Providing for Consideration of (H.R. Sunshine Protection Act of Providing for Consideration of (H.R. National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of (H.R. Take Care of America's Veterans Act; Providing for Consideration of (H.R. Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act; and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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

Mr. Speaker, to all my friends on the other side who have held this floor hostage for weeks on end, let me save them the suspense: Nothing changes with this rule.

There is nothing in this rule that forces the Senate to take up the awful SAVE America Act. Nothing. The majority is simply attaching the SAVE America Act on to an unrelated State Department funding bill and sending it across the Capitol. The Senate can and will strip it right back out. Everybody here knows that.

The fact of the matter is that the SAVE Act is never going to become law because even Republicans know it is a disaster that will make it more difficult, if not impossible, for American citizens to vote.

What Republicans are doing here with this procedural move is not some master strategy. It is merely political theater, designed to settle another Republican family feud. If that is enough to flip Members who have held up business for weeks, boy, they are cheap dates.

What this rule does is bring to the floor four bills.

The first would make daylight saving time permanent. Look, everybody has an opinion about changing the clocks. I actually support this bill, but for folks getting crushed by rent, groceries, utility bills, and healthcare costs, is this really the best the majority can do? Is this really the most pressing issue before the American people at this moment?

Then, there are three bills Republicans tried to bring up weeks ago, before their own chaos brought the House to a standstill.

One is the Department of State funding bill that cuts funding for American diplomacy and foreign assistance.

Another would block the use of a merchant code for gun stores, making it harder to flag suspicious purchasing patterns.

Then, there is the so-called Take Care of America's Veterans Act. That title is doing a lot of work. That bill expands some benefits by putting the disability compensation of future veterans on the chopping block, particularly veterans suffering from tinnitus and sleep apnea.

In other words--get this--Republicans want disabled veterans to pick up the tab for other veterans' benefits. That is just plain wrong. How hard is it to understand that we shouldn't rob Private Peter to pay Sergeant Paul?

The Veterans of Foreign Wars agrees. They were in the Committee on Rules last night. The VFW strongly opposes this bill on behalf of the veterans it represents, and it published a political cartoon to protest the cuts. What did the Republican chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs do? He and other Republican Members sent a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs, asking the agency to review the VFW's accreditation. That accreditation is what allows the VFW to represent veterans before the VA and help them navigate the benefits system.

Disagree with the cartoon, fine, say so, but do not use the Federal Government to threaten the VFW's ability to help hundreds of thousands of vets. That sure as hell looks like retaliation to me.

Veterans fought for the right to speak their minds. They should not be threatened by their own government for exercising it, but this is what happens when a majority becomes completely consumed by its own dysfunction.

Meanwhile, Americans are working hard. They are doing everything they have been told that they are supposed to do. Yet, somehow, they can't get ahead. What is this Republican majority doing about any of it? Next to nothing.

One of the bipartisan things that we actually did do to try and bring down housing costs, Donald Trump refused to sign it. He let it become law without his signature because he was angry that the Senate had not passed his voter suppression bill.

I mean, imagine that. Think about how screwed up all of that is. Families cannot afford to buy a home, rents keep climbing, and the President of the United States used a bipartisan housing bill as leverage in his fight over election lies.

That tells us everything we need to know about this party's priorities. They will move heaven and Earth to protect Donald Trump's political power, but when it comes to making life more affordable for regular people, suddenly, they can't find the time. They can't be bothered.

Republicans control the House. They control the Senate. They control the White House. They control the Supreme Court. They still can barely keep the House floor open long enough to do the people's work.

Mr. Speaker, let me just respond to the gentleman by saying that whatever good is in this veterans bill is offset by the bad. Basically, they are saying we are providing veterans' benefits by cutting other veterans' benefits. I mean, this is a shell game.

That is why the VFW is furious, why they are pissed over this bill, why they have told their membership to contact Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, to oppose it.

If this were a tax cut for billionaires, my Republican friends don't care about an offset. If it is an illegal war in Iran, they don't care about offsets. When it comes to providing veterans' benefits, all of a sudden, we have to find offsets. Those offsets that they have found to pay for this are by cutting other veterans' benefits. That is unconscionable. That is wrong, and everybody should vote ``no'' on that bill.

Dean).

Mr. Speaker, I ask that we defeat the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to allow the House to take an up-or-down vote on an amendment to H.R. 8595, sponsored by Representative Schrier, which would reverse the cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were imposed by the Trump administration that could have prevented the ongoing outbreak of cyclospora, a parasite that has already infected thousands of Americans.

Last year, the Trump administration began illegally defunding Federal health and science agencies, firing scientists and researchers, and cutting programs that keep us healthy and safe.

One of the programs that Trump cut was called FoodNet, and it helped Federal and State public officials monitor and prevent outbreaks for eight different foodborne illnesses, including cyclospora. Yet, after Trump and his DOGE goons got their hands on this lifesaving program, the government stopped monitoring cyclospora.

That was stupid. It was dumb. Our country is now experiencing a full- blown outbreak of, you guessed it, cyclospora.

For the sake of everyone's health, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so we can reverse these dangerous cuts.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, to discuss our proposal, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Schrier).

If there were people watching these proceedings and listening to my Republican friends, they may conclude that they sound a little defensive because they are, and they should be, especially on these veterans issues.

The bottom line is that the VFW, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, strongly opposes the disability benefit cuts that are included in the proposed Take Care of America's Veterans Act.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I trust the VFW more than I trust the Republican millionaires' club that basically populate the United States Congress on their side in this Chamber. The VFW is saying we can do these benefits without punishing other veterans.

I find it amusing because the gentlewoman says we need to find offsets. Well, she voted basically to increase the debt by $4.7 trillion in the big, ugly bill, adding $4.7 trillion to the debt.

Included in that, by the way, is $70 billion, again, unpaid for, for ICE and CBP. Again, they have no problem with doing that. They have no problem with tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and now America's trillionaire, and no problem with tax cuts for them that are not paid for, but when it comes to providing veterans' benefits, all of a sudden they have a problem?

By the way, just for the record, there is a discharge petition that has been filed to basically bring the Major Richard Star Act to the floor without cutting other benefits for veterans. Every Democrat is on that, every Democrat. We can bring this to the floor. We can have this debate. We can vote on providing veterans additional benefits without cutting other veterans' benefits. That is the choice.

When I hear these speeches about, oh, we really are doing all that we can, and we are on the side of veterans, again, the VFW opposes this strongly. They showed up in the Rules Committee, filled up the Rules Committee hearing room yesterday to show their protest, their outrage, over what Republicans were doing.

Republicans don't have to do this. Republicans could provide veterans with the benefits they need without robbing other benefits that veterans need. It is that simple.

This is outrageous. This is outrageous what is going on, and people should not be fooled.

Scanlon), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

I am glad the gentlewoman decided to go down this pathway because it is not only the Veterans of Foreign Wars that oppose this, but the Disabled American Veterans, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Hispanic Veterans Leadership Alliance, the Black Veterans Project, Reserve Organization of America, Veterans Education Success, Student Veterans of America, Marine Corps League, Marine Corps Reserve Association, Minority Veterans of America, Common Defense, Vet Voice Foundation, National Security Leaders for America, Swords to Plowshares, The Chamberlain Network, Unite for Veterans Coalition, Veterans for Common Sense, Veterans for Responsible Leadership. I could go on and on and on.

The gentlewoman began by mentioning The American Legion. She may not know this, but as we speak, The American Legion in Texas, representing one of the largest memberships of The American Legion, has come out against this bill and is urging The American Legion nationally to now follow its lead and come out against this bill.

The bottom line is, the more veterans' organizations know that they are getting screwed, the more and more they are coming out against this bill. They are in favor of the Major Richard Star bill, which would provide and expand veterans' benefits without taking away other veterans' benefits. It is that simple.

This is a bad bill and, quite frankly, the more people realize what is in this bill, the more they realize the cuts in this bill that will adversely affect the veterans' community, the more and more people will come out against this.
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, this debate has made one thing very clear. Republicans are not the victims of this chaos. They are the perpetrators of this chaos. There is only one party that controls this floor and all three branches of government. Republicans set the agenda. Republicans write these awful rules. Republicans control the schedule, and Republicans have chosen to spend week after week fighting with one another while regular working people are getting squeezed.

News flash to my Republican colleagues: The American people know the difference between working and pretending to work. They know that passing the same voter suppression bill again and again will not lower their rent. They know that stapling the SAVE Act onto yet another piece of legislation will not bring down the price of groceries. They know that threatening the VFW will not improve veterans' care. They know that changing or not changing the clocks will not change what is in their bank account.

Mr. Speaker, if Democrats were in the majority, we would begin every day with one simple question: How do we make life more affordable for working people in this country?

We would work to build more housing. We would work to lower rents and stop giant Wall Street firms from bidding families out of the market.

We would take on corporate consolidation and price gouging that are driving up the cost of food.

We would lower health insurance premiums and prescription drug prices instead of ripping coverage away to pay for more billionaire tax breaks.

We would make childcare more affordable. We would lower utility bills and end these stupid tariff taxes that show up in the price of nearly everything that people buy.

In addition, we would stay here and we would keep working until the job was done.

Now, I am not saying that every problem would be solved overnight, but we would put real solutions on this floor. We would allow debate. I mean, we don't debate anything anymore. Most of the bills that come to this floor are completely closed, where nobody can offer an amendment, take it or leave it.

I mean, you know, and when something did not pass, we would keep trying. We would keep trying until we got it right, until we helped people in this country. I mean, that is our job. That's what we are supposed to do.

When it comes to veterans, Democrats would fund the benefits that these veterans earned. We would not pit one generation of disabled veterans against another, and that is what my Republican colleagues are doing.

It is really not only frustrating; it is unconscionable. That should not be a partisan statement, by the way, in terms of helping our veterans. That is basic decency.

The American people deserve a Congress that is focused on affordability, not on Donald Trump's long list of petty grievances and attempts to rehash old conspiracy theories from 6 years ago. They deserve a majority that understands that power is not about controlling the floor. It is about using the floor to help people, to improve the quality of life for the people that we represent.

Republicans have had their chance. They blew it. They have wasted it.

I urge my colleagues, vote ``no'' on the previous question. Vote ``no'' on this rule. Let us end the chaos and get back to work for the American people.

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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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