https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lfM2UPEdH8
May 17, 2025
On Tuesday, members of the Congressional Black Caucus held a Special Order on the House floor to decry the GOP reconciliation bill.
Transcript
dove is recognized for 60 minutes as the designate of the minority leader
thank you mr speaker i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend
their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this special
order without objection it is with great honor that i rise today
to co-anchor this congressional black caucus special order hour along with my
distinguished colleague uh from the great state of ohio representative shantel brown who hopefully will be
joining us but she is along with so many of our other colleagues in her committee
hearing uh trying to figure out if republicans will stand up with the
american people and vote down so many of the disastrous proposals that are being
brought up in these various committees as it relates to the reconciliation bill
so for the next 60 minutes members of the cbc have an opportunity to speak
directly to the american people directly to you on the republicans disastrous
reconciliation package this is an issue of great importance of utmost importance
of perilous importance not just to the congressional black caucus but to
everyone and hopefully not just members
of the congress who are democrats but hopefully republican members will also
stand up with and for the american people and vote down some of this
nonsense that is going to be coming before all of us in our committees but
at the very least let's not be silent and that is why the congressional black
caucus is here tonight mr speaker house republicans on the ways and means
committee just released text this is this one big beautiful bill this is this
386 page manifesto that killed trees and trees and trees and i have to tell you
mr speaker there are only two words in that phrase that are accurate this is a
bill and it is big but it is not beautiful it is a backstabbing bill
because all of the items in this bill in these 386 pages are about how this
administration is going to backstab the american people and it's not going to feel good unlike the oj's song the
backstabbers okay this doesn't have a good melody this is about cutting
medicaid and medicare and social security and benefits for veterans this
is about killing young people and seniors and those who are disabled this is about
cutting important critical services for the american people to give tax credits
to billionaires a lot of bees in this statement that i
said none of them very good and let me be very clear republicans have barely
made any attempts to support working families instead they have written an
economic love letter to people like elon musk this is a
386page love letter to elon musk republicans have been running from the
truth all they want okay they have been silent all they want but the truth is in
the eyes of this administration americans don't need health care but this administration
somehow needs a $400 million plane gifted to them from the saudi government
americans don't need snap assistance but this administration and all of his
billionaire buddies need millions in tax write offs mr speaker how are my
constituents supposed to live how are your constituents supposed to live how are any of our constituents supposed to
pull themsself up by those ridiculous bootstraps that people like to talk
about when this administration and the house majority are actually not just taking
away their boots but taking away the leather and the rubber and the souls and
the labor that would be used to even make these boots and we are going to be
spending the next hour talking about all of that but right now mr speaker i want
to yield to my very good friend from the great state of maryland representative
glenn
ivy i thank the gentle lady for yielding um and it's an honor to be here on
behalf of the congressional black caucus to address these issues and speak to these issues uh because they're so
timely and there's new developments that come every day with these that um you
know keep us guessing as to what the trump administration's going to do from one moment to the next i'm going to talk
about this plane from cutter uh towards the end but um i i did want to speak
today mr speaker about my deep concern about the appropriations and budget processes
um as established by the constitution because they're broken i rise out of
deep concern for our institution our responsibilities for and for the american people who elected us to make
decisions the continuing resolutions that we've been passing are temporary stop gaps but they become the norm and
it's not just a failure of a process it's a failure of president trump's leadership and house republican
leadership trump's economic failures include making t trying to make his tax
cuts permanent the doge cuts and the irresponsibility of the tariff packages
uh which i think i thank goodness he backed away from that uh a few days ago
with respect to cutting a deal with china uh but that's only for 90 days and the challenge of the erratic and illegal
behavior he's been exhibiting is that it really puts companies in a very
difficult spot companies have to make decisions not just moment to moment as apparently president trump does but over
months sometimes years especially if they're going to make major decisions about something like say investing to
build a new plant because that can cost millions or even billions of dollars and so when he does things like he puts up
130 something percent in tariffs against one of the main trading partners of the
united states like china it creates a major problem for companies who do trade
with china who get their their uh materials or send their finished products to china and many of those are
american small businesses and we've seen and heard from many of those over the past couple of days some are toy
manufacturers that i've been listening to while they uh talk about what's happened to their companies on the radio
and they're concerned about what might happen for them at the key time of year for their businesses which would be the
christmas holidays but the trump administration didn't pay any attention to that in fact he just moved forward uh
with the tariff cuts uh or the tariffs that he put in place not just against china not just against our adversaries
but against allies like canada and mexico france germany and other countries and it's been devastating to
the american economy and businesses across the country he ran for election
telling
the american people that he was going to make their economic lives
better that he was going to help them financially be better off than
they were
under the biden administration but it's clear in the first six months of what he's been doing that he's not putting
money in their pockets he's taking it out and i think it's critical for us to make sure we understand fully what's
going on here with respect to the packages that they're trying to move he's trying to do it mainly through
executive order he's been unable to move major pieces of legislation through the house and house leadership hasn't
pressed him to do it even though we're supposed to be doing these things through the appropriations process
matter of fact the constitution gave us the obligation to move these bills
through the appropriations process but the republican leadership in the house has failed to do that and the failure to
pass these appropriations bills has led to things like federal workers they're being forced out of their positions some
of them are being uh concerned about whether their paychecks are going to come small businesses as we just
mentioned a moment ago uh especially those that are relying on government contracts are having trouble making
payroll and in some of those instances they've already done the work that they're supposed to get paid for but the
trump administration has done two things one is it's withdrawn contracts uh but
it's also even though they performed the work refuse to make the payments and force some of these companies to shut
down and fire some of their employees even though they already did the work and we're also going to have
challenges i think too with respect to communities who've been hit by major disasters unfortunately i just saw while
we were waiting to start this process a few minutes ago we had three major uh natural disasters today across the
country but fema's under attack and the funding is being cut with respect to
reconciliation as we just talked about a moment ago the 881 billion dollars in
cuts to medicaid is a shocking uh development we know that what that could
mean for communities across the country is that hospitals have to shut down
medical treatment facilities might have to be closed people who perform medical services like doctors and nurses might
not be available and so and certainly in urban areas and suburban areas like mine
there's going to be a major impact from that but in red states and rural districts as well i just heard a report
on the radio uh last week it was talking about a district in a rural area where
their hospital runs i think it said 70% of their funding comes through medicaid in one way or another and if these cuts
are made that hospital's going to have to close and if that hospital closed it creates essentially a medical desert
going 200 miles each way so the next time you have a serious car accident in that area they're going to have a tough
time getting people to the care that they need or any kind of um uh medical emergency say perhaps from a a
complication in a a birth scenario or basic day-to-day medical services
they're going to have to drive hundreds of miles in some instances just to go see a doctor
with respect to the um empoundment issue i want to raise
that
too because the trump administration has started making the argument
that even though money's been appropriated they don't have to spend it
uh and the reason they're trying to do that is because they want to take control away from congress the power of
the purse it was given to congress through the constitution and take control of that
themselves and they want to do that so they marginalize congress and make the spending decisions that they want to
make and we uh saw that with the $1.6 trillion dollars that was uh that the
trump administration decided how to spend that because we didn't pass a regular appropriation set of bills we
had to do it through the continuing resolution it left them discretion that i don't think that they should have and
i got to say i'm concerned about the way he's used his discretion in some of these processes some of the budget cuts
that they've mo that they've made for example voca uh victims of crime act is what that
stands for cutting grants to help p people uh who are victims of crime why
would he take a step like that violence against women act vawa uh that's to help women who are surviving sexual assault
or domestic violence why would you cut a program like that we cut us aid usid
programs uh that one of our colleagues referenced earlier about how that uh has
had a positive impact on the uh starvation issues the usid
efforts but they're cutting programs that's going to lead to i saw one estimate 1.6 million people will die
over the next year based on these cuts that he's making right now to foreign
aid we stopped funding americaore which means less teachers in areas that that
are
in desperate need of teaching assistance we've got a lot of schools out
there who are short on full-time teachers certainly short on full-time
certified teachers cut making cuts to americaore just exacerbates the problems
cutting rental subsidies that means that low-income families who have trouble getting keeping a roof over their head
the trump administration is going to make it even harder for them to do that why would we take that step and how is
that consistent with the promise that he made to help american people who needed the help the most cuts to mental health
services uh we've got kids who are struggling in school they're bullied sometimes we've got some scenarios where
you have serious violence attacks uh in the schools and it might be a mass shooting from a gun situation it might
be something less uh ac less serious than that we've got kids that need
assistance with their mental health challenges across the country and making cuts to those sorts of programs only
makes it harder for these kids to survive and get through the school process cuts to nih now i know he had a
frankly a vendetta essentially against um mr fouchy dr fouchy uh and he's taken
that out on many of the uh the health institutions like the nih but at the end
of the day it's clear that the nih has been and continues to be hopefully at
least uh if they can survive these cuts one of the premier institutions that do
medical research uh that makes a difference here in the united states and around the world medical research on
cancer i'm a cancer survivor it's important to folks like me and there's a lot of folks who are cancer survivors
and the only reason we're still here is because of the medical advances that were made at places like nih uh based on
research that was done using government funding that's how these things happened
alzheimer's another one my father died from alzheimer's it's one of the most horrific diseases you can possibly
imagine you would never even wish it on your worst enemy it's hard to even explain how tragic it is to watch a
human being slide from being the full person that they were into something
ravaged by alzheimer's they cut funding for clinical trials for alzheimer's at nih
and the thing about clinical trials you you need to remember it's not like an off switch you don't just flick it on
and off and it comes right back if you shut down a clinical trial you might have to start that all the way from
scratch and in some instances the research and the projects that that have been going forward under that have taken
years so he's setting that back years
months why why would he do that and then the cuts to grants to help people who
want to go into these science fields you know the united states certainly in the
last 50 years in in the post-war era has been the premier nation with respect to
science and technology and innovation that's how we got apple that's how we got microsoft that's why we have quantum
computing all of those fantastic innovations and giant steps forward came from the united states in part because
of the research that was funded in part by the federal government and the people
who developed many of those uh advances got their training paid for their
college paid for their phds using funding that helped them get through school they wouldn't have been able to
pay for it otherwise yet the trump administration is making cuts not just
to to those programs but also to the grants and funding that help those people get through and to add insult to
injury the personal attacks on research institutions like harvard which has been
a source of some of the best and talented uh the best and the brightest that have uh you know taken leadership
in these fields he's making threats to undermine those institutions and those universities just out of personal venom
it makes absolutely no sense it's damaging to the united states it undermines our leadership in science and
technology in the world it's almost like he says it's america first but sometimes it feels like china first and sometimes
it feels like he's actually trying to help the communist china party
leadership surge ahead of the united states in its leadership role in science and technology and then $40 million in
cuts for election security now i know he still says he wins the 2020 election okay fine but you know one
of the things that we can all agree on for sure is that we know the russians
and the chinese and in some instances iran and terrorist organizations around the country or around the world are
making efforts to influence our election with misinformation and disinformation
and the like why would we ever make our elections more vulnerable to those kinds
of attacks by cutting the funding that helps defend against it
i i'll stop with this on the plane um i i you know when i first saw that on
the news i thought it was a joke i thought it was like a they were playing a clip from saturday night live or
something i never imagined that the trump administration or the trump family
would even consider taking a $400 million plane uh from a country like
qatar not exactly an adversary country but certainly not an ally country and even if they were it's a foreign country
and the reason the imalments clause was put in place in the constitution was to make sure that presidents of the united
states of america whether it's number one or number 47 are not tempted or
tested with these kinds of essentially bribes to try and get them to lean and
and and issue uh support for their countries and making decisions we want
to make sure we have people like the president of the united states not tested by the money not tempted by the
money but always making the decisions for the best possible reasons in the best interest of the united states but
here we have $400 billion plane and apparently he'll eventually
own it personally now tell me why that's beneficial for the country creates
conflicts of interest and then some because we have all of these issues with qatar including the negotiations with
the uh in with the gaza conflict um how is this going to be beneficial to the
united states to create these levels of conflicts even if he could rise above them the appearance of the conflicts is
ridiculous it's astonishing and it's unacceptable the national review not exactly a liberal rag not exactly a
liberal bastion said the swamp is under new
ownership so much for the commitments that he made to the american people when he first ran and when he ran again to
so-called clean up the swamp here we are it violation it violates the
constitution i think on its face he should know better and i'm sure that
everybody in the congress sometimes he needs guard rails okay he always needs guard rails this is the moment we've got
to make sure we stand up and put the guard rails in place so to my colleagues here in congress let's get back to work let's
stand up and address this issue the conflicts of interest with the plane let's make it clear that we unanimously
oppose him taking the plane certainly on the behalf of the united states and
certainly in his personal capacity that we unanimously want to move forward with a budget that's fair and reasonable and
helps the american people not taking $881 billion out of their pockets out of
the pockets of kids out of the pockets of seniors out of the pockets of the disabled the people who need it the most
we've got to make sure that when this budget process is done we're protecting the people who
need it the most right now it looks like we're taking from the most vulnerable to give to the most wealthy like elon musk
and his allies we've got to reverse that process and so i want to commend the gentle lady
for pulling this together my colleagues with the congressional black caucus my colleagues in the democratic caucus and
hopefully colleagues in the republican caucus who will stand up and say "we can't do this we cannot cross these
lines the plane is over the line the $881 billion in cuts to medicaid is over the line the no more appropriations
bills that's over the line let's get back to work let's engage in clear and proper oversight and let's address these
problems and do the work that helps the american people and with that i yield back to my colleague
thank you representative ivy from uh the great
state of maryland for keeping it real and really underscoring
uh the challenges that are in front of us as americans
um and really articulating why courage
um backbone um just basic common sense are
so needed right now um in these perilous times and why are these times perilous
these times are perilous because in congress we are in the process of
debating and trying to pass this reconciliation bill and people might be saying,"well what is it?" well it is
essentially um a budget and in each of the committees discussions are had about
where to spend and where to cut and this house majority has been given marching
orders and the marching orders are to cut as much as possible cut until the
american people bleed and the only folks who will be able to afford
band-aids to prevent them from bleeding to death will be the richest of the rich
and everyone else you'll have to fend for yourself and so in each of these
committees in which we sit on which we sit we are debating cuts that will hurt
this economy that will hurt constituents that will hurt american businesses that
will hurt our standing in the world and this is not a red orb blue discussion
this is not even a black caucus or other caucus discussion this is about what is
at risk what who is at danger who is being put at risk by this administration
and quite frankly by the silence coming from this house majority so
tonight and um later on this week
aggy and commerce and the ways and means committees are meeting and they've been meeting earlier today and they are
meeting right uh happening they're also continuing to meet right now and the
challenge is meeting this late in the evening allows them to do dirty business
uh allows them to vote on uh bills and amendments ments that will hurt the
american people without the benefit of having uh the news being able to report
on it before people go to bed so it's almost like these dirty deeds will be
happening at night uh when no one can see or hear what's going on and so maybe
we are spending our time talking about this $400 million bribe that was just
given uh to this administration when we should be talking about all of the cuts
that are going to be coming from these committees with reconciliation republicans want all the
cuts but they do not want the political consequences and so that is why we are
here tonight talking about what those consequences will be talking about what's in these reconciliation bills
what's in this package because we don't want anyone to get political amnesia we
don't want anyone to forget when they are hurting when they're trying to pay a bill when they're trying to get gas when
they're trying to buy eggs when they're trying to buy a home when they're looking for a job when they're trying to
bury a loved one why it is so hard to do any of those things why the costs are so
high we're going to continue to remind the american people why all of those costs are going to be so high and it is
because of the cuts that are coming in this reconciliation bill cuts that republicans could have stopped but they
have been too silent last week we were here and we had
hearings in foreign affairs in judiciary and small business and veterans on natural resources in those committees
and in others and i don't know if many of these uh discussions or outcomes from these
committees have made it into the news cycle so folks don't know what really
happened in those committees but i'm going to say in those committees we talked about cutting state
department by close to 50% terminating workers in the state
department finalizing the shuttering of usid and people might say well what is
usa id well part of what usid does is contract with american farmers that
farmers have contracts with usid usaid buys their product and then uses it and
all of those contracts have stopped because republicans are looking for ways to fill the gap the big gap the
chasm that has been made by these tax cuts going to billionaires they've done
so much at the state department that they've even fired the people who are responsible for purchasing the tickets
to bring americans home from all of their missions around the world so you
have americans who are stuck in countries around the world separated
from their families unable to get home because the ticket agency in state department has been shut
down in judiciary we talked about billions of dollars going to ice
for bonuses to buy computers and cars
and deporting americans and allowing january 6ers to
be hired to work for the federal government people who came in here
trying to bludgeon the capitol police and the people who work in this
very institution and in that committee republicans voted
to allow them to work for the federal government and have the authority to go
after other americans in the natural resources
committee they passed a bill that would allow us to sell federal
land land that we all enjoy parks recreational services forests
i want the people in my life the little people in my world to be able to go and
visit a natural reserve or to go to one of our national
parks and monuments and see that it's still owned by the united states that we haven't
sold it to some corporation or god forbid some other country someone with
the highest bid and we're selling that land and the proceeds are going into the
coffers because remember we have to cover the $4.5 trillion gap that house
republicans made because they want to give tax cuts to the wealthiest of the
wealthy and so what else does that mean it means that republicans plan to cut
$900 billion dollar to medicaid kicking $ 8.7 million people off of medicaid
over the next 10 years and the plan calls for new requirements for
beneficiaries for those who are on medicaid work requirements and you say "well yeah i don't have a problem with
people going to work but they're also saying "we want seniors we want folks who are disabled we want the elderly we
we want those folks to be shleing down the street trying to find a job in this
market of course when it's actually hard to find employment and they've been
saying well you know you can make these cuts because there not even that many
people on medicaid there are these people who are 150 years old or 130
years old or they've been dead for four years and they're on medicaid well the reality is is that so
many of us have constituents who are dependent on medicaid and medicare and
social security that are going to be devastated because of these cuts in
california there are 470,000 people on medicaid and they are going to be at
risk of losing their care because of what the republican budget plans to do
this is 140,000 children under the age of 19 and 40,000 seniors over the age of
65 just in my district and i'm going to say it again my district has the fourth
highest medicaid enrolly numbers in the
country california has seven of the 10th highest
medicaid enrolly districts there are poor people there
are struggling people everywhere in every district in every state who need
medicaid who need medicare who need social security and i just have to say if
republicans are so enamored with this big beautiful backstabbing bill and
believe it to be the mana from heaven then don't be afraid to go into your districts and talk about the cuts talk
about cutting medicaid look at the person in the wheelchair look at the person who is
dependent on social security benefits look at the veteran who is receiving
social security and tell them that they don't matter tell them that their
benefit is not as important as giving the money to elon musk and the
billionaires you tell them that because if you're not telling them
to their face you are certainly going to be telling them that when you vote for this reconciliation
bill let's talk about education doge and
musk under the authority of this administration have already fired half
of the staff in department of education you know i don't know about you but i've
got young people in my family who are excited about going to college and they're also
scared because they don't even know if the colleges are going to stay open and i'm not just talking about elite ivy
league institutions i'm talking about community colleges i'm talking about state
colleges i'm talking about legacy institutions
where parents and grandparents went to and it means something to be able to get into that school and
graduate i've talked to young people who who don't know if if a there will be any
money for them if they get in even with the grades i've talked to young people who are getting ready to graduate and
don't know if there will be a job for them and i've talked to young people who were
excited about representing this country and helping us be more
competitive and now don't even know if this country is for them and news flash
all of these young people who i've been talking to are us citizens
americanborn who don't even know if there's going to be a country left who
don't even know if there will be educational institutions left because this proposal includes $330 billion in
cuts that will impact pell grants head start school lunches and
more we're talking about a $1 billion freeze for schoolbased mental
health and i don't know about you but it seems like every single person in this
country should be accessing mental health services right now just to make
it through the day but that is what is coming out of this reconciliation
package going back to student loan borrow borrowers who who saw a glimmer of hope
last year and now they're going to be tracked down like animals in the
night when you have an administration that just accepted a $400 million bribe
from another country so the math doesn't math up why are you asking for young
people to pay their fair share when it seems like not everyone else is doing the same thing the regional head start
office serving my district closed and head start funding at roughly 12 billion
annually represents less than.2% of total federal spending
eliminating head start would cut child care and supportive services for about
80,000 young children in california and then let's talk about agg
this proposal would halt funding for the rural energy for america program and
once again cutting a billion dollars in funding for programs that help schools
and feed folks through food banks and cutting this funding would threaten the
livelihood of our american farmers and also threaten the nutrition of our
children let's talk about our veterans under this reconciliation
package proposal we're talking about firing 6,000 veterans my
god my god people who have served our
country in wars who have stood up for this country
and the people in it who have stood up for our
constitution who came back from their service and were hired by the government
will be fired have been fired are being fired and not only are we talking about
firing 6,000 veterans but we're also talking about cutting their services
cutting their medical services forcing longer wait times for them because when
they call when they go to the va to get help there will be fewer people there to
help them i think about the veterans in my
district that i talked to and they don't deserve to be mistreated like
that my god they want to come back and enter into society and be part of a
thriving business to help open a business and they still need access to
their medical care they still need access to their mental health supports and we're going to cut that i
mean in my mind that's just so uncchristian and then we're talking
about cutting to health and human services so that you know if you're if
we're trying to make sure that folks don't get tuberculosis that we keep measles at bay that we keep hiv at bay
well if you have any of if you're at risk you're going to be in greater
danger because the proposed cuts would be cutting to nih national institute of
health cdc the center for disease control fda the food and drug
administration so the people who make sure that the food we eat is safe is not
poisonous won't kill us the people who make sure that we get accurate
nonpartisan truthful information about the diseases and the ailments that are out here in this world so that we have
the information that we need to keep ourselves and our children safe and healthy we are not
going to have access to that the research that is being done to help us
fight against cancer and to cure so many other diseases that are out there those
research programs are going to be compromised the clinical trials that are
happening are going to be compromised because we have
decided this reconciliation package which is a statement of
values is going to be deciding that those things are not important it is not important to eat
healthy food it is not important to have access to medicine it is not important to research to find cures for diseases
and illnesses that have plagued our grandparents our
parents have you gone to a children's hospital have you visited a child who
is dying from cancer would you go to that child and tell
them higher probability that you're going to die because we're cutting the grants that would allow us to find a
cure that's what is in this reconciliation package and then social
security cutting 7,000 employees you cut so many employees in
your thirsty quest to find ways
to you know fill this hole for these tax cuts
for the billionaires that you crashed the social security website
you've closed offices and you've told seniors and those with disabilities to
figure out a way to get yourself to one of the few offices that are still open
but you're going to have to wait in a longer line because we have fired employees and we're actually ending
phone services for claims so really it's a very sneaky shady way of kicking
people off of the services because you're constricting the access i don't
know about you but i don't want to see a bunch of seniors struggling in a car or trying to get on the bus to go to the
social security office that now has shorter hours and longer lines because they're trying to get a
claim that they have earned i mean who tells like a 75year-old a
68-year-old an 80-year-old grandparent to go suck it
basically like figure out how you're going to survive but we're going to cut all of
this from you but oh i still want to visit you on easter i don't know what
people say i don't know how the the hypocrisy formula works but i'm not down
for cutting access to social security cutting social security
hurting this our seniors because we want to give billions
more trillions more in tax cuts to millionaires
so and then you know let's not talk about but let's talk about the arts and
cutting funding for the arts closing down you know museums and grant programs
and afterchool programs that teach young people how to play music how to play an
instrument you know shutting down libraries it's so healing you know we
turn on the radio we want to go to a concert we go to an art performance
because that is meaningful regardless of your your your political party everyone
deserves an opportunity to enjoy art to be able to go to a library and have a
choice of what book you want to pick out but you have no choice when they're all
shut down that's what's in this reconciliation
package mr speaker may i inquire about how much time is remaining
the gentleoman from california has 15 minutes remaining 15 minutes thank you
mr speaker you're welcome um i almost lost my train of thought but
it's come back to me because i was talking about the arts um and the
gentleman from maryland was talking about our leadership as a country and
how our leadership is in question and i would just like to add
that not only is our leadership in question but our attractiveness as a
country is in question our competitive edge is in question our ability to be
seen as forthright and a country of high
integrity is in question these cuts are hurting our
children they are hurting our grandparents they are hurting our farmers they are hurting our small
businesses they are hurting the infrastructure in our states they are
hurting our ports they are hurting our hospitals they are hurting our clinics
they are hurting our parks honestly they are hurting our
hearts i think about that big red flag that red white
and blue flag right behind the speaker's
chair and what that flag represents opportunity
access honesty
integrity and what we have seen last week and what we are seeing this
week from a house majority when it comes to this reconciliation
bill is silence is silence it is silence
on these issues that mean so much to the people in our
communities i can't tell you how many times i have walked down the street and
have had an older person grab me and say "what's going to happen to my social
security?" coming here to vote and having a capitol police officer pull me to the side and
ask me what it meant for his job if he would have a
job going to talk to farmers and having them tell me they may
have to fire or lay off the rest of their employees that they would not be
able to make it small businesses in the community that
are hiring other people from the community concerned and
everyone asks what are republicans
doing why aren't they standing up for us too and i don't have an
answer to that question i want an answer to that
question because when you're silent it means you're
complicit or you're apathetic and i would hope that there
would be no one here who would want to be complicit in the taking away of social
security or medicaid or medicare i would hope that no one here would want to be
complicit in having young children with cancer at a children's hospital die
because we've cut cancer research funding
as i say this i think about my mother a breast cancer
survivor who wonders every day if it will come
back and boy how do you think it gets me right in the craw to have to tell
her that this country doesn't care if she lives or
dies because it doesn't care enough about finding a cure for cancer to
continue to fund that kind of research and we just celebrated mother's
day i wonder if people shared with their mothers how all of the supports that
help mothers will now be on the chopping block
so i'm sharing all of this on behalf of the congressional black
caucus because as we wait to see what comes out of the remaining committees
that are meeting just know that there is a $290
billion cut to the supplemental nutrition assistance program
so cutting off food assistance to thousands of families who need it just
know that in these committees they will be debating raising the age for mandatory work requirements because we
want people to work longer and work harder and get less while somehow
billionaires make more off of the backs of these working families
just know that in these committees they are going to be talking about cutting access to school lunches and so many of
us live in districts where the school district is actually
responsible for feeding the children in the community because of the free lunch
program so i i know that people might be distracted by the cutter gift the $400
million flying palace let's hope there are no bugs in
it i don't know i know people want to be distracted
by all of the other things that seem to be coming out of the administration but
i don't want us to be distracted by that i want us to be talking about this reconciliation bill i want us to
remember what is going to be voted on in this package and it's a thing you know
it's a thing that it's actually taking so long for this package to arrive on
the floor and do you know why it's a thing because we have a house majority
trying to wiggle through the truth and figure out a way to spin death and
destruction and poverty there's no way to spend kicking granny
off social security there is no way to spend shutting down hospitals and
clinics and we can demonize the folks who are on medicaid and medicare but i
want to also remind us that if there is a doctor if there is a clinic if there
is a hospital that is receiving a reimbursement for taking care of a
recipient on medicaid that doctor that hospital that community clinic is open
to serve you too because that reimbursement allows that clinic that
doctor that hospital to stay open to help and serve everyone else in
the community a lot of this rhetoric that you're
hearing from people who don't want to talk about this reconciliation bill is trying to divide us into us and
them buckets but the truth is we are all
in this together we are all in this country together we are all in this
debate together we are all in this fight
together to make sure that the people in our district
have access to the services that they deserve and if you are not willing to
stand up for medicare and don't sign no letter
and then run and don't show up in a district stand up and talk about saving
it protecting it defending it making it better so that it can serve more people
who deserve it rather than cutting it and lying about it and running from
the truth and the truth is this reconciliation
bill this package is going to hurt people it's going to impoverish
people it's going to destroy businesses because the funny thing about
economies is that they are circular nothing happens in a silo in a
vacuum businesses stay open because people are able to go into those businesses and they're able to shop and
buy things and when that happens that business is able to grow and they're able to hire more workers and then those
workers are able to do more or produce more you see that's how it works but
when you cut off opportunity access incentive
support then you compromise that ecosystem and we all have those
microecosystems in our communities that is what makes this country strong
that's what makes this country unique that's what makes this country
worthy of this kind of debate so mr speaker i am going to close
right now because i know the witching hour is among us
i am grateful for the time that has been given to the congressional black
caucus you have heard mr speaker from my distinguished colleagues about this
reconciliation package about all issues of great importance to this caucus to
our constituents to the congress and to all americans tonight this
reconciliation bill it is a big deal it is an important deal and it should be talked about and discussed and the best
disinfectant is sunlight and we have got to stop allowing people to be so shady about
what is happening in these committees and what is being cut we have to turn all the lights on and talk about all the
cuts that are coming in this reconciliation package and yes we got to
point the fingers and point the blame at the people who plan to make these cuts
and kill the american people and with that mr speaker i yield back
the gentle lady yields
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