[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 38 (Wednesday, February 26, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H873-H875]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REPUBLICAN BUDGET BETRAYAL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2025, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California
(Mr. Carbajal) for 30 minutes.
General Leave
Mr. CARBAJAL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. CARBAJAL. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise on behalf of the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus. A number of members are going to come to
provide testimony tonight about what we perceive is a betrayal of our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle of the American people with
the recently passed budget resolution that really is going to provide
tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans in exchange for cuts in vital,
essential programs for working- and middle-class families.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to stand here with my colleagues from the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus to call out the partisan Republican
budget resolution that passed last night for what it is. It is a rip-
off of the American people. Their budget proposes reckless spending to
support billionaires and make everyday Americans foot the bill.
It cuts over $1 trillion, including $880 billion from Medicaid, in
order to partially pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the
wealthiest people.
These tax cuts would not go to help everyday Americans. Instead, they
would go to the richest 1 percent.
Apart from that, it also increases the deficit and the national debt
to the tune of $4 trillion.
What happened to fiscal responsibility?
This is a betrayal of the American working middle-class families.
There are 80 million people in this country who rely on Medicaid. In my
district alone, over 236,000 people on Medicaid are at risk of losing
their healthcare. This includes nearly 100,000 children and 24,000
seniors.
Not only that, but the budget resolution would also go after the
Affordable
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Care Act again, and it is projected to raise annual health premiums by
roughly $1,200 for 20 million people. It would force 7 million
Americans to lose their health insurance.
This budget resolution does nothing to deliver on the current needs
of the American people. As inflation continues to grow and threats of
trade wars persist, the cost of necessities like groceries, childcare,
and housing will continue to increase putting a greater burden on
American families.
Their budget resolution also earmarks $200 billion to supercharge
mass deportations that go beyond violent criminals.
Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, under this plan, we can expect even
higher prices for food and goods, and it further worsens our workforce
shortages. The reality is that undocumented workers make up 14 percent
of construction workers and roughly 42 percent of our agricultural
workforce.
Mr. Speaker, instead of helping everyday Americans, the cuts would go
to the richest 1 percent. This is a terrible circumstance.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Espaillat),
who is my good friend and chairman of the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus.
Mr. ESPAILLAT. Mr. Speaker, today the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
comes to the floor united as one unit against this Republican budget
resolution that slashes at least 1 trillion--that is right, 1 trillion
with a capital T--dollars from Medicaid and other essential programs to
the American people, to working-class families, to seniors, and to
children, threatening 80 million individuals.
This is a matter of life and death, Mr. Speaker. It is a matter of
life and death for our communities. At the very least, 20 million
Latinos, about one-third of our folks, rely on Medicaid. More than one-
half of the Latinos on Medicaid are children. They depend on it.
Many of them are Hispanic, and they will now have to face a
precarious situation where they may get an asthma attack at school and
maybe that school-based clinic is not open for those critical first
minutes of aid.
Many of them are diabetics, and they rely heavily on insulin, and
they may not have the Medicaid coverage for insulin to save their
lives.
So this is a matter of life and death, Mr. Speaker. This is not just
a regular bill that we do in this august body to feel good or to maybe
take care of a specific issue in a particular State. This is a matter
of life and death.
You have Latinos with renal problems, and cardiovascular problems.
High blood pressure is at epidemic levels in the Latino community. This
bill, again, presents a situation of life or death for many
constituents across the country and the ones whom I represent in New
York's 13th Congressional District, where over 500,000 residents of
that district rely on Medicaid and over 100,000 rely on Medicare. So
over 600,000 of the 780,000 people I represent are either on Medicaid
or Medicare. This bill presents a clear and present threat to their
health and to their lives.
In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, Republicans also seek to cut $230
billion in nutritional programs like SNAP and food stamps. That is
right. Food stamps are being cut that currently aid 10 million Latinos,
including 5 million kids. These nutritional programs are essential to
their health and growth. So we are here pushing back on the cuts to
food stamps.
In my district, Mr. Speaker, there are over 200,000 households that
rely on food stamps. If we multiply that by an average of three people
per household, we can do the math, and we can see that it will
devastate that community. This budget proposal by Republicans seeks to
cut, again, $230 billion in nutritional programs.
The $200 billion in this budget also seeks to supercharge Trump's
massive deportation plan which will decimate the agricultural workforce
by 16 percent and lead to increased food prices. Mr. Speaker, you can
expect food prices at the cash register in the supermarket to go
dramatically up. This is egregious.
We are united in opposition to this betrayal, the Republican budget
betrayal. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus stands at once and together
in opposition to this Republican budget betrayal.
CHC is committed to protecting Dreamers. Those are young people on
average that have been in our Nation for over 20 years. They are nurses
and teachers. They are bus drivers. They are members of the Armed
Forces. They own their own small businesses, they own their own homes,
and yet we cannot regularize their status. We support Dreamers.
We are in support of farmworkers. They have to pick the crops and the
fruits that come to our dinner table, and many of them are staying home
in fear of being deported. Mr. Speaker, you can expect food prices to
go up.
Of course, we are in support of keeping families together. A family
that is divided, when a mom or a dad is split from his or her children,
that family is a weak family. They become vulnerable, and that
translates into a weak nation and a vulnerable nation.
So CHC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, is in support of Dreamers,
farmworkers, and keeping families together.
Latinos voted in favor of lowering costs and increasing wages. The
budget passed last night only gives billionaires tax cuts and funds
indiscriminate raids in our city, all paid for by working-class
families.
Again, Mr. Speaker, CHC stands with our community and rejects the
Republican budget betrayal.
Mr. CARBAJAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Espaillat for his remarks.
Before I yield to our next speaker, I wanted to reiterate: Make no
mistake, under this plan we can expect even higher prices for food and
goods, and it further worsens our workforce shortages.
The reality is that undocumented workers make up 14 percent of
construction workers and roughly 42 percent of our agricultural
workforce.
Farmworkers help feed our Nation and allow grocery stores to stay
stocked with affordable fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, this
reality is not what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want
to admit.
On Monday I offered an amendment to the budget resolution so we can
move forward the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act to provide
farmworkers with legal status so they can continue to work on our farms
in this country.
Not only is this the right thing to do, but providing farmworkers
with legal status helps provide stability and keeps our stores stocked
with affordable groceries and domestically grown food, also helping
American growers.
Instead, the Rules Committee blocked my amendment, and not a single
amendment was made in order. We need to do better than this and deliver
on lowering costs for the American people.
I call on my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reconsider
this reckless plan that would benefit billionaires at the expense of
everyday Americans.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California has 16 minutes
remaining.
Mr. CARBAJAL. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington
(Ms. Randall).
Ms. RANDALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, Mr. Carbajal, for
yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I come before you today to tell a very personal family
story that motivated my interest to serve my community here in Congress
and that continues to motivate me to think about the impacts on
families all across my district and all across the country.
When I was 7 years old, my sister, Olivia, was born with
microcephaly. What that means is that her brain was small, and the
doctors didn't know why. They didn't know if she would live, how long
she would live, and what her life would look like.
I grew up in a family of public servants, a bipartisan family, a
biracial family, and my dad, who was a civilian employee for the
Department of Defense, had pretty good government employee insurance,
but that insurance wouldn't have covered all of the surgeries,
specialists, and the equipment that Olivia needed to thrive.
However, gratefully for our family, the Washington State legislature
in 1993 voted to expand Medicaid. Washington was one of the first
States in the country to lead that charge. For us
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that meant that we didn't have to worry about losing our house or what
other bills that we could pay so that Olivia could survive and thrive.
It meant that she could get multiple wheelchairs and use equipment like
inflatable vests that kept her from getting pneumonia more than five
times a year. She was able to go to public school and live for 19 years
with our family.
For me, I learned that government could be a safety net for families
like mine. So for the last 6 years in the Washington State legislature
I worked hard to expand healthcare access for folks all across the
State and all across my big rural district where hospitals are already
struggling because Medicaid reimbursement rates are low, where small
clinics and independent providers are shuttering their doors because
they cannot afford to stay open.
So, Mr. Speaker, if you have a family with a disabled kid like my
sister and you live in Neah Bay in the farthest northwest corner of the
lower 48 States, then you have to drive hours and sometimes wait for a
ferry that could be 2 hours delayed in order to get to a specialist in
Seattle to get your kid lifesaving care.
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What will happen if this budget resolution becomes reality and if $1
trillion is cut from Medicare programs is that we will see potentially
per-capita caps. What that means is that we will decide how much the
lives of children like my sister are worth. How much will we be willing
to pay for the equipment and the specialists and the surgery to keep
medically fragile kids alive?
It will mean that folks without disabilities, seniors and low-income
children, and folks with private insurance will struggle to afford
healthcare in communities like mine and communities across the country.
We are facing a real crisis in our healthcare sector already. We
should not be adding to it by cutting $1 trillion from poor people and
people with disabilities, from children, and from seniors who are often
dual eligible for Medicare and Medicaid who are able to live in dignity
until the end of their days because of this important program. It will
keep long-term care programs open if we are able to maintain Medicaid
funding.
I am scared. I am scared for my constituents. I am scared for my
neighbors. I am scared for the healthcare providers who are just trying
to do their jobs. I am also scared for the impact that we will see for
years into the future if this budget resolution becomes law, if we
deliver trillions of dollars of cuts for families who depend on
Medicaid.
Mr. CARBAJAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Washington
(Ms. Randall) for her words.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Espaillat),
chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and my good friend.
Mr. ESPAILLAT. Mr. Speaker, we stood here tonight to warn the
American people of these massive cuts in vital programs like the
Medicaid program, SNAP, and the Food Stamp program, which provides
nutritional assistance to our families, as the Republican majority
perpetrates a scam to provide the very wealthiest of Americans a $4.5
trillion tax cut at the expense of the health of the American people by
cutting Medicaid.
Medicaid is a vital program for Americans all over the United States.
It is not just urban areas, but rural areas and suburban areas from the
North, the South, the East, and the West of the country.
Americans will be dramatically impacted by these cuts. This is not a
Republican cut or a Democratic cut. It will impact people across the
aisle. Republican Members have many constituents who are on Medicaid
and Medicare and who receive SNAP benefits. Yet, the savings will go to
the fat-cat executives and shareholders, the wealthiest in America.
Mr. Speaker, we are asking for the American people to be alert of the
Republican budget betrayal, that it is a life-or-death matter and puts
their lives in danger by denying them the basic healthcare benefits
that they are entitled to.
Mr. Speaker, we stand here as one, members of the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus, to say ``no'' to this plan and to tell the American
people that they are not alone and that we are with them in good times
and in bad times.
Mr. CARBAJAL. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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