WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) today joined America Reports with Sandra Smith to discuss the Democrats’ socialist debt bomb and how it could completely transform the American economy if passed.
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Partial Transcript
Hagerty on Democrats’ scrambling for support for their socialist debt bomb: “I think he [Joe Manchin] was very clear about the problems that he has with this bill and the problems are actually massive. We’ve been falling through deadline after deadline that Nancy Pelosi has artificially set. They’re not in control of the situation right now. And I think Joe Manchin has made it very clear. They need every single Democrat to get this through. We’re in a 50-50 divided Senate. They don’t have Manchin, and I think there’s several other Democrats that are in the same place that he is.”
Hagerty on Democrats not knowing what’s in their own bill: “Well, I’ll let Joe Manchin take the lead for the group, but certainly I think he’s articulating a sense that I think the Democrats certainly feel. They don’t even know what’s in this bill in many cases. And as they begin to look at it, as they see the fact that it’s not paid for, it’s going to add trillions of dollars of debt to our children and grandchildren’s backs. It’s not good for the economy. So many things as they come out about this bill are turning out to be very, very bad for the American economy.”
Hagerty on Democrats using the so-called “infrastructure bill” as a hostage to ram through their socialist debt bomb: “Well, I predicted this from the very beginning. Back in August, I said that what we’re creating with this so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill is the hostage that Nancy Pelosi and the far-left wing of her party need to force the more moderate Democrats to vote for this massive, transformational, socialist debt bomb that they’re putting in place. I urged my colleagues back then, I actually got five of my colleagues here in the Senate to join me after putting up a heck of a fight for several days. We moved several votes at that point and I’d love to see more move on because I think what the public is seeing is what’s really happening here. We do not need to transform our economy in a vision that Bernie Sanders is putting forward—a vision that would take us further and further toward socialism. And certainly not at a time when our economy is trying to recover from a recession. And we’re going to put more and more crushing debt, and more and more taxes on the creators of jobs here in America. This is not the time nor the place.”
Hagerty on Democrats destroying the American economy: “They [Democrats] are on a different planet, Sandra. I mean, this is extraordinarily complicated. What they’re talking about doing is destroying the fossil fuel industry here in America. I don’t think we’re going to move swiftly to do that. And the way they’re going to pay for this, the amount of taxes that would be required to do this, would be absolutely backbreaking to the American economy right now. I don’t see this happening at the type of pace or the speed that they’re talking about. Not at all.”