One Big Beautiful Bill Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I have spoken publicly against this bill and its serious health care cuts. You can't pull a trillion dollars out of the health care system and expect health care providers to survive. Clinics, hospitals and nursing homes won't survive the massive pull out of funds. That kind of blow doesn't just show up on a balance sheet, it shows up in real lives. It also means people kicked off their coverage, parents forced to choose between paying rent or filling a prescription for their child, seniors skipping doctor visits or going without medication. And it means hospitals and community clinics closing their doors, leaving patients without care. These aren't just numbers, these are people, and this bill turns its back on them.

I grew up in a regular, hard-working household. Neither of my parents went to college. They worked hard, but they didn't have the money to send me to college. I was fortunate; fortunate to earn scholarships, to get student loans, to work while in school and to be able to chart a path toward. But the opportunities that helped me are stripped away for the next generation in this bill. With cuts to federal student aid and Pell Grant programs, the opportunity I had will be gone for those in the normal kind of family I grew up in if this bill becomes law.

The cuts to nutrition assistance in this bill are cruel. They will leave children hungry and seniors skipping meals because they can't afford food. And it doesn't end there, local farmers who sell agricultural products to those programs will lose an important market.

Here's the broader picture: this legislation borrows over $3 trillion to pay for tax breaks that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans. It's fiscally reckless and morally indefensible.

But there's something else we haven't talked about enough, and it demands our attention. Donald Trump said he would deport violent criminals. People were okay with that. Now we see instead something far more disturbing: masked, heavily-armed agents, often refusing to identify themselves, aggressively, sometimes violently, targeting day laborers, busboys, farmworkers, and some of the hardest-working people in this country. Not dangerous criminals, but the people who pick the food we eat and clean the tables we sit at.

These raids are terrorizing communities and sowing fear in public spaces across America: in schools, at shopping centers, at grocery stores, at job sites. This bill would supercharge those operations, handing them more funding than most foreign militaries, with even fewer restraints. This is not the America I grew up in, and it's not the America I want to leave to my grandchildren.

We can and must do better. For our economy, for our communities, and for the values we claim to stand for.

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