[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 5, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H497-H500]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CHAOS, CONFUSION, AND MANUFACTURED CRISES
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2025, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Schneider) for 30 minutes.
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague on the
other side of the aisle as he was talking about how families want to be
able to go to the grocery store and afford food for their kids; that
they want to be able to put not just food on the table but put their
kids in clothes and shoes and pay for their healthcare and for housing.
I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to share much of the frustration and anger
of our constituents watching as the new administration has come in and
done a whole host of things, announced a whole litany of actions but
failed to deliver on the key promise of working to lower costs for
American families. Costs are going up.
In fact, you may have seen the news today. Waffle House just
announced that they are putting on a 50 cent surcharge per egg because
the price of eggs have gone up so much. In fact, in my community in
Highland Park, Illinois, a dozen eggs costs $5.
A generation ago, President Clinton ran on a campaign built on a very
simple axiom: It is the economy, stupid. What was true in 1992 is just
as true in 2024 in the last election and is true today. The American
people want their Representatives working and focused on the economy.
They want us to be trying to create quality, well-paying jobs, provide
more opportunities for themselves and a better future for their
children. They want us to lower costs and raise the standard of living
for all Americans.
Beyond economic growth and opportunity, they want us to make sure
that we are helping to keep our communities healthy and safe and that
we are focused on a strong national security and a strong national
defense.
That is the charge voters gave us here in Congress and gave to the
new President. It is hard to believe that we are only 2 weeks into the
second Trump administration and already the early onslaught of chaos,
confusion, and manufactured crises has been stunning. It is easy to
feel overwhelmed. In fact, folks at home are telling me how
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they feel because this onslaught is nonstop, which I guess is the point
of what the administration is trying to do.
We are going to focus tonight on a couple of issues. I am joined by a
couple of my colleagues. We are a part of the New Democratic Coalition.
The new Democrats are the moderate Democrats, 110 strong, who are
focused on serving our people an economy that is lifting up their
lives. We are focused on lowering costs. We are focused on making life
better for all Americans.
Look at the last couple of weeks, just three things. I can't touch on
everything, but I will touch on three specific things.
A little more than a week ago, the administration issued a memo
threatening to freeze $3 trillion of spending across the board. It was
confusing. It had no clarity of what specifically or how specifically
anything would be frozen, who would be included, who would be excluded.
Our phones started ringing off the hooks. Preschools providing early
education to our children, giving them that head start to get ahead in
life, were saying they might have to close. Programs like Meals on
Wheels for seniors were struggling. Infrastructure projects such as in
my district, a project that was decades in the making and received a
$19 million grant from the Department of Transportation, was
threatened. Healthcare providers didn't know what they were going to
continue to do. First responders were concerned.
There was an extraordinary outcry from across the country. On Monday,
the administration started backtracking. By Tuesday, they had pulled
the memo back altogether.
There is chaos, confusion, and manufactured crises.
Just this past weekend, President Trump announced 25 percent tariffs
on our two most important trading partners, Mexico and Canada, as well
as 10 percent tariffs on China. This is across the board.
The Wall Street Journal issued an op-ed titled: ``The Dumbest Trade
War in History.'' This is not a Democratic rag. This is The Wall Street
Journal calling it the dumbest trade war in history. Evidently, the
President got the message because within just a couple of days he
paused the threat against our trading partners in Canada and Mexico.
For the past week, our phones have been ringing off the hooks again,
this time talking about the fact that an individual who didn't receive
a single vote, a billionaire who controls one of the largest social
media platforms who would benefit from having access to data,
classified, confidential personal data of Americans, was, in fact,
given unfettered access to that confidential personal information of
Americans. He was given access to their pay information, their Social
Security numbers, healthcare information. All of this is now in the
hands of Elon Musk, who no one in this country voted for. No one
empowered him to try to control our government. A man who is positioned
to reap billions of dollars off the personal information of the
American people and gain his own personal power is now having access to
that information. We need to make sure that this stops.
Those are just three examples of the chaos, crisis, and confusion
sown by this administration in just 2 weeks. Yet none of this has
focused on bringing down the cost of eggs or the cost of living for the
American people.
That is why we are here tonight calling on this administration,
calling on our colleagues in Congress to work together with the
Democrats to focus on the economy, to make life easier for all American
families, and to help families get ahead and lift their children up for
a better future.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Carbajal).
Mr. CARBAJAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am
proud to stand here as vice chair of the New Democrat Coalition to make
it clear that we are here, 5 weeks into this new Congress, fighting to
end the chaos of this new administration and get us back to what the
American people elected us to do: lowering costs, promoting safer
communities, and actually governing.
The American people elected us to tackle the cost of living, not cut
public education. The American people elected us to lower the price of
groceries, not declare trade wars with allies that will raise those
prices for Americans even further.
Mr. Speaker, the American people elected us to ensure their
communities are protected, not give billionaires back doors into their
personal data. I want the American people to see this, this room. This
room is empty. The majority has gone home for the night. We have not
even tackled one bill this whole week to deal with the high costs.
This is a coequal branch of government, but my colleagues seem
content to give up our congressional power of the purse. Where is the
so-called party of law and order? That party is willing to look the
other way on enforcing the law, like the laws that protect funding
approved by Congress into law.
{time} 1930
The self-proclaimed party of law and order is willing to let chaos
reign, and thousands of Americans see the funding they rely on to get
frozen, their benefits put on the chopping block, and even their jobs
eliminated by an unelected billionaire.
My constituents are crying out for us to do something, and I want to
ensure them that we are doing something. We are here even as they get
ready to turn off the lights. We are working to craft legislation that
will block rightwing activists and the use of our power in this Chamber
to halt all the efforts to deny the law and promote chaos over order.
New Dems are the tip of the spear. We will fight ill-conceived
tariffs and plots to raise taxes to pay for tax cuts for the richest
people in our country. We will fight invasions of our privacy. Of
course, we will fight to deliver what we hear every single day: Lower
the costs of living, make our communities safer, and stop the chaos and
gridlock.
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Again, Mr. Speaker, I thank Salud Carbajal from
California. He touched on that critical thing. Republicans are
literally trying to take money from hardworking families to pay for tax
cuts for those who need it the least, for billionaires like Elon Musk
and Mark Zuckerberg or for the President's family.
The President threatened to put tariffs on our trading partners,
Canada and Mexico. That is a tax on American families. We are not going
to let it stand. That is why the outcry is important, and that is why
it is important we are here tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Soto).
Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend from Illinois (Mr.
Schneider) for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, you may have heard this, but inflation was one of the
biggest issues in this last election.
Let me take you a little way back here. We saw during the height of
the pandemic that it caused global inflation. Supply chains broke down,
production broke down, and every country felt it, even the U.S.
Inflation at one point rose as high as 9 percent. Over many months and
many years and through efforts to boost productions, improve supply
chains, and improve our infrastructure to get back to normal, we saw it
go down to as low as 2.4 percent in September of 2024. Groceries and
housing specifically have been a challenge.
When President Trump took office, inflation was still under 3
percent. It was still under 3 percent. Hundreds of executive orders
have been signed. Some divisive and some illegal, but few, if any,
address lowering costs for the American people. Many may have even
increased costs.
First, the tariffs caused chaos against our own allies. President
Trump admitted that this may cause some pain for Americans. Don't we
remember he ran on lowering costs?
Maybe that was just a joke to get elected, because now suddenly we
are going to have to accept some pain because of tariffs that he is
trying to impose on the American people. Tariffs equal inflation.
Tariffs equal taxes on American consumers.
Regarding immigration, we had a workforce shortage for many years,
and then over time through legal programs like temporary protected
status and parole in other areas, booming States like Florida, and
particularly central Florida, south Florida, and Tampa Bay, benefited
by these legal programs.
Mr. Speaker, when you look at housing, of which there is a huge
shortage, 34 percent of the industry relies on immigrant labor. That is
after trying to
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get every American we can to work to help build housing. Also with
commercial real estate it is the same thing.
So what do we see? Food prices already are starting to creep back up.
With housing prices it is the same deal. Eggs, gosh, remember: I can't
afford eggs, bro.
That was like a huge deal during the election. We saw eggs down to
about $2 only a couple of months ago. Now they are $7 and almost $8.
Back in the day it was: Oh, it is President Biden. Now we have MAGA
supporters going into intimate detail on the bird flu. That is funny.
The last time that happened that wasn't the explanation at all. It was:
Oh, Biden this and that. Now it is science and thoughtful answers to
explain inflation that is happening under President Trump.
This was the craziest thing, Mr. Speaker. Apparently, it is
dishonoring folks for us to even talk about how these policies will
raise costs right up again that went down to as low as 2.4 percent a
few months ago, still under 3 percent when President Trump was sworn
in. However, it could get worse if the Trump tax scam 2.0 gets passed.
The Inflation Reduction Act allowed for a cap of $2,000 a year for
prescription drug savings for all seniors under Medicare. Mr. Speaker,
$3,500 was the cap last year. There was no cap before that, and most
seniors were paying 3, 4, $5,000 or more in out-of-pocket expenses.
Now seniors won't pay more than $2,000 a year for their prescription
drugs. However, if we see the majority take a sledgehammer to the IRA,
then that savings goes away for seniors across the Nation just when
they got it. That savings lowering costs for our seniors could go away.
Regarding the ObamaCare subsidies, oh, my gosh, have we not seen the
majority learn, have Republicans not learned from now?
First of all, there is no plan, and there is no alternative. It has
been over 10 years. By the way, since then, we have seen States like
Florida have the largest ObamaCare exchange in the Nation. Mr. Speaker,
4.6 million Floridians from President Trump's home State, more than any
other State in the Union, get their healthcare through the ACA
exchange.
Do you know what happens if the ObamaCare subsidies go away, Mr.
Speaker?
A family of four will see their healthcare increase by 8 to $10,000 a
year. That is a lot of eggs. That is a lot of costs that people are
going to have to shoulder. That will cripple families.
Do you know what is also going to happen, Mr. Speaker? We will have
more people without health insurance, and then it is going to cost
taxpayers in the emergency room. This is not how you make America
healthy again, Mr. Speaker. It is how you make America sicker.
Why would anybody want to eliminate these healthcare savings? What
could possibly be so important? Mr. Speaker, can you believe it is to
cut taxes for billionaires? My constituents will see an $8,000 to
$10,000 increase in their health insurance. Seniors across the Nation
who have a $2,000 cap on prescription drugs--little old ladies who are
trying to pay out of their pockets for prescription drugs, our seniors,
our men and our women--are going to have to forgo those savings because
the top 1 percent and the top 0.1 percent need more tax cuts.
Are they serious? Is this what people voted for? Heck no.
The last time we saw that happen, we saw this Chamber flip quicker
than you could possibly imagine. It was sad. It didn't have to be that
way.
The record is clear: President Trump inherited a strong economy from
President Biden. I am going to repeat that. President Trump inherited a
strong economy from President Biden: High growth, big job numbers, and
inflation below 3 percent, 2.9 percent to be exact as of the end of
January.
Here is a simple measure we will see over the next couple of months:
Will costs go up or will they go down? Will grocery prices go up or
will they go down? Will housing prices go up or will they go down?
Democrats stand ready to work in a bipartisan manner to keep our
economy running strong. This is the second closest House in the history
of the Nation. There are three votes separating Democrats from
Republicans in this Chamber. Actually one vote right now because of the
folks who had to go on to the Trump administration. So we can easily
work together to resolve these things or my friends will go it alone in
some big reconciliation package for billionaires and then we will see
what happens in these very easily tracked measures.
Most of all, people will see it when they want to buy a home, when
they want to go to the grocery store, and when they want to go on
vacation down to Orlando, which we welcome everyone to come to, or when
they want to buy a new car.
All these things Americans are going to be watching. We need to work
together.
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the great
State of Virginia (Ms. McClellan), who is also a member of the
leadership team for the New Democrat Coalition.
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chair of the New Democrat
Coalition, Brad Schneider, for organizing this Special Order hour so
that we can talk about the Trump-Vance-Musk administration's erratic
and senseless attacks on the Federal Government, their Federal hiring
freeze, their ill-conceived and shortsighted actions in the first 2
weeks, and how they are actually going to raise costs for the American
people and not lower costs for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, you have heard about the tariffs that were on, then off,
then paused, except against China. Before the tariffs were announced, I
was meeting with local leaders across my district from the rural
southern end to the urban northern end. My farmers were worried about
the trade war that the tariffs would unleash and how it would decimate
the largest industry in Virginia which is agriculture.
The seniors across the district were worried about the impact that
rescinding efforts to reduce prescription drug costs would have on
their healthcare bills. Other seniors were worried about how attacks on
energy efficiency programs that they use to weatherize their homes and
reduce their electric bills would lead to higher utility bills.
We have seen whole flocks of the chickens on poultry farms having to
be put down which will impact the cost of eggs that so many people
supposedly voted this election because of their worry about.
We have seen hardworking Federal employees whose jobs are at risk who
fear whether or not they will receive their pension if they take this
illegal offer to buy them out. If they read the fine print of the
documents that just now are starting to be given to them, they will
find that they just might.
I don't think any of that lowers costs. What it does is throw the
American Government, which so many people rely on, into chaos and
grinding it to a halt, and that was the point. However, what we are
going to find is that that does not lower costs. It hurts the American
people, and the New Democrat Coalition will fight it every step of the
way.
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Speaker, we heard in the last half hour or so
people talking about the rising cost of eggs. They talked about the
fact that there is a bird flu epidemic that is devastating our flocks.
The Centers for Disease Control is being cut by the Trump
administration at a time when we need their work more than ever to try
to make sure that this horrible epidemic comes to an end and that costs
come down for American families.
The thing is that Trump and the House Republicans are plotting cuts
to a whole host of programs across our government, programs providing
services to seniors and veterans with healthcare, programs feeding
hungry families and their children and more. All of these cuts are
simply to pay for tax cuts for their billionaire friends like Elon Musk
and others.
The New Dems will continue fighting on behalf of the American people
to cut inflation, to improve the lives of hardworking families, and to
make our communities safer and our national security stronger.
If Trump's tax on American consumers with his tariffs goes through on
Canada and Mexico, then American consumers are going to see a 25
percent increase on many essentials, as well as things like cars and
appliances and just taking a trip to the grocery.
While Trump is waging war on Americans' savings and bank accounts,
the
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New Dems will continue to fight to lower inflation and cut costs for
hardworking families. By giving Elon Musk and his minions unfettered
access to American citizens' personal information, he is putting at
risk Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, Head Start, and so much other
information. The New Dems will continue to work with our colleagues in
the Democratic Caucus on legislation to prevent unlawful access to this
information.
We are prepared to stand strong on behalf of the American people. We
are prepared to stay focused on the economy and do everything we can to
make peoples' lives easier, to make their future and their children's
future better, and to preserve our dear country.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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