Chaos, Confusion, and Manufactured Crises
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague on the other side of the aisle as he was talking about how families want to be able to go to the grocery store and afford food for their kids; that they want to be able to put not just food on the table but put their kids in clothes and shoes and pay for their healthcare and for housing.
I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to share much of the frustration and anger of our constituents watching as the new administration has come in and done a whole host of things, announced a whole litany of actions but failed to deliver on the key promise of working to lower costs for American families. Costs are going up.
In fact, you may have seen the news today. Waffle House just announced that they are putting on a 50 cent surcharge per egg because the price of eggs have gone up so much. In fact, in my community in Highland Park, Illinois, a dozen eggs costs $5.
A generation ago, President Clinton ran on a campaign built on a very simple axiom: It is the economy, stupid. What was true in 1992 is just as true in 2024 in the last election and is true today. The American people want their Representatives working and focused on the economy. They want us to be trying to create quality, well-paying jobs, provide more opportunities for themselves and a better future for their children. They want us to lower costs and raise the standard of living for all Americans.
Beyond economic growth and opportunity, they want us to make sure that we are helping to keep our communities healthy and safe and that we are focused on a strong national security and a strong national defense.
That is the charge voters gave us here in Congress and gave to the new President. It is hard to believe that we are only 2 weeks into the second Trump administration and already the early onslaught of chaos, confusion, and manufactured crises has been stunning. It is easy to feel overwhelmed. In fact, folks at home are telling me how they feel because this onslaught is nonstop, which I guess is the point of what the administration is trying to do.
We are going to focus tonight on a couple of issues. I am joined by a couple of my colleagues. We are a part of the New Democratic Coalition. The new Democrats are the moderate Democrats, 110 strong, who are focused on serving our people an economy that is lifting up their lives. We are focused on lowering costs. We are focused on making life better for all Americans.
Look at the last couple of weeks, just three things. I can't touch on everything, but I will touch on three specific things.
A little more than a week ago, the administration issued a memo threatening to freeze $3 trillion of spending across the board. It was confusing. It had no clarity of what specifically or how specifically anything would be frozen, who would be included, who would be excluded. Our phones started ringing off the hooks. Preschools providing early education to our children, giving them that head start to get ahead in life, were saying they might have to close. Programs like Meals on Wheels for seniors were struggling. Infrastructure projects such as in my district, a project that was decades in the making and received a $19 million grant from the Department of Transportation, was threatened. Healthcare providers didn't know what they were going to continue to do. First responders were concerned.
There was an extraordinary outcry from across the country. On Monday, the administration started backtracking. By Tuesday, they had pulled the memo back altogether.
There is chaos, confusion, and manufactured crises.
Just this past weekend, President Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on our two most important trading partners, Mexico and Canada, as well as 10 percent tariffs on China. This is across the board.
The Wall Street Journal issued an op-ed titled: ``The Dumbest Trade War in History.'' This is not a Democratic rag. This is The Wall Street Journal calling it the dumbest trade war in history. Evidently, the President got the message because within just a couple of days he paused the threat against our trading partners in Canada and Mexico.
For the past week, our phones have been ringing off the hooks again, this time talking about the fact that an individual who didn't receive a single vote, a billionaire who controls one of the largest social media platforms who would benefit from having access to data, classified, confidential personal data of Americans, was, in fact, given unfettered access to that confidential personal information of Americans. He was given access to their pay information, their Social Security numbers, healthcare information. All of this is now in the hands of Elon Musk, who no one in this country voted for. No one empowered him to try to control our government. A man who is positioned to reap billions of dollars off the personal information of the American people and gain his own personal power is now having access to that information. We need to make sure that this stops.
Those are just three examples of the chaos, crisis, and confusion sown by this administration in just 2 weeks. Yet none of this has focused on bringing down the cost of eggs or the cost of living for the American people.
That is why we are here tonight calling on this administration, calling on our colleagues in Congress to work together with the Democrats to focus on the economy, to make life easier for all American families, and to help families get ahead and lift their children up for a better future.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Again, Mr. Speaker, I thank Salud Carbajal from California. He touched on that critical thing. Republicans are literally trying to take money from hardworking families to pay for tax cuts for those who need it the least, for billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg or for the President's family.
The President threatened to put tariffs on our trading partners, Canada and Mexico. That is a tax on American families. We are not going to let it stand. That is why the outcry is important, and that is why it is important we are here tonight.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHNEIDER. McClellan), who is also a member of the leadership team for the New Democrat Coalition.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Speaker, we heard in the last half hour or so people talking about the rising cost of eggs. They talked about the fact that there is a bird flu epidemic that is devastating our flocks. The Centers for Disease Control is being cut by the Trump administration at a time when we need their work more than ever to try to make sure that this horrible epidemic comes to an end and that costs come down for American families.
The thing is that Trump and the House Republicans are plotting cuts to a whole host of programs across our government, programs providing services to seniors and veterans with healthcare, programs feeding hungry families and their children and more. All of these cuts are simply to pay for tax cuts for their billionaire friends like Elon Musk and others.
The New Dems will continue fighting on behalf of the American people to cut inflation, to improve the lives of hardworking families, and to make our communities safer and our national security stronger.
If Trump's tax on American consumers with his tariffs goes through on Canada and Mexico, then American consumers are going to see a 25 percent increase on many essentials, as well as things like cars and appliances and just taking a trip to the grocery.
While Trump is waging war on Americans' savings and bank accounts, the New Dems will continue to fight to lower inflation and cut costs for hardworking families. By giving Elon Musk and his minions unfettered access to American citizens' personal information, he is putting at risk Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, Head Start, and so much other information. The New Dems will continue to work with our colleagues in the Democratic Caucus on legislation to prevent unlawful access to this information.
We are prepared to stand strong on behalf of the American people. We are prepared to stay focused on the economy and do everything we can to make peoples' lives easier, to make their future and their children's future better, and to preserve our dear country.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source