[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 29 (Wednesday, February 12, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1114-H1117]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Craig). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2019, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Porter) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Ms. PORTER. Madam Speaker, when Donald Trump was running for 
President, he promised that he would balance the budget, eliminate the 
national debt, and protect programs that support American families.
  He continues to promise to balance the budget, but his latest math is 
based on fantasy. The President's budget cuts the programs that 
Americans rely on and those that Americans have invested in in order to 
fund more tax cuts for the wealthy, a bigger defense budget, and an 
ineffective border wall.
  If it isn't clear yet, the President failed to be truthful. He is 
putting special interests above the health and safety of hardworking 
American families.
  Our national debt is bigger than ever, and taxpayer dollars have been 
wasted paying for tax cuts that benefit the rich and powerful.
  Here is the stone-cold truth: President Trump is reneging on his 
promise to protect older Americans and those with disabilities. His 
proposed budget cuts billions from Social Security and Medicare. These 
drastic cuts and his failure to keep his word will devastate millions 
of Americans.

  Social Security has lifted millions of older Americans out of 
poverty, but the President doesn't think it is necessary to continue 
supporting our most vulnerable older Americans.
  The President would also slash the budget for the Administration for 
Community Living. Americans need this agency to support those who are 
aging and those who have disabilities, as well as their caregivers, so 
that they can age in place and live their best life every day of their 
lives. I have heard countless times from Orange County residents that 
they want the choice to grow older in their homes in our beautiful 
community that they have spent much of their lives in. The President's 
budget takes these choices away.
  Right now, our country is struggling to keep up with our global 
competitors. And apparently right now the President thinks this is a 
good time to gut funding for medical research and innovation.
  The President wants to cut investments in medical research at the 
National Institutes of Health that provide the pipeline for new cures 
and that spur innovation.
  The President wants to cut funding for the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services 
Administration, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 
Administration. These agencies ensure that there are qualified health 
professionals who can move new medical discoveries into healthcare and 
public-health delivery, support Americans while they are awaiting new

[[Page H1115]]

cures, and prevent them from getting sick in the first place.
  The President also wants to cut funding for the Food and Drug 
Administration and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. 
Americans need the Food and Drug Administration to approve new, safe, 
and effective treatments and the Agency for Healthcare Research and 
Quality to provide evidence on what treatments work best, for whom, and 
in what circumstances.
  If you follow the President's budget proposals over his years in 
office, Madam Speaker, you know that this is a pattern that just keeps 
repeating, because the President doesn't care about securing healthcare 
for older Americans, for children, or for everyday Americans, he 
doesn't care about ensuring that older Americans have a secure and 
comfortable retirement. He doesn't care that millions of Americans 
depend on these programs to survive.
  The cuts as proposed are untenable for America's health and are a 
radical change from how we funded these programs in decades past.
  It is my responsibility as a Representative to provide Federal 
funding in 2021 that aligns with our core values as a nation and that 
supports the American people, and I promise to put Orange County 
families first. Unlike the President, I will never break this 
longstanding promise to my constituents.
  The President's budget shows willful ignorance of the climate crisis 
that is threatening our country's natural resources, our communities' 
health, and our global prosperity. He proposes cuts to environmental 
protection programs that would only further exacerbate the worst 
effects of the climate change. Countries around the world are 
experiencing their warmest winters in history. Antarctica saw 
temperatures of 65 degrees for the first time in history.
  We have watched Australia and the rain forests burn. We have watched 
our home State of California burn. We have seen communities devastated 
by hurricanes and other adverse weather caused by climate change. The 
President's proposed budget would slash the budget for the 
Environmental Protection Agency by 26 percent and cut in half funding 
for energy research and development. This would gut critical programs 
like the Land & Water Conservation Fund and tax credits for electric 
vehicles by millions of dollars each.
  People are dying, entire species are on the verge of extinction, and 
communities have been destroyed; but the President wants to devastate 
bipartisan programs established to protect our natural resources, our 
communities, and our planet.
  Who is this budget for?
  Who are these proposals for?
  The oil industry, special interests, and the few in this world who 
gain more from harming our planet than from supporting it. This budget 
is not for Californians, and it is not for Orange County families.
  As a mother of three, I fear for the world my children will grow up 
in, and I cannot stand by and let this President destroy programs that 
would protect it.
  On the topic of our children's future, I am disgusted by the 
President's decision to cut funding for public education while 
providing yet another tax break for the wealthy and largest 
corporations. The President's proposal is an outright attack on our 
public schools which are a real point of pride in the 45th 
Congressional District.
  To make matters worse, the budget would make higher education less 
affordable and less accessible than it already is for too many 
students. The budget makes a $170 billion cut to student loan programs 
over the next 10 years.
  What does this mean for our college students?
  Increased costs for new students because subsidized student loans 
would be eliminated, difficulty getting jobs on campus because of cuts 
to funding for Federal workstudy, and difficulty repaying loans because 
of the elimination of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. This 
program is based on a simple premise that dedicating yourself to making 
this country better by responding to emergencies, by educating our 
students, and by providing care for the sick is an honorable and deeply 
needed service.
  These are just some of the many professions performed by those who 
pursue a career in the public sector. By eliminating the Public Service 
Loan Forgiveness Program, the President breaks our promise to our first 
responders, our teachers, and our nurses. These borrowers have 
tirelessly committed themselves to improving our communities, and we 
must keep our commitment to them.

  Despite being in the middle of a historic affordable housing crisis 
which we feel acutely in Orange County, President Trump wants to make 
dramatic cuts to the housing and community development programs that 
serve those in need. The proposal slashes funding for the Department of 
Housing and Urban Development by 15 percent. That is $8.6 billion. That 
money is coming out of essential housing assistance programs that lift 
up our communities. In a State like California where the affordable 
housing crisis hits especially hard, these cuts will hurt thousands of 
families who rely on them to make ends meet.
  In California, a minimum wage worker would have to work 116 hours a 
week to afford a two-bedroom apartment or have the good fortune to find 
a job that pays $35 an hour. But in my district of Orange County, make 
that $39 per hour, or $80,000 per year. The median cost for a single-
family home in Orange County is over $800,000.
  Do we want to live in a country where only millionaires can afford 
shelter?
  Until we address the severe lack of affordable housing in America, we 
will need programs like community block grants and the HOME Investment 
Partnerships Program to help families. Those funds support affordable 
housing for low- and moderate-income families, and the President's 
budget completely eliminates them. His proposal would, quite literally, 
leave families out in the cold. Taking a chunk out of HUD's budget when 
home and rental prices are hitting new highs across the country is 
irresponsible and, frankly, cruel.
  President Trump says he is for our business owners, but he clearly 
means mega corporations--Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Wall Street banks--
because his budget eliminates funding for the Economic Development 
Administration's grant program, and it cuts the Small Business 
Administration by 11 percent. This budget would harm U.S. innovation 
and growth and hurt small business owners who are the backbone of our 
economy.
  President Trump also wants to cut our foreign aid budget by over 20 
percent. That money is about keeping Americans safe and keeping us out 
of never-ending wars. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
Admiral Mike Mullen, raised similar concerns earlier this week: ``The 
more we cut the international affairs budget, the higher the risk for 
longer and deadlier military operations.''
  The President's budget puts Americans and our military at risk, 
rather than funding foreign aid that keeps us safe and secure.
  We have a responsibility as elected officials to be good stewards of 
working Americans' hard-earned dollars, and that means funding programs 
to get families the help that they need, programs that invest in our 
children, and priorities that keep us safe. Giveaways to special 
interests and wasted dollars on proposals not grounded in evidence are 
slaps in the face of our hardworking taxpayers.
  If this budget is a reflection of the President's values and of his 
goals and vision for our country, then I am afraid of what policies may 
come out of this White House next.
  I constantly seek opportunities to work with my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle, and I look for chances to work with this 
President as well. But I cannot and I will not support gutting the 
programs that serve our families and our communities.
  It is Congress' responsibility to make sure that we spend taxpayer 
dollars wisely on programs that support economic growth rather than 
things that line the pockets of special interests and hurt our future.
  Congress was given the power of the purse as part of a system of 
checks and balances on the President's power, and it is our 
responsibility on both sides of the aisle to fight for a real budget 
grounded in our values and a budget that works for the families and the 
American people that we represent.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

[[Page H1116]]

  


                              {time}  1730

  Ms. TLAIB. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Porter), my incredible colleague who co-chairs the Special Order 
within the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I do appreciate her 
continued leadership in fighting for families all across the country.
  One of the things that we need to realize is this is a destructive 
and irrational budget by the current administration, and we want to 
wonder why.
  This is a reflection--very much so--of the values within this 
administration. It is also showing that we are going to leave working-
class folks and anyone who needs access to food, healthcare, housing, 
clean air, and relief from flooding behind.
  And we wonder: Why did this come about? Well, like folks in my 
district would say: Let's go back and figure out who is part of the 
administration.
  Right now, under the current Trump administration, a coal lobbyist 
runs the EPA; a pharmaceutical executive runs Health and Human 
Services; an oil lobbyist runs the Department of the Interior; another 
lobbyist runs DOD, the Department of Defense; a Verizon lawyer runs the 
Federal Communications Commission; a Goldman Sachs executive runs 
Treasury; a private equity kingpin runs Commerce; a billionaire Amway 
heiress runs the Department of Education.
  So what you have here is a reflection of those values, those folks 
who are completely disconnected from the American people. These folks 
are millionaires--some may be even billionaires--who do not understand 
the day-to-day challenges that our folks are facing.
  Madam Speaker, I represent the third poorest congressional district 
in the 13 District Strong, where we have, in some areas, chronic 
poverty, but also lack of access to food. We also face that we are 
frontline communities of what doing nothing looks like on climate 
change. We also house the worst ZIP Code in the State of Michigan--
48217.
  Madam Speaker, look at the budget itself. Just gloss over it. You are 
talking about $1.4 trillion in tax giveaways--$1.7 billion in cuts just 
in the Army Corps of Engineers, where two of my communities right now 
are literally facing flooding of homes that they need the Army Corps of 
Engineers to be able to address, from communities in Dearborn Heights 
and all along the east side of Detroit.
  Madam Speaker, we have $920 billion in Medicaid cuts, healthcare to 
our most vulnerable, many of them, again, family members and those who 
have to take care of our children.
  Madam Speaker, a 26 percent cut to the EPA. We, right now, in the 
city of Detroit and throughout Wayne County, we don't even meet sulfur 
dioxide standards, right now, under the Clean Air Act. We suffer every 
single day. In one of my ZIP Codes, we have three times higher asthma 
hospitalization among adults.
  We need to push back on these cuts that, again, reflect on who is 
running this administration versus a reflection of the American people 
and their needs.
  It directly eliminates affordable housing programs within HUD. Not 
only is the food assistance being cut, the $181 billion in food 
assistance, they are going and proceeding on to create a culture that 
says that working folks, working-class residents, our most vulnerable, 
seniors, the vulnerable communities--like our mothers and others who 
are taking care of their families--have to be left behind while we give 
cuts to the wealthy and to corporations.
  And so it is really critically important the American people wake up 
and understand who is running our government right now, because, right 
now, our government is not about people. This budget is a reflection of 
those values that are going to be people versus profit, and this budget 
is very clear: Our people are not coming first. And, from a community, 
again, that is a frontline community that always gets left behind--if 
it is not around education funding, environmental funding to housing 
funding to food assistance, we are, again, the frontline communities of 
what doing nothing looks like.
  Madam Speaker, this budget is wrong for our country. It is 
destructive, and it is something that we need to be able to push back 
together on in a bipartisan way.
  I thank my colleague, again, for this opportunity to express and be a 
voice for many of my residents back home in 13 District Strong.
  Ms. PORTER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Costa).
  Mr. COSTA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for 
the good work that she does on behalf of her constituents, and I 
appreciate the opportunity to make comments that are important 
investments that we should be making in our infrastructure for all 
Americans.
  The President, when he ran for office, talked about his willingness 
to invest in America's infrastructure. Sadly, we have seen little 
follow-through on behalf of the administration to do just that.
  America was built over decades and generations on Americans willing 
to invest in our infrastructure. Clearly, today, we are living off the 
investments our parents and grandparents made a generation or two ago.
  In California, but throughout the country, that includes fixing our 
aging water systems, our transportation systems, and investing in our 
school sites. In my home in the San Joaquin Valley, the development of 
water over the last 100 years has allowed deserts to bloom.
  A reliable water supply is a foundation for any economy. Farmers need 
water to feed the world. We say, ``where water flows, food grows,'' and 
life becomes increasingly difficult when we have literally hundreds and 
thousands of Californians and elsewhere around the country in which 
communities that are small, that are not incorporated, cannot meet or 
comply with clean drinking water standards either by the State or by 
the Federal Government. That is just wrong.
  The richest country in the world, and yet we have communities that 
don't meet clean drinking water standards?
  We know that many of these water systems were built decades ago. 
California now has doubled its population. We need to invest.

  Madam Speaker, this last week, I introduced legislation for critical 
water infrastructure in parts of my district, the west side of the San 
Joaquin Valley, the Delta-Mendota Canal that has lost 15 to 20 percent 
of its capacity.
  The California Aqueduct that not only brings water from the north to 
the San Joaquin Valley but to Los Angeles as a critical supply of those 
water needs for Los Angelenos, these canals supply water to tens of 
millions of people, and also to the Santa Clara Valley Water, the home 
of what? Silicon Valley.
  The legislation that I introduced, the Conveyance Capacity Correction 
Act, will provide $400 million to fund these needed repairs. This is 
just one piece of legislation to address the many tools in our water 
toolbox in California's aging water system, but we need to invest now 
in our water infrastructure.
  We also need to invest now in our transportation system. The roads 
that were built in California and the highways, the inner city and 
transit systems and our air transportation have really, post-World War 
II, been the reason why California has become the Golden State. And we, 
again, are living off those investments our parents made. We need to 
make the same kinds of investments.
  When the President talks about $1 trillion of investment across 
America, that is wonderful, and our Committee on Transportation and 
Infrastructure has sought where those needs should be felt. But to do 
that, you have to put up real money to match local, State dollars with 
Federal money.
  We haven't really provided any new Federal sources of funding since 
the 1990s; and it is absolutely essential if we are going to have this 
sort of 21st century system of transportation that is intermodal, that 
is interconnected, that will be provided for people for work, for 
pleasure, and for a host of purposes to get from point A to point B, to 
ensure that they can do it safely, in a way that makes the quality of 
life absolutely better.
  So those are the challenges we face. We are working to put an 
infrastructure package together that will fund our roads and highways, 
our transit systems, our inner-city rail systems that include high-
speed rail.
  We are building high-speed rail in California, and I have introduced 
legislation that will provide money for fast

[[Page H1117]]

trains throughout the country, as well as in California. We are under 
construction now.
  But that is one part of an overall connected system that makes sure 
that our air transportation, that our inner-city transportation and our 
roads and highways are connected as we see in Europe and in other parts 
of the world. That is the challenge.
  Madam Speaker, I think, if we can come together in a bipartisan 
fashion as we have done traditionally, we can overcome these challenges 
and invest in ways that do what? Provide good-paying jobs; because when 
you invest in the infrastructure--whether it is our water, our 
transportation, our schools--we are investing in Americans, and those 
create the good-paying jobs that raise all boats for working people. 
And, really, that is what we are talking about here when we talk about 
investing: investing for working people, for all Americans.
  Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Orange County for all of 
her good work.


                          Freedom of Religion

  Ms. PORTER. Madam Speaker, the administration's Muslim ban has ripped 
families apart. Orange County families have endured this Muslim ban for 
3 long years; yet, the President has doubled down, making it so much 
worse.
  Make no mistake, this policy is based on hate. It is based upon 
dividing us with fear.
  President Trump showed hostility to Muslims during his campaign. He 
called for a ``total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the 
United States.''
  Just 7 days into office, the President signed the first version of 
the Muslim ban. This was never about national security. It was about 
anti-Muslim hate and discrimination.
  The families in my community, as well as families across the United 
States, are suffering. Families in my district are being torn apart by 
the ban. It is separating husbands from wives, mothers from children, 
and adults from their dying parents.
  Let me be clear: No individual or family should be discriminated 
against based on their religious beliefs. It is why I backed the 
Freedom of Religion Act, which would prohibit religious discrimination 
in our immigration system and protect Americans of all faiths--not just 
Muslim Americans.
  I am proud that so many Americans have stood together to protest the 
administration's Muslim ban, to push back and to vote in 
Representatives like me who will fight discrimination.
  Today, because the American people made their voices heard, the House 
of Representatives began the process to repeal this shameful ban. I am 
proud to be a backer of that legislation, the NO BAN Act, and I will 
always support and celebrate the vibrant Muslim community in Orange 
County.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________