Supporting the Omnibus Appropriations and Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, as we begin the 118th Congress and the new year, I want to take a moment to voice my strong support for the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, Public Law 117-328. Given that this legislation will help so many, it is fitting that we enacted this bipartisan bill during the holiday season--a time of kindness and caring for others.

As people struggle with higher costs, this law provides substantial help paying for food, housing, health care, childcare, and education. For example, a few notable provisions include:

It increases affordable housing funding by 8 percent, including an expansion of vouchers for 12,000 households at risk of homelessness;

It ensures that the 40 million children on Medicaid and CHIP have uninterrupted access to health care through the year by offering continuous coverage;

It expands high-quality childcare and preschool by increasing the Child Care and Development Block Grant by $1.9 billion and Head Start by $950 million;

It invests in mental health services for Medicare beneficiaries by expanding the physician workforce, creating a new outpatient benefit, and extending telehealth flexibilities for 2 years;

It helps improve customer service by the Social Security Administration for seniors, people with disabilities, and survivors with an additional $785 million;

It lowers food insecurity with an additional $13.4 billion for the SNAP program and by giving 29 million kids healthy meals during the summer with the creation of a permanent summer food program;

It increases Pell Grants by $500, the largest increase in over a decade;

It helps lower energy costs with $6.1 billion for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program or LIHEAP;

It helps individuals, families, and communities affected by disasters with $27 billion; and

It strengthens retirement for Americans.

I am very proud that this law includes 3 of my bills and over $24 million to help my local organizations and constituents via community projects funding.

The law includes The Jackie Walorski Maternal and Child Home Visiting Reauthorization Act of 2022 that provides historic funding for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program that funds evidence-based home visiting proven to improve mother and child health, family safety, and child development.

It includes the Retirement Parity for Student Loans Act that improves retirement savings and lowers educational debt by allowing employers to make 401(k) matching payments for employees making student-loan payments, helping younger workers who currently cannot afford to save for their retirement to begin saving much sooner.

In addition, the law includes key provisions of the Unclaimed Savings Bond Act that will help locate bondholders and heirs of unclaimed bonds, helping ordinary Americans claim the over $33 billion owed to them. Illinois citizens are owed over $1 billion in matured unredeemed savings bonds. Under current practice, Treasury has required bondholders and heirs who cannot produce the physical bond from redeeming those funds unless they are able to provide the serial number and other detailed information. This requirement likely affects poorer and elderly bondholders who face the most challenges in retaining all of their personal records and who hold a significant percentage of these bonds. Working with my colleague, Ron Estes, and other Ways and Means Members, the law included a fix to ensure that Treasury makes every effort to provide each state with the complete information, including the serial numbers, for bondholders in that state. Helping bondholders and their heirs redeem their investments is the clear purpose of the statute, and I will work with the executive branch to ensure it is carried out.

Finally, this law delivers over $24 million to help my local organizations and constituents via community projects. These projects will: increase access to quality health, substance abuse, and mental health services; expand affordable and transitional housing; improve higher education for minority men; expand community well-being programs to improve community safety and economic security; help modernize one of our cherished local museums; improve the trauma-informed care system for children on the south and westsides; and provide high-caliber programming to youth.

I am proud that the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, does so much to support individuals, families, communities, and businesses-- improving well-being, safety, and economic security. I look forward to seeing all the goods things that this law does unfold during 2023.

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