The Situation Room: Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) Is Interviewed About The Debt Deal And If He Supports It

Interview

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So, I have some serious concerns about the deal, Wolf, and my team and I are still reviewing it. We just received the text last night.

But one of the major concerns is on non-defense discretionary spending. While the defense budget continues to go up, our ability to feed our children goes down. Our ability to educate our children goes down. Our ability for workforce development goes down. And our ability to meet the complex needs of the most vulnerable Americans goes down.

That is what non-defense discretionary spending is used for to make sure we meet the needs of vulnerable Americans like SNAP and TANF and housing and education and other areas. So, that is one major problem with the bill. Another major problem is the Joe Manchin pipeline we fought so hard to stop from being built. That is still a part of this bill.

And what's problematic about that is, number one, we need to stop drilling for fossil fuels completely. But number two, we need an expedited way to get us to clean, renewable energy or we will continue to have these severe weather events that we have been having for quite some time because of the warming of the planet.

And then finally, the work requirement piece has expanded to those receiving SNAP from age 49 to 50 to 54. Again, we're talking about the most vulnerable Americans who are already living in abject poverty.

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Go ahead.

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I'm saying I'm still undecided because we are still reviewing the bill. And I want to make one last point to the first question, Wolf. So, we've been talking a lot about spending, but we have not been talking at all about revenue.

These so-called cuts that Republicans want to make, they're making these cuts while not being open or willing to discuss making sure the wealthy pay their fair share, making sure large corporations pay their fair share.

They're trying to defund our ability to go after tax cheats which would raise $1 trillion over 10 years. And so that's another big piece. Republicans have disillusioned the American public by only having 50 percent of the conversation without having the other 50 percent around raising revenue from the wealthiest Americans who are still off the hook based on this deal.

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Oh, yeah. We will not default. Under no circumstances are we going to default. We should have raised the debt limit in December 2022, but unfortunately Democrats in the Senate, Manchin and Sinema, did not allow us to do that.

This is why elections matter so much. We have to elect the right people into office because if we do not, we're going to have a leadership like the Republican Party, pushing forward austerity budgets that keeps food out of the mouths of babies while allowing corporations and the wealthy elite to thrive.

Elections matter. Let's have the full conversation and let's be honest. We have to talk about debt, but we have to talk about GDP, and we have to push a conversation around the true wealth and health of our economy which begins with how we take care of the most vulnerable people. And we have not negotiated that as part of this bill.

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Thank you so much.

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