Stop Project 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Huffman, my colleague from the north coast of California, for yielding.

Whether north or south, we Californians value things like a woman's right to choose, basic civil rights, human rights, and LGBTQ rights, so I thank him for hosting this Special Order hour to bring attention to the most antidemocratic agenda in the history of this country.

I don't want to be too hyperbolic, but it certainly is the most antidemocratic that I have known in my lifetime. I can think back to the last century when we had far less democratic institutions. We had slavery, of course, and that was way more antidemocratic, but it is very disturbing what I see in Project 2025.

Let us not mince words here. Donald Trump's Project 2025 is a manifesto for a potential Trump administration to undermine our democracy, to roll back our rights and freedoms, and to enrich large corporations at the expense of working-class Americans.

This 900-page document outlines specific extremist policies that include criminalizing abortion nationwide, ending overtime pay, repealing the Affordable Care Act, ending Medicare as we know it, and putting Social Security on the chopping block.

As the ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, I am deeply alarmed by the disastrous impacts that Project 2025 would have on America's veterans and the care they get from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The very first proposal in the VA section of Project 2025 would prohibit VA clinicians from performing abortions to protect the health and life of women veterans. It is the very first thing that was put into that section, and I know the person who wrote this section. As much as the President is trying to run away from ownership, the very person who wrote this was somebody who worked in a very responsible position in the VA at the time and reported directly to the Secretary under Donald Trump, Secretary Wilkie.

This section is unconscionable. We have Republicans all across the country now claiming that they are for the exceptions, but the very first part of Project 2025 on the veteran section says that they would make it illegal or reverse Secretary McDonough's rulemaking on allowing for abortions to be available at the VA to the very women who wore the uniform of our country.

Women veterans fought for our rights and freedoms. They fought for the rights and freedoms of all of us, but the very first thing that Republicans want to do is take their freedom to make decisions about their own bodies away.

Trump's Project 2025 will hurt veterans and reduce VA to ruins. I have already mentioned our women veterans. In order to execute its mission of serving America's heroes, VA needs to keep wait times low. In order to keep wait times low, they need to hire sufficient medical staff and offer employees competitive salaries.

The Honoring our PACT Act, which I was proud to author, has already seen nearly 1.2 million claims approved in just 2 years. Yet, instead of bolstering the VA with the necessary resources to ensure that all veterans get the world-class healthcare that they were promised, Trump's Project 2025 would push more veterans out to for-profit care, which is far more expensive than VA's direct care, to further a far- right agenda.

Already, over a third of the Veterans Health Administration's budget goes to referring veterans into very costly for-profit, private-sector care. As more veterans get referred out, the VHA will be forced to spend more money out of their budget.

I am not opposed to referring veterans out to care when VA is not able to provide certain specialty care inside the VA. It is a very necessary part, but it has to be in the right balance, and we are reaching a tipping point right now where for-profit care is going to seriously jeopardize VA's ability to provide direct care. That will mean reduced staffing, increased wait times, fewer upgrades to VA's aging infrastructure, and fewer new VA facilities.

Many of our VA facilities date back to World War II, and that will mean worse care for our veterans. The VA would become a skeleton or a shell of its former self if Project 2025 is enacted.

That is not all. Republicans on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, in order to get a head start on Project 2025 initiatives, are working to weaponize VA by politicizing nonpartisan jobs, to undermine congressional oversight of veterans' healthcare, and to prohibit VA from providing gender-affirming care to our trans veterans.

Under Trump's Project 2025, the VA will become nothing more than a payment processor for large corporations focused on maximizing profits rather than an institution that keeps America's promise to those who have served.

This is an unacceptable outcome for veterans. We cannot allow Project 2025 to be implemented. I will work tirelessly with my Democratic colleagues to fight back on this radical, extremist manifesto.

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Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for the purpose of a colloquy?

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Mr. TAKANO. We could just call this give America over to private equity. The whole thing is designed to enrich a small group of people.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Huffman for his dedication.

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