Hi, guys.
Hi. How are you? Good morning. [Inaudible]
Look, we have substantial questions with the testimony they gave to the Hill in response to questions about the building. He has articulated that there have been material changes to the national capital planning proposal that was approved. And so we want to get to the bottom of his statements as compared to the various parts of the plan.
That was the nature of my letter yesterday. Those are the types of questions that the commission will be asking in the coming weeks.
Is that project [Inaudible]
Look, this is about the renovations that are occurring, the extent to which they are largesse. The cost that we're talking about is now $2.5 billion. If you look at the actual Palace of Versailles, if you were to update those figures in modern numbers, it would be $3 billion. The capital was about $2.5 billion from all of its different buildings from the founding of the country to 1982. You look at the biggest buildings across the world and this is approaching that level.
I mean, it probably would qualify as one of the eight wonders of the Ancient world if you were able to go back that far. And ultimately, when did that ever go through a review by a Democratic body? And so this is the National Capital Planning Commission will now have an opportunity to ask some tough questions of the fed.
We will be asking tough questions with regard to the fed, but this is about the president being offended at cost overruns. He's a developer and the size of this project is something that should never have gone forward.
Director, has the president --
What's that?
[Inaudible]
So we have our first rescissions package up on Congress. We had a great vote in the House. We have a second vote next week. I am confident that they will pass the bill. I'll be up there on Tuesday to answer any additional questions. I've already answered many questions on this front, but we think it's a very important step for Congress to show that they are willing to pass the DOGE cuts.
People say, why is it a $9 billion package, it's a $9 billion package because we want to see, is Congress serious about that. Senator Kennedy has had some incredible floor speeches on this very issue, is Congress serious about passing and making the DOGE cuts permanent or are we going to have to continue to use our executive tools on that?
The president put out a Great Truth Social last night, the extent to which we have been talking in this town as conservatives, as Republicans, about defunding Corporation for Public Broadcasting for a very long time. We are now on the verge of being able to do that and it's important that we finally take that opportunity and not fall back in kind of the tired, old excuses that have defended that program for so long.
What about [Inaudible] the fed? You didn't quite answer the question. Does the president still want to see the fed still operate independently?
Because I think the question is immaterial. The president has a policy view with regard to we need lower rates. He has a policy view with regard to the fact that Jerome Powell has been late repeatedly. The fed has been mismanaged. You look at the fact that they have been taking deficits since 2023, for the first time since 1916, and then you look and you have this incredible spectacle on the nation's mall of largesse that we can't afford as a country.
People will be offended if they came and they're going around checking out all the monuments and they see what is occurring. Then they go behind the Eccles building and they see the Martin building, which is complete and I go there often in my duties as CFPB director, and you see the extent to which it is massive.
There's fine artwork everywhere. And it is offensive to taxpayers and we're not getting remittances from the fed ever since 2023, and that's hurting our deficit. That's creating a situation where we have higher interest costs as a country, and it's just a series of mismanagement. So I know you guys want to make it more about a metaphysical question about the independence of the fed.
This is about the extent to which this building, this renovation project is horrifying from a cost perspective and our administration, both OMB, the National Capital Planning Commission, which now has three new commissioners, and as of yesterday, is going to be asking -- is asking very, very tough questions.
Director, has the president expressed to you how he or who he might want to replace Powell [Inaudible]
Those are announcements that he will make at the appropriate time when he's ready to do it.
Is there anyone that you would like to see, potentially, Bessent, or?
Those are the presidents --
Trump supporters around the country want to see wasteful spending cuts. What can they do to help you?
Well, look, we have a great opportunity on the Hill next week with regard to this $9.4 billion package. It's only $9.4 billion. People ask, well, why is it only $9.4 billion? It's that because we know how close of a vote it was in the House and we know we have a tight margin in the Senate, but that that margin has to produce a victory.
We have other rescissions packages that we will send if we have a good vote and that will continue. You know, when I went through confirmation, people said, well, Russ, you have an Impoundment Control Act. They knew that we were skeptics of it. We're not huge fans of it, but they said there's a process for using it. These are Democrats, these are Republicans that were on the Appropriations Committee.
And they said, why wouldn't you use the Rescissions package approach, well, we're doing that. We're sending bills up on that. And now we hear an argument that if you use the tools that are outlined in the ICA, that somehow you're renegotiating the appropriations process or any agreement. That's the kind of thinking the arguments that have caused us to never make any progress in this town.
I think next week may be a huge pivot point in how this town does business and will be an exciting milestone to be able to make actual permanent reductions to some of these savings that we've identified as an administration since its beginning.
Is this really about wasteful spending or is this about punishing the fed? Because, I mean, the one Big, Beautiful Bill, for instance, it included $85 million for the space shuttle from D.C. to Houston. So is this about pressuring the fed or [Inaudible]
Phil, Phil, the one Big, Beautiful Bill reduced deficits even on a static basis by $400 billion. There was $1.5 trillion in mandatory savings. We haven't had anything like that since 1997, and 1997 savings levels adjusted for inflation were only $800 billion. So to say that the one Big, Beautiful Bill was not anything but an enormous improvement on spending, on debt and deficits.
And in the same vein of all of the things this administration is doing, we are taking a distinct look at what is occurring on the National Mall with regard to this fed, and we will continue to do that.
[Inaudible] next steps for the [Inaudible] Supreme Court ruling on the down [Inaudible] State Department moving forward? What else do you expect from other agencies? Are there going to be any changes in [Inaudible]
So every agency head is going to be reviewing the decision. I'm doing it from my standpoint at the CFPB, although I'm not yet covered by it. I have my own litigation hell that I'm in with regard to the judicial restraints that they've put on our ability. We can't even cancel contracts at the CFPB, let alone use our reduction force statutes to lower the footprint of the agency that's been weaponized against the American people.
So every agency head's going to be doing that. There's not kind of a macro answer to what that will occur, but certainly, it was a great decision. The Supreme Court affirmed what we knew to be the case with regard to the law.
The president is revamping the Rose Garden for a second time. He's overhauling a 747, spending billions of dollars when it's only going to be used as Air Force One for possibly a year. Are you concerned about that spending too?
We have a lot of administration priorities and I hope what you've learned from our first term, this term, we need to spend in areas. We need ships, we need aircraft, we need a new presidential plane. That's been in the works and been delayed for a long time because contractors are behind. And so that doesn't mean we don't spend where we need to spend, but we've always offered up a fiscal picture that gets to balance, that reduces the deficit, that deals with our debt and we're doing it in a host of ways in this term, and so that won't change.
So we will continue to -- we sent up a budget that was $163 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary spending. We also asked for sizable increase to the border. We need to spend in certain areas to secure the country, to perform the functions of the government and to make sure that we are investing where we need to invest.
But that doesn't mean that it's in any way inconsistent with an effort to be able to reduce defits [sp] and lower and lower debt.
But that plane in particular is going to be used for such a short period of time. Is it really worth the expense?
We need additional assets to be able to run this government, including fly the president, keep the president safe, and we're way behind in that program. And those are the kinds of ideas that flow from a contractor and other contractors being behind, and we're going to look for any opportunity to do that.
Is there anything you can say about FEMA spending? Is the administration looking at potentially phasing out from that?
FEMA has $13 billion in its reserves right now to continue to pay for the necessary expenses. The president has said to Texas, anything it needs, it will get. The president will be down there surveying the scene and we also want FEMA to be reformed. We want FEMA to work well and the president is going to continue to be asking tough questions of all of his agencies, no different than any other opportunity to have better government and fiscal sound management.
Got to go.