LEADER JEFFRIES: "THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET INVESTS IN THE HEALTH, SAFETY AND ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE"
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries held his weekly press conference where he highlighted President Biden's historic budget and how House Democrats are putting People Over Politics while House Republicans prioritize their own power.
JEFFRIES: Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Let me begin by extending, on behalf of all Democrats our thoughts and prayers and best wishes to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. We are praying for a swift and a full and a speedy recovery and we stand with him and his family in that regard.
The President's budget will be released today. It's a forward-looking budget that invests in the health and safety, the economic well-being of the American people. It's a budget that will strengthen and protect Medicare and Social Security. The President's budget is designed to build an economy from the middle out and the bottom up. The President's budget will reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next ten years, building upon $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction that has occurred over the previous two years.
We continue to get big things done for the American people to strengthen the economy and to do it in a fiscally responsible way. At the same time, we're still waiting for Extreme MAGA Republicans in the House to show us your plan. How do you want to invest in building an economy for everyday Americans? How do you propose dealing with the challenges that you often talk about with respect to the deficit? Are you committed to undermining Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? Show us your plan. What are you hiding from the American people?
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QUESTION: So, President Biden's budget is very ambitious, but not likely to get through Congress in any meaningful way. So what do you see as the purpose of the budget for Democrats as a messaging document and do you think it'll factor into the upcoming election?
JEFFRIES: Well, thank you for the question. It's not simply a messaging document. It's a statement of our values that is on full display for the American people. President Biden has articulated a plan to build an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, which is the extreme MAGA Republican plan, which is to, you know, invest in continuing to benefit the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected. That is a contrast that should be put before the American people. But in order for that full contrast to be fully clarified, the question that extreme MAGA Republicans need to answer is, where is your plan? What are you hiding from the American people?
They want to have a conversation about the future of the American economy. We want to have a conversation about the future of the American economy. We believe our ideas are defensible. Not only are they defensible, they have worked, which is why you have more than 12 million good-paying jobs created during the first two years of the Biden presidency. Unemployment at 3.5%, a 50-year low. More small businesses created during the last two years than any other point in time in recorded American history. Wages beginning to come up for the first time, meaningfully, in decades and $1.7 trillion in deficit reduction as compared to what happened during the previous administration, where there were record, record debts that were put upon the American people in part due to the 2017 GOP tax scam.
So our view is, we should have a debate and a discussion about the future. But the only way to actually do that in a meaningful way where the American people can understand where Democrats are at and where extreme MAGA Republicans are at, is for the Republicans to show us your plan. The House Republican budget plan is in the witness protection program. It's in hiding. Why? Because they want to cut Social Security. They want to cut Medicare. They want to cut veterans benefits. They want big tax cuts for the wealthy, the well-off and the well-connected. They want to subsidize Big Pharma, subsidize Big Oil, and all the while continue to promote the Big Lie that the cult leader won the election in 2020.
QUESTION: To make a follow-up, do you see it as a, a launching pad for a Biden re-election campaign and those are the arguments he could make in a re-election campaign?
JEFFRIES: No, I see this as part of the process, and we've always said the first thing that needs to be done this calendar year is that we raise the debt ceiling so that America can pay off the debts that have already been incurred by this Congress. By the way, when you talk about our nation's debt, America, this great country, has been around for 247 years. 25% of the nation's debt was incurred during four years of the Trump presidency. And these people want to lecture America about fiscal responsibility? You've got to be kidding me. But if they want to have a conversation, as they're lecturing America, show us your plan. Put it into the public domain. Take your plan out of the witness protection program. I think that it's so extreme that they are afraid to put it in the public domain. Put it on the floor of the House of Representatives. Let's have a debate about it. Put it into the public domain so that House Republican leadership can have a real conversation with President Biden in front of the American people. But they refuse to do it and that tells us everything we need to know.
Full press conference can be watched here.