[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11098-11101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  POLICIES THAT ARE HARMFUL TO AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bergman). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Castro) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, every day, millions of Americans 
from every corner of our Nation get up early in the morning, leave 
their families, go off to work. They work hard to support themselves 
and their families. Many of them work two or more jobs at a time. Some 
come home very late, miss seeing their kids go to bed. These are folks, 
again, in every part of the Nation who don't ask much from their 
government. The only thing that they ask is that we live in a country 
where there is opportunity to pursue their American Dreams.
  That means different things for different people. Some kids dream of 
growing up and being a teacher, an engineer, a lawyer, a firefighter, 
many things. As parents, we want to see our kids succeed, to live in a 
nation that remains the preeminent Nation of opportunity around the 
world.
  Unfortunately, over the last 6 months, the policies pursued by this 
administration are endangering the United States' infrastructure of 
opportunity, endangering our position in the world. Today we are going 
to have an opportunity to talk about some of those policies that are 
harmful to America now and America in the future.
  President Trump's proposals on the budget, for example, would hurt 
the creation of jobs, the ability of people to get healthcare, would be 
bad for the environment, would do so much harm in so many ways. So I am 
honored tonight to be with three of my colleagues, all of us from 
different parts of the country: Myself from Texas, the congresswoman 
from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), the congresswoman from Washington State 
(Ms. Jayapal), and the congresswoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz).
  First I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin, Congresswoman Gwen 
Moore, because I know that she has some very strong opinions and 
perspectives on healthcare.
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just 
want to tell you how grateful I am that my colleagues want to have this 
dialogue, this colloquy with me.
  I have been so disturbed by the false information that is being given 
to Americans about the Affordable Care Act, the whole notion that it is 
somehow in this death spiral, that somehow the Affordable Care Act is 
dead. And I think that the President and our illustrious Speaker, and 
the majority are promoting this point of view because they want the 
public to believe that the things that they are doing to destroy the 
Affordable Care Act and, ultimately, Medicaid are the causes for them 
not having health insurance, the causes for their premiums rising, the 
causes for insurers fleeing the market in rural areas. And I just want 
to spend some time this evening sharing the truth with you all this 
evening.
  The majority, they now have both houses of Congress: the Senate and 
the House of Representatives. They have the White House. And their 
message that ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act is dead sort of 
covers up the fact that they owe the insurance industry $8 billion that 
we, in the Affordable Care Act, promised to give to the insurance 
companies while they sort of figured out how much premiums would cost 
in this new market.
  They have sued the Federal Government because they say that the 
subsidies that we are paying for poor people are unconstitutional. And, 
of course, insurers, not knowing whether or not we are actually going 
to appropriate the money for the Affordable Care Act because they don't 
know whether we are going to do it or not, that causes destabilization 
in the market.
  They are threatening in their bill to eliminate the individual 
mandate, which, of course, the individual mandate is a great source of 
revenue.

                              {time}  1830

  They are gutting the taxes on the wealthiest people in the Affordable 
Care Act to pay for some of the cost-sharing expenses. And, of course, 
insurance companies have no idea. In order to set appropriate rates and 
in order to stay in the market, insurance companies need some 
certainty. So if, in fact, ObamaCare is dead, it is because they have 
killed it.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. This week, I thought it was astounding, in the 
course of less than 24 hours, the Senate was unable to pass a 
healthcare bill. The President had promised for months that there would 
be a new healthcare bill to replace so-called ObamaCare. That failed in 
the Senate. And then the strategy after that became: Well, we are just 
going to repeal this, and we are going to give ourselves 2 years to 
come up with a replacement.
  That failed today, and I think it failed for good reasons, because 
that would be disastrous for the American people; 32 million people 
would be dropped from the healthcare rolls if all you did was repeal.
  So what were you hearing in this whole debate in Wisconsin from your 
constituents and your voters up there?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin.

[[Page 11099]]


  Ms. MOORE. Well, I am glad you asked that question, because there are 
a couple of things that have happened. They ran into so much trouble in 
the Senate from those Senators who were concerned about them block-
granting the Medicaid program, killing basically Medicaid. This was 
aside from the Affordable Care Act. To reduce Medicaid funding by one-
third was one of the most egregious portions of the bills that have 
come out of the House and the proposals in the Senate.
  What people need to understand is that, especially in States like 
Alaska, West Virginia, we have got 70 percent of people in nursing 
homes depending on Medicaid. We are not talking about able-bodied 
working people who have been able to benefit from the expansion of 
Medicaid.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Sixty-four percent of long-term nursing home 
stays are paid for by Medicaid.
  Ms. MOORE. Exactly.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I represent the State of Florida. I want to 
thank my colleagues for bringing up this extremely important 
conversation about the, at least, 23 million people who would have lost 
healthcare coverage if the ``Not Very Affordable Care Act'' that the 
Republicans envisioned would have passed.
  If I were the President of the United States, I might want to revise 
my definition of winning, because I think that we have a leader in the 
White House who repeatedly said that America would get so tired of 
winning, once he became President, that we wouldn't know what to do 
with ourselves.
  Well, if killing their horrific healthcare bill and making sure that 
we can maintain healthcare as a right and not return it to the 
privilege that it once was for only people who could afford it, then I 
will take that kind of winning, because we did win on behalf of the 
American people, but we know that this is not the last trick up their 
sleeve.
  The gentlewoman from Wisconsin mentioned the huge cuts to Medicaid in 
this terrible piece of legislation, and the gentleman from Texas 
mentioned the 64 percent of seniors in nursing homes who are there 
because they are on Medicaid.
  I represent the State of Florida, Mr. Speaker, and in the State of 
Florida, we have the highest percentage of senior citizens as a 
proportion of our population in the country. This is just one example 
of a very vulnerable population, and this is an example of a population 
that our friends on the other side of the aisle were willing to just 
write off and leave twisting in the wind.
  What would happen if this bill became law is we would go back to the 
days before Medicare and before Medicaid, in which you had families go 
bankrupt trying to take care of the ever-increasing healthcare needs of 
their most elderly family members, and it is just absolutely 
unacceptable.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. And, Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, in the 
1990s, my grandmother was in her eighties. In 1993, she went into a 
nursing home and stayed there for about 3 years until she passed away. 
My grandmother suffered most of her life from type 2 diabetes, and 
before the end of her life, she had to have one of her legs amputated, 
and finally succumbed to congenital heart failure, but there is no way 
that my family, my mom, would have been able to afford to pay for 3 
years of a nursing home stay but for the effect of this program.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I, too, had a very similar experience. My 
mother-in-law suddenly had a stroke when she was 58 years old, and she 
was cut down in her prime, also suffered from diabetes, and spent 3 
years really in a very debilitated condition. She had to spend down 
essentially all of her assets to be able to qualify for Medicaid, 
because the only way that she could get care in a nursing home and be 
able to afford to get quality care in a nursing home was through 
Medicaid. She did also eventually die after 3 years in a nursing home, 
but I can't even imagine having to try to find a way to pay for her 
care if it were not for Medicaid.
  Ms. JAYAPAL. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington.
  Ms. JAYAPAL. I just wanted to go back to this question of Medicaid, 
because I think you have raised such an important program that is 
really a mainstay for the American people. A lot of people don't 
understand exactly how much it covers. You have mentioned 62 percent of 
seniors in nursing homes.
  One in four births in this country is covered through Medicaid. I was 
just talking to our good colleague, Mr. Yarmuth of Kentucky. Over half 
of the births in Kentucky are covered through Medicaid.
  Then if you look at kids with disabilities, Medicaid covers 60 
percent of kids with disabilities.
  So when you talk about cutting $1.5 trillion from Medicaid, as was 
the case between TrumpCare and what was proposed in the budget, which I 
know our good friend from Florida is going to talk about, you actually 
had $1.5 trillion in cuts to a program that serves 72 million 
Americans. So it really is a travesty when you think about how much 
this program supports.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Wisconsin.
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, that is right, because the narrative is that 
Medicaid only covers these ne'er-do-well, able-bodied people who the 
Medicaid expansion dealt with. But the reason why the Senate, to answer 
your question, couldn't live with the bill that was there is because 
not only did it repeal the Affordable Care Act, so-called ObamaCare, 
but it also undermined Medicaid, which is so vital.
  And just think about this: cutting Medicaid by one-third would lead 
to people in nursing homes competing with disabled children, disabled 
children competing with other disabled adults, and with hospitals and 
nursing homes fighting for the crumbs that fall from the master's 
table.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. And, by the way, Congresswoman Moore, that is 
why a lot of people were referring to these cuts as cruel. I mean, it 
really is cruel.
  Ms. MOORE. It is mean.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. ``Mean'' was the exact word that the President 
used.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. That is right. You bring up a great point, and 
then I want to talk real quick about the budget.
  There is this underlying tone from the President and from other 
politicians that some of the folks who are on Medicaid are somehow 
undeserving, that they are somehow freeloading, and that is just not 
the case. It is a complete misunderstanding of who these Americans are.
  We talk about how healthcare failed. It seems like the President 
promised healthcare, but it didn't happen.
  One of the things that they wanted to do before healthcare, which 
hasn't happened either, was tax reform. That is going to be very 
difficult, especially when one of the foundations of your new tax plan 
is giving a tax cut to the wealthiest folks, literally who need it the 
least, but it raises a question of the budget and what the budget does 
for the American people.
  Ms. MOORE. Will the gentlewoman from Florida explain kind of the 
budget reconciliation, where they are going to get these tax cuts?
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I would be happy to. I am a member of the 
Budget Committee, and we are actually going to mark up the Republicans' 
budget tomorrow in that committee. Really, with all due respect, Mr. 
Speaker, to the ``Commander in Tweet,'' President Trump's budget that 
he proposed in May certainly did not put either families or taxpayers 
first--far from it.
  In fact, the budget that both he proposed and that we will mark up 
tomorrow put Americans and taxpayers dead last, right behind polluters, 
industry lobbyists, and climate change deniers. And like too many of 
our Republican colleagues' spending priorities, this

[[Page 11100]]

budget, this Republican budget, is actually a brutal attack on 
America's families.
  We all know that it fails to deliver on investments in jobs, in 
infrastructure, and in education, but, my friends, nowhere is the 
damage to American families as stark as when it comes to our 
environment.
  The Trump budget, the Republican budget that we will mark up 
tomorrow, will irreparably damage our air, our water, and our climate. 
The President has already managed to undermine America's position as a 
global leader in clean energy frontiers by withdrawing America from the 
Paris climate accord, for example. And like many of his tweets, 
President Trump's climate science policies are a rejection of reality, 
and a cynical embrace of falsehood and fantasy.
  Ms. Jayapal represents a State that is on a coast, I represent a 
State that is on a coast, Ms. Moore represents a State that is on the 
Great Lakes. Sea levels are rising. Our water levels are rising, Mr. 
Speaker. Property appraisers and insurance companies in south Florida 
are already factoring this reality into their home value assessments. 
King tides are bringing fish into the streets of south Florida.
  President Trump's climate change solution is not the Paris climate 
accord, it is not making sure that we make investments in alternative 
energy. Let me show you what President Trump's solution to sea level 
rise and climate change is. His solution is to throw people a life 
vest, and they can sink or swim. Folks like the people in my district, 
who have invested most of their savings, like so many people, into 
their home, a life vest and being told that they can just deal with it 
is unacceptable.
  We have to come together and come up with solutions to make sure that 
we can fight sea level rise and climate change, to make sure we can 
keep our drinking water clean, to make sure we make the kinds of 
investments so that we can protect the air we breathe. We have cities 
like Flint, Michigan, that have dealt with lead in their water and 
children being poisoned for years.
  To my colleagues, this is something that is an existential threat, 
that if we don't make the kinds of investments that we must, then we 
are going to be in a world of hurt, and it is not at some distant point 
in the future. There was an article in the Miami Herald yesterday, Mr. 
Speaker, that referenced that my children's generation may not be able 
to live in my own district. That is absolutely unbelievable.
  I am actually thinking of sponsoring an appropriation. Rather than 
making sure that we can invest in moving away from fossil fuels, maybe 
we will just invest in more life vests, President Trump's solution to 
global warming and climate change and sea level rise, and just issue 
everybody one of these, and we are good to go.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Congresswoman, you bring up a great point, and 
you focused on the environment there and how the President's budget 
proposal and the majority's budget proposal is damaging to the 
environment.
  I think about a series that I saw yesterday in Texas. The Texas 
Tribune is an online publication, but it is kind of like the State 
newspaper, and they did a series called ``A Pass to Poison.'' And in 
the series, they noted that in 2016, I believe, there were about 3,700 
incidents of air pollution in Texas, and the regulating agency in 
Texas, which is TCEQ, only gave out fines for 20 of those incidents.
  So you talk about breathing harmful air. I can't help but think what 
will happen if these cuts that are being proposed under this budgetary 
situation go through, are we going to have 5,000 incidents now, and you 
are still only going to fine 20 people?
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I just came from the Appropriations Committee 
markup on the Interior legislation, and a large part of that 
committee's work relates to the environment.
  In my district, which is ground zero for sea level rise, Broward 
County recently ordered the drawing of new flood maps because of 
anticipated higher water levels. The city of Fort Lauderdale has 
already increased the height requirement for seawalls and raised the 
elevation of home sites. Miami Beach's climate plan involves building 
elevated roads and installing pumps to keep out saltwater.

                              {time}  1845

  So the President's and the Republican's--our colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle--solution for sea level rise is basically sink or 
swim. Here is the President's coastal flood mitigation plan. We have 
got the sea level rise plan and the coastal flood mitigation plan. Take 
your pick. At some point, we are probably going to have to give people 
both because we literally have to slosh around in galoshes when you are 
walking down the street in south Florida because of how bad the king 
tides are and how bad the streets flood in a normal rain.
  But, God forbid, we should invest in infrastructure. And I know the 
gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), when she was in the State 
senate, was a significant leader on investing in infrastructure, which 
is absolutely critical to making sure that we can keep people safe and 
that we can make sure that we can create jobs. That is something that 
this President and the Republicans have talked a whole lot about.
  We are 178 days into this President's term, and we haven't passed a 
single piece of legislation related to infrastructure investment. And I 
think he actually promised to think big, because supposedly Democrats 
weren't thinking big enough; and that he was going to propose a $1 
trillion infrastructure plan. I am hearing crickets. I am still waiting 
for that plan.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, when Americans think about their 
main concerns--I have a bread and butter district where people are 
thinking foremost about their work. They want to make sure that they 
can support themselves and their family members, but there hasn't been 
much in the way of anything from the White House to create jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. 
Jayapal).
  Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  There really hasn't. And I want to say that, if you look at the 
budget, you really get a sense of where the priorities are. They are 
not investing in climate. They are cutting healthcare dramatically. 
They are not investing in jobs and infrastructure.
  Now, as the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) said, 
when I was in the State senate--it was actually a Republican-controlled 
senate--together, we worked on a package and we invested $16 billion 
into infrastructure because we knew that that was good for Republicans 
and for Democrats.
  If you look at what this President has to say, this was a tweet that 
he just put out:
  ``Really great numbers on jobs and the economy. Things are starting 
to kick in now. . . .''
  But the thing is that, this week, the White House is calling this 
``Made in America Week.'' Well, maybe somebody should let the President 
know that everything should be made in America, because I happen to 
take a look at some of the products of the Trump Organization--and I am 
talking about Ivanka Trump's products and all of the President's 
organizations' products--and here is what I found:
  Here is one of the products of Donald J. Trump's signature 
collection, made in Mexico.
  Here is another one from Ivanka Trump, made in China.
  So if the President is so incredibly committed to making things in 
America, I have a proposal--and perhaps we should have an amendment to 
this effect--that he should start with the Trump Organization. In fact, 
much of the steel that was put into buildings that were built by the 
Trump Organization was not steel that was made here in America.
  I actually have one of the largest steel manufacturing plants in my 
district in Washington State. Nobody ever

[[Page 11101]]

thinks about it that way, but we do have steel being manufactured in 
Seattle. And we are in a situation now where this President and this 
Republican-controlled Congress has yet to introduce a single bill that 
would actually invest in jobs or infrastructure.
  In fact, the budget takes money away from job training. It takes more 
money out of infrastructure investment than it puts into infrastructure 
investment. And when you think about the Federal Government's role in 
infrastructure--of course, we all want public-private partnerships, 
where possible--the Federal Government has a very strong role in making 
sure that we are investing in all of our infrastructure, not only our 
roads and our bridges, but also all of our water sources, and making 
sure that we are investing in transit. These are all ways to put 
Americans back to work.
  Yet, for a President who ran a campaign based on jobs and 
infrastructure and a Republican-controlled House, we have yet to see a 
single job emerge. And even the jobs that he says he has created, 
recently reports that he had created 45,000 coal mining jobs, but, 
unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, what we have seen is the numbers show only 
800 jobs created in the coal mines.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Would the gentlewoman be surprised that last 
night in the Appropriations Committee, we marked up the T-HUD bill--the 
Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill? And for all the 
talk about making it in America and investing in infrastructure and 
transportation and making sure that we can create jobs through those 
vehicles, will the gentlewoman be surprised that the Republican 
majority actually zeroed out TIGER grants?
  Those are the transportation grants that go directly to projects in 
communities across this country, to help move people around through 
people movers and investments in roads and bridges.
  In my district, a TIGER grant was granted last year for complete 
streets because we have the highest number of pedestrians and 
bicyclists killed in the country, unfortunately, in Broward County.
  So would the gentlewoman be surprised to learn the so-called big 
commitment to creating jobs and investing in infrastructure actually 
resulted in massive cuts in the very legislation where we would be 
investing those resources and infrastructure?
  Ms. JAYAPAL. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington.
  Ms. JAYAPAL. I thank the gentlewoman for raising that because this 
elimination of TIGER grants affects cities across the country--red 
States, blue States, Republican, and urban. We have a lot of those 
TIGER grants that have paid for our roads, rails, transit, ports, and 
new transportation projects.
  Perhaps I will turn it back to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin. Would 
you be surprised to know that the budget actually slashes job training 
programs for distressed workers by 65 percent?
  Ms. MOORE. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin.
  Ms. MOORE. I would be stunned to think that any party or any 
President would do that.
  Infrastructure has been the bread and butter, and it has been one of 
the most bipartisan things that we have.
  When you talk about the need to expand our economy, expand the gross 
domestic product, one of the sure-fire ways to do that is through 
infrastructure projects. Not just building roads, but we need water 
treatment plants, our new energy economy, we have bio technology, and a 
number of other ways.
  But I hail from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is still very reliant on 
the manufacturing industry. But I am wondering if my colleagues would 
be surprised to know that healthcare is one-sixth of our economy, and 
that if we were to repeal the Affordable Care Act and then slash the 
growth of Medicaid by one-third over the next decade, that there will 
literally be millions of jobs that are lost?
  I mean, everybody depends on the healthcare system, whether you are 
the brain surgeon or you are the guy that is mopping up the ICU; 
whether you are the person who is dispensing pharmaceuticals at CVS or 
whether you are the receptionist at the community health center.
  And by destroying the Affordable Care Act, we are going to cost shift 
a lot to our States. Just over the next decade, it is $68 billion of 
unfunded mandates shifted to the States so that they won't be able to 
fund things.
  And I just want to point something out before I finish. There are a 
lot of people who think that this just doesn't matter to me. Those 24 
million, 22 million, whatever number people agree upon that the CBO 
says that will lose health insurance if the Affordable Care Act ends--
those people who are in nursing homes--that doesn't matter to me. 
Forty-nine percent of the folks in this country receive their 
healthcare through their employer and your premiums will go sky high, 
unlike what President Trump says, because you will have to pay for all 
of the uncompensated care that this country will see after we destroy 
Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. I hear you. I wanted to give Congresswoman 
Wasserman Schultz the last word.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz).
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I just wanted to, again, place these items on 
the table and demonstrate the grave impact that will take its toll on 
the American people if the cuts that have been proposed by the Trump 
administration and the Republican majority go through. And we will 
stand together fighting every step of the way to make sure that--
instead of galoshes, a life vest, and a surgical mask that we see so 
many citizens of other countries have to walk around their streets 
using because their air quality is so poor, we will stand together to 
continue to fight to make the kind of investments that will help 
improve, not detract, from people's quality of life.
  Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.

                          ____________________