A Good Deal, A Better Deal, and A Raw Deal

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, it is good to be back here on the floor to talk about a good deal, a better deal, and a raw deal. But before I get into a discussion about how we can move this Nation forward and how our colleagues on the other side are really taking us in the wrong direction, I want to put this up for us to take a look at.

I suspect I caught your attention having it upside down. I did that on purpose.

I often start these discussions with this. It is from FDR, one of his great speeches. He said: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.''

I keep coming to this because it is a statement of values. It is a statement of direction. It is a statement of what I believe we should be doing as Members of Congress and as leaders of this Nation.

``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.''

My Democratic colleagues and I take this to heart, and we try to structure our policies, our programs, and the direction in which we want our country to go along this line, to make sure that those in our Nation, those in our community, those in our States, and even within our families, that they have enough--enough of the wealth of this Nation so that they can enjoy the fruits of their work, so that as they labor that 8 hours or 10 hours or 12 hours a day that they put in, it provides them with enough income so that they can have what we learned from our Founding Fathers: happiness.

That is not where we are today. That is not what is happening today. Yes, the economy is moving. Yes, the unemployment rate is down. But this Congress has just passed a monumental tax scam back in December, presumably to grow the economy, and when you look at that, it is not a better deal, which is what we Democrats want for America. We want a better deal, one in which healthcare costs come under control, where prescription drugs can be available, where we have a real infrastructure program that actually will build the sanitation systems, the water systems, dealing with those communities like those in Michigan that have contaminated water and those in my State of California where the wells go dry--and if they are not dry, those wells are contaminated.

We want a better deal for America so that the minimum wage actually provides sufficient income so that a family cannot only survive, but be able to pay the rent, be able to educate their kids, be able to put food on the table, and maybe even have a vacation.

We want a better deal for America. We want a country that is internationally competitive. We want a better deal for America's mariners, not where the maritime industry continues to decline as it has for the last 20, 30 years, but rather where it is built up.

Legislation such as I proposed that would require that a certain percentage, a small percentage, of the natural gas, one of our vital natural resources; and our oil, another vital natural resource, that it be shipped overseas on American ships with American sailors, who can continue to provide the necessary support for our military so that our shipyards can build those LNG container ships as well as the oil ships.

We want a better deal for America. That is what we are here for. There are so many things. How about an education? Why should it be that here in America the Federal Government provides student loans, not at the lowest possible interest rate, which would be the borrowing rate for the Federal Government plus maybe one-half of a percent for administrative purposes, but oh, no, our Federal Government charges maybe twice as much as what the Federal Government could actually borrow money for. So the markup is like 100 percent.

That is a raw deal for America. And we tried to change that with policy changes that would allow for the refinancing of student loans. We want a better deal for those students as they come out of school, not burdened by heavy debt, but, rather, able to start a family, buy a car, buy a home, start a small business. But oh, no, somehow our Republican colleagues won't consider refinancing student loans. Americans are able to refinance their homes, but not their student loans. Something is wrong here. We want a better deal for America. There are so many policies.

We want a strong, capable military, but we also want a smart military. We want a government that will protect us from cyber hacking. Look what has happened to America. We basically have allowed the Russians to hack into our energy systems, into our power grids. That is not a good deal for America. So where is the Federal Government stopping that? What action has the President taken to protect our electorate, to protect our policies?

There is one raw deal after another--when we offer a better deal, an active Federal Government that will protect us in cybersecurity. That is what we want. We can't get it. We can't do that now because our Republican colleagues are controlling the House. What they offered us was a tax scam that is leading to one raw deal after another raw deal.

Let's understand exactly what has happened here with this tax policy. Perhaps we could see it best here. In the tax scam, the GOP gives to the rich and makes every other American pay for it. They do it in just three easy steps.

First of all, they cut taxes for the rich. I don't know what you have heard about this tax deal that passed with great fanfare just before Christmas and the President went down to Mar-a-Lago just after he signed it. He talked to all of his rich buddies and said: I have made you so much more wealthy. Indeed, he did--$1.5 trillion-plus, plus more than that. Tax cuts, who got them? Eighty-three percent of all of that money went to American corporations and to the top 1 percent--$1 trillion and more. It is a raw deal for Americans--a tax scam of unprecedented proportions, foisted upon the American public as though somehow it would be good for them. That is step one.

They said this tax bill will pay for itself. The essence of trickle- down economics is what it was. And so what is the next thing that happens? Well, when they passed this bill, there wasn't a deficit hawk to be found on the Republican side of this House. Not one word did I hear from the deficit hawks as they ramped through this tax scam without one public hearing here in the House of Representatives. No accountant came in, no tax lawyer came in on a public hearing. Slam, bang, done. It was done--done in for Americans.

Oh, the deficit hawks weren't exterminated. They are not an endangered species. They just simply migrated out of town. Guess what? They are back. The deficit hawks are back, and they are back with a vengeance. They are back with a plan that will rip the guts out of programs that Americans depend upon: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps. Oh, yes, they are back, because they exploded the deficit.

They exploded the deficit. We will have close to a $1 trillion deficit this year. It started at $440 billion before the great tax scam and now added on to it. Next year--let's just take a look.

People say: Oh, you are just a politician. You are just up here talking. Here is some real news, not fake news. Real news. And this comes from--well, let's see, ``Republican tax cuts to fuel historic deficits: CBO,'' reported by Reuters, April, 2018.

``Deficit to top $1 trillion per year by 2020, CBO says,'' reported in The Washington Post, April 9, 2018.

``CBO: GOP policies add nearly $1.6 trillion to deficit,'' Axios, April 9, 2018.

Here is one in The Wall Street Journal: ``. . . wider than previously expected budget deficits and a mostly temporary spurt in economic growth.'' Real news, not fake news.

So the deficit has exploded and so the deficit hawks return to town, and what do they want? Well, now they demand big cuts--big, beautiful cuts to: Medicare, nearly $1 trillion; Social Security, half a trillion; education; Medicaid. That is what the deficit hawks want because they have come to understand that their big, beautiful tax scam really is sending this country into a huge deficit for years to come.

So here is what they propose to do: Republicans will cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to pay for their tax scam. Says who? Says the Speaker of the House. ``Ryan says Republicans to target welfare, Medicare, Medicaid spending in 2018,'' his words reported in The Washington Post, December 6, 2017.

``Top Republicans are already talking about cutting Medicare and Social Security next,'' reported by Vox news, December 20, 2017.

``House GOP Budget Plan Cuts Medicare and Social Security,'' The Atlantic.

``Trump Proposes to Cut Medicare and Spend Big on Wall, Defense''-- his budget. You heard some of my colleagues talk about this earlier.

So what did the tax scam bring us? A raw deal--a raw deal for millions upon millions of Americans.

We want to do it better. We want a better deal for Americans. We can control prescription drugs if we had the votes. We could allow the Federal Government to negotiate prices for drugs given to or provided for Medicare recipients, Medicaid recipients, and others. We could do it. It is a simple law.

We can do an expansion. We can maintain the expansion of the Affordable Care Act so that some 16 million, 18 million Americans could stay on Medicaid around the country. In California, 3.5 million Americans are potentially going to lose their healthcare insurance if the Republicans have their way with Medicaid cuts.

That is a lot of people. That is a lot of families that are not going to have insurance. The majority of children now born in California and in many other States are on Medicaid. We call it Medi-Cal in California. So what of them? What of those children? What kind of a healthy start will they have?

Speaking of Healthy Start, it was one of the programs that the President proposed be cut. What sense does that make? All so that the tax scam can give $1.5 trillion to American corporations and to the 1 percent. Trickle-down economics--oh, they said it works. Really? They say it works. Does it really work?

Well, let's take an example. I talked a moment ago about drugs. The most expensive illnesses in this Nation are dementia and Alzheimer's. One dollar out of every $5 spent by Medicare today is spent for that. And as the baby boomer population grows and a percentage of our population grows into their later years, Alzheimer's is going to bust the bank.

One of the great American drug companies, Pfizer, had a major Alzheimer's research program underway to look for that miracle drug to understand what Alzheimer's is all about, how the brain works or doesn't work. So they received a $3 billion or $4 billion tax reduction in the GOP tax scam. They immediately turned around, terminated the Alzheimer's research program that they were conducting, and spent the money on stock buybacks and increased dividends.

Do you know what that does? A stock buyback will increase the price per share because there are fewer shares outstanding. Do you know who benefits? You got it: the corporation executives, because their pay is based upon an increase in the value of the stock--not in more and better drugs, not in hiring more people, not in more research, but only by manipulating the price of the stock earnings per share.

That is what the tax scam did, and it is repeated all across this country. Oh, I know, they promised a one-time bonus, not an increase over the years in the salaries and the wages paid to workers, but a one-time bonus. Less than 13 percent of the reduced tax benefit to corporations has gone to pay for salaries and wages.

That is what the tax scam did. It is the ultimate trickle down. The Democrats want a better deal for America. We have had enough raw deals. We know that there is a possibility should our proposals on infrastructure be taken seriously by our Republican majority: programs such as Peter DeFazio's A Penny for Progress, with serious infrastructure, over time putting 16 million people to work; programs such as I proposed dealing with the export of natural gas and oil and that it be on American ships--not all of it, just a small percentage of it. We could build 50 to 100 ships and put mariners to work and, at the same time, provide the necessary ocean transport for our military.

We need real Make It In America policies, not something soft and fluffy, but real, strong Make It In America policies, so if we are going to spend your taxpayer dollars, those taxpayer dollars would be spent on goods and services made in America.

How many years have I been talking about Make It In America policies?

Through our efforts, we were able to increase, a little bit, the percentage of made in America for the highway dollars. We are not where we ought to be. We ought to bump that up to 80, 90, 100 percent so that we can really manufacture once again in America.

All the talk of the President doesn't deal with this unless you write a law that says your tax dollars will be spent on American-made equipment and services, not on stuff imported from China. No.

We are going to continue to push the Make It In America policy as one of the elements of a better deal, a real deal, and not a raw deal. You are going to hear a lot about this in the days to come. You will hear a lot about this in the days to come because we believe Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he said the test of our progress is not when we add more to the abundance of those who have much.

The test of progress is an F grade given to the President and to the GOP, to my Republican colleagues, when they passed the great tax scam of 2017 and gave a trillion dollars-plus to the superwealthy, to the Wall Street bankers, and to America's big, wealthy corporations that had so much gas they didn't know what to do with it before there was a tax cut. So they give it back to Wall Street.

The test of our progress is not when we add more to the abundance of those who have much--and here is where we are as Democrats--it is whether we provide enough. It is for those young mothers out there who need maternity care and who will deliver a baby on the Medicaid programs across this Nation. Those are the people we care about.

We want young men and women to have a good education. I am sure the superwealthy can take care of themselves. They don't need a Pell grant. They don't need more. But I will tell you that a child who, let's say, is 16, 17, ready to go to college and his father is earning a minimum wage, there is no way that family can support that kid in college. He will take out a loan and the Federal Government will rip him off with an interest rate twice what the Federal Government can borrow money for.

The test of our progress is what we do for those who have too little. That is our mantra. That is how we see a better deal for Americans. FDR was right. We will work to see that it happens in America.

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