is that's gonna
Speaker 1: be a bunch of crap, a whole bunch of useless crap,
Speaker 1: A whole bunch of money is gonna get spent. It's
Speaker 1: not gonna help the environment in any way people are
Speaker 1: gonna get rich. We're not gonna use less fossil field.
Speaker 1: But back to you, Sarah, Celinda, right, Celenda is what
Speaker 1: comes to mind. Right, That's often been the case is
Speaker 1: that it's been a boondoggle for technology that has not
Speaker 1: yet succeeded on the free market, that is not ready
Speaker 1: for mass production and doesn't impact climate change in any
Speaker 1: meaningful way. So you have the climate piece of it.
Speaker 1: The Democrats are really excited about. There's an increase in
Speaker 1: the corporate minimum tax. That will actually be an interesting
Speaker 1: component because UH Senator Kirsten Cinema out West has repeatedly
Speaker 1: said she does not support raising taxes on businesses in
Speaker 1: any form, and her opposition to tax increases has been
Speaker 1: part of what prevented Democrats from moving forward on a
Speaker 1: bill like this before. Even though Mansion, you know, has
Speaker 1: opposed a whole host of other things, she's been standing
Speaker 1: against corporate tax increases. It will be interesting to see
Speaker 1: if she's gonna shift her stance now because she doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be the one in the hot seat like
Speaker 1: Mansion has been. You also have some UH pharmaceutical company
Speaker 1: reforms that allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with
Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical companies, the government things that will help lower
Speaker 1: prescription drug prices for senior So it's sort of a
Speaker 1: grab bag of some of the stuff that Democrats wanted
Speaker 1: and build back better. It's nowhere near as ambitious, but
Speaker 1: it does in a lot of areas dump money into
Speaker 1: the economy at a time when it's already overheated, and
Speaker 1: that's obviously going to be the line that Republicans use
Speaker 1: against it. Yeah, I just saw one item that it
Speaker 1: was I think it was sixty billion dollars given to
Speaker 1: disadvantaged neighborhoods who have been disproportionately affected by climate change
Speaker 1: or something like that, which having grown up in Chicago
Speaker 1: with the corrupt, corrupt money handout system they have there,
Speaker 1: I know, a slush fund. When I see just just unbelievable,
Speaker 1: just unbelievable that the UM. When I hear the biggest
Speaker 1: investment in climate change fighting ever, I just I want
Speaker 1: to hold onto my wallet. Maybe I'm too cynical, but
Speaker 1: I doubt it. So now, because this is a budget
Speaker 1: reconciliation bill, the filibuster does not factor incorrect, and it
Speaker 1: will probably pass the House. So don't need any Republicans. Correct,
Speaker 1: no Republicans will be needed. But the interesting thing is
Speaker 1: they are going to need all fifty Democrats, so they
Speaker 1: can use Senator Vice President Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker.
Speaker 1: But one issue for Democrats right now in terms of
Speaker 1: the timing is that, uh, their members keep getting COVID.
Speaker 1: I mean, I believe Senator Dick Durbin is the latest
Speaker 1: to be out for at least two weeks because of COVID,
Speaker 1: So we can't pably be there. The Senate, unlike the House,
Speaker 1: does not have proxy voting, so everybody has to physically
Speaker 1: be there, so their plans keep getting pushed back and
Speaker 1: push back and push back because members are out with COVID,
Speaker 1: and so even though all the details of the bill
Speaker 1: seem to have been hammered out, they might not be
Speaker 1: able to get it done before August recess, which pushes
Speaker 1: this into September because of the COVID outbreak that Washington's experiencing.
Speaker 1: All right, Sarah, I'm gonna ask you to not listen
Speaker 1: to the next few sentences. This is private to Jack.
Speaker 1: The Republicans have to send people into the Capitol to cough.
Speaker 1: That's that's stupid that they're still holding onto the you
Speaker 1: gotta be there to vote. That's that's a vestige of
Speaker 1: the eight hundred. But whatever, that's a different topic. Um uh.
Speaker 1: Sarah Westwood, investigative reporter of the Washington Examiners on the line,
Speaker 1: and do you want to touch on the giant chips? See,
Speaker 1: I suppose we should before we run out of time.
Speaker 1: So what's the big deal on the on the chip bill?
Speaker 1: Why is this big? Well, chip bill would offer subsidies
Speaker 1: to UH semiconductor manufacturing here in the US to sort
Speaker 1: of full sort the US of competitiveness against China, who's
Speaker 1: also a big manufacturer of semi conductor. And these are
Speaker 1: chips that are using basically all kinds of technology that
Speaker 1: we use. So it's important bills. But there were also
Speaker 1: deficit concerns, inflationary concerns, because anytime you're talking about a
Speaker 1: subsidy or a hand out to an industry, you're talking
Speaker 1: about the government dumping money into an economy that's already
Speaker 1: you know, struggling too many dollars, chasing too a few goods.
Speaker 1: And the politics of the chips build were also sort
Speaker 1: of surrounded in controversy, I think because of Paul Pelosi,
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi's husband, making some pretty lucrative trades in the
Speaker 1: semiconductor industry on the stock market. So there was a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of scandal involved in this bill. And regardless,
Speaker 1: I think it's going to have a hard time getting
Speaker 1: through the House if all the Republicans are going to
Speaker 1: vote against it. But you know, if if if Nancy
Speaker 1: Pelosi can get keep all of her Democrats in line
Speaker 1: to support it, then you know there's a good chance
Speaker 1: that that it does become law. And Republicans are going
Speaker 1: to be really unhappy about that. So the Republicans, all
Speaker 1: the Republicans are against the chip bill. Also, well, leadership
Speaker 1: is whipping against it, which means leadership has sent out
Speaker 1: memos to all the hundreds of GOP members and said
Speaker 1: the official position of the conference is that we would
Speaker 1: like you to vote against this. Now, they don't do
Speaker 1: this for every bill. Sometimes they don't whip against things.
Speaker 1: They let members vote their conscience, as they say, but
Speaker 1: this is an instant when conscience, yeah, saying we would
Speaker 1: like you to vote against the spill. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: everyone will tow the line, but most well, But is
Speaker 1: that as a leverage against the build back better Light
Speaker 1: or is that because they actually are against the chip bill.
Speaker 1: I think it's the former, you know, I think there
Speaker 1: was a good chance this was honest way to passage
Speaker 1: beforehand it had by partisan support. Okay, so I did
Speaker 1: have Republicans, right, I just want to make sure I
Speaker 1: understand that. So it had Republican support outside of the
Speaker 1: whole using its leverage, all right, Yeah, that was pretty
Speaker 1: solid bipartisan support. I mean, it was not uncontroversial. But
Speaker 1: Sarah Westwood of the Examiner on the line in the
Speaker 1: few seconds we have left, Sarah, could you give us
Speaker 1: the brief list of government programs that have been cut
Speaker 1: to help pay for the giant new one? So I'm
Speaker 1: glad we only have a few seconds. So that's the
Speaker 1: sort of thing. You are. You are. You are really
Speaker 1: good at your job, and most people aren't. I'm not
Speaker 1: most people are not good at the jobs. You are
Speaker 1: really good at your job. Yeah, it's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks at Million, You're terrific. Thanks bye bye, farm Strong
Speaker 1: and Jetty