[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 25 (Thursday, February 6, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H514-H515]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       DELIVERING FOR DELAWAREANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Illinois). The Chair 
recognizes the gentleman from Delaware, Mr. McBride, for 5 minutes.


 =========================== NOTE =========================== 

  
  On February 6, 2025, on page H514, in the third column, the 
following appeared: The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes 
the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. McBride) for 5 minutes.
  
  The online version has been corrected to read: The SPEAKER pro 
tempore (Mrs. Miller of Illinois). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from Delaware, Mr. McBride, for 5 minutes.


 ========================= END NOTE ========================= 


  Ms. McBRIDE. Madam Speaker, when I was elected, I promised to work 
with anyone who would help deliver for Delawareans and to stand up to 
anyone who seeks to harm my State.
  Instead of seeking common ground, the Trump administration from day 
one has waged an unrelenting attack on working people in Delaware and 
across the country, seeking to freeze funding for first responders, 
domestic violence shelters, schools, and healthcare facilities that my 
constituents rely on.
  Last week, as I traveled up and down our State meeting with seniors, 
military families, students, mayors, doctors and nurses, the fear and 
outrage was palpable. People were terrified by the administration's 
funding freeze.
  A senior center in the heart of my State was worried that they 
wouldn't be able to provide meals to the Delawareans they serve. 
Critical services like opioid prevention programs could grind to a 
halt.
  Research programs fostering innovation in Delaware already received 
stop work orders, putting Delaware jobs at risk. Mayors were fearful 
they wouldn't be able to pay first responders or continue pivotal water 
and transportation infrastructure projects.

  Perhaps most disturbing, some of our hospitals, community healthcare 
centers, and clinics that serve rural and urban communities facing 
desperate health deserts, don't know if they will be able to continue 
serving some of our State's most vulnerable.
  In all of these instances, the Federal funds my State relies on were 
appropriated by Congress and signed into law by the executive, but the 
current administration is threatening to illegally freeze funding for 
these lifesaving services and to gut the Federal workforce tasked with 
helping my neighbors. It has thrown communities across

[[Page H515]]

Delaware and around the country into chaos, and that is their goal.
  The attacks we have seen in recent days on public servants and 
lifesaving programs administered by USAID don't just put our security 
and health globally at risk, they lay the foundation here at home to 
gut Federal support for education, for healthcare, for housing, for 
childcare, and for workers. If they can do what they are doing at 
USAID, then they can do it anywhere in the Federal Government. That 
means no place and no program is safe from unilateral evisceration.
  This week it is USAID. Tomorrow it may be the Departments of 
Education and Labor. We shouldn't pretend that this path doesn't 
ultimately lead to Social Security and Medicare.
  Piece by piece, department by department, the Trump administration is 
defunding critical Federal services, purging employees, consolidating 
power, and cutting and gutting programs that Delawareans rely on. They 
are trying to decimate the Federal Government and sell it for parts to 
line the pockets of donors at the expense of working people.
  It is clear. They do not want to solve the problems facing American 
people. They do not want to make government more efficient. They want 
to prove that government can't work by making it not work.
  In 1941, Franklin Roosevelt was in this very Chamber and declared 
that necessitous men are not free men and that democracies can't 
survive if people are hungry or out of a job. They want Americans 
hungry. They want Americans scared for their future. They want 
Americans to stay angry because that is the fuel of Trumpism. That is 
how Donald Trump keeps his power.
  My constituents reject this administration's cycle of chaos, 
corruption, and cynicism. Delawareans sent me here to make government 
work better for people, not to make it worse. Delawareans want a 
government that respects everyone by delivering for them. By helping 
them learn, live, and thrive.
  That is what I am here to do.

                          ____________________