[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 30 (Thursday, February 13, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H695-H697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S DISMANTLING OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2025, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I am a stand-in. This is actually Marcy
Kaptur's Special Order hour. She is tied up in a hearing, so I will try
to do my best to lay it out.
She was going to speak for 7 minutes on the issues of the Trump
administration's dismantling of the Federal Government and the hiring
of, or I guess the acquiescence of, Elon Musk as the principle agent of
destruction.
What has happened over the last 17 days is an extraordinary display
of contempt for the American Government. If you think about this, Mr.
Speaker, in its totality, right off the start, all funding stopped.
What does that mean to the programs that Americans depends upon?
Healthcare, education, research, infrastructure programs, for what
purpose was that done?
Perhaps it was in order to set up the next step which is the
dismantling of extraordinary important programs for me and for my wife.
More than almost 58 years ago, we participated in a USAID program which
at that time was just 4 years old set up by Kennedy.
It was a vaccination program, an effort of the United Nations, funded
by the American Government through USAID, to eradicate smallpox. We
spent 1 month in rural Ethiopia doing vaccinations.
As our life worked on, we continued working to provide the necessary
services so that people could survive, the Food for Peace program.
Patti actually ran that when she was at the USDA as an assistant
administrator.
The famine camps, we were there. We saw the children who were dying
of starvation. We saw the American grain arrive. I remember clearly one
evening at the famine camp in Ethiopia in the mid-eighties, a woman
literally in rags, was picking up individual grains of wheat that had
spilled from the bags trying to fill a cup so that there would be
enough food that she could take back to her children.
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They died that night of starvation.
The richest man in the world invested over $250 million in a
Presidential campaign, and he was given the keys to the American
Government and the opportunity to destroy things that he didn't like.
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USAID not only providing the necessary food to allow people to
continue to live, but also to thrive through agricultural programs and
economic development programs around the world. People who didn't have
the opportunity were given the opportunity through the generosity of
the American people.
Mr. Speaker, when someone has the greatest wealth of any individual
and seems to think they have the right to destroy lives, before our
President gives someone the power to do that, I would ask the
individual to get on their private jet or to get on Air Force One and
go to one of the famine camps in southern Sudan and hold a starving
child in their arms. The individual should look at the extended belly,
the vacant stare, the fact that they are not even able to hold up their
head and know that the American people have developed an emergency
supplemental food program that can revive that child. After that, come
back and decide whether to put USAID into the wood chipper. If anyone
has just a modicum of humanity and a sense of compassion, they would
never, never ever take USAID and destroy it.
There are other programs out there, and we will be talking about
these other programs as my colleagues join us here on the floor. There
is the Department of Education and the Labor Department.
Giving the richest man in the world the keys to the U.S. Treasury?
What is going on here?
What information has been gathered?
Where did that information go?
What will it be used for?
Who owns that information now: the U.S. Government, or Elon Musk?
These are serious questions. My colleagues and I will raise these
questions.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Casten.
Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, last week, my colleague, Haley Stevens, and I introduced
the Taxpayer Data Protection Act. I am going to get to that in a
minute.
I woke up this morning to find that apparently this bill had gotten
Mr. Musk's attention. I will read the tweet from that great statesman
and special government employee, Elon Musk:
``Any given law will do the opposite of its name.
``The one this guy wants to pass is called `Taxpayer Protection,'
which means its real goal is giving taxpayers the shaft!
``What he really cares about is hiding the biggest scam in human
history.''
Those are his words, the great statesman, Elon Musk.
I would point out that we attack what we fear. As Teddy Roosevelt
said: It is the man in the ring who matters.
I would like to give Mr. Musk a little view from inside this ring. A
couple of weeks ago, Elon Musk and his goons hacked into the Treasury
payment system. That is the system that controls $5 trillion a year of
payments. They came in with unsecured software, unsecured hardware, and
unvetted individuals. They claimed they only had read-only access. It
now turns out that they actually had write access, as well.
We don't know what information they extracted from that system, but
it may make them targets of our foreign adversaries. They could have
stolen data that affects the privacy of every single American taxpayer.
They also potentially accessed data on the payment systems and
identities of intelligence assets that we have embedded overseas in
hostile foreign governments who are risking their lives to keep America
safe.
What this bill does is exactly what it says it does, notwithstanding
this childish tweet. It is the Taxpayer Data Protection Act.
I point out that the only reason Mr. Musk got into the system is
because, when he asked Treasury Secretary Bessent to let him into the
system, the civil servant and patriot, David Lebryk, who was running
the system, said: No, you cannot do this. At that point, Secretary
Bessent fired Mr. Lebryk, and the theft of data occurred.
What we did in this bill is said that, going forward, the Treasury
Secretary cannot allow anybody to access the Treasury payment system
unless: number one, they have a top secret clearance; number two, they
have no economic conflicts of interest; number three, they are not a
special government employee; and, number four, they have been employed
by the Federal Government for at least 1 year.
That is a problem if one is a Nazi-saluting, economically conflicted,
special government employee who is so desperately in need of validation
that they bought a social media company and tweaked its algorithm to
amplify their own tweets and fill their own sense of self-worth, who is
currently cosplaying as a public servant.
It is not a problem for taxpayers. It is not a problem for data
integrity.
I understand protecting personal data has never been Elon Musk's jam,
but it is necessary. This bill does exactly what it says, which is why
he fears it and why he attacks it.
Let me say what I fear. I fear what happens to our country if his
conflicts of interest are allowed to run roughshod and trample over
Americans' right to privacy and all that has ever truly made America
great.
We are attacking what we fear, as well, and I hope that we can find
three Republicans who are committed to the idea that that is something
worth defending.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Casten for his comments.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman
Schultz).
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding and I thank my fellow appropriator and friend, Marcy Kaptur,
for initiating and hosting this Special Order hour.
I thank my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi), for
standing in for the gentlewoman because it is incredibly disturbing
that we must come together to condemn what should be inherently
obvious.
Elon Musk was elected by no one, confirmed by no one, and is
accountable to no one. Yet, President Trump allows this conflict-
riddled billionaire to rifle through Americans' highly sensitive
records and attack the public servants who look out for all of us. I
have never witnessed such utter contempt for the Constitution and the
rule of law.
It is clear who is running this White House. It is Elon Musk, whose
nonstop lies would leave human rights groups in Cuba and Venezuela out
to dry and victims of famine and natural disasters left to starve or
die.
Donald Trump is allowing Musk to illegally slash our efforts to
counter dictators and protect democracy, the man with billions on the
line in China.
Trump and Musk are gutting agencies that are investigating Musk's
companies. Is that coincidence?
All the while, Donald Trump ignores what he committed to prioritizing
throughout his campaign: making everyday life more affordable for
everyone.
Mr. Speaker, this chaos crew in the White House is rocking the faith
of Americans. It is alienating allies and destabilizing our businesses.
It is trashing our ability to honor our commitments and fulfill the
basic functions of government.
My constituents are angry and afraid, and they should be. It is
understandable. Musk and his minions will gut any program that doesn't
line their own pockets.
These cruel, reckless cuts built on lies and illegal funding freezes
will devastate the children, veterans, and seniors that we Democrats
fight for every day, and worse. All that this chaotic Republican rip-
off will do is raise grocery prices and healthcare costs for our
families. While Musk steals children's Social Security numbers, Trump
is busy enacting policies that will raise prices on everything from
prescription drugs to affordable housing.
As Musk digs through mom and dad's tax returns, he and Trump are
gutting consumer protections that keep scammers from ripping Americans
off. All of this is designed for one thing: to pay for more millionaire
and billionaire tax breaks and open the door to gut Medicaid, Medicare,
and Social Security.
In fact, the Budget Committee is meeting right now, as we speak, to
do
[[Page H697]]
just that. They all get wealthier, and the lives of working families
become even more unaffordable.
Mr. Speaker, we are not going to roll over and let this madness
continue. Every dollar illegally stolen from our Federal agencies must
be restored. We must continue to hold Trump and his billionaire friends
accountable. We are going to continue to protect victims of scams and
natural disasters, regardless of what Trump or his billionaire
puppeteer proposes.
The Musk-Trump unchecked raid of taxpayer dollars must end. We must
commit together to reduce people's everyday kitchen-table costs, and
Democrats will stand up every single day to fight to put lowering
people's costs at the top of the agenda.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms.
Wasserman Schultz) for her comments.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Landsman).
Mr. LANDSMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to also talk about Elon Musk and to ask the
Speaker and my colleagues to follow the money.
Elon owns six companies, two of which are Tesla and SpaceX. SpaceX
alone has received something like $20 billion in Federal contracts.
That is Federal taxpayer dollars. Tesla, when it was struggling to get
off of the ground, got a half-a-billion-dollar loan from the Department
of Energy.
This is in addition to the billions that they have received in tax
credits and other supplements from the Federal Government. He is not
just the world's richest man, but Elon Musk is trying to become the
first trillionaire in the history of the world.
Mr. Speaker, during the 2024 election, Musk gave over $200 million to
Trump and Republicans. That is a lot of money. Trump wins, and Elon,
just weeks--not months--after the election, generates several hundred
billion dollars in new wealth, making his way to that trillion-dollar
number.
He generated all of that new wealth because the markets knew that,
with Trump, he was going to have access to even more of our money. They
knew he was going to get billions more in contracts, billions more in
Federal subsidies, and he is well on his way.
To expedite these efforts, Trump empowers Musk, moments after he is
inaugurated--Musk, an unelected tech billionaire. He empowers him to
take access of our personal data, all of it. He gives him access to the
Federal payment system. He gives him power to purge as many Federal
workers as he possibly can, all in the name of waste, fraud, and abuse,
which, in the end turns out to be somewhat accurate.
By the way, what happened with the data breach and the fact that he
now has access to all of our data is arguably the greatest data breach
in the history of the United States of America.
Mr. Musk has defunded Federal programs, purged public servants, and
stripped resources away from government oversight, all while getting
richer and richer at the expense of the rest of us.
Today, the State Department said they plan to spend $400 million of
our tax dollars to purchase Tesla Cybertrucks.
Why in the world would the Federal Government buy one Tesla
Cybertruck, let alone $400 million of Tesla Cybertrucks: waste, fraud,
and abuse.
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Every day, Elon Musk makes $8 million from government contracts. That
number just went up. In comparison, seniors on Social Security get $65
a day.
The question that so many are asking is: How do you fight back
against this waste, fraud, and abuse?
There is a playbook, Mr. Speaker. It is the Constitution of the
United States. Article I does not lay out the powers of the Presidency
or the Supreme Court, the Judiciary, Article I lays out the powers of
the Congress of the United States.
This Congress is responsible for appropriating funds and oversight of
the Federal Government and holding the President accountable. The
Founders envisioned this moment. They didn't know that it would come
with a billionaire tech donor, but they envisioned this moment. With
Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate, they have to
step up and deal with this waste, fraud, and abuse.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, critical important issues have been
raised in the last 20 minutes or so about the issues of conflicts of
interest, of corruption, and of policy mistakes that the current
administration has put in motion over the last 15, 16 days.
I will draw the attention of the House to this diagram, and this is
just a display of some of the contracts that Elon Musk has with the
government. In total, it is more than $15 billion, but in each of these
there are some very subtle and ominous opportunities for corruption.
I will point out just one. In the Inflation Reduction Act and in the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, there is money for electric
vehicle charging stations. In fact, there is a substantial amount of
money. It turns out that Tesla has some 20,000 charging stations around
the United States and has become the principal charging station
connection to all electric vehicles.
If Elon Musk were to shut down the money for other companies to build
charging stations, he would then have a monopoly. It is subtle but
obvious to those of us who watch.
My colleague spoke to the issue of the State Department putting out
on its website a very specific $400 million purchase order of just one
vehicle, a Tesla cybertruck.
Corruption, yes. Waste, probably. Yet, here we are with an unelected
individual who has extraordinary power, in fact, the power of the
Presidency, and the Presidency is misusing the power to shut down
organizations around this country.
I will suggest that the Democrats have a different view of government
and a different view of purpose.
Franklin Roosevelt once said: ``The test of our progress is not
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is
whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'' That test is
now before the Congress of the United States.
Hardworking families are struggling, dealing with inflation. Yet, it
appears as though the Trump administration is going to focus on making
the wealthier even more wealthy. We need to think about this.
In the days ahead, I am certain that our Democratic colleagues will
put forth a rigorous defense of the programs that Americans and indeed
people around the world depend upon. We will do that together with the
men and women around this Nation who have seen the effect, in many
cases, the tragic effect of the shutdown of government and the shutdown
of agencies upon which we all rely.
Simultaneously, we will put forth a positive agenda about what we
stand for and how we see America growing in the future.
Mr. Speaker, I notice the arrival of the esteemed gentlewoman from
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) who had actually put together this 1 hour. It has
been a privilege for me to stand as a substitute. She has now arrived,
and I turn my attention back to Marcy Kaptur and her 1 hour. I thank
her for the opportunity to sub for a bit while she was tied up in
committee. I know she had good work to do there.
Ms. Kaptur, the floor is yours.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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