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- [00:00]
A
Old playbooks won't solve tomorrow's problems. Indiana University is proving how higher education can create solutions with industry. Our partnerships address future talent and workforce needs, support entrepreneurs and local businesses, and create solutions that turn discoveries into dollars. Together, we're building a model for industry partnerships that fuel economic growth. Explore IU's impact at iu.edu impact Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, radio news. We're all keeping our eyes on Capitol Hill today for good reason. The Senate passed the legislation last evening that would reopen the government. Once the House does the same, the president pulls out the Sharpie and we're back in business. Of course, knowing that it could take some time for airlines to get back together, for airports and air traffic control towers to be fully staffed, snap benefits to be funded, and, of course, the hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers to get back to work. Work and get a paycheck in the bank account. So, Tyler, what we have here is a Rules Committee hearing. It's going to be an important one that's set to start a few hours from now and they'll start hashing out the rules that will bring the bill to the floor. And by 4pm we're told. Don't necessarily bet on that, but around 4pm we'll have a vote in the House that could actually end this shutdown.
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B
Right. If we've learned anything, things could change quickly. Yes, they could, of representatives, but this is what we're tracking as of now, how Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose two Republican votes. But it appears that his hand has been bolstered by the fact that President Trump has thrown his weight behind this deal, saying that he wants to sign it into law. Now, we're going to talk to one of the members who is going to cast his vote when this comes up tomorrow, and that's Congressman Byron Donalds. He's a Republican representing Florida's 19th district. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us here on Bloomberg Television and Radio. I think I probably know the answer. But just to get you on the record and to confirm, how are you going to vote when this package comes up tomorrow?
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C
I'm voting yes. Tomorrow. It's time for the government to be reopened and end this shutdown created by Chuck Schumer and the Democrats. To be blunt, we're still not even sure what they shut the government down for in the first place. But we're excited to get back to work and get this to the president's desk as quickly as possible.
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B
Congressman, I want to ask you about one of the provisions that we're seeing included, which is a rollback, a reversal of the mass federal firings that started on October 1, also puts a block on any future FIR until January 30. Do you have any concern with this policy since we know it's something that this White House had been advocating for?
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C
No, we don't. There's been a lot of work in this regard the entire year. That's number one. Number two, everybody knows at this point that one of the ways we're going to be able to get our spending under control, which is a major concern for the bond markets and our credit rating agencies, is we're going to have to streamline the federal government across the board. Part of that has been giving workers an opportunity to leave the federal workforce. Some of them have been provided bonuses on their way out the door. And so I think this is going to continue while, you know, we have a temporary measure that we have to get through here, and we're going to do that and get the government reopened.
- [03:20]
A
Congressman, it's good to see you. And you said something in your first answer that was important. What was this all for? Because it seems to me that this could have been something that took place weeks ago. Knowing that Democrats were offered an up or down vote on extending Obamacare subsidies. Many told us here on the air that that was simply not good. And I know a lot of them still feel that way who are going to vote no because they wanted an actual deal on paper. John Thune has promised that vote. Now, should Speaker Johnson do the same?
- [03:49]
C
No, I think that's something that John Thune and the Senate has to go through. Let's talk real quickly about these Obamacare subsidies that were part of one of the things that Democrats were talking about. Let's first be clear. Democrats were arguing for like five different things over the last 40 days, and that's how you know that their negotiations weren't serious. This was much more about politics from the Democratic left and policy from Chuck Schumer trying to save his job as Senate minority leader. But to the specific issue about Obamacare subsidies. What the Democrats have been telling the American people consistently is that they need more subsidies to cover up the true cost of health care. And these subsidies are on top of the existing structure of subsidies built into the law of the Affordable Care Act. So, in short, more subsidies is not going to fix Obamacare. What it's going to do is mask the true cost and the true damage to families, families everywhere. I've talked to people where their premiums for a bronze plan are now $2,000 a month. That's rent, that's a mortgage. In some parts of the country, the deductible is 12 to $14,000 a year. So if you're making $125,000 a year as a family, you don't have $2,000 a month in disposable income to pay premiums, let alone the $14,000 to pay the deductible before you even start accessing the health insurance policy. This is what's wrong with Democrats want to cover it up using subsidies as opposed to fixing the problem that they created 15 years ago.
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B
So then what is the plan, Congressman? Are we talking about replacing? President Trump has said that he'd be willing to negotiate when it comes to this very issue. So what's feasible? What's going to get through your chamber that would get your vote?
- [05:34]
C
I think what's feasible are some of the reforms that we tried to get through back in 2017. I will tell you, by the way, Democrats refused to lift a finger and work with us to avoid the calamity that we see today. But that's centered around health care policies that are patient centered. It's about health care policies that do not have overburdensome requirements on all the things that are covered that really create a bureaucratic bloat. It makes the premiums more expensive. It's about making sure there's more catastrophic insurance policies in the marketplace. Maybe you have young workers, they don't need a full gold plated health care policy. What they need is catastrophic healthcare coverage and ability to go get regular visits and checkups. That's a key part of this study being done. It was one, I think Senator Ron Johnson released these findings actually. And it's demonstrated that employer provided coverage in most of the country has just marginally risen over inflation. But when you look at health insurance policies in the Obamacare exchanges, they are up 2, 3, 400 in some respects, 500% over inflation. That's crazy. We've created a two tier system in health care. So I would tell the American people this is not simply about subsidies for Obamacare. It is about providing real solutions that put patients first. So we have a health care system and a health care insurance marketplace that people can afford and be able to access health care readily in their communities.
- [07:03]
A
Well, I love that we're having this conversation, Congressman, and I wonder your thoughts on what the President said to Laura Ingraham last evening because he's been on Truth Social about this as well. Give the money directly to people and let them negotiate with health insurers is essentially what he said the quote was. The insurance will be better, it'll cost less. They're going to feel like entrepreneurs. He said they'll actually be able to go out and negotiate their own health insurance. Would that still require a pool of patients, though, Congressman, to create leverage, or am I calling up UnitedHealthcare and trying to get my own rates at the same time that you are?
- [07:39]
C
Well, I think there's parts of what you're saying are true, some that will have to be worked on. I think the premise of the president laying out is the correct one. Look at any industry in our economy. The ones where people have direct purchasing power to go to companies and buy the product they're looking for. Those prices are actually increasing lower than the rate of inflation. But when you bring in these other issues, these other areas where the government is doing direct subsidies, that's where the prices are completely out of control. And so for me, the situation is clear. The situation is clear. You have to put people at the front of the line. They got to be able to make those purchasing decisions. If it's doing, if it's giving those dollars directly to the individual, that will work. Now to your question around risk pools. This is essential in all insurance. We could look at setting up geographic risk pools as an idea so that people in that community or in that state can actually be dealing with the insurance companies. But the insurance companies actually have a defined risk pool. This is one of the reasons why large companies have cheaper insurance than when people are just going into the marketplace by themselves because they're using the risk profile of working for that company to set up the risk pool to with them. Then the actuaries kind of decide how much is the cost to insure each person in that pool. There's ways to do this, but the Obamacare way has been a disaster. It is now proven, and the costs are out of control.
- [09:07]
B
We're talking about next steps here. And I also want to talk about the next steps for fully funding the government because the stopgap measure goes until January 30th. How are we going to avoid another shutdown? Are we going to be having this conversation again when we know that the Senate has been proposing something some spending levels that are higher than many House Republicans want to see.
- [09:27]
C
Well, again, we're going to get back to the negotiating table in short order. I know Speaker Johnson has told the members that we can expect some very long days when we get back to Capitol Hill. And that's fine. That's our job. And we're more than happy to do that. I think it's important for my Senate colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, to understand one very important thing. We are borrowing a lot of money. The bond market is looking at us to curtail spending. And this is the core position of House Republicans. We can still have a federal government that does its job, but we don't have to be so obscene in how we are spending other people's money. And I think that, you know, if we come back to the situation again in January, I think whether it's health care or spending, it's important for myself and my colleagues to communicate clearly to the American people of what's truly at stake. Everybody wants to talk about the economy, affordability. These are major issues for the American people. The core of our affordability problems is massive government overspending. It diminishes the purchasing power of the American dollar. It does not help American families be able to make ends meet in Washington. For once, we got to do the right thing. Let's cut our spending, get that down, and let's pass bills. So we're not doing this brinksmanship, which, by the way, the Democrats are the ones Republicans want to do it. People should know, the Democrats, half of them, most of them, are mad about this deal to reopen the government. They want the government to continue to be shut down. That's not an appropriate way to get the business done for the American people.
- [10:58]
A
Well, we have talked to a number of Democratic lawmakers who were not happy with the eight who crossed the aisle on this because there wasn't a deal there that they were hoping for. Certainly. Congressman, I want to mention to our viewers on Bloomberg TV, if you're watching us on, on YouTube right now, that the congressman does not have a new job. He's not working at Cantor. He's actually down in Miami right now at an important air energy infrastructure conference. And I've got to ask you, because we typically get to this because of your committee assignments and your areas of interest. An important bipartisan bill came out of the Senate last evening, the Ag Committee, on a crypto market structure bill. And I'm wondering where this stands in the House. We've talked so much about the Clarity act and whether there's going to be some reconciliation between these two pieces of legislation or a different path.
- [11:45]
C
I think we're probably going to end up sitting down and getting coming to an agreement between the two chambers on this. The one thing that's very clear, I'm happy that my Senate colleagues are taking this seriously. AI Quantum computing, the future of energy for our country. These are critical components to our economic future. If we don't actually create the frameworks for this, we fall further behind to China, to Europe and some of our rivals on the globe on the world stage. So this is actually important stuff that we can get done. I'm very happy that AI and quantum is not a partisan issue because it's really about the future of our economy. And so let's see what they have. We'll work together with them and try to get something done that's going to put the American people first and that should be in the best interest of our country.
- [12:36]
B
Could you give us any timeline that we should be watching out for, any chance that this is going to get done by the end of the year?
- [12:43]
C
Listen, I don't put any timelines on Washington. You've been around long enough. You know, what you do is you go in there, you work hard, you try not to set artificial deadlines. I do believe that you have members of the Senate, members of the House, myself included, who want to see a regulatory framework in AI, crypto and quantum. It is important we have to be able to get this job done because we have many other public policy issues that we have to address as well. One of them is energy. I'm a major proponent for small modular nuclear reactors to be commercially deployed throughout the United States. Every state needs to double their amount of power on their grid. The United States needs to do that. And this is something where my colleagues on Capitol Hill, this is common sense stuff that actually provides energy at a lower per kilowatt hour than any other generation source. We need to get in the game and get that done as well.
- [13:37]
A
Well, you know, Congressman, few stories are more important to our audience, so let's talk about that. Let's have that conversation when you're back in town. With our eyes, of course, on the AI space, Congressman Byron Donalds. I hope you get the flight back to D.C. all right. That's easier said than done.
- [13:52]
C
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- [13:55]
A
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- [13:57]
C
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- [13:58]
A
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- [14:15]
C
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- [14:17]
A
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