Democratic Proposals

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, it is hard to say where to start, but perhaps I will simply augment what we just heard from my Democratic colleagues, who gave example after example of the crazy, uncoordinated attack on Americans that we are now seeing from the current administration.

As we hear those stories of the reality of the programs that are not moving forward, the reversal of critical programs to protect individuals and their healthcare, to protect individuals in their daily lives as they travel, to protect Americans now and in the future as we address the issues of climate change and the enormous challenges, much more will be said about that in the days ahead. It definitely should be.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to deal with a positive message. It is a positive message that compares how Democrats would address the challenges of our time versus what our President and his DOGE minions are doing and what our Republican colleagues here in the House are attempting to do with their budget reconciliation proposal and soon their individual tax and other policies.

I rise today as House Republicans are moving forward with their budget scheme that literally betrays the working men and women of America, all because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to put forward and carry forward the 2017 tax program that the majority rammed through this House without a single hearing. It was a program that created trillions and trillions of dollars of deficit and did little to enhance the American economy.

We see the Trump trifecta in action. Trump and Musk, with the backing of timid Republicans, have traumatized Federal employees. Republicans have purged the military of competent, experienced leaders and have usurped congressional, constitutional power of the purse and power of the law by dissolving programs, such as USAID, which is authorized by law; the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau; and many, many other government agencies.

Mr. Speaker, instead of reclaiming the constitutional power of Congress, our Republican colleagues are now pushing forward their budget that will make working families sicker, less healthy, and hungry, all the while giving $3.5 trillion in lower taxes and tax breaks to their billionaire donor friends and corporations. In the process, it will skyrocket the national deficit and apparently betray their own long-held view that deficit financing was bad.

Mr. Speaker, the Democrats have a different version. It is based on what Franklin Roosevelt said many years ago: ``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.''

It is our intention to create a level playing field upon which every American can advance and prosper. Republicans are doing neither of these. Worse yet, the majority will provide nothing for those who have little and give everything to those who already have so very, very much.

The Roosevelt test is once again before us, and Republicans are failing at that test. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle intend to cut Medicare while making healthcare for the Americans more expensive.

My Republican colleagues intend to cut student loan relief programs. They intend to cut Pell grants that are crucial for keeping not only students in schools but schools open all across communities of America, particularly low-income communities.

Republicans will make our children go hungry by slashing school lunch programs and even school breakfast programs. The majority will cut SNAP programs, a lifesaving program that feeds millions of Americans and provides support to farmers.

My colleagues will make our roads less safe by cutting critical infrastructure. Republicans will cut services that maintain our national forests and our national parks, as we heard. Firefighters are being laid off or not even being hired for the summer fire season.

In our national parks, who will be there? Apparently my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't care much for those people who are necessary for providing the summer programs in our national parks.

My Republican colleagues will give $3.5 trillion in tax breaks to the superwealthy and to very large corporations, who often pay no taxes at all. In all of this, the majority will add trillions to our national debt.

Democrats have a different vision. It is a vision rooted in fairness and rooted in the words of Franklin Roosevelt. We believe that every American deserves a good quality of life, a shot at success, a vision of a level playing field on which they can prosper and have the support to rise as far as they could and as far as they would want.

We are here today to highlight our vision and to show the American people that there is a disconnect between what the Republicans want and are actually doing and what American families really need.

Here are some of those policies that the congressional Democrats would bring to the floor if we had four more Members in our Caucus:

Democrats will support working families. The first thing we will do to support working families is to expand the child tax credit.

Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro's American Family Act will cut child poverty in half and provide critical relief for middle-class and low- income families by providing a $6,000 refundable tax credit to help families with the high cost of a child's first year of life.

Democrats will lower the cost of goods and services for Americans. If we had those four additional Democrats, we would include provisions in our budget to protect American families from price gouging. It is unacceptable that American corporations continue to exploit the crisis and leave working families with the bill. Democrats will establish a Federal ban on price gouging, and we will hold those corporations accountable.

Democrats will build and expand on the $35 insulin cap, which incidentally is a price cap that Trump removed. The skyrocketing price of this lifesaving drug for every American must be reinstituted, and it must be expanded.

Democrats will expand the $2,000 out-of-pocket prescription drug cap for all Americans, and Democrats will lower housing costs by expanding the affordable housing programs, the low-income housing tax credit, and strengthening access to housing using a bill that I have introduced called the HOME Act, which will increase housing availability. Democrats will raise workers' salaries and wages.

The third provision that we would include in our budget is the PRO Act. The PRO Act protects the right for working men and women to organize, ensuring that workers have the power to negotiate for fair wages and benefits.

As a Member of the Labor Caucus, I know the importance of collective bargaining and protecting unions. Collective bargaining is the fairest possible way for workers to earn the money that they deserve for the work that they have performed.

We will also push forward the Raise the Wage Act to gradually bring the Federal minimum wage in line with the economic reality of American workers.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats will also defend Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We will do this with legislation such as Representative John Larson's Social Security 2100 Act, which will increase benefits while ensuring that the superwealthy pay their fair share and secure this critical program for future generations.

The House Republican budget scheme, endorsed by our President and designed to help the superwealthy and their billionaire buddies like Elon Musk, will cut Social Security benefits and Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

In my district alone, the Republican proposal will gut Medicaid for 250,000 of my constituents. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will also go after Social Security benefits for those in need. In my district, 89,163 children will lose their healthcare based upon the budget proposal that the Republicans are pursuing.

Republicans will also cut $1 trillion out of Medicaid, and that will gut healthcare services for millions of seniors, for pregnant women, and for children with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, the Democrats will defend our borders, and we will do this with wise legislation and comprehensive reform.

Unfortunately, last year, a congressional bipartisan proposal in the Senate to pass historic immigration reform was killed by the current President, who was not then in office. He called upon the Republicans to stop, not to proceed, and my Republican colleagues didn't. That left us with the current crisis.

We have a proposal. Congresswoman Linda Sanchez' U.S. Citizenship Act will modernize our immigration laws, strengthen our economy, and provide for a responsible approach to border management, family reunification, and for the necessary workers that we need.

We will do better, and we will deliver actual results that solve problems, not create additional problems.

Democrats will pay for all of this by making sure that we have a fair, equitable tax system in which the superwealthy and the billionaires will pay their fair share. We will not go down the path that our Republican friends intend to go, and that is to extend the 2017 tax cut law that actually provided more than 85 percent of the trillions of dollars of benefits of lower taxes that go to the superwealthy and the billionaire class.

We are not going to go that direction. The superwealthy and the billionaires should not have a continuation of that tax cut.

We will also take a look at the cut to corporate taxes that was in that legislation. A tax rate of 28 percent was on the docket for many years until 2017. Even today, if we were to go back to that, it is much lower than it was prior to that time.

We will not raise taxes on any family earning less than $400,000. We will restore the long-term capital gains rate to 28 percent, which is actually lower than the previous rates.

We have much work ahead of us, and we intend to see that it gets done.

Let me be clear, as you heard from my colleagues here earlier, the work that the DOGE boys and women are doing is a break-it policy that Elon Musk has brought to the government. He has no business being in government. He has no authority, or does he?

In the morning, we hear from the White House that he has no authority. In the afternoon, we hear that he does. Either way, what he is doing is dead wrong.

We know from the past that there is waste, fraud, and abuse out there, and we know how to do it. It has been done in a wise, thoughtful way. We tried understanding what that organization's purpose was and then looked for ways to make it more efficient and effective.

I did this myself when I was Deputy Secretary in the Clinton administration at the Department of the Interior. We were told by the President and the Vice President that it was time for reform, and we set about to do it.

In the Department of the Interior alone, we had just over 100,000 employees at the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and others. We looked at those programs and said that it can be done better.

The end result was that we reduced employment by 10,000, a 10 percent reduction. We made the Department more efficient and more effective. That is the way it can be done. That is the way it should be done. Wholesale reductions and firings, as you heard from my colleagues early on, make no sense at all.

The contrast between what we Democrats have done and will do is clear. We know the Republicans are set off on a course to further enrich those who have much and to go exactly the opposite direction of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, that it is not our goal to enrich those who have much, but rather to provide for those who have little.

We will create a level playing field upon which every American will have an opportunity to rise and thrive to whatever level they want with a solid education program, a solid economy, and an opportunity to join with others to raise their future.

It is our moment to push back and to stand up for working families. We will put people over politics, and this is our moment to build an economy that works for everyone, not just for a few.

Mr. Speaker, joining me today in this discussion are several members of our Democratic Caucus.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Tran very much for bringing the message to the House about what the current administration is doing to harm veterans. I also thank him for his service, both in the military and in his work in Orange County. I also appreciate him for bringing to this floor and to this House his experience and this legislation. Hopefully, the majority will see the wisdom of it and make it law.

Johnson), and I am looking forward to her thoughts.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have a colloquy with the gentlewoman from Texas if I might.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Talk a little bit about where your district is.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I am certainly pleased that I gave Ms. Johnson an opportunity to expand. I thank her so very much.

Dexter), a new Representative.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. If I might, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman for a little colloquy.

Your experience before you came here, you were a physician?

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Mr. GARAMENDI. What was your practice?

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Mr. GARAMENDI. You did this in the district which you now represent, which is what, part of Oregon?

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Your experience is going to be invaluable as we work through this very difficult period of time. I thank you for bringing the message to the floor and to the American people. It is very, very important that they understand the depth and the trauma that the proposed budget will create and the alternative that you put forward. Thank you very much for joining us.

I now welcome to the floor the gentlewoman from California, Laura Friedman. I happen to know where she is from, so I won't ask her, although she should certainly tell all of us about her district and her vision. I yield to the gentlewoman.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Friedman. I would like to yield to the gentlewoman for a short colloquy.

You raised the issue of education. If our goal is, as I said earlier with the Roosevelt quote, that our task is to do for those who have little, it really begins with education. If we have a good, solid education program, then people will have the ability to get on a level playing field and to move to wherever they may want to go in terms of their quality of life, as well as whatever income they might achieve.

You were talking earlier about the education cuts. If you would like to expand on that, perhaps the two of us or you alone can bring to this floor the devastating cuts that are being discussed with the termination of the Department of Education.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. There are also very important programs at the higher education level.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so much for bringing that to all of our attention.

Earlier today, I met with the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and we discussed much of what you just brought to our attention.

The research that has been undertaken at UC Berkeley has in the previous year, 2024, created 1,618 new small businesses directly as a result of the research and the effort that the university is making to nurture these startup businesses. These are the businesses of the future that are using the research, which you very correctly brought to our attention, that is being cut.

That research has led to innovation, new technologies, and new solutions. Perhaps you would like to expand on that.

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