Gop Tax Scam Hurts Everyone

Floor Speech

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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to receive time from the distinguished Congresswoman from Washington State (Ms. Schrier). She is a pediatrician. We have all learned a lot about how public policy has a direct impact on the health and well-being of the American people.

When I hear them talk about cutting over $700 billion in Medicaid and that it is just waste, fraud, and abuse, this beautiful child is not waste, fraud, and abuse. I will talk about a little child in my remarks who is not waste, fraud, and abuse.

This Special Order comes together to shine a bright light on the Republican plan to fund tax breaks for billionaires by making huge cuts to Medicaid.

That is what it looks like. The fact is they will still with their tax bill add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt to cover their tax break for the wealthiest people in our country.

This is fiscal engineering to reduce the role of government in the lives of the American people where it is most needed. This is Robin Hood in reverse, taking resources from where it is most needed, from people who need it most, and giving it to those who need it less, the billionaires in America.

This is shameful. It is a fraud, and it is a shame.

When President Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, he traveled to Independence, Missouri, to be in the presence of former President Truman who had worked on this when he was President, but it came to fruition under President Johnson. President Johnson went there, and he signed the bill in the presence of Harry Truman. He reminded the American people of a shared tradition:

``Never to be indifferent toward despair. . . . never to turn away from helplessness. . . . never to ignore or spurn those who suffer untended in a land that is bursting with abundance.''

Indeed, Medicaid saves lives and is a pillar of health, security, and justice for tens of millions of Americans.

People often think of Medicaid as healthcare for poor children, and that would be justification enough, healthcare for poor children. However, it also is a middle-income benefit for nursing home residents and people needing it for long-term care services. They get that largely through Medicaid. It is also a benefit for people with disabilities.

The Republicans' devastating budget plan would push about 14 million Medicaid recipients off lifesaving healthcare and leave countless vulnerable families exposed to catastrophic medical bills. This is terrible. This is about health and financial health that is being devastated.

Working families and children from low-income households would face ruinous consequences as would rural hospitals--as the distinguished Congresswoman has mentioned--families seeking opioid addiction treatment for their loved ones, and middle-class Americans with long- term care needs.

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Ms. PELOSI. This is what they have said about this.

California Medical Association issued the following statement regarding House Republicans' proposed cuts in Medicaid:

``The latest Federal proposal to gut Medicaid is reckless. Physicians and hospitals will be pushed to the brink, forced to close their doors and unable to continue care for their patients.''

Mr. Speaker, that is because when this funding leaves those rural hospitals, then not only do the Medicaid patients lose, but all the patients in that rural area lose.

``These would be the largest Medicaid cuts in history and will leave veterans, seniors, the disabled, children and working families without healthcare coverage''--this is as the distinguished physician colleague has said--``making emergency rooms the only point of care for millions of people. Communities will be devastated; lives will be lost.

``Congress must reject these cuts and instead focus on strengthening the safety net that protects us all. Otherwise, at least 13.7 million people will lose healthcare coverage.''

Republican attacks on healthcare impact real people, including little children. My guest at the President's State of the Union Address to Congress was Elena Hung, mother of Xiomara, a courageous Little Lobbyist, who is 11 years old.

Xiomara has complex medical needs, including chronic lung disease, chronic kidney disease, and global development delays. She has a tracheostomy, is ventilator and oxygen dependent, and uses a feeding tube.

Access to quality, affordable healthcare ensured that Xiomara received the care she needed during an extended hospitalization and can now live at home with her family.

Medicaid has helped Xiomara receive the therapies she needs to catch up with her developmental milestones, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, feeding therapy, and speech therapy.

However, these very lifelines, including Medicaid and more, are what Republicans are working to destroy to fund tax cuts for billionaires.

Democrats are standing strong against the administration's many attacks against families' healthcare. This is just one of them.

With this Special Order hour, we are calling out Republicans to either vote to protect their constituents' healthcare, or to vote to take it away. That is the choice.

In stark contrast to the President and Republicans in Congress, Democrats will always fight to lower healthcare costs. We are unified and ready to use every tool to stop this GOP scheme. We will always work to strengthen pillars of health and financial security in America. That includes the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We will always fight for Medicaid.

I just want to go back to that one thing. They are still adding nearly $4 trillion to the national budget to give tax breaks to their wealthy billionaire friends. When the Republicans passed that bill and the President signed it into law, 83 percent of the benefits went to the top 1 percent, adding $2 trillion to the national debt. They are doubling down on that, adding almost $4 trillion to the national debt and saying: We have got to give all this money to billionaires and call children waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicaid system.

It is really sinful, it is really sad, and it is something that I hope the Republicans will reject.

I hope their constituents will call them, because these Medicaid people are in Republican districts. One of our colleagues in California has, out of all of our constituents, he has nearly 500,000 people on Medicaid. Yes, he voted with Republicans on this.

Mr. Speaker, you can be sure he will be hearing from his constituents because people know.

I will close by saying that Lincoln said:

``Public sentiment is everything. With it, you can accomplish almost anything. Without it, practically nothing.''

However, for public sentiment to prevail, people have to know, and we are making sure that our constituents know and they are being informed as to our knowledge of what Republicans are doing. It is Republican reverse Robin Hood.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to share the story of this beautiful little girl.

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Ms. PELOSI. Will the gentlewoman yield?

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Ms. PELOSI. Just briefly, I want to make this further point. Ms. Schrier has been so eloquent, and all of us associate ourselves with her remarks and the professional knowledge that she brings, the intellectual resource she is on all of this.

I just want to add one thing. At the same time as the Republican reverse Robin Hood plan is going, taking it from those who need it most, giving it to those who have the most, they are also taking nearly $300 billion from SNAP.

SNAP is for food. Food is medicine. You are going to make people even more sick if those children don't have food.

There was one time when Medicaid first began that one of the people who was starting community health centers around the country insisted-- insisted--with the Federal Government that food be counted as medicine because it is about health. Children who do not have access to food are the ones who suffer the most.

I see that our colleagues have arrived.

Let me just add one thing. People ask me: What is your why? Why did you ever decide to leave home and come to Congress? I have five children. The idea that one in five children in America lives in poverty and goes to sleep hungry at night in the greatest country that ever existed in the history of the world, I just couldn't handle that. That is what took me from kitchen to Congress and housewife to House Speaker, to feed the children.

When Matthew says: ``When I was hungry, you fed me,'' in the Gospel of Matthew, what do we do with that? Just tear it up. This is immoral. It is sinful for us to be taking food out of the mouths of babies to give tax cuts to rich people.

Yet, do you know what? It isn't about that. Republicans are giving those tax cuts anyway. The majority is fiscally engineering the shrinking of the compact that we have with the American people and that developed countries have with their constituents.

We are behind the rest of them in many of these regards when we have to take food out of the mouths of babies to say that we are going to give a tax cut to the wealthiest, but we just really are taking food out of the mouths of babies because we don't want to feed them. That is what this is about, $1 trillion: $700 billion or more for Medicaid and $300 billion for SNAP. It is reverse Robin Hood a la Republicans.

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