Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2026
Floor Speech
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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, this bill, which they now call imperfect, contains the single most corrupt provision for legislative self-dealing that anyone in this Chamber today has ever voted on. It is such an egregiously corrupt act of legislator self-enrichment and plunder of the taxpayer that not only did every single House Democrat oppose it in the Rules Committee last night, but multiple Republicans were denouncing it, that is, before they were summoned into a side room and instructed to vote for it, which they all proceeded to do.
Now they are telling us: Vote for it today and they will repeal it maybe next week or maybe the week after that or maybe before Christmas. I have a solution. If Members don't like this corrupt provision, don't vote for it today. That will work.
This is a great bill, a great bill that is if you think eight Republican U.S. senators should have a right to collect at least $1 million in a jackpot bonanza payoff from the taxpayers simply because they were subject to the exact same rules all other Americans were subject to and are subject to now. They don't propose to change those rules for anybody else, not for more than 300 million Americans, not for the Members of the House of Representatives, not for Governors or mayors but for themselves. They want to deal themselves a special legal privilege.
In this Republican class war, a Great Gatsby economy where President Trump has made more than $3 billion since he reoccupied the White House, the Federal building which he has proceeded to demolish in large part while millions of Americans face losing their healthcare and their SNAP benefits. This provision is an affront to our taxpayers and to the rule of law.
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Mr. RASKIN. It is an affront to everyone who believes that we, in public office, must be the servants of the people, not the masters of the people who get special, legal rights and privileges and multimillion-dollar payoffs, people who think that they have a right to better treatment than everybody else, like Ghislaine Maxwell in the prison camp where she gets room service, puppy time, and special gym privileges.
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