In the News

WASHINGTON — Today, Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) joined Joe Kernen on CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss the latest on reconciliation in the House, the importance of extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, plans for strengthening Medicaid, and the disarray and disconnect of the Democrat party.

Click here or above to watch Whip Emmer on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Whip Emmer on the progress of President Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” in the House:

“We’ve got 11 committees of jurisdiction that are writing a piece of this bill. I don’t think any reconciliation process before this one has ever had as many committees involved in the process. We got seven of those committees done last week. We’ve got four to go. We don’t have hearings scheduled yet this week because people are working out the details. As soon as that’s done, the goal that our Speaker has is to put this on the floor by the week of May 19th. So the goal is to get it out of the House before Memorial Day. And we’re still on track to do that.”

Whip Emmer on the importance of extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts:

“I think extending the tax cuts that have been in place for the last seven years is imperative. If we don’t get it done, Joe, the average American is going to experience a $1,600 increase in their taxes. And 40 million American families are going to lose half of their child tax credits. So, it’s imperative that this gets done so that we don’t have a $4.5 to $5 trillion tax increase on all Americans.”

Whip Emmer on strengthening Medicaid:

“The natural place to start is exactly where Donald Trump wants us to start, which is getting the waste, fraud, and abuse out of the program. Joe, according to the GAO, there’s about $50 billion in waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program on an annual basis. That’s 500 billion over the 10-year budget cycle. Then you start taking out illegals—there’s no reason that illegal aliens should be receiving Medicaid benefits…There’s definitely discussion amongst our members about how you might approach that, but the president has made it very clear that we’re not going to cut Medicaid benefits for those that it’s intended for.”

Whip Emmer on House Democrats:

“Right now, they don’t have a leader, they don’t have a message, they don’t know what they stand for. They actually should listen to the American people and join us and try to put our government back in a position to work for the people instead of rule over them and spend money willy-nilly everywhere. Let’s focus on the priorities that the American public expects us to focus on, and I think our colleagues on the other side of the aisle soon will start to recognize that’s who they need to listen to, rather than their leadership.”

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