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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHATZ. Mr. President, the price of everything is going up. Outbreaks of measles and bird flu are killing people. Airplanes are almost crashing or actually crashing and falling out of the sky. Tens of thousands of Federal workers, including veterans, are being laid off in Donald Trump's government purge. So obviously it is a Monday, and we have two votes tonight, and so we are going to address one of those critical issues. Oh, no. Actually, we are going to do something totally irrelevant to 99.9 percent of all people across the country.
Now, let's just start with the basics, which is that everyone has and deserves human dignity without stipulations or preconditions--not just the people you like, not just the people you understand, not just the people you agree with. Every human being is God's creature. Everyone-- especially in the United States of America--has the right to be left alone. That is what freedom means, right? You have to be left alone to live your life however you want within the bounds of the law.
So what Republicans are doing today is inventing a problem to stir up a culture war and divide people against each other, and, worse, they are trying to distract people from what they are actually doing, which is, at a time when people are finding it harder and harder to afford the basic necessities, at a time when diseases we eradicated almost 20 years ago are making a comeback and killing kids, at a time when people are getting on flights and saying an extra prayer or breathing a little heavier, you have Donald Trump and the Republicans saying: You know what, let's cut taxes for billionaires. Let's take money from regular people and the things they rely on--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act. Let's take hundreds of billions of dollars from there and shovel it into the pockets of the richest people who have ever walked this earth because that is what we need and that is what people voted for.
Republicans are focusing on the wrong 1 percent. Trans people are not the reason people can't afford groceries or healthcare or housing. The other 1 percent, the top 1 percent economically, is responsible for a lot of that, and that is who Republicans are desperate to help. They are doing it by going after some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
I will be joining my Democratic colleagues in voting no on the pending legislation.
(Mrs. BRITT assumed the Chair.)
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