[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 121 (Tuesday, July 18, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H5971-H5974]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
POLICIES THAT ARE HARMFUL TO AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bergman). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Castro) for 30 minutes.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, every day, millions of Americans
from every corner of our Nation get up early in the morning, leave
their families, go off to work. They work hard to support themselves
and their families. Many of them work two or more jobs at a time. Some
come home very late, miss seeing their kids go to bed. These are folks,
again, in every part of the Nation who don't ask much from their
government. The only thing that they ask is that we live in a country
where there is opportunity to pursue their American Dreams.
That means different things for different people. Some kids dream of
growing up and being a teacher, an engineer, a lawyer, a firefighter,
many things. As parents, we want to see our kids succeed, to live in a
nation that remains the preeminent Nation of opportunity around the
world.
Unfortunately, over the last 6 months, the policies pursued by this
administration are endangering the United States' infrastructure of
opportunity, endangering our position in the world. Today we are going
to have an opportunity to talk about some of those policies that are
harmful to America now and America in the future.
President Trump's proposals on the budget, for example, would hurt
the creation of jobs, the ability of people to get healthcare, would be
bad for the environment, would do so much harm in so many ways. So I am
honored tonight to be with three of my colleagues, all of us from
different parts of the country: Myself from Texas, the congresswoman
from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), the congresswoman from Washington State
(Ms. Jayapal), and the congresswoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman
Schultz).
First I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin, Congresswoman Gwen
Moore, because I know that she has some very strong opinions and
perspectives on healthcare.
Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just
want to tell you how grateful I am that my colleagues want to have this
dialogue, this colloquy with me.
I have been so disturbed by the false information that is being given
to Americans about the Affordable Care Act, the whole notion that it is
somehow in this death spiral, that somehow the Affordable Care Act is
dead. And I think that the President and our illustrious Speaker, and
the majority are promoting this point of view because they want the
public to believe that the things that they are doing to destroy the
Affordable Care Act and, ultimately, Medicaid are the causes for them
not having health insurance, the causes for their premiums rising, the
causes for insurers fleeing the market in rural areas. And I just want
to spend some time this evening sharing the truth with you all this
evening.
The majority, they now have both houses of Congress: the Senate and
the House of Representatives. They have the White House. And their
message that ObamaCare or the Affordable Care
[[Page H5972]]
Act is dead sort of covers up the fact that they owe the insurance
industry $8 billion that we, in the Affordable Care Act, promised to
give to the insurance companies while they sort of figured out how much
premiums would cost in this new market.
They have sued the Federal Government because they say that the
subsidies that we are paying for poor people are unconstitutional. And,
of course, insurers, not knowing whether or not we are actually going
to appropriate the money for the Affordable Care Act because they don't
know whether we are going to do it or not, that causes destabilization
in the market.
They are threatening in their bill to eliminate the individual
mandate, which, of course, the individual mandate is a great source of
revenue.
{time} 1830
They are gutting the taxes on the wealthiest people in the Affordable
Care Act to pay for some of the cost-sharing expenses. And, of course,
insurance companies have no idea. In order to set appropriate rates and
in order to stay in the market, insurance companies need some
certainty. So if, in fact, ObamaCare is dead, it is because they have
killed it.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. This week, I thought it was astounding, in the
course of less than 24 hours, the Senate was unable to pass a
healthcare bill. The President had promised for months that there would
be a new healthcare bill to replace so-called ObamaCare. That failed in
the Senate. And then the strategy after that became: Well, we are just
going to repeal this, and we are going to give ourselves 2 years to
come up with a replacement.
That failed today, and I think it failed for good reasons, because
that would be disastrous for the American people; 32 million people
would be dropped from the healthcare rolls if all you did was repeal.
So what were you hearing in this whole debate in Wisconsin from your
constituents and your voters up there?
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin.
Ms. MOORE. Well, I am glad you asked that question, because there are
a couple of things that have happened. They ran into so much trouble in
the Senate from those Senators who were concerned about them block-
granting the Medicaid program, killing basically Medicaid. This was
aside from the Affordable Care Act. To reduce Medicaid funding by one-
third was one of the most egregious portions of the bills that have
come out of the House and the proposals in the Senate.
What people need to understand is that, especially in States like
Alaska, West Virginia, we have got 70 percent of people in nursing
homes depending on Medicaid. We are not talking about able-bodied
working people who have been able to benefit from the expansion of
Medicaid.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Sixty-four percent of long-term nursing home
stays are paid for by Medicaid.
Ms. MOORE. Exactly.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I represent the State of Florida. I want to
thank my colleagues for bringing up this extremely important
conversation about the, at least, 23 million people who would have lost
healthcare coverage if the ``Not Very Affordable Care Act'' that the
Republicans envisioned would have passed.
If I were the President of the United States, I might want to revise
my definition of winning, because I think that we have a leader in the
White House who repeatedly said that America would get so tired of
winning, once he became President, that we wouldn't know what to do
with ourselves.
Well, if killing their horrific healthcare bill and making sure that
we can maintain healthcare as a right and not return it to the
privilege that it once was for only people who could afford it, then I
will take that kind of winning, because we did win on behalf of the
American people, but we know that this is not the last trick up their
sleeve.
The gentlewoman from Wisconsin mentioned the huge cuts to Medicaid in
this terrible piece of legislation, and the gentleman from Texas
mentioned the 64 percent of seniors in nursing homes who are there
because they are on Medicaid.
I represent the State of Florida, Mr. Speaker, and in the State of
Florida, we have the highest percentage of senior citizens as a
proportion of our population in the country. This is just one example
of a very vulnerable population, and this is an example of a population
that our friends on the other side of the aisle were willing to just
write off and leave twisting in the wind.
What would happen if this bill became law is we would go back to the
days before Medicare and before Medicaid, in which you had families go
bankrupt trying to take care of the ever-increasing healthcare needs of
their most elderly family members, and it is just absolutely
unacceptable.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. And, Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, in the
1990s, my grandmother was in her eighties. In 1993, she went into a
nursing home and stayed there for about 3 years until she passed away.
My grandmother suffered most of her life from type 2 diabetes, and
before the end of her life, she had to have one of her legs amputated,
and finally succumbed to congenital heart failure, but there is no way
that my family, my mom, would have been able to afford to pay for 3
years of a nursing home stay but for the effect of this program.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I, too, had a very similar experience. My
mother-in-law suddenly had a stroke when she was 58 years old, and she
was cut down in her prime, also suffered from diabetes, and spent 3
years really in a very debilitated condition. She had to spend down
essentially all of her assets to be able to qualify for Medicaid,
because the only way that she could get care in a nursing home and be
able to afford to get quality care in a nursing home was through
Medicaid. She did also eventually die after 3 years in a nursing home,
but I can't even imagine having to try to find a way to pay for her
care if it were not for Medicaid.
Ms. JAYAPAL. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington.
Ms. JAYAPAL. I just wanted to go back to this question of Medicaid,
because I think you have raised such an important program that is
really a mainstay for the American people. A lot of people don't
understand exactly how much it covers. You have mentioned 62 percent of
seniors in nursing homes.
One in four births in this country is covered through Medicaid. I was
just talking to our good colleague, Mr. Yarmuth of Kentucky. Over half
of the births in Kentucky are covered through Medicaid.
Then if you look at kids with disabilities, Medicaid covers 60
percent of kids with disabilities.
So when you talk about cutting $1.5 trillion from Medicaid, as was
the case between TrumpCare and what was proposed in the budget, which I
know our good friend from Florida is going to talk about, you actually
had $1.5 trillion in cuts to a program that serves 72 million
Americans. So it really is a travesty when you think about how much
this program supports.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from
Wisconsin.
Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, that is right, because the narrative is that
Medicaid only covers these ne'er-do-well, able-bodied people who the
Medicaid expansion dealt with. But the reason why the Senate, to answer
your question, couldn't live with the bill that was there is because
not only did it repeal the Affordable Care Act, so-called ObamaCare,
but it also undermined Medicaid, which is so vital.
And just think about this: cutting Medicaid by one-third would lead
to people in nursing homes competing with disabled children, disabled
children competing with other disabled adults, and with hospitals and
nursing homes fighting for the crumbs that fall from the master's
table.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. And, by the way, Congresswoman Moore, that is
why a lot of people were referring to these cuts as cruel. I mean, it
really is cruel.
Ms. MOORE. It is mean.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. ``Mean'' was the exact word that the President
used.
[[Page H5973]]
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. That is right. You bring up a great point, and
then I want to talk real quick about the budget.
There is this underlying tone from the President and from other
politicians that some of the folks who are on Medicaid are somehow
undeserving, that they are somehow freeloading, and that is just not
the case. It is a complete misunderstanding of who these Americans are.
We talk about how healthcare failed. It seems like the President
promised healthcare, but it didn't happen.
One of the things that they wanted to do before healthcare, which
hasn't happened either, was tax reform. That is going to be very
difficult, especially when one of the foundations of your new tax plan
is giving a tax cut to the wealthiest folks, literally who need it the
least, but it raises a question of the budget and what the budget does
for the American people.
Ms. MOORE. Will the gentlewoman from Florida explain kind of the
budget reconciliation, where they are going to get these tax cuts?
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I would be happy to. I am a member of the
Budget Committee, and we are actually going to mark up the Republicans'
budget tomorrow in that committee. Really, with all due respect, Mr.
Speaker, to the ``Commander in Tweet,'' President Trump's budget that
he proposed in May certainly did not put either families or taxpayers
first--far from it.
In fact, the budget that both he proposed and that we will mark up
tomorrow put Americans and taxpayers dead last, right behind polluters,
industry lobbyists, and climate change deniers. And like too many of
our Republican colleagues' spending priorities, this budget, this
Republican budget, is actually a brutal attack on America's families.
We all know that it fails to deliver on investments in jobs, in
infrastructure, and in education, but, my friends, nowhere is the
damage to American families as stark as when it comes to our
environment.
The Trump budget, the Republican budget that we will mark up
tomorrow, will irreparably damage our air, our water, and our climate.
The President has already managed to undermine America's position as a
global leader in clean energy frontiers by withdrawing America from the
Paris climate accord, for example. And like many of his tweets,
President Trump's climate science policies are a rejection of reality,
and a cynical embrace of falsehood and fantasy.
Ms. Jayapal represents a State that is on a coast, I represent a
State that is on a coast, Ms. Moore represents a State that is on the
Great Lakes. Sea levels are rising. Our water levels are rising, Mr.
Speaker. Property appraisers and insurance companies in south Florida
are already factoring this reality into their home value assessments.
King tides are bringing fish into the streets of south Florida.
President Trump's climate change solution is not the Paris climate
accord, it is not making sure that we make investments in alternative
energy. Let me show you what President Trump's solution to sea level
rise and climate change is. His solution is to throw people a life
vest, and they can sink or swim. Folks like the people in my district,
who have invested most of their savings, like so many people, into
their home, a life vest and being told that they can just deal with it
is unacceptable.
We have to come together and come up with solutions to make sure that
we can fight sea level rise and climate change, to make sure we can
keep our drinking water clean, to make sure we make the kinds of
investments so that we can protect the air we breathe. We have cities
like Flint, Michigan, that have dealt with lead in their water and
children being poisoned for years.
To my colleagues, this is something that is an existential threat,
that if we don't make the kinds of investments that we must, then we
are going to be in a world of hurt, and it is not at some distant point
in the future. There was an article in the Miami Herald yesterday, Mr.
Speaker, that referenced that my children's generation may not be able
to live in my own district. That is absolutely unbelievable.
I am actually thinking of sponsoring an appropriation. Rather than
making sure that we can invest in moving away from fossil fuels, maybe
we will just invest in more life vests, President Trump's solution to
global warming and climate change and sea level rise, and just issue
everybody one of these, and we are good to go.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Congresswoman, you bring up a great point, and
you focused on the environment there and how the President's budget
proposal and the majority's budget proposal is damaging to the
environment.
I think about a series that I saw yesterday in Texas. The Texas
Tribune is an online publication, but it is kind of like the State
newspaper, and they did a series called ``A Pass to Poison.'' And in
the series, they noted that in 2016, I believe, there were about 3,700
incidents of air pollution in Texas, and the regulating agency in
Texas, which is TCEQ, only gave out fines for 20 of those incidents.
So you talk about breathing harmful air. I can't help but think what
will happen if these cuts that are being proposed under this budgetary
situation go through, are we going to have 5,000 incidents now, and you
are still only going to fine 20 people?
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I just came from the Appropriations Committee
markup on the Interior legislation, and a large part of that
committee's work relates to the environment.
In my district, which is ground zero for sea level rise, Broward
County recently ordered the drawing of new flood maps because of
anticipated higher water levels. The city of Fort Lauderdale has
already increased the height requirement for seawalls and raised the
elevation of home sites. Miami Beach's climate plan involves building
elevated roads and installing pumps to keep out saltwater.
{time} 1845
So the President's and the Republican's--our colleagues on the other
side of the aisle--solution for sea level rise is basically sink or
swim. Here is the President's coastal flood mitigation plan. We have
got the sea level rise plan and the coastal flood mitigation plan. Take
your pick. At some point, we are probably going to have to give people
both because we literally have to slosh around in galoshes when you are
walking down the street in south Florida because of how bad the king
tides are and how bad the streets flood in a normal rain.
But, God forbid, we should invest in infrastructure. And I know the
gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), when she was in the State
senate, was a significant leader on investing in infrastructure, which
is absolutely critical to making sure that we can keep people safe and
that we can make sure that we can create jobs. That is something that
this President and the Republicans have talked a whole lot about.
We are 178 days into this President's term, and we haven't passed a
single piece of legislation related to infrastructure investment. And I
think he actually promised to think big, because supposedly Democrats
weren't thinking big enough; and that he was going to propose a $1
trillion infrastructure plan. I am hearing crickets. I am still waiting
for that plan.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, when Americans think about their
main concerns--I have a bread and butter district where people are
thinking foremost about their work. They want to make sure that they
can support themselves and their family members, but there hasn't been
much in the way of anything from the White House to create jobs.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms.
Jayapal).
Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
There really hasn't. And I want to say that, if you look at the
budget, you really get a sense of where the priorities are. They are
not investing in climate. They are cutting healthcare dramatically.
They are not investing in jobs and infrastructure.
Now, as the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) said,
when I was in the State senate--it was
[[Page H5974]]
actually a Republican-controlled senate--together, we worked on a
package and we invested $16 billion into infrastructure because we knew
that that was good for Republicans and for Democrats.
If you look at what this President has to say, this was a tweet that
he just put out:
``Really great numbers on jobs and the economy. Things are starting
to kick in now. . . . ''
But the thing is that, this week, the White House is calling this
``Made in America Week.'' Well, maybe somebody should let the President
know that everything should be made in America, because I happen to
take a look at some of the products of the Trump Organization--and I am
talking about Ivanka Trump's products and all of the President's
organizations' products--and here is what I found:
Here is one of the products of Donald J. Trump's signature
collection, made in Mexico.
Here is another one from Ivanka Trump, made in China.
So if the President is so incredibly committed to making things in
America, I have a proposal--and perhaps we should have an amendment to
this effect--that he should start with the Trump Organization. In fact,
much of the steel that was put into buildings that were built by the
Trump Organization was not steel that was made here in America.
I actually have one of the largest steel manufacturing plants in my
district in Washington State. Nobody ever thinks about it that way, but
we do have steel being manufactured in Seattle. And we are in a
situation now where this President and this Republican-controlled
Congress has yet to introduce a single bill that would actually invest
in jobs or infrastructure.
In fact, the budget takes money away from job training. It takes more
money out of infrastructure investment than it puts into infrastructure
investment. And when you think about the Federal Government's role in
infrastructure--of course, we all want public-private partnerships,
where possible--the Federal Government has a very strong role in making
sure that we are investing in all of our infrastructure, not only our
roads and our bridges, but also all of our water sources, and making
sure that we are investing in transit. These are all ways to put
Americans back to work.
Yet, for a President who ran a campaign based on jobs and
infrastructure and a Republican-controlled House, we have yet to see a
single job emerge. And even the jobs that he says he has created,
recently reports that he had created 45,000 coal mining jobs, but,
unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, what we have seen is the numbers show only
800 jobs created in the coal mines.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Would the gentlewoman be surprised that last
night in the Appropriations Committee, we marked up the T-HUD bill--the
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill? And for all the
talk about making it in America and investing in infrastructure and
transportation and making sure that we can create jobs through those
vehicles, will the gentlewoman be surprised that the Republican
majority actually zeroed out TIGER grants?
Those are the transportation grants that go directly to projects in
communities across this country, to help move people around through
people movers and investments in roads and bridges.
In my district, a TIGER grant was granted last year for complete
streets because we have the highest number of pedestrians and
bicyclists killed in the country, unfortunately, in Broward County.
So would the gentlewoman be surprised to learn the so-called big
commitment to creating jobs and investing in infrastructure actually
resulted in massive cuts in the very legislation where we would be
investing those resources and infrastructure?
Ms. JAYAPAL. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington.
Ms. JAYAPAL. I thank the gentlewoman for raising that because this
elimination of TIGER grants affects cities across the country--red
States, blue States, Republican, and urban. We have a lot of those
TIGER grants that have paid for our roads, rails, transit, ports, and
new transportation projects.
Perhaps I will turn it back to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin. Would
you be surprised to know that the budget actually slashes job training
programs for distressed workers by 65 percent?
Ms. MOORE. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin.
Ms. MOORE. I would be stunned to think that any party or any
President would do that.
Infrastructure has been the bread and butter, and it has been one of
the most bipartisan things that we have.
When you talk about the need to expand our economy, expand the gross
domestic product, one of the sure-fire ways to do that is through
infrastructure projects. Not just building roads, but we need water
treatment plants, our new energy economy, we have bio technology, and a
number of other ways.
But I hail from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is still very reliant on
the manufacturing industry. But I am wondering if my colleagues would
be surprised to know that healthcare is one-sixth of our economy, and
that if we were to repeal the Affordable Care Act and then slash the
growth of Medicaid by one-third over the next decade, that there will
literally be millions of jobs that are lost?
I mean, everybody depends on the healthcare system, whether you are
the brain surgeon or you are the guy that is mopping up the ICU;
whether you are the person who is dispensing pharmaceuticals at CVS or
whether you are the receptionist at the community health center.
And by destroying the Affordable Care Act, we are going to cost shift
a lot to our States. Just over the next decade, it is $68 billion of
unfunded mandates shifted to the States so that they won't be able to
fund things.
And I just want to point something out before I finish. There are a
lot of people who think that this just doesn't matter to me. Those 24
million, 22 million, whatever number people agree upon that the CBO
says that will lose health insurance if the Affordable Care Act ends--
those people who are in nursing homes--that doesn't matter to me.
Forty-nine percent of the folks in this country receive their
healthcare through their employer and your premiums will go sky high,
unlike what President Trump says, because you will have to pay for all
of the uncompensated care that this country will see after we destroy
Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I hear you. I wanted to give Congresswoman
Wasserman Schultz the last word.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman
Schultz).
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I just wanted to, again, place these items on
the table and demonstrate the grave impact that will take its toll on
the American people if the cuts that have been proposed by the Trump
administration and the Republican majority go through. And we will
stand together fighting every step of the way to make sure that--
instead of galoshes, a life vest, and a surgical mask that we see so
many citizens of other countries have to walk around their streets
using because their air quality is so poor, we will stand together to
continue to fight to make the kind of investments that will help
improve, not detract, from people's quality of life.
Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my
time.
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