July 3, 2025 • 41 mins
In this gripping episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz, go behind the scenes of a dramatic all-night session in the U.S. Senate. Senator Ted Cruz and co-host Ben Ferguson break down the high-stakes legislative marathon known as a vote-a-rama, where lawmakers debated and voted on amendments for over 27 hours straight.
🕒 What You’ll Learn:
- How the budget reconciliation process allowed the bill to pass with just 50 votes, bypassing the filibuster.
- What really happens during a Senate all-nighter—think McDonald's breakfasts, cloakroom naps, and bipartisan bonding.
- A deep dive into the bill’s major provisions, including:
- ✅ Extension of the 2017 Trump Tax Cuts – preventing a $4 trillion tax hike and introducing tax relief for tips, overtime, and seniors.
- 🛡️ $150B for Border Security – funding the wall, detention centers, and more agents.
- 💣 $150B for Military Modernization – including hypersonic weapons and missile defense.
- 👶 Trump Accounts – $1,000 investment accounts for every newborn to promote savings and financial literacy.
- 🏫 School Choice Expansion – enhanced 529 plans and tax credits for scholarship donations.
- 📡 Spectrum Auction – unlocking 800 MHz for private use to fuel 6G innovation and job growth.
🎧 Whether you're a policy wonk or just curious about how Washington really works, this episode offers an unfiltered look at the legislative grind and the future-shaping policies passed in the dead of night.
👉 Subscribe now to Verdict with Ted Cruz for more insider insights.
Also check out the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson and The Ben Ferguson Show—available wherever you get your podcasts.
And don’t forget to follow the show on social media so you never miss a moment!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and we're doing a hybrid show this morning with the
Ben Ferguson podcast as well because I'm on family vacation
in Cabo. But when the Big Beautiful Bill happens, you
do exactly what we're doing right now, and that is
give you the latest, no matter where we are in
the world of what's happening and how we got the
deal done. Center, I have a feeling you are running
(00:24):
on a very little sleep. Did you pull the all nighter?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I definitely did you and I are recording this podcast
at ten thirty seven pm Texas time on Tuesday night.
I last slept on Sunday night. We were up at
nine am Monday morning. On the Senate floor, we began
consideration of the One Big Beautiful Bill under the reconciliation procedures.
When you take up reconciliation, which as you know, you
(00:50):
and I have talked about before, is the principal exception
to the Senate filibuster rule. The ordinary rule in the
Senate is you need sixty votes to pass legislation, but
budget reconciliation is a special process that you can pass
legislation with only fifty votes. But part of budget reconciliation
is you have unlimited amendments, and that whole process is
(01:13):
what's known as vot rama. We started at nine am
Monday morning. We went all day Monday, we went all
night Monday, we went all morning Tuesday, and we finished
the whole thing at right about noon on Tuesday. And
then I went and headed to the airport, got at
a one o'clock flight, flew back to Texas. I'm home
(01:33):
tonight in Texas and have yet to go to sleep.
As soon as we finish this podcast, I am going
to I've got a date with my bed, and I
intend to be unconscious, very very soon.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I feel bad for you, but welcome to how the
sausage is made. So I have a lot of questions.
I know everybody else is wanting to ask the same
thing before we get into what is in the bill
when this voter rama is happening.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
You're one of the youngest guys in the Senate.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Your stamina is a little bit better, I would say,
just ags and others. Do people sleep in their offices?
Do you guys hang out? Do you decide to have dinner?
Do you order pizzas. Do you guys go to the
to the basement rooms that you guys have? How tell
us how everybody feels the time.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
So, yes, all of the above. And there is a
wide age variation in the Senate. I'm fifty four, I
can pull an all nighter and I'm just fine. Look,
Chuck Grassley is ninety. We've got a bunch of senators
who are in their eighties. And I will tell you,
particularly for the older senators doing an all nighter weighs
upon them. This was the longest voterama in history. Some
(02:37):
of this was Democrat delays. Some of this was just
the fact that that Senate Republican leadership was scrambling to
get the bill ready. One of the things to understand
is the timeframe of this bill moved very quickly because
President Trump announced he wanted this done by July fourth,
and he was leaning on Senate leadership and House leaders
(03:00):
to get it done. And so during the day we're
taking I think we took something like forty seven votes
in the twenty seven hours it took. And so there
are periods of downtime. There are periods in between a
vote when they're preparing the next vote, where they're revising statutes,
revising amendments, they're also getting determinations from the Senate Parliamentarian.
(03:22):
They're also getting scores. In order to have an amendment,
you have to get a score, which is the Joint
Committee on Taxation or the Congressional Budget Office will determine
how much a particular provision will cost or how much
it will save. Before you can vote on it in
voter rama, you have to get that score. So during
the day, yes, there are senators who are sitting back
(03:45):
in the cloakroom, sleeping, either on a couch or in
a chair. They're senators who go down to their hideaways.
Every senator has what's called a hideaway, which is a
smaller office in the US Capitol building. And most of
us have a couch or two couches in the high away.
And so senators would go and you know, get a
twenty minute nap there. But and you would see you
(04:08):
would see pages kind of a sleep behind the Senate floor.
It's going long and furious. In terms of food, the
food tends to be fairly lousy. It's kind of different.
People host it. They'll bring in they'll bring in pizzas,
they'll bring in sandwiches. One tradition that I started when
I first got to the Senate is anytime we do
(04:28):
an all night vodama, in the morning, I bring in
McDonald's breakfast and I just give it to all the
Republican senators. So I had seventy five egg mcmuffins and
sausage m mcmuffins and breakfast burritos that just showed up
about five point thirty in the morning. And you know,
you know, I got to say, there are few things
better after an all night or than than than Mickey
(04:50):
D's breakfast. And I'll tell you ben some advice. And
an old friend of mine gave me always always always
pick up the breakfast check and you get you get
some good will from you exactly right.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
All right? So do you guys hang out kind of
in groups?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And I asked this because like everybody kind of has
their friends group that they hang out with, do you
kind of have a text thread and say, hey, we're
all over here, Hey, what do you want to do now?
And I asked this for another reason. There are different
centers that like to play different games. You, for example,
love to play foosball.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
There there is a foosball table somewhere in the Senate.
Do you guys like have games like that while you're
just waiting in between?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
No, it's it's mostly just sitting around. Sometimes you'll be
sitting on the Senate floor at your desk. Sometimes you'll
be standing in the back of the Senate floor. In
the back of the Senate it's what's called the cloakroom.
The cloakroom has a couple of couches and probably twenty
kind of big comfy chairs. A lot of us will
sit back in the cloakroom, and then people will sort
(05:54):
of huddle at different places. But it it is a
little bit. I mean, you you hang out tipic with
the folks that are your closest friends. But look, it's
not that big a body. They're only one hundred of us,
So you end up hanging out with a lot of
your colleagues throughout the course of twenty seven hours.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
In a weird way.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Is it kind of nice to see the Senate and
come together in that way where you can actually be
friendlier with somebody and chat with it. Does it build
relationships at all?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Long term?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know? Sure? I guess I wouldn't mind doing it
without the all nighter at this point. You know, when
I was nineteen twenty twenty one, I probably pulled one
or two all nighters a week in college. And you know,
I'm in a stage in life where I'm not eager
to do all nighters anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
All right, How close were we to this bill being
in jeopardy? I asked that because there was a headline
that came out and then it started kind of being
run around nine o'clock yesterday evening, eight o'clock Central. It
set up to six GP centers hold out on the
big beautiful bill, and there was word that the president
(07:03):
was working the phones. Was that a bunch to do
about nothing? Or was it really whipping votes happening in
the evening?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Absolutely throughout the whole process, this was incredibly close. It
was nip and tuck. I'll tell you. Tuesday morning, you know,
we thought maybe we're going to get out there five
or six in the morning. So I originally had an
eight to twenty flight. Well, eight twenty came and went.
Then I had an eleven am flight, and eleven am
came and went. I ended up getting on a one
(07:31):
pm flight, and so that and that was true for
everyone You had senators who for Fourth of July, one
of my colleagues was going to Hawaii, his wife and
kids were already there. You had people flying all over
the place for Fourth of July, but nobody could leave.
So they're canceling their plans because we were supposed to
be out this weekend. And this dragged on longer. And
(07:53):
part of the reason it dragged on longer is it
wasn't clear where the votes are. And so let me
talk about some of the elements of what's in this bill.
Probably the single most important thing that is in this
bill is we extend the twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts.
That's a big deal. When we passed those tax cuts,
we passed them under reconciliation, but they only lasted They
(08:15):
were only scheduled to last ten years, and so if
we did nothing on December thirty first of this year,
the tax cuts would expire, which meant on January first,
there would be an automatic four trillion dollar tax increase.
Your taxes would go up, My taxes would go up,
the taxes of working Americans across this country would go up.
(08:37):
That would have been devastating to the country, and so
we had to pass this bill to extend the Trump
tax cuts. Beyond that, we made historic investments in securing
the border. We put one hundred and fifty billion dollars
into securing the border, into building the wall, hiring border
patrol agents, hiring ice agents, building detention facilities and detention.
(09:00):
This is an investment. There's never been an investment like
this at this order of magnitude. One of the great
mandates out of this election was secure the border, and
this bill provides the funding to enable President Trump to
continue doing so. That is absolutely historic. On top of that,
we also had a massive investment into rebuilding our military,
(09:22):
an additional one hundred and fifty billion dollars into our
military to bring it into the twenty first century, and
in particular to invest in things like hypersonic weaponry, to
invest in more subs, to invest in more ships, to
invest in the Golden Dome, which President Trump rightly is advocating,
missile defense for the homeland to keep us safe. That
(09:45):
investment is in there as well. Incredibly important. Another component
of that is investing in the Coastcard twenty four billion
dollars in investments in the coast Guard. That means, among
other things, building new polar ice breakers. Right now, China
is kicking our tails in the Arctic, and and this
is going to bring ship building back to this country
(10:06):
and give us the ability to build ships here at
home and have icebreakers so that we can defend our
national security. All of those investments are enormously important.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
You know, Centater One that I think one of the
most important things about this bill, and one of the
things that you advocated for and I've advocated for, and
it's something the present very clearly ran on, was making
the Trump tax cuts permanent. This was a massive tax
cut for the American people. Now, I know the media
doesn't want to talk about that. I know they want
(10:41):
to say that none of this is going to have
a major impact on our economy, but it is in
a ginormous way, especially for lower and middle class Americans.
How catistraphic would it have been if this bill did
not get passed When it comes to just basic tax policy,
in these skyrocking taxes, without this.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Bill, well, look, a four trillion dollar tax increase would
have been enormously detrimental to the economy. Many of those
taxes were on small businesses, their business to tax deductions
for things like investing in new factories, investing in new equipment,
and those deductions produced jobs, They raise wages, they incentivized
(11:23):
deploying capital, and so if those taxes were to go up,
you would end up seeing jobs go away. In twenty seventeen,
when we passed the Trump tax cuts, we saw enormous
economic prosperity. We saw the lowest unemployment in fifty years,
and the lowest Black unemployment ever recorded, the lowest Hispanic
unemployment ever recorded. And so if we did nothing, we
(11:46):
would reverse those gains by having a massive tax increase. Now,
ben the Democrats talking point, which every one of them
said throughout this process, and which the media repeated, is
this is tax cuts for billionaires. Now, I'm going to
give you a hyper technical legal term for what that
line is. That would be called a lie. What this
(12:08):
did is maintained current tax rates. So the lie that
it's tax cuts for billionaires is the Democrats say, well,
if we do nothing, there's going to be a massive
tax cut on everyone, a tax increase on everyone. And
since this kept the tax rates exactly the same as
they are today, the Democrats and media lie and say
(12:30):
that's a massive tax cuts for billionaires. Everyone is paying
the same rates. But as you rightly noted, where we
provided additional tax relief was not at the top end
of the income scale, but it was middle class and working.
It was President Trump's blue collar agenda. So what are
some of the new tax cuts that are in this provision?
(12:53):
Number one, no tax on tips. That's my legislation. I
wrote that legislation that is in this bill. That's going
to benefit waiters and waitresses and bartenders and barbers and
hair stylists and taxicab drivers and everyone who's working and
getting compensated on tipped income. That is real and meaningful relief.
(13:15):
Also included in this is no tax on overtime, and
also included in this as tax relief for seniors getting
solid security. All of those those are not going to
millionaires and billionaires. They're going to working Americans. And in fact,
the Joint Committee on Taxation put out an analysis of
the distributional impacts of these tax cuts. They found that
(13:40):
people making less than fifteen thousand dollars a year would
get a sixteen point four percent cut in taxes, and
they're paying very little. People making between fifteen thousand and
thirty thousand a year would get a twenty seven point
one percent cut, people making between thirty thousand and forty
thousand a year would get a nine point five percent cut,
(14:03):
and people making forty thousand to fifty thousand a year
would get a seven point two percent cut. So those
are our real and meaningful tax relief. And by the way,
those numbers compared to the impact for people at the
top end, those making over a million, was three percent.
And mind you, that's not a cut for them. That's
(14:26):
just saying that they don't have their taxes skyrocket automatically.
They stay at exactly the same level they are today.
Those that is real, meaningful middle class tax relief.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
You know, you go back to the campaign and that
legislation that you just mentioned, the no tax on tips,
and Donald Trump talked about how he wrote it down
in a napkin after I think it was, if I
remember correctly, outing in Nevada, yep. And they was just saying,
this is a great idea I'm gonna write down. Yeah,
he was in Vegas, and there's so many people in
Vegas that work on tips. I can't tell you how
many different people have talked to me about this that
(15:01):
work in an industry that heavily revolves around tips. Uber
and lyft drivers are a great example of that. I've
had a lot of them talk to me about it.
When they find out what you do, They're like, oh, man,
this would change my life because it would it would
allow me to keep so much more of my own
money while you're trying to make it. If you've food delivery,
you do it. I do it right, Uber Eats, whatever
(15:22):
it may be. That's another example of where this can
have a huge impact on someone giving them an instant
pay raise, especially when you need it. Look, I taught
tennis for years and tips are a large part of
your salary. You knew that, but like you want to
talk about giving Americans an instant pay raise, especially when
(15:44):
you're starting out or you're living more paycheck to paycheck.
This could have a catastrophic positive impact on our overall economy,
especially for people in these jobs. I don't think people
understand what a big differences can make.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Yeah, it's gonna make a big difference to a lot
of people who need the relief. And I've had the
same experience where people really see that. As President Trump
and a Republican Congress delivering on our promises. You know,
there are other elements in this bill. I got to
tell you I'm particularly gratified because I had a lot
of big victories that are included in this bill. So
(16:20):
I mentioned no tax on tips. That's my legislation that's
in there. We've talked before about spectrum wireless. Now, no, no,
what does that mean? Every electronic device you have, your
cell phone, Wi Fi, your laptops, streaming, satellite, everything operates
over electromagnetic spectrum, and different bandwidths are assigned to different
(16:43):
forms of communication. Of the most valuable spectrum, the midband spectrum,
the federal government controls sixty percent of it. I wrote
into this bill a mandate that the federal government must
auction off to the private sector eight hundred megahertz of spectrum.
Now what does that mean. That's going to do a
couple of things. Number One, that's going to generate about
(17:05):
one hundred billion dollars to the federal government. That's real
money that goes to the taxpayers that can pay down
our debt, pay down the lower the deficit. Those are
real dollars that come into the federal government. But I'll
tell you, Ben, that's not the biggest advantage. The biggest
advantage is it is going to unleash billions of dollars
of new investment and create hundreds of thousands of jobs
(17:27):
because this is about winning the race for six G
and beating China. And I got to tell you three
months ago, nobody in Washington thought we would get spectrum
auction in this bill. I wrote it. It's in there,
and that is going to have a massive job creation impact.
That's in this bill.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
You talk about. No one thought it was going to
be in there. There was a lot of people lobbying
trying to keep that out, and you stuck to your
guns on this one.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
That's part of the I think the success story of
this bill.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
It is. And I will tell you Ben, the two
provisions that personally I care the most about that are
in this bill that I think will be transformational our
school choice and the Trump accounts. Both of those were
my legislation that I wrote. And I told this story
of the podcast. A little over a month ago. Senate
Republicans we all went on a retreat and we were
(18:17):
talking about the Reconciliation Bill and what we're going to do.
And I stood up and I said to my colleagues,
I said, listen, there are a lot of big and
important things that we're doing in this bill, that we
need to do in this bill, and I think that's good.
And I think that's great. We auto at least pause
and ask about legacy. Ask about what lasting difference we're
going to make. Ask about in ten, twenty thirty years,
(18:40):
what are people going to remember that is in this bill?
And I made the case to my colleagues for two
different provisions, neither one of which were in the bill
at the time. Number one school choice and number two
Trump accounts. Let's start with Trump accounts. Under this bill,
the federal government will create a private investment account for
(19:03):
every child in America, and it will seed that account
with one thousand dollars for every newborn child in America.
That money, then, parents and friends and family can invest
every year in a tax advantage vehicle. That money is
invested in the S and P. Five hundred to broad
based equity. There are two massive advantages of this. Number one,
(19:26):
every child in America is going to experience the incredible
benefits of compound growth. What does that mean? Little girl
is born, next year she's born, she has this private
investment account open for her. It's seeded with one thousand dollars,
and her parents or family or parents employers contribute five
(19:46):
thousand a year every year. If you assume the historical
rate of growth of the S and P five hundred,
which is seven percent, by the time that little girl
turns eighteen, she will have one hun one hundred and
seventy thousand dollars in that account. And if she continues
contributing five thousand a year, by the time she turns
(20:08):
thirty five, she will have seven hundred thousand dollars in
that account. That is massive. These are four oh one
k's for kids, And think about how four oh one
k's changed how we retire, how we say for retirement.
This now gives the power of compound growth to every kid.
But number two, this also will create a new generation
(20:29):
of capitalist. Every child will be an owner, an owner
of the largest employers in this country. That is a
big deal. If you're tired of seeing all these kids
that hate capitalism, that think socialism is a good idea,
that think Mondami up in New York is boy, that
sounds great. Let's elect a communists well. Having a new
generation of capitalists who are owners and have skin in
(20:52):
the game. I think in ten twenty thirty years, we're
going to look back and say that change this country
for the best. Are those Trump accounts. I wrote the legislation.
It's in the bill, and it was a fight to
get them in the bill, but we kept them in
the bill.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You know, you talk about financial literacy is how I
was described it by a school teacher recently that said,
I listened to you and the Senator show, and when
you guys are talking about these savings accounts at birth
and what this could do. They said, it also will
allow us to then have curriculum. Yes, it will be
(21:28):
for financial literacy, because we'll have something we can actually
look at kids and say, this is what you have.
We can show you your report, we can show you
the power of comtown interest, we can show you what
the tax savings look like. We can show you how
to plan for your future. And then things like credit
card debt and how to balance a checkbook and how
(21:48):
to save and why you don't want to take out
high interest loans become a reality and understandable to these
kids because they can see what happens on the opposite
of that when you are saving money and watching it grow.
And to go back to the point you were making,
this could fundamentally change an entire country number one, but
(22:09):
also can change an entire generation. When you talk about
generational wealth, which everybody wants for their kids.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, no, no, that's exactly right. And what you're talking
about there is one of the real drivers of the
wealth gap we have in America is that wealthy parents
teach their kids how to invest, teach their kids how
to save, teach them financial literacy, and that learning that
perpetuates the wealth gap. And many low income parents don't
(22:38):
themselves have a terribly high degree of financial literacy, so
they don't teach their kids about it. They're not investors.
A large percentage of Americans don't own a single stock
or bond. You know, now, you're gonna end up in
ten years, you're gonna have a ten year old boy
who pulls out his phone and opens the app for
his Trump account and sees how much money he's gotten.
(22:59):
That count and it'll be broken down so it'll be
the S and P five hundred, but he'll look and say, hey, wait,
I own one hundred bucks of Apple. I own seventy
five bucks of Boeing or fifty bucks of McDonald's. And
that is a different thing when a ten year old
says when he goes to McDonald's and orders a big mac,
and he says, wait, I'm one of the owners of
(23:20):
this company, and he gets to understand that, you know,
a portion of those profits are accruing to his benefits
because he's one of the owners of the company. That
is transformational. And listen, rich kids accumulate capital all the time,
but this is allowing low income kids, the kids of
single moms who would never own a stock and bond otherwise,
(23:43):
to begin accumulating earlier, and then a huge accelerator on this.
So I'll tell you that the entire price tag of
the bill was in the trillions, the price tag of
this So they're three point seven million kids born on
average in this country each year, a thousand bucks a
year for that is three point seven billion dollars. So
that's thirty seven billion dollars over ten years in the
(24:06):
in the scope of this bill. That is a very
small amount compared to the overall size of this bill.
But that tiny amount is like priming a pump. Because
one of the things we're going to see is we're
going to see employers contributing to the accounts of the
kids of their employees. Think about four oh one case
(24:27):
when four Wait, that's.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Not a theory. That's not a theory. I want to
hold on. I want to be queer. That's not a
theory you're talking about. This is a reality because you've
actually talked with CEOs of companies who are saying they
want to do this.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
So there is a CEO Council of Invest America and
it's a bunch of major CEOs in this country who
have said, if you create these Trump accounts, we will
contribute to the accounts of the kids of our employees.
We will match it. It's shared by Michael Dell. It's
shared by a Texan. Michael is a good friend. Michael
has committed that Dell is going to contribute to the
counts of the kids of all their employees. And think
(25:04):
about four oh one K. Look, four oh one K
is just a provision in the tax code, and when
it passed, it changed how America saves for retirement. There
is right now today trillions of dollars invested in four
oh one k's And without exaggeration, I think in twenty
years we will see trillions of dollars invested in Trump accounts.
(25:27):
That the multiplier effect there is really potent. And I
think it will become an almost standard employee benefit, just
like if you get a job at any big company,
you're going to get a four oh one K contribution
or match. I think this will be another standard employee benefit,
and so it really unleashes savings early. That's a big deal.
(25:49):
And then Ben, I want to talk about another provision
that I.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Was fighting, and by the way, I I yeah, I
want to say one more thing about this real quick. Yes,
just so people understand you when you talk about this.
A great example of this. You know my three boys,
and I'm made a deal with all of them. I said, Hey,
whatever you say for your first car, I'm going to
match it. If you want to drive a hooptee, you
(26:12):
can drive a hooptee. If you want to drive a
nicer car, I'll match whatever you say. But but you're
going to.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Have one exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And my Hooptie is my first car.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
When it's like a couple grand and you're and it
barely makes it down the road.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
My first car was a Honda with one hundred eighty.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Seven thousand miles it is with no conditioning, and I
loved it.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
By the way, it is hooptie, like a Memphis word
or something. I'm just I'm not sure that's English.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
It's I that's just that's the word that when I
grew up in Memphis they called if you had a
car that wasn't very nice, it was referred to as, oh,
that's a nice hooptie.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So what was your first car? Was a dialect that
I grew up with, Honda Prelude, Prelude.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
It was nineteen nineteen eighty eight, one hundred and eighty
seven thousand miles on it, and I could and I
could afford it because it had a busted ace and
it took the old R twelve, which was hard to
find and more expensive.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I remember this like it was yesterday. And I bought that.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Car for twenty six hundred dollars and I was and
I loved it, by the way, very proud of that car.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
But the point was to and by the way, my
first car said look, you're gonna have ownership in this.
What was it?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
My first car was a nineteen seventy eight Ford Fairmont,
which which we called the Green Bomb, and it was
actually my grandfather's car. And when I turned sixteen, my
grandfather gave it to me. Ha he and he was
kind of a gruff old irishman and he said, boy,
stick your hands out. So I stuck my hands out
and he put a car key in each hand, said
(27:40):
happy birthday, and it was you know, they'd had it
for eight years, so it was their car. And we
called at the Green Bomb and I drove all my
buddies in high school and we got to do a
lot of trouble in that car.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Well, I said to my son, I said, look, you
can spend money on frivolous things and you'll have instant gratification.
I said, Or you can save your money and I'll
help you invest it in stocks. Well, my son now
owns Lockheed Martin, not much of it, but he owned
some of it. He owns Ford because he thought that
was a good stock that had been around. And now
every day when he comes home from school in the summer,
(28:13):
he's like, hey, how did my stocks do today?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
And it's changed his mentality.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
As we're on family vacation, I told all the kids,
I said, hey, you can get one cool thing while
you're here, whatever you want to be, here's the price range.
And literally two of my three boys are the same
thing to me today. Hey, if I don't buy anything,
can I put the money in stocks and save it
for my car?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
When you have those conversations with a six year.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Old and an eight year old, that you realize that
now money is making sense to them. That's why I'm
so excited about this legislation. I hope people thirty forty,
fifty sixty years from now, when we're both gone, go
back and they say, you know what, when Ted Kruz
did this and got this in there, it changed people's
lives for the better. So I want to say, sincerely,
(28:55):
congratulations on making sure that's made it in there, because
it's huge. Because that's not the only thing that was
transformative in this bill. Something you've been champing now, I
would say it's part of the legacy of your career
is school choice. And there's some big stuff in this
bill also on school choice.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
So school choice has been my passion for thirty years.
I've been very active of the school choice movement. In
twenty seventeen, when we did the first Trump tax cut,
I authored the legislation that expanded college five twenty nine
savings plans, so now parents can save for K through
twelve education. We got that through. It passed, and it
was at the time the most far reaching federal school
(29:36):
choice legislation that had ever passed. And there are millions
of kids now whose parents save for K through twelve
education using five twenty nines. This time around, I took
five twenty nine and I expanded them. I expanded what
you can spend them for, and I raised the cap.
It used to be you could spend ten thousand a
year from the account. Now you can spend twenty thousand
(29:56):
a year. But that actually is the smallest piece on
school te that would be huge in any other year.
But what we got in this year is the federal
government will now grant a federal tax credit dollar for
dollar for every taxpayer up to seventeen hundred dollars. So,
(30:18):
ben you pay taxes every year you pay more than
seventeen hundred dollars in taxes when this goes into effect,
if you write a seven yes, so if you write
a seventeen hundred dollars check to a scholarship granting organization
in Texas, you will get a seventeen hundred dollars credit
on your taxes. In other words, it's dollar for dollar,
(30:40):
it disappears from your tax liability. What this will do
is this is going to unleash billions and billions of
dollars of new scholarships for K through twelve education in
the states. And the way it operates, every state has
to choose to opt in, so Texas will opt in.
(31:00):
I suspect a number of Blue states will not opt
in because the teachers' unions will not want them to.
They will not want scholarships for kids to be able
to go to the school of their choice. And the
way we wrote the rule, the state, the law, the
state has to opt in. But Texas will have scholarship
granting organizations and any taxpayer can write a check up
(31:21):
to seventeen hundred dollars a year and get a full
tax credit on their irs what they owe. That is
going to result in millions of kids across America, many
of whom are stuck in failing schools. Schools they're not
learning to read, they're not learning to write, Schools where
there's violence there drug dealers, Schools where their future is
(31:42):
really in peril, and they're suddenly going to have the
ability to get a scholarship, to go to the school
of their choice, to get a real education, to get
a better education, to be safe, to not be subject
to violence. This is I think school choice is the
civil rights issue of the twenty four century. This has
never happened before. And I gotta tell you, I fought
(32:05):
tooth and nail. This almost got stripped out of the
bill about five different times. And I made clear I'll
shut this whole bill down if we don't get school
choice in there. And and and this is I could
not be more excited about about any provision in this
bill than the impact school choice is gonna have for
(32:25):
for the next next generation.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So on these two issues, school choice and also the
savings accounts, when does that start to become a reality timeline?
There's there's a lot of people that say, hey, we
pass bills and then things that were supposed to happen
don't happen. They get undone because there's a new present
that comes in, or you see a Senate flip or
the House flip, whatever it may be. So so how
(32:49):
sure are we that we are going to see the
fruits of this fight and this labor.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Yeah, these are both gonna happen, and they're both gonna
happen in the next year. For the Trump accounts, I
wrote into an effective date of one year from the signing,
So if it's signed on July fourth, these will start
on July fourth, twenty twenty six, our nation's two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary. And I think that's something particularly fantastic.
I'm quite confident President Trump will make a big deal
(33:16):
about the facts that these accounts are being opened on
our nation's birthday, or if it ends up being signed
at a slightly different date somewhere honor about our nation's birthday,
a great celebration. Same thing. The tax deductions are going
to start, I believe next year on the on the
school choice tax deductions. So these will happen. They will
happen quickly. Now one question people are asking, what happens next.
(33:40):
The Senate passed this, what happens next, Well, we sent
the whole bill to the House. They have two choices
number one, so they're coming back in in session. They
can take it up and pass it. And if they
pass the bill that we just passed, it will go
to the President and he can sign it, and he
(34:00):
said he wants to sign it on July fourth of
this year. So if the House passes what the Senate passed,
that'll be the end of the process and the President
will sign it. The second thing they can do is
they can say, Okay, we passed a bill, the Senate
passed a different bill. We need to work out the
differences between them, and that's called going to conference, and
(34:23):
the House could insist we go to conference. I don't
know which one they're going to do. There are some
real differences in the Senate right now there or in
the House right now, they're having fights. There's some aspects
of the Senate bill that are really good, there's some
aspects of the Senate bill that are not great, and
so it's going to be a question of what can
get two hundred and eighteen votes in the House. I
know the Speaker wants if he can to take up
(34:46):
and pass the Senate bill and just send it to
the President. That's what the President wants also, so that
may happen. If that doesn't happen, then we'll go to conference.
And I think conference would take the month of July
for us to work out the differences, and my guess
is we would pass the final bill at the end
of July, right before August.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
So this is one of those big moments that I
think we should all enjoy.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Elections have consequences.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
This time it was for conservative values and for kids
to have a better future in education or savings accounts,
and for tax cuts so that Americans that work hard
can keep more of their own money. On a scout
of one to ten, and nothing's perfect, how proud of
you or of you are you with this bill? There's
a lot of people that are saying, well, there's this,
(35:36):
or's that, or does this look? Yeah, there was some compromises,
no doubt that had to be made. You got a tight,
you know, a very very slim majority that you're dealing
with here. But overall, how happy are you with what
the American people are now getting?
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I think there are many very very good things in
this bill. I wish we cut spending significantly more. I
was fighting hard to cut spending significantly more. I went
to President to Trump with three trillion dollars of spending
cuts we could do. I was urging my colleagues. I
prevailed in some of those arguments, but not all of them.
I wish we'd shown more fiscal restraint. That would have
(36:12):
made me much happier. Look at six am on Tuesday,
we were near the end of the amendments, and the
question was could we get to fifty Republicans. They're fifty
three in the Senate now. Susan Collins was a no.
She is the most liberal of the Republicans. She did
(36:33):
not like some of the reforms on Medicaid. The Democrats
and the press are saying we slashed medicaid. That is
a lie. We actually are spending more un medicaid every
single year. What we did was slightly decrease the rate
of growth of Medicaid in the future, and in particular,
we increased efforts to fight waste, fraud, and abuse and
(36:54):
to remove people from the Medicaid roles who don't qualify.
And we also put in place a work requirement, which
is really important and I think actually benefits people. If
you look at the history of work requirements for federal
welfare benefits, it ends up helping the recipients by getting
them back into the workforce, which is ultimately much better
(37:15):
for them in their families. So so, but anyway, Susan
Collins did not like the reductions in spending on that side,
so she voted no. Tom Tillis, a Republican from from
North Carolina, also did not like the Medicaid changes and
so he voted no. And so with fifty three Republicans,
(37:37):
we could only lose three. The two other votes that
were in play were Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul and
they were both between six am and noon. Nobody knew
which one which one we would get if either, But
(38:01):
if we didn't get one of them, this bill was
going down because if four senators voted against it, four Republicans,
we were at forty nine and it failed. So the
consequence of which road we went down was really consequential
because Lisa, after Susan, is the most liberal, demoderate Republican
in the conference, and so Lisa was bargaining for a
(38:24):
bunch more spending. She wanted a ton of spending, particularly
at Alaska, and that was the price of her vote,
and she was going back and forth. Rand on the
other hand, Rand was always going to be no, always
going to be a no. And Rand said at the
end he would be a yes if the debt ceiling
was not extended. We extend the debt ceiling throughout President
(38:45):
Trump's term in this bill. That was a very high
priority for President Trump. Rand said he would vote yes
if we shortened the extension of the debt ceiling to
September thirtieth. So we just did a couple of months
of the debt ceiling. Now, the consequence of that would
mean we'd have to come back in September thirtieth and
address the debt ceiling again, and that would mean we'd
(39:07):
probably have to negotiate with the Democrats and make a
lousy deal with with Chuck Schumer. But between six am
and noon, none of us knew which direction they were
going to go. Were they going to go the direction
of Lisa Rakowski or were they going to go the
direction of Rand Paul. At the end of the day,
Lisa is the one who got to yes. But it
(39:28):
was literally up till the moment she cast her vote,
we didn't know for sure. And she ended up She
ended up increasing the Rural Hospital Fund by fifty billion dollars.
She ended up dropping the Medicaid penalty for states that
that that that are giving medicaid to illegal immigrants. She
(39:51):
ended up delaying the work requirements for food stamps for Alaska,
and the cost of that was billions and billions of dollars. Interestingly,
if Rand had said yes instead of Lisa, we would
have ended up spending much less. But the consequence of
(40:13):
Rand being a no is that it drove It made
Lisa the swing vote, and the price of her vote
was billions and probably hundreds of billions more in spending
and and so you know, I mean that that's where
votes have consequences.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Incredible, Well, it certainly is interesting to see your take
on this. I'm glad that we were able to do
the show. You deserve to get some sleep now that
it's uh after midnight Eastern and uh and after the
vote rama. But I I'm glad that we were able
to unpack all of this for everyone because a lot
of people have the same question, how did this happen?
What did we get that was good? Are there things
(40:55):
that we got taken advantage of? Is this gonna help
the country when it's gonna hurt it? I think think
we answered a lot of those questions. So don't forget
download Verdict with tech Cruz wherever you get your podcasts
to do this three days a week also my podcast
as well, the Ben Ferguson Podcasts. You can also listen
to that each and every day as well, and the
Sin and I will see you back here in a
(41:15):
couple of days
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and we're doing a hybrid show this morning with the
Ben Ferguson podcast as well because I'm on family vacation
in Cabo. But when the Big Beautiful Bill happens, you
do exactly what we're doing right now, and that is
give you the latest, no matter where we are in
the world of what's happening and how we got the
deal done. Center, I have a feeling you are running
(00:24):
on a very little sleep. Did you pull the all nighter?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I definitely did you and I are recording this podcast
at ten thirty seven pm Texas time on Tuesday night.
I last slept on Sunday night. We were up at
nine am Monday morning. On the Senate floor, we began
consideration of the One Big Beautiful Bill under the reconciliation procedures.
When you take up reconciliation, which as you know, you
(00:50):
and I have talked about before, is the principal exception
to the Senate filibuster rule. The ordinary rule in the
Senate is you need sixty votes to pass legislation, but
budget reconciliation is a special process that you can pass
legislation with only fifty votes. But part of budget reconciliation
is you have unlimited amendments, and that whole process is
(01:13):
what's known as vot rama. We started at nine am
Monday morning. We went all day Monday, we went all
night Monday, we went all morning Tuesday, and we finished
the whole thing at right about noon on Tuesday. And
then I went and headed to the airport, got at
a one o'clock flight, flew back to Texas. I'm home
(01:33):
tonight in Texas and have yet to go to sleep.
As soon as we finish this podcast, I am going
to I've got a date with my bed, and I
intend to be unconscious, very very soon.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I feel bad for you, but welcome to how the
sausage is made. So I have a lot of questions.
I know everybody else is wanting to ask the same
thing before we get into what is in the bill
when this voter rama is happening.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
You're one of the youngest guys in the Senate.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Your stamina is a little bit better, I would say,
just ags and others. Do people sleep in their offices?
Do you guys hang out? Do you decide to have dinner?
Do you order pizzas. Do you guys go to the
to the basement rooms that you guys have? How tell
us how everybody feels the time.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
So, yes, all of the above. And there is a
wide age variation in the Senate. I'm fifty four, I
can pull an all nighter and I'm just fine. Look,
Chuck Grassley is ninety. We've got a bunch of senators
who are in their eighties. And I will tell you,
particularly for the older senators doing an all nighter weighs
upon them. This was the longest voterama in history. Some
(02:37):
of this was Democrat delays. Some of this was just
the fact that that Senate Republican leadership was scrambling to
get the bill ready. One of the things to understand
is the timeframe of this bill moved very quickly because
President Trump announced he wanted this done by July fourth,
and he was leaning on Senate leadership and House leaders
(03:00):
to get it done. And so during the day we're
taking I think we took something like forty seven votes
in the twenty seven hours it took. And so there
are periods of downtime. There are periods in between a
vote when they're preparing the next vote, where they're revising statutes,
revising amendments, they're also getting determinations from the Senate Parliamentarian.
(03:22):
They're also getting scores. In order to have an amendment,
you have to get a score, which is the Joint
Committee on Taxation or the Congressional Budget Office will determine
how much a particular provision will cost or how much
it will save. Before you can vote on it in
voter rama, you have to get that score. So during
the day, yes, there are senators who are sitting back
(03:45):
in the cloakroom, sleeping, either on a couch or in
a chair. They're senators who go down to their hideaways.
Every senator has what's called a hideaway, which is a
smaller office in the US Capitol building. And most of
us have a couch or two couches in the high away.
And so senators would go and you know, get a
twenty minute nap there. But and you would see you
(04:08):
would see pages kind of a sleep behind the Senate floor.
It's going long and furious. In terms of food, the
food tends to be fairly lousy. It's kind of different.
People host it. They'll bring in they'll bring in pizzas,
they'll bring in sandwiches. One tradition that I started when
I first got to the Senate is anytime we do
(04:28):
an all night vodama, in the morning, I bring in
McDonald's breakfast and I just give it to all the
Republican senators. So I had seventy five egg mcmuffins and
sausage m mcmuffins and breakfast burritos that just showed up
about five point thirty in the morning. And you know,
you know, I got to say, there are few things
better after an all night or than than than Mickey
(04:50):
D's breakfast. And I'll tell you ben some advice. And
an old friend of mine gave me always always always
pick up the breakfast check and you get you get
some good will from you exactly right.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
All right? So do you guys hang out kind of
in groups?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
And I asked this because like everybody kind of has
their friends group that they hang out with, do you
kind of have a text thread and say, hey, we're
all over here, Hey, what do you want to do now?
And I asked this for another reason. There are different
centers that like to play different games. You, for example,
love to play foosball.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
There there is a foosball table somewhere in the Senate.
Do you guys like have games like that while you're
just waiting in between?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
No, it's it's mostly just sitting around. Sometimes you'll be
sitting on the Senate floor at your desk. Sometimes you'll
be standing in the back of the Senate floor. In
the back of the Senate it's what's called the cloakroom.
The cloakroom has a couple of couches and probably twenty
kind of big comfy chairs. A lot of us will
sit back in the cloakroom, and then people will sort
(05:54):
of huddle at different places. But it it is a
little bit. I mean, you you hang out tipic with
the folks that are your closest friends. But look, it's
not that big a body. They're only one hundred of us,
So you end up hanging out with a lot of
your colleagues throughout the course of twenty seven hours.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
In a weird way.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Is it kind of nice to see the Senate and
come together in that way where you can actually be
friendlier with somebody and chat with it. Does it build
relationships at all?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Long term?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know? Sure? I guess I wouldn't mind doing it
without the all nighter at this point. You know, when
I was nineteen twenty twenty one, I probably pulled one
or two all nighters a week in college. And you know,
I'm in a stage in life where I'm not eager
to do all nighters anymore.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
All right, How close were we to this bill being
in jeopardy? I asked that because there was a headline
that came out and then it started kind of being
run around nine o'clock yesterday evening, eight o'clock Central. It
set up to six GP centers hold out on the
big beautiful bill, and there was word that the president
(07:03):
was working the phones. Was that a bunch to do
about nothing? Or was it really whipping votes happening in
the evening?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Absolutely throughout the whole process, this was incredibly close. It
was nip and tuck. I'll tell you. Tuesday morning, you know,
we thought maybe we're going to get out there five
or six in the morning. So I originally had an
eight to twenty flight. Well, eight twenty came and went.
Then I had an eleven am flight, and eleven am
came and went. I ended up getting on a one
(07:31):
pm flight, and so that and that was true for
everyone You had senators who for Fourth of July, one
of my colleagues was going to Hawaii, his wife and
kids were already there. You had people flying all over
the place for Fourth of July, but nobody could leave.
So they're canceling their plans because we were supposed to
be out this weekend. And this dragged on longer. And
(07:53):
part of the reason it dragged on longer is it
wasn't clear where the votes are. And so let me
talk about some of the elements of what's in this bill.
Probably the single most important thing that is in this
bill is we extend the twenty seventeen Trump tax cuts.
That's a big deal. When we passed those tax cuts,
we passed them under reconciliation, but they only lasted They
(08:15):
were only scheduled to last ten years, and so if
we did nothing on December thirty first of this year,
the tax cuts would expire, which meant on January first,
there would be an automatic four trillion dollar tax increase.
Your taxes would go up, My taxes would go up,
the taxes of working Americans across this country would go up.
(08:37):
That would have been devastating to the country, and so
we had to pass this bill to extend the Trump
tax cuts. Beyond that, we made historic investments in securing
the border. We put one hundred and fifty billion dollars
into securing the border, into building the wall, hiring border
patrol agents, hiring ice agents, building detention facilities and detention.
(09:00):
This is an investment. There's never been an investment like
this at this order of magnitude. One of the great
mandates out of this election was secure the border, and
this bill provides the funding to enable President Trump to
continue doing so. That is absolutely historic. On top of that,
we also had a massive investment into rebuilding our military,
(09:22):
an additional one hundred and fifty billion dollars into our
military to bring it into the twenty first century, and
in particular to invest in things like hypersonic weaponry, to
invest in more subs, to invest in more ships, to
invest in the Golden Dome, which President Trump rightly is advocating,
missile defense for the homeland to keep us safe. That
(09:45):
investment is in there as well. Incredibly important. Another component
of that is investing in the Coastcard twenty four billion
dollars in investments in the coast Guard. That means, among
other things, building new polar ice breakers. Right now, China
is kicking our tails in the Arctic, and and this
is going to bring ship building back to this country
(10:06):
and give us the ability to build ships here at
home and have icebreakers so that we can defend our
national security. All of those investments are enormously important.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
You know, Centater One that I think one of the
most important things about this bill, and one of the
things that you advocated for and I've advocated for, and
it's something the present very clearly ran on, was making
the Trump tax cuts permanent. This was a massive tax
cut for the American people. Now, I know the media
doesn't want to talk about that. I know they want
(10:41):
to say that none of this is going to have
a major impact on our economy, but it is in
a ginormous way, especially for lower and middle class Americans.
How catistraphic would it have been if this bill did
not get passed When it comes to just basic tax policy,
in these skyrocking taxes, without this.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Bill, well, look, a four trillion dollar tax increase would
have been enormously detrimental to the economy. Many of those
taxes were on small businesses, their business to tax deductions
for things like investing in new factories, investing in new equipment,
and those deductions produced jobs, They raise wages, they incentivized
(11:23):
deploying capital, and so if those taxes were to go up,
you would end up seeing jobs go away. In twenty seventeen,
when we passed the Trump tax cuts, we saw enormous
economic prosperity. We saw the lowest unemployment in fifty years,
and the lowest Black unemployment ever recorded, the lowest Hispanic
unemployment ever recorded. And so if we did nothing, we
(11:46):
would reverse those gains by having a massive tax increase. Now,
ben the Democrats talking point, which every one of them
said throughout this process, and which the media repeated, is
this is tax cuts for billionaires. Now, I'm going to
give you a hyper technical legal term for what that
line is. That would be called a lie. What this
(12:08):
did is maintained current tax rates. So the lie that
it's tax cuts for billionaires is the Democrats say, well,
if we do nothing, there's going to be a massive
tax cut on everyone, a tax increase on everyone. And
since this kept the tax rates exactly the same as
they are today, the Democrats and media lie and say
(12:30):
that's a massive tax cuts for billionaires. Everyone is paying
the same rates. But as you rightly noted, where we
provided additional tax relief was not at the top end
of the income scale, but it was middle class and working.
It was President Trump's blue collar agenda. So what are
some of the new tax cuts that are in this provision?
(12:53):
Number one, no tax on tips. That's my legislation. I
wrote that legislation that is in this bill. That's going
to benefit waiters and waitresses and bartenders and barbers and
hair stylists and taxicab drivers and everyone who's working and
getting compensated on tipped income. That is real and meaningful relief.
(13:15):
Also included in this is no tax on overtime, and
also included in this as tax relief for seniors getting
solid security. All of those those are not going to
millionaires and billionaires. They're going to working Americans. And in fact,
the Joint Committee on Taxation put out an analysis of
the distributional impacts of these tax cuts. They found that
(13:40):
people making less than fifteen thousand dollars a year would
get a sixteen point four percent cut in taxes, and
they're paying very little. People making between fifteen thousand and
thirty thousand a year would get a twenty seven point
one percent cut, people making between thirty thousand and forty
thousand a year would get a nine point five percent cut,
(14:03):
and people making forty thousand to fifty thousand a year
would get a seven point two percent cut. So those
are our real and meaningful tax relief. And by the way,
those numbers compared to the impact for people at the
top end, those making over a million, was three percent.
And mind you, that's not a cut for them. That's
(14:26):
just saying that they don't have their taxes skyrocket automatically.
They stay at exactly the same level they are today.
Those that is real, meaningful middle class tax relief.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
You know, you go back to the campaign and that
legislation that you just mentioned, the no tax on tips,
and Donald Trump talked about how he wrote it down
in a napkin after I think it was, if I
remember correctly, outing in Nevada, yep. And they was just saying,
this is a great idea I'm gonna write down. Yeah,
he was in Vegas, and there's so many people in
Vegas that work on tips. I can't tell you how
many different people have talked to me about this that
(15:01):
work in an industry that heavily revolves around tips. Uber
and lyft drivers are a great example of that. I've
had a lot of them talk to me about it.
When they find out what you do, They're like, oh, man,
this would change my life because it would it would
allow me to keep so much more of my own
money while you're trying to make it. If you've food delivery,
you do it. I do it right, Uber Eats, whatever
(15:22):
it may be. That's another example of where this can
have a huge impact on someone giving them an instant
pay raise, especially when you need it. Look, I taught
tennis for years and tips are a large part of
your salary. You knew that, but like you want to
talk about giving Americans an instant pay raise, especially when
(15:44):
you're starting out or you're living more paycheck to paycheck.
This could have a catastrophic positive impact on our overall economy,
especially for people in these jobs. I don't think people
understand what a big differences can make.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Yeah, it's gonna make a big difference to a lot
of people who need the relief. And I've had the
same experience where people really see that. As President Trump
and a Republican Congress delivering on our promises. You know,
there are other elements in this bill. I got to
tell you I'm particularly gratified because I had a lot
of big victories that are included in this bill. So
(16:20):
I mentioned no tax on tips. That's my legislation that's
in there. We've talked before about spectrum wireless. Now, no, no,
what does that mean? Every electronic device you have, your
cell phone, Wi Fi, your laptops, streaming, satellite, everything operates
over electromagnetic spectrum, and different bandwidths are assigned to different
(16:43):
forms of communication. Of the most valuable spectrum, the midband spectrum,
the federal government controls sixty percent of it. I wrote
into this bill a mandate that the federal government must
auction off to the private sector eight hundred megahertz of spectrum.
Now what does that mean. That's going to do a
couple of things. Number One, that's going to generate about
(17:05):
one hundred billion dollars to the federal government. That's real
money that goes to the taxpayers that can pay down
our debt, pay down the lower the deficit. Those are
real dollars that come into the federal government. But I'll
tell you, Ben, that's not the biggest advantage. The biggest
advantage is it is going to unleash billions of dollars
of new investment and create hundreds of thousands of jobs
(17:27):
because this is about winning the race for six G
and beating China. And I got to tell you three
months ago, nobody in Washington thought we would get spectrum
auction in this bill. I wrote it. It's in there,
and that is going to have a massive job creation impact.
That's in this bill.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
You talk about. No one thought it was going to
be in there. There was a lot of people lobbying
trying to keep that out, and you stuck to your
guns on this one.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
That's part of the I think the success story of
this bill.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
It is. And I will tell you Ben, the two
provisions that personally I care the most about that are
in this bill that I think will be transformational our
school choice and the Trump accounts. Both of those were
my legislation that I wrote. And I told this story
of the podcast. A little over a month ago. Senate
Republicans we all went on a retreat and we were
(18:17):
talking about the Reconciliation Bill and what we're going to do.
And I stood up and I said to my colleagues,
I said, listen, there are a lot of big and
important things that we're doing in this bill, that we
need to do in this bill, and I think that's good.
And I think that's great. We auto at least pause
and ask about legacy. Ask about what lasting difference we're
going to make. Ask about in ten, twenty thirty years,
(18:40):
what are people going to remember that is in this bill?
And I made the case to my colleagues for two
different provisions, neither one of which were in the bill
at the time. Number one school choice and number two
Trump accounts. Let's start with Trump accounts. Under this bill,
the federal government will create a private investment account for
(19:03):
every child in America, and it will seed that account
with one thousand dollars for every newborn child in America.
That money, then, parents and friends and family can invest
every year in a tax advantage vehicle. That money is
invested in the S and P. Five hundred to broad
based equity. There are two massive advantages of this. Number one,
(19:26):
every child in America is going to experience the incredible
benefits of compound growth. What does that mean? Little girl
is born, next year she's born, she has this private
investment account open for her. It's seeded with one thousand dollars,
and her parents or family or parents employers contribute five
(19:46):
thousand a year every year. If you assume the historical
rate of growth of the S and P five hundred,
which is seven percent, by the time that little girl
turns eighteen, she will have one hun one hundred and
seventy thousand dollars in that account. And if she continues
contributing five thousand a year, by the time she turns
(20:08):
thirty five, she will have seven hundred thousand dollars in
that account. That is massive. These are four oh one
k's for kids, And think about how four oh one
k's changed how we retire, how we say for retirement.
This now gives the power of compound growth to every kid.
But number two, this also will create a new generation
(20:29):
of capitalist. Every child will be an owner, an owner
of the largest employers in this country. That is a
big deal. If you're tired of seeing all these kids
that hate capitalism, that think socialism is a good idea,
that think Mondami up in New York is boy, that
sounds great. Let's elect a communists well. Having a new
generation of capitalists who are owners and have skin in
(20:52):
the game. I think in ten twenty thirty years, we're
going to look back and say that change this country
for the best. Are those Trump accounts. I wrote the legislation.
It's in the bill, and it was a fight to
get them in the bill, but we kept them in
the bill.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You know, you talk about financial literacy is how I
was described it by a school teacher recently that said,
I listened to you and the Senator show, and when
you guys are talking about these savings accounts at birth
and what this could do. They said, it also will
allow us to then have curriculum. Yes, it will be
(21:28):
for financial literacy, because we'll have something we can actually
look at kids and say, this is what you have.
We can show you your report, we can show you
the power of comtown interest, we can show you what
the tax savings look like. We can show you how
to plan for your future. And then things like credit
card debt and how to balance a checkbook and how
(21:48):
to save and why you don't want to take out
high interest loans become a reality and understandable to these
kids because they can see what happens on the opposite
of that when you are saving money and watching it grow.
And to go back to the point you were making,
this could fundamentally change an entire country number one, but
(22:09):
also can change an entire generation. When you talk about
generational wealth, which everybody wants for their kids.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Yeah, no, no, that's exactly right. And what you're talking
about there is one of the real drivers of the
wealth gap we have in America is that wealthy parents
teach their kids how to invest, teach their kids how
to save, teach them financial literacy, and that learning that
perpetuates the wealth gap. And many low income parents don't
(22:38):
themselves have a terribly high degree of financial literacy, so
they don't teach their kids about it. They're not investors.
A large percentage of Americans don't own a single stock
or bond. You know, now, you're gonna end up in
ten years, you're gonna have a ten year old boy
who pulls out his phone and opens the app for
his Trump account and sees how much money he's gotten.
(22:59):
That count and it'll be broken down so it'll be
the S and P five hundred, but he'll look and say, hey, wait,
I own one hundred bucks of Apple. I own seventy
five bucks of Boeing or fifty bucks of McDonald's. And
that is a different thing when a ten year old
says when he goes to McDonald's and orders a big mac,
and he says, wait, I'm one of the owners of
(23:20):
this company, and he gets to understand that, you know,
a portion of those profits are accruing to his benefits
because he's one of the owners of the company. That
is transformational. And listen, rich kids accumulate capital all the time,
but this is allowing low income kids, the kids of
single moms who would never own a stock and bond otherwise,
(23:43):
to begin accumulating earlier, and then a huge accelerator on this.
So I'll tell you that the entire price tag of
the bill was in the trillions, the price tag of
this So they're three point seven million kids born on
average in this country each year, a thousand bucks a
year for that is three point seven billion dollars. So
that's thirty seven billion dollars over ten years in the
(24:06):
in the scope of this bill. That is a very
small amount compared to the overall size of this bill.
But that tiny amount is like priming a pump. Because
one of the things we're going to see is we're
going to see employers contributing to the accounts of the
kids of their employees. Think about four oh one case
(24:27):
when four Wait, that's.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Not a theory. That's not a theory. I want to
hold on. I want to be queer. That's not a
theory you're talking about. This is a reality because you've
actually talked with CEOs of companies who are saying they
want to do this.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
So there is a CEO Council of Invest America and
it's a bunch of major CEOs in this country who
have said, if you create these Trump accounts, we will
contribute to the accounts of the kids of our employees.
We will match it. It's shared by Michael Dell. It's
shared by a Texan. Michael is a good friend. Michael
has committed that Dell is going to contribute to the
counts of the kids of all their employees. And think
(25:04):
about four oh one K. Look, four oh one K
is just a provision in the tax code, and when
it passed, it changed how America saves for retirement. There
is right now today trillions of dollars invested in four
oh one k's And without exaggeration, I think in twenty
years we will see trillions of dollars invested in Trump accounts.
(25:27):
That the multiplier effect there is really potent. And I
think it will become an almost standard employee benefit, just
like if you get a job at any big company,
you're going to get a four oh one K contribution
or match. I think this will be another standard employee benefit,
and so it really unleashes savings early. That's a big deal.
(25:49):
And then Ben, I want to talk about another provision
that I.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Was fighting, and by the way, I I yeah, I
want to say one more thing about this real quick. Yes,
just so people understand you when you talk about this.
A great example of this. You know my three boys,
and I'm made a deal with all of them. I said, Hey,
whatever you say for your first car, I'm going to
match it. If you want to drive a hooptee, you
(26:12):
can drive a hooptee. If you want to drive a
nicer car, I'll match whatever you say. But but you're
going to.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Have one exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And my Hooptie is my first car.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
When it's like a couple grand and you're and it
barely makes it down the road.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
My first car was a Honda with one hundred eighty.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Seven thousand miles it is with no conditioning, and I
loved it.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
By the way, it is hooptie, like a Memphis word
or something. I'm just I'm not sure that's English.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
It's I that's just that's the word that when I
grew up in Memphis they called if you had a
car that wasn't very nice, it was referred to as, oh,
that's a nice hooptie.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So what was your first car? Was a dialect that
I grew up with, Honda Prelude, Prelude.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
It was nineteen nineteen eighty eight, one hundred and eighty
seven thousand miles on it, and I could and I
could afford it because it had a busted ace and
it took the old R twelve, which was hard to
find and more expensive.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I remember this like it was yesterday. And I bought that.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Car for twenty six hundred dollars and I was and
I loved it, by the way, very proud of that car.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
But the point was to and by the way, my
first car said look, you're gonna have ownership in this.
What was it?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
My first car was a nineteen seventy eight Ford Fairmont,
which which we called the Green Bomb, and it was
actually my grandfather's car. And when I turned sixteen, my
grandfather gave it to me. Ha he and he was
kind of a gruff old irishman and he said, boy,
stick your hands out. So I stuck my hands out
and he put a car key in each hand, said
(27:40):
happy birthday, and it was you know, they'd had it
for eight years, so it was their car. And we
called at the Green Bomb and I drove all my
buddies in high school and we got to do a
lot of trouble in that car.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Well, I said to my son, I said, look, you
can spend money on frivolous things and you'll have instant gratification.
I said, Or you can save your money and I'll
help you invest it in stocks. Well, my son now
owns Lockheed Martin, not much of it, but he owned
some of it. He owns Ford because he thought that
was a good stock that had been around. And now
every day when he comes home from school in the summer,
(28:13):
he's like, hey, how did my stocks do today?
Speaker 1 (28:15):
And it's changed his mentality.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
As we're on family vacation, I told all the kids,
I said, hey, you can get one cool thing while
you're here, whatever you want to be, here's the price range.
And literally two of my three boys are the same
thing to me today. Hey, if I don't buy anything,
can I put the money in stocks and save it
for my car?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
When you have those conversations with a six year.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Old and an eight year old, that you realize that
now money is making sense to them. That's why I'm
so excited about this legislation. I hope people thirty forty,
fifty sixty years from now, when we're both gone, go
back and they say, you know what, when Ted Kruz
did this and got this in there, it changed people's
lives for the better. So I want to say, sincerely,
(28:55):
congratulations on making sure that's made it in there, because
it's huge. Because that's not the only thing that was
transformative in this bill. Something you've been champing now, I
would say it's part of the legacy of your career
is school choice. And there's some big stuff in this
bill also on school choice.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
So school choice has been my passion for thirty years.
I've been very active of the school choice movement. In
twenty seventeen, when we did the first Trump tax cut,
I authored the legislation that expanded college five twenty nine
savings plans, so now parents can save for K through
twelve education. We got that through. It passed, and it
was at the time the most far reaching federal school
(29:36):
choice legislation that had ever passed. And there are millions
of kids now whose parents save for K through twelve
education using five twenty nines. This time around, I took
five twenty nine and I expanded them. I expanded what
you can spend them for, and I raised the cap.
It used to be you could spend ten thousand a
year from the account. Now you can spend twenty thousand
(29:56):
a year. But that actually is the smallest piece on
school te that would be huge in any other year.
But what we got in this year is the federal
government will now grant a federal tax credit dollar for
dollar for every taxpayer up to seventeen hundred dollars. So,
(30:18):
ben you pay taxes every year you pay more than
seventeen hundred dollars in taxes when this goes into effect,
if you write a seven yes, so if you write
a seventeen hundred dollars check to a scholarship granting organization
in Texas, you will get a seventeen hundred dollars credit
on your taxes. In other words, it's dollar for dollar,
(30:40):
it disappears from your tax liability. What this will do
is this is going to unleash billions and billions of
dollars of new scholarships for K through twelve education in
the states. And the way it operates, every state has
to choose to opt in, so Texas will opt in.
(31:00):
I suspect a number of Blue states will not opt
in because the teachers' unions will not want them to.
They will not want scholarships for kids to be able
to go to the school of their choice. And the
way we wrote the rule, the state, the law, the
state has to opt in. But Texas will have scholarship
granting organizations and any taxpayer can write a check up
(31:21):
to seventeen hundred dollars a year and get a full
tax credit on their irs what they owe. That is
going to result in millions of kids across America, many
of whom are stuck in failing schools. Schools they're not
learning to read, they're not learning to write, Schools where
there's violence there drug dealers, Schools where their future is
(31:42):
really in peril, and they're suddenly going to have the
ability to get a scholarship, to go to the school
of their choice, to get a real education, to get
a better education, to be safe, to not be subject
to violence. This is I think school choice is the
civil rights issue of the twenty four century. This has
never happened before. And I gotta tell you, I fought
(32:05):
tooth and nail. This almost got stripped out of the
bill about five different times. And I made clear I'll
shut this whole bill down if we don't get school
choice in there. And and and this is I could
not be more excited about about any provision in this
bill than the impact school choice is gonna have for
(32:25):
for the next next generation.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So on these two issues, school choice and also the
savings accounts, when does that start to become a reality timeline?
There's there's a lot of people that say, hey, we
pass bills and then things that were supposed to happen
don't happen. They get undone because there's a new present
that comes in, or you see a Senate flip or
the House flip, whatever it may be. So so how
(32:49):
sure are we that we are going to see the
fruits of this fight and this labor.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Yeah, these are both gonna happen, and they're both gonna
happen in the next year. For the Trump accounts, I
wrote into an effective date of one year from the signing,
So if it's signed on July fourth, these will start
on July fourth, twenty twenty six, our nation's two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary. And I think that's something particularly fantastic.
I'm quite confident President Trump will make a big deal
(33:16):
about the facts that these accounts are being opened on
our nation's birthday, or if it ends up being signed
at a slightly different date somewhere honor about our nation's birthday,
a great celebration. Same thing. The tax deductions are going
to start, I believe next year on the on the
school choice tax deductions. So these will happen. They will
happen quickly. Now one question people are asking, what happens next.
(33:40):
The Senate passed this, what happens next, Well, we sent
the whole bill to the House. They have two choices
number one, so they're coming back in in session. They
can take it up and pass it. And if they
pass the bill that we just passed, it will go
to the President and he can sign it, and he
(34:00):
said he wants to sign it on July fourth of
this year. So if the House passes what the Senate passed,
that'll be the end of the process and the President
will sign it. The second thing they can do is
they can say, Okay, we passed a bill, the Senate
passed a different bill. We need to work out the
differences between them, and that's called going to conference, and
(34:23):
the House could insist we go to conference. I don't
know which one they're going to do. There are some
real differences in the Senate right now there or in
the House right now, they're having fights. There's some aspects
of the Senate bill that are really good, there's some
aspects of the Senate bill that are not great, and
so it's going to be a question of what can
get two hundred and eighteen votes in the House. I
know the Speaker wants if he can to take up
(34:46):
and pass the Senate bill and just send it to
the President. That's what the President wants also, so that
may happen. If that doesn't happen, then we'll go to conference.
And I think conference would take the month of July
for us to work out the differences, and my guess
is we would pass the final bill at the end
of July, right before August.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
So this is one of those big moments that I
think we should all enjoy.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Elections have consequences.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
This time it was for conservative values and for kids
to have a better future in education or savings accounts,
and for tax cuts so that Americans that work hard
can keep more of their own money. On a scout
of one to ten, and nothing's perfect, how proud of
you or of you are you with this bill? There's
a lot of people that are saying, well, there's this,
(35:36):
or's that, or does this look? Yeah, there was some compromises,
no doubt that had to be made. You got a tight,
you know, a very very slim majority that you're dealing
with here. But overall, how happy are you with what
the American people are now getting?
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I think there are many very very good things in
this bill. I wish we cut spending significantly more. I
was fighting hard to cut spending significantly more. I went
to President to Trump with three trillion dollars of spending
cuts we could do. I was urging my colleagues. I
prevailed in some of those arguments, but not all of them.
I wish we'd shown more fiscal restraint. That would have
(36:12):
made me much happier. Look at six am on Tuesday,
we were near the end of the amendments, and the
question was could we get to fifty Republicans. They're fifty
three in the Senate now. Susan Collins was a no.
She is the most liberal of the Republicans. She did
(36:33):
not like some of the reforms on Medicaid. The Democrats
and the press are saying we slashed medicaid. That is
a lie. We actually are spending more un medicaid every
single year. What we did was slightly decrease the rate
of growth of Medicaid in the future, and in particular,
we increased efforts to fight waste, fraud, and abuse and
(36:54):
to remove people from the Medicaid roles who don't qualify.
And we also put in place a work requirement, which
is really important and I think actually benefits people. If
you look at the history of work requirements for federal
welfare benefits, it ends up helping the recipients by getting
them back into the workforce, which is ultimately much better
(37:15):
for them in their families. So so, but anyway, Susan
Collins did not like the reductions in spending on that side,
so she voted no. Tom Tillis, a Republican from from
North Carolina, also did not like the Medicaid changes and
so he voted no. And so with fifty three Republicans,
(37:37):
we could only lose three. The two other votes that
were in play were Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul and
they were both between six am and noon. Nobody knew
which one which one we would get if either, But
(38:01):
if we didn't get one of them, this bill was
going down because if four senators voted against it, four Republicans,
we were at forty nine and it failed. So the
consequence of which road we went down was really consequential
because Lisa, after Susan, is the most liberal, demoderate Republican
in the conference, and so Lisa was bargaining for a
(38:24):
bunch more spending. She wanted a ton of spending, particularly
at Alaska, and that was the price of her vote,
and she was going back and forth. Rand on the
other hand, Rand was always going to be no, always
going to be a no. And Rand said at the
end he would be a yes if the debt ceiling
was not extended. We extend the debt ceiling throughout President
(38:45):
Trump's term in this bill. That was a very high
priority for President Trump. Rand said he would vote yes
if we shortened the extension of the debt ceiling to
September thirtieth. So we just did a couple of months
of the debt ceiling. Now, the consequence of that would
mean we'd have to come back in September thirtieth and
address the debt ceiling again, and that would mean we'd
(39:07):
probably have to negotiate with the Democrats and make a
lousy deal with with Chuck Schumer. But between six am
and noon, none of us knew which direction they were
going to go. Were they going to go the direction
of Lisa Rakowski or were they going to go the
direction of Rand Paul. At the end of the day,
Lisa is the one who got to yes. But it
(39:28):
was literally up till the moment she cast her vote,
we didn't know for sure. And she ended up She
ended up increasing the Rural Hospital Fund by fifty billion dollars.
She ended up dropping the Medicaid penalty for states that
that that that are giving medicaid to illegal immigrants. She
(39:51):
ended up delaying the work requirements for food stamps for Alaska,
and the cost of that was billions and billions of dollars. Interestingly,
if Rand had said yes instead of Lisa, we would
have ended up spending much less. But the consequence of
(40:13):
Rand being a no is that it drove It made
Lisa the swing vote, and the price of her vote
was billions and probably hundreds of billions more in spending
and and so you know, I mean that that's where
votes have consequences.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Incredible, Well, it certainly is interesting to see your take
on this. I'm glad that we were able to do
the show. You deserve to get some sleep now that
it's uh after midnight Eastern and uh and after the
vote rama. But I I'm glad that we were able
to unpack all of this for everyone because a lot
of people have the same question, how did this happen?
What did we get that was good? Are there things
(40:55):
that we got taken advantage of? Is this gonna help
the country when it's gonna hurt it? I think think
we answered a lot of those questions. So don't forget
download Verdict with tech Cruz wherever you get your podcasts
to do this three days a week also my podcast
as well, the Ben Ferguson Podcasts. You can also listen
to that each and every day as well, and the
Sin and I will see you back here in a
(41:15):
couple of days
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