Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order. Mr.…
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to anchor the CBC Special Order hour.
For the next 60 minutes, we have a chance to speak directly to the American people on issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, the constituents we represent, and all Americans.
Led by our chair, Cedric Richmond from Louisiana, it is our duty, we feel, as the conscience of the Congress, to speak to all people in this hour on the issues that we deem are important and that our constituents have told us are important.
For this Special Order hour, we will spend this time to talk about Failure to Govern: The First 6 Months Under Republican Control.
President Trump's first 6 months have been defined by his often angry and personal tweets, his efforts to denigrate and undercut the multiple investigations into Russian influence in the 2016 election, and most importantly, the stalemated legislative battle to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
President Trump has signed dozens of executive actions and Presidential proclamations. Some have fared better than others. His travel ban plan, for instance, first caused chaos and was effectively shut down by a series of legal challenges. But the second effort, which also faced a flurry of lawsuits, was ultimately allowed to take effect on a limited basis by the Supreme Court.
In all, our President has signed 42 bills into law. But when it comes to big ticket items, like infrastructure, tax reform, and a repeal and/ or replacement of ObamaCare, President Trump is sitting on zero. With healthcare seemingly on ice, tax reform is expected to be the big challenge next on our agenda.
Budgets are about priorities, and this President's priorities are clear. His budget hollows out our economy, endangers working families all across this country, in my district of the Virgin Islands, and the other districts that we all represent.
The $2.5 trillion in cuts to entitlement programs, which include $192 billion to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as SNAP, and the $800 billion to Medicaid, will devastate localities like the Virgin Islands and elsewhere, where one in five children are covered under Medicaid and one-fifth of our population receives SNAP benefits.
The President has a budget with massive cuts that would shred social safety nets and cripple longstanding governmental functions. This administration has created uncertainty in the Nation's healthcare system by sending inconsistent administrative signals and supporting legislation that could deprive millions of people of health insurance coverage, undermine Medicaid health support for low-income Americans, and give wealthy taxpayers a massive tax cut.
He has mismanaged the Federal Government by failing to fill top spots. He has expanded the policy of deporting dangerous and illegal aliens by including many people with minimal records, stable jobs, and American families.
Most recently, we saw this with the Secretary of Homeland Security ordering the 50,000-plus Haitians here under protective status, due to the devastating natural disasters in Haiti, to leave. These are decent, hardworking people who are sending money back home, supporting an economy which is faltering under collapse.
We have seen a reversal of decades of bipartisan cooperation in extending environmental preservation of national landmarks. He has hired foxes to watch the chicken coops by filling his administration with arch-conservatives, many with records opposing the very agencies with which they work, and curbing civil rights and environmental enforcement.
All of these things we have seen in these first 6 months, and we will hear more.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), to speak on behalf of what we have seen in these last 6 months.
Mr. Speaker, when the gentleman was talking about what has happened in these last 6 months, it reminded me of when the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Cedric Richmond, on March 22 went with the executive members to visit with the President to speak with him specifically about those things that African Americans and the people who we represent--the 17 million African Americans and the 20- plus million Americans that members of the Congressional Black Caucus represent--to outline for him in a very succinct and systematic manner those issues that are important to us.
You mentioned criminal justice reform. You talked about expansion of voting rights, jobs creation, support to small businesses, infrastructure. These are the things that the President said he was interested in.
These are the things that the Congressional Black Caucus said: We are willing to work with you. We have an agenda. We have specific language, specific legislation that we would like to have a discussion with you. And not a photo op, but really to sit down around a table and discuss actual legislation and how we can be supportive of an agenda that supports the people we represent.
And what have we gotten out of that? Zero to date, 6 months in.
I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Evans), the freshman who is not a freshman, who represents Philadelphia, who has been a legislator for many years and comes here. He is so thoughtful. He is very quiet just like yourself, Mr. Payne, and he sits back and is really more observant but is ready to do the work.
He is about policy, is discussing--on a regular basis I hear him talking about middle communities, middle America, those communities that are on the edge. There are places in Newark, New Jersey, and other places that you represent, in neighborhoods in my own district in the Virgin Islands where working class, hard working class people are there but they are on the edge of losing those homes, losing their health insurance, neighborhoods which they have worked so hard over 20, 30 years to create to be vibrant areas in this country that may be lost under this administration and the lack of action.
So I yield to Congressman Evans this evening to discuss what he has seen happen in these last 6 months of this administration and how it speaks to those individuals that we represent.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Evans so much for talking about the optimism of the American people. There is a better deal that is out there, and there is a better way that we all, as Members of Congress, need to demonstrate.
I was looking at a fact Street Sheet that was put together talking about the 200 days of the 115th Congress by the numbers. This is a Congress that is controlled by the Republicans in the House, the Republicans in the Senate, and the Republican administration. You would think that so much legislation could get done, and we are a stalled body at this time.
That is not what the American people brought us to Washington to do. We all represent people who are looking for a better deal, looking for an expansion of the American Dream, a realization of the American Dream in their own lives, and having security for their own children and their grandchildren to be able to realize that dream.
When I looked at these numbers, I was aghast at what has not been done in this Congress and flabbergasted at the things that have been done by this Congress. Zero number of bills to create jobs have been brought to the House floor by House Republican leadership. Zero number of bills that have been considered under an open rule so far this Congress.
The same open rule that, Mr. Speaker, you said that you would exact when you were a young gun coming to Washington, you said that you would use the open rule, but we have not seen that done in this 115th Congress.
Three times, House Republicans blocked a vote on H.R. 685, Bring Jobs Home Act, which ends tax breaks for corporations sending jobs overseas and creates new incentives to create good-paying jobs here in the United States.
There have been zero times that Speaker Paul Ryan has spoken out in opposition to President Trump's dangerous and unconstitutional Muslim and refugee ban. Zero votes on the expansion and correction to the Voting Rights Act.
234 Republicans blocked a vote on H.R. 2933, a critical bill that promotes effective apprenticeships that gives students and workers the skills they need to find good-paying jobs.
Twice, House Republicans voted against Made in America amendment requiring that specific infrastructure and construction projects use materials and equipment made in the USA.
Mr. Speaker, 229 Republicans voted for a GOP antiworker, bait-and- switch bill that undermines the existing right to hard-earned overtime pay, giving employers the flexibility to substitute overtime pay with comp time while giving employees no guarantee that they can use their comp time when they need it.
Mr. Speaker, 217 Republicans voted for the disastrous TrumpCare bill, which would result in 23 million Americans losing their health insurance coverage, raises out-of-pocket healthcare costs for millions of American families, imposes a crushing age tax on those 50 to 64, shortens the life of the Medicare trust fund, and guts the protections for people with preexisting conditions.
Mr. Speaker, 233 Republicans voted to gut the Dodd-Frank Act, Wall Street reforms, rolling back key consumer protections, and take us back to pre-2008 era of unchecked risky financial market abuses that resulted in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
There have been zero amount of funding in President Trump's budget for Social Services Block Grants, which provide States with funding for services such as childcare and adult care programs. And there are 1.6 million school-age children that would lose afterschool and summer programs as a result of the President's budget.
When we talk about the President's budget, we need to discuss exactly what those numbers mean and how it is going to affect the American people--people, Mr. Speaker, that we say we represent, but that we are not standing up for against this administration.
The budget would cut SNAP funding by over 190 billion--with a ``B''-- over the next 10 years, jeopardizing benefits for an estimated 44 million Americans and reduce nutritional foods for women, infants, and children, the WIC program.
The budget also includes SNAP policy changes that would charge food stores using USDA approval to accept food stamps, which could drive smaller food retailers out of the program.
Why is this important?
Because many people in urban areas that are using food stamps are doing so in virtual food deserts. They do not have transportation to go to the large suppliers, the large grocery stores. They go to these smaller grocery stores. They go to these small places to use the food stamps to be able to provide food for their families. These changes would cap benefits, require localities to pay 25 percent of benefits, and limit local waivers for Federal work requirements that many communities are not appropriate because there are no jobs, because we also are not supplying individuals with the job skills, the work skills to be able to find employment in some of these areas.
The budget would reduce Education Department investments by $9 billion, including through the elimination of preschool and afterschool programs, literacy grants, and funding to improve teacher and principal quality. It also proposes cuts to higher education programs, including elimination of grants for lower income students, low-interest Perkins loans, and cutting by half a program that helps students work to pay off their loans.
The budget also calls for the elimination of NASA Space Grant education programs that prepare students, such as in my district at the University of the Virgin Islands, for careers in science and technology industries.
The budget would reduce USDA Rural Development funding by $9.2 million, approximately 30 percent. This is vital in areas like my district in the Virgin Islands with the elimination of rural business cooperative services and rural water and wastewater disposal programs.
The budget would zero out important rural housing assistance, such as single-family housing direct loans; would slash funding for rural broadband, distance learning, telemedicine, and needed community facilities improvement.
Mr. Speaker, these are in rural areas that President Trump won in the election. You would think that he would want to support these rural communities in areas of housing, the most American of American ideals, home ownership.
In the Labor Department, the budget would reduce Labor Department investments by $2.4 billion, including large cuts to Job Corps. Job Corps, a place that would allow young people to have training for jobs, activities meant to prepare disadvantaged youth, the same youth that we say we are concerned about being on the streets in these urban areas that are so dangerous, those are the individuals going to Job Corps, looking to be prepared for the workplace, and we are going to reduce that by $2.4 billion? That doesn't make any sense.
The budget request for the Department of Energy would slash research funding and move away from investments in renewables, including a 70 percent cut to the Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and zeroing out its weatherization assistance in State energy programs that aid low-income families with reducing energy costs.
The Department's Office of Science would be cut by 17 percent. That budget slashing to NOAA coastal science programs includes eliminating NOAA's Sea Grants program, coastal research at our university, and the coastal zone management grants that aid with climate change mitigation--climate change mitigation--which is needed in areas that I live in, like the Virgin Islands, Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and in coastal areas that are seeing a tremendous loss of economy and loss of homes because our environment is, in fact, changing.
The Environmental Protection Agency would be cut by approximately 30 percent, partly through elimination of all EPA climate change programs, lead control programs, the Energy Star program that encourages energy- efficient consumer products, and the environmental justice office that investigates the concentration of pollution in low-income communities.
Now we want people to be in communities where pollution is greatest, those inner cities that our President has said he wants to fight so strongly for. We are going to keep them in polluted areas because we are cutting out EPA funding in some of those places.
In transportation and housing, the budget would eliminate $500 million per year in TIGER grants, Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, which has been important to ports and transshipment projects around this country, in the Virgin Islands, and the Community Development Block Grant program that provides grant funding to localities for economic development activities.
The Department of Housing would be cut nearly 20 percent, including elimination of several housing assistance grant programs and slashing its core rental housing program, Section 8 housing choice vouchers, which assists private rental housing, which is a win-win program. You allow individuals who have private homes, who are renting those out, to receive a voucher to support individuals who are looking to be placed in those homes.
An estimated 250,000 housing vouchers would be taken away over the next fiscal year, vouchers which primarily benefit seniors and individuals with disabilities. Support for local public housing authorities would also see cuts.
The budget would eliminate Commerce Department subdivisions that support businesses and entrepreneurship, such as the Economic Development Administration, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, and the Minority Business Development Agency.
Healthcare, of course we could go on for forever, but the budget calls for phasing out enhanced Federal matching funds for expanded Medicaid populations by 2020 for people living in territories and in other areas that are heavily relying on Medicaid. It would be far more expensive for those localities to cover individuals, and our hospitals would be faced with even more uncompensated care costs.
The budget also proposes cuts of $1.3 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, and more than $7 billion from the National Institutes of Health, NIH. In the alternative, stronger budgets for NIH and CDC would benefit in preparation for public health threats and pandemics.
These are the things that we, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, are seeing that are happening in these first 6 months. We are concerned. We are not here just to bash the President. That is not the objective with bringing these issues out.
The objective is to make the American people aware, to call on our colleagues here in this House, in the House next door to us in the Senate, to be better stewards of what the American people have given us: the ability, the right, the job of legislating, the job of being a check and balance to an administration which has been caught in a morass of ineffectiveness and inaction to support the American people of this great country.
We are asking, Mr. Speaker, that we would wake up to what is happening, see with clear eyes, not with fake news, not with our own vision of what we would like things to be, but what things are and where this is taking us now, the people who are going to be left behind, that a better deal needs to be made for the American people who have sent us here to Washington to do what is right, to do what is good for them, to represent all the people, not the wealthy.
Listen, I was raised in New York, and I don't have anything against New Yorkers, of course, but we can't just be looking out for those people who are living on the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, in Tribeca and SoHo, the fat cats of Wall Street. We need to be for all Americans.
I know that each one of us is here sent by the people who have sent us not just for ourselves and not just for our constituents, but for all Americans: those who can't vote, those who rely on us to be the stewards of this great legacy--the Constitution and all that America represents, the land of opportunity. People will be losing that opportunity based on what we have seen in these last 6 months.
We, the Congressional Black Caucus, as the conscience of Congress, are relying and awakening the conscience of this Congress to wake up and see what is happening, to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, and to do the right thing, to make a better deal with the American people--not with Pennsylvania Avenue, not among ourselves, not in our private little meetings, not with what can be done for us and for our small group, but for all Americans, those Americans that are going to be left behind by those billions and trillions in tax cuts that are coming to the social safety net of this country.
It cannot be relied on by many of the States. Many of the States do not have the wherewithal to pick up that slack. And there will be even greater--greater--demise to this country if we continue to allow it to work this way.
We have got to take up the call of those people who cannot speak for themselves and do what is right and tell our President that these 6 months cannot continue for another 3 years. We cannot have it. We will not tolerate
it. You must awaken to what is the best deal for all Americans, not just those within your inner circle.
Mr. Speaker, as Congress draws closer to the August recess, we are no closer to considering comprehensive legislation to shore up our nation's crumbling infrastructure remains than we were when Republicans took control of Congress. Republicans in Congress have had control over both chambers since January, yet the American people are still left waiting more for a plan to repair our roads and bridges, bolster funding for the Highway Trust Fund, and provide stable funding to local communities for transportation projects.
The costs of Congress' inability to act are staggering. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that every American household will lose $3,400 each year between 2016 and 2025, due to infrastructure deficiencies. Our failure to act will cost the U.S. economy nearly $4 trillion in GDP by 2025 through diminished productivity, lost jobs, and the increased cost of goods. The longer we wait, the more expensive it will be to repair our roads, electricity grid, and water and wastewater infrastructure.
The Republican House has been in session for 110 days. I am deeply disappointed that the Republican leadership has chosen to ignore important bills that I have supported, such as H.R. 1664--the Investing in America: A Penny for Progress Act. H.R. 1664 would shore up the Highway Trust Fund through new Invest in America bonds and a modest increase in the fuel excise tax. Another bill, H.R. 1265--the Rebuilding America's Airport Infrastructure Act, would eliminate the cap on passenger facility charges, allowing local airports the ability to raise additional funds in order to build up more airport infrastructure such as new terminals and runways. H.R. 2510--the Water Quality Protection and Job Creation Act of 2017 would help bolster financing for new water and wastewater infrastructure projects all across the United States. These are real bills already introduced in Congress that we could consider today.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford to wait. There are a number of solutions already before us that this chamber could consider. It will take a display of political will by the Republican Party to consider these practical solutions to our nation's infrastructure woes. The American people are demanding that we act swiftly on these policies so that we can focus on what is most important--the efficient movement of the people, goods, and services which drive our economy forward. The time to act is now. I strongly urge my colleagues to support a comprehensive plan to shore up our nation's infrastructure.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
