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23Ms. CROCKETT and Mr. CARSON changed their vote from "yea" to "nay." Messrs. HURD of Colorado and MOOLENAAR changed their vote from "nay" to "yea." So the previous question was ordered.
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34Celebrating Allyship of Black and Aapi Community
38 public bills, H.R. 1550- 1587; and 5 resolutions, H.J. Res. 61; and H. Res. 162-165, were introduced.
Pages H835-36
Reports Filed
Reports were filed today as follows: H. Res. 161, providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 20) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Energy relating to ``Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Gas-fired Instantaneous Water Heaters''; providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 35) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions''; and providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 14) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034 (H. Rept. 119-5); and H.R. 1156, to amend the CARES Act to extend the statute of limitations for fraud under certain unemployment programs, and for other purposes, with an amendment (H. Rept. 119-6).
Pages H834-35
Speaker
Read a letter from the Speaker wherein he appointed Representative Carter (GA) to act as Speaker pro tempore for today.
Page H771
Recess
The House recessed at 11:12 a.m. and reconvened at 12 p.m.
Page H779
United States Holocaust Memorial Council: Appointment
The Chair announced the Speaker's appointment of the following members of the House to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council: Representatives Kustoff, Bacon and Miller (OH).
Page H780
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Appointment
The Chair announced the Speaker's appointment of the following member of the House to the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe: Representative Wilson (SC), Co-Chair.
Pages H780-81
Canada-United States Interparliamentary Group: Appointment
The Chair announced the Speaker's appointment of the following member of the House to the Canada-United States Interparliamentary Group: Representative Huizenga, Chair.
The Chair announced the Speaker's appointment of the following members of the House to the British-American Interparliamentary Group: Representatives Kim, Meuser, Aderholt, Smucker, Cole and Kean.
Page H781
Recess
The House recessed at 1:21 p.m. and reconvened at 1:30 p.m.
Page H790
Committee Elections
The House agreed to H. Res. 162, electing Members to certain standing committees of the House of Representatives.
Page H791
Suspensions: Proceedings Resumed
The House agreed to suspend the rules and pass the following measures. Consideration began Monday, February 24th. DOE and SBA Research Act: H.R. 788, to provide for Department of Energy and Small Business Administration joint research and development activities, by a \2/3\ yea-and-nay vote of 427 yeas to 3 nays, Roll No. 48; and
Pages H823-24
Rural Small Business Resilience Act
H.R. 804, to require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to improve access to disaster assistance for individuals located in rural areas, by a \2/3\ yea-and-nay vote of 415 yeas to 8 nays, Roll No. 49.
Page H824
Establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034
The House agreed to H. Con. Res. 14, as amended, establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034, by a yea-and-nay vote of 217 yeas to 215 nays, Roll No. 50.
Pages H791-H823, H824-25
Pursuant to the Rule, the amendment printed in H. Rept. 119-5 shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole.
Page H818
H. Res. 161, the rule providing for consideration of the joint resolutions (H.J. Res. 20) and (H.J. Res. 35), and the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 14) was agreed to by a recorded vote of 217 ayes to 211 noes, Roll No. 47, after the previous question was ordered by a yea-and-nay vote of 216 yeas to 210 nays, Roll No. 46.
Pages H781-90, H790-91
Quorum Calls: Votes
Four yea-and-nay votes and one recorded vote developed during the proceedings of today and appear on pages H90-91, H791, H823-24, H824, and H824-25. Adjournment: The House met at 10 a.m. and adjourned at 9:50 p.m.
Every speech and line is the Congressional Record's own text, read from GovInfo. Speakers are matched to members by GPO's own metadata. Referandom places each turn on the Clerk's video by matching its words: 135 of 408 spoken turns were found. Turns without a time are still listed; they just can't seek.
Morning-Hour Debate
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of January 3, 2025, the Chair will now recognize Members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning-hour debate.
The Chair will alternate recognition between the parties, with time equally allocated between the parties and each Member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip limited to 5 minutes, but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m.
Mr. Speaker, our country has just suffered the largest illegal mass migration in history.
Over 4 years, the Democrats opened our borders and allowed an unvetted and largely impoverished population of nearly 8 million to illegally enter our country--a population the size of Washington State.
This illegal mass migration has overwhelmed our public schools, public hospitals, homeless shelters, food banks, and law enforcement, and it is costing American taxpayers $160 billion a year to support. Worst of all, it has introduced into our country the most violent criminal gangs and offenders on the planet.
It has also brought to a head the fundamental question of whether any person in the world can break into our country, have a baby at taxpayer expense, have that baby declared an American citizen, and then use that as a pretext to remain.
Now, President Trump has issued an executive order challenging that notion for all future births. The Democrats call this a threat to democracy and a constitutional crisis. That is what they call anything they disagree with these days, but it is neither. It is the Constitution functioning as it should.
The President has created a dispute arising from a difference of opinion in interpreting the Constitution. Opponents in this dispute have appealed to the courts, as they should. Now, the courts will resolve this dispute under the terms of our Constitution.
Meanwhile, I have a question for the Democrats: If the 14th Amendment actually confers automatic citizenship to anyone born here, wouldn't it have said all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States? That is simple enough.
That is not what it says. It says: ``All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.''
What does that mean? We know that it means the children of former slaves are citizens. That is its stated purpose and the plain language of the amendment passed, by the way, over the objections of the Democratic Party. We know from the congressional debate that its authors understood it to exclude foreign nationals who are merely passing through the country.
The question of our time is whether those who have illegally entered our country in defiance of our laws and who are subject to deportation under those laws can be considered as having accepted the jurisdiction of the laws that their very presence defies.
The Supreme Court has never considered this question. The closest it came was the Ark decision 127 years ago, but that applied to legal immigrants who had accepted the jurisdiction of the United States by obeying its immigration laws and who had taken up legal, permanent residence subject to a treaty ratified by the Senate.
Does the President have the authority by executive order to clear up this matter as part of his organic constitutional responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed? I don't know. Obama claimed the authority to create a legal residency for DACA beneficiaries out of thin air, so maybe he does. The Court will ultimately rule.
Does the Congress have the authority to clear up this matter by statute? Only if that statute doesn't contradict the Constitution.
Here is the fine point of the matter: If the 14th Amendment does not give automatic birthright citizenship to the children of those here illegally and temporarily, then no law should be necessary to deny them citizenship in the future because no law ever extended that right in the first place. In that case, the President's executive order is merely declaratory of existing law.
Several lower courts have stayed the President's executive order, and no one is screaming that is a constitutional crisis, even though many of us strenuously disagree with those judges just as strenuously as the left disagrees with the President.
Ultimately, though, we have faith in our Constitution, and as the case progresses through the courts, we will get
To call this a constitutional crisis is the kind of absurd and juvenile hyperbole that passes for argument these days by the woke left. I look forward to returning to a society someday when we can have civil discussions over high principles as our Founders envisioned.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the New Jersey-10 winners of the 2024 Congressional App Challenge.
Aman, Alexa, Charlie, and Gabriel teamed up to make Tailored Trivia. The app allows users to create customized trivia games that make studying and memorization more interactive. This tool lets students test SAT vocabulary words, learn phrases in new languages, and quiz their classmates.
In creating this app, Aman, Alexa, Charlie, and Gabriel also grew their skills in coding, design, and teamwork.
I am so proud of their hard work, dedication, and contributions to New Jersey, and I am excited to see what they will accomplish next.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate Sahli, a New Jersey-10 student at West Orange High School who received a perfect score on the SAT this year.
Less than 1 percent of SAT test takers earn a perfect score each year, and Sahli's accomplishment is nothing short of extraordinary. His SAT preparation was largely self-directed, relying on free resources and using his time and determination to study for the exam.
Beyond academics, he is deeply involved in extracurricular activities at West Orange High School. He has been a dedicated member of the cross-country and track teams since seventh grade and spent two seasons on the color guard.
Sahli is also the president of the math team, chapter president of the National Honor Society, a varsity chess team member, and part of the Royal Strings Ensemble. His involvement in multiple activities and honor societies speaks to his well-rounded excellence.
After graduating high school, Sahli hopes to attend Harvard and study law. Any school would be lucky to have such a bright young mind. What an incredible accomplishment and a shining example of New Jersey's excellence. I congratulate Sahli. He makes New Jersey proud.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Amigo Power Equipment in Edinburg, Texas, for 50 years of service to our community.
Founded in 1974 by Janice and Kent Johnson, Amigo Power Equipment sold tractors and combines to farmers and ranchers throughout south Texas. As the Rio Grande Valley grew, so did their business.
The Johnsons passed down their business to their youngest son, Jeff, and over the years, it has become the premier tractor and power sports dealership in the valley. When visiting their store, you will find knowledgeable staff with years of experience and exceptional customer service.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Johnsons and the entire staff on this incredible milestone, and I thank them for their dedication to the Rio Grande Valley community.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share the positive impacts that the Social Security Fairness Act has already made for south Texans.
Before this bill, millions of public servants like teachers, police officers, and firefighters were unfairly punished by reduced Social Security benefits. After being signed into law last month, this legislation finally eliminated the provisions that reduced Social Security benefits for public servants.
I have heard back from teachers in south Texas who are incredibly thankful to have the legislation finally signed into law.
I am proud to have cosponsored this bill in the House, advocated for its passage, and played an important role in expanding access to benefits for those who have gone above and beyond to serve our communities.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to honor State District Judge Rose Guerra Reyna for her service to Hidalgo County.
Earlier this month, Judge Reyna announced that, after 28 years, she will be retiring from her role.
For over two decades, she has upheld the rule of law with fairness and justice in Hidalgo County. She has presided over thousands of cases, worked to improve the judicial process, and mentored many young attorneys throughout her tenure.
Though she will be missed, her legacy will live on in the courtroom. Her commitment to justice in south Texas is unwavering, and we are so fortunate to have public servants like Judge Reyna in south Texas. We wish her the best as she carries out her term and begins her well- deserved retirement.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to address an issue that is critical to my community in south Texas, Mexico's refusal to fulfill its water obligation. Their refusal to comply with the agreements of the 1944 Water Treaty has caused mass devastation with our farmers and ranchers in south Texas.
Last Congress, we had our one sugar mill in Texas close. That was 500 jobs that were lost and millions of dollars of economic impact in south Texas.
Food security is national security, and we have lost our sugar mill, and we are on the verge of losing our citrus industry. We ask that the Mexican Government repay us the water that they owe us which is now over 1 million acre-feet of water.
It is simply unacceptable that the Mexican Government has not given us the water that they owe us. This not only affects the people of south Texas, but it affects the entire Nation.
Again, food security is national security, and we urge the Mexican Government to pay us our water immediately.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of World War II hero and U.S. Navy Corpsman Jack Gutman, who passed away just a few days before his 99th birthday.
Jack answered the call to serve our Nation after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was barely 18 when he enlisted as a corpsman in the Navy. Jack defended our country in some of the most harrowing battles of the war, including bravely providing care to the wounded on the beaches of Normandy on D-day.
Years after returning home with his invisible wounds, Jack sought help through the VA and received treatment for his PTSD. His recovery inspired him to dedicate his life to help fellow veterans find the courage to seek support for their own PTSD challenges.
Sergeant Gutman's life of service to this country and his fellow veterans continues to be an inspiration for all of us.
Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to join me in celebrating the life and legacy of my good friend and American hero, Jack Gutman, part of America's Greatest Generation.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of U.S. Army veteran Royal ``Roy'' Edward Neeley.
Sergeant Neeley served our Nation proudly as a Green Beret in the elite
Roy married Elaine McDonald in 1972, and together they built a life filled with love and beautiful memories.
Our community lost Sergeant Neeley on October 12, 2024, at the age of 76. His memory lives on through his loving wife, children, grandchildren, and our Orange County community.
Sergeant Neeley, thank you for your service to our country and dedication to our community. We will miss you.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to mourn the loss of John Reginald ``Reg'' Murphy, who unfortunately passed away last November.
Mr. Murphy was a true Renaissance man who lived an extraordinary life guided by curiosity, integrity, engagement, and helping those in need.
Mr. Murphy was raised in Gainesville and attended Mercer University, where he began his journalism career. Throughout his career, Mr. Murphy experienced success working in a variety of esteemed publications, including The Macon Telegraph and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Shortly after, he was chosen as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 1959.
Mr. Murphy went on to serve as the editor and publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, and then he became the publisher and CEO of The Baltimore Sun.
Throughout his life and career, Mr. Murphy stayed true to his morals and strong ethical compass.
Mr. Murphy is survived by his wife, Diana; daughters, Karen and Susan; two grandsons; a sister; and three nieces and nephews.
Mr. Murphy will always be remembered as a humble, approachable, gentle, and kind man.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Marlon Lawrence, a custodian at Mary Lee Clark Elementary School in Camden County for being named the South Region winner in the Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement Hidden Heroes Campaign.
This recognition celebrates unsung leaders in education whose dedication makes a profound impact on their schools and their communities.
Marlon's hard work and commitment to maintaining a clean, welcoming, and inclusive environment have helped create a space where students and staff can thrive.
This achievement reflects the collective teamwork at Mary Lee Clark Elementary where everyone works together to ensure student success.
Principal Rika Dow has praised Marlon for his unwavering dedication and innovative approach, making him a model for others to follow.
On behalf of the community and as his Congressman, I commend Marlon Lawrence for his exceptional contributions, and I thank him for the example he sets.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Marlon on this well-deserved recognition.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Ms. Elizabeth Katherine Pryor, a civil rights activist, educator, and pillar in the Savannah community, who passed away last month.
Ms. Pryor was an activist, joining the civil rights movement at a young age where she proudly participated in organized sit-ins, marches, and peaceful protests in the city of Savannah.
After graduating from Savannah State College and Georgia Southern University, Ms. Pryor served as an educator in the Savannah-Chatham County Public School District for more than four decades.
As a lifelong member of the NAACP, Ms. Pryor also was a strong proponent of voting rights. She was also among the activists who were instrumental in the renaming of West Broad Street to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.
Ms. Pryor served on the Board of Directors of the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum and was the former grand marshal for the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade.
Ms. Pryor is survived by her two daughters and many other beloved relatives and friends. Ms. Pryor will always be remembered for her dedication to advocating for justice, change, and equality.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Mr. Joseph Rylon Wills, Jr., a man of faith, service, and dedication.
Born in 1957 in Plant City, Florida, Joe was raised by his loving parents, Rylon and Gail. He was active in church and sports, demonstrating a commitment to faith and teamwork from a young age.
In 1982, he married Stacy, his lifelong partner, and together they built a beautiful life, raising three wonderful sons, Patrick, Timothy, and David.
Joe earned a business degree from Augusta University and had a distinguished career in hospitality and real estate. He worked at Augusta National Golf Club, Sea Island Company, and Brunswick Country Club. Joe later became a top producing realtor, specializing in luxury properties.
A devoted church leader, Joe served as an elder and deacon, supporting organizations like Manna House of Brunswick and contributing to community events. He was known for his generosity, kindness, and willingness to help others, always offering a listening ear and thoughtful advice.
Joe found joy in family, good friends, music, cycling, and long walks on the beach with his dogs. His legacy of service, faith, and love for his community will continue to inspire all those who knew him.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about the White House's pet project, the department of government inefficiency, otherwise known as DOGI.
For the past month, our Federal workers and agencies have been assaulted by a dilettante billionaire empowered by President Trump to muck about in Americans' lives and Federal agencies.
Americans are justifiably concerned that these unelected intruders are acting as judge and jury on people's lives and livelihoods as they gleefully and illegally feed tens of thousands of jobs and vital programs into a woodchipper.
This billionaire and his tech bros claim to have found billions in fraud, waste, and inefficiency, but their methods and results are shrouded in secrecy. When they hype their claim on Twitter or the White House press room, independent review has shown that their claims are false or riddled with errors.
Buying condoms for Gaza?
It didn't happen.
Social Security payments to people who are 150 years old?
Nope.
Mr. Speaker, $800 billion in savings on one contract?
Oops. Maybe $800 million, they are not really sure.
Absolutely nothing adds up.
These DOGI efforts have introduced fraud, waste, and inefficiency into every agency they have touched with their invasions, freezes, and suspensions.
Federal workers have been fired then rehired as their functions were quickly proven to be indispensable rather than nonessential. Employees have been bombarded with weird emails that threaten them with termination if they don't accept a sketchy buyout or snitch on their colleagues and with demands that they interrupt their real work to do make-work for review by people who have no understanding or interest in public service or government functions.
Elon Musk's DOGI efforts are disrupting critical medical research and treatments, foreign aid, veterans' care, criminal investigations, and health, housing and human services across the Nation and beyond.
It takes a remarkable combination of arrogance and stupidity to think that this is the best use of time for our intelligence officers, VA workers, air
If this is what bringing business acumen to government function looks like, then it is pretty clear we need to prevent our government from becoming a dumpster fire like X or one of Trump's corrupt corporations.
We can't afford it, and the American people can't afford it.
Mr. Speaker, it is well past time that Congress removed Mr. Musk and his DOGI minions from our government and get down to doing the peoples' business.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, once in a while we could cooperate with the President and those who are trying to do things to make our government run better ultimately for the benefit of the citizens of this country, the taxpayers.
So what we see with DOGE is that $65 billion of savings have been found and many, many contracts that are illegitimate or unnecessary to the operations of the government or what people expect are being turned over and are being rescinded.
This includes the scandal that has been USAID. What started out as a good thing many years ago has been turned into something that is almost completely corrupt.
So let's take a look at some of the other items that DOGE has found: 104 DEI contracts eliminating $1 billion in spending. I could go down a whole long list: $168,000 for a Dr. Fauci exhibit and a $45 million DEI scholarship in Burma.
What are we doing here when we have really difficult issues in our home districts and across the country as well as a $2 trillion deficit?
So this isn't going to solve everything overnight, but it sure is a right step.
So why don't we have cooperation by Federal agencies that work for us but ultimately for the American people?
Here is the food chain: The people are on top. In a republic these are the voters who vote us in to carry out what they tell us they want done. Then we employ people at the different levels of different agencies to get that work done for us, which is ultimately the American people.
Why is that not being recognized here, that yes, we are supposed to hold them accountable, and yes, we are supposed to have oversight?
Ultimately, the oversight hearings don't work around here because it is 2 hours of running the clock out by the bureaucracy. Now we have an administration that has the executive authority to do that oversight.
That is an important thing that keeps getting lost here. The administration has the executive authority to appoint people. That is what the entire administration is: people appointed by the executive branch, by the President. At the State level it is by a Governor. In a city it is by a mayor. It is not a foreign concept.
Certainly, it is something that the Democrats when they are in charge take advantage of. They appoint people to do things.
I didn't vote for Fauci, did I?
A whole lot of other people are wondering that too.
That is what gets done by the executive branch.
Whether we are talking about Elon Musk, or whether we are talking about anybody in the President's Cabinet and the people that they appoint, yes, they are appointed positions. It is our job to rein them in and hold them in line to whatever their mission statement was, if they remember their mission statement, and to follow that.
The work that DOGE is doing is pretty darn good. Yes, there are some fits and starts here and there and some things that we need to modify and smooth out a little bit on some of the employment out there, but at least the people's tax dollars are finally being respected.
We want to keep going with this and work that out, but we would like to be able to work with the agencies and say: Where are the areas that we could do better in, and what personnel are extra to the process?
Certainly, when the government was shut down due to COVID and we saw which people are essential and which people are nonessential, that should have been pretty revealing right there. That is tough if you are on the nonessential list, but we have to remember that we hire people in government and we create the agencies to serve a task and a purpose for the people of the country. It is not a government jobs program. It is a get-a-job-done-for-the-people program.
Mr. Speaker, one thing I point out here that came up last week in my home State of California as part of a considerable amount of savings we could do federally is to quit funding that high- speed rail project. It has been a boondoggle from day one.
Right at the end of the Biden administration, they put up nearly $4 billion more at the end, so let's quickly review that. The original high-speed rail program was going to be $33 billion to build the rail from San Francisco to L.A., and that has ballooned in the following years to $130 billion.
It was supposed to be completed by 2020. All they have is about an 1,800-foot-long bridge near Fresno done right now. They haven't laid any track. They have seized a lot of land. They have devastated a lot of agricultural land, parts of cities, important installations, et cetera, but they haven't laid any rail yet.
They are trying to first do the easy part between Merced, California, and an orchard somewhere outside of Bakersfield. They actually said at the time it is because they will have less resistance to building that portion. That is not going to help anybody in San Francisco or Los Angeles, where the population base is.
Basically, if it is timed versus Amtrak, I think you get from Merced to Bakersfield about 20 minutes faster, if they actually had a high- speed rail that ran all the way through on just this chunk of track. They don't, and they won't by at least 2033, 2035. To build out the whole thing will be a lot longer.
We had a conference meeting in Los Angeles at Union Station last week, and I was very pleased. This was called by our Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, at the behest of the Trump administration. We had this opportunity to talk to the press, the people of California, and anybody who would listen about what such a boondoggle this high- speed rail project is. It demands $4 billion of new money that we need to claw back and put toward something useful, such as fixing our highways, water infrastructure, or anything besides this boondoggle.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in defense of our dedicated Federal public servants in the face of the relentless attacks from President Trump and Elon Musk.
Hardworking families in my district and people across the country are beginning to see this initiative for what it really is: a sham perpetrated by President Trump and run by an unelected billionaire, the richest person in the world, who has no idea how our government operates or what our public servants do for our communities.
Trump and Musk's goal is to undermine people's faith in public services, gain access to sensitive government data, and ultimately give away trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the rich. We know their game, and we are not playing it.
Last week, I met with union leaders who are representing our Federal workforce, including the American Federation of Government Employees, National Nurses United, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the American Postal Workers Union, and the Western New York Area Labor Federation.
I am deeply grateful for their work to empower our Federal workforce: our air traffic controllers, veteran healthcare practitioners, Social Security benefit experts, and so many more who provide the services and assistance hardworking families in our communities deserve and need.
Their ability to continue doing so is under immense threat. Union leaders on the front lines painted a picture in which our Federal workers are living in fear of wrongful firings, receiving intimidating emails that are causing mass confusion, and receiving unclear directives from an administration that has no interest in the rule of law.
These are workers who have dedicated their lives to public service. They help our parents and grandparents receive the Social Security that they have earned and rely on. They deliver world-class care to our veterans who have sacrificed so much for our freedoms. They keep our borders secure, our air and water clean, our airports and skies safe, and so much more. They deserve our gratitude, not to be subjected to this demeaning and cruel treatment, especially as they continue to deliver for hardworking families amid all of it.
Mr. Speaker, I have also spoken to constituents who have been impacted by these wrongful cuts. A young man named Jeff Plummer spoke to me hours before being wrongfully fired from the Internal Revenue Service. Jeff received exemplary reviews of his work within the IRS Small Business/Self-Employed Division, which helps small businesses to comply with tax requirements, helping our regional economy to thrive.
Due to the simple fact that he had worked for the IRS for less than 1 year, he was terminated. He is among 6,000 IRS employees who have been wrongfully fired, all in the middle of tax season.
Jeff and his fellow IRS employees are not alone. Our veterans are being directly harmed and discriminated against. They are experiencing real harm as the services they rely on are being decimated.
Service-disabled veterans are among the 8,500 Federal employees in my district alone being attacked and dismissed for being DEI hires. I spoke with one disabled veteran who bled for our country and continued to serve as a Federal employee for nearly two decades. He received a title change in the last year, which automatically put him on probationary status. He was fired last week with absolutely no justification.
These veterans feel demeaned and betrayed. It is unthinkable and shameful to treat our military heroes this way. It violates the sacred honor that we have to care for our veterans and provide the services and benefits that they have earned and that they deserve.
I have spoken to constituents myself. I have heard the palpable fear and anxiety that our Federal workers are feeling, which makes it impossible to deliver the best quality care and services for taxpayers, from caring for veterans and seniors to protecting our environment.
As egg prices are skyrocketing due to bird flu ravaging our farms, Trump and Musk have cut FDA and USDA employees, putting the health and well-being of our communities on the line.
After we saw the first commercial airline crash in 16 years, there are FAA employees who are being fired. Their message each time: These employees weren't mission critical. Don't worry. You won't miss them.
Tell that to the senior whose medicine is contaminated due to the lack of oversight, or to the airline passenger facing major delays because of a severe shortage of air traffic controllers.
Meanwhile, unelected billionaire Elon Musk is celebrating on the world stage with a chain saw in his hand, bragging about the degrading treatment of our public servants, with no regard for the taxpayers who will suffer as a result because they cannot get the services that they rely on.
Why wouldn't he celebrate? President Trump has illegally given him the keys to our Treasury, sensitive government data, and control of our Federal workforce. We won't let him take a chain saw to our Federal workforce without a fight. That is why we are speaking up and speaking out and holding those accountable. We ask our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join in our fight.
Mr. Speaker, President Trump campaigned around the country to drain the swamp. Yet, one of the first things he did was to reverse President Biden's executive order that banned White House officials from accepting gifts from lobbyists.
Today, I am introducing the Drain the Swamp Act. It is pretty simple. It will ban any White House official from accepting gifts from lobbyists, and it will ban White House officials from becoming lobbyists during the Trump term.
I believe that this bill will have support not just from progressives, not just from Independents, but from the MAGA movement. That is why I am calling on my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, to pass the Drain the Swamp Act and send it to President Trump's desk so that he can fulfill his promise.
Mr. Speaker, the Trump administration is stripping millions of American seniors of their coverage of telehealth on March 31. That is right. Starting March 31, doctors' visits via videoconference or Zoom or phone will no longer be covered for seniors on Medicare.
This is going to impact over 12 million Americans, and the crazy thing is that the inspectors general have found that there is only 0.2 percent of fraud in telehealth. Why are we taking telehealth away from millions of seniors who are homebound or who have difficulty leaving their homes? It is most devastating for rural Americans.
That is why I am introducing today the Telehealth Coverage Act. It will require Medicare to pay for telehealth services. Let us pass this act in a bipartisan way so that millions of American seniors aren't deprived of telehealth services because of the actions of the Trump administration.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the career of a dedicated and true public servant, Detective Jerry Gachett, who is retiring from the Akron Police Department.
I am honored to be standing here today talking about a man who has served the Akron community so humbly for over 31 years and who I am proud to call a friend.
Jerry was born in Alabama and raised in Akron, where he graduated from the John R. Buchtell High School in 1985. He then bravely served this country in the United States Army for 4 years.
For the last 31 years, Jerry has served our community as a member of the Akron Police Department. He has worked as a hostage negotiator. He worked in the financial crimes unit. Jerry also worked for 21 years as a juvenile detective, where he investigated crimes against children.
Throughout his distinguished career, Detective Gachett has played a pivotal role of securing justice with his investigations, leading to the imprisonment of hundreds of child predators, solidifying his reputation as a champion for the community's most vulnerable.
Jerry is one of the most caring and compassionate people I know. In fact, throughout his career, he has taken the care to truly get to know the victims and survivors who he has been sworn to protect and serve.
He has been to countless basketball games, baby showers and more, to celebrate the survivors who he cares so deeply for. He even walked one of the people he supported down the aisle at her wedding. In fact, my husband and I met Jerry when we hired him to secure our wedding when MAGA protesters threatened our very precious and sacred event.
Jerry has always put the people of our community first, and his deep desire to serve his community is an inspiration to all who have had the opportunity to experience his passion for
In addition to his law enforcement career, Detective Gachett is an ordained minister and a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. He is also a loving husband, father, and grandfather.
No one deserves retirement more than Jerry, but I know that he won't be retiring for real, as he has been sworn into the APD Reserves. I am sure we will continue to see him serving our community in his own special way.
On behalf of Ohio's 13th Congressional District, I congratulate and thank Detective Jerry Gachett on a storied career at the Akron Police Department and for over 31 years of outstanding service and devotion to our community and our country.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today as we celebrate Black History Month to uplift two of my constituents and pillars of the Hanover Park community, Eva and Herb Porter. Both have shared more than 40 years of love, leadership, and unwavering dedication to civic engagement.
Eva Porter is a beloved retired educator in our community. After 30 years of teaching, she has continued to shape young minds in and beyond the classroom.
Eva has served as a trustee of the Poplar Creek Library Board and as a board member for school district U-46. Her passion for service shines through her volunteer work with organizations like Kids Hope USA and the American Cancer Society.
Eva's passion and commitment to public service is matched only by her dear husband, Herb. Currently serving as a deputy mayor of Hanover Park, Herb Porter became the first-ever African-American Hanover Park trustee when he was elected in 2019. With nearly a decade of elected office, Herb is currently the longest serving African-American public official in the northwest suburban area.
He continues to serve his community in his roles on the governing board for the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County as well as the board of the Alignment Collaborative for Education.
Proud members of the DuPage NAACP, Eva and Herb Porter's legacy of service and uplifting diversity and equity have inspired countless community members to get involved in civic engagement, including their daughter, Dr. Chantelle Porter, who was just elected in 2022 as the first Black female judge in DuPage County.
While we think of being first and only, we know we still have a long way to go to truly have parity and representation across this country, but the Porter family's extensive service to the Hanover Park community is a reminder of just how seriously our local communities take our responsibility to serve our neighbors and to do so with compassion and care.
Today, I rise to speak of their leadership, dedication, and exemplary service, which serves as a reminder to each of us here in Congress that we also have the very same responsibility to care for our neighbors and our working families, not special interests and unaccountable billionaires.
As we take the time to celebrate history, we are also reminded that we are making history every single day in these Chambers and back home in our districts. Let it be good history. Let it be history that we are proud of.
Our constituents, including Herb and Eva, are meeting this moment with the urgency it deserves, and they rightfully expect us to follow their lead. I know I will.
On behalf of Illinois' Third Congressional District on this 25th day of February, 2025, I commend Eva and Herb Porter for their lifelong commitment to modeling civic responsibility, community service, and courageous leadership.
Mr. Speaker, during the past weeks, the Federal Government has been cruel to its workforce. It has offered deferred resignations. It has laid off employees. It has sent employees confusing information.
As Jorge Santiago-Rivera, a labor leader from the Department of Veterans Affairs on the island, has said: The truth is that, yes, we live under fear. We live under uncertainty.
I worry about the well-being of our Federal workers. I worry, in particular, about the well-being of the 13,000 Federal employees who reside in Puerto Rico, but I also worry about the thousands of veterans who rely on the VA for their healthcare needs in Puerto Rico. Why? Because the lack of structure and logic behind these cuts directly affects them.
As Mr. Santiago asks: If you lose 10 emergency workers from the ER, who helps the patients?
Unsurprisingly, the VA is now scrambling to deny deferred resignation requests. In the past, it has had to rehire workers that it laid off.
The VA is not the only Federal agency on the island affected by this chaotic, irresponsible, negligent program of Federal cuts. The IRS reportedly laid off around 200 workers. The National Park Service, the USDA, and the national Forest Service are also laying off employees.
Brenda Reyes Tomassini, a labor leader from the EPA, another agency affected, described it best: It is devastating, truly, a brutal level of anxiety.
What makes this even worse is the process. Some of these employees have worked for the Federal Government for 15 or 20 years. They transferred to new positions, so they appeared as if they were on probation and have been terminated. That is unacceptable.
Members of this Congress have not received accurate information about what is happening. I will be the first one to acknowledge that government waste exists. It exists at the Federal level, the State level, and the municipal level, but protecting our veterans is not government waste. Protecting our national parks and protecting our national forests, like El Yunque, is not government waste. Protecting the employees who work hard to ensure that millionaires and billionaires don't cheat on their taxes is not government waste. It is what government is for.
In the coming days, my office will be taking action. We will share resources for Federal employees so that they know their rights. We will host a tele-townhall to hear directly from affected workers. We will demand transparency from the agencies responsible for these layoffs.
I also urge the Government of Puerto Rico to step up to provide these workers the assistance that the government of Puerto Rico usually provides to workers who are laid off in the tourism or manufacturing sectors.
To the workers affected, I send a clear message: I know that being laid off is painful. It hurts your finances. It hurts your stability. It can even hurt your sense of self-worth, but let's be clear: You are not the problem. Your government is the problem. I see you, hear you, and will fight for you.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor an extraordinary American, a true hero in every sense, George Walton Weller.
For 65 years, Mr. Weller has dedicated his life to the safety and well-being of his community through the Verona Volunteer Fire Company. Helping to found the fire company in 1959, he remains an active member to this day at age 91. His unwavering commitment to service and deep sense of duty are nothing short of inspiring.
Long before he answered the call as a firefighter, Mr. Weller bravely served our Nation as a member of the United States Air Force. Serving for 4 years during the Vietnam war, he defended the freedoms we hold dear.
Mr. Weller has strengthened his community in the generations of firefighters he has mentored and his example of dedication. Few can claim such a
Mr. Speaker, he embodies the very best of America, and we are forever indebted to him.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 150th anniversary of Shenandoah University, a proud institution in historic Winchester, Virginia, that has shaped minds and transformed lives for a century and a half.
Founded on February 12, 1875, in Dayton, Virginia, Shenandoah took a bold step back in 1960, relocating 75 miles north to Winchester and paving the way for its continued growth and success.
For 150 years, Shenandoah University has remained steadfast in its mission to provide innovative, high-quality, and student-focused education, always keeping the community at its heart.
The university's legacy has been shaped by visionary leaders, from A.P. Funkhouser, its founder, to Dr. Forrest Racey, who led its relocation, and Dr. James Davis, under whose leadership it became a university. Today, that tradition of excellence continues under Dr. Tracy Fitzsimmons, Shenandoah's first female president, who has guided its remarkable growth.
Mr. Speaker, please join me in congratulating Shenandoah University on this historic milestone and wishing it continued success for generations to come.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Concern Hotline, a vital organization that has provided compassionate, lifesaving support to the residents of the northern Shenandoah Valley for the past 57 years.
Founded in 1970 in response to a tragic rise in suicides, Concern Hotline has been a constant source of hope, offering 24/7 crisis intervention and emotional support. This organization is led by Executive Director Rusty Holland, who has dedicated himself to ensuring that anyone in crisis has a trained, nonjudgmental listener ready to take the call.
The organization thrives because of its dedicated volunteers and community partnerships with first responders, mental health providers, and local universities. Their work has saved countless lives, and their mission is simple but powerful: to keep people safe for now.
I commend Concern Hotline for its unwavering commitment to suicide prevention and crisis intervention. The northern Shenandoah Valley is stronger because of their work, and I wish them continued success in their mission.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to stand against yet another blatant government overreach--this time an attack by the Biden administration on the ability of hardworking Americans to choose the appliances that best fit their needs.
In his final days, President Biden's Department of Energy finalized a rule that effectively bans certain natural gas water heaters from the market. This unnecessary regulation is yet another example of the left pushing a radical Green New Deal agenda at the expense of American families.
This rule would drive up costs, limit consumer choice, and hurt American families and small businesses. It is the same heavyhanded approach we saw time and again from the previous administration, forcing Americans to buy expensive, inefficient alternatives instead of letting them decide what works best for their homes and businesses.
The DOE has no business dictating what kind of water heater Americans can use, and that is why I strongly support H.J. Res. 20, introduced by my colleague Congressman Gary Palmer. This resolution sends a clear message: Washington bureaucrats do not get to make these choices for the American people.
House Republicans will continue fighting to protect consumer freedom and keep government overreach out of our homes. I urge my colleagues to stand with the American people and pass this important resolution.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to address the House as we have just marked the third anniversary of the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine.
February 24, 2022, the date of the largest land grab in Europe since World War II, joins an ignominious list of others as a day of infamy, but this month, it is also notorious for something else.
In this month and this year, the Pax Americana, the rules-based international order established in the aftermath of World War II, an order that has delivered peace and prosperity to the United States, has been brought to a dishonorable end.
In this month, Trump ordered the U.S. Representative to the U.N. to vote with autocrats and against democracy.
Pete Hegseth, the FOX weekend television host improbably elevated into an American Secretary of Defense, announced that NATO membership for Ukraine was off the table. Going further, he suggested that Ukraine's return to its 2014 borders was no longer in the cards. Hegseth thereby deprived Ukraine and the West of two of their most valuable bargaining chips in determining the shape of any peace agreement that is to come.
In this same month, Donald Trump, the President of the United States, standing facts on their head, called Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the leader of Ukrainian democracy, an unelected ``dictator,'' and incredibly, spewing another blatant falsehood, blamed Ukraine for starting the war.
In this month, in perhaps the most shameful statement from an American President in the history of our Republic, Trump explained that because Russia had lost so many soldiers, it was entitled to keep some or all of the territory that it had seized in its unprovoked war of aggression.
It is bad enough that these are lies and betrayals of America's great traditions.
It is bad enough that these statements legitimize violations of the fundamental principles of Pax Americana and the U.N. Charter. Namely, the rules of the jungle no longer apply to international relations-- that might does not make right and that powerful nations cannot employ force to redraw international borders at will.
It is bad enough that the Trump administration is failing to offer a strong bargaining position for Ukraine from which to negotiate a just peace.
It is bad enough that his statements have sent an unmistakable message to the world, in particular, Communist China, that aggression pays.
Things are even worse than all of that.
Under the tutelage of Donald Trump, we are witnessing a fundamental transformation of American foreign policy from a force for good in the world to a force for evil. Trump is aligning American foreign policy with that of the Kremlin.
As analyst Phillips O'Brien has put it: ``The USA is now run by gangsters who both want to ally with other gangsters and are using threats of destruction and violence to get their way.''
In the first term, there were guardrails because there were adults in the room. This time there are no such adults in the room. Trump has surrounded himself with sycophants, yes-men, third-rate fanatics, and clowns from the MAGA world. The guardrails are gone. Trump is free to follow his peculiar whims and unhinged instincts. Indeed, he is free to act as would a mad king.
The results are plain to see. The results are visible in Trump's repeated attacks on Denmark for refusing to sell Greenland to the United States, another dangerous fantasy which is roiling relations with a NATO ally that has been an exceptionally loyal friend in times of need.
They are visible in the trade war that Trump is promising to unleash on Mexico, Canada, Europe, and the entire world with untold consequences for prosperity everywhere, including here at home.
They are most visible in the collapse of our friendship with Ukraine, our
This is not the behavior of a great democratic power, the leader of the free world. It is the behavior of a Mafia state engaged in coercion and blackmail. It is impossible not to be ashamed by what is being done in the name of America.
Putin would like nothing more than to cause internal chaos in Ukraine and rid Kyiv of Zelenskyy. Trump is following suit. Zelenskyy is absolutely right when he stated that Trump is living inside a disinformation bubble.
At the root, Trump's policies betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the American idea: the fact that we are a free and self-governing people, a democracy that has always been a beacon of liberty.
The President and his billionaire, shadow co-president have embraced a dystopian ideology based on falsehoods. The effect of their disinformation is rapidly bringing us to a crisis point where their falsehoods will crash into the reality of a great power competition.
If America abandons Ukraine and embraces the Kremlin, the consequences for the United States and for the world will prove ruinous. Already, everywhere Russia has advanced into Ukrainian territory, its forces have raped and pillaged and murdered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to address the dire consequences of the Federal funding freezes and mass firings that are devastating communities across the country, including in my home State of New Mexico.
Over the past few weeks, I have spoken with New Mexicans who have been impacted by these reckless decisions. Their stories are heartbreaking. Their families are suffering. Rural communities are reeling, and they deserve to be heard.
The funding freeze is crippling essential programs in our State, programs that provide wildfire prevention, conserve rangelands, grasslands, and forests, provide services to veterans, and fund public safety services. Rural communities and food producers are left vulnerable. Our national parks and forests are in disarray, and our local economies are suffering.
At the same time, mass firings are stripping thousands of dedicated Federal workers of their livelihoods. They are Americans--parents, veterans, and public servants--who have spent years serving their communities.
More than 2,400 employees have been dismissed from the Department of Veterans Affairs, undermining care for those who have served our country.
The U.S. Forest Service is losing the very employees that provide Americans access to our national treasures and public lands. These cuts also threaten wildfire prevention as our State enters another critical fire season.
The administration has fired 2,300 Department of the Interior employees, including 800 from the Bureau of Land Management and another 1,000 from the National Park Service, crippling decades of conservation efforts and degrading public land management.
These numbers alone are shocking, but they don't fully capture the impact. I want to share what my constituents have told me about these firings because behind every statistic is a real American.
Jason, a former National Park Service employee from Grants, New Mexico, told me: I received outstanding reviews on my last evaluation just a week before I was laid off. The local economy here in Grants will be devastated. I moved here to serve my community. I joined the local library board, and I am serving my people, but now I am afraid I will have to leave. There are no options left.
Devrie, who works with the Friends of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, shared: We already lost two employees at the refuge. We were understaffed before, and now if we lose visitors, my job is next. The Bosque brings in thousands of tourism dollars to Socorro, New Mexico. This isn't just about jobs. It is about the future of our communities, and what is happening is reckless.
Madison, a former probationary Federal employee in Carlsbad, New Mexico, told me: I lost my dream job on February 14. Many of us had moved hours away from our families to serve. In Carlsbad alone, the government wasted nearly half a million taxpayer dollars training us, only to fire us months later. These mass firings cannot go unnoticed.
Claudia, who worked at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, shared this: In 4\1/2\ months, I dedicated myself to my work, training others, providing emergency medical services, ensuring visitor safety. Then, without warning, I was fired. I was told I failed to prove my skills, despite my experience, my positive evaluations, and my commitment. How does firing somebody making less than $40,000 a year solve the debt crisis?
These are the voices of our rural communities. They are not nameless, faceless numbers to be scratched off by somebody who wasn't even elected by the American people. From their country and from this administration, they deserve better.
As Elon Musk is busy firing thousands of New Mexicans, the Republican majority is preparing today a budget that offers American taxpayer dollars to give massive tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. I hope that my colleagues can justify eliminating a $40,000 Federal job at a national park for wildfire prevention so that a millionaire can take another summer vacation to Aruba.
I urge my colleagues to recognize the human cost of these reckless firings and funding freezes. I am sure the constituents of my colleagues will make it clear to them even if they don't listen to us today.
(English translation of the statement made in Spanish by Mr. Vasquez is as follows:)
Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize a group of individuals who are the life force of our nation: our farmworkers. Their commitment and tireless efforts in the field ensure that every family in this country can access fresh, nutritious food. I see and hear you, and I am proud to represent you.
Every day, these tireless workers face challenges that require strength and perseverance. Whether enduring extreme weather conditions or working long hours, their work sustains our economy and feeds our communities. Behind every meal we enjoy is the constant dedication of farm workers, who often go unnoticed.
Mr. Speaker, hoy quiero reconocer a un grupo de personas que son la fuerza vital de nuestra nacion: nuestros trabajadores agricolas.
Su compromiso y esfuerzos incansables en el campo aseguran que todas las familias de este pais puedan tener alimentos frescos y nutritivos. Los veo y los escucho y estoy orgulloso de representarlos.
Cada dia, estos trabajadores incansables enfrentan desafios que requieren fortaleza y dedicacion. Trabajan muchas horas en condiciones climaticas extremas para sostener nuestra economia y alimentar a nuestras comunidades. Detras de la comida que disfrutamos esta la dedicacion constante de los trabajadores del campo que muchas veces son invisibles en este pais.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Mexico will provide a translation of his remarks to the desk.
Madam Speaker, this week House Republicans are bringing forth their ill-conceived, cruel budget resolution. This resolution will set the stage across the board for cuts on the basic services our constituents depend on the most. These constituents, by the way, live in both red States and blue States.
As the majority brings up their budget resolution, they have already said what they plan to do because they told us. They want to take away Head Start
Almost 40 percent of children in Washington State get their healthcare through Medicaid, 35 percent of moms giving birth and their newborn babies rely on Medicaid for their healthcare, and the MAGA majority wants to strip away their healthcare.
If any of my colleagues vote for this, they have forfeited the right to claim they are pro-life ever again. It is not pro-life to take away a newborn baby's healthcare. It is not pro-life to take away healthcare from 65,000 children in my district. It is not pro-life to take away food from hungry children.
We were promised that president Musk and the MAGA majority would lower costs for the American people from day one. This does none of that. Instead, they are trying to take away healthcare and food from our kids.
I urge everyone to vote ``no'' on this resolution and stop the Republican rip-off.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak out against the unprecedented firing of some of our most qualified and senior military leadership, including General CQ Brown, the eminently qualified Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
General Brown is an exceptional leader, a dedicated servicemember, and an American hero. His firing, the dismissal of Admiral Franchetti, and the judge advocate generals for the services is a travesty. When nominated, General Brown had logged in over 3,000 flying hours, including 130 combat hours and command of the Pacific Air Forces for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. His service and dedication are impeccable.
Most galling is that the person President Trump nominated is affirmatively less qualified than General Brown was when he was nominated. This person has not even met the most basic qualifications to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
What does this tell our servicemembers and their families and our future recruits that expect to be promoted on merit and ability?
President Trump has decided to prioritize nominating people who will make us less safe and less secure because his only requirement is blind loyalty.
As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, we constantly hear the drumbeat of needing to prepare for the threats that we face both today and tomorrow, both here at home and abroad. President Trump's abrupt dismissal has created chaos, will degrade our readiness, hurt recruitment, and empower our enemies.
Madam Speaker, I rise today, as we celebrate Black History Month, to recognize the life and legacy of Ernest ``Ernie'' Charles Tanner.
Ernie Tanner was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 5, 1889. His family moved to Tacoma, Washington, my hometown, in 1900, where he attended Tacoma High School, which is now known as Stadium High School. At Whitworth College, he was the first African American to play football at the college level in the entire Pacific Northwest.
After college, Mr. Tanner worked as a Tacoma elevator operator, and in 1918 he joined the Tacoma chapter of the International Longshoremen's Association, then known as ILA. He remained a member until he died.
In 1934, Mr. Tanner was the only Black member of the Tacoma strike committee during the big strike that shut down every single Pacific Coast port. Mr. Tanner worked closely with San Francisco leader, Harry Bridges, to keep Black and White workers united during the strike so employers could not break the union.
He was a trustee of Local 2897 from 1934 to 1936, where he pressured leaders to pay Black dockworkers the same wages as their White counterparts.
Ernest Charles Tanner passed away in 1956 at the age of 66. He achieved what many seek when they join a union, the recognition of the dignity of all work, to rise out of poverty, and to provide a better life for his family. This was exemplified when Mr. Tanner's son, Jack Tanner, became the Pacific Northwest's first Black Federal judge in 1978. This is generational success and wealth.
Ernie Tanner broke barriers in sports and labor. On behalf of his community, it is appropriate that we recognize his life and legacy today. Happy Black History Month to everyone.
Mr. Speaker, the important work we are doing right now on the budget resolution is going to set the course to bring really strong fiscal responsibility back to this Congress and for our Nation.
It is important that we get on board and pursue this process so that we can do even better things later on this year. There is so much that needs to be done.
We are seeing the great work that DOGE is doing in reeling in the size of our government and trying to claw back some of the waste that has cost
This includes, for example, the great work done by our Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy the other day in California. He pointed out that this boondoggle, high-speed rail system in California that has cost about $15 billion so far now is going to cost $130 billion.
The quibbling over $4 billion right now of Federal money that Biden dumped in at the last minute, we should claw that back and then stop the spigot. No more spending. It is $110 billion short of what it is going to take to build the whole rail from San Francisco to L.A.
We need to stop the boondoggle spending. The work of DOGE and the work of our Budget Committee are going to be important to set the course for all of America and on all of these things we have been wasting so much money on.
Remember, Mr. Speaker, we have to respect the taxpayers. It is their money, not ours.
Mr. Speaker, Putin and Trump: a dictator and a wannabe, and another destroyed Ukrainian city. Thousands have been murdered and thousands of children have been kidnapped. Trump disgracefully voted yesterday with North Korea and Russia to blame the murdered, not the murderer.
Trump is joining a rogues' gallery of lesser dictators to deny Putin's murderous invasion, his war crimes, and a demand that he return occupied Ukrainian territory. Trump, ``the great appeaser,'' is joined in this appalling wrong by House Republican accomplices.
While Ukrainians dodge bullets and missiles and are risking death daily, most of the House Republicans seem scared into silence by the threat of a very mean Trump tweet. By its silence, this Republican white flag surrender caucus is emboldening our adversaries to replace the world order established by both Democratic and Republican leaders since World War II.
If we fail Ukraine, our democratic ally, we fail the rule of law. Let's unite to resist the appeasement of Putin and seek a victory for self-determination, democracy, and freedom.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday marked the tragic third anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by war criminal Putin concealed as a 30-day special mission, misleading his troops into bringing dress uniforms for fictional victory parades in his quest to resurrect the failed Soviet Union.
Thanks to President Donald Trump, the Putin invasion convoy was destroyed by Javelin missiles he previously provided Ukraine. The Ukrainian people courageously and valiantly fought back with war criminal Putin importing Iranian drones and sacrificing North Korean troops, confirming this is a war of dictators in Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang, and Beijing.
President Donald Trump is achieving peace through strength with an empowered Ukraine and a now-liberated Syria because Putin was not able to save dictator Assad, as Trump praises Turkiye's and Saudi Arabia's success.
In conclusion, God bless our troops as the global war on terrorism continues. Open borders for dictators put all Americans at risk of more 9/11 attacks imminent, as warned by the FBI. Trump is building peace through strength.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to acknowledge the dedicated schoolbus drivers who ensure our children's safety every day.
During School Bus Driver Appreciation Week, I had the privilege of riding along on Mrs. Pamela Respess' schoolbus at Banks Elementary School in Lenoir County.
There was so much excitement. It was an early morning, and we hopped on the bus after the prechecks. Throughout the route, Mrs. Respess greeted students by name, transforming morning faces into smiles. After parking the schoolbus, the students hugged Mrs. Respess as they hopped off and headed to class.
My experience highlights the vital role of schoolbus drivers who face enormous challenges like bus shortages and overcrowding.
We thank our schoolbus drivers across America like Mrs. Respess not just today but every day.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to thank Alex Cisneros for his decade of service to our Nation as a dedicated staff member in the House of Representatives, most recently as my legislative director over the last 4 years.
His diligent work ethic, sharp intellect, and the ability to build trusting relationships on both sides of the aisle have made him an invaluable part of my team.
His legislative team advised me each week in Congress and shepherded more than 40 bills through the House and got more than 15 bills signed into law.
These are real results that have made a difference in the lives of the American people.
So I thank Alex, and I hope that he knows how proud we all are of what he has accomplished.
We will miss Alex, but he will always be a part of our family.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the retirement of Parma Heights Police Department Chief Tanya Czack, who is a very good friend of mine.
Chief Czack has dedicated her career to upholding the law, protecting her community, and leading with integrity. With over 35 years of service in law enforcement, Tanya has risen through the ranks, starting as a dispatcher and becoming the first female chief in her department's history.
A graduate of Northwestern University's prestigious staff and command program, Chief Czack has not only excelled in her role but has also committed herself to shaping the future of law enforcement.
For 17 years she has been an instructor at police academies, preparing the next generation of law enforcement officers to serve with honor, courage, and dedication to justice
Our community is made better by people like Chief Czack, and I thank her for her selfless service and wish her a very happy retirement. I will see her Friday.
Providing for Consideration of H.J. RES. 20, Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted by the Department of Energy Relating to "Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation...
Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.
Last night, the Rules Committee met and produced a rule, House Resolution 161, providing for the House's consideration of several pieces of legislation, including a closed rule for H. Con. Res. 14, the budget resolution.
The rule provides for 2 hours of debate for the Committee on the Budget or their respective designees to debate the congressional budget and an additional hour equally divided and controlled by Representative Schweikert of Arizona and Representative Beyer of Virginia or their respective designees to debate economic goals and policies.
The rule further permits the chair of the Committee on the Budget to offer amendments in the House to achieve mathematical consistency and provides that the concurrent resolution shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question at its adoption.
Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 20, a CRA relating to the DOE's water heater rule, under a closed rule. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees and provides for one motion to recommit.
Finally, the rule provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 35, a CRA relating to EPA's methane tax, under a closed rule. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees and provides for one motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, notable among the bills this rule provides for is the House budget resolution, H. Con. Res. 14. This budget resolution marks the first step for House Republicans to advance President Trump's America First agenda.
We have heard plenty of fear-mongering and flatout dishonesty from Democrats and their liberal media allies about what is included in this resolution. To be clear, this resolution unlocks the path forward to deliver on our promises to the American people.
Over the next hour, Members are going to hear all of the identity groups
The truth is, there is not one single cut in this bill to any specific program or benefit. The truth is the Democratic Party abandoned the middle class for the liberal elite class a long time ago. The election last November should have been a wake-up call that the American people don't believe them anymore, nor should they.
The Democrats are desperate for attention and for power. Don't give it to them.
Let's set the record straight about what this budget resolution actually accomplishes.
It will provide funding for border security, provide for our national defense, and restore American energy independence. It will provide tax relief for working families.
On border security, Biden's open-border policies resulted in over 8.5 million encounters at the southern border since 2021, a 500 percent increase in illegal crossings, and over $115 billion in costs to State and local governments. Most tragically, Biden's border crisis allowed unprecedented amounts of deadly fentanyl into our communities, killing over 100,000 Americans.
Next, this bill enables us to permanently protect tax relief. President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provided critical relief to middle-class families and small businesses. Americans are still experiencing high prices because we are still recovering from Bidenomics.
Prices are up 21 percent. Real wages have declined by more than 3 percent. Mortgage rates have skyrocketed. Credit card delinquencies have risen by over 50 percent. Bidenomics cost American families more than $11,000 every year for the last 4 years.
Next, this budget resolution prioritizes energy independence. Under President Trump's first administration, the United States was energy independent for the first time in 40 years. That stopped the day Joe Biden took office, and American families have been hurting ever since.
Under President Biden, the American energy production was severely restricted. Federal lands were blocked from responsible energy development, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was drained.
Simply put, again, the budget resolution is a framework that will allow us to deliver on the demands of the American people to secure the border, eliminate wasteful spending, revitalize Biden's broken economy, and safeguard our economic prosperity by providing permanent tax relief for working families. I hope our Democratic colleagues will join us in those efforts.
This budget resolution kicks off the reconciliation process and allows our work to begin. Once adopted, our committees and the entire House will begin detailed work to achieve these important goals for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, this rule also provides for consideration of two Congressional Review Act measures: H.J. Res. 20 and H.J. Res. 35.
H.J. Res. 20 provides for congressional disapproval of the rule submitted by the Department of Energy relating to energy conservation standards for consumer gas-fired instantaneous water heaters.
The rule we seek to overturn with this legislation effectively bans certain natural gas water heaters from the market, placing unnecessary financial burdens on consumers, especially seniors and low-income households.
H.J. Res. 35 provides for congressional disapproval of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to natural gas facilities. The EPA's rule imposes a significant fee on methane emissions from oil and natural gas facilities. The fee is essentially a pass-through cost to consumers that will raise prices, harm domestic energy production, and increase our reliance on other countries to meet our own energy needs.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the consideration of these important pieces of legislation. I urge the passage of this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Houchin) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, before I get into my statement, let me begin by saying that I keep on hearing from the other side that this is just a budget resolution and that it doesn't have any actual policies in it. Yet, the gentlewoman referred to all the tax cuts.
Can she point me to where the resolution says anything about tax cuts? Of course, the answer is that it doesn't.
What it does is simply instruct our tax-writing committees to write legislation to spend $4.5 trillion, just as it instructs our SNAP committee to cut $290 billion and our Medicaid committee to cut $880 billion.
Republicans cannot have it both ways and pretend that the harms aren't real while the tax cuts are, but we know the harms are real. We know what is planned, and we have seen the leaked document.
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, it looks like facts and truth have absolutely no place in this administration or in this Republican Party. We already knew that this administration lies like a rug.
First, we heard that the United States was sending $50 million worth of condoms to Hamas, which was a lie.
Then we heard it was Ukraine that started the war, not Russia, which is another lie.
Then we heard that the terrible plane crash here in Washington happened because of diversity programs, which was also a lie.
Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Houchin) wants us to believe that not a single thing in the budget she is arguing for is going to hurt anyone at all and that there isn't a single tax giveaway to billionaires in their budget.
Guess what, Mr. Speaker. It is simply not accurate.
We all saw this coming. We did. Last month, at Trump's inauguration, who was in the front row? It wasn't people on Medicaid. It wasn't factory workers. It wasn't nurses or teachers or firefighters. It wasn't even his own Cabinet. It was the richest people in the world, and that is who this Republican budget helps.
It steals from taxpayers and funnels the money to those at the very top. Imagine stealing from school meals for kids so that billionaires could get another tax giveaway.
Last night, in the Rules Committee, the gentlewoman claimed: No, no, no. Democrats can't prove there are any cuts in this budget. Except, Mr. Speaker, we can. We can. Let me lay it out as simply as I can for people.
The Republican budget cuts, for example, $330 billion from programs related to education, and the same Representative who wrote this budget, the chair of the Budget Committee, Mr. Arrington, also wrote this document right here, Mr. Speaker, which I have in front of me. It says in black and white that those education cuts include $12 billion from school meals. How dare my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the gentlewoman doesn't like these facts, but they are facts.
School meals are just one example. This budget makes deep, deep cuts to Medicaid, including long-term care; deep cuts to food assistance for hungry families; and deep cuts to Pell grants. These cuts are going to hurt people.
I ask the gentlewoman a simple question: Whose side is she on? Does she want to stand with the school kids in her district who rely on school meals to get through the day, or does she side with the billionaires who are getting another tax giveaway in this budget?
Does she stand with the 178,119 constituents in her district who are on Medicaid? Does she stand with the thousands and thousands of kids in her district who rely on school meals, or does she stand with the greedy corporations who are price gouging struggling families?
I know where I stand, Mr. Speaker, and we are going to fight like hell to oppose this awful Republican budget because we know whose side we are on. We are going to fight like our constituents' lives depend on it because they do.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I commend the other side for finally saying that some of these things that they have been harping on for the last several hours and 24-
Mr. Speaker, this legislation simply provides flexible spending targets for authorizing committees to best determine what is feasible within their jurisdiction.
I remind my Democratic colleagues that this resolution is the first step in a process to let reconciliation begin, when the real work will happen in the committees. If my colleagues have concerns about potential cuts being proposed once the authorizing committees begin their work, there will be ample opportunity to debate, provide amendment, and find opportunities in the reconciliation instructions for common ground.
Unlike my friends on the other side, we don't view the Rules Committee as the first stop in the legislative process, but, rather, the last. We should let the committees do their work and not prejudge the outcomes or make baseless accusations and presumptions.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman), my friend.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Houchin for leading this debate, and I rise in full support of the House budget resolution as introduced by Chairman Arrington.
What our viewers, both in the balcony and watching this by TV, are going to see is two different worldviews.
My friends on the left think tax money is their money, that you shouldn't know where it is spent in any shape, form, or fashion.
Where they want to spend our tax dollars, which is now being uncovered by Elon Musk, is on a variety of things, but it began 4 years ago with the invasion of the border.
My friends from the left, the minute the Biden administration took office, opened the gates for over 170 different countries to let everybody and anybody into this country. My friends on the left allowed 400,000 unaccompanied minors to come into this country, and we don't know what happened to them. It is not good, though.
They claim to sympathize with people in this country, but what about sympathy for the children? They did nothing to stop the invasion at the border. They had words, but that is all it was.
They want the American people to know that it is their money to spend on illegal aliens' free college tuition, putting it on the backs of the everyday working man.
This is the first step in a long journey of what we are voting on today. From the very first day I set foot in this Chamber, I have always promised my constituents that I would do everything within my power to reinstate fiscal sanity to our great Nation.
What is worse than a bankrupt country? How does that help children? How does that help single moms? It doesn't. That is what this bill attempts to stop or at least begin the process of healing.
We now suffer from World War II levels of indebtedness and pay more on interest than we do on our national defense, to the tune of over $880 billion in interest.
Unfortunately, many Members of Congress have demonstrated a complete lack of fiscal discipline and will try to spoil a strong bill that President Trump himself has endorsed.
This budget resolution enables us to reach over $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for hardworking Americans and more than $2 trillion in spending cuts, a concept that Congress has been foreign to for way too long.
With a historic trifecta, since the Republicans were elected by 77 million people to control the House, the Senate, and the executive branch, we have the opportunity to deliver on our promise to America. We must do what is best for them, including raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion to prevent Democrats from using a fiscal crisis to hold Trump's agenda hostage.
The Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Ciscomani). The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Speaker, due to the previous Biden administration's failed security measures, included in our budget is $300 billion in critical and urgent funding for strengthened border security and our Armed Forces.
America is paying twice. We pay to ship illegals over here. We pay to feed illegals over here. We pay to house illegals over here. Now, we are having to take them back. We are for immigration, but the right way.
All in all, this package, combined with economic growth unleashed by the America First agenda, can ensure it will provide a deficit-neutral outcome, including seven times the amount of cuts that were initially unveiled. For every dollar that Republicans surpass the goal of spending cuts, there will be another dollar in tax cuts.
I am proud to support this budget that finally implements fiscal and budgetary constraints on Congress. It is the first step to unlocking the reconciliation process ahead of us.
Previously, under Democrats' failed leadership, which we had 4 years of, nonsense welfare programs ate at the budget, allotting billions for mindless spending.
The American people have had enough, which is why we are in the new age of the golden age.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for allowing me to speak and for putting this argument up.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, there are just a couple of points I will make.
I am still waiting for the gentlewoman from Indiana to tell me where the tax cuts are in this budget. My colleagues can't have it both ways. They can't say there are all these tax cuts in this budget, yet there are no cuts. The reality is, there are cuts in this budget.
To the gentleman who just spoke from South Carolina, he may need a reminder. Maybe he could do a townhall in his district. He might get an earful. Mr. Speaker, 74,000 of his constituents received coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
By supporting this resolution, he is betraying the 148,948 constituents in his district who depend on Medicaid for their essential care and the 85,000 constituents in the Fifth District who rely on SNAP to put food on the table.
Maybe do a townhall and listen to constituents rather than just big donors.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).
Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the Republican budget resolution that utterly betrays middle-class Americans and threatens to explode the deficit.
This deceitful budget would gut Medicaid, schools, and affordable housing, all so Republican billionaire donors can get more tax breaks.
Instead of cutting costs for families, it undermines veterans' benefits and forces millions more families to live paycheck to paycheck. Instead of lowering prices at the pharmacy or the supermarket, this budget will bleed Americans dry. Billionaires get a windfall, and taxpayers get stuck with the bill.
This budget would swipe food from seniors and children, and in my district, ACA healthcare premiums would leap by almost $500. A 60-year- old Broward County couple with a household income of $85,000 would see their ACA premiums jump $16,000 a year, a 226 percent increase.
How does this Republican rip-off help American families? Long story short, it won't.
I urge my colleagues to reject this billionaire buyout budget that would crush working families, make Americans less safe and secure, blow out the debt, and devastate lifesaving resources that families need.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule, which provides consideration of the fiscal year 2025 budget resolution.
Our Nation stands at a fiscal crossroads, one where we are beckoned to answer a simple yet pertinent question: What path will we choose to go down? The answer to that question is clear: We must embark upon a path that restores the fiscal health and vitality of the Nation.
Many have lobbed spurious caricatures and distorted criticisms at this budget resolution, but the truth is that it will work to put the Nation back upon a sound footing where it belongs.
Last night at the Rules Committee, we caught Democrats dead to rights. A Democrat tried to refer to the alleged ``cuts'' in our debate but instead admitted that ``it is not there.''
That is right. It is not in the budget resolution. You simply cannot find programmatic cuts in any respect, and I stand here to tell the truth about this budget and the rule we need to get it across the line.
From shielding Americans from the greatest tax increase in history to supporting the military, allocating resources to the Trump administration to secure the border and to trimming wasteful programs, our budget resolution has solutions that the American people expect and demand.
President Trump specifically requested ``one big, beautiful bill,'' and House Republicans have answered that request with a constructive, full-bodied product.
Now, let's juxtapose our beautiful bill with the failed reconciliation schemes passed by Democratic Congresses.
They used it to pass ObamaCare, robbing Medicare of over $700 billion of funds in the process and kicking Americans off their health insurance plans after promising to keep them.
They hijacked the process to pass the so-called American Rescue Plan to waste over $2 trillion in taxpayer funds, fueling the greatest inflation rates in generations.
Lastly, they used the reconciliation process just a few years ago to pass one of the worst pieces of legislation in the modern era, the so- called Inflation Reduction Act. That catastrophe of a bill was a one- way ticket to financial ruin. It wasted money on green energy schemes, punished companies that proudly develop American energy, and ironically drove up costs for every American family.
I will let our deficit-reducing, border-securing, tax cut-preserving, American energy-strengthening budget stand against the failed record of congressional Democrats any day of the week.
The truth is that Americans win under the Trump agenda and this budget. This blueprint is a framework on which Congress can deliver the agenda the American people want and deserve.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the rule and the underlying resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is talking about what was said in the Rules Committee last night. I will take a couple of minutes to talk about how people voted in the Rules Committee last night.
We gave Republicans a chance last night in the Rules Committee. We said if they really don't believe that this budget cuts funding for school meals, if they really believe what they are saying, then they can vote to ensure the American people that they are not going to steal school meals from kids in order to give tax breaks for millionaires. Every Republican voted no, every single one of them.
Then, Democrats offered an amendment to protect Medicaid. Medicaid, as you know, Mr. Speaker, covers 41 percent of all births in the United States, nearly half of children with special healthcare needs, and five in eight nursing home residents. We asked them not to cut Medicaid in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires. Every Republican voted no.
Then, Democrats offered an amendment to extend tax cuts for people making under $400,000 while ensuring that corporations and billionaires pay their fair share. We asked Republicans to continue tax cuts for only those who need it the most because those are the tax cuts they let expire while their tax cuts for greedy corporations were made permanent. We asked them to prioritize working families over greedy corporations. Every Republican voted no.
Then, Democrats offered an amendment preventing tax giveaways for people earning over $1 million a year. Every Republican voted no.
We wanted to see if there was anyone so rich that Republicans don't think they deserve a tax giveaway, so we asked them to vote against tax breaks for people earning over $100 million per year. We asked them to side with factory workers and firefighters over hedge fund managers and billionaire bankers. Every Republican voted no.
We even offered an amendment preventing tax cuts for people with a net worth of over--get this--$1 billion. Every Republican voted no.
They betrayed their constituents. They voted to steal from the American people in order to protect tax breaks for billionaires.
Again, this is about whose side you are on. Republicans showed us last night with their votes whose side they are on, and it is not the working people of this country.
Mr. Speaker, in addition to the budget resolution, which I support, I rise today in support of the rule for H.J. Res. 20, a resolution authorized by the Congressional Review Act that will enable our Congress to repeal a job-killing Biden administration regulation that would ban and eliminate noncondensing tankless water heaters, an American product made by blue-collar American workers in the heart of my congressional district in Georgia.
This regulation was passed in the midnight hours of the Biden administration on December 26, after Christmas and weeks after Americans soundly rejected the Biden-Harris regulatory regime administration, putting in peril the livelihoods of hundreds of my constituents the day after Christmas.
To put this into perspective, noncondensing tankless water heaters account for 40 percent of our country's tankless water heater market. A majority of those noncondensing tankless water heaters are manufactured in my congressional district by an incredible company called Rinnai America Corporation.
These water heaters are the most advanced and efficient noncondensing tankless water heaters on the market. Perhaps most importantly, Rinnai America is the only company that builds noncondensing tankless water heaters on American soil.
Rinnai America is headquartered in my hometown of Peachtree City, and 3 years ago, it opened a state-of-the-art facility in Griffin, Georgia, two cities I proudly represent in this Congress.
Over 500 of my constituents are working to manufacture and market the very water heaters the Biden administration attempted to outlaw. This job-killing regulation imposed by the Biden administration is yet another painful example of the left's war on hydrocarbons.
The purpose of this regulation is to try to single out and eliminate an American manufacturer of noncondensing tankless water heaters. Effectively, the Biden administration and the government were trying to alter the market on their own by picking winners and losers, which is something that consumers should do, not unelected nameless bureaucrats.
Mr. Speaker, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have spent an enormous amount of time the past few weeks trying to convince Americans they are the party of blue-collar American workers.
Well, in the spirit of bipartisanship, I encourage my Democratic colleagues to join me in support of this resolution to protect and champion hundreds of blue-collar American jobs in the heart of our country. To my Republican colleagues, let's join together as a team and end this war on hydrocarbons now.
President Trump's White House has explicitly endorsed this resolution, and I urge all of my Republican colleagues to join us and vote for this critical legislation to empower consumer choice and champion American manufacturing.
I will close by saying, we expect this vote later this week. I hope everyone in this House joins me in support of this legislation in defense of blue-collar American workers.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
We are here talking about billions of dollars of cuts to Medicaid, school meals, and food for children, and this guy is talking about tankless water heaters. I mean, read the room.
I should just say that by supporting this budget resolution, he is betraying
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner).
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and House Republicans stealing trillions of dollars from the middle class to fund massive tax cuts for billionaires. Instead of focusing on the cost of living or making America safer, Republicans are planning a massive giveaway to the rich, with working people picking up the tab.
They want $2 trillion in tax cuts for people making more than $500,000 a year by extending Trump's 2017 tax plan. That is $2 trillion for people making more than $500,000 a year.
How are they going to pay for it?
By cutting Medicaid.
That is healthcare for 77 million Americans, 80,000 Rhode Islanders, including seniors, children, and people with disabilities.
Nursing homes and community health centers all across this country will shut down.
It is not just healthcare. This bill takes money from education, farmers, and small businesses, all for billionaire tax cuts. These Republicans are not fighting for the middle class. They are fighting for Donald and Elon's rich friends at Mar-a-Lago, and the middle class is paying for it.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this rule that enables a reckless Republican budget resolution to go forward. Let me tell you why.
Republicans claim to be lowering costs, but their plan, in my view, does just the opposite.
Let me bring it all home. In California's 21st Congressional District which I have the honor and privilege to represent, the wonderful people in the San Joaquin Valley, 456,532 people could lose their Medicaid under this rule and budget resolution.
Under this rule and resolution, 131,000 people could lose their SNAP benefits.
Over 25,000 people could lose coverage through the Affordable Health Care Act. We have made remarkable progress as a result of the Affordable Health Care Act, reducing the number of people without insurance in our constituency to less than 10 percent. That would be changed.
There would be $3 million in energy and conservation funds that would be withheld from farmers in my district.
If you want to put the American people first, we must reject this debacle and begin on a real bipartisan basis to pass a budget that fits the American people.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise on behalf of the nearly 80 million Americans across the country who get their health insurance through Medicaid.
I rise as a physician who has cared for patients for more than 20 years, and I implore my colleagues to recognize that health insurance is not just a throwaway line item that you can scratch out in a budget. It is the difference between being able to receive the lifesaving healthcare people need or not.
Medicaid is the single largest source of healthcare coverage in the United States. Medicaid covers nearly half of all children, and it is the largest insurer of kids with disabilities. Medicaid is a vital source of prenatal and postpartum care for women, and it covers more than 40 percent of births in our country.
The Republicans' dangerous proposal today is selling out the health and wellness of kids, families, seniors in nursing homes, and people with disabilities.
Why? To make room for tax breaks for millionaires? This is wrong. We cannot stand for this.
We need our colleagues across the aisle to stand up for our children and families.
Mr. Speaker, the Republican budget can be summed up in three simple words: defund, defraud, and deceive.
First, the Republicans want to defund social safety net programs working families rely on, like Medicaid, school meals, and food stamps.
In my district alone, 425,000 individuals depend on Medicaid for their healthcare. That includes kids and people with disabilities.
Second, Republicans want to defraud the American people by taking money from working families to hand out massive tax breaks to billionaires and corporations who pay little to no taxes.
Finally, they are trying to deceive the American people by claiming that they are not cutting any programs, but we know at the end of the day that their budget will include cuts to Medicaid and programs that families depend on.
Republicans need to step up because this is not just a blue State or a Democratic issue. This will cut benefits, healthcare benefits, for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans across the country, including 171,000 in Arizona's Sixth District.
We need Republicans to step up and not be shameful and pass this budget.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the House Republican budget resolution, a blatant attempt to strip healthcare and food aid away from everyday Americans.
With up to $2.5 trillion in Medicaid cuts and $230 billion slashed from SNAP, this budget plan would leave millions of families and seniors without essential support. Rural America would suffer the most.
Nationwide, more than 12 million rural Americans rely on Medicaid, and SNAP participation is higher in rural areas than urban ones. In my home State of Hawaii, over 350,000 people rely on Medicaid, and nearly one in five depend on SNAP to eat. Rural Americans, who live in 181 of our congressional districts, red and blue, already face some of the harshest health disparities, living 3 to 10 years less than their urban counterparts. These cuts will only deepen such inequities and leave them with no safety net.
Let me be clear. These cuts will cost lives. These are not just numbers. They are real people. They are our neighbors, our grandparents, and our children. At a time when too many are struggling, Republicans are delivering tax breaks to billionaires on the backs of our working families.
Americans in rural America deserve better. Our country deserves better. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just say, by the way, Mr. Speaker, how is that mandate going for you guys now that voters are realizing that you betrayed them?
Let's look at some newspapers from around the country: ``Georgia Congressman confronted by angry crowd over support for Trump's agenda.''
This is from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ``U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick was peppered with boos and catcalls throughout a townhall meeting in Roswell late Thursday, as hundreds of critics jeered the Republican for backing President Donald Trump's agenda during his first month in office.''
There is another one. ``U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman faces hostile crowd in Oshkosh townhall meeting.'' That is in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
``Protesters urge Rep. Scott Perry to say no to Medicaid cuts.'' That is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
``Outside Congressman's office, protesters make noise over potential Medicaid cuts.'' That is from Representative Ryan Mackenzie's district in Salisbury Township in Pennsylvania.
I could spend an hour reading these into the Record, Mr. Speaker. Republicans are getting chewed out at all of
My Republican colleagues need to remember that when they vote for this budget, they are on record. They have made it clear that they serve the billionaires and not their voters.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Sorensen).
Mr. Speaker, looking around this room, I ask: Shouldn't our government benefit those we represent back home?
However, what is being presented by my Republican colleagues today is a plan that would gut healthcare for 152,483 of my neighbors at home who depend on Medicaid, more than 66,000 kids under the age of 19. Ten thousand seniors back home rely on Medicaid in Illinois' 17th District for their nursing home coverage.
While you may see this as a numbers game in a budget, I see families. I see neighbors. I see loved ones.
Let me let you in on a secret because there aren't any Republicans in this room. There are more Republican constituents of mine that are calling my office saying: We may have voted for Donald Trump, but we didn't vote for him to do this.
This is cruel and unusual punishment to single out everyday Americans, making them go without.
Also, billionaire donors and big corporations get tax breaks to make them more wealthy.
Let's get back to doing the work for the American people who need us to do this work the most.
Mr. Speaker, I note the gentlewoman doesn't seem to have any other speakers. I was wondering whether she might want to lend us some of her time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker Emerita, a powerful leader in the Democratic Caucus and for the country.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his exuberant presentation of opposition to this budget. I thank him for all the amendments he proposed to improve upon it. Sadly, the Republicans didn't accept just one.
Here we go again. The last time the Republicans had a majority in the House and Senate and President Trump in the White House, they passed a terrible bill that was a tax cut for the rich that gave 83 percent of the benefits to the wealthiest people, the top 1 percent in our country, and added $2 trillion to the national debt.
This year, they are doubling down on that, $4 trillion to the national debt, and they call that fiscal sanity. They are doing it by steering taxpayer dollars from Medicaid to give additional tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations.
People think of Medicaid sometimes as a poor children's program, and that would be sufficient justification for it all, but it is a middle- income benefit. Seniors who need long-term healthcare need Medicaid.
Members should listen to their constituents and hear what they have to say about what it means to their fiscal well-being. Listen to constituents. The numbers are staggering.
By voting for this cruel bill, they are betraying hardworking Americans by raising costs for all those already struggling to make ends meet. The President said he was going to reduce the cost of living. He didn't. He said he would reduce inflation. He didn't.
Mr. Speaker, indeed a vote for this budget is a vote against Medicaid, ripping away healthcare from children, people with disabilities, and seniors. It is a vote against SNAP, as the distinguished chairman indicated, taking food out of the mouths of babies.
They do that with glee while President Trump and congressional Republicans are choosing to protect billionaires, by the way, who benefit from Medicaid with people cleaning their homes.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Speaker, we are led and unified by Hakeem Jeffries. We are united in our commitment to work for working families. That is why I urge a ``no'' vote on this extreme measure, and I thank the distinguished chairman for his leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from the Economic Policy Institute titled: ``The House Republicans' plan to cut Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the rich would slash incomes for the bottom 40 percent.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose this so-called budget resolution which is one of the greatest heists in American history as they loot the Treasury to give permanent tax breaks to billionaires at the expense of millions of Americans.
We are talking about cuts to healthcare, Medicaid, and Medicare. Literally a quarter of a million New Mexicans will be unable to access care.
As a native New Mexican who grew up in a single-parent home in a low- income family, I know exactly what this means. These cuts are cruel. They are unnecessary. They are undemocratic, and they will blow a hole through our deficit spending by $4 trillion. This is not a budget resolution.
This is a blueprint for suffering or, as Elon Musk put it over the weekend, the spoils of war. These guys don't care how many people they hurt or how many families are going to suffer. It is about power and greed, and the GOP is enabling them.
We will not sit down and do it. We will not support this budget resolution. We will not give them one single vote. I will not be silenced because we will continue to fight.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a letter to Speaker Johnson, signed by eight Republicans, titled: ``Protecting American Communities in the Budget Reconciliation Process.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?
Madam Speaker, this letter makes clear that they know that Medicaid, Pell grants, and SNAP will face harmful cuts if this budget passes.
Madam Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of an amendment to the budget resolution which prevents tax cuts for billionaires if Medicaid is cut by a single cent.
Madam Speaker, 72 million Americans, including 30 million children, rely on Medicaid for critical healthcare and other lifesaving services. With this budget resolution, House Republicans are betraying the most vulnerable Americans to give tax breaks to billionaires.
Representative Gray submitted an amendment that would prevent Republicans from betraying Medicaid recipients in order to give billionaires tax breaks. It shouldn't be controversial.
I offered that amendment last night in the Rules Committee and, to my shock, every single one of my Republican colleagues voted against it, standing with billionaires over Medicaid recipients.
I am now giving every House Republican a chance to go on the record. Voting ``yes'' on the previous question means my colleagues want to cut taxes for billionaires, even at the expense of vital Medicaid coverage. Voting ``no'' gives my colleagues an opportunity to ensure that Medicaid is protected. It is that simple.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?
Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I rise today conflicted about what is happening in our government and across the country. Like many Americans, I find myself frustrated with government that doesn't work, lines that are too long, services that are too hard to navigate, and roads that don't get fixed.
This shouldn't be a partisan issue. All of us here today should be in favor of making our government work better and strengthening programs that our constituents rely upon. In fact, some of my Republican colleagues, led by Congressman Tony Gonzales, wrote in a letter to Speaker Johnson that the proposed cuts to Medicaid within this budget would have serious consequences, particularly in rural and
One of those communities where hospitals are struggling to stay open is mine in California's Central Valley. Over 450,000 people in my congressional district rely on Medicaid for their health coverage. The Central Valley is also experiencing a healthcare shortage, forcing people to drive across the country, across county lines, across the State, waiting for hours to see a provider.
These proposed cuts to Medicaid only stand to worsen the crisis. Let's be clear. These cuts wouldn't just impact individuals covered by Medicaid. In my congressional district, 59 percent of individuals are covered by California's Medicaid program. That means that doctors and hospitals in my district rely on Medicaid for nearly two-thirds of their revenue. Without that revenue, these providers would not be able to keep their doors open. In fact, Madam Speaker, there is an entire county I represent with a population of 162,000 people who have no hospital at all to go to because it had to close.
I submitted an amendment to this resolution to ask a simple question. Is it such a priority to fund tax cuts for individuals with over $1 billion in net worth that we would enact devastating cuts to healthcare for rural and low-income communities?
This proposal would steal from the poor to give to the rich. Even if my colleagues don't think that is a problem, Madam Speaker, this literally makes healthcare coverage worse for every single person living in rural America. I have spent the majority of my career in public service, working to make healthcare better, both more accessible and more affordable. This proposed budget does the opposite.
My amendment to the proposed budget would prevent consideration of any legislation that would result in cuts to Medicaid in order to provide such tax cuts. Unfortunately, that amendment was blocked from consideration by members of the Rules Committee last night.
To my Republican colleagues who agreed that we must protect Medicaid, I hope they will join me in support of this amendment should I have the opportunity to offer it here.
Madam Speaker, this is my commonsense solution to honor the trust our constituents put in us when they sent us to Congress. I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and support this amendment.
Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, the ranking member has discussed a number of votes taken at the Rules Committee markup last night. Once again, the budget is the first step in the process, not the last. Many of these amendments will have the opportunity to be debated thoughtfully and ad nauseam, I have no doubt, in the authorizing committees.
The Democrats are speaking fear, not facts. Saying something that is false over and over again does not make it true. These amendments can be given consideration in the committees of jurisdiction. That is the process of regular order.
Madam Speaker, I say to the gentlewoman that Republican Members are raising concerns about these cuts. Maybe we can share some of those press clippings with her.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).
Madam Speaker, this budget is about the millionaires, the trillionaires, the people earning over $400,000 a year, and giving them a $4 trillion tax cut over the next 10 years. It is not about working people. It is about hurting working people, hurting the poor, hurting people with disabilities, and hurting children.
What this Congress is looking at doing, because of Musk and Trump and the Republican colleagues here that I share this floor with, is cutting programs that help the public.
In October, Elon Musk incorporated United States of America, Inc., in Texas. What that means is it shows his mentality. He thinks he owns this government. He has bought it. He has been given it. He doesn't care about anybody else. He is the only stockholder.
America is not a stockholder. Americans are the people who give him the money to give it to the trillionaires and billionaires who were first in President Trump's inaugural crowd. They were first in the crowd. They are first in his mind. They are first in his heart. They are his people.
Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule which allows for consideration of the Republicans' extreme budget that slashes funding for vital programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and Federal housing assistance to bankroll $4.5 trillion in tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations.
Last week, I got a devastating call from Susan who lives in Sandy, Oregon. She and her husband worked all their lives and saved diligently for retirement but had a single accident that wiped out their savings. They are now in their seventies and rely on Medicaid, SNAP, and utility assistance to just make ends meet each month.
The legislation in front of us today would rip these benefits from Susan and her husband, denying them access to healthcare, forcing them to ration their food, and jeopardizing their ability to remain in their home. For what? To line the pockets of the ultrawealthy, to pad the bottom line of corporations already raking in profits.
I offered six commonsense amendments to this bill to safeguard critical programs for people like Susan and so many Oregonians like her. Republicans rejected every single one of my amendments.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, a majority of Americans now say that Donald Trump is doing a bad job at handling the economy. I don't blame them. Prices are going up on everything in large part because of Trump's tariffs. Meanwhile, wages for workers have not kept pace with inflation for decades. Home ownership is slipping out of reach for more and more people.
I will end this debate where we began. Whose side are my Republican colleagues on? Talk is cheap, Madam Speaker. This place runs on hot air from corrupt politicians whose only care in the world is where their next campaign check comes from.
Last night in the Rules Committee, Democrats gave Republicans a chance to show whose side they are on. Every single one of them voted against protecting Medicaid so they could give tax breaks to billionaires. That is how they voted.
Every single one of them voted against protecting the child tax credit so they could give tax cuts to billionaires. Every single one of them voted against protecting food assistance for hungry families so they could give tax breaks to billionaires.
The gentlewoman can claim whatever she wants. The truth is this budget betrays the middle class in favor of tax giveaways for billionaires. It gives trillions in handouts to the ultrawealthy, billionaires, and greedy corporations to the tune of $314,266 each every year for the top 0.1 percent.
That is a bigger giveaway to the ultrarich than most people make in a year. To pay for it, they are stealing from the American people. They are stealing from Americans. They are betraying the people who voted for them. This is the betrayal on a scale I don't think we have ever seen before.
Madam Speaker, I am going to fight to expose it and to stop it. I have said this over and over again. We need tax relief for workers, not the ultrarich. We need to preserve Social Security and Medicare, not gut them to pay for corporate handouts. We should protect Medicaid and food benefits for working families because we know these are programs that people rely on and need when times get tough.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Madam Speaker, despite what Democrats may claim, the American people know the Biden-Harris administration caused enormous damage to our economy, weakened our national security, allowed millions of illegal immigrants and deadly fentanyl to flood across our southern border, and crippled American energy independence. That is exactly why voters rejected their failed leadership in the last election.
Once again, this resolution does not cut a single specific program or benefit. The Democrats are speaking fear, not facts, and saying something over and over again that is false does not make it true. Democrats have told these lies before and were proven wrong.
The Democrats want to continue 4 more years of Bidenomics. We want to put us on a path to prosperity. These are the same people claiming that there is no waste, fraud, or abuse in Washington.
This resolution will begin a process that sets a fiscal framework to meet the agenda the American people demanded in November.
Let's talk about some of their claims, that this is a handout to billionaires. It is their party that abandoned the middle class by spending like crazy. Not extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts would be the ultimate betrayal of the middle class. The average taxpayer in my district, in the Ninth District of Indiana, would see a 26 percent tax hike if the tax cuts the Democrats oppose expire.
A family of four making $67,000, the median income in my district, would be a $1,289 tax increase. More than 6 million people were lifted out of poverty under Republican tax reform, dropping the poverty rate to 10.5 percent, the lowest in U.S. history.
They claim this budget slashes food assistance. This resolution makes no changes to current law, no cuts in benefits, zero.
They claim costs will go up. We will reverse Biden's spending spree and bend the curve on mandatory spending that is driving our debt.
Inflation skyrocketed 21 percent under the Biden administration. That is why 77 million Americans voted for President Trump, to fix the economy and rein in Washington's waste, fraud, abuse, and reckless spending.
Let's go with facts, not fear. This resolution doesn't say the words ``SNAP'' or ``Medicaid'' or ``school lunch'' once.
We are cutting waste, fraud, and abuse for people who are here legally. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act helped people get off SNAP, which is a good thing. A GAO report last year showed improper payments could be costing the Federal Government more than $500 billion annually.
I am not here to fight with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I am here to fight on behalf of the American people, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do.
In the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, my friends want to scare the American people into thinking that this is a tax cut for billionaires to detract from the fact that the 2017 tax cuts under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act have been extremely successful.
Let's look at what has made it a success. By every conceivable measure, American workers and the economy were better off. Americans earned bigger paychecks, unemployment for every group was at a historic low, and poverty dropped to its lowest level in history.
The 2017 Trump tax cuts lowered tax rates for all Americans. In fact, the lowest earning individuals gained the most benefit. The bottom 20 percent of earners, those with incomes up to $26,000, saw their Federal tax rate fall to the lowest point in 40 years.
Earnings under $100,000 received an average cut of 16 percent, while the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent increased. This is not simply a tax cut for the rich.
Finally, if these tax cuts expire, it will devastate our Nation's families, workers, and small business owners. The average taxpayer would see a 22 percent tax hike, meaning on average they will pay $1,695 more in taxes; 40 million families will see their child tax credit cut in half; and 26 million small businesses would be hit with a 43.4 percent top tax rate. This is over 20 points higher than what businesses pay in Communist China.
Because of House Republicans and President Trump, American workers enjoyed the fastest wage growth in a decade. This spread to Americans across the income distribution with lower-wage workers experiencing 50 percent higher wage growth than high-income workers. Higher wages led to a rapid growth in household income. Just 2 years after enactment of the tax cuts, real median household income rose by over $5,000.
In total, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's pro-growth policies helped contribute to 3 percent growth in 2018 and 2.6 percent growth in 2019, well above CBO's pre-Tax Cuts and Jobs Act projections of 2.2 percent and 1.7 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, we have seen what Bidenflation has cost American families.
Again, this budget resolution does not cut a single specific program or benefit. The budget resolution sets a framework. It is a first step toward delivering on the America First agenda and getting our country back on track.
We will secure our border. We will rebuild the American economy. We will unleash American energy and safeguard our financial future.
Madam Speaker, 77 million Americans voted for this agenda, and it is our job to deliver on those promises.
I look forward to moving these bills out of the House this week. I ask my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on the previous question and ``yes'' on the rule.
The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:
An Amendment to H. Res. 161 Offered By Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts
Providing for Consideration of H.J. RES. 20, Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted by the Department of Energy Relating to "Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation...
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on ordering the previous question on the resolution (H. Res. 161) providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 20) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Energy relating to ``Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Consumer Gas-fired Instantaneous Water Heaters''; providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 35) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``Waste Emissions Charge for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems: Procedures for Facilitating Compliance, Including Netting and Exemptions''; providing for consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 14) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous question.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 216, nays 210, not voting 7, as follows:
Ms. CROCKETT and Mr. CARSON changed their vote from "yea" to "nay." Messrs. HURD of Colorado and MOOLENAAR changed their vote from "nay" to "yea." So the previous question was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 161 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 14.
The Chair appoints the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack) to preside over the Committee of the Whole.
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 14) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034, with Mr. Womack in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
The CHAIR. Pursuant to the rule, the concurrent resolution is considered read the first time.
General debate shall not exceed 3 hours, with 2 hours confined to the congressional budget, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget or their respective designees and 1 hour on the subject of economic goals and policies equally divided and controlled by the Representative Schweikert of Arizona and Representative Beyer of Virginia or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Boyle) each will control 1 hour of debate on the congressional budget.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington).
Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chair, today, the majority will unlock the policies for making America safe and prosperous again by advancing the FY 2025 budget resolution.
Mr. Chairman, this fiscal framework will guide the process for restoring the fiscal health of our Nation by reining in reckless spending and reigniting economic growth. In addition, it provides critical resources to our Commander in Chief to secure our border, strengthen our military, and provide for the common defense.
For the next 2 hours, Mr. Chairman, my Democratic colleagues are going to reach way back to the only plays they know how to run: making false claims and fear-mongering.
Why? Because they are still, even after the recent election, disconnected from the people's reality because they are more concerned with protecting unionized government bureaucrats and woke and wasteful government programs than they are about protecting taxpayers and their sacred treasure.
Why? Because their commitment isn't to we the people in this fateful moment. It is to we the government and to derailing the mandate from the people for commonsense policies and President Trump's America First agenda.
I am going to take some time to set the record straight, Mr. Chairman, so that every time the American people hear these false claims to mislead them into thinking that the tax cuts somehow benefited the billionaires and corporations and that Republicans are cutting benefits for seniors and the poorest among us, I want the American people to know the truth. Here is the truth: The Trump tax cuts lower tax rates for every American household at every income level while increasing the amount of taxes paid by the top 1 percent.
According to The Washington Post--which, by the way, gave Democrats not one, not two, not three, but four Pinocchios every time they made these misleading claims--$3 of every $4 in the Trump tax cuts didn't go to corporations but to individuals, cutting taxes for the lowest income individuals by 10 percent while cutting taxes for the top 1 percent of income earners by less than one-half of 1 percent.
In addition, we saw a record 25-year wage increase for median household incomes. Real wages in the bottom 10 percent rose two times faster than the top 10 percent. Real wealth at the bottom half of households rose three times faster than that of the top half of our country.
A record 6 million people were lifted out of poverty. Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American citizens experienced historic high incomes and all-time low unemployment.
Here is the reality, Mr. Chairman: Our Democratic colleagues opposed the American people's tax cuts back in 2017, and they oppose their tax cuts today.
If they were successful in this endeavor, here is what would happen. We would have a 22 percent tax hike on every American citizen, on average, when they just suffered through a 21 percent tax hike from the inflation tax over the last 4 years and the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history. Median-income families would lose $1,700. Twenty-six million small businesses would pay at the highest marginal rate and lose the 20 percent deduction, putting them on a comparable level to corporate tax rates. Forty million families would have the child tax credits for their children cut in half. Ninety-one percent of the American people who get the standard deduction would have that cut in half.
Those are the results of the Democrats standing in the way of what would be, if they were successful, the highest tax hike in American history.
Here is the other false claim. To pay for these tax cuts, the Democrats are going to say that Republicans are cutting benefits for seniors and for, again, our poorest and most vulnerable among us. Here is the truth, Mr. Chairman: Republicans are fighting to rightsize a woke, weaponized, and bloated bureaucracy; to root out the trillions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse; and to rein in the reckless spending of the Biden administration and our Democratic colleagues from over the last 4 years.
Prior to 2019, before President Biden took office and he and the Democrats jammed $2 trillion through in the so-called COVID relief, even though maybe 10, 20 percent of that money actually went for the purposes of COVID relief, our budget back then was $4.5 trillion. Today, it is $7 trillion.
With the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, they gave away $700 billion in tax credits to green energy corporations. They expanded ObamaCare subsidies to people making more than half a million dollars, many of whom already had employer-sponsored healthcare. They expanded the IRS to 80,000 new IRS agents tasked with shaking down mostly middle-class people and small businesses.
With the stroke of a pen, President Biden wasted $2 trillion unilaterally of taxpayer money by opening up our taxpayer-funded welfare services to people in this country illegally; waived work requirements for means-tested welfare programs, from SNAP to Medicaid and beyond, trapping people in poverty and dependence on the Federal Government; mandated expensive and unreliable electric vehicles for all Americans; and a whole lot more.
In fact, we are spending $9,000 per illegal immigrant in this country for the millions of people who violated our sovereignty and came to this country in violation of our immigration laws. Mr. Chairman, $9,000 is what taxpayers pay for people who are here illegally for taxpayer- funded social services. That is more than we spend on the most vulnerable Americans for Medicaid. That is more than we spend collectively for our veterans' military retirement. President Biden weakened government program integrity, allowing people who aren't eligible for Medicaid and other programs to receive benefits.
Case in point, we used to review the Medicaid rolls twice a year to make sure people who were on the rolls were those who were most vulnerable and those who qualified according to the law. That was revoked by the Biden administration. They only did it once a year. If we changed it back, we would eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse and save $160 billion of taxpayer money.
President Biden implemented unconstitutional and regressive student loan bailouts, forcing working Americans to subsidize the upper-middle class, law
We have an unprecedented opportunity, Mr. Chairman. My fellow Republicans and I have a sacred obligation at this moment to meet this moment with the urgency it demands.
Now more than ever is the time for Republicans in Congress to demonstrate the courage of their convictions and take bold action in this historic moment. Let's save this country, save our children's future, and save us from wrecking the greatest economy in the world and jeopardizing our national security and our leadership in the world.
The world is counting on a safe, strong, and free America, and I believe that this bill encapsulates the policies that are going to restore America's greatness.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I should be quite clear about what this is really about. This budget represents a Republican betrayal of the middle class, and I am proud to rise to oppose it.
Here is what is at stake. My friends on the other side of the aisle want to deliver $4.5 trillion of tax cuts, almost all of which go to the richest 1 percent of Americans. How do they pay for it? How do they pay for that $4.5 trillion in tax cuts?
First, at least $880 billion is from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Those cuts from Medicaid, by the way, represent the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history. Seventy-two million Americans get their healthcare from Medicaid. I am mostly talking about seniors, children, and those with disabilities. Another 20 million Americans get their healthcare from the ACA. Combined, I am talking about 92 million Americans whose healthcare is at risk. Why? All to deliver tax cuts to billionaires.
Now, we have a math problem because even with the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, we don't get anywhere close to $4.5 trillion. How do they finance the rest of it? We have more cuts, hundreds of billions more in cuts to education programs like school lunches, Head Start, and student loan repayment. There are also $230 billion in cuts to nutrition assistance at a time when grocery prices are at record highs.
All told, that gets you to at least $1.5 trillion. Remember, the size of the tax cuts is $4.5 trillion, and they want to add some more spending on top of that. What do they do to make up the difference? Increase the national debt by $4 trillion, a massive increase to our national debt from the same crowd that for the last 4 years has done nothing but shed crocodile tears about the size of our national debt.
Mr. Chair, you can always tell when there is a Democrat in the White House because that is when the other side cares about the size of the national debt, but when there is a Republican President, a Republican House, a Republican Senate, the top priority is always tax cuts for the top 1 percent.
A budget isn't just numbers on a spreadsheet. It is a reflection of our values. It is a reflection of what kind of country we are and want to be.
This past November, there was a lot of campaigning going on around this country, and especially in my State, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. After all, we are the biggest battleground State in the Nation. A lot of promises were made on both sides. A lot of it was about reducing costs for ordinary Americans.
Not once, ever, in that campaign did I ever hear the other side say: We are going to cut Medicaid to the tune of $880 billion, the biggest cuts to Medicaid in American history. In fact, we have a President who said: I will love and cherish Medicaid. Then a few hours later, he endorsed the House Republican plan that slashes Medicaid to the tune of $880 billion. When this President promises to love and cherish something, watch your wallets.
I think the American people are going to figure out what this is about. It is right there in black and white. The $880 billion I talked about, it is right there in their 58-page resolution. The $4 trillion increase in debt is right there in black and white in their resolution. No amount of spinning will get you away from that simple reality. This is cutting healthcare and all sorts of programs for the American people in order to deliver tax cuts for billionaires who don't need it.
I urge every Member in this House to oppose this reckless and unfair plan.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
What you won't hear from my Democratic colleagues is any mention of the half a trillion dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program that jeopardizes that program for the most vulnerable Americans and does a disservice to every taxpayer in this great country of ours.
By the way, when I hear the words ``betrayal of the middle class,'' what comes to mind is the unbridled spending and the failed economic policies that gave us the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history. A whole lot of people suffered under that 21 percent inflation tax, and a whole lot more people would suffer under a 22 percent tax increase if they were successful in killing the American people's tax cuts.
Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smucker), my friend, the vice chair of the Budget Committee, and a key architect, I would say, of this budget blueprint.
Mr. Chair, we have heard how this budget resolution will deliver tax relief to working and middle-class families. It will put a stop to crime and drugs flooding over our southern border, and it will jump-start the American economy. This is exactly what the American people are looking for today.
Unfortunately, we have also heard a lot of falsehoods from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and so I would like to set the record straight.
The House Republican budget resolution will stop a 22 percent tax hike for the average taxpayer. It will put $1,700 back into the pockets of a median family of four and will prevent the child tax credit from being cut in half for 40 million families. This bill doesn't take from the working class. It puts money in their pockets.
While my colleagues on the other side try to drown out these facts with tired talking points and fear-mongering, let's ask the American people directly: How does a 22 percent tax hike help them pay their bills? How does taking $1,700 out of the pockets of families and cutting the child tax credit help them raise their kids?
Mr. Chair, it doesn't. Republicans are working to stop those tax hikes by passing this budget resolution.
President Trump was elected by the working class, and this budget will deliver on the promises he made to them. I am very proud to support this budget resolution and urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''
Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to this Republican budget resolution.
Make no mistake about it, this budget will lead to millions of Americans losing their healthcare coverage, all so Republicans can give giant tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. The only group that wants these tax breaks is Wall Street, not the average American.
Mr. Chair, if Republicans pass this resolution today, we will be forced to cut a minimum of nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, our Nation's largest healthcare program.
For those who are saying that somehow the Medicaid program has a lot of waste, let me remind us that Medicaid is the leanest Federal healthcare program. Every independent study says
The consequences of these cuts will be devastating. Medicaid provides healthcare to one in three Americans, nearly half of the children in the United States, and it is the largest source of funding for nursing homes for seniors and people living with disabilities.
This is a lifesaving program for 80 million Americans. They count on it every day. Yet, today, House Republicans are unnecessarily rushing forward with a budget resolution that will impose the largest healthcare cuts in our Nation's history.
Millions of people will lose their healthcare, but that is just the beginning. Healthcare prices will sharply rise. Hospitals, particularly those in underserved and rural communities, will be forced to close-- so, too, will nursing homes. Seniors will lose the care that they rely on, and doctors and nurses will be laid off. Emergency rooms will once again be overflowing, as people are forced to delay care until absolutely necessary. States will be bankrupted and forced to make painful cuts to important healthcare services. This is the reality, not what the Republicans are telling you.
Mr. Chair, it doesn't have to be this way. If just a few of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle take a stand today, we can stop this from happening.
I implore my Republican colleagues to think about the harm, the devastating harm that will be done to their communities if this budget resolution is adopted. Stand up. I urge my colleagues to think twice and vote ``no.''
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Moore), former speaker of the house of the Tar Heel State and a Budget Committee member.
Mr. Chair, last November the American people said enough is enough. They are tired of government waste. They are tired of rising prices, and they are tired of the policies of the last administration.
This budget is a critical step forward toward reining in out-of- control Federal spending. To be clear, this resolution has no provisions that make cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. Mr. Chair, I would tell those folks watching at home to read the bill. It is not in there.
When Democrats vote against this today, they are voting to raise the average family of four's taxes by nearly $1,700. They are voting to raise taxes on small businesses. They are voting for open borders. They are voting for higher energy costs.
I am proud to have worked with my fellow House Budget Committee members on this bill as well as the chairman, who has done an amazing job on this. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this important measure.
Mr. Chair, well, the looting is underway. Our colleagues are running the same failed playbook of trickle-down handouts. My friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smucker) said the family of four is going to get $1,700. Look at the tax distribution tables and see what billionaires are going to get in this. That is the real issue that is in front of us on this occasion. Let me go to another point that I think is fascinating. DOGE is rummaging through your private records even as we speak.
How about the following? Imagine what the Republican reaction would have been if Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden said, we are going to borrow $4 trillion more for these tax cuts for the wealthiest amongst us?
Don't kid yourself. Medicaid--71 million Americans--Medicare, Social Security, the American people depend upon these programs.
I am stunned that Republicans would borrow $4 billion to justify tax cuts for the wealthiest amongst us. By the way, these people aren't even asking for those tax cuts. The cuts will affect every part of American life, including those who need basic sustenance every day. We have the $4 trillion, but look at the alignment: $1.23 trillion here for cuts, but $1.2 trillion for tax cuts. Oh, let me figure that one out. They are going to cut Medicaid to justify what it is that they want to do.
There is no reason why billionaires should be getting a massive tax cut. It is totally unnecessary. In the end, that is what this legislation is about, despite their protestations. It provides $1,700 for a family of four, but tens of millions of dollars for billionaires. That is where these tax cuts are going.
I want you also to understand this: The people are watching. We are going to defend Medicare and Medicaid, and we are going to defend all of these entities that have made a difference in American life for average people every single day.
Let me close on this note: My father had a great saying. He used to say: Jesse James at least had the respect to wear a mask. They should be wearing masks for what they are doing today.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Estes), another Budget Committee member who had a hand in developing this fiscal framework.
Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support for starting the process to pass one big, beautiful bill for America.
For 4 years, Americans suffered from an open border, crippling inflation, massive Federal spending, and burdensome regulations. On top of that, we are on the verge of increased taxes for families, workers, and small businesses if we fail to act. Our mandate is to restore and secure our Nation, both physically and financially.
It is critical that we pass a bill that enables us to address all of these priorities, including an extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In my home State, Kansans will see an average of a $2,200 increase in their taxes if we don't act now and we allow the Trump tax cuts to expire.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have made false claims that this budget resolution will cut Social Security. As chairman of the Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, I emphasize with the strongest terms possible that this budget resolution does not do a single thing to cut Social Security. In fact, Social Security cannot be amended in the budget reconciliation process. The Byrd rule prevents the consideration of any reconciliation measure in the Senate that changes the Social Security program.
Mr. Chair, I support today's budget resolution as a next step in advancing America First policies.
Mr. Chair, the gentleman from Kansas is right, it is a big, beautiful bill for billionaires. I would also remind the gentleman that this bill would put 410,000 people in his State of Kansas at risk of losing Medicaid.
I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Commonwealth of Virginia (Mr. Scott), the ranking member of the Education and Workforce Committee, also a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.
Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this resolution. It is, frankly, hard to take my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seriously when they come up here and give speech after speech complaining about the deficit, and then support this resolution that, what, increases the deficit.
Let's start with some facts. Every single Democratic President since Kennedy has left for their Republican successors a better deficit situation than they inherited, and every Republican President since Nixon has left a worse deficit situation than the one they inherited, all without exception.
Here we are again. A Republican President following a Democratic President, and the Republicans are set to increase the deficit and national debt, just like clockwork. Democrats have been finding solutions and cleaning up Republican messes for six decades, and thanks to Republican tax cuts for corporations and the top 1 percent, they added over $7 trillion to the national debt during Trump's first term, and here we go again. Help billionaires run up the debt and make everybody else pay.
As ranking member of the Committee on Education and Workforce, I am particularly outraged that Republicans want to fund these tax cuts for
There is nothing economically responsible about this budget because it increases the deficit. It helps billionaires, but working families and the middle class will pay the price.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for the opportunity to speak.
One of America's most famous sons, Will Rogers, once said: ``It costs ten times more to govern us than it used to and we are not governed one-tenth as good.''
That was in 1932. I can only imagine what he would say today. That is why this vote is so important. It moves us closer to delivering on the mandate the American people overwhelmingly demanded in November.
We are on an unsustainable path, and every Member of this body knows it. This budget resolution commits us to investing in strong border security and strengthening our national defense. It directs committees to find ways to make the President's tax agenda permanent. It paves the way to unleash American energy production.
The budget resolution calls for historic spending cuts as Congress works with the President to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, something that every single one of us, regardless of party, should applaud, all in one, big, beautiful bill.
Failure to unite on this vote may very well result in breaking up the President's agenda. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.'' Together we can build a stronger, more prosperous America before it is too late.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this resolution that prioritizes tax cuts for billionaires over the well-being of hardworking American families and the livelihood of our Nation's farmers.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is our Nation's most effective antipoverty tool and a key part of the farm bill which Republicans want to cut by $230 billion. This would cause millions of hardworking Americans to suffer, including some of the most vulnerable in our communities: children, seniors, and the disabled.
Decimating SNAP in this way would break up the coalition that is critical to passing a bipartisan farm bill and hurts the entire food supply chain when times are tough in farm country and in many communities, especially rural communities across this country.
Right now, as people across our Nation are struggling with the high cost of groceries, SNAP helps American families keep food on the table. Let's be clear about what we are talking about. It is $6 a day for people in need. It is six bucks to those who qualify. SNAP reduces childhood poverty, improves health outcomes, and generates hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout the food supply chain.
When we spend $1 on food, we aren't just paying for the food in carts. We are helping to pay for the salary of the grocery store clerk who stocked the shelves, the trucker who delivered the food to the store, the manufacturer who produced the packaging, and the farmer who grew it.
The future of a bipartisan farm bill, which our farmers desperately need, is in Republican hands today. If they cut SNAP to pay for tax cuts or the wealthy donors, it is on them.
Mr. Speaker, back in November the American people issued a resounding rejection of the profligate policies of the Biden-Harris administration that existed over the past 4 years by electing President Donald Trump.
In the first month of his new administration, President Trump has answered this election mandate, signing executive orders aimed at securing our Nation's borders, unleashing domestic energy production, and rooting out the waste, fraud, and abuse that was left over as the final remnants of Biden's failed legacy.
However, the President cannot achieve all of these policy objectives alone. He needs Congress. It will take those of us in the House and Senate, concerned about addressing our fiscal irresponsibility the last 4 years and working together in a unified fashion, to pass a reconciliation package that is set in motion by today's budget resolution. It will give this administration the tools they need to succeed in fulfilling their election mandate.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this budget as we work to deliver real savings for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, this is the Republican wreckonciliation because it makes a wreck of our Nation's finances and it makes a wreck of the lives of so many of our fellow Americans.
Republicans are so very troubled about our Nation's debt that they want to add trillions more to it. In fact, according to the bipartisan Citizens for a Responsible Federal Budget, they want to make it bigger by about $4 trillion deeper in debt.
Elon Musk's DOGE--it is dodge also--is a sideshow for a multi-ring circus of deception and lies designed to create the illusion that billions are being saved from waste, fraud, and abuse when DOGE itself is the abuse.
Even with these fake savings, the insatiable demand of these Republicans for additional billionaire tax breaks requires denying opportunities to middle-class families; denying access to a family physician, first by slashing hundreds of millions from Medicaid for which Trump professes to love and cherish; wrecking Medicaid which pays for half the babies born at Seton hospital in Austin and half the children that go to the Children's Hospital there.
Millions of Americans will lose health protection, and millions more will lose educational opportunity. For those who are facing a dreaded disease like cancer, Republicans are cutting innovative medical research in the hope for a cure. With the looming threat of a flu pandemic, there would be a 40 percent cut of staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC. All of this represents more Republican broken promises.
Remember last month when Trump was going to drastically bring down grocery prices? The only thing that is drastic is the pain of this Republican budget. Now Trump tells us we will have a golden age in America. With this budget imposing so many burdens on our finances, the sick, the hungry, and students, we see who gets the gold. It is those billionaires that were on the front seat of his inauguration as working families are betrayed.
Mr. Speaker, I wonder when my Democrat colleagues will direct their indignation and outrage to the fact that DOGE and our friend, Elon Musk, has exposed tremendous, outrageous, and utterly offensive waste like transgender operas in Colombia, DEI musicals in Ireland, transgender comic books, and $20 million on ``Sesame Street.'' I would only have to assume my Democrat colleagues think that is the way to find peace in the Middle East. It is insane, and it is offensive to the taxpayers. You will never hear a single word about that in this debate today.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman).
Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding the time.
Mr. Speaker, it is crucial we are clear about the focus of today's debate. Our aim is not to remove vulnerable Americans from the government assistance programs they and their families depends on. On the contrary, we are focused on strengthening the integrity of these programs to ensure that taxpayer dollars are directed to those who genuinely need them.
In the past decade, Medicaid has accounted for over $550 billion, with a b, in improper payments, making it one of the government's largest sources of payment errors. It would be irresponsible and a betrayal of our fiduciary duty to American taxpayers not to make a focused effort to recover these misused funds and redirect them to those who need them the most.
With that said, it is essential these efforts are made with a careful approach that avoids unintended consequences for vulnerable Americans and providers.
As my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee begin their critical efforts, I urge them to keep this top of mind. I urge all my colleagues to support this good resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman that this bill would put 2.4 million people in Michigan at risk of losing Medicaid.
Mr. Speaker, let's be clear. That is what this debate is about. The other side is great at trying to distract you, holding up the shiny object of a few outlandish stories about tens of thousands of dollars to distract you from the trillions of dollars that are at stake. One in three Americans get their healthcare from Medicaid. That is at risk because of this proposal, and don't forget it. We can't allow ourselves to get distracted.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Peters), my colleague and friend on the Budget Committee.
Mr. Speaker, our national debt is more than $36 trillion. We borrow nearly $2 trillion every year just to pay our expenses. We spend more in interest payments now than we do on Medicaid, schools, childcare, and the national defense.
Republicans have raised the alarm about this deficit, but this budget actually makes the debt and deficit much worse. They say we have a spending problem. Then cut annual spending to a level that is covered by our revenues and stop the deficits. That is not what they are doing here.
They will make big cuts to healthcare, air traffic controllers, cybersecurity, and the people who fight wildfires. They will not use those savings to cut deficits. They will use those savings to pay for tax cuts for people who don't need them.
America doesn't have a spending problem. We have a borrowing problem. This budget would lead to more borrowing we can't afford. It would limit our ability to borrow money when we do need it and when there is a future urgent need.
Today, the economy has low unemployment and high interest rates. This is the exact wrong time to blow up the debt. This bill will add between $4 trillion and $11 trillion to the debt, which will increase interest rates, raise prices, and keep inflation high. Our kids are going to pick up the bill. Don't vote for this self-inflicted harm.
Mr. Speaker, I work with many of my Republican colleagues as co-chair of the Bipartisan Fiscal Forum on controlling the debt and deficit. I know some are sitting here, quietly agreeing with me. I know personally how hard it is to buck your party. When Democrats held the House, the Senate, and the White House, I voted ``no'' on our reconciliation budget to get a better product. It was very unpopular, but I held my ground. People at home knew I was standing up for them. We got a better product, and they sent me back.
We work with Presidents. We don't report to them. We report to our constituents as independently elected Members of Congress who were elected on the exact same day as Donald Trump.
Mr. Speaker, our colleagues should do their job. They know better, and I ask them to vote ``no.''
Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Arrington for his leadership throughout this process.
Mr. Speaker, President Trump delivered historic results. He is securing our border, restoring common sense, lowering costs, and reestablishing America's strength in the world. He is stopping our tax dollars from funding woke, perverted projects that the other side of the aisle seeks to push.
Today, 60 percent of American taxpayers are facing rising taxes and uncertainty. To address these challenges, this resolution provides for the extension of the Trump tax cuts, funds the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, and cuts at least $1.5 trillion in waste, fraud, and abuse from our Federal budget.
This is something that should receive bipartisan support. Our commitment to fiscal discipline is clear. Conservatives on the Budget Committee added a provision that incentivizes a total of $2 trillion in reductions.
Mr. Speaker, the American people are begging for Washington to unlock the Trump agenda, which this bill does. They gave us a mandate to save this country, and I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for the opportunity to speak. I thank him for his great work.
Mr. Speaker, budgets are about choices for the American people. If we look at what is happening with this current budget, it is a bonanza for billionaires. We live in a moment in our country when 1 percent of our population, the very top, hold as much wealth as the bottom half of our country. One percent of the top, the billionaires and millionaires, hold more wealth than the bottom half of our people. It is an astounding moment in which we are living.
The very top are not paying their fair share, and everybody in America knows it, including them. How many more mansions do we need to see that take up acres and acres? How many yachts do these people actually need? Some of the old movies about ``Goldfinger'' and all come to mind. Some people seem to like gold a whole lot in this country.
If the tax cuts that are proposed in this bill offer a few hundred dollars to people who live in the bottom half of our country, which is most of the people that I represent, the bottom half of incomes, the people at the top are going to get hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars back. I say to myself: Do they have any conscience about what is happening in their country? To take away the healthcare, Medicare, Medicaid, the cuts that Republicans are proposing, you will cause death in this country.
To me, what is happening here is shameless. Here is the chart. If we look back at who caused the debt in our country, wow. It is pretty obvious. If we go back to the Reagan Presidency, all you are doing is just repeating what happened. They added $2 trillion. Then the Bush II tax cuts added $8 trillion. The Trump tax cuts are already over $2.5 trillion.
The CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
The Afghan and Iraq wars declared by Republican Presidents added $8 trillion. If you look at this, two-thirds of what we owe were caused by the Republican side of the aisle. I represent a lot of Republicans, and I will tell you they are honest people and they will pay their taxes, but they don't like this excess. It is hurting America. The Republican budget is just a bonanza for billionaires. Shame on you.
The CHAIR. Members are reminded to direct their comments to the Chair.
Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of the House Budget Committee's FY25 budget resolution which advances President Trump's America First agenda by unlocking the budget reconciliation process to achieve the President's priorities and restore fiscal sanity in Washington.
This budget resolution paves the way to extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by President Trump in 2017, which fueled historic economic growth and raised real wages. This resolution also provides instructions to reverse Biden's assault on domestic energy, rein in reckless spending, and deliver critical resources to the Trump administration so we can secure our border and strengthen our national security.
Finally, I want to address the fear-mongering among our Democrat colleagues. This budget resolution does not cut benefits for any legitimate recipient of Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. I challenge anyone to find a single provision in this 45-page resolution that cuts benefits because they can't. This resolution simply sets a budget framework so we can deal with the incredible fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid to stabilize and preserve it for those who really need it.
Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Since the gentleman asked the question, I am happy to answer it. Right there in the bill, $880 billion directed to the Energy and Commerce Committee as a floor to find savings. In other words, for cuts. There is only one place that can come from. Literally, if they cut 100 percent of everything else Energy and Commerce has purview over, it would still leave them hundreds of billions of dollars short. It has to come from Medicaid. It has to come from the ACA premiums because much like when Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks, he replied: Because that is where the money is.
Likewise, in terms of the Energy and Commerce cuts, the $880 billion has to come from Medicaid because that is the only place you can find $880 billion. Don't be fooled by their rhetorical tricks.
Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.
Mr. Chair, I am standing in opposition. During their campaigns, Donald Trump and my Republican colleagues promised to get to work to lowering prices for the American people. This budget is a betrayal of that promise. It is a betrayal of millions of our children, our parents, and our seniors. It is a betrayal of the one- third of New Jersey children who rely on Medicaid. It is a betrayal of the one-third of new mothers who count on Medicaid for their prenatal care. It is a betrayal of 6 in 10 New Jersey seniors living in nursing homes. It is a rip-off of New Jersey taxpayers as Republicans have prioritized tax cuts for their billionaire donors over the lives of everyday citizens who will suffer under this new budget.
My neighbor, Tom Kean, has over 70,000 Medicaid recipients, including over 27,000 children. Does Congressman Van Drew from New Jersey know a vote for this budget means abandoning 177,000 of his residents for the billionaire class? Does Congressman Chris Smith know that there are 178,000 Medicaid recipients in his district, including nearly 100,000 children who will be cut and will lose their coverage simply to enrich Trump's billionaire friends?
A few weeks ago, I offered an amendment in the Budget Committee to eliminate these disastrous cuts. Not a single Republican gave me a vote on this issue. Last night, I offered the same amendment to the Rules Committee, and we had the same outcome. There was not one Republican vote. I only hope that there are at least a few of my Republican colleagues today who have the courage and the humanity to stand up for their most vulnerable constituents and to vote ``no.'' I urge a ``no'' vote here.
Mr. Chair, this budget resolution begins the process of delivering on President Trump's agenda, and that agenda is clear. It is securing the border. It is unleashing economic growth. It is providing efficiency and accountability in government. It is reining in reckless spending that spurred record inflation.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to talk about the harmful provisions within this resolution. In reality, this is the beginning of the process. It is the beginning of a course correction as desperately needed following 4 years of policy that placed America in a position of excess and decline.
Speaking of excess, since President Trump's first term, increased enrollment and exploitation of the 2018 farm bill by the Biden administration ballooned the annual spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by 66 percent at a total cost of $256 billion, leaving workers on the sidelines while small businesses paying record wages struggle to find help.
This egregious executive overreach not only violated the Congressional Review Act but likely reduced the fraction of people participating in the workforce and contributed to inflation.
Mr. Chair, we must meet the vital supplemental food needs of Americans that Congress committed to fulfill through SNAP, and we will. We cannot allow excess or lack of accountability within the bureaucracy, though, to compromise fulfilling that obligation.
Thoughtful policies that recognize the value of work, hold states accountable, promote program integrity, and in the long run protect the safety net for those Americans who truly need it should be our priority.
At the same time, we must use this process to advance the needs of the farm economy. We cannot leave our most ardent supporters in rural America without new resources and empty-handed for a third year.
House Republicans have a mandate to restore America's faith in government and we will protect hardworking taxpayers, preventing the largest tax increase in American history. We will provide for the neediest among us while simultaneously delivering a foundation for economic growth and prosperity.
Mr. Chair, let us ensure America is once again the land of opportunity and thriving communities. Passage of this resolution is one step in that process.
Mr. Chair, I remind my friend and fellow Pennsylvanian who just spoke, this resolution would put 3.1 million people in our beloved Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at risk of losing Medicaid.
Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.
Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this budget. We know that a budget is a statement of values. In simple terms, you put your money where your mouth is. The money my Republican colleagues are getting right now is going to the class that they are beholden to, the uberwealthy.
The bulk of those cost savings come from slashing Medicaid funding, which ensures that 70 million Americans, and funds from the Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP, where another 10 million American children are helped. Those savings they are getting are being created so that they can then give that money, give those savings, to the ultrarich.
Twenty percent of the population in the Virgin Islands are at risk of losing their healthcare under this budget. Veterans, children, working families who are barely making it, rely on this.
Mr. Chair, right here, right now, Republicans are trying to steal healthcare from 80 million people, and they are heading to the bank as millions of Americans are left helpless. What is happening? What is going on?
Republicans are intentionally targeting grandmothers, targeting children, and targeting veterans that live in your neighborhood. Mr. Chair, they are going to throw some peanuts, a couple of hundred bucks, at each one of us and tell us that you are getting some taxes back. That is the amount of money that the very wealthy are getting. An average of $314,000 is going to them at the expense of the American people.
Speaking of fraud, waste, and abuse, they are going to tell you they are using that money to get rid of illegals. They are going to tell you that they are going to try and dramatically change the landscape. No. They are only changing the landscape for those individuals that they are beholden to--$2 trillion of cuts for $4 trillion of money that is going into the pockets of individuals that they are beholden to. That is what is happening. I am disappointed, but I am not surprised that the Republicans have used this process to satisfy the people that they are most beholden to. Americans must stand up.
Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Arrington for yielding.
Mr. Chair, 4 years ago, President Trump left Joe Biden a blueprint for success, and then Democrats proceeded to open our borders, undermine American energy, and spend trillions of dollars on handouts to the wealthy.
They created the highest inflation in 40 years that made it impossible for working families to survive. That is why the American people sent Donald Trump back to the White House with a mandate. Now it is up to Congress to deliver on that mandate, to make our economy work again for working families.
The economy isn't just numbers on a chart. It is the farmer who wakes up at 4 a.m., the mom or dad working two jobs just to get by, the shop owner figuring out how to keep the store lights on, and the truck driver working overtime.
Mr. Chair, let me be clear, a vote against this budget is a vote to raise taxes on low-income Americans. Mr. Chair, $2.6 trillion of the tax cuts in this resolution are people making less than $400,000 a year. Democrats campaigned on not allowing taxes to increase on people making less than $400,000 a year. Let us see if their voting cards show up. Extending the Trump tax cuts will give the lowest income families a tax cut of 15 percent, the highest of any income group.
On the other hand, failing to extend these tax cuts means the average taxpayer will see a 22 percent tax hike.
The average family of four making $80,000 a year will see their taxes go up almost $1,700. That is 2 months' worth of groceries.
Americans need certainty that relief is on the way. Workers need certainty that their taxes won't go up.
Mr. Chair, 26 million small businesses need certainty that their tax rates won't rise to 43 percent in a few short months so that they can focus on investing and hiring more workers.
Mr. Chair, 2 million family-owned farms need certainty that they won't be forced to sell their farm to pay an increased death tax. They need to know right now if they should be contacting an estate planner for the massive tax hike that is coming.
Parents need certainty that their guaranteed deduction of $30,000 won't be cut in half and that their child tax credit won't be slashed from $2,000 to $1,000.
Following passage of the Trump tax cuts, wages increased by 4.9 percent, the fastest 2-year growth in real wages in 20 years. Mr. Chair, 5 million new jobs were created. More than 6 million people were lifted out of poverty. Real median household income rose by $5,000. The economy grew a full percentage point higher than CBO's initial forecast, and revenues have remained steady at 17 percent of GDP.
Building on President Trump's tax cuts will deliver a new golden age of prosperity: over 1 million new small business jobs each year, $284 billion in economic growth for more manufacturing, and billions in new investments to revitalize our poorest neighborhoods.
We will reignite our economy with a return of policies like 100 percent immediate expensing and incentives to make sure R&D is happening here and not being outsourced around the globe.
We will deliver on President Trump's commitment to tax relief for tipped workers, help for seniors struggling
President Trump's policies will spark an economic recovery, and that recovery starts by passing this budget so we can send one big, beautiful bill to President Trump's desk.
Mr. Chair, I thank the ranking member for yielding me time.
Let's talk about what is really happening here today. Housing costs are up. Groceries are up. Inflation is up. Donald Trump is threatening more tariffs, which means our costs will continue to go up. It is no wonder that the bond market is flashing a warning sign about slowing economic growth under Donald Trump.
My Republican colleagues, instead of working with us to lower costs, what are they doing? They are working to give billionaires massive tax breaks, and they will do that by making life costlier for everyone else.
In fact, this budget bill that will be on the floor today will have enormous consequences. It will make America poorer, sicker, and hungrier. It will close hospitals and clinics. It will kick seniors out of nursing homes. It ends support for Americans with disabilities. It will double healthcare costs and more.
That is just the Medicaid portion of it. In Texas, in my State, over 4 million Texans stand to lose with the cuts that my Republican colleagues will implement that this bill would unlock with cuts to Medicaid.
It is not just that. It gets worse. This budget bill would explode the national debt. Why? So that billionaires can have another yacht, another luxury home, another jet?
It doesn't have to be this way. We just need some of our Republican colleagues to stand with us and vote to protect the American people, reject these billionaire tax breaks, reject the harm that it will do to their constituents and ours, and protect the American people.
Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of the fiscal year 2025 budget resolution.
My constituents know firsthand how the failed policies of the left resulted in increased grocery and energy bills, opened our borders, imperiled our national security, accelerated our debt, and made it next to impossible to build and use our natural resources here at home, making us dependent on our adversaries.
This budget creates a blueprint to deliver on the promises we made to the American people: righting the wrongs of the past, unleashing America's energy potential, and implementing the full America First agenda.
Advancing the budget resolution opens the door for the budget reconciliation process. It will allow committees to begin our work on the nuts and bolts of budget reconciliation, implementing savings across government and harnessing our biggest revenue generators, such as domestic energy production.
By unlocking access to our energy and mineral reserves, actively managing our forests, streamlining burdensome permitting processes, and repealing wasteful IRA spending, we will deliver a responsible reconciliation bill that builds the wealth of our Nation.
As a former member of the House Budget Committee, I appreciate the budget process and have great respect for Chairman Arrington and his staff in getting this budget resolution to the House floor.
Mr. Chair, while our colleagues across the aisle are using made-up numbers that have no basis or substance as a scare tactic on the American people, I can say, as a former State legislator, and I am happy to remind my colleagues across the aisle that Medicaid is a State and Federal program. Not a single person will lose Medicaid coverage unless their State makes that choice.
Mr. Chair, this resolution has my full support, and I encourage my colleagues to vote for it.
Mr. Chair, I would remind the gentleman that this big, beautiful bill for billionaires would put 820,000 people in Arkansas at risk of losing Medicaid.
Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), the Democratic leader of the House and my friend.
Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong opposition to the reckless Republican budget, which is a betrayal of working-class Americans, middle-class Americans, children, seniors, and everyday Americans all across the country.
I thank the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Boyle), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, for his leadership, all the members of the Budget Committee, and all the members of the House Democratic Caucus, who are standing up for the American people by opposing this reckless Republican budget that will devastate people all across the land.
It is not consistent with promises that were made to the American people. It is the exact opposite. Here is the promise that was made to the American people over and over again: Republicans were going to drive down the high cost of living in the United States of America and combat inflation. That was the promise that Republicans made to the American people.
As House Democrats, we are working hard to lower housing costs, lower grocery costs, lower insurance costs, lower utility costs, and lower childcare costs because we know America is too expensive. We want to drive down the high cost of living.
On the other side of the aisle, we haven't seen a single bill introduced by Republicans to drive down the high cost of living and address the affordability crisis in the United States. Not a single executive order issued by President Trump has anything to do with driving down the high cost of living. Not a single administrative action taken this year by the Trump administration has anything to do with driving down the high cost of living.
In fact, costs aren't going down in the United States of America. Costs are going up. Grocery prices are going up. Inflation is going up. Republicans are crashing the economy in real time.
Republicans have betrayed the American middle-class, working families, everyday Americans, children, and seniors with this $4.5 trillion budget scheme.
Don't come to the House floor and act like this is being done in the name of fiscal responsibility. Enough with that narrative. There is nothing in the Republican track record to suggest to the American people that you are the party of fiscal responsibility, absolutely nothing.
President Reagan comes into office. His signature legislative accomplishment is a massive unpaid-for tax cut for the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected. What does it do? It increases the debt by $2 trillion. That is not fiscal responsibility. That is recklessness. That is your record.
Those kinds of fiscal policies continued for 8 years and carried over into the Presidency of George H.W. Bush. Then, we saw a massive debt handed over to President Bill Clinton. What do Democrats do with that massive debt? We turned that debt into a surplus over an 8-year period of time, and the economy exploded.
That is what fiscal responsibility looks like. That happened under President Bill Clinton. Stop saying to the American people that you are the party of fiscal responsibility. The facts say exactly the opposite.
A budget surplus was handed over to President George W. Bush, who proceeded, in 2001 and then again in 2003, to pass massive tax cuts-- same playbook; here we go again--massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected. That explodes the debt by $8 trillion, and at the same time, we have a failed war in Iraq and a failed war in Afghanistan, over time adding another $8 trillion to our Nation's debt.
That burden is handed over to President Barack Obama, but during the period of his time in office, when he had a $1.5 trillion deficit, he cut it by $1
Then, that gets handed over to President Trump in his first term. He proceeded, of course, to follow the same Republican playbook, which has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility and everything to do with massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected.
Republicans passed the GOP tax scam with 83 percent of the benefits set aside for the wealthiest 1 percent and, in connection with the GOP tax scam, exploded the debt by another $2 trillion that they force working families, middle-class folks, and everyday Americans to pay for.
Republicans are not the party of fiscal responsibility. Stop trying to convince the American people otherwise. It is the same playbook.
In fact, during the administration of Donald Trump during his first 4 years, the debt exploded to such a degree that 25 percent or so of our Nation's debt came from just the first term of President Donald Trump, 25 percent. We have been around for over 248 years. The party of fiscal responsibility?
Then, of course, President Biden inherits a significant deficit and overwhelming debt in his 2 years. The first 2 years he gets a lot done and cuts the deficit by $1.7 trillion.
There is still a lot of work for all of us to do, but do not pretend that this budget resolution has anything to do with fiscal responsibility or keeping their promises to the American people. The Republicans promised to lower the high cost of living and have done nothing about it.
So here we are again, and there they go again with this GOP tax scam, the same exact playbook, $4.5 trillion worth of cuts for the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected disproportionately to benefit billionaire donors and well-connected corporations.
To make matters worse, the Republicans would actually cut programs, cut the social safety net, and cut the things that matter to working- class Americans, middle-class Americans, young people, seniors, and others, including up to, if not more, $880 billion of cuts to Medicaid. That is the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.
It doesn't help working-class Americans. It doesn't help middle-class Americans. It doesn't help children, and it doesn't help older Americans. It will devastate them. It will devastate children, devastate people with disabilities, devastate seniors, devastate pregnant women all across the country, devastate nursing homes, and shut down nursing homes. It will shut down hospitals, including in rural America, urban America, small-town America, and the heartland of America. That is what the Republican budget betrayal is all about.
It will devastate supplemental nutritional assistance programs for our children, for our veterans, and for our families. That is what the Republican budget is all about. It has nothing to do with making life better for everyday Americans. It will hurt everyday Americans.
So Democrats are not going to provide this reckless Republican scheme, this out-of-control budget, a single vote, not a single vote, because we are standing on the side of the American people.
We will fight this reckless Republican budget today, we will fight this reckless Republican budget tomorrow, and we will fight this reckless Republican budget until it is buried deep in the ground never to rise again. We will stand on the side of the American people at all times.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this resolution, and I commend the Chair, the leader, and Chairman Arrington on their tremendous work.
We have heard about all the ways the House budget resolution will deliver on President Trump's America First agenda. That includes making a generational investment in our national defense.
The $100 billion in defense spending this resolution unlocks will enable us to begin restoring American deterrence, prioritizing lethality, and ensuring peace through strength.
It will help defend the DOD's mission at the border because border security is national security.
It will help improve the quality of life for our servicemembers and their families.
It will help us start to revitalize our defense industrial base and restore readiness accounts to ensure we can fight tonight. It will also help us start to expand U.S. shipbuilding capacity and enhance our missile defense. It will also help begin restocking our Nation's arsenal of critical munitions. It will help us position our military to out-compete and out-innovate China.
Achieving the President's goal of peace through strength will ultimately require us to get defense spending back above 4 percent of GDP. However, none of that can happen unless we pass this budget resolution today.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this resolution.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this Republican budget resolution because it is not a budget. It is a blueprint for American decline.
Let's be clear. They want to exploit your labor and your tax dollars and gut your earned benefits all to bankroll tax cuts for their wealthy friends and donors.
They want to increase your healthcare costs while Elon Musk and his friends hoard even more wealth, and they have the audacity to call it fiscal responsibility.
This proposal will only deepen the constitutional crisis we are already in: a President trying to rule like a dictator and an unelected billionaire using hate and fear to expand his control over our country.
Congressional Republicans are pretending this chaos is normal, even as their own constituents call them out for their cowardice.
Our government is being hollowed out, our institutions are falling apart, and today House Republicans are slashing programs that people rely on to enact a massive $4.6 trillion tax giveaway to the rich.
So I ask my Republican colleagues: Whom will you serve, the people who sent you here or the billionaires trying to buy our democracy?
The CHAIR. Members are advised to not only direct their comments to the Chair but to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Chairman, the minority leader regurgitated a talking point from the Democratic Party we have heard now for years. We heard it prior to the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The gentleman said that 83 percent of the tax cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act benefits would accrue to the top 1 percent of income earners. The Washington Post, which is no bastion of conservative journalism, gave him two Pinocchios for that one and called it a zombie claim. They called it galling. PolitiFact agreed with them and said that it was flat-out misleading.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), who is also a member of the House Budget Committee.
Mr. Chairman, this resolution not only saves an average family about $16,000 over the next 10 years through reduced spending, it also prevents a crushing $1,500 annual tax hike on a struggling family earning just $75,000 a year. I have news for the minority leader: That ain't rich. They can't afford it, and they don't deserve it.
The details will come in the reconciliation bill which can't be drafted until this resolution passes, so our Democratic colleagues ought to wait to see what the committees actually propose before setting their hair on fire.
The people didn't save our country last November. They gave us the tools
Mr. Chair, I remind the gentleman this bill would put 13.4 million people in California at risk of losing Medicaid.
I further remind my friend, the chair of the Budget Committee, that it was not the Democratic leader's statistic that he was quoting about 83 percent. It was the Congressional Budget Office that found that 83 percent of the 2017 Trump tax cuts go to the richest 1 percent of Americans.
Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko), who is a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.
Mr. Chair, it was quite remarkable to go back home to New York's 20th District last week after spending 12 hours moving this monstrosity through the Budget Committee. Everywhere I went folks were imploring me, begging and pleading, to stand up to this cruelty.
Moreover, that is after weeks of receiving nonstop calls from thousands of activated and engaged constituents, many of whom are reaching out to me for the very first time.
I held a townhall at Albany High School and, like many of my colleagues' in recent weeks, it was packed. The energy in the room was palpable: fear, helplessness, and anger.
Why, Mr. Chairman, are we forcing through legislation that will hurt the very people we represent?
My constituents should never have to stand up and tell me they will interrupt their lives to stand up and fight with me in D.C. against the Republican agenda, but they did.
Our job is to serve the American people, not rip access to basic necessities away from them at the behest of a President who declared himself king. Frankly, it is insulting to me, to this institution, to the working families of New York's 20th District, and to every American who is still struggling just to get by.
Nevertheless, here we are, blowing a $3 trillion hole in our national debt to serve billionaire oligarchs instead, billionaire oligarchs and donors who will never have to wonder whether they can afford to go to the doctor, retire with dignity, or even put food on the table to feed their children at night.
It is outrageous, it is a rip-off, and it is a heartless betrayal of the American people, the middle class, working families, and future generations.
My district has asked me: Where is the solution to this?
It rests right in this Chamber. Let us assume the responsibilities, the duties, the authority, and the power we have by the Constitution with the power of the purse placed in our hands here in the House of Representatives. Let's act accordingly.
They didn't want a President to circumvent Congress, they didn't want an agent who never had a background check and who was never confirmed by the U.S. Senate and who is wielding a chain saw at our programs and not showing sensitivity, compassion, and intellect in academics that will make the true difference.
The CHAIR. Once again, the Chair would remind and implore all Members to not engage in personalities toward the President and direct your remarks to the Chair.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this resolution because it delivers on the promise that we made to the American people by extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and fulfilling President Trump's agenda.
This is direly needed. For the past 4 years, the American people have lived through the longest sustained period of debt and deficit in our Nation's history. During that same time, Americans have also had to grapple with hyperinflation and record-high energy costs and grocery costs at the grocery store.
This budget will usher in a new golden era that the American people are yearning for and where free enterprise can flourish, energy production is unleashed, and our fiscal health is restored.
This budget does so by extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which delivered wage increases of 4.9 percent and the lowest poverty and unemployment rates in 50 years. This budget also achieves a deficit reduction of $1 billion over 10 years and achieves massive savings in our spending.
Washington doesn't have a revenue problem. Washington has a spending problem.
Mr. Chair, the American people sent us here to fulfill a mission, putting our Nation back on a trajectory toward success and prosperity. Passing this resolution is the first step in that process. This budget doesn't betray the middle class. It saves the middle class, and it empowers the middle class for a prosperous future.
Mr. Chairman, I support this resolution, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same. This is the first time that I remember where we are actually being fiscally responsible.
Mr. Chairman, I strongly oppose the Republican budget rip-off. I hear from constituents every day about the high cost of living. Under the Trump administration, healthcare costs are rising, and putting food on the table is getting harder as egg prices skyrocket and housing remains unaffordable.
Unfortunately, the Republican rip-off is a slap in the face to working families.
Trump, Elon Musk, and House Republicans are asking us to support axing Medicaid by $180 billion, even though food stamps reduce rural poverty. Republicans will cut this program too by $230 billion.
Republicans are defunding the police by stripping funding from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the CFPB is the only Federal cop on the block to hold Wall Street banks and Big Tech payment apps accountable when they cheat Americans.
It is shameful that while families suffer from high prices, Musk is firing thousands of Federal workers and stealing sensitive data from his competitors.
Although this rip-off cuts $2 trillion in vital programs, what do Republicans plan to do with this money?
Mr. Chairman, they are going to give $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to the billionaires in this country. That is $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. If that math doesn't compute, it is because Republicans expect Americans to buy the next megayacht for Jeff Bezos.
Mr. Chairman, we are not going to do that, and Democrats are voting ``no'' on this budget. It is outrageous that Republicans have the audacity to come here with this budget that harms so many Americans and ask us to support billionaires and think we are going to buy it? The majority thinks we are going to support it? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have another thought coming. We ain't doing it.
Mr. Chairman, I can't believe my ears of Democrats criticizing the audacity of Republicans here in Washington, our Nation's Capital, giving the hard-earned money back to the people, letting them keep more of their money as they have suffered 4 years under record inflation, record interest rate hikes, and record consumer debt. How dare Republicans give money back to small businesses and working families so that they can pay the bills and provide for their families?
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves), the ``Show-Me'' State, our House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the House's fiscal year 2025 budget resolution, which is a critical step needed to unlock a reconciliation bill that is going to help secure our border and revitalize our military. It is going to unleash American energy independence and extend tax cuts for American families and small businesses.
Simply put, this budget delivers on all of President Trump's America First
Mr. Chairman, as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I am pleased to see that the budget directs an investment of $100 billion for our national defense after years of underinvestment.
As chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we are ready to do our part to produce a bill that fulfills President Trump's border security agenda by providing funding for the United States Coast Guard for drug and migrant interdiction.
The Coast Guard has been underfunded for years. However, this administration recognizes that the Coast Guard is the workhorse when it comes to securing our maritime border. I am grateful for the President's focus on providing robust resources to the service to do even more, and I know that the men and women in the Coast Guard are very much up to the task.
Despite delivering these robust investments, this budget still requires the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to generate at least $10 billion in savings overall. Committee Republicans have been hard at work to make sure that we are prepared to support the Coast Guard while also being good stewards of taxpayer dollars by responsibly offsetting our investments.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this budget resolution.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, the chair of the Budget Committee said something moments ago to the effect of: This is about giving the people their money back.
That is not so. This is about the one in three Americans on Medicaid who are at risk of losing it because what is in this budget plan in black and white are the largest cuts to Medicaid in American history and cuts to other programs like SNAP, school lunches, and Head Start. Why is that? It is to deliver tax cuts, 83 percent of which go to the richest 1 percent of Americans. That is what this plan is about.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), my friend and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Chairman, as ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, I am responsible for funding programs and services that the American people rely on.
I also see the importance of programs like Medicaid, which help tens of millions of people afford health insurance. After all of their talk of lowering the cost of living, Republicans wasted no time in making their real priorities clear. For this majority, billionaires and the biggest corporations always come first.
Elon Musk and President Trump are hard at work trying to gut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which helps nearly 100 million Americans afford health insurance, medications, and lifesaving care.
Nationwide, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program provide medical coverage to nearly 4 in 10 children. Almost 40 percent of the children in the United States get their healthcare through Medicaid.
These programs were designed, improved, and expanded over decades by both parties to help people deal with the high costs of healthcare, and they have delivered for so many families. In my district alone, there are 229,000 people on Medicaid, including 79,000 children and 33,000 seniors. Medicaid paid for 3,000 births last year, providing comprehensive prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care to newborns and mothers. These are programs that help families and children. Medicaid works.
Elon Musk is only interested in helping the richest among us. His dream is to fully extend more than $4.5 trillion worth of tax breaks to his billionaire friends and the wealthiest corporations in the world.
How will they pay for these tax cuts and pay for this massive giveaway? Republicans want to pay for this with cuts to Medicaid, $880 billion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, putting coverage at risk for millions of Americans and raising their premiums.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. Chairman, who bears the brunt of these cuts: seniors, children, low-income families, people with disabilities, those struggling. The most high healthcare costs impact the first ones left behind.
Republicans are coming for SNAP next, threatening 40 million Americans who are just trying to put food on the table. Democrats will stand where we always do, on the side of the middle class, against yet another reckless Republican budget that steals even more wealth for the billionaire class.
Mr. Chairman, the budget resolution will allow us to cut taxes, reduce spending, help our national defense, and secure the border, which is exactly what we told the voters we were going to do in the election.
I always say that we make this job way too complicated. It is pretty darned simple. What did Members tell the voters they were going to do when they put their name on the ballot? If they get elected, go do what they said.
The American people elected us, a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate. There were 77 million people who voted for President Trump. We told them what we were going to do. It is now time to do it, and this is step one of that process.
The ranking member referenced the American people. We are remembering the American people, exactly what we told them, and why they elected us. To do all of that, it takes resources, particularly the one that focuses in our committee on securing the border.
It takes resources, and the reason we need so many resources to secure the border is because the previous administration screwed everything up so badly. Day one of the Biden administration, they made three decisions: no more building the wall, no more remain in Mexico, and when migrants get here, they will not be detained but will be released.
When that is done and it is advertised to the entire planet that those are the new policies, everybody comes. There were 10 million people who came, almost the equivalent of the entire population of the State I get the privilege of representing.
Mr. Chairman, to fix that, my colleagues have to find resources, find savings, and do what we are doing in this legislation because it takes personnel. It takes equipment. It takes space. It takes detention beds. It takes judges. It takes lawyers to secure that border and handle what needs to be done to fix what Democrats caused and created.
Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for the good work he has done and the Republican members of the Budget Committee for putting this together.
The gentleman is right. If we don't do this, taxes are going to go up on the families across this great country. I don't want the taxes to go up on the families who I represent in the Fourth District of Ohio. I don't want that to happen.
I want the borders secured. I want to reduce spending because I know we are running deficits in the trillions, and we have piled up $36 trillion in debt. I want to help our national defense because it is still a dangerous world.
I just got back from Israel last week. We know how dangerous it is. They know how dangerous this world is.
This bill is common sense, and it is step one of a three-part process to get us to what we told the American people we were going to do and what they elected us to do. That is why I hope we can pass this.
Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``yes'' vote, and I thank the chairman again for his good work and his committee's work.
Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Ohio is actually right: It is a dangerous world.
Mr. Chairman, do my colleagues know what makes it more dangerous? It is when, under this administration, the United States is voting with Russia and North Korea and Hungary and voting against every single one of our democratic allies. That makes a dangerous world infinitely more dangerous.
Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), my good friend and the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee.
In just 4 weeks, Donald Trump has sown chaos all over this country. His administration is defying court orders, firing Federal workers, freezing vital funding that our constituents depend on, impacting everything from wildfire preparations to water security, health and housing programs, and a lot more. All of this is under the guise of cost savings, but the reality is there are no meaningful savings or other benefits for average taxpayers.
Real people's lives are being turned upside down: our National Park Service and workers at a number of Federal agencies, farmers, and firefighters. Everyone who depends on Federal services is feeling the squeeze of this reckless agenda. Meanwhile, Republicans are preparing their budget reconciliation bill, which is going to cost at least $4 trillion.
Mr. Chairman, our Republican colleagues are being coy about the specifics, but Americans can connect the dots. There can't be a tax cut for billionaires of that magnitude without either dramatically slashing Medicaid and maybe Social Security and Medicare while you are at it, or dramatically exploding the deficit.
Just like every other action before us, the Republicans' budget is a betrayal of the American people. The majority is choosing billionaires over programs that everyday people depend on.
In my district alone, hundreds of thousands of people will lose Medicaid. Tens of thousands will lose SNAP benefits that help put food on the table. The Natural Resources Committee is tasked with finding at least $1 billion of these savings, $1 billion for their billionaire joyride. Their plan is to sell off public lands and do more favors for Big Oil.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Chairman, Republicans plan to do more favors for Big Oil even though they are rolling in record profits and even though we are already producing and exporting record amounts of oil and gas. Of course, their old favorite is to open up the Arctic Refuge for drilling and pretend that that will bring in money, as well. Last time, it brought in zero dollars when they did that in 2017.
Mr. Chairman, I am going to vote ``no.'' I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''
Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding.
Mr. Chairman, in November, the American people delivered a clear and resolute mandate to this Congress: Rein in out-of-control spending.
For too long, bureaucrats in Washington recklessly spent Americans' hard-earned tax dollars and drove up our national debt to nearly catastrophic levels, hurting all Americans, especially the most vulnerable.
For example, the Biden-Harris administration attempted to spend as much as $1 trillion through his illegal and irresponsible student loan bailouts. Virtually nothing was done to control the cost of Federal student loan programs, meaning students will be able to take on even more in student loan debt and drive up the burden on all Americans, even those who never went to college or received a degree.
Why should we continue to spend Americans' tax dollars on a system that is clearly not working?
Something must change, and Americans are sick and tired of this wasteful spending.
With Republicans in control of the House, Senate, and White House, we have a real opportunity to cut through the waste, fraud, abuse, and falsehoods in Washington.
Reconciliation provides us with a chance to address Washington's spending problem.
Under the new Trump administration, we can cut spending, deliver on the mandate given to us by the American people, and put more money back in Americans' pockets.
As I begin to yield back, I will await the false report on Medicaid in Michigan.
Mr. Chair, I wouldn't want to disappoint the gentleman from Michigan, so I am happy to inform him of the accurate number. This bill would put 2.4 million people in Michigan at risk of losing Medicaid.
Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), a distinguished former member of the Budget Committee.
Mr. Chair, this bill is a Republican betrayal of the middle class and working families across the country.
If you are at home watching this, I want you to think about what Republicans want to slash from your life so that they can lower taxes for the biggest corporations and wealthiest billionaires like Elon Musk. They want to cut a minimum, the floor, of $880 billion from Medicaid, which covers healthcare for 72 million Americans.
Medicaid pays for nursing homes for five out of eight seniors across the country. It pays for healthcare for 38 million kids, including over 3 million kids in Texas and 1.2 million kids in Ohio. In fact, it pays for 64 percent of childbirths in Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise's home State of Louisiana.
Any Republican who votes for this resolution is voting for those cuts as well as devastating cuts to nutrition and Medicare.
Don't listen to Republicans who try to say that Medicaid won't be touched. I introduced an amendment to protect Medicaid, which they blocked during our budget markup because they intend to cut Medicaid.
Remember when Donald Trump said that he would tackle inflation and lower costs on day one? Well, here we are, a month in, and prices are rising. Musk has taken a literal chain saw to tens of thousands of jobs, putting families and local economies at risk.
This budget resolution makes it clear that the only people who Republicans are willing to fight for in this country are the wealthiest billionaires, who apparently now rule the country.
This is unbridled greed and corruption. Vote ``no'' on this disastrous budget resolution.
Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith), my good friend from the Cornhusker State who is also chair of the Ways and Means Committee's Trade Subcommittee.
Mr. Chair, the American people want us to have a thoughtful exchange here. I will hopefully contribute to that, especially when I hear some of the accusations made that are just off base, misleading, and false.
Warren Buffett has paid a record amount in taxes. I think that is worth noting. That has been in the press very widely in the last few days.
This budget framework delivers on House Republicans' and the President's promise to minimize tax burdens for Americans across the income spectrum, promote security in our communities, and unleash economic growth.
The resolution would allow us to extend the historic tax relief from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which has been enormously successful, and we know this, in allowing families to keep more of their paychecks and supercharging growth for small businesses.
If these tax cuts are allowed to expire, as we have heard, the average American would suffer. Make no mistake, small businesses, family farms, and so many other folks would suffer.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Chair, the American people want us to have a thoughtful exchange on this. Let's elevate the debate and stick to the facts, realizing we can do well for the American people by doing so.
Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the Republican rip-off.
Budgets tell priorities, and as inflation goes up and Americans continue struggling to pay their rent, purchase groceries, and afford going to the doctor, Republicans stand united to sell out the working class by ripping away healthcare coverage and food from children to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
This is the unbelievable but real cruelty of their budget. Make devastating cuts to Medicaid for 135,000 mostly seniors and children in my district alone, slash SNAP benefits for thousands of hungry children and families, and end ACA premium tax cuts that currently save families over $6,000 annually, and for what? To give $5 trillion in handouts to those who need it the least, the ultrarich and big corporations.
Let's be clear: My Republican colleagues will declare that this resolution is necessary to extending the 2017 Trump tax scam to purportedly help the middle class. This is a lie. The majority of the tax cuts that they aim to extend will only benefit the rich, and the middle class will lose so many of the benefits they rely on.
In their 2017 Trump tax scam, Republicans slashed the corporate tax rate and watched 100 percent of those benefits flow to shareholders, billionaires, and high-paid executives. What did workers get? A big fat zero.
Even still, President Trump wants to cut the corporate tax rate by even more. What is more, Republicans' apparent concern for fiscal responsibility is nowhere to be found. Their budget will actually balloon our national debt in a reverse Robin Hood scheme that betrays the working Americans we all represent.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. Chair, I thank Mr. Arrington for yielding this time.
Mr. Chair, what is irresponsible, to those watching this debate, is the truth about the Biden-Harris policies, that when you combine irresponsible fiscal policy in this Nation over the past 4 years and an irresponsible monetary policy--what is irresponsible, Mr. Chair, is the fact that our families are suffering from inflation, the highest in 40 years. It takes $1.21 for what cost $1 just 4 years ago.
The resolution before us changes the direction. It delivers on President Trump's agenda to put the American people first. This resolution does protect the American people from the largest tax increase in American history.
Let's set the record straight: The top 1 percent are paying more in taxes than they have ever paid in the history of the country. They pay 45 percent of all the taxes in this country, and 50 percent of us are paying the least amount of tax they have ever paid in American history.
This bill goes on to support border security and national defense, which President Trump campaigned on and Republicans campaigned on, and it reins in wasteful spending. It reduces our long-term debt to GDP.
In the Financial Services Committee, we are pleased to follow the direction of the House Budget Committee and deliver on spending reforms by cutting back one of the most wasteful agencies that we have, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Mr. Chairman, upon hearing that the richest 1 percent of Americans pay 45 percent in taxes, my heart is breaking. I will be sure that at church this Sunday we take up an extra collection, but God knows that the billions of dollars they are about to get in this budget resolution will certainly help line their pockets.
Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. McGarvey), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.
Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the Republican budget resolution and urge my colleagues to reject it for what it is: a total scam and betrayal of the middle class.
A budget isn't just a policy document. It is a moral document. In their budget, the Republicans make their moral code clear: The rich get richer, and the rest of us pay for it.
There is no reason a teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, should pay more in taxes than Tesla did last year.
Mr. Chair, let's talk about how this budget will hurt Kentuckians. This budget mandates at least $880 billion of cuts to Medicaid; $230 billion of cuts to take meals away from seniors, veterans, and kids; and at least $330 billion of cuts to our public schools.
Let me make this clear for those of you watching from Kentucky.
If you are one of the 1.4 million people in the Commonwealth who gets health insurance through kynect, Republicans are coming for your healthcare.
If you have a kid in JCPS, Republicans are coming after their education--fewer teachers, fewer opportunities, and no more free school lunches.
If you are one of our veterans, our seniors, or the one in five Kentucky kids going hungry as we speak, Republicans want to take away your next meal.
It is wrong. I met with over a thousand of my constituents this weekend. They are angry. I am angry, too, because this budget hurts people, and for what? So Elon Musk can get even richer. It is a scam.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Edwards), also a Budget Committee member who helped us draft this budget framework.
Mr. Chairman, first of all, I acknowledge the great work that our Budget Committee chairman has done to bring us to this point today. It has taken him hundreds of hours and tested his blood pressure quite seriously to get us to this point.
Mr. Chair, I rise today in firm support of this resolution.
In November last year, 77 million Americans demanded changes in how our Federal Government is working for them, particularly changes in the disastrous policies from the last 4 years. I plan to help deliver on those demands by fixing how Washington works and implementing President Trump's agenda to make America first.
This resolution gives us the framework that we need to meet the demands of those 77 million Americans. Those demands include fixing our border crisis once and for all. This resolution does that. Those demands include unleashing American energy. This resolution does that.
Mr. Chair, I urge strong support for this resolution.
Mr. Chair, I ask myself two questions on every vote: Who does this benefit? Who does this hurt?
Today, the answers are clear. This Republican budget resolution would benefit the richest 1 percent. Who would it hurt? Working-class families struggling to make ends meet.
It threatens third graders in my hometown of Pawtucket who rely on the community eligibility provision to eat school breakfast and lunch. It threatens a new mom on Aquidneck Island who needs Medicaid to afford postpartum care. It threatens seniors in East Providence who depend on Medicaid's home- and community-based services to stay connected to their loved ones as they age at home.
All of these ordinary Americans would get hurt. For what? To pay for tax cuts for the rich. Don't believe me? Look at the numbers.
The Republican plan could slash $230 billion from SNAP and $880 billion from Medicaid, two proposals which
Mr. Chair, when I first read through this resolution, I thought surely it must be a mistake, there is no way that Republicans would intentionally hurt working Americans, right?
Wrong. Democrats tried to stop the madness over and over, but Republicans refused to listen.
Just yesterday, Republicans refused to consider my amendment to block cuts to SNAP and programs that provide free and reduced-price lunches for students. You heard that right. Republicans want to make it harder for hungry children to eat.
Republicans also refused to join me in supporting Medicaid. It provides health coverage to 72 million Americans, including over 300,000 Rhode Islanders. That is not a typo. Republicans are putting the needs of billionaires above the needs of ordinary Americans. If that isn't a betrayal, I don't know what is.
Mr. Chair, while we may not agree on whose State has better barbecue, one thing we do agree on is that today is a momentous day; not for one party, but for all Americans. Today, we take a giant step toward fulfilling the mandate given by millions of Americans.
For too long, the people's interests have been drowned out by an agenda pursued by elite, leftwing politicians. The elite, leftwing politicians don't feel the impact of their reckless policies. Whether it be pursuing open border policies or policies that fuel inflation, it is normal citizens who feel the impact.
Today, we start the process of restoring America's strength. Rather than pursue a reckless, ideological joyride agenda, this resolution paves the way for historic investment in our country's border security, permanent tax relief for the middle class, getting rid of the inflation tax that has hit the working class, and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse throughout our government.
Mr. Chair, Americans demand better. This resolution does that. I urge a ``yes'' vote.
Mr. Chair, Representative Thomas Massie is a budget hawk who walks around with the debt clock--which, by the way, I bought. It is $99 on the website. Today, he talked about that if the Republican budget passes, the budget deficit doesn't get better. It gets worse.
Then Elon Musk commented, and he said: That sounds bad.
Boy, that is awkward. I mean, you know how much we hate it when you guys fight amongst each other.
That wasn't enough, right? Then Representative Massie went to the Republican meeting where the budget was being discussed, and he came out, and he said: You know what, they convinced me.
They convinced me that he is a ``no.'' The reason he is a ``no,'' he said, over the next 3 years, it is going to add almost a trillion dollars to the debt, and that is in the best case, the most rosy scenario. Then he said: That is a lie.
This clock that we have that has the debt, it is still going up. DOGE has not yet reversed it. I say that as a member of the DOGE Caucus who wants to shrink the size of government and cut spending. This 36, instead of your budget making it a 35, it is going to make it a 37. We are going to go to $37 trillion in debt.
If you pass this today, this idea about DOGE or the Republicans being fiscal hawks or wanting to cut spending is no longer a reality.
The Acting CHAIR. Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I remind the gentleman that the last 4 years, President Biden and my Democratic colleagues set a record of $8 trillion added to the national debt. If you add the $5 trillion in interest expense, well, I don't know that anybody is going to ever accomplish that feat. That is $6 billion borrowed a day, and during that reign of reckless spending, they added $116,000 to the debt burden that our children will bear into the future.
I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte), also a Budget Committee member.
Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman of the Budget Committee and my friend from Texas for yielding.
Mr. Chair, this year we will borrow almost $2 trillion, which represents almost a third of all Federal spending.
For the first time in the history of our country, this year we will spend more on interest paying the national debt that we have already borrowed, and in several years three-quarters of all Federal spending, borrowing, will be just to pay interest on the money that we have already borrowed.
Several years after that, we won't even have enough money to pay the interest on the national debt, which will signal a devastating default for our country.
Mr. Chair, we cannot allow that to happen. Yet, Mr. Chair, we have a spending problem. We do not have a revenue problem. Last year, we collected more dollars in Federal tax revenue than ever in the history of our country.
That is why this budget resolution is so important. It starts us, finally, down the path of reducing Federal spending rather than increasing Federal spending, and it does it without increasing taxes on hardworking Americans. That is why I am proud to urge a ``yes'' vote.
Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to the Republican budget.
Here is the deal: Republicans have the House, the Senate, and the White House. They could be passing legislation to actually make our lives better, to lower costs on groceries, on prescription drugs. They could be lowering the cost of housing. Instead they are attacking the very programs that working- and middle-class families rely on in this country. It is a betrayal.
All of us were sent here to work on behalf of the people back home. We were sent here to lower costs for people, to alleviate suffering. I know that my colleagues were as well. Therefore, I ask, why are they letting Trump do this? Why?
This Republican budget doesn't do anything to address the costs that working people are facing. They have proposed a budget that gives massive, massive tax cuts to the wealthiest and corporations in this country. How will they pay for it? They will pay for it by making deep cuts to Medicare, to the tune of $880 billion, and deep cuts to SNAP benefits. That is right, taking food away from families who need it.
They will be increasing the deficit. It is long past time for them to stop lecturing us about the debt when they know full well that their math is not mathing. They are adding to the deficit with this program, and they are literally giving the money away to the wealthiest who do not need it.
When I vote on this Republican budget, I will be thinking of all the working families back home in Vermont, people who sent me here to work on their behalf, not against them. I am thinking of families who worry that they won't have Head Start.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. Chair, I am thinking of the small businesses in Vermont that have reached out to me to say that Trump's proposed tariff war with Canada is going to crush them. I am thinking about the 150,000 Vermonters who are dependent on Medicaid.
I urge my colleagues to reject this unfair budget.
Mr. Chair, I think I have to address some of the things that I think are out of line or misspoke with regard to the other party today.
First of all, I want to point out there are not a lot of details in this budget. The budget has a lot of top-line numbers in which we try to keep tax cuts that went into effect 8 years ago in effect because we had a strong economy with high employment. There are no specific cuts in here.
The frustrating thing I hear from the other side is that they are talking about that any cut or any reduction in spending is a problem. Let me remind people, 26 percent of the current level of spending for the current year is borrowed. That should be of huge concern to everybody. The average American has about $100,000 as their share of debt. Think of that, a family of four has $400,000 in their share of the debt. The average person or the average American in the budget coming up this year will be spending about $20,000.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
One more time, remember, America has to know that 26 percent of every Social Security dollar, 26 percent of every new tank, 20 percent of every new education dollar is borrowed, at a time where interest costs are going up.
Mr. Chair, I rise on behalf of the Massachusetts Seventh Congressional District.
As the House prepares to vote on a truly horrifying Republican budget resolution, one void of empathy or common sense, I am thinking of the people in my district who stand to be harmed the most: families in Mattapan who receive their healthcare through MassHealth, the Medicaid program for Massachusetts; mothers in Chelsea, who rely on SNAP to feed their babies; disabled veterans in Randolph who receive lifesaving care and benefits through the VA; families in Roxbury who rely on Head Start for childcare.
This Republican majority said they would spend the next 2 years cutting costs for the middle class, but the only thing they are cutting is trillions of dollars from lifesaving programs our communities depend on to make ends meet.
Mr. Chair, this has never been about efficiency. Tell me how it is efficient to make people across this country sicker, hungrier, poorer, and more vulnerable. Tell me how it is efficient to buy more toy rockets for Donald Trump's billionaire friends while parents can't afford groceries. The cruelty is the point. What a callous shame and a sham.
I urge my colleagues to stand with the people. Protect families and reject this shameful budget resolution. In the words of a righteous faith leader whose place of worship Donald Trump recently attended: Have mercy.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I think God has had mercy on this country, and he is giving us a shot now to turn this country around and to give it back to the American people; to return to commonsense policies, to put the American people first, and to clean up the mess in Washington, D.C.
We have seen the exposure of the waste and the woke and the bloat, and it is immoral to hand our country like this to the next generation. We are long overdue to get our fiscal house in order, Mr. Chairman.
The American people deserve to keep more of their money. The American people deserve fiduciaries in Congress who will take care to steward their tax dollars. The people who need these programs that we created for the most vulnerable deserve to have the programs without having folks siphon off moneys or people that are ineligible draining those programs.
We have got a lot of work to do. We won't be intimidated by the rhetoric. We won't be scared into paralysis anymore as a Republican Party. We are standing up with our President and fearless leader, Mr. Donald J. Trump. We know the American people are behind us 100 percent. We are leaning in, and we are going to save this country.
We are going to give our children a fighting chance at the blessings of liberty and the land of opportunity.
I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman), a member of the Budget Committee, my good friend who is a fighter for our freedom and fiscal sanity.
Mr. Chair, I rise in full support of the House budget resolution. I thank Mr. Arrington for the yeoman's work he has done. He stood tall and he stood strong.
For those who are watching on TV and for those listening, we have gotten a steady diet of the same old, worn-out tactics: rich, poor, divinity politics, taking food from hungry children. They haven't used granny is going over the cliff yet, but I assume that is coming.
My question to my good friends on the other side is: Where were they the last 4 years? Where were they? We have got a steady diet of high inflation. We have got a steady diet of 15 million illegals coming into this country, using every public school, every hospital, not being a citizen, draining the payroll, and draining the economy of America.
What about the empathy for the poor, unaccompanied children who came over here and are in sex trades, if they are still living, many of them, well over 400,000 children? What about the inflation at every level? Where were you the last 4 years?
With house prices, where were you? Interest rates, you were nowhere to be found. Where were your solutions? You didn't have any because we have got two worldviews. You think taxes paid by Americans is your money to spend like you want.
What Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing is identifying the waste. Let the American people judge. Seventy-seven million Americans judged on who they thought could lead this country, and it wasn't an inept President who couldn't give a press conference if he had to or read a thank-you card. That is who you put up with for 4 years.
The past is the judge of the future. I would love to have $5 trillion in cuts on this bill.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Chair, we have got more to go. This is the first step. The journey starts with the first step. We are going to fight, and we are going to stop the policies that have bankrupted this country, that you have put up with for the past 4 years. Time is up. It is time for a new day.
The Acting CHAIR. Members are reminded to direct their comments to the Chair.
Mr. Chair, I remind the gentleman that this bill would put 1 million people in South Carolina at risk of losing Medicaid.
I appreciate the previous speaker's candor. He is saying he wants $5 trillion worth of cuts. To quote him, this is only the beginning. I hope that every middle-class American hears that and knows what is coming. By his own words, this is just the beginning. This is bad enough.
What are we talking about? We are talking about $880 billion worth of cuts to Medicaid and the ACA, $230 billion worth of cuts to nutrition programs, $330 billion worth of cuts to student loan programs, Pell grants, Head Start, school lunches, and more. Why? It is all so tax cuts worth $4.5 trillion can go to the richest 1 percent of Americans.
Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Ms. Pou), a wonderful new Member of this body and a distinguished member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Mr. Chair, I rise for the first speech on the floor of this body to
I came to Congress to help my constituents. I came here to provide direct relief to struggling Americans and lift people up. This Republican budget does none of those things. It is nothing more than a blueprint for cruelty. This GOP budget will destroy Medicaid and take healthcare away from millions of Americans.
In my district alone, this could strip healthcare from the 215,000 people on Medicaid, blow up hospital budgets, raise insurance premiums, all to give trillions in tax cuts to the millionaires. This is another cash giveaway to the superrich at the expense of ruining American lives.
Mr. Chair, I reject it, and I intend to vote ``no'' to this cruel Republican budget.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chair, my good friend and ranking member made a comment about Mr. Ralph Norman from South Carolina. Listen closely to what he said. He would like to cut $5 trillion from the budget.
Add my name to that list because the GAO says there is $5 trillion of fraud throughout the four corners of this Federal Government. That is the people's money. We ought to spend every waking hour together, across the aisle, and in a bipartisan way to go and root out that waste and fraud that is fleecing the taxpayers.
Count me in the camp of Mr. Ralph Norman when the Government Accountability Office says that there is $5 trillion of defrauding the people's government and the people's money. We will not hear anybody on the other side of the aisle, and there are some good and well-intended people. In this debate we will not hear them talking about illegals being on welfare rolls or the fact their President, President Joe Biden, with the stroke of a pen, welcomed illegals onto welfare and healthcare rolls.
We can't even afford Social Security benefits because the fund will be insolvent within the next 10 years. Instead, we are bringing people who aren't even citizens onto the social safety nets that are paid for by taxpayers. We are not spending that money, that precious treasure of taxpayers, to shore up Medicare and Social Security.
It makes no sense to me. Do you know what? It made no sense to the American people. That is why they gave this President a mandate and gave this country unified Republican leadership. They are apparently still in denial. They are disconnected from the reality of the last 4 years.
They may have had all the best intentions, but the pain and the suffering that the American people endured because of the reckless, record trillions of dollars in spending and the failed economic policies of the last administration is real. They didn't forget it. They voted with that acid test and that fundamental question: Is my life better today?
I don't think there has ever been in American history a clearer contrast between the two parties back to back with Republican total control in '17 and '18, Democrat unified leadership on the heels of that, and the philosophies, the values, the worldviews, the policies, and the consequences borne by the American people.
Mr. Chair, they have chosen a very different path, and they have asked us to reverse course and to reverse the curse that looms not only over this country but our children's future.
I am surprised that I haven't heard one sentence about the waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government at $5 trillion. I am surprised that I haven't heard any criticisms of the millions of people who have come to this country illegally and drained Medicaid, according to CBO, by billions of dollars. That was a letter in response to an inquiry that we sent.
How much of the tax dollars and Medicaid are being siphoned off for people who are here illegally? I can't believe there is not more indignation on account of the fact that $9,000 is what we are spending on people who broke the law, violated our sovereignty, and are here in this country illegally.
Taxpayers are spending $9,000 per illegal immigrant for social services that were intended for the United States citizens. That $9,000 represents more money than we spend on our own vulnerable American citizens on Medicaid, but we won't hear any of that today.
The American people know better. They have always had better judgment, and they made the right call. We aim to deliver for them.
Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Texas has 7 minutes remaining.
Mr. Chair, let me first say before my closing that my good friend and chair of the Budget Committee and I have worked closely together in opposition a lot of the time but actually in agreement some of the time with some real achievements, though not today.
He said something that really interests me. There is this GAO report showing $5 trillion of fraud. I certainly would be interested in seeing that report. The size of the entire budget every year is only $6.5 trillion. How in the world is $5 trillion out of $6.5 trillion really fraud? I find it a little hard to believe.
Mr. Chair, we are at a pivotal moment. I said at the beginning of this debate some 2\1/2\ hours ago that this budget resolution represents the Republican betrayal of the middle class. For the last 2\1/2\ hours, we have heard speaker after speaker on my side expose exactly why that is so.
First and foremost, and I think most crucially, the $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid, the largest cuts in American history to Medicaid, why is that important? It is important because 72 million Americans rely on Medicaid. Another 20 million rely and get their healthcare through the Affordable Care Act. They are also at risk.
We have heard further that, while those are the biggest cuts, there are even more. There are hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to nutrition assistance, school lunch programs, Pell grants, and Head Start. The list goes on and on. Why is that? It is all to deliver $4.5 trillion of tax cuts to the richest 1 percent of Americans.
Let's not forget the fact that in order to cover the rest of the costs of those tax cuts, they are increasing the debt limit by $4 trillion. They like to talk about debt and how horrible it is, but this piece of legislation will make our debt situation far worse.
This is the Republican betrayal of the middle class. Day after day, in my home State of Pennsylvania, candidates from both sides talk about how the number one priority should be to lower costs for Americans. The President made that promise. He said he would do it on day one.
Here we are more than a month in, and there is not one executive order or one bill to lower the costs for the American people. Instead, we have this bill to take money from the middle class and give it to those who need it the least.
Mr. Chair, I am proud to lead the opposition to this Republican betrayal of the middle class. I urge every Member of this House to vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, let me also pay respects to my ranking member. He is a great guy. He has been a really good partner. We have done some really important things together on a bipartisan basis. In fact, we passed more bipartisan legislation to fix the broken budget process which doesn't serve either party in this institution well.
Mr. Chair, I give him equal credit, if not more credit. When you are the minority, there is tremendous pressure not to work with the majority. He is an American first. We may disagree, but I know where his heart is.
Let me answer the question to the ranking member. The $5 trillion is a CBO score. That is a 10-year budget window score just like the $2 trillion that we have as a goal to reduce reckless, wasteful, and fraudulent spending.
Mr. Chair, the reconciliation process is generally to reconcile the House and
Mr. Chair, if we learned anything from the November election, it is that the American people want a strong country. They want a competent leader and commonsense policies, and they want all of us to put America first. That is what this budget resolution does.
I like to think of this budget resolution as a promissory note to our children to preserve the land of liberty and opportunity by safeguarding it from an unwieldy government with unbridled spending, taxing, and regulating that threatens to destroy it.
Mr. Chairman, I said this in the Budget Committee, and I am going to say it now to close: The era of wasteful, woke, and weaponized government is over, and this budget resolution will be its tombstone. Here lies one of the darkest chapters in American history: open borders, record crime, lawlessness, feckless foreign policies, cost-of- living crises. Enough. It is time to reverse the curse. It is time to reverse the reckless spending and failed policies and do the first and most important job of the Federal Government: Keep the American people safe.
That is exactly what we intend to do, and that is exactly what we deliver with this framework.
Mr. Chairman, I include in the Record three statements from organizations supporting this legislation.
NAW Urges Congress to Support House Budget Resolution, Prevent
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H. Con. Res. 14, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer) each will control 30 minutes on the subject of economic goals and policies.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert).
Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
To the chairman and the minority, I first want to apologize to everyone. I have one of my crappy lung infections, so at some point, I am going to start coughing and doing an inhaler. Just ignore me. Somehow, I thought that would be funnier.
Mr. Chairman and my good friend, Mr. Beyer, I think this is somewhat of a unique opportunity. Those of us from the Joint Economic Committee actually take math seriously. We don't always see things alike, but the fact of the matter is the Joint Economic Committee I think started in 1956. It has this remarkable history of some of the world's greatest economists coming and speaking before walking us through it. That is why, at this moment, we are going to try to do something that is special. Instead of just sort of sharing feelings, I am going to ask us to share math. Within that, we are going to walk through what is actually in the budget resolution.
This is a reconciliation budget. It is not a regular budget. This is a budget that opens up the ability, because of the insanity we go through, of moving something through the Senate and its 60 votes. With the 1974 Budget Control Act, this is the dance we go through.
The other thing I am going to try to walk through is where the actual math lays in the box that has been given to us by the Budget Committee, and then the part I am going to do, the Schweikert little bit of hope, is: Is this the moment? Is this the moment of policy that actually forces us, both the left and the right, that if there are cuts, modernization, changes, updates in methodology on how we deliver services, is this the stressor that makes us do something that is hard but also do something that is truthful.
I am also going to try repeatedly to make the point, Mr. Chairman, and show why we are primarily doing this. We have a bunch of provisions of the 2017 tax reform that begin to expire. Most of those provisions actually are to the benefit of small businesses and the working class. I will show that over and over and the distributional effects.
Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chair, I rise today in opposition to this budget resolution.
This budget is disastrous for the American economy. It will balloon our deficits, lead to higher interest rates, and make the things Americans buy every day more expensive. It will slash critical investments in the things that make us healthier, safer, and more productive, things like cancer research, aviation security, and our National Park System. It will decimate critical programs that support the people we represent, stripping healthcare for millions and making it harder for families to put food on the table and make ends meet. All of this is for billionaires and corporations to get tax cuts they do not need and that our country cannot afford.
I am pleased to do this with my friend, Chairman Schweikert. I also believe in math, and I rarely brag, but I am good at math.
Americans have been clear. They want lower prices and an economy that works for them. Yet, instead of focusing on making life easier for American families, at every turn, this administration and my Republican colleagues have engaged in a scorched-earth policy, a policy that creates chaos across the country as the richest person on the planet eliminates services that our Nation depends upon.
My friend from South Carolina earlier said that the policies would bankrupt our country. What does he mean? Healthcare for our families? Food for the working poor who overwhelmingly live in Republican districts?
Sure, get rid of any identified bloat, as every President does, but this is a budget about billionaires, not about every American, the women, men, and children who we represent. Yes, I want to move toward a much smaller deficit budget.
I listen to David Schweikert every closing afternoon during his Special Order hours. I hate the higher interest costs, but who pays? Our families or the 1,000 billionaires, that small percentage, 1 percent or less, of the American population that has way more wealth than they could ever spend in lifetimes to come?
Republicans have long sung from the altar of fiscal responsibility, yet the plan they put in front of us today is a fiscal sacrilege. It depends on fantasy math and ignores that their deficit-busting tax breaks will add at least $4.6 trillion to our Nation's credit card and even more interest that our families must pay.
This interest has real costs. It slows economic growth. It depresses the standard of living. It leads to higher inflation and higher interest rates. It makes it even harder for families already faced with high prices and borrowing costs to make ends meet.
Wasteful, woke, and weaponized policies, my friend from Texas said. That is a very small percentage of the Federal budget. You can never achieve what is in this budget resolution on wasteful, woke, and weaponized policies.
With this Republican plan, how do they address it? They double down on the policies that will widen the growing wealth gap of this Nation by giving billionaires trillions in handouts and providing pennies to the middle class.
According to the Treasury Department, the top 1 percent of Americans, those making over $750,000 a year, can expect to get an annual tax cut of over $32,000. Working families will see a tiny fraction of that.
Of course, the other main beneficiaries will be the wealthiest executives of the wealthiest corporations at a time when corporate profits are at an all-time high. Americans who rely on government services will be told they need to make sacrifices to pad their profit margins even further. How does that make any sense?
To pay for these tax cuts for the ultrawealthy, the Republican budget proposes to cut programs Americans rely on to afford healthcare and to put food on the table.
Almost 100 million Americans, including seniors, children, families, and those from every corner of this country, depend on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to afford medical care. Yet, this budget would slash almost $900 billion from these critical programs, ripping away lifesaving coverage and raising healthcare costs for those who rely on them.
At a time when prices at grocery stores continue to climb, this budget would make it even harder for the 40 million Americans who rely on SNAP to put food on the table.
The budget we are considering today will do nothing to support the economic growth of this Nation. It will benefit the wealthiest at the expense of those who make this country work.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject it, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I have to figure out, do I sit here and just spend my time correcting things that are mathematically not true or not in the design of what is actually here or just over and over say how much I like working with Mr. Beyer
Let's actually walk through some basic math together. What will our spending be this year? It will be $7 trillion. What is actually in the cuts--remember the horrible draconian cuts--is $120 billion in a year. So, $7 trillion--a trillion is a thousand billion, for those of you who are math dysfunctional--let's walk through it, and $120 billion is the Armageddon.
I am probably going to end up using these a couple of times here because I think they make a point.
The way a reconciliation budget is laid out is it creates a series of boxes. Here are all of these authorizing committees. We need you to find savings. We need you to find those savings through modernization and waste and fraud.
We are going to spend a little time actually talking about some great documents even the Biden administration produced on waste and fraud, and I am sure every Member here has actually read them. We have some other articles from The Wall Street Journal on Medicare Advantage and all these others. Many of them, when all added up, are a trillion-plus dollars. Are we capable of actually being intellectually honest and walking through?
One of the charts--we are going to come back to this again--you have been hearing the Armageddon being said, that it is Medicaid.
I used to do my State's Medicaid budgets. Arizona has a somewhat unique system. We actually buy managed care capitated policies for our indigent population. It is remarkably effective, and we deliver remarkably effective healthcare cheaper than almost every other State in the country, demonstrating that planned design, managed design, can both be much healthier for our society and save money. You don't start to have those revolutionary conversations in Congress until you have moments of stress like this.
Once again, I want to add, in the document, 96 percent of the budget authority within Energy and Commerce is not touched. We are talking 4 percent of their budget authority, and that is spread over a decade. If we can't find 4 percent of modernization in these programs, we are actually in much more trouble than even just the brain trust here as we tell our stories.
Madam Chair, despite all the promises on the campaign trail, House Republicans have chosen to do three things with their majority: raise the cost of putting food on the table, raise the cost of getting healthcare, and use that money, deserving taxpayers' money, to cut billionaires' taxes. That is it. That is the agenda.
Let's look at the scale of what Republicans are sacrificing: funding that feeds 15 million children, a program that pays for half of all the births in America, and a service that keeps nursing homes and health centers' doors open. This is all to cut Elon's taxes.
If that sounds outrageous to you, Madam Chair, and I sure hope it does, you are not alone.
Let's be clear about the kind of money we are talking about. Do you know what it costs to keep a kid on Medicaid? It costs $10 a day. How about how much it costs to keep that child fed with SNAP benefits? It costs $6 a day.
What do Republicans want to give away to the already rich? They want to give $6 million per billionaire. Think about that. For a billionaire, $6 million is not even a rounding error. For a hungry child, it is enough to eat every single day for 34 lifetimes.
Inflicting hunger on children to give billionaires money they don't need and won't even notice, there is no moral code under which that is acceptable. There is no public demand for it. There is no logical reason for it other than total fealty to billionaire donors, billionaires who will never feel they have enough.
I will close with a family that has been on my mind, a mom-to-be who is 5 months pregnant. She and her husband are happy. They are in love, and they are excited for their daughter to arrive. Every month, their budget is tight. They get a little bit of help from food pantries, but sometimes, even if they arrive by 6 a.m., the food is already gone. Without the SNAP program, the mom said: I honestly don't know what we would do. I honestly don't know what we would do.
Every Republican has a choice to make with this vote. Will they vote to keep that mom and her daughter fed, or will they keep padding the pockets of those who will not even notice?
The American people can forgive a lot, but they will not forgive this betrayal.
Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I love public policy by storytelling, but this being the Joint Economic Committee, let's actually go back to math.
Madam Chair, I would say to Mr. Beyer that I want to make sure I am communicating right, but at least we are down to, instead of the Armageddon, his number was, well, if you cut $2 trillion over 10 years, that is $200 billion. He is right, but that is actually not what is in the document here. It is functionally 1.2 with a shock absorber. Once again, I will give you the shock absorber, depending on what Ways and Means ultimately does. I thank the gentleman again. It shows we actually are fairly close on math.
Another thing, and this is just someone who actually had worked on the tax reform in 2017 and the storytelling that has existed, particularly with my brothers and sisters on the left--Madam Chair, how would you feel if I could document to you that the post-2017 tax reform was more progressive? They were lower rates, but the top portion of income earners actually were paying a higher percentage of Federal income tax.
When you start looking at this, remember, this is the distributional problem that I was going to try to walk through. I believe when you do the math here, 5 percent of the population are people making stunning amounts of money. If we want to have a discussion about whether they should pay more--guess what?--this opens up that discussion because there are no rates locked in to this. It just creates the capacity to now have the discussion.
The fact of the matter is that the top 5 percent pay 38 percent of all Federal income taxes. Functionally, half of the workers in the United States pay less than 1 percent. I will take a correction if someone knows the actual number, but I think the bottom 25 percent receives more because of the earned income tax credit, which is the old negative income tax model. Look, we have a distributional problem.
If you want to have a discussion of wealth and income equality, I have some great charts to show you what inflation did, what the previous functionally 3\1/2\ years of inflation did to wealth and the working class. When you inflate up people who have assets and crush those who are trying to survive, congratulations. Remember, before the pandemic under the TCJA, the tax reforms of 2017, it was the fastest closure of income inequality in American history.
What is being discussed here is whether you allow those very tax benefits for small businesses, for individuals, to expire. We don't get a huge economic pop from continuing them. You maintain consumption. We know if you don't do them, that loss of consumption in those populations actually really hurts us economically.
I am going to reserve in a moment, and then, we are going to come back and talk about some of the other provisions that are just, once again, Madam Chair, trying to create the capacity so we can actually have the more elegant debate of what should the distributional effects be and where do we get the most economic growth from?
The next time I come back, let's actually do a bit of where the economic growth can come from, and we will walk through the model of expensing and those things.
Madam Chair, to add to the distributional impacts, the top 5 percent pay 38 percent of the taxes, but they have more than 60 percent of the wealth. The bottom 10 percent pay very little but live hand-to-mouth, including more than 12 percent of our children.
Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Aguilar), the distinguished chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in opposition to this Republican budget.
House Democrats came to Congress ready to work with our Republican colleagues to lower the cost of eggs, take on price gouging, expand the child tax credit, build more housing, and put the pocketbooks of working families first. This is what the American people told us was their top priority, and these are the issues that drive our Caucus.
Instead, Madam Chair, they have turned their attention to the only policy priority that they really care about: ensuring billionaires pay less.
My constituents can't afford eggs at the local grocery store while my Republican colleagues are fighting amongst themselves about who to hand out tax breaks to, corporations or individuals.
Tesla pays $0 in Federal taxes while teachers and firefighters in San Bernardino are paying more than their fair share.
Here is the reality, Madam Chair: My Republican colleagues are going to take away healthcare for more than 10 million Californians to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
This is not going to make the cost of eggs cheaper or housing less expensive, but it is going to put children and seniors who need healthcare at risk.
House Democrats believe that the people who work for a living ought to get a little breathing room, and the wealthy and well connected shouldn't get special treatment.
The Republican budget is not good for the economy. It is not good for the country. It is a betrayal of the middle class. I urge a ``no'' vote.
Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I actually made a board for what the gentleman's point was, showing, within this reconciliation budget document, how much additional tax cuts are there for C corporations. There is your board. I am being a little sarcastic, but that is sort of a personality trait.
The fact of the matter is, once again, the talking points don't match up with the reality here.
Everyone in this room, your taxes go up at the end of this year. If you run a small business, a passthrough, not a C corporation, a passthrough, your taxes go up. If you are part of an employee-owned company, so you have come together and you are managing yourselves almost like an employee co-op, your taxes go up.
Also, I hope but don't know if the capacity that this creates will allow us to do it, but I sure hope so. We have some great data, and I won't make you live through my charts that show expensing, research and development expensing and expensing. It has a cost in the 10-year window.
Hopefully, everyone has listened to my dozens and dozens of speeches walking through what expensing is. Expensing is nothing more than depreciation. Do you take the expense in 1 year or, let's pretend, 7 years? You still get the exact same amount of reduction on your taxes. It is a timing effect. The difference is if you can't take it in the first year and you do it over 7 years, you have to finance it.
We have great economic modeling that shows when you do expense research and development, when you do expensing, you get a virtuous cycle of: We bought the piece of equipment, so we do it better, faster, and cheaper. Our competitors just did it, so the next year, we have to do it again.
That was one of the reasons, particularly prepandemic, we had that sudden spike of capital expenditures and productivity. The punch line on that is that does not exist now. It is our fading out for those C corporations, which had their rates already locked in, but also for all those other small businesses to make those capital expenditures.
Why is this really important? Well, there is a lot of data that shows that part of the tax code actually does, from an economic growth standpoint, create incredible vitality. It is a timing effect. It is the tyranny of living within a 10-year window in our models. I just hope that starts to elevate a little bit of the economics discussion instead of the storytelling.
Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.
Madam Chair, Republicans pretend to care about the Nation's debt and annual deficits, but they have instructed Ways and Means to add $4.5 trillion to the debt to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest.
What we have heard from our Republican opponents here today is that if we don't pass this resolution, everybody's taxes are going to be raised.
I will tell you what, there will be crumbs from the master's table for the average American earning under $200,000 a year versus tax cuts for the wealthiest corporations and individuals.
That is the math. I know how fond you are of math. That is the arithmetic.
Let me tell you, the handouts to the wealthiest will come on the backs of the least of us, from affordable healthcare through the ACA and Medicaid, veterans healthcare, nursing home coverage, food assistance, student loan repayment options, energy tax credits, national security, and cancer research.
You all contend that 78 million people voted for this. No, they did not.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Madam Chair, no, 78 million people did not vote for this. Who do you think you are fooling?
They are not fooled by your notion that somehow these tax cuts are going to pay for themselves, that they are backed up by all kinds of economists, the CBO, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair.
Madam Chair, the average family would save $2,853. That is your crumbs.
I would argue, for the average family that has been crushed by the previous 3 or 4 years in inflation, if you don't make 27 percent more money in my district, you are poorer today than you were 4 years ago. They were having their taxes go up $2,853, and that is the average.
I promise you, Madam Chair, I think in my district it was closer to 3,300. I am blessed to have a more prosperous district. That is not crumbs, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Casten), who is a distinguished member of the Joint Economic Committee and our preeminent environmental economist.
Madam Chair, I want you to imagine that a friend came over to you and said: Donald Trump taught me how to save 50 percent on my shoe purchases. All you have to do is cut off one leg.
It is just math, as the gentleman from Arizona says. So let's get out the saw and head to Foot Locker.
Now, Madam Chair, if you were a good friend, you would tell them: You are crazy, and you need to stop thinking that Donald Trump likes you.
Nonetheless, here we are today talking about the idea that we are going to save money by gutting Medicaid; slashing food assistance; defunding white-collar law enforcement, the police; and exploding budget deficits so that we can do what Donald Trump told you he wants: Give a $4\1/2\-trillion tax cut to the wealthiest Americans.
So I would say to my Republican colleagues as a friend: Donald Trump doesn't like you. He doesn't really like anybody. He just assumes that you will
If you are sick of being bullied and if you are ready to act like the leaders you claim to be and make sure that we leave this country in a little better shape than we found it, then grow a spine and vote hell no on this budget resolution.
The Acting CHAIR. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Krishnamoorthi), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
Madam Chair, I rise today as the ranking member of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, to express serious concerns about the proposed cuts in the Republicans' budget resolution.
First, the resolution includes $880 billion in cuts to programs that risk stalling the advancement of technologies crucial to our competition with the CCP.
Second, these cuts will likely jeopardize our ability to enforce critical export controls with the Chinese as well as gutting programs that help us reshore manufacturing from China.
While we have got to restore our fiscal house, these cuts to critical programs amount to the GOP's perverted version of DEI, devastating, extreme, and irresponsible.
The CCP is cheering for the GOP budget resolution tonight, and I object.
Madam Chairwoman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chairwoman, can you believe this? We broke our printer. However, thank heaven we didn't break the markers.
So I thought actually just because we are trying to do fact-based, the average family's taxes are going up at the end of this year $2,853, and 62 percent of taxpayers will see hikes.
I am sorry, we just didn't have time to make a much prettier chart for everyone.
Remember that after 2017 we actually moved up, some of that were some of the deductions and things that were added, we moved up the threshold, so almost one-half of our taxpaying population actually didn't pay income tax. They still had payroll taxes and FICA and those things.
A bunch of that population that has not paid taxes in years and years and years will be getting tax bills with the opposition to this.
Madam Chair, we are going to come back and go over more.
Madam Chair, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Virginia, for yielding me time.
I rise today in strong opposition to this budget resolution. As an Appropriations Committee member, thoughtful consideration of government spending is a responsibility I don't take lightly. I believe every hard-earned taxpayer dollar must work for all Americans, not fuel wildly irresponsible economic theory.
I would like to think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe the same thing, given the rhetoric we have all heard over the last several years.
So I encourage the American people to watch what House Republicans do, not what they say.
Remarkably, instead of lowering costs, this reckless budget resolution bestows tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans while jeopardizing essential healthcare and nutrition programs. For this reason, I strongly oppose the budget resolution authored by House Republicans.
Shockingly, gutting programs our communities rely on isn't harmful enough because this resolution will also require taxpayers to borrow another $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years.
Our Nation's Founders vested in the House of Representatives the unique set of powers to make it responsive to the will of the people. The father of our Constitution, James Madison, said that ``the House should have an immediate dependence on, and intimate sympathy with, the people.''
House Republicans demonstrate no dependence on nor sympathy with the American people.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this handout to millionaires and billionaires and work on a budget that instead advances the interests of American families.
Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Chair, once again, here is the budget document. Here are spreadsheets. I keep hearing: You are giving away to billionaires.
Where is that?
Where is it?
Madam Chair, it doesn't exist because this is a box that allows us-- and understand, Madam Chair, I am passionately concerned about debt and deficits, but this may be, for an idiot like myself, the first opportunity where members of leadership and those are ready to allow people like me to come in and walk through how we can improve and change the costs of how we deliver services, and we need this type of document to do it.
Madam Chair, you deal with the reality of what we are allowed to touch. You do realize the majority of mandatory spending we are not even allowed to touch in a budget reconciliation because it is interest and Medicare is the majority. Every day we wait to modernize, we are in that much more trouble.
The last thing before I do a yield here. We are going to spend $86 trillion, and I am partially doing this off the top of my head, over the next decade.
This budget reconciliation we are hoping to get, let's say we are blessed and we get $2 trillion in offsets, so that creates a couple trillion dollars in additional borrowing, we are talking a fraction, a couple percent of the spending, Madam Chair.
I would argue this is the moment for us where it is not about cuts. If any of us has ever just even bothered to look at the MedPAC reports, and this was done by the Biden administration, we have potentially over a decade hundreds of billions of dollars in here that aren't going to services. They aren't going to make our brothers and sisters healthier.
Help us. Help us engage the morality of doing this better, faster, and cheaper.
Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao).
Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding. I also thank Leader Scalise for his time today.
We have a historic opportunity to advance the key priorities of this administration with a one-bill solution, and I fully agree we need to move forward in a way that reflects the needs of the American people.
This budget resolution unlocks the next step in the reconciliation process to deliver on our priorities. That includes extending key provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, like doubling the standard deduction, expanding the child tax credit, and maintaining the death tax exemption. These policies make a real difference for working families, farmers, and small business owners, and allow them to keep more of their hard-earned money.
We also need to fulfill our commitment of securing our border, strengthening our economy, and rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.
It is my understanding that after this resolution passes, House leadership will be working with the Senate to come to an agreement on reconciliation language so that the committees can begin drafting specific policies to achieve the administration's agenda.
There has been a lot of political rhetoric about what this upcoming budget resolution does and does not do, and I want to be clear about where I stand.
As a Representative of one of the most agriculturally rich districts in
I have heard from countless constituents who tell me the only way they can afford healthcare is through programs like Medicaid, and I will not support a final reconciliation bill that risks leaving them behind.
Medicaid cuts are deeply unpopular with the American families who sent us here to deliver on President Trump's agenda. I understand Medicaid is not explicitly named in this bill, but achieving $880 billion in budget cuts within E&C's jurisdiction is not an easy task.
I also ask that leadership remain committed to working with my colleagues and me to produce a final product that strengthens critical programs like Medicaid and SNAP and ensures our constituents are not left behind.
Madam Chair, I thank Mr. Schweikert for yielding and I thank the gentleman from California's Central Valley for his passion. He has been a vocal advocate for the things that are necessary to keep these programs like Medicaid strengthened. As we know, some of these programs are weakened right now. As we move this through the process, he surely has my commitment and that of all of leadership that we will continue to not only listen to him, but his district is going to have a very loud voice as this process moves forward to protect and make sure that people who are on these programs, who are deserving, and who need these programs are going to--frankly, we all ought to be focused on getting better services to these people and rooting out the waste, fraud, and abuse. That is what we are focused on, protecting those people who are on these programs who need them so desperately as Mr. Valadao has fought for years to deliver. He will continue to do that, and we absolutely commit to that for him and others.
Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Small Business Committee.
Madam Chair, I rise today in strong opposition to this Republican rip-off. This budget slashes $880 billion from Medicaid, putting 286,000 people in my district, including nearly 100,000 children, at risk of losing healthcare.
Madam Chair, cruelty is the point.
It also targets food assistance, leaving over 147,000 New Yorkers in my district struggling to afford meals.
Cruelty is the point.
Why?
All this to hand out trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the top 1 percent. Republicans tried this trick before in 2017. They promised it would raise wages, pay for itself, and boost the economy. It didn't.
Instead, it made the rich richer while working people fell further behind.
Now they are doubling down, making America sicker, poorer, and hungrier just to funnel more money to their billionaire donors.
This isn't fiscal responsibility. It is economic cruelty. Vote ``no.''
Madam Chairwoman, economic literature and, actually, I think even the board here demonstrated that, if we go back to the original TCJA, over 70 percent of those corporate tax cuts show up in wages. That is one of the reasons there was such remarkable wage growth without inflation. If workers are cared for, tax policy becomes correct.
Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).
Madam Chairwoman, I thank my friend from Arizona for yielding to me for 1 minute.
Madam Chair, I rise in strong support, first of all, of this budget resolution. It is a critically important piece of legislation. Frankly, it might be one of the most important resolutions that this Chamber has taken up in years to start the process of delivering on the mandate that President Trump and this House and Senate Republican majority got from the voters of America in November.
I understand that my friends on the other side of the aisle are upset with the voters of America that the minority lost the election. My Democratic colleagues are upset with the results. If everybody here listened to what the American people said in November, frankly, first of all, they would vote for this resolution because the resolution delivers on those commitments, the things that were talked about, the things that sent people to the polls that say: Let's finally get America back on track.
How do we do it? Number one, we start by staving off a $4.5 trillion tax increase. That is $4.5 trillion.
We have heard a lot of hyperbole over the last few days. Just here on this House floor, we have heard from the other side of the aisle, Madam Chair, about millionaires and billionaires. For some reason, it seems like, if somebody is successful in America, the other side of the aisle wants to demonize them, as if that is wrong.
Clearly, if Members read this resolution, this resolution is not about millionaires and billionaires. This resolution is about whether or not Congress is going to stand up for the middle class of America, who will be devastated if this resolution fails.
A lot of times, when we come to the House floor, Madam Chair, my colleagues can vote for or against a bill, and maybe the bill does good things. Maybe Members think the bill does bad things and nothing happens if they vote against the bill. Some days, nothing happening is a good day.
Today, if nothing happens, it is not nothing that happens. Let's be clear: Members have options, Madam Chair. They can vote ``yes'' to pass this resolution and get this process of budget reconciliation started, or they can vote ``no,'' like all of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle brag that they are going to do.
If that is the case, Madam Chair, maybe I can persuade a few. Maybe Democrats don't know this because clearly my colleagues on the other side of the aisle haven't read the resolution. We hear Democrats talking about Medicaid over and over again: Cuts to Medicaid. Cuts to Medicaid.
Clearly, my colleagues haven't read the resolution because, if they read the resolution, the word ``Medicaid'' is mentioned a total of zero times in the resolution. That is all my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to talk about.
If Democrats read the resolution, the minority would talk about what this does to engage 11 different committees in this Congress to start a process called budget reconciliation, where they will go into open hearings, on C-SPAN. Everybody in America can watch the deliberations, where there will be a discussion about how to get this country back on track. The people of this Nation are hungering for that.
They are not hungering for people yelling and screaming and telling lies and trying to scare people with false information. We are here to talk about facts, and the facts are that a ``no'' vote imposes $4.5 trillion in taxes that primarily hit middle- and low-income families, not the millionaires and billionaires that my colleagues seem to want to demonize.
For example, President Trump was heard talking at every rally about no tax on tips. Clearly, the other side of the aisle was against that. They wanted everybody's taxes to go up. They said they were against renewing the Trump tax cuts, let alone adding things like no tax on tips. We know they were against making sure that those people who work for tips don't have to pay taxes on it.
Well, who are those people who work for tips? Madam Chair, last time I checked, Elon Musk does not work for tips. The billionaires aren't the ones working for tips. In fact, we went back and checked. There are over 6 million Americans in this country who actually do work for tips.
Madam Chair, what is their average salary? Is it $1 million? Is it tens of millions? Is it $1 billion? No. In fact, the average salary of tip workers is $32,000 a year. That is who we are helping in this resolution.
Those tip workers who are struggling, some of them may be working
The other side of the aisle says ``no'' to that. My colleagues hide behind Elon Musk and hide behind billionaires and millionaires, except it is not the millionaires and billionaires who we are trying to help.
Democratic Members want to confuse the voters of this country so that, when the minority votes ``no,'' the middle class of America doesn't realize and revolt that Democrats just voted with their ``no'' vote to impose a $4.5 trillion tax hike on the middle class of this country.
Look at the big number. Taxes on every income level go up. Madam Chair, for those who pay income taxes in America, if the other side of the aisle votes ``no,'' everybody's income tax rate goes up.
Who are those folks? It is 145 million families. It is not 145 million people. I am talking about 145 million families in America who make less than $1 million will see their taxes go up. It is a tax increase not on the millionaires and billionaires if my colleagues vote ``no,'' but it is a tax increase primarily on middle- and lower-income families.
Why aren't Democrats telling us that? Why haven't Members said that on this House floor? It is because my Democratic colleagues don't want the American people to know the truth. The minority wants to create class warfare and try to divide the country against itself.
Shame on people who want to divide this country even more. It is time we unite this country and grow this country, grow the middle class, actually create more jobs and wealth and opportunity.
Madam Chair, as Mr. Schweikert pointed out earlier, and he has the charts to prove it, wealth and opportunity for lower and middle-income families is what happened in 2017 and beyond when we started with the Trump tax cuts.
Just because minority Members don't like the person whose name is behind those tax cuts, Democrats want to try to demonize him, but the facts still remain.
Who benefited the most? We were losing our middle class in America in the decade before we passed those tax cuts. Why? Go look at the record, the facts. We were losing great American company after great American company. They were moving out of America. They were leaving the country. Why is that? It is because we had the highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Madam Chair, the other side would say: Stick it to them even more. Raise tax rates even more.
Madam Chair, there are laboratories of democracy where that has been tried. It is called New York and California, and every time they keep raising rates, what happens? People move in droves. A million-plus people have left those States to go to other States, such as Texas, Florida, and Tennessee, where there is no income tax.
Sure, we are seeing it happen in America, but what happens if Democrats destroy America's system? Where do people go? Well, some of those people left America.
Madam Chair, we don't want that to happen. We actually brought companies back. The logos of all of them would be recognized if we put them up. There is too many to mention that left America over years and years, and nobody did anything about it. Everybody knew why it was happening. We made our country competitive again. How? It was by lowering tax rates.
Madam Chair, everybody should have been for that. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party back then said: We are going to vote ``no'' on that.
Every single Democrat voted ``no.'' Why did my colleagues on the other side of the aisle make it a partisan issue? I don't know, but I know this: We lowered those tax rates to make America competitive.
We are a globally competing economy. Our companies in America don't just compete against the person down the street. They are competing against companies all over the globe, and we should applaud that. We shouldn't just applaud it, by the way; we should make sure they remain the most competitive businesses in the world and that America remains the most competitive country in the world, but we weren't. We were not.
That is why we were losing people. Imagine people saying: I am going to leave the United States of America, the greatest country in the history of the world. It is because our country stopped being competitive, and we finally did something about it.
In 2017, this Republican majority did something about it and finally brought those jobs back and brought wages up. Wages grew for everybody. Companies were giving out bonuses and pay raises. Our unemployment rate went to virtually zero. Those are the facts.
Democrats want those tax rates to go up. Not all of them expire. The corporate rate remains, by the way, competitively low at 21 percent. The corporate rate stays at 21 percent. Do my colleagues know what doesn't stay low if Democrats vote ``no''? I am a ``yes'' vote because I want our country to be competitive. I want our small businesses to be able to be competitive with big businesses.
My Democratic colleagues love beating up on the big guy, but guess what the minority is going to do, and let's look at the facts.
Madam Chair, every small business in America is under a provisional tax code called 199A. If companies are not a small business, they probably have never heard of 199A. If they are a small business, a 20- person mom-and-pop shop on Main Street America, anywhere in this country, 199A is their lifeblood because that is what allows a small business, a 10-, 15-, 20-person American Dream story who started their own business, to now compete and pay the same tax rate as the big, global, multinational corporation who is at 21 percent.
Madam Chair, what happens if Democratic Members vote ``no''? Again, the ``no'' vote does not mean nothing happens. If Members vote ``no,'' they are saying they want the small business now to go from a 21 percent effective rate to as high as 43 percent in taxes.
Think about this: The mom-and-pop small business is barely hanging on. They have beaten all the internet competitors, and they are still able to hold onto those jobs, show up at work every day, and employ the 20 people or the 15 people that they are creating jobs for.
If the other side gets their way, that small business jacks up to a 43 percent tax rate when their competitor, the big, global, billionaire corporation, is still at 21 percent. That is what happens if Democrats vote ``no.''
Why haven't my colleagues said that during the debate? I haven't heard it yet. Again, all we hear about is the billionaires and the millionaires are the ones getting all the breaks, except it is not true, Madam Chair. It is just not true.
Every small business in America gets kicked in the gut if this fails. It will be every small business in America. Look at the numbers. This is over 20 million small businesses. Think of how many workers that is.
Do Democrats just want to kick all of those workers out to the street and to the unemployment rolls? If businesses are paying 43 percent and their competitor is paying 21 percent, one doesn't need a math degree to figure out how quickly they are not going to be able to compete.
We made them competitive in 2017. Why does the other side want to vote ``no'' and all of a sudden make every small business in America uncompetitive with the big billionaires? Madam Chair, Democratic Members are defending the billionaires. This is insanity, but that is the reality of what happens if Members vote ``no.''
Again, maybe by me going through the actual details, we might convince a couple of Members that maybe somebody duped them. Someone gave Members some talking points. Someone mentions the words ``millionaire'' and ``billionaire'' and, next thing we know, we have a parade of 200 people who will just line up and bash the resolution, except it is not in the resolution.
Do my colleagues want to stand up for the middle-class families of this country? Vote ``yes'' on the resolution because that is who we are defending.
Republicans are going to defend the ability for the next billionaire company maybe, but right now it is a dream in somebody's basement. This is what is great about America. If my Democratic colleagues haven't, they should go look at their favorite company. Go look at the biggest companies. Most of them started with a dream in somebody's garage in Silicon Valley.
I know a lot of entrepreneurs who started with great ideas and risked it all over and over again, and then ultimately they might have hit it big, but the only way they were able to hit it big is because they had the ability in the United States of America to turn that dream into a reality where now, all of a sudden, they might hire 300 people.
We ought to applaud that. We ought to celebrate that. We ought to make sure that remains in place. The day we take away that ability in the United States, God help us as a country because the few people who still want that dream but don't have America to go to pursue it, they might go to other places, but there just aren't that many other places in the world to pursue it.
We cannot crush the American Dream of America. It starts with strengthening the middle class and the lower income families' ability to compete with the big guys so that maybe one day they can be, and then they, too, will be demonized by the other side.
In the meantime, give them that ability to compete fairly, and you take that away if you vote ``no'' on this bill. Those are the facts.
Whose rates go up and whose rates don't if this bill fails? That is where we are.
I do think it is important to, one more time, go through the facts of the 2017 bill because so many lies have been told about that.
The poverty rate dropped to the lowest level in history. This isn't the millionaires and billionaires. When we passed the bill in 2017 that every Democrat voted no on, the poverty rate in America dropped to its lowest rate in history. Unemployment hit a 50-year low, and lower- income workers--not the millionaires and billionaires, lower-income workers--saw their wages grow substantially faster than the highest 10 percent of income earners.
Whose side are you going to be on today? We are going to give everybody an opportunity to stand up for those hardworking people who want their shot at the American Dream. Stand up for that waiter or waitress who is working their tail off tonight and who is going to come home and go: Wait a minute. I might not have to pay taxes on my tips. I can save that money and, for the first time, start a college fund for my kid.
It is not the millionaires and billionaires that benefit from that. It is the average income worker. There are millions of them, by the way. The average income is $32,000 a year. That is who House Republicans are fighting for, and we are going to deliver for them because that was the mandate that the people of this country gave us.
Whether you agree or not, whether you like Donald Trump or not, Donald Trump ran on very specific things, and he is delivering on those things. I applaud President Trump for actually following through on the promises that were made. Promises made and promises kept actually matter in this town, and they are rare. When it happens, we ought to applaud it.
When this majority actually delivers, we are going to see on that board real soon who actually stands with the 77 million people of this country who said we want this change, that we demand this change, and that we are going to go to the polls to vote for this change. Let's preserve the American Dream.
Yes, at the risk of offending a couple of people, I am fine with saying: Let's make America great again because America deserves to be great again.
Don't put a $4.5 trillion tax on the middle class of this country. Let's let this country grow. Let's see opportunity flourish. We will do it. We need to pass this bill to start that process.
Mr. Chair, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes.''
Madam Chair, last week, I had five townhall meetings across northwest Oregon in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Not one person, not one of the thousands who attended, asked me to support a budget that cuts Medicaid, gives tax breaks to the wealthiest, raises the cost of living, or undermines safety and security, but that is what we are voting on today.
The Republicans are stealing the hard-earned tax dollars of Oregonians and Americans to line the pockets of people like Elon Musk.
This ruthless Republican budget will rip away healthcare from low- income and working families and children and take us back to the days when if you got sick, you either went without treatment or went bankrupt.
It could rip away resources from local schools and prevent children, especially students with disabilities, from getting a good education.
Republicans say they are eliminating waste. Do you want to talk about waste? Waste is giving the wealthiest big tax cuts while regular Americans are struggling to put food on the table.
The cost of groceries is increasing, wages continue to remain stagnant, and too many families can't afford housing or childcare. The Republican majority's answer is to rip you off and give tax breaks to the wealthiest and then hope, unrealistically, that it is going to trickle down.
We must oppose this Republican billionaire budget. We must focus instead on the American people so everyone, not just those at the top, have the opportunity for a better future.
Madam Chair, as the ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I rise today in complete opposition to the Republican rip-off budget resolution.
Let's be clear: This is a tax break for billionaires like Elon Musk paid for by working people, including millions of our veterans. The Republican rip-off cuts at least $880 billion from Medicaid, the program that 80 million Americans, including 9 million veterans, rely on for health insurance coverage.
This extreme budget also cuts $230 billion from SNAP. Every year, SNAP helps almost 43 million Americans, including over 1 million veterans, put food on the table.
Republicans aren't just going to leave American veterans without healthcare or make them go hungry. They also want to take a chain saw to VA, attacking the very people who provide care to the veterans who have served our country with honor.
This is completely unacceptable, and I urge every Member to oppose this abomination of a resolution that uses veterans as a piggy bank to pay for a billionaire tax break.
Madam Chair, I rise today not in favor or opposition. I rise in defense, defense of 811,000 Nevadans and countless people across the country whose lives are in danger. I rise in defense of my constituents who will be impacted if Republicans are able to slash their healthcare services to fund $4.5 trillion to the ultrawealthy and big corporations.
Madam Chair, Nevada Democrats and Republicans worked together to implement the Affordable Care Act, including the expansion of Medicaid. We reduced the uninsured rate by a third, and 563,000 children were able to receive coverage as a result. The fact that Nevada did the right thing then means we have more to lose as Republicans do the wrong thing now.
Our State would be the third hardest hit, including in rural communities. This isn't a budget. It is the Republican screw America bill. That is why I
Madam Chair, very often, we take very serious votes on this floor, but this vote is a deadly serious vote. This is a vote about life and death.
I represent just slightly over 780,000 constituents. Out of those 780,000 constituents, 524,000 of them are Medicaid recipients, and over 100,000 of them are Medicare recipients, so over 600,000 of the 780,000 constituents who I represent receive either Medicaid or Medicare. In addition to that, there are 263,000 households that receive food stamps.
This bill would put their lives and health in danger, Madam Chair. This is about life and death.
As the Republican majority proposes to cut Medicaid across this country to give a massive $4.5 trillion, with a capital T, trillion- dollar cut in taxes to the very rich, who would that go to? Fifty percent of that will go to the shareholders. Forty-four percent of that tax cut will go to high-end executives.
The fat cat executives are going to get this money, and working-class and even middle-class people are going to get stiffed with the cuts.
This is about life and death. It is not a simple piece of legislation that we will pass. There are diabetics who will see the price of insulin go up. There are people with renal problems and cardiovascular problems.
Madam Chair, this is about life and death. Vote ``no'' on this bill.
Madam Chair, let me have just a couple of moments of joy here. A reconciliation budget that only touches individuals and passthrough businesses, so there are no shareholders who are getting-- that is actually already locked in.
That is one of the reasons we are doing this is because you want to see distortions in the economy, have a world where small businesses, passthroughs, employee-owned, their taxes shoot up, but the C corporations are down here. What distortion did you just create in the world?
I am a C corporation. I am buying everyone else. You want to see the big get bigger? It is one of the reasons you have to do this. Also, I beg my brothers and sisters, have a different view but actually just try to get the most basic facts correct here.
Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), a distinguished and unenviable member of the Rules Committee.
Madam Chair, Republicans are attacking women's ability to afford life as a mom or a daughter.
Medicaid supports more than 40 percent of all births in the United States.
Our grandmothers and parents in nursing homes rely on Medicaid to pay their health bills. Their caregivers, who are mostly women, depend on Medicaid themselves.
Over 37 million children rely on Medicaid and CHIP. Republicans would strip this essential healthcare from women across the country. Why? To give tax breaks to their billionaire bros.
Women need to know how they will be impacted wherever they live.
Earlier today, we heard Representative Valadao acknowledge that his voters depend on Medicaid and are upset. Indeed, 507,000 of his constituents receive Medicaid, but he said he will vote ``yes'' on the bill.
I need women across the country to visit the Democratic Women's Caucus website to find out how these cuts will impact them and how much money billionaires and millionaires will make from women's economic pain.
Republicans should stand with their moms and not the billionaires.
Madam Chair, apparently, the Democratic position is the $2,000 you get per child, which was the doubling of the child tax credit in 2017, should go away and go back to the $1,000? Wow. I think that is what I just heard.
Those of us who have adopted kids, those who have children, congratulations, your child tax credit is going to get cut in half.
Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
With respect to my friend from Arizona, that is not what I heard. We heard that this budget resolution, as put together, promises cuts that we are desperately afraid of.
When we do the math, in Congressman Schweikert's district, Arizona 1, people who count on SNAP to put food on the table are 85,000; Medicaid recipients at risk of losing their healthcare, 127,000; Affordable Care Act recipients who will see their premium payments go up by varying amounts, 44,000. We would love to see a budget worked out that somehow gives a lie to those frightening numbers.
Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Min), a distinguished member of the Joint Economic Committee.
Madam Chair, I rise today in opposition to the disastrous GOP budget resolution.
This bill seeks to cut $3 trillion in spending, supposedly by targeting waste and fraud, but the entire domestic discretionary budget is only $917 billion, and that simply doesn't add up. There is only one way to get to $3 trillion in cuts, and that is to slash lifeline programs, including nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid.
Under the GOP budget, over 136,000 of my constituents would lose their healthcare, including over 42,000 children. This budget would also take food away from hungry children and deny healthcare to sick veterans.
Why are House Republicans pushing such an immoral and cruel agenda?
It is not to reduce our deficits. In fact, their budget adds nearly $1.6 trillion a year to our debt.
No, it is to pass tax cuts for billionaires and foreign investors. In fact, over $350 billion of these same tax cuts went to foreign investors over the last 10 years.
Let's be clear: If this budget passes, kids are going to go to bed hungry so that we can give more money to Elon Musk and investors from Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia. This is immoral. It is wrong.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this horrible budget measure.
Madam Chair, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Vasquez), a distinguished member of the Agriculture Committee and Armed Services Committee.
Madam Chair, I thought Republicans' plans were to make Americans' lives better. I thought we were supposed to lower the cost of goods. I thought we were supposed to make healthcare more affordable for Americans.
Well, let me tell you this: When you strip healthcare away from 290,000 New Mexicans, many of which are in my district, including 132,000 children and 26,000 seniors, can anybody on the other side of the aisle tell me how is that making life better for my constituents and for New Mexicans?
Well, it is not going to.
In fact, this Republican budget is going to raise healthcare premiums by nearly $1,000 a year for 20,000 people in my district. It could force a 60-year-old couple to pay over $16,000 more annually for coverage.
Now, in my district and in my State, we have some of the best service records of veterans in this entire country. In fact, we are home to the Code Talkers. We are home to folks who have served our country with pride and with dignity for so many years that when I look at the cuts that are being made to the VA healthcare system, I am ashamed of what this body is doing. I am ashamed of what my colleagues across the aisle are doing.
When I go home and I talk to a working mother, a person who wakes up at 7 in the morning and works two jobs every day and has to send her kid to school and relies on the food programs just to keep her family healthy, just to have something in the stomach of that 7-year-old who is going to first grade, and to know that their food assistance programs could get taken away, we are doing the exact opposite of what Republicans promised that they would do for this country.
This budget is a statement of where we are at as a country, and this is the wrong statement that we are making.
Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chair, just as some of my Democratic colleagues have done, I was just thumbing through the actual document. I know this is crazy, and literacy being sort of a lost art, but I am trying to find where this heresy, these cuts are.
There is a discussion here that basically says we need not to just purely stick this on the debt and deficit. Okay.
In the Energy and Commerce instruction, I think it is 4 percent of the area of authorization, you are telling me after the hundreds of hours idiots like me have come behind this microphone and done presentations showing the distortions, the waste and fraud, the misallocations, the lack of use of technology, the duplications, you can't produce 4 percent?
Why is the left so terrified of the moment where maybe a document that forces us in some ways to listen to each other, to maybe say: How do we do this better, faster, cheaper? I am going to say this three or four more times. Does the left really want to raise taxes on the average American family by $2,853? Is that the plan here?
This says that 63 percent of those who are tax filers will see their taxes go up. Is that the plan here?
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just respond to my good friend from Arizona. No, that is not what Democrats want. We don't want to see taxes go up for average, middle-class Americans at all. This is what our budget experts say, based on the budget resolution before us, as my friend Mr. Schweikert knows well: To achieve significant cuts, the kind of cuts that you are talking about, inevitably we have to look at Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
We look at the fact that in Virginia, just eliminating Medicaid Advantage is 660,000 Virginians. We see that 46 percent of the children in America receive their healthcare through Medicaid. When we look at Medicare, it is beyond belief what that would do.
I am looking forward to somehow seeing how you achieve the massive budget cuts that are in this resolution without touching those. That is why you have heard so much concern today about what this will do to the average American people.
It is not that we don't want to revisit not raising taxes on the American public. We also just don't want to cut away their healthcare, their SNAP benefits, their ability to put food on the table, and the like.
Mr. Chair, I am ready to close when the distinguished chair of the Joint Economic Committee tells me it is time. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, just because I want to help out-- because I know this is heresy around here. Truly one of my favorite Members to work with, even though we are on different sides of the aisle, he may want to retract the words ``Social Security,'' which he just said, because he knows Social Security cannot be allowed in any of this package.
Oh, no. Who else has been working for a decade now to save it?
Remember, in 2033, about halfway through the year, the trust fund is gone. Is that a Republican or a Democratic problem? I would say it is a morality problem. We will be doubling senior poverty in America in 8 years.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.
In doing so, let me first begin by saying that my good friend, John Larson, on the Ways and Means Committee has for years promoted Social Security 2100, which would actually fix it for the rest of this century.
Mr. Chairman, President Trump and the Republican majority were elected last November to deliver on a simple promise, to lower costs for Americans. Unfortunately, this budget does not do that.
My Republican friends have decided that providing billions of dollars in tax breaks for a few millionaires and billionaires is worth ordinary Americans bearing, as Elon Musk put it last year, some temporary hardship. That hardship brought about by this budget will come in many forms and may not mean much to the richest man in history, but it will certainly mean a lot to ordinary people.
It will grow our debt by $4.6 trillion. It will lead to higher interest rates and raising prices on goods that Americans pay for every day. It will cut crucial government services that keep us safe, healthy, and productive. It will strip healthcare and food assistance from tens of millions of Americans who are already struggling to make ends meet.
What are Americans getting in exchange for this hardship? Tax cuts for billionaires and corporations that they do not need and that our country cannot afford.
Mr. Chair, this is a bad deal. I urge all of my colleagues to reject this proposal. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. I know it is painful to listen to an idiot like me for 5 minutes, but let's have some fun here.
First, I want to say to everyone who has spoken, I love the passion and I love the caring. I just, once again, have to come back. This is a reconciliation budget. It basically builds boxes. This box here is for your authorization. You can go more, but you can't go less. Okay.
I am on the other side. I actually believe there should be more cuts in spending because I think we can achieve that by modernization, changing processes, and the adoption of technology.
Last week, I believe I was behind this very microphone, and we were showing charts of, hey, this is Medicare, how many billions and billions do we spend every year on duplicative MRIs, ultrasounds, x- rays? Does that make someone healthier? Does that make them better? No. It is basically waste and fraud.
We have the ability to use technology to get rid of that. If we all agreed to do something like that, then we are going to get rid of these duplicative services. We are going to get rid of some of the--we like to say waste and fraud, but the fact of the matter is there are design problems in the model. You didn't cut a single service. You didn't take anything away from someone, but what you gave is my kids a chance to survive.
Look, part of this I don't like. I am going to be brutally honest. I wish there were more cuts. I don't like the amount of borrowing here, but if this is the moment that opens up a chance for someone like myself, who has spent a decade here passionately trying to say it doesn't have to be cuts. It is actually the adoption of technology.
I am going to go slightly off track, then I want to get back into the distribution. If I turn to my brothers and sisters and anyone willing to listen right now, what is the single biggest cost in our society? This is where Schweikert soaks himself in kerosene and plays with matches, Mr. Chair.
It turns out it is obesity. For our brothers and sisters, we calculate there will be over $9 trillion in additional healthcare costs over the next decade. What would happen if the left and the right actually said we are going to fixate on the way we deliver healthcare, the way we deliver nutrition support, the way we do agriculture policy, that we are going to help our brothers and sisters be healthier, and, by the way, family formation, the use of healthcare, the ability to have a life.
Maybe it is moments like this where we go to battle in the committees. We
Now, for the comments you have heard over and over here about the distributional effects. Okay. Mr. Beyer and I are both on Ways and Means and battle in the committee.
Remember, there is no bill coming out of the committee yet. What is it going to look like? Do we actually have to make elegant changes? Are there things we can agree on as a body that will maximize economic growth?
At some point you have got to look--and I am sorry I have beaten up this chart, but we have been trying to model what happens to the economy if we allow these tax hikes to come in automatically.
It turns out the economy is also benefited if we maximize how much we pay for at the end of 10 years. I know changing spending policy is hard, but if we were to maximize both, at the end of the decade we are more prosperous.
Mr. Chairman, at some point that is the ultimate question here: Is prosperity moral? Is there a way we can actually do our work here where we maximize the prosperity for my 2\1/2\-year-old but also the person heading to retirement, to our brothers and sisters who are out there working their hearts out? There is a way.
The hardest part is we are going to have to do things differently than we have done in the past.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, today's vote marks an essential step towards fulfilling our promise to the American people--to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, secure funding for border protection, and move toward American energy independence.
After enduring significant inflation, American families and small businesses urgently need tax relief to make ends meet.
We must pass our budget resolution today to start the budget reconciliation process and advance the policies our American families expect and desperately need.
It includes much-needed deficit reduction, for which our children and grandchildren will be grateful. It will allow us to extend the successful tax cuts from 2017 that produced unprecedented job growth and higher wages for American workers.
This is only the first step in a process where everyone will have a voice. But it's a significant step toward American success and security, and I urge my colleagues to support it.
The Acting CHAIR. All time for general debate has expired. Pursuant to the rule, the amendment printed in House Report 119-5 is adopted and the concurrent resolution, as amended, is considered read.
The text of the concurrent resolution is as follows:
The Acting CHAIR. Under the rule, the committee rises.
Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Womack) having assumed the chair, Mr. Simpson, Acting Chair of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 14) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034, and, pursuant to House Resolution 161, he reported the concurrent resolution, as amended by that resolution, back to the House.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is ordered.
Pursuant to clause 1(c) of rule XIX, further consideration of H. Con. Res. 14 is postponed.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 788) to provide for Department of Energy and Small Business Administration joint research and development activities, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 427, nays 3, not voting 3, as follows:
Mr. PERRY changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Messrs. GOSAR, GREEN of Texas, Ms. HOYLE of Oregon, and Mr. FIGURES changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 804) to require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to improve access to disaster assistance for individuals located in rural areas, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill.
This is a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 415, nays 8, not voting 10, as follows:
So (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2025
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 1(c) of rule XIX, further proceedings on the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 14) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034, will now resume.
The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on adoption of the concurrent resolution.
Under clause 10 of rule XX, the yeas and nays are ordered.
This is a 15-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 217, nays 215, not voting 1, as follows:
Mr. YAKYM changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the concurrent resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Mr. Speaker, this past Saturday, February 22, 2025, beautiful York County, Pennsylvania, was shaken by a horrific act of violence.
Officer Andrew Duarte of the West York Borough Police Department was killed in the line of duty while responding to an active shooter at UPMC Memorial hospital at York, which also included a hostage situation that wounded five other individuals.
Officer Duarte demonstrated extraordinary courage, with no regard for his own personal safety, as he ran to the sounds of the guns and as he put himself in harm's way to protect others. He paid the ultimate price to protect the innocent.
This serves as yet another stark reminder of the selfless and tireless dedication of our law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line each day to keep us safe.
On Monday, I spoke to the chief, Chief Millsaps, who told me that Officer Duarte's last act, as he laid dying and bleeding out, was to pull one of his injured fellow officers to safety and behind the line of fire. ``Thank you'' will never be enough.
As we mourn this breathtaking loss, we pray for Officer Duarte and extend our deepest condolences to his family, fellow officers, loved ones, and all who were fortunate enough to have crossed his path.
May his bravery remain at the forefront and his legacy endure. His dedication to duty, tireless service, and selfless sacrifice set the standard by which we should all be judged. Let us honor him by remembering the immense price of safety and peace.
May God bless Andrew.
At this time, I ask the House to observe a moment of silence.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Public Schools Week.
Approximately 9 out of 10 American students receive their education from a public school. Our public school system, envisioned by our Founding Fathers, is meant to give every child, regardless of ZIP Code, background, or ability, access to a quality education.
These schools provide knowledge and skills that allow our young people to thrive and contribute to our communities.
As a senior member of the Education and Workforce Committee, a former school board member, and having attended public schools growing up, I understand the vital role our school system plays in the success of not only the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania but also our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, as part of Public Schools Week, I also want to acknowledge and recognize the tireless efforts of educators and staff who work each day to inspire and to support our students.
Every child deserves access to a high-quality education which helps foster growth and encourages students to achieve their great potential.
Mr. Speaker, during Black History Month, I rise today to honor Ronelle Mustin, a fearless champion for justice whose activism has shaped movements and transformed communities.
Ronelle was a founding force behind the first organization to demand sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime.
In 1979, as co-chair of the Chicago Peace Council, he fought to curb excessive U.S. military spending and redirect resources to those in need.
Ronelle's impact runs deep in Chicago. As a key architect of the 22nd Ward Independent Political Organization, Ronelle helped pave the way for Harold Washington's historic election as the city's first Black mayor in 1983.
For decades, he has been a relentless advocate for equity, justice, and true representation. His work has empowered countless voices and strengthened our democracy.
Mr. Speaker, Ronelle's legacy is one of courage and conviction. I thank him for his unwavering dedication to justice and for his friendship.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the many families still grieving from the heinous assault that claimed 1,200 innocent lives on October 7, 2023.
Last Monday marked 500 days since Hamas terrorists perpetrated the unprovoked and truly evil attack. It was the deadliest assault on Israel and the Jewish community since the Holocaust.
I commend President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for their efforts to secure the recent cease-fire agreement. Because of their collaboration, we are seeing some of the 240 hostages being released, including Americans.
I urge my colleagues to keep the events of that horrific day top of mind. It is imperative that the United States show unwavering support for Israel and the Jewish community so that Hamas terrorists or any other bad actors never attempt another attack on our closest ally in the Middle East, Israel.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask: When are prices going down?
I was told that this would be priority number one for this administration and Speaker Mike Johnson, but I have yet to have a chance to vote on a single piece of legislation that actually lowers costs.
I am hearing from my constituents over and over and over and over and over again that their grocery bills are too high, that they can't afford to buy a home, and that their paycheck just doesn't go as far as it used to.
We need to be doing more to help families get by instead of focusing on petty partisan politics. I have said over and over again my focus is lower costs, more jobs, and a better quality of life for Oregonians and that I will work with anyone to get that done. I am pursuing all of that by co-leading bipartisan legislation to help rural small businesses, by advocating for funding for my district, and by actually listening to my constituents. It is time for others to do the same.
Mr. Speaker, today is bittersweet. Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury announced her retirement.
DT is the greatest professional athlete in Arizona sports history-- fight me on that one--with three NCAA championships, three WNBA championships, and six Olympic Gold Medals and as the WNBA's all-time leading scorer. There is a reason when I was mayor I named the street in front of the arena Taurasi Way.
A world-class and hilarious trash-talker on the court, she could have been a professional comedian. She lights up every room that she is in, constantly uplifting others. Brittney Griner could not have asked for a more loyal friend during her detainment in Russia.
I had a courtside seat to her entire 21-year career in Phoenix. I saw her grow as a basketball player and as a tremendous leader in our community.
My son, Trevor, grew up idolizing Diana Taurasi. He wanted to be her when he grew up, but one day, I had to tell him: Son, you can't grow up to be Diana Taurasi. Her jump shot is just too darn good.
Dee, on behalf of a grateful city, Godspeed on your retirement.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise with a heavy heart to honor the loss of a giant, Florida State Senator Geraldine Thompson. She was a trailblazer, historian, and fierce advocate who worked every day to uplift Floridians, ensuring that nobody was left behind.
For nearly 20 years in the Florida Legislature, she broke barriers and created opportunities, especially for Black communities and those often overlooked.
Senator Thompson was unapologetic, courageous, and a force for good like no other. She paved the way for people like me to be in a job like this. She believed in the promise of this country and fought to make it a reality for everybody.
Senator Thompson's contributions to Florida and really to this country will never be forgotten, and her spirit will live on in the work she championed and in all of us who she inspired.
May she rest in power. Thank you so much, Senator Thompson.
Mr. Speaker, Black history has shaped our country, and I am proud to celebrate Black History Month with my Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus colleagues.
The coalition of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islanders, and Black Americans has worked hand-in-hand for generations to advance racial equality. That coalition was on full display during Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 when he wore a lei gifted to him by Reverend Abraham Akaka of Hawaii.
It existed even on the battlefield. Senator Daniel Inouye was a proud and decorated member of the legendary 442nd Infantry Regiment. He recalled how he sustained injuries in combat, which resulted in the loss of his arm, and that it was soldiers from the 92nd Division, a segregated African-American unit, who provided him with the blood for the 17 transfusions that kept him alive.
AANHPI history and Black history are inextricably tied together and, in the case of Senator Inouye, a blood bond uniting our two communities together.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today as we honor February as Black History Month.
I think of the students at Waterford's Second Street School in my district, a one-room schoolhouse established 2 years after the end of the Civil War where kids studied under segregation.
I think of Barbara Rose Johns, a civil rights icon from Virginia. Barbara's high school was dilapidated and overcrowded. At just 16, she led her classmates in a walkout, inspiring the Virginia NAACP to sue for integration. The walkout sparked one of five cases reviewed by the Supreme Court in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that Barbara Johns will soon have a statue just steps from this Chamber, alongside George Washington, representing the Commonwealth of Virginia.
As a country, we have come a long way since Barbara Rose Johns' high school was integrated, but we can't let our country slide back.
We will continue to fight and honor the work and legacies of Barbara Johns and all who fought for a more perfect Union.
Mr. Speaker, I have the distinct honor of being the only Black and Korean person serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.
As I stand with my colleagues from CAPAC in recognition of Black History Month, I celebrate the long history and importance of allyship in the Black and AAPI community.
From when Frederick Douglass denounced the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1869 to Jesse Jackson taking a stand and taking time away from his Presidential campaign to protest the murder of Vincent Chin to when AAPI groups stood with the Black community after the murder of George Floyd, today we continue that fight.
As the Republican majority seeks to cut Medicaid, which 11 million Black and 4.5 million AAPI Americans rely on, we know that we have a lot in common, and when we work together, we can be powerful and strong and use our voices.
On cutting SNAP food assistance, 30 percent of recipients are Black or AAPI. We must continue to stand together to use our voices, to use our political power, and to show up.
As this administration seeks to attack the civil rights that our ancestors fought for, we must let everyone know that the Black experience and the Asian American experience are indeed the American experience.
Mr. Speaker, there is a longstanding allyship between the Black and Asian communities in L.A. exemplified by the Holiday Bowl, once located in the heart of my district.
Founded by five Japanese Americans in 1957, the Holiday Bowl served everyone but had a particularly significant impact on the growing Black community in the historic Crenshaw Corridor.
Both the Japanese and Black communities in L.A. were targets of redlining and racial discrimination from the government and banks, which left them with few places to settle. While Japanese Americans worked to recover from the unjust internment camps and postwar discrimination, Black Americans continued to fight against racial segregation and voter suppression.
The Holiday Bowl provided a space to come together as Angelenos, offering residents of Crenshaw a safe space for entertainment, healing, and protection.
This solidarity was tested during the 1992 L.A. riots, which erupted following the horrific beating and arrest of Rodney King.
At a time when racial tensions dominated our city, and much of South Central was engulfed in flames, the Holiday Bowl stood as a beacon of light amid the destruction. Not only did the Holiday Bowl emerge unscathed from the riots, but people actually gathered to bowl on the night the riots broke out.
Although the bowling alley closed in 2000 and was eventually demolished, its impact on our South L.A. community will be felt for decades to come.
Mr. Speaker, my Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and I are proud to honor Black History Month and stand with our Congressional Black Caucus colleagues in the shared fight for equality and justice.
There is a long and storied history of solidarity between the Black community and the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.
In the 19th century, Frederick Douglass spoke out against the racist Chinese Exclusion Act and used his voice to advocate for Asian immigrants who wanted to earn the right to become U.S. citizens.
During the civil rights movement, Asian American activists protested alongside Black Americans in the fight for equality.
The allyship between our two communities remains critically important in the face of a vicious campaign to erase our stories, voices, and contributions to this Nation.
Make no mistake, we will fight tooth and nail for our communities and stand up to these attacks. We will not let anyone tell us that our stories don't matter.
Our stories are American history, and without us, our Nation would not be where it is today.
Mr. Speaker, House Republicans just passed their budget plan. Like many House Democrats, I am clear-eyed about this plan and how it will affect families in Westchester and the Bronx. This budget is a direct attack on the working and middle class, all while handing more than $4.5 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest in our society.
The cuts needed for these tax breaks will mean over 196,000 residents in my district are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage. This includes 73,000 children and 27,000 seniors. This budget plan also threatens 74,000 people who count on SNAP to put food on the table.
Republicans have promised to lower costs for everyday Americans, but this budget won't do that at all. Instead, it will make life harder and more expensive for constituents and Americans across the country.
As this process moves forward, I will join with Americans to fight for fairness and opportunity for every American.
Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in honoring Black History Month and uplifting the connection between the Black and Asian community.
As a Member of Congress who is part of both the Black and Asian community and the Civil Rights Task Force chair of CAPAC, I want to acknowledge the long history of solidarity between our two communities. For example, American abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke out against the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1869 in his Our Composite Nation speech. Our communities have shared struggles against systemic racism during the civil rights movement.
In the 1960s, for example, Japanese-American civil rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama, worked alongside Malcolm X during the civil rights movement.
During Black History Month, we are reminded that the civil rights and Asian-American movements have always gone hand in hand in seeking justice against systemic racism.
As we celebrate our progress this Black History Month and fight back against the Trump administration, we must remember that we cannot abandon our commitment to achieving racial equity for all people.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with my newborn, Sam, who is just 4 weeks old.
Unfortunately, I wasn't given the opportunity to vote remotely after giving birth. Nevertheless, I wasn't going to let that stop me from being here to represent my constituents and vote ``no'' on this disastrous Republican budget proposal.
Republicans and Trump promised to lower costs on day one, and instead their priorities have been focused on
It includes people like my mom who work for hourly wages but are still unable to afford healthcare. When you don't have access to healthcare, Mr. Speaker, you show up in the E.R. This is going to place a huge burden on our hospitals and, unfortunately, we will have skyrocketing costs. Hospitals will bear this burden.
It also slashes SNAP, taking food off the plates for seniors, veterans, and kids all to fund tax breaks for billionaires like Elon Musk while increasing our national deficit by trillions of dollars.
How can anyone show their face in their district after voting ``yes'' for this?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert) is recognized for one-half the time remaining until 10 p.m. as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the opportunity.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, America experienced wasteful spending, harming families and destroying jobs.
Tonight, in a very historic vote that we just completed; in order to combat those destructive impacts, House Republicans have voted to establish the congressional budget for the United States Government for 2025 and set forth the appropriate budgetary levels for 2026 through 2034.
Introduced by the very capable House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, this bill will pave the way for the passage of a single comprehensive bill which will deliver on the agenda of President Donald Trump. Again, it is Donald Trump promises made promises kept.
This budget resolution provides a framework for Congress to secure the border, unleash American energy, prevent the largest tax hike in history, create jobs, and bring common sense back to the government. Unnecessary and wasteful government spending will be eliminated, putting the American people first.
I am grateful for the leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson working closely with President Donald Trump for economic opportunity in jobs for all American families.
The Trump tax cuts have been proven to energize small businesses and to create jobs across the United States. The National Federation of Independent Business, NFIB, has made a difference in working with the administration for this progress tonight.
Additionally, large companies have expanded in my home State of South Carolina, anticipating the tax cuts which provide for citizens to have more money which they can use to improve their lives.
In the district I represent, I am very grateful that Michelin Tire Corporation of Lexington is the largest facility in the world, and this facility is producing tires for energy production across North America. President Trump has provided for an all-of-the-above energy policy which will create jobs.
It is also encouraging that Boeing Aircraft Company in Charleston is doubling its size. It has already been announced that there was the sale of $39 billion of 787-10 jets to Saudi, Arabia, as Saudi Arabia is developing a new airline, Riyadh Airways, which we know will be successful for our friends and allies of Saudi Arabia.
It is additionally encouraging, and I am grateful, that we have BMW success in South Carolina with the largest BMW manufacturing facility in the world along with Volvo in Summerville. It makes South Carolina the leading exporter of tires and automobiles of any State in the Union.
In addition to Michelin, we have Continental Tire, which is obviously German. We are grateful for their investment in Bridgestone, which is very important, and Japanese investment in the district I represent along with GITI of Singapore.
So over and over we have investments that are being made because of, I believe, significant anticipation of the vote that just occurred tonight.
In conclusion, God bless our troops as the global war on terrorism continues while the people of Ukraine continue to successfully stop war criminal Putin who is trying to resurrect the failed Soviet Union, killing so many people in Ukraine, additionally in Georgia, and threatening the people of Moldova. We know what war criminal Putin has done to oppress the people of Belarus and to address and try to disrupt the elections in Romania and the Republic of Georgia.
Open borders for dictators puts all Americans at risk of more 9/11 attacks imminent as warned by the FBI. President Donald Trump is reinstituting existing laws which are successfully securing our border to protect American families with peace through strength.
Today also marks the 100th day of the inspiring protest in Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia, where the people are protesting the rigged election that occurred on October 26 where war criminal Putin interfered in the elections and provided for, sadly, the institution of a new government which is not legitimate.
The legitimate government of Georgia led by President Salome Zourabichvili is so important to recognize as she courageously stands as a patriot for the people of Georgia.
Mr. Speaker, have you ever had a moment where the first words in your head are: I am damned if I do and damned if I don't, but is there a chance?
For a decade, I have been coming behind this very microphone and walking through demographics, debt, and the deficit and trying to explain something that the left doesn't like and the right doesn't like, that almost 100 percent of the growth of the deficit for the next three decades is demographics.
We don't like saying that because it is harder to play the politics of blaming each other. There have been dozens of things said. That is just the nature of it in regards to the reconciliation budget resolution that was just passed.
I managed part of the Joint Economic Committee time, and my job there as the chair of the Joint Economic Committee is I represent the committee, and now I get to represent myself.
I worry, but the opportunity is having basically authorizing committees do what is necessary to save our future.
Mr. Speaker, a little while ago you saw a beautiful little baby here. Last week, when we were here, I had my 2\1/2\-year-old that we have adopted with me.
Here are some basic pieces of math. For my 2\1/2\-year-old, when he is 24, 25 years old, every U.S. tax rate has to have been doubled, all of them, just to maintain baseline services.
The whole presentation of walking through what happens when you get a moment to actually disrupt policy and do things that are better, faster, and cheaper--because I will argue the army of lobbyists, basically the rent seekers, if you remember your high school economics, who are around us all, despise the concept of reform. They despise the concept of modernization. That is actually some of the basic things I want to go over tonight, and I will try to do it efficiently.
First off, I know I used this board a little while ago, and I am sorry it is handwritten. I broke the printer. It is just simply making a point that for the average American at the end of this year, if we don't fix the expiring provisions, their taxes go up $2,853, and functionally 62 percent of all taxpayers will be subject to higher taxes.
Now, we actually have our friends on the left basically saying: You are going to give away to the millionaires and billionaires. It is not the distributional effect of 2017.
As a matter of fact, one of the great trivia points--and I actually had some fun with this one because it comes from my progressive analysis from a few years ago--is that after the 2017 tax reform, the U.S. tax regime actually became more progressive. There were lower rates, but it meant the top-tier
You walk through saying: Okay. Can I show you? Well, you gave money to corporations. Yes, but we can show you that the vast majority of that actually went to wages.
People forget many of the things we did to force the repatriation back of capital, intellectual property, expensing, and R&D expensing. As a Republican, don't ever tell anyone this: A bunch of that was in the Obama budget.
They were in many ways bipartisan ideas from back then because we were bleeding out productive capacity in this country. We were transferring productive capacity and our assets overseas because of our tax regime and the ability to compete.
Now, it looks like the reality of sounding like an idiot economist around here doesn't buy you a lot of friends, Mr. Speaker. Yet, the fact of the matter is the budget box that was just offered is an opportunity to--Mr. Speaker, forgive me, my asthma and my lung infection are going a little nuts right now--it is an opportunity to stop our taxes from going up.
What I am actually more interested in is what I believe are solemn promises I got from the leadership about many of the things I have come behind this microphone for a decade talking about as to how we can adopt technology and how we can adopt models to lower costs and yet cover our brothers and sisters and give them more access and more opportunity to be healthier, because the way we deliver services as a government is archaic.
Right now, Mr. Speaker, if you were designing a system, you wouldn't do it this way. We are all terrified of whether it be the bureaucracy and their lobbyists and their unions, you know, something the left has to deal with. Many of the businesspeople that have learned how to make money off these programs are a problem. They come marching into our offices all upset because we are going to change their business model and make them compete.
Guess what, Mr. Speaker. That might be what we just accomplished in this vote, which is less about fixing the expiring tax provisions, which we are going to do, but maybe it will also give us that window where we can change and improve the way we deliver these services.
I can't figure out why this place is so intellectually calcified that they are terrified of changing it.
Mr. Speaker, let's once again walk through some of our basic math. This is just a pie chart--yes, it is a pie chart--yay, we love pie charts--for the estimates for this fiscal year. Basically, I want to take a look at it. It is a little less than 75 percent, but it is close. Actually, it looks like that may be. What is seen in red is mandatory spending.
Well, guess what. The blue is all I get to vote on as a Member of Congress, and every dime of the blue is borrowed. What happens if I come and say: Well, net interest? Well, we don't get to vote on the interest. My personal math is closer to almost $1.2 trillion in interest coming in this year, but I have been doing a running calculation of a higher interest rate.
We don't get to touch Social Security. Social Security has its own trust fund, which is gone in 8 years. Then, all of a sudden, we have to figure out--what is it, the first full year of Social Security trust fund being empty is $600 billion or $609 billion, something of that nature. It depends on workforce participation at the time that is done. That makes the dollars we were talking about today tiny.
Well, we have Medicare, Medicaid, and some other mandatory programs, so why am I showing this? What is so difficult here? I know this is geeky stuff, but this is why there is such a fraud in the debates that happen around this place, is we don't treat the voters like they have an IQ. Stop talking down to America. I will argue that many of them are a hell of a lot smarter than people like me.
We don't get to actually put net interest into our reconciliation budget. As a matter of fact, there is nothing we get to do about it. There is some things we could have if we could actually work together on the way we sell debt, or maybe the types of interest.
Professor Shiller of Yale wrote an article 10 years ago about trills, which is an equity interest in tax receipts, and other things--there is ways to break up the concentration on debt, making society less fragile--are subject to possibly bond vigilantes.
Social Security, it is illegal. It is part of the 1974 Budget Control Act. It can't be touched. Yet, I saw half a dozen Members on the other side go behind the microphone and say: Whoa, Social Security.
What is a good word for an absolute untruth? Oh, okay. I will work on that.
What we have is less than half of the red portion that we can even work on in a reconciliation budget.
This is an incredibly important moment. Will the standing committees, which have gone years and years and not been able to actually provide improvements, redesigns, and modernization, be able to look at things like The Wall Street Journal's five-article series and also the ones this weekend on Medicare Advantage?
Mr. Speaker, one of their headlines said--I think it was actually more than a single-year period, but $50 billion of fraud. Are we allowed to work on that? Is that Republican or Democrat, or is it just time to find a better way to actually think about these things?
That is maybe what we just opened up, assuming that my own leadership and my own committee chairman are ready to do hard work, really difficult things that, just like that baby, just like my 2\1/2\-year- old, maybe we could save their future. Maybe I could save their retirement without ever cutting a service.
There have been a number of Members who have come up behind the microphone and said that we are cutting Medicaid, and we are cutting this.
Really, find me that word in here.
It doesn't mean it is easy. For the Energy and Commerce Committee, they have to find 4 percent of their entire committee's authorization over 10 years. Are Members telling me they can't find 4 percent of improvements in this place? Yet, the sound of Armageddon, that is why this slice is so incredibly frustrating. We are trying to save the future. I am not bouncing around. There is a linear thought here.
Mr. Speaker, believe it or not--promise me you won't ever tell anyone this--I was reading an article from The New Yorker that just came out. Don't tell anyone that, as a conservative, I actually look on occasion at The New Yorker: ``The End of Children.''
Realize that the Census Bureau of the United States says that in about 7\1/2\ years this country has more deaths than births. Tell me as a junior actuary, or someone who wishes he was smart enough to be one, how I make the math of the future work in a society that has a shortage of young people.
Is that Republican or Democrat? It is just demographics, but we are not allowed to actually do difficult things here because, Mr. Speaker, it would require math, and then the harder part is it would require us to tell truth.
So many people, like this very moment, there will be someone on cable television on the left and the right doing their talking, getting people's dopamine to hit, but it is not honest math. The math is really hard. It is really complex. There is a way to make it work, but we have only a couple more years, I believe, to provide the stability. Maybe that is what we just did a few minutes ago.
Once again, this is the single board that gets me the most hate mail. It also is the truth. This is the 30-year projection. If my colleagues look at the 30-year projection from the Congressional Budget Office--I didn't produce this. They did, and we believe it is already way out of date because of the change in interest rates--Social Security and Medicare and their interest carry are responsible for almost functionally every dime of debt from today through the next 30 years. It is $116-some trillion of debt.
The rest of the budget actually has about a $9 trillion positive balance because its growth is slower than the growth of tax receipts according to the Congressional Budget Office. This is the thing the left, in my particular case, loves to run hate television commercials: He dared to talk about saving Social Security, saving Medicare, reforming how we deliver services so they are stable and so people have a future.
If Members want to understand why this place is so damned toxic, those of us who are actually trying to fix things also write the attack commercials for the other side. It is a sickness, but the math is the math, and the math will eventually win.
Mr. Speaker, understanding what will happen if we don't modernize how we deliver services and, through that, start to stabilize everything-- it is not just the benefits, but it is the growth of debt, convincing the bond markets we are going to be stable so they don't raise our interest rates.
A couple of weeks ago, we showed a chart that, if this place does stupid things and we make the bond markets nervous and we were to get a one-point increase in U.S. interest rates, we showed that, in 9 budget years, the additional interest is bigger than everything we talked about today.
My colleagues have to start processing how fragile we have made our future, and Members will start to actually look that, if we don't start to actually use this opportunity to say that we are going to use the reconciliation to open debate, we are going to not raise people's taxes, but we will get to have a robust debate, discussion, and ideas with the left, the right, particularly those of us on Ways and Means Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee, those things, saying: Here is what the mix should look like.
Maybe we don't extend everything. Maybe we mix them up. Maybe we find where there is leakage. Maybe we find where there is economic growth opportunities. Bring proposals. Bring economics. Bring statisticians. The debate is on, and now we get to actually have an honest debate based in statistics and math and maybe a future because we so rarely do that around here.
We are going to publish a couple more versions of this in more detail. I am blessed to also chair the Joint Economic Committee, so I have people who are much smarter than I am.
My colleagues will be happy to know that all of our economists now bathe. It is a running joke, particularly if Members know economists.
We work through the math that said what would happen if you did both things and paid for as much of this reconciliation budget, the spending, the extension of the tax cuts as possible, and you do it. That is how you get your maximization of growth.
Turns out, if you don't do it, you actually get probably a small retraction, maybe a small recession, because people's taxes go up rather dramatically.
Remember, for the average family, didn't I just show you--$2,853. In a district like mine, it is somewhere in the $3,000 range. I have a higher income district. You also had the other thing. The most we can do to try to find ways to pay for that.
Turns out, there is this concept of capital stack. The United States Government is not the only one bingeing on debt. Look at China and other countries, this and that. As the demographics of the industrialized world start to functionally get really ugly, and we are having to provide services, the amount of savings is starting to be chewed up.
One of the benefits we had in the previous decade and the decade before that is there was fairly substantial savings stacks that went into U.S. sovereigns and other things. We expect, in the next few years, we will actually start to see that roll over. Then, you get the concepts of term premiums and those things. I know it is geeky, but the fact of the matter is, if you don't have a substantial modernization of government, you can't make this math work.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Arizona has 12\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. Speaker, my best guess is I will use about 6 or 7 minutes of it.
Mr. Speaker, do you remember the hair on fire comments that people said that mathematically had no basis? They are not actually in the budget documents. Let's understand the size of these committees are vastly different, but the one people were focusing on, E&C, the Energy and Commerce Committee, still has 96 percent of its spending authority within its jurisdiction. That is going to continue.
This little wedge here is what they are being asked to work on. I will promise you if I am given the chance, if my economic team is given the chance, and if leadership in Ways and Means and E&C will work with us, I can get every dollar of that by just modernization of delivery of services.
Remember, at one time, I worked on my State's Medicaid budgets. It has been a long time. I actually chaired for a little while my State's health committee, so I have some experience on Arizona, which has a very unique Medicaid system. We buy basically managed care policies for our indigent population.
It is remarkably good. It is remarkably efficient. It may have the highest satisfaction rate in the entire Nation. It is something worth thinking about.
Let's get down to the brass tacks here on a couple of last bits.
Look at the next decade of spending. We don't get to touch interest. We don't get to touch old age survivor fund. That is your Social Security.
Matter of fact, what we should be doing is having really interesting conversations, mathematically honest ones, not in front of the microphone, but probably in a back room with actuaries, on how we are going to save it considering the fact that Social Security's own actuary report says now, I think, in mid-2033, the trust fund is empty.
For my Democrat friends who keep saying what we need to do is just do a bunch more taxes and enhance the benefit, you do realize you just chewed up every dime of your seed corn, if that is a colloquialism, for everything else.
We have a chart we have brought here multiple times showing the proposals saying to take everyone over $400,000 and just raise the cap, so every billionaire pays their full Social Security, both the employer's side and the individual's side.
I think our math says that it only took care of 38 percent of the shortfall, helping folks to understand the scale and also the rhetorical solutions that are so often thrown out are not mathematically honest.
Then you come over here to discretionary. We can take a run at that. Do you know what discretionary is? It is defense. It is everything you really think of as government. Other mandatory and then Medicare and Medicaid basically sit in this area.
What would happen if our brothers and sisters on the left would actually, instead of defending the inefficiencies, the distortions--I despise using ``waste and fraud'' because I think everyone is against waste and fraud. Even if you read the articles, the ProPublica and The Wall Street Journal on the extortion of bad acts, if that is a way to phrase it, that are going on in these programs and the willingness to fix that, should that be Republican or Democrat, or should it just be our attempt to do good governance?
Remember, we are the board of directors for the biggest concern in the world. It is malfeasance the way we run this place. Our rhetoric is often completely intellectually vacuous. There are solutions.
For any of you who have staff, do you have a nice highlighted copy of the MedPAC report from top to bottom where they walk you through lots and lots of solutions? I will send you over the stack of The Wall Street Journal articles. I will even send you the ProPublica on durable medical equipment fraud and how there are ways the doc and I could simply fix that with about a three-paragraph bill. People would have better access and better health, and we would save potentially a hundred-plus billions just on that one line item over the 10 years.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that is the opportunity we may have just unlocked. I also think sometimes I might be delusionally optimistic and hopeful. I am 62 with a 2-year-old. That is actually funny, but I don't think we have a lot more time to play this treadmill game.
For my brothers and sisters in the majority, we are going to have to carry this. We are going to have to do the hard things because the left has decided they want to burn us down. That is fine.
I wish I could be honest and say we didn't try to do the same when they were in the majority, but we are at a moment when the morality of protecting the society, protecting this
Three-Year Anniversary of Russia's Brutal Attack on Ukraine
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Houlahan) is recognized until 10 p.m. as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. Speaker, this week marks a very solemn anniversary. It is the anniversary of Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine.
Three years ago, Russia started this war by invading Ukraine, not the other way around.
I repeat: Three years ago, Russia started this war.
I am utterly disgusted that President Trump would refute this absolute truth.
I am equally horrified by President Trump's characterization of President Zelenskyy as a dictator who does not want peace. I was with President Zelenskyy just last week in Germany for the Munich Security Conference. He is an honorable and earnest leader, a man who has even offered to step down from the Presidency if it would guarantee the freedom of his people.
President Trump's blatant lie and absurd insult is a lie directly out of Soviet-style propagandist playbooks. It is Putin who wants to take Ukraine's resource-rich land. It is Putin who wants to strip its people of their rights and their freedoms, and it is Putin who wants to destroy another European democracy. It is Putin who is a cancer on the world, a liar, a torturer, a murderer, and a war criminal.
It is appalling to see our President of these United States, expected to be a reliable standard-bearer of democracy, align himself and as a result ourselves so closely with our adversaries, even organizing a sit-down to determine the fate of Ukraine without Ukraine at the table, and without the input of our European allies at all.
Whatever comes out of these meetings will not be a peace agreement. It will instead be a Russian power grab and an appeasement of war criminal Putin facilitated by the United States, an illegitimate peace. It is all horrifying. It is all infuriating, and it is all antithetical to our American ideals.
As President Trump and his administration publicly trash our allies, undermine the strength of NATO, and decimate our international aid programs, our adversaries are greedily and happily waiting to fill the gaps that this administration is deliberately creating.
On Monday, the United States joined Russia, North Korea, Belarus, Sudan, and Hungary--I will name them again: Russia, North Korea, Belarus, Sudan, and Hungary--a group of countries I never would like us to be associated with, in voting against the United Nations resolution condemning Russian aggression and demanding the immediate withdrawal of Putin's forces from Ukraine.
To quote my Republican colleague and dear friend, Congressman Don Bacon: The Trump administration royally screwed up on Ukraine.
Another anniversary is fast approaching. Indeed, on April 20 of last year, 101 Republicans voted to support Ukraine. I am really glad that Representative Bacon is speaking out about President Trump's actions, but I wonder where are the rest of his colleagues?
I hope that the other 100 Members who supported aid to Ukraine in April will be as brave as Representative Bacon and speak out against this administration's ridiculous and dangerous actions.
I want to emphasize how important it is that the American people hear President Trump's own words, see his own actions, and be appropriately outraged.
President Trump's disavowal of Ukraine and his cozying up to dictators puts us here in the United States at risk as well. President Trump's turn towards authoritarianism leaves us exposed politically and economically.
Scorned allies could pull out or change their free trade agreements, cause shortages in imported goods, including food and oil, pharmaceuticals, and more. President Trump campaigned on bringing down costs, but his very actions right now are indeed undermining the value of the dollar and driving up inflation.
We have heard over and over again from the American people that the prices of essential goods are already too high, and President Trump's actions will only hurt our attempts to bring down these costs.
America's global leadership also helps to keep Americans safe, too. President Trump turning his back on Ukraine isolates us and undermines our strength, the strength of international institutions, and the security networks that work, like NATO.
This encourages NATO allies to question our own alliance and allegiance. It, in turn, causes our allies worldwide to do the same, and those who are considering with whom to form alliances, and there are many, it causes them as well to turn away from us.
It gets worse. With President Trump actually allying himself with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, these countries now seemingly have America's explicit backing to spread their influence, and in some cases to spread their force, like we have seen in Ukraine. This will undoubtedly cause people to flee oppressive regimes and create new regimes, who will be inspired by this global democratic back slide.
President Trump claimed he was going to reduce this kind of migration, but the political turmoil he is causing will, in fact, make it worse, pushing people to seek safety outside of their own home country.
We can't turn our back on Ukraine and the world, and we cannot expect that the consequences of that decision will not reach our shores. The American way of life is reliant on our global reputation and interconnectivity. President Trump is doing his very best to tear that all down.
President Trump must reverse his dangerous position. He must stop this gamesmanship, and he must recommit to our longstanding alliances instead of realigning ourselves, the United States, with dictators.
I yield now to my esteemed colleague from the great State of Ohio, the very honorable Marcy Kaptur.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congresswoman so very much for allowing me to speak this evening and to also thank her for her service to the United States of America in our military. She knows the cost of liberty. There couldn't be a better Member of Congress than Chrissy Houlahan, I will tell you that.
A lot of Americans perhaps in the newer generations don't understand what Russia is capable of, so I refer them to two books if they are interested, and I hope they are. One is ``Bloodlands'' by Dr. Timothy Snyder, now at Yale University, who discusses the history of the region that we are talking about and what happened yesterday at the United Nations. Another book is ``Red Sparrow.'' I would recommend people don't read that in the evening, but during the day because they will learn more about how Russia both operates now and has always operated.
To give a little history, before the collapse of the murderous dictatorship that was called the Soviet Union that occurred in 1991 and had extended all the way from Russia all the way across Europe to Germany to East Berlin, which has been free since 1991, a great President, Ronald Reagan, served this Nation. He was elected twice.
He correctly identified Russia as the ``evil empire.'' Ronald Reagan had been an actor in Hollywood and fought to remove Communists from the ranks of the Screen Actors Guild in California, where he met his wife. That particular
Another Republican President during my service was George W. Bush. He named Russia and North Korea as the ``axis of evil.'' We could add Iran and other countries. Never before at the United Nations has any U.S. President ever stood with the dictators of Russia.
Those countries that voted with Russia yesterday are state sponsors of terrorism. Russia understands terror. That is what she does. For the United States to stand beside Russia, North Korea, and Belarus at the United Nations, it is appalling. It is appalling.
Russia's atrocities go back hundreds of years. During World War II on the soils of Ukraine, 14 million people were murdered. This is the tradition of Putin. If you do not know that, you are naive. Wake up. Wake up.
Even China abstained from the vote yesterday.
Aligning with these countries which past Presidents have called the epitome of evil on Earth is shocking. The very fundamental purpose of this Nation is liberty. That is why we are here. This isn't some game, and it is not about strategic metals or very precious items that are underground somewhere. It is about something much more precious-- liberty.
To see that happen at the U.N. yesterday, I thought, what have they been drinking up there?
Ukraine is the scrimmage line for liberty on the Continent of Europe today, and no President of the United States should cavort with dictators. We have always been the bastion of freedom. Our people have died for it, defending these ideals around the world. Yesterday, President Trump cowered and appeased one of the most dangerous dictatorships in the world.
Mr. Speaker, it is shameful. It is un-American. It is not patriotic. It is almost traitorous--maybe it is traitorous to do that. We know Russia. We know North Korea. We know Iran. They don't stand for liberty. They are part of the new spiderweb of tyranny that is poised against us, if anyone is paying attention anywhere in this country.
The actions to vote with them and against Ukraine is a blotch on America's record as a champion for a free world. Most of the world is not free. If people haven't traveled to these places, try. They might learn something.
Tomorrow is another day. I urge those who lead foreign policy for this administration to remember who we fight for, who our friends are, who our allies are, and who our enemies are united against us.
I also just wanted to place on the record a reminder that when Ukraine was beginning to be free after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a great man, Viktor Yushchenko, was President of the young Ukraine. What did Putin do? Putin had him poisoned. Yushchenko survived somehow when they flew him to Europe and they tried to pump him out with some kind of horrible, strategic metal that he had been made to swallow when he ate with the dictators who continued to control Russia. Putin had just killed Alexei Navalny in a terrible Arctic prison because he wanted to run against Putin.
That is how someone gets elected in Russia. Kill the opposition. My friends, pay attention. Be informed. If we want to understand how a tyranny operates, look at the film on YouTube. It takes 30 minutes. It is called, ``Freedom Means Never Surrender.'' It is a documentary about how a tyranny functions. It just won the Telly Award. Take the time to do it. Recall the preciousness of the liberty we enjoy.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman very much for allowing us to speak on this Special Order.
Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago this week, Russia launched an unprovoked invasion on Ukraine. We are entering the fourth year of war in Ukraine and 11 years of war on Ukraine since the invasion in Crimea and the Donbas.
In the past few days, the fact of this major invasion has sadly been disputed. It is important that history represent the truth. Whether it is Putin or anyone else, including in our government, that says Russia is not the aggressor and that Ukraine is responsible for the invasion, they are lying.
Yesterday's anniversary reminds us that the Ukrainian people continue to suffer, but I know that they will remain strong and resilient. This is not a regional fight. Ukraine's sovereignty is a U.S. national security issue. We must hold the line in Ukraine now or we may have American boots on the ground, fighting in Europe in a few years. That is my fear.
We do want peace, and yet this administration has begun negotiations from the weakest possible position. Before we even get to the table, Ukraine has been excluded from NATO. Territorial concessions were granted to Russia, and Ukraine didn't even have a seat at the table. This is what they get for a sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of their people, cities destroyed across Ukraine.
The Trump administration must increase pressure on Russia if we are truly interested in peace. With Russia, in particular, weakness invites aggression, and easing up on Russia only makes Ukraine's fight harder. We must stand firm.
I spent 25 years in the Army, defending America's national security interests at home and abroad. When I retired a little over 2 years ago, I traveled to Ukraine 14 times investigating war crimes. I traveled to Kharkiv, 20 miles from the Russian border. I traveled to Zaporizhzhia, 20 miles from the Russian front. I traveled to Mykolaiv and Chernihiv, cities that have appeared in the news, devastated by Russian attacks.
Those people are resilient. They are fighting for their freedom, much like we fought for our freedom almost 250 years ago. We are going to celebrate that anniversary in one short year. Can we imagine what it would have been like if France did not intervene on our behalf? We have a portrait there, the Marquis de Lafayette, that stood with us shoulder to shoulder. The French spilled blood on our battlefields.
We weren't even asked to do that. We were asked to provide some material support, 31 tanks, a couple hundred of our armored vehicles, and some money. Granted, we have to watch how we spend our money. We have an obligation to the American people. We also have to recognize where our national security interests lie. I think for some reason we have forgotten the fact that we spent 80 years defending an international order that our grandfathers fought for and died on European battlefields for. I can't explain it.
They know that in Ukraine because that is what they are fighting for. They know that if they give up, the Russians will occupy. In those occupied areas, they have already deported tens of thousands of children to be reeducated and taken away from their family. They put the Ukrainian people in camps.
Russia is basically like a boa constrictor, slowly digesting chunks of Ukraine. If we pause now without security guarantees, they will be back at it in a few years just like they were after Crimea, like they were in Georgia, and like they were in Moldova.
We have to be clear-eyed about that in our interests. In Virginia's Seventh District, my voters expect me to stand up for American values, and that is exactly what I am doing by speaking out today.
That is why I will keep fighting for strong U.S. leadership all around the world. That includes Ukraine's sovereignty, for our own country's national security interests, and for the values that keep and have kept America strong.
On this anniversary we must reaffirm our commitment that we stand against autocrats and dictators like Russia and North Korea and that we stand with Ukraine on the right side of history.
Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in condemning what can only be seen as sheer desertion--yes, I used the word ``desertion''--of Ukraine
The dictator of Russia, as has already been pointed out, has not seen a better day at least since the successful death of Alexei Navalny. Let's be clear. Putin is not the only dictator--and for the third time I use the word ``dictator''--who is dancing today.
Let's just take one example. For the dictators of Iran, this betrayal is a bright light in a dim room. They want nothing more than a stronger and resurgent and unchecked Russia because that brings them renewed hope to their singular focus of the destruction of Israel.
By the way, I say very directly to our friends of Israel, wherever they are--and many of them were in the Capital today--if they do not call out this abandonment of Ukraine now, they have learned nothing from 1939 Czechoslovakia.
There is one dictator in our world who is cheering the loudest of all, and that dictator is the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. This is the world he covets. This is the world that he has worked for. This is the world that turns the lock and opens the door on his ambitions. This is the world of a weakened, isolated America that nobody trusts. This is a world in which this country walks away from proven international rules-based orders that have kept the peace and stability for three generations now. This is a world he hopes for that has forgotten that true peace and prosperity are built on both strength and democratic values.
Yes, the desertion of Ukraine and its sheer ripple effects shows Xi that he finally has the willing partner he has sought, even more than Putin himself. He has a partner equally committed to an ad hoc transactional foreign policy where all that really matters is power, money, and leverage, that alliances, principles, and loyalty are disposable, as if that ever alone would buy lasting peace. There is no example in world history that it does.
Our President says: Don't worry. We have an ocean between us and Ukraine, so what is to worry about?
No doubt, in time, he will assert the same thing about my ocean, the Pacific Ocean, between us and the People's Republic of China. He will say that that ocean offers the same illusion of insulation from the world of reality.
Tell that to Japan or Taiwan or South Korea or the Philippines. Tell them that that ocean protects them. Tell that to the ASEAN countries, Australia and New Zealand, Singapore, India, the island nations of the Pacific. Tell that to the citizens of the American homeland in the Pacific: Hawaii, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.
Just try to tell the rest of our world and country that the outcome in Ukraine has nothing to do with the geopolitical challenge of our time, the threat of the Chinese Communist Party. Tell that to anybody, and you truly live in denial of the world today and the lessons of history.
The PRC knows history, and they already have an edition of the People's Daily, their leading newspaper, already printed up as a gift for the President's trip home when he surely visits shortly. The headline of People's Daily in Mandarin reads: Peace in Our time.
Those are the unavoidable broader stakes of betraying Ukraine today. I know my Republican colleagues know this. I know this because I have heard them say it repeatedly over 3 years. I have heard them say it in committee. I have heard them say it on this floor. I have heard them say it in public, but where are they now?
Did something in the world change in the last week or two? Was there some fundamental shift in our understanding of this world, in our alliances, in our commitment to loyalties and principles and values in addition to strength?
I don't think so, and I don't think anybody else thinks anything has changed, other than a President who wants to go in a different direction. That President has no effective check and balance on this tragic mistake, except for the majority in the House and the Senate.
I really hope for my Republican colleagues in this body because I don't hold that hope for the administration of the Presidency. I do hold that hope for my colleagues. I hope they find their way back soon through the fog into reality again before it is too late.
Mr. Speaker, I begin by thanking my friend and colleague, Representative Houlahan, for convening this Special Order.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support our ally, Ukraine, and speak up against the grave threat the Trump administration's support for Russia poses to democracy at home and abroad.
Yesterday marked 3 years since Russia's unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign nation. We have since witnessed incredible bravery from the Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines to the families who have endured unimaginable loss yet continue to fight for their homeland.
My community of Buffalo knows what it means to stand together in times of hardship. We are a city that welcomes, embraces, and lifts up those in need. I stood arm in arm with western New York's Ukrainian community in Niagara Square, designated Ukraine Freedom Square, just outside Buffalo City Hall days after Russia's invasion.
What I said then is just as true today: The United States of America must always stand with Ukraine against Russian aggression.
Buffalo is known as the City of Good Neighbors, and that spirit has been evident in the way our community has opened its doors to Ukrainian refugees, providing shelter, education, and hope for a better future.
Members of this body, both Democrats and Republicans alike, understand that this is not just Ukraine's fight. This is a battle between democracy and tyranny, between freedom and oppression.
That is why this body has come together on numerous occasions to pass legislation to help the people of Ukraine resist the Russian invasion and defend their homeland. We continue to do this because we know that if Russia succeeds, it sets a dangerous precedent for dictators around the world, and it threatens the security of our NATO allies.
When the President of the United States chooses to spread the same false Russian propaganda as Vladimir Putin, absolving Russia for its responsibility of starting the war and defaming the democratically elected President of our ally, we should have the courage to stand up and call it what it is: a bald-faced lie.
It is shameful when we, the shining city upon a hill, as President Reagan put it, oppose a United Nations resolution condemning Russia and supporting Ukraine. The rest of the world should look to us as a model of democracy. Instead, we are enabling a dictator.
Just think about the company that we are keeping with this U.N. vote. The only other countries to oppose this resolution were Russia, North Korea, and Belarus, all dictatorships.
Since when does the United States side with dictators? I suppose when we have a President who says he wants to be one.
Turning our back on Ukraine goes against everything Americans have fought and died for since we declared our independence from a monarch in England. Supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine sends a dangerous message to our allies around the world: The United States is no longer a reliable friend. You are on your own.
I have news for you. We are much better than this as a country. This isn't just about democracy. It is also about our national security and our credibility on the world stage. The world is a safer place and the American people are more secure when we stand united with our allies, uphold our commitments to global peace and stability, and lead with strength, diplomacy, and integrity.
Mr. Speaker, I very much thank all of my colleagues for joining us and meeting here tonight.
This evening, we heard about the damage that President Trump's actions have done to our Nation's security. If our Nation turns its back on Ukraine, we heard about what comes next: Our ally Taiwan left in greater jeopardy to a Chinese invasion; our allies elsewhere left looking for security and other
The American people should be worried tonight. History has shown us that when America is isolated, we are less safe.
I very much hope that my Republican friends, the 101 of them, now 100 of them, who very recently voted in support of this nation in its fight for their democracy and, as a consequence, all of our democratic values, will stand up to our President and will help us, the United States, change our course and, as a consequence, the world change its course for safety and freedom, as well.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, like Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam Hussein before him, Vladimir Putin should be called what he is: a dictator.
Over the past 20 years, Putin has systematically ended free and fair elections, crushed independent media, quashed protests, and killed, jailed, or exiled political opponents.
Three years ago, Putin invaded Ukraine, showing complete disregard for European borders, UN and NATO doctrines, and human rights.
For three years, the Ukrainian people have faced deliberate killings, rapes, and the abduction of their children.
The United Nations has found evidence of Russian war crimes, and the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, accusing him of being responsible for the abduction of Ukraine children.
Under Putin's rule, Russian intelligence operations pose one of the most aggressive and sophisticated threats to our national security.
And yet--the White House is now parroting Putin's talking points, alleging that Ukraine started the war when we all know that Russia, unprovoked, invaded Ukraine.
President Trump has described Putin as a ``genius'' and ``very savvy,'' and last week he called Ukrainian President Zelensky a ``dictator.''
Under Donald Trump, the United States has turned its back on Ukraine and our NATO allies, while cozying up to an authoritarian.
Under Donald Trump, America's long-held reputation as a defender of democratic ideals and state sovereignty, a credible and reliable partner who will assist others in need and stand up for our allies, is now a crumbling illusion.
Our country was created on the principle that it would not be ruled by an all-powerful king but instead maintained by a system of checks and balances to prevent tyrannical rule and provide power to the people.
But now, Donald Trump is ceding power to an unelected billionaire at home and appeasing a Russian dictator abroad.
I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to open their eyes and rediscover their spines.
Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.
The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 50 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, February 26, 2025, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.
