Providing for Consideration of H.R. Support for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Save Sba From Sanctuary Cities Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. American Entrepreneurs First Act of and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Capping Excessive Awarding of Sblc Entrants Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, last time Members were here, House Republicans rammed through their latest GOP tax scam, a bill that would rip healthcare away from over 15 million Americans by slashing Medicaid and, let's be honest, likely Medicare. I am sorry the gentlewoman doesn't think that that is in the interest of the American people, but my colleagues on the Democratic side do. My colleagues think when Republicans are taking away people's healthcare in this country, it is a big deal.

This bill, this tax scam bill, would literally take food out of the mouths of kids, and take nutritious food from senior citizens and veterans. For what? To give massive tax breaks to billionaires and to add trillions of dollars to our national debt.

Mr. Speaker, their ugly, big bill is a disgrace, and it does not serve working people. It serves the GOP's donors. It is a scam, a handout to the rich, paid for by nickel-and-diming moms and dads who are just trying to get by.

Even Elon Musk, one of Donald Trump's top advisers, called the Republican bill a ``disgusting abomination.'' Let me repeat that, a disgusting abomination. He said: ``Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong.''

Now, let that sink in. Let that sink in. Elon Musk, the man who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to elect Donald Trump and other Republicans, is now saying Members should be ashamed of themselves for voting for this disgusting bill.

Remember when Republicans were falling all over themselves calling Elon a genius and he could do no wrong?

I have got to be honest, Mr. Speaker, it gives me whiplash. I think I need a neck brace to deal with all of these contrary quotations coming in.

The icing on the cake, Mr. Speaker, is the number of Republicans who are now publicly claiming buyers' remorse for voting for this bill.

This is a tweet from one of my Republican colleagues from Georgia. People are going to love this. She says: ``Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278 to 279 of the OBBB that strips States of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years.

``I am adamantly opposed to this, and it is a violation of State rights, and I would have voted no if I had known this was in there.''

This needs to be stripped out of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, this takes my breath away. All my colleague from Georgia needed to do was to read the bill. I know that is a tough thing to ask Members of Congress to do, but read the damn bill. If she wasn't going to do that, if she was like our President, who doesn't like to read and only gets his information from the TV, she could have tuned in to the Rules Committee meeting where for 20 hours, beginning at 1:00 a.m., the Rules Committee debated not only this bill but even this policy that she was concerned about.

In fact, I offered an amendment to strike the awful AI provisions from this bill. There was a debate on it, and every single one of her Republican colleagues on the Rules Committee, every single one of them voted against it.

Get this: According to this article in The New York Times titled: ``After Muscling Their Bill Through the House, Some Republicans Have Regrets,'' our colleague from Georgia wasn't the only Republican who didn't read the bill before voting to pass it. Another one of our conservative colleagues from Nebraska admitted he did not know the bill makes it harder for the courts to hold the Trump administration officials in contempt for defying a court order. Get this: He claims he would have voted against the bill had he known it was in the bill. I can't make this stuff up.

Another conservative Republican colleague from Pennsylvania tweeted: ``Elon Musk is right to call out House leadership. I wish I had a nickel for every time the House Freedom Caucus sounded the alarm and nobody listened, only to find out the hard way that we were right all along.''

Right all along? From what he just said, I would have thought that he voted against the bill or that the entire Freedom Caucus voted against the bill.

Yet, he voted for it, and so did the Freedom Caucus. I think every Republican but one voted for the bill.

Mr. Speaker, here is the deal: Republicans are really good about making statements and speeches, but that is about it. Yet, where is their backbone? If my Republican colleagues believe some of the stuff is bad, why didn't the majority vote against the bill?

One by one, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle caved. The budget hawks wanted a bill that wouldn't add to the debt. This bill adds trillions to the debt, and Republicans caved.

Moderates said they wouldn't vote for a bill that slashes Medicaid and threw people off of healthcare, which this bill did, and guess what? They folded. They folded.

Where I am from, in Massachusetts, that is what we call a cheap date. Republicans from across the ideological spectrum caved and got nothing. The majority listened to Donald Trump and closed their eyes and just voted for it without reading it, without a CBO analysis. Whatever Trump wants, Trump gets.

Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, it is embarrassing. It is embarrassing for this institution, and it is embarrassing for our country. It is making a mockery of this House of Representatives. Republicans should be ashamed of themselves.

I thought all of us ran for Congress, regardless of party, to try to help people. What Republicans did a little over a week ago was about not only hurting people but screwing them over. That is sad.

Then, look at today. Some of the bills at one time were bipartisan. H.R. 2483 reauthorizes funding for programs that help communities fight the opioid crisis. It is something I support and something I voted for in the past.

Mr. Speaker, over 20,000 lives have been lost in my home State of Massachusetts alone to this crisis over the past decade. Yet, in Massachusetts, we actually saw a 33 percent drop in fatal overdoses for the first time last year, showing that public investments that we all voted for, public investments in treatment and in prevention, are actually starting to make a real difference.

Mr. Speaker, I am horrified, and I am outraged that Trump is actively dismantling our ability to respond to the opioid crisis moving forward.

The administration recently sent over more details about Trump's ``skinny'' budget, which proposes very large cuts to health programs that American families rely on. These include eliminating programs of regional and national significance at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, otherwise known as SAMHSA, which encompassed nearly all programs aimed at substance use and mental health, including the ones in the bill before us today.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to take Republicans seriously when the majority is actively dismantling the very programs and the very agencies that this bill is trying to reauthorize. If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were serious about this crisis, my Republican colleagues would stop undermining the solutions.

I guess maybe the rationale for Republicans bringing this bill to the floor is to have some cover as Trump basically undoes all of the programs that are authorized under this bill. Yet, what a cynical thing to do, and it is going to cost lives. This isn't a game we are playing. At this point, this really shouldn't be about pleasing the guy in the Oval Office. This should be about serving our constituents and supporting what is already working and showing some promise.

Then, Republicans claim the other three bills in this rule support small businesses. Yet, there is no surprise. They do the exact opposite.

DOGE already shuttered an SBA office in my district in Massachusetts, forcing a lot of rural small business owners to have to drive hours to get to the office in Boston. Now, under this bill, if Republicans force the closure of the Boston office out of political spite, which Republicans seem to be really good at, it will leave small businesses in Massachusetts with nowhere to turn. Yet, it is not just Massachusetts, but it is a whole bunch of other States that will fall under these cuts.

It will also have disastrous, long-term consequences for the rural entrepreneurs and working-class families in my home State who rely on the SBA to navigate Federal assistance and recover from economic setbacks, like the increased costs they are facing because of Trump's reckless trade war.

Mr. Speaker, while we are having this debate and Trump is having tantrums day in and day out and tariffs this and tariffs that, do you know who is paying the price? It is small businesses. Do you know what is happening in this country? People are beginning to get laid off. Again, there is silence. There is silence from the other side.

Mr. Speaker, let's be clear. Trump's tariff chaos does, in fact, punish small businesses the most. Unlike the mega-donors who bankroll Republican campaigns, small business owners can't hedge against the kind of volatility that we see playing out in the economy right now.

Every time Trump throws another tantrum on trade, Republicans are tossing small businesses into a tailspin with no warning, no help, and, frankly, no concern.

Maybe that is the point. Republicans don't care about new small business entrepreneurs or those people struggling with opioid addiction. If the majority did, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would uplift successful programs and agencies like SBA or SAMHSA, not gut them.

Unless you are a mega-donor or a loyal MAGA mouthpiece, you do not matter to this Republican majority. What is happening here isn't just irresponsible. Mr. Speaker, it is immoral, and it is a damned disgrace.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Will the gentlewoman yield?

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I don't like Elon Musk.

Mr. Speaker, I think the idea that quoting somebody means that you like them is kind of absurd. I quote Trump a lot, and I could assure the Speaker that he is not anywhere on my top two-millionth list of people who I like.

In any event, earlier today, Mr. Speaker, just for the record, I point out that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office put out new estimates on the Republicans' tax scam, which shows that this bill is even worse than we thought, if that is even possible.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, the document shows that the Republican bill, the bill that the gentlewoman supported, will blow a massive hole in our deficit, costing taxpayers close to $3 trillion over the next decade.

Here is what is particularly galling: The Republicans' bill would also kick more than 15 million people off of their healthcare through devastating cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, including the millions of Americans who will lose coverage on the exchanges once Republicans let the premium tax credits expire.

This isn't me saying it. This is the CBO saying it, that the majority's bill is going to throw millions and millions of our fellow citizens off of their healthcare. Republicans are doing it and are going forward with it like it is no big deal.

At the same time, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are giving a tax break to billionaires. Why, again, are Republicans adding trillions to our debt and kicking millions off of their healthcare? Again, it is to hand out $3.7 trillion in tax cuts, which overwhelmingly benefit billionaires, wealthy heirs, and corporations. It pains me to say that I agree with Elon Musk on some of his criticisms here, but the Republican tax scam really is a disgusting abomination.

Mr. Speaker, I urge people who watch this debate not to take my word for it and not to take the gentlewoman's word for it but to actually google CBO. Look up what the facts are. The facts, quite frankly, are damning.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 2753, the Hands Off Medicaid and SNAP Act of 2025, which would block the Republican budget from cutting Medicaid or SNAP benefits and kicking people off of these lifesaving programs.

Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago, House Republicans jammed through their multitrillion-dollar budget scam by a one-vote margin--a one-vote margin--and now we are learning that some Republicans didn't even know what was in the bill, which is inexcusable. Yet, that is what they are claiming publicly.

Let me remind my colleagues: Republicans are giving more tax breaks for billionaires, wealthy heirs, and corporations, while lower income Americans are made worse off through the largest cuts to healthcare and food assistance in our Nation's history. This is the biggest cut to our nutrition programs in the history of our country.

Again, Elon Musk called this bill a disgusting abomination, but it is not too late. Republicans can still correct their grave injustice and vote to protect healthcare and SNAP for millions of Americans by voting to bring up the Hands Off Medicaid and SNAP Act of 2025.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Olszewski).

Mr. Speaker, let me just respond to the gentlewoman by saying that I don't know how Democrats are going to vote. I think some will vote for the bill, and some will vote against the bill.

What people are really upset about is the fact that we are bringing a bill to reauthorize programs that, as we speak, Donald Trump is cutting. My friends on the other side of the aisle are saying not a damn thing. This is what the American people hate about Congress, when Members of Congress get up and say one thing and then do another thing.

He is trying to eliminate SAMHSA. He is firing people as we speak. I mean, every State is being negatively impacted by this.

I supported these programs and this reauthorization in the past. I support the underlying programs, but I am furious that as we are having this debate, making believe to the American people that somehow we are on their side and that we are fighting substance use disorder, fighting addiction and the opioid crisis, and that we are really serious about this, while we are having this debate, the President of the United States and this administration are gutting these very programs, and my friends are saying not a damn thing.

Maybe the gentlewoman supports what the President is doing. Maybe she supports gutting these programs, but I don't. I don't, and if you truly support what these bills are authorizing, you would be screaming as loud as we are.

This is bad for our constituents. This is bad for our country. We have made progress in my home State of Massachusetts in reducing the number of opioid-related deaths. We can point directly to some of these programs that have made a real difference, but as we are speaking right now, these things are being undermined. That is what has us so upset.

I mean, let's make no mistake about it. We, in a bipartisan way, moved these programs forward in the past. That is because we believed it was all real, that it wasn't fake, wasn't show business. What is happening here is not real.

Mr. Speaker, for the record, again, what we are objecting to is the fact that all the programs that are contained in this bill that are being authorized are being gutted by this administration, and my friends are saying nothing about it. That is the ultimate kind of cynical maneuver.

I mean, this administration is cutting money for first responder training, cutting money for pregnant and postpartum women, cutting programs to help prevent children from going down the road to addiction, cutting programs to track opioids, and cutting comprehensive opioid care centers. They are proposing that they be totally eliminated.

I mean, we are having this debate while, as we speak, they are gutting these programs, and my friends are saying nothing, like, ``No, everything is great.'' Give me a break.

Kamlager-Dove).

Mr. Speaker, I know the gentlewoman doesn't want me to talk about Elon or what Elon said, but we are going to talk about it anyway.

Mr. Speaker, as Elon Musk said: Trump's one big, beautiful GOP tax scam is a ``disgusting abomination.''

Let me break it down for you and for the American people. Here are 10 of the most egregious abominations in this bill.

One, the GOP tax scam is a massive giveaway to the wealthiest in our country. We are talking about investment and hedge fund managers paying a lower tax rate than regular income earners like schoolteachers or firefighters. It would cut taxes for the top 5 percent of taxpayers while reducing critical resources for the poorest households, setting off what would be the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.

Two, Trump's bill guts Medicaid and likely Medicare, too. If this bill is signed into law, we will expect to see widespread hospital closures, and 15 million individuals, including sick children, seniors, and the disabled could lose their healthcare coverage.

Three, it raises costs for people on individual health insurance plans. Republicans' under-the-radar tweaks to the Affordable Care Act could increase health insurance premiums by hundreds of dollars and force tens of thousands of people out of the marketplace.

Four, this bill attacks food stamps. Millions will lose access to their SNAP benefits, taking food off the plates of hungry families, seniors, and veterans.

Five, it terminates the IRS Direct File program, a successful, free tax filing service that helped over 140,000 people file their taxes in 2024.

Six, it increases fees on asylum seekers and dumps billions into Trump's mass deportation efforts.

Seven, get this: The Republicans' bill is great for Big Oil and Gas. It turns over millions of acres of public lands to big corporate drillers and would allow them to pay to get their projects rubber- stamped without any input from the public.

Eight, it guts green energy subsidies, including investments in renewable energy projects that are already underway.

Nine, it blocks State AI regulations in a giveaway to Big Tech, completely trampling over State legislatures.

Ten, it scraps nearly a century-long tax on gun silencers. Who does that? Who does that? It is truly horrendous. We have a gun violence epidemic, and the Republicans want to make it easier for dangerous people to access deadly gun attachments.

Mr. Speaker, clearly this tax scam bill is no good, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Mr. Speaker,

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let's talk about people in the gentlewoman's district in Minnesota. I point this out because I am learning that a lot of Republicans didn't read what was in the bill, so let me just provide some information for her.

Under this bill, 5,800 people would lose coverage under the Affordable Care Act in her district alone; 15,367 in her district alone would lose Medicaid coverage; 21,167 people in her district alone would lose their health insurance outright.

I mean, really? Is that what representation is all about? Please. That is what is in this bill that most of you never read.

Stansbury).

Mr. Speaker, let me just say to the gentlewoman that, according to CBO, undocumented immigrants are not receiving Federal funds for Medicaid. My colleagues should read CBO. Don't listen to your Republican talking points. Actually read the stuff that we pay people to provide to us with the information to make sure we have the facts.

Mr. Speaker, these bills are not stand-alone ideas. They are part of a larger Republican playbook, one that protects the powerful and punishes the rest.

It is more tax breaks for billionaires, more crumbs for working people, more favors for Wall Street, more struggles for Main Street, more cruelty towards the vulnerable, more indifference to anyone who isn't writing a campaign check. We have never seen pay-to-play as much as we have seen in this Congress and in this administration.

This isn't governing. It is greed. It is corruption and cruelty masquerading as policy. The American people deserve a hell of a lot better than this dark vision. The idea that you could take healthcare away from people is unconscionable and that you will do so with a straight face is unconscionable.

This big, ugly bill is a disgrace.

Today, you are attacking small businesses and you are attacking programs that help combat drug abuse addiction in this country.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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