During debate on the House floor, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) spoke in opposition to the Senate Republican budget resolution before it gets a vote on the House floor.
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00:00Gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. McGovern, is recognized for 30 minutes.
00:04Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for yielding me the customary
00:0930 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
00:12Gentleman is recognized.
00:14Mr. Speaker, this is a lousy budget.
00:18It is a budget that will hurt working families.
00:21It is a budget that will especially hurt families who are struggling in poverty.
00:27Republicans have succeeded in putting together a Marie Antoinette budget, helping the richest
00:33of the rich while hurting the poorest of the poor.
00:36Let them eat cake.
00:38That is the Republican motto.
00:40And I've never seen such cruelty contained in a budget in all my years here.
00:48This budget would force the biggest cut to Medicaid in American history.
00:53And the idea and the audacity of somehow pretending like it isn't going to hurt people is just
00:59insane.
01:01It is simply not possible mathematically to cut Medicaid by almost a trillion dollars and
01:07not hurt people.
01:09And by the way, for the record, that's not fear-mongering.
01:12It's what's in the text of this bill.
01:15You know, I just want to say that this budget directs the Committee on Energy and Commerce
01:20to come up with at least $880 billion in cuts within their jurisdiction.
01:28Republicans want to claim—want to be able to claim that there's no way to know at this
01:33point in the process where those cuts will come from.
01:37And they're saying that they're not going to cut any benefits in Medicaid or Medicare.
01:41But guess what, Mr. Speaker?
01:43If you don't cut Medicaid, if you don't cut Medicare or CHIP, there is only $381 billion
01:50left to cut in ENC's jurisdiction.
01:54So even if you cut literally every single other dollar, you're still at least $500 billion
02:00short—a half a trillion dollars short.
02:04You know, I guess I understand why President Trump suggests that you all close your eyes
02:10before voting on this steaming pile of Medicaid cuts.
02:18And I would also say it's not mathematically possible to tell the Agriculture Committee
02:23to cut $230 billion without cutting SNAP benefits.
02:28You just can't do it.
02:30You have to kick people off of food assistance if this budget passes.
02:34That means children, seniors, and Americans with disabilities cut off.
02:38That in my opinion—you know, that is the reality.
02:42That is the reality that Republicans are trying to hide from the American people.
02:46We had a hearing in the Agriculture Committee yesterday where Republicans were bragging about,
02:52you know, how they wanted to make SNAP—put more hurdles in place for people to be eligible
02:58for SNAP.
02:59The majority of people on SNAP are children, are senior citizens, are people who are disabled.
03:05We don't expect them to work, unless you want to repeal the child labor laws, unless
03:09you want to send grandma back to the factory.
03:12But that's the overwhelming majority of people who are on the program.
03:15Of those who are able-bodied and expected to work, the majority of them work.
03:20The majority of them work, and that's the program Republicans want to target?
03:25Give me a break.
03:26I mean, I go right through the list, and we could debate waste, fraud, and abuse all day.
03:32The money that Doge has supposedly found in waste, even if you believe that number, is
03:36totally offset by the tax breaks for billionaires in this bill.
03:40I mean, with all the chaos in our economy right now, does anybody really believe that we
03:45have to help out billionaires?
03:47That they're the ones who are hurting?
03:48Not average working families, but billionaires.
03:51I mean, we have billionaires in this country who pay an effective tax rate that is lower
03:57than the effective tax rate for teachers and police officers and firefighters.
04:02What the hell is wrong with this place?
04:04I mean, the priorities here are all screwed up.
04:06So let's have a debate about our values and our choices.
04:10But please, please, please, let's not pretend like this budget isn't going to hurt people.
04:16Let's at least have an intellectually honest conversation and admit what this is about.
04:21Just like the devastating Doge cuts to NIH and CDC, they're going to hurt people.
04:26Just like Trump's tariffs are hurting people.
04:29And by the way, on tariffs, if I may, Republicans are once again rigging the rules to protect
04:34Donald Trump and hide from accountability.
04:37They know his tariffs are economic poison.
04:39They know voters hate them.
04:41But House Republicans are too cowardly to go on record.
04:44So they're trying to sneak around with a procedural gimmick in this rule to block a vote on the
04:49tariffs instead of facing the truth.
04:51So let's be clear.
04:53A vote for today's rule is a vote for Trump's disastrous trade war.
04:57Period.
04:58There's no hiding from it.
04:59Now I know that Trump just announced on social media, of all ways, that he is partially backing
05:04down and putting a temporary pause on some of the tariffs he announced last week.
05:10Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether it is idiocy or incompetence, maybe both.
05:15But you're telling me that Trump tanked the market nearly 20 percent and put the entire
05:21American economy on the line so that countries would give him a phone call?
05:24I mean, is that what this is all about?
05:26Give me a damn break.
05:28Right wing pundits are going to act like pausing the tariffs with some kind of stroke of genius,
05:33that recouping only one third of our market losses is somehow a brilliant move.
05:39Now I wasn't very good in arithmetic, but that doesn't sound like a brilliant move to
05:43me.
05:44That sounds like a stupid move.
05:46And first, let me remind my colleagues across the aisle that this is just a pause.
05:50Second, 10 percent tariffs across the board are still in place, plus the increased China
05:55tariffs.
05:56And third, all of this chaos is horrible for the economy.
06:00All businesses cannot plan or operate under this level of uncertainty.
06:04What big business would want to invest in any new manufacturing if there's no telling
06:08what policy is in place tomorrow?
06:11And how can our trading partners believe what we say when we're changing policy every three
06:16days?
06:17The swinging back and forth is making Americans worse off for no apparent reason.
06:22And maybe Republicans think that some people need to be hurt in order to fix our country.
06:27I love it when Trump puts out all these billionaires to tell working families, oh, you got to just
06:31deal with the pain.
06:32Oh, it's no big deal.
06:33You should sacrifice billionaires lecturing hardworking middle class Americans.
06:38But at least if they admitted what the impact of these tariffs really were on average working
06:44families, we could have an intellectually honest conversation about what this budget and Trump's
06:50tariffs do.
06:51But we can't, because that would force the other side to acknowledge the truth.
06:55And the truth is that this budget was written by the rich, for the rich, to help the rich
06:59get richer.
07:01And that is what this is, a massive transfer of wealth from those at the bottom to those
07:06at the top.
07:07It is Robin Hood in reverse, and the American people will pay the price for the Republicans'
07:13billionaire first budget.
07:15With that, I reserve my time.
07:17The gentleman's time is reserved.