Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to amend the rule to make in order the amendment at the desk that protects against any cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the leadership from the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for bringing us together tonight.

Mr. Speaker, imagine that, Democrats and Republicans in this Chamber, in this town, wanting to do something about corruption. That is a good thing. I hope the American people are paying attention.

I will tell you it is clear from conversations with my constituents in western Pennsylvania, and I know from people all over this country, they think our system is rigged: rigged against hardworking people, rigged for giant corporations and the rich and the powerful. That kind of corporate power doesn't just happen. It is enabled by pliable politicians and by a Supreme Court that opens the floodgates to unlimited super-PAC money that corrupts our elections.

We should fight that. If you want to fight corruption, let's start with getting that unlimited corporate money out of our politics.

You have to have some credibility and this Chamber, this town, this Congress, needs more credibility. One way to build that back is to start with banning congressional stock trading. I think it is an easy place to start. You talk to people in western Pennsylvania, you talk to people all over this country who think it is ridiculous that folks in power and elected office get rich off the inside and sensitive information that we learn in our jobs serving the people, representing the people who elect us.

No one should be using that information to enrich themselves, to get rich off of public trust. I am proud to be here in a bipartisan fashion, joining with Members of both parties who support this commonsense, anticorruption idea.

Let's ban congressional stock trading. Wherever we see corruption, we should be calling it out. We should be fighting it. We should take it on. Our democracy turns on public trust and people having some faith in their elected Representatives.

What we are railing against here, Members trading stock based on information we learn, that erodes that public trust. Let's be smart. Let's come together. Let's call out this corruption for what it is.

I again commend the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for bringing us together.

Mr. Speaker, I represent more than 180,000 people in western Pennsylvania who receive Social Security benefits. Those are earned benefits. My constituents receive more than $350 million of those monthly benefits.

I join my colleagues in sounding the alarm on this administration's attacks on the bedrock national promise of Social Security, which Mr. Musk called a Ponzi scheme. We have already seen firings in the Social Security Administration, threatening to close field offices, a website crashing several times in March, a plan to end paper checks as an option, and DOGE accessing sensitive data systems.

All of this puts people at risk, and the impact will be clear. It means longer waits and travel times to get the benefits people have earned, putting those benefits at risk.

My office has gotten hundreds and hundreds of calls from constituents who are worried about their Social Security benefits. My Social Security telephone townhall had nearly 18,000 people. More than 2,000 folks responded to my survey about these problems. Why? People are worried about their earned benefits,

Mr. Speaker, I will continue to stand strong against these attacks on Social Security.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I am

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut not just for joining us today but for her long commitment to dignity in work, for fighting for people, for better trade policy, and so much else.

I am honored now to welcome in a colleague from California who has strong Pennsylvania roots.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California who understands deeply what we need to do on this economic patriotism. The gentleman understands what it means for manufacturing and what it means for communities who saw these jobs not leave but be taken away. They were taken away by this ideology on Wall Street and the politicians around here who helped them, which says that all that matters is chasing the cheapest labor, the weakest labor rules, and nonexistent environmental rules. They made them citizens of nowhere. They didn't care about this country or the communities and the people who worked hard to make them rich, whether they made the steel or anything else as we did in America.

It is a stain on our story in this country, and, frankly, it is not too patriotic.

Our side of the aisle and our party thinks we ought to be dominating the fight to supercharge American manufacturing and jobs, not peddling this crap of telling industrial workers to go learn to code or something. That is nonsense. Let's invest in the jobs here to make stuff. Let's have a more muscular trade and industrial policy. That is how we get back on the road of economic freedom for people.

Members on both sides of the aisle here, both parties, have long embraced this wrong-for-decades neoliberal disaster of unlimited and free trade. I think it has been a failure of government across the board. We should push back on these lousy trade deals. We trade. We trade with our friends, and we trade with others, but we do it on fair terms.

What is not fair is seeing American workers undercut by governments like Communist China that use the power of the state to dump artificially cheap products on our markets. Let's circumvent our trade rules that let the workers be exploited. We have got to beef up trade enforcement on Communist China and others like them. There have to be meaningful consequences. Let's have tariffs be part of that but let's be smart and strategic.

What we have seen this administration do has been chaotic and reckless. Businesses cannot plan. There is no certainty day to day of what the trade environment will be, and it is absent from any full strategic industrial policy that is the heart of economic patriotism. To make more stuff in America, Mr. Speaker, you have to have a full policy that is centered by workers, industrial policy.

One of my colleagues who gets this idea of economic patriotism deeply is Mr. Ryan. He is a West Point graduate. I won't hold that against him too much. He deeply understands the fight that we need and understands that our core of economic patriotism is what we are all about.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for his fight and his stiff spine in this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner), who knows how to take on a good fight and win one.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Rhode Island for his comments. He gets it, and this is not some hypothetical problem. We are living through the cost of losing and what it is to see the chaos and harm that comes from it. The Democratic Party has to do better.

I am honored to introduce a colleague from the other side of the country who has been a bulldog in the fight against monopolies and so much else, a former chair of the Progressive Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Washington for her remarks. She is spot on.

I am reminded of a quote from President Franklin Roosevelt who faced the same kind of complaints from then who he called the economic royalists. We can call them robber barons, oligarchs, you name it. They complained and said that FDR was trying to overthrow the institutions of America. President Roosevelt said: ``What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power.'' Here we are again.

I think we can no longer allow anyone over here to play footsies with the corporate overlords and robber barons who have their heels on the necks of the American people. We need to restore competition and break the monopolies.

My colleague from the Granite State gets this, having worked in the Justice Department to take on monopolies. She has been in the trenches in the fight against this kind of corporate power run amok.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Goodlander).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Goodlander) for her comments.

Mr. Speaker, this corporate power we feel in so much of our economy is also what we feel corrupts this place, our Nation's Capital.

We see it with the unlimited money that runs through our elections, unlimited super-PAC spending that corporations can dump in to buy the favors that they get from politicians.

The people who we represent--Democrat, Republican, Independent, you name it--hate this corruption. They see it. They smell it. They know it is crooked.

It is why you have pharmacy benefit managers extracting profits on the backs of people's medicine, killing pharmacies.

It is why you can't even fix your own stuff and why we even have to fight for the right to repair. What can be more American than the idea that you can fix your own stuff, whether it is a tractor, a car, an ice cream machine, you name it? This right to repair goes to the heart of this.

It is why you see housing costs out of control, with Wall Street buying up housing and then buying influence down here.

It is also why you see the obscene practice of people getting rich in Congress, trading stock on information that they may learn in their job serving the people in Congress. It is corrupt. We ought to end it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield now to a colleague of mine who gets this fight against corruption, who has organized workers, and who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Casar).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Casar) for his comments.

Mr. Speaker, if you want to respect hard work, you have to respect the people who do that hard work. That is at the core of this, and respecting the labor movement is so central.

I am from western Pennsylvania, which is sacred ground in that labor movement, where people bled for the right to organize. That fight continues.

Mr. Speaker, I yield now to a colleague from Oregon who gets this, who understands about the dignity of work and fighting for our people, the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hoyle).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hoyle) for her comments.

Tonight, we have heard from Members from my side of the party, Democrats from across the country representing a lot of different districts, but we are all speaking out on ways that we are fighting corruption and the excess of corporate power and the ways that the Democratic Party ought to move forward, not for Democrats but for everyone in this country.

I thank my colleagues for joining me here today to say loud and clear that things need to change. Economic populism and patriotism ought to be where we go, standing up for our people, without apology, to revive the American Dream.

Mr. Speaker, I have the honor of representing a battleground, competitive district in western Pennsylvania. In my time here in Congress, I have been dead set on lowering costs, battling corruption, and confronting corporate power. That means promoting competition and taking on monopolies, giving small businesses a shot to compete, and fighting against these lousy trade deals that stripped communities for parts. It means making more stuff in America, cracking down on junk fees and price gouging, and standing up without apology for the union way of life.

These are economic priorities to bring down costs, and they are good policies. The American people support them. We know that.

Everybody hates getting ripped off. Everybody hates working hard yet still not seeing a life that you can succeed in.

If you want American capitalism to succeed, you have to have competition in our economy. There is a tendency by some in politics to try to please everybody. You should take pride in when they get the bad guys--the villains who are screwing over your people are your enemy--it means you are doing something right.

I am sick and tired of folks in Washington or the think tanks or wherever else looking for a win-win when there is a villain hurting our people. If a railroad sends a toxic fireball into the sky over your community, you don't look for a win-win. You fight them for your people. When PBMs are killing pharmacies and jacking up drug costs, you fight them.

Sometimes, there is a bad guy. There is not a win-win because our way of life is on the line. Our safety is at risk. We have to stand up for our people. You don't cower like wimps. You don't go beg for donations from the people hurting yours.

The goal is simple and popular here. It is to make life better and less of a rip-off and to take on the corporate power and corruption that is hurting people. That is the path back to the American Dream.

This is our vision of economic patriotism and populism, and it is a winning one. It is one that can resonate from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt and everywhere in between in this great country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate a Beaver County staple rising from the ashes and rebuilding after a tragedy.

The Brunton family has been milking cows on their Independence Township Dairy Farm for seven generations. They embody western P.A. values of hard work, deep roots in the community, and connection to the land.

That all went up in flames in October 2023 when an electrical failure sparked a barn fire. It was a major loss. Half a dozen cows didn't make it out in time. The family and the entire community was heartbroken, but the Bruntons are western P.A. tough. The community rallied around them to rebuild. Now 15 months after the fire, Brunton Dairy Farm's milking operation is back up and running.

The new barn is packed with state-of-the-art technology and things like robotic milkers and the cows have come home. It is a classic western Pennsylvania story of toughness and resilience. We know these stories. I am so glad to join the Brunton family and all of Beaver County in celebrating their big-time comeback.

Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago we saw more than 1,000 staff being fired at the VA. Then, this week, 1,400 more staffers were fired at the VA.

Who are these folks?

They support the veterans' crisis hotline. They take care of medical research, studying cancer, mental health, you name it, and burn pit exposure.

Mr. Speaker, remember that the Federal Government is the largest veteran employer in the United States. Around one-third of all VA employees are veterans themselves.

Yesterday, we learned the Trump administration is canceling more than 800 VA contracts.

Do you know what these things fund, Mr. Speaker?

Getting toxic exposed veterans access to their records to prove their claims, cancer care for veterans, and calibrating radiation detection equipment. I could go on and on.

It is a betrayal to attack veterans' care. We do not send young Americans off to fight wars and then when they come back to this country, we betray them by attacking the VA.

Mr. Speaker, do you want to talk about fiscal responsibility?

Then go look at the fraud, waste, and abuse at the Pentagon. Go tax billionaires and offshoring corporations. We don't do it on the backs of veterans.

This is unacceptable, and we are going to fight this every way we can.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the life and legacy of my constituent, Peter Ramage, who passed away recently at the age of 86.

Pete was a lifelong resident and dedicated civic leader in Etna. He was a fellow Navy veteran with 4 years of service. He was a dedicated educator, rising to the rank of vice principal in Pittsburgh Public Schools and then principal of All Saints Catholic Grade School.

Pete was committed to his community. Serving as Etna Borough Council president for 46 years, public service was in Pete's bones.

In western Pennsylvania, a life like Pete's, devoted to family, community, and country, shows exactly who we are. We are humble, proud, and always ready to do our part. Pete embodied the very best of western Pennsylvania values: hard work, patriotism, and sacrifice.

I am holding Pete's wife, Mary Ellen, his family, and his entire community in my heart as we celebrate his life and mourn his passing.

Fair winds and following seas, Pete.

Madam Speaker, I hear a lot from seniors in my district struggling to afford their prescriptions. I think that is wrong. This Nation ought to care for the folks who raised us and who helped build this great country of ours.

I rise to share some news today that will help.

Now, most seniors will never pay more than $2,000 a year for their medicine. As of January 1, for those already enrolled in an eligible Medicare plan, the cap is automatic. Once folks have paid $2,000 out of pocket for prescriptions in a year, they won't pay a dime more.

This cap will give seniors more peace of mind that they can afford the medicine they need, and thousands of seniors in western Pennsylvania will save money from this policy, cash that will go toward keeping a roof over their head or taking care of a grandchild.

For too long, we have seen pharmacy benefit managers and Big Pharma rip us off, padding their pockets while people struggle to afford the medicine they need to stay healthy.

There is lots more to do, but this is an important step to bring down the costs for seniors in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, I am all for protecting public money, fighting price gouging in the defense industry and others. I am not for the Department of Government Efficiency going after veterans' healthcare to pay for billionaire tax handouts.

I use the VA for my care, as do thousands of my constituents in western Pennsylvania. Yet, DOGE proposes cutting $119 billion from veterans' healthcare. That is more than a third of the Department of Veterans Affairs' budget. That is all types of healthcare: surgical, specialty care, dental care, counseling for combat veterans, and more. It is ridiculous.

My question to my friends on the other side of the aisle, President- elect Trump, and others is this: Do you want to cut healthcare for veterans who risked their lives for this country? If not, you should say you don't. You should stand up against this. If you do, folks like me are going to fight you every step of the way. This is the cost of war, and this country expects us to pay it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6751, the Roberto Clemente Commemorative Coin Act.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent people in western Pennsylvania, and that means representing many Pittsburgh Pirates fans. No man means more to the Pirates than the great Roberto Clemente.

Buccos fans today wear his number with special pride, and we speak his name with reverence. It is joked that he could field the ball in New York and throw a guy out in Pennsylvania. We are serious when we say that Roberto Clemente was one of the greatest to play the game, at bat and in the outfield. He was the best of us, and we will always have a special place for him in our hearts, in the hearts of Pirates fans and so many across our country.

Roberto Clemente's hardworking spirit and care for his neighbors modeled the core values of the good people of western Pennsylvania that became his home.

His tragic death was mourned by so many as he was seeking to serve those in need, but his excellence on and off the field left an impact and a legacy that still continue to this day.

Clemente's record as a humanitarian and activist remains an inspiration to millions across the world. For decades, the Roberto Clemente Foundation has kept his legacy alive through their work to serve kids, veterans, and victims of disasters across the country and around the world.

We can honor his legacy by passing this bill that I am proud to cosponsor.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes, our local TV reporters and anchors are so rooted in the community they cover that they feel like a part of the family.

To many in Western Pennsylvania, including me, longtime KDKA Money & Politics Editor Jon Delano was a trusted voice for our community. Last month, he retired from his job of over 30 years serving as Channel Two's political analyst.

Known for his classic ``I'm Jon Delano'' closing line, he had a powerful ability to melt down a complicated issue to make it understandable to any audience.

And over the decades with this skill, Jon rarely failed to land the interview and ask Presidents, Cabinet Members, U.S. Representatives, and Senators the questions that mattered to the people of Western Pennsylvania.

Apart from reporting at KDKA, he has also worked in government-- including as Chief of Staff to former Pennsylvania Congressman Doug Walgren.

Jon also practiced law and taught at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Information Systems & Public Policy.

Jon has won numerous awards for his work, including the Edward R. Murrow Award for the best ``hard news'' story in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.

Jon also volunteers for several community organizations, often moderates and facilities seminars, and is active in his church.

I'm proud to have Jon and his wife Jane as my constituents in Mt. Lebanon, and I thank him for his decades of service to my community, to my region, and to our great country.

I wish Jon good luck and the very best in this next chapter.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are sick and tired of powerful corporations ripping us off, junk fees, small businesses struggling, union busting, price gouging, bad trade deals, all of it.

I am convening this Special Order hour today because I am committed to fighting back. I am here because we need to revive and restore and strengthen the American Dream for all who are willing to work for it. I know my constituents are. I know the American people want more from this body.

In the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt confronted these same forces in a different time head-on, saying: ``These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power.''

Absolutely. There is no freedom if families are struggling to meet basic needs. There is no liberty if we are ruled by oligarchs. No one is going to say that profits don't matter; they do.

Something else has to matter more: Our safety has to matter. Our jobs have to matter. Our communities have to matter. This country has to matter.

For those things to matter, we have to break this corporate stranglehold on our economy and our country. The American economy works just great if you are a billionaire or if you are a giant corporation, but too often our system fails hardworking people.

We need an economy and a government that rewards hard work, not just extreme wealth.

Where I come from and where I grew up, that is something that we value. I represent the good people of the 17th District of Pennsylvania, western Pennsylvania. We believe in hard work. We believe in patriotism. We believe in sacrifice.

We are the folks who made the steel that built this country. We have answered the call in every war. We have

done hard work, like so many across this country have done. We saw a story that rewarded that sacrifice with trying to strip us for parts; shipping good jobs away overseas; gobbling up small businesses, squeezing them; seeing big, powerful corporations put their lust for profit ahead of our safety.

We have to stand strong against those forces, a lot of them created by corporate power that are making life worse for people. It is making life more expensive and too expensive.

If American capitalism is going to succeed, we have to have competition. We have to take on anticompetitive monopolies, give small businesses and entrepreneurs a shot to succeed and compete, and make sure that our safety and our communities aren't collateral damage in the way of profits and make sure that workers have some say and dignity on the job and the freedom and forum to join a union.

The American Dream has been snatched away from far too many Americans who are hardworking, who are good and decent people, who want to have a shot at dignity and security. It is a devastating reality for folks to live with. It is unacceptable to me. I know it is unacceptable to many in this Chamber.

Some folks are angry about it. They are sad. They should be. They should expect more of this body, and they should expect more of their government.

I think we need to lay a path back to the American Dream. I am honored to be joined by so many colleagues tonight who will join me in this fight to restore and strengthen the American Dream. With a strong economic message of taking on corporate power, local action, being unafraid to fight the bad guys when we need to, we can deliver for the American people to bring down costs, to reward hard work, and to make life better and cheaper.

We can make sure the American Dream is revived and strong for generations to come.

I am proud to yield time to one of my colleagues from just next door, the great State of Ohio (Mr. Landsman).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for his words.

The gentleman is right. We have to confront this corporate power. We have to build an economy and a government that rewards hard work, not just obscene wealth. We talk about how we all feel that squeeze. We feel that power hurting us.

We all hear from our constituents about the cost of groceries and the cost of food. They don't have a choice to not feed their families. We are feeling it and we are hearing constantly about the pressure folks are under to make ends meet and to put food on the table.

People's paychecks aren't going as far in the grocery store and the checkout line. It hurts budgets. It hurts families.

They are asking: Who is responsible? Why is this happening?

No doubt, a few years back, food and grocery supply chains were affected by the pandemic, but a Federal Trade Commission Report made clear that the disruptions from the pandemic disproportionately impacted small firms because larger companies tried successfully to protect their power and their market share.

There is very little competition across much of the grocery sector. It is not marked by heavy competition. The four biggest grocery retailers account for nearly 70 percent of sales across the country.

Among food suppliers, four firms control more than 60 percent of sales in most grocery categories. That is not terribly competitive.

Without real competition, large grocers and retailers have got power to--guess what--set prices that we all pay for. We have seen price gouging by these corporations well above the level of inflation.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), who I acknowledge and know has been fighting hard against not just corporate power, but to bring down costs for folks, especially in the grocery stores.

Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the gentlewoman from Washington for her strong leadership and fight against these horrible mergers that are anticompetitive that we are all paying for and for so much fight on behalf of working people across this country.

We know that when corporations throw their weight around, all too often our constituents are hurt, small businesses are hurt, and workers are hurt. It is also dangerous at times. We know that when there are monopolies, our supply chains are weaker. There is more likely to be something that happens that might hurt us.

I am reminded of the baby formula shortage we saw in this country in the early part of 2022. It was set off because Abbott Labs, a company that dominates that industry, had a recall of its formula due to dangerous bacteria outbreak in one factory. Multiple babies died.

They had to shut down their factory in Michigan. It was a horrible situation. Shutting down just one factory, one, caused a nationwide shortage. In many places, store shelves were bare. Families were scrambling across the country, particularly families with babies that had special dietary needs. Delaware, Kansas, and Tennessee reported to be the hardest hit States. We felt it in places like Pennsylvania. My then-young son wasn't quite a year old. My own family worried about whether we could find formula and thank goodness we could.

There is research saying that some of those impacts might be still ongoing, that infant health suffered during this shortage, that babies may still feel the effects of that. Our supply chains can never be so weak that one single factory can cause such havoc all over the country.

It is not just that these powerful companies make our supply chains weaker, they distort our democracy. They weaken faith in our elections. They corrupt with the money through our elections and our campaigns.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez), who I know is a hard fighter for campaign finance reform and to protect this democracy.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for her powerful words.

This democracy is not for sale. That should not be something that is controversial in this Chamber or anything else. Our constituents expect us to fight for all of them.

One of the places that we have seen this consolidation, this concentration, this raw power really hurt folks is in agriculture. We see it because we know that food production is a key step in that grocery supply chain, and we know we hear from our constituents that the cost of groceries is too high. We are all paying too much for food because of this consolidation that we see in agriculture. Folks are getting ripped off. They are tired of it.

This increased consolidation also puts the squeeze on smaller, local farms, family farms, small businesses, people often deeply rooted in their communities, in my community, the communities of so many of the Members of this Chamber.

This summer I visited a farm in my district and met with farmers from the Beaver/Lawrence Pennsylvania Farm Bureau roundtable. Some of them are livestock producers. They sell their meat or poultry to be packed and processed. The meatpacking and processing industries are some of the most heavily consolidated in the country, and they have very little competition.

For the past decade, the four largest meatpacking and processing corporations in the United States have maintained about two-thirds of the country's market share. Some independent research has found this consolidation to be even higher with the largest four firms holding up to 85 percent of the market share in beef processing and around 60 percent in poultry. That is not very competitive. It doesn't meet the spirit of competition that we want and need for American capitalism to succeed.

I heard at that meeting in Beaver County, that compared to larger competitors, these folks had to wait longer to get their livestock in, to be taken in by these giant processing corporations. They are having a hard time negotiating fair prices and fair compensation.

We are all going to pay for the squeezing of those farmers and those small businesses. It may also be a violation of Federal law, the Packers and Stockyards Act.

After hearing from these constituents, these farmers, I wrote to the Agriculture Secretary and called for action. That high level of consolidation, once again, is driving up costs for all of us. That market power also means that processors have increased buying power that they can use to dictate prices to smaller farmers who struggle to stay afloat.

Mr. Speaker, we need a strong agriculture industry. We need family farms that make it to that next generation. We have got to promote competition for the food industry, for the farm, the grocery store, every part of that supply chain.

That also means we need antitrust enforcement with some teeth, with some muscle behind it, and with real consequences for violations. This next Congress and administration should be willing to do that work, to take on rip-off monopolies, and to create an environment that fosters competition.

That is the spirit of American capitalism that I think we all want and that our constituents expect of us. It is one where small businesses and farms can grow and thrive.

Mr. Speaker, one place we have really seen small businesses feel the squeeze are local pharmacies. If you walk across any Main Street in most of our districts, any of our districts, they are great small businesses that anchor our communities. They may be multi-generational businesses. Pharmacies are one of those places that people like; pharmacists get to know their patients. Those are relationships that are important for people's health, and they add to the vibrancy of our communities.

People suffer when they lose competition, when we lose those small businesses across our communities. I visited Towne Drugs in Aspinwall, an independent local pharmacy. I was there with other pharmacists, as well as small business owners. I heard stories about how pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are frequently steering customers toward their own chain pharmacies. It hurts the bottom line of independent pharmacists.

Many of these PBMs are often vertically integrated, where they have a mail-order pharmacy, a retail pharmacy, and maybe an insurance business on top of that PBM or pharmacy benefits manager business. They often charge high or ridiculous fees for paperwork errors as a way to not pay those pharmacists and those pharmacies full price.

I heard about inconvenient higher prices for customers. I heard about patients being steered toward more expensive medications or specific pharmacies dealing with relationships and networks and all the rest.

In Pennsylvania this year alone, estimates are around 80 local pharmacies have closed. Those are options that are now gone. It is not just smaller, independent pharmacists. The big chains are feeling the squeeze, too. It means fewer options and worse service for patients who need a prescription, who need to get their drugs filled. It is not good for our economy.

Mr. Speaker, once again, it is that out-of-control corporate power that is making people's lives worse, hurting small businesses, hurting patients, hurting our communities and our Main Streets.

We need action on PBM reform. I am a cosponsor of several measures here including the HELP Copays Act, and the PATIENTS Act. These are just some examples of bills that I think this Chamber should pass in advance to fight back, to protect local pharmacies, to protect patients, to protect competition that we need in the healthcare economy.

We have got to keep up that fight against this out-of-control corporate power to lower healthcare costs, a place that we hear from our constituents all the time, and to protect small businesses.

Another example here where we see corporate power making life worse is not the healthcare problem. We see it in the Golden Arches, McDonald's. People don't think of McDonald's as a small business. Of course, it is a big corporation. It operates as a franchise system. Many franchise owners are small business owners.

Yet, the internet reminds us that those franchise owners for a long time did not have the ability to fix their own ice cream machines. You would see the out-of-order signs. It was impossible to get a McFlurry. The reason why is only the technicians licensed by the company that was making McDonald's soft-serve ice cream machines

were allowed to do the repairs. They limited the number of technicians so there were long waits for servicing. That is why those machines were broken. That is why you couldn't get a McFlurry. This shouldn't be that be hard.

Finally, we saw the Federal Trade Commission take action and call out the bad guy here. Now the U.S. Copyright Office has issued a new set of exceptions, allowing restaurants to repair their own copyrighted equipment used in commercial food preparation at the retail level. That means finally McDonald's soft-serve ice cream machines should be getting back online. Those repairs should be moving. We will see those McFlurries flying through again.

Again, this is that same problem, the right-to-repair policy, which is what we are talking about. A right to repair is about the freedom across industries to fix stuff and not let big companies and corporations gatekeep the information that people need to fix things.

The American people work hard. They have ingenuity. We know how to make repairs. This is about freedom in our economy. This is about making sure that small business owners, whether it is auto shops, in this case McDonald's franchise owners, can make repairs.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is fundamentally American to see that competition and to make sure that we are not seeing gatekeeping over who can fix things, whether it is a tractor or an ice cream machine.

We have also seen powerful companies use that power--not just greed-- power to jam us with fees, junk fees that are often very deceptive. Hidden at the end of a transaction, you see an advertised price. All of a sudden, there are fees at the end of the transaction as you go to check out, from tickets to flights to hotels, credit card fees, food delivery apps. This has become pervasive in our economy.

I was on one of the main streets in my district, Lincoln Avenue in Bellevue, about a year or so ago, talking with small businesses about these junk fees.

I heard from the general manager of a pizza shop who told the story of how his customers in the business were suffering because of third- party delivery apps. They were seeing inconsistency between what was available on the menu and what customers were seeing. They were seeing big fees taken out of their orders. Customers were mad because service was getting worse. It wasn't working out for his business.

In fact, I went next door to the ice cream shop. I told them what I was there to work on at the pizza shop. They told me the same story. These apps were hurting their small business, as well.

In fact, that pizza shop had to rename. They hired their own delivery driver to bring it in, which was an expense, but it made their business better.

It tells you how impactful and bad those hidden fees are on a small business owner like a restaurant, like a pizza shop, that they were willing to defend their reputation, defend their business, make an investment, hire in-house, and change the name. Ultimately, it was worth doing that because of these predatory junk fees that we see from middlemen.

It is unfortunately, though, the newest version of a story we have seen for far too long: a big corporation hurting a small business, and third-party middlemen using these hidden fees to deceive customers into paying more. Again, it might be tickets, a flight, or a hotel. Those junk fees often have very little connection to the service or the product being provided.

I think they are a lose-lose for our local economy and working families, but those junk fees might be a great profit source for a third-party middleman or a powerful corporation.

I will give an example, and most sports fans will be familiar with it, Mr. Speaker. This past summer, I used StubHub to buy tickets to a Pittsburgh Pirates game. It was actually Paul Skenes' debut. I was pretty excited to see him show up for the Buccos. I took my family. We got jammed and slammed with junk fees, like everyone else who buys tickets these days.

The fees were more than a quarter of the overall ticket price. Those fees are often hidden until the very end of the transaction. It is not the advertised price.

Companies like Ticketmaster, which is owned by Live Nation, control the market from tickets to venues to music promotion. Live Nation directly manages more than 400 artists and controls about 60 percent or so of promotions of major concert venues across America. They control more than 265 concert venues in North America alone.

Through Ticketmaster, Live Nation controls about 80 percent or more of major concert venues' primary ticketing for concerts. That is not competitive. It is not a competitive market, Mr. Speaker.

What are they doing with that power? They are driving up prices with things like junk fees. They are making activities like concerts and going to a game out of reach for too many families. These are important events, games, competitions.

I mean, my goodness, I am from western Pennsylvania. A Steelers game, a Pens game, or a Pirates game is a big deal for people. We love our teams. I know I am not alone in that in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker. Fans are all paying for this.

When these powerful companies cut exclusive deals that hurt venues, that restrict other venues, that rip off performers, it hurts a lot of people and hurts the fans. This behavior seems to be more than just a rip-off. It is probably also illegal.

The Justice Department has filed suit to split up Ticketmaster from Live Nation. That case remains pending in the courts.

Folks are tired of getting ripped off. They are tired of congressional inaction here. They expect us to take on this corporate power.

We know that when massive corporations are allowed to take on small businesses and deceive their customers, we all pay for it. Western Pennsylvania certainly knows that story. We are not alone in that.

As I heard that day in Bellevue and across my district, small businesses are strong. They are resilient. They are flexible. They adapt. They need our help here in the Congress. It is about their workers, and it is about our communities. I know that we can step up to it. We have to do more.

According to a 2019 study, 85 percent of Americans experience a hidden or junk fee for service. That was in 2019. That was before the COVID pandemic, where we saw much more reliance on, say, food delivery. I know we have to do more.

I will quote the general manager from that pizza shop that day who told me: ``These fees may seem small, but they really add up.''

That is what it is all about, Mr. Speaker, those fees hurting folks, hurting small businesses that we have to stand up for, that we have to fight back on.

Mr. Speaker, I want to also talk about our national security, which is maybe not a place we think that consolidation affects us, but it does.

I have the great privilege, Mr. Speaker, to serve on the Armed Services Committee. I wore the uniform earlier in my life, before I came to this Chamber. I will tell you, we have challenges with the defense industrial base. We need it to be strong and resilient to meet the challenges not just of today but of tomorrow.

When it comes to our defense industrial base, the suppliers, the manufacturers that make stuff here, we need to have them do better. We need to better protect public money and make sure our Department of Defense is ready and equipped to answer whatever our country might require of our servicemembers. We have seen the same trends across our economy in our defense industrial base.

In 1990, there were more than 50, 51, prime contractors in our defense industrial base. That number now is down to five. That is heavy consolidation. You see it right here, 51 to 5. These are the companies that make ships, missiles, rockets, you name it, all the things that we need that are central to our national security and our defense. We have gone from 51 to 5.

This reduction is depriving the American people of competition for key elements of our defense. I hear it from military leaders in the committee. I

have seen it in reports that the Pentagon has penned that too often the current defense contractors are delivering not on time. They are behind schedule, and the costs are too high. The quality isn't what it should be, what the American people expect.

We have to fight back against this consolidation, Mr. Speaker. I think we need more competition in our defense industrial base. It is ripping off our military, which means ripping off the American people. There is public money we have to protect.

I think there is support building in this Chamber on both sides of the aisle to strengthen competition here to make sure our defense industrial base is stronger and to protect public money.

I have taken action along with colleagues. This year's National Defense Authorization Act, the defense bill, included my Best Price for Our Military Act. That is an important measure. It is a bipartisan bill. It closes a timing loophole that defense contractors are using to delay providing critical certified cost and pricing data to the Pentagon.

My bill now requires these contractors provide this data before contract agreement so that we can see whether we are getting the best deal or whether we have to go back to the negotiating table. It lets officers do a more informed analysis and be better stewards of public money.

I hope to see this included in the final version of the defense bill that we will pass and send to the President.

I know defense contractors and others lobbied to increase the threshold point where they are required to report their pricing data to the Department of Defense under the Truth in Negotiations Act. In 2018, this threshold jumped from $750,000 up to $2 million. That meant, below that threshold, they didn't have to provide that data. That is less oversight. I think we need more.

The goal of our Defense Department is to provide security, defense for all of us, for the national interest of the United States. It never should have and doesn't have the goal to enrich giant defense corporations that produce products that are too often behind schedule, overpriced, and don't meet the quality that we expect, that we in the Congress require.

We need to ensure that our sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines, and guardians are equipped with the very best. That is patriotic, that we protect public money.

Strengthening oversight enforcement within DOD, taking on price gouging, working with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, all of that is about fostering more competition that we need in our defense industrial base.

Corporate power doesn't just hurt competition in defense. It doesn't just lead to higher costs. It does those things, but it puts our safety at risk. We saw it with the impact to families who were worried about finding baby formula, infant formula. We see it in sectors of the economy all over the country that when corporate power grows too strong, it can put us at risk. It can treat us and our communities like collateral damage in the way of their profits.

We saw that on February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, across the border from my district and my constituents in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. We saw it on the news, a flaming pile of train cars, a horrible derailment caused by incompetence and greed at that railroad.

We saw brave first responders rush in to help. That is what people do, they rush in to help and serve others. They didn't know what chemicals they were dealing with, which is its own problem. The local communities felt like they were left out of the loop. They didn't know what was happening.

Then, we saw a decision to do a controlled release, sending a toxic fireball into the sky that we now know was chemicals, including vinyl chloride. That was later deemed to be unnecessary.

The findings of the National Transportation Safety Board, the NTSB, included concerns that Norfolk Southern and its contractors intentionally misled the on-site incident commander and local and State officials, pressuring them to order the vent and burn that sent that fireball flying into the sky. They were toxic chemicals. That is corporate power run amok. It hurt my constituents, and it hurt our neighbors in Ohio.

It seemed to me that railroad and its contractors pushed that vent and burn because they cared more about their profit than our safety. They cared about getting rail operations moving more than they cared about making sure we were safe. That is unacceptable.

It is not just my community in western Pennsylvania and our neighbors in Ohio. We know there are tracks across this country. Communities like mine live near and along the tracks. This happens again, and it happens a lot in this country, unfortunately. We have to make rail safer. We have to bring down the rates of derailments and require more of these railroads.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko), one of my colleagues who I know is a strong supporter of rail safety. He is with us to make sure that we protect communities like ours.

I thank the gentleman from New York for his strong words and his commitment to his constituents, to safety, for hardworking people having a shot at the American Dream, which fundamentally is what I think we all want here.

We heard from Members representing districts across the country, a broad ideological spectrum of folks tonight, all talking about ways that corporate power has hurt their communities or hurt their constituents--it has hurt competition--and expressing their willingness, our shared willingness, to fight, to fight back for our constituents.

I represent a competitive district. I will say, Mr. Speaker, I have the best district in the country. I might get some argument from my colleagues about that. This is a place, like so many others, where folks want the American Dream to be strong. I think every Member here would say the same of their constituents.

If you work hard, you play by the rules, the American Dream is within your reach. That is what we are trying to do. I have been laser focused, as have so many of our colleagues here, about lowering costs, taking on corporate power to protect small businesses and workers, fighting against lousy trade deals that hurt places like western Pennsylvania, making stuff more in this country, more manufacturing, cracking down on junk fees, on price-gouging. That is really hurting folks and really hurting our Main Streets.

These economic priorities, they are good policies, and it is popular because the American people want us to fight for them. They don't want to get ripped off. They want to see real American capitalism that is marked by competition.

The survey data here is clear. This is a poll from ABC News and The Washington Post from July, 85 percent of Americans say higher costs are a very important issue, one of the single most important issues they feel that we should confront.

There is a tendency by some in politics to try and please everybody. Okay. You know, I am a little sick and tired though of folks around here, whether they are in this Chamber or out in the think-tanks looking for a win-win in every situation.

You know what? Sometimes, there isn't.

Sometimes there is a toxic fireball shot up into the sky near your community when there are small pharmacies getting killed, when there are junk fees hurting your constituents. Sometimes there is a bad guy, and you have got to fight them.

The American people want us to fight for them. I am proud to see so many of my colleagues join me in that fight. The goal here is simple, and it is popular. Make life better. Make it less of a rip-off. Take on the corporate power that has been hurting so many of us.

I think that is the path back to the American Dream, along with strengthening and revitalizing our American manufacturing. Sometimes you call it the villain. I know we need more competition across our economy. We need to be unafraid of the fight, and we have to do it.

We are ready to go to the mat for the American people, for our constituents, to strengthen the American Dream. That is the vision. That is my vision. I know I am not alone in that. It is one that I know will resonate in the Rust Belt, the Sun Belt, the Coast, all over this country.

I thank my colleagues, my caucus members who joined me, I appreciate your leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, it is, of course, an honor for all of us to serve here, but, of course, maybe no greater honor than to stand up for our fellow veterans.

I think this country has a sacred obligation to care for all who served. I am proud of my time in uniform, and I often talk about a simple lesson I learned in the Navy: ship, shipmate, self. You put the mission and the country first. You put others before yourself. I think that is fundamentally at the heart of the ethos of service.

I come from western Pennsylvania where so many homes and families have a picture of someone who has worn the uniform, someone who has served or shares the values of hard work and patriotism and sacrifice. It is pretty common but becoming a little rarer for us maybe to talk about it as we should.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for convening us for this important fight for veterans. It is so central to our work here in the House and certainly in this Congress.

This work should be bipartisan in so many ways, and I think it often is, not always, but it often is. I introduced a bill with colleagues from both sides of the aisle, Saving Our Veterans Lives Act, which is about us putting together a coalition to tackle the crisis, the problem of veteran suicide. It has got a coalition that I think tells you it can succeed, from gun safety groups to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and Veterans Service Organizations. That is a coalition that is broad, that tells you this is a serious effort.

What this bill would do is authorize a VA program to give free firearm lockboxes to veterans who want them. This is something that we know can save veterans' lives. We have seen that if you limit the ease by which someone at risk, someone in crisis can get to their gun, you prevent suicide deaths. We know that firearms are the most common means used by my fellow veterans to die by suicide. We should take some action like this.

Madam Speaker, 73 percent of male veteran suicide deaths and more than half, 52 percent of female, are with firearms. Those rates greatly exceed those for nonveterans.

A little bit more than half of veterans report owning one or more guns themselves. Of those, more than half report storing it loaded or unsecured.

I think this intervention can be one that can save veterans' lives and earn support on both sides of the aisle.

Madam Speaker, I was proud to introduce the Save Our Veterans Lives Act. It is a simple, straightforward, bipartisan idea, a commonsense one, to save lives and to fight back against veteran suicide. Something that I think we all share as a priority.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for her leadership on these issues.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

This country has a sacred obligation to America's veterans, to my fellow veterans. It is a promise that after we complete our service in uniform to this great Nation, our government will, in turn, deliver the care and benefits that we have earned.

For too long, this promise has been broken for so many of my fellow veterans, and finally, we are making some progress.

The Honoring our PACT Act and the Cost of War Toxic Exposure Fund have helped my fellow toxic-exposed veterans and their survivors get the healthcare and benefits they have long earned but only recently were offered.

More veterans than ever are now receiving life-changing benefits. Over the last 2 years, VA has approved more than 1.2 million PACT Act claims, and the Veterans Health Administration is expected to serve 127 million appointments by the end of this year. That is 7 million more than 2023.

This growth in the number of claims and appointments has outpaced VA's initial estimates, causing the funding shortfall that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) alluded to.

I say it is about time that more of my fellow veterans receive the care they have earned. It is our sacred obligation here in this Chamber and this Congress to ensure our veterans are taken care of, and that includes paying for the cost of war.

We have got to make sure the VA is fully staffed, it is modernized, and it is able to meet the needs of my fellow veterans.

While there is no funding shortfall for this fiscal year, next year we expect the Veterans Health Administration to cross that red line around March of 2025. That is exactly why the now-failed Republican 6- month CR proposal last week would have been a disaster.

Since the current proposed CR goes until December, we have time to address this $12 billion shortfall, so we are submitting this amendment to appropriate $12 billion for the VA Cost of War Toxic Exposure Fund.

Caring for veterans is part of the cost of war, and patriotic Americans expect us to pay for it.

We cannot have veterans miss out on the hard-earned benefits they earned through their service, and we cannot send Americans off to war and then pinch pennies when the bill comes due, especially when billionaires and huge corporations don't pay their fair share in taxes in this country.

House Democrats are committed to getting veterans the healthcare and the benefits that we are owed. That was the PACT Act's commitment, and we intend to keep that promise.

I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so we can keep this country's obligation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Mr. Terrence ``Terry'' L. Hartford on his retirement from ATI, a company with deep roots in Western Pennsylvania. Terry devoted his entire working life to ATI, retiring after 43 years of service. An esteemed and respected member of the ATI team, Terry was most recently the Vice President (Defense and Global Markets) for ATI. Through his tireless efforts to strengthen the Defense Industrial Base, Terry directly contributed to the defense of the United States and, more importantly, the men and women of our Armed Forces.

A lifelong Yinzer, Terry graduated from Kiski Area High School, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Allegheny College, and earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Pittsburgh Katz Graduate School of Business. He is a member of the Allegheny College Board of Trustees and the Allegheny College Economics Department Board of Visitors, and he served as Vice Chairman of the Specialty Steel Industry of North America until his retirement.

Terry began at ATI in 1981 and held multiple positions of increasing responsibility in marketing, quality, production planning, and general management, including Vice President and General Manager of ATI's Flat Rolled Products division. In this capacity, he played an integral role in the design, construction, and operation of ATI's Hot Rolled Processing Facility in Brackenridge, PA, a $1.3 billion-dollar facility that provides technologically advanced titanium and nickel products to the nation's Industrial base and our armed forces. In 2015, Terry was selected as Vice President (ATI Defense) and charged with expanding ATI's support to all branches of the U.S. military and prime defense contractors. In this role, Terry promoted the importance of specialty materials in the platforms, propulsion systems, and armor providing the technical solutions our servicemembers depend on to fight and win out Nation's wars.

Terry is married to the former Laura Laderer of Meadville, PA. They met at Allegheny College and have been married for 42 years. They have four children--Leslie (husband Rich), Terrence ``I'' (wife Camille), Mike (wife Kate), and Colin (wife Allie). They are the proud grandparents of Ellis and Lawrence (Leslie and Rich), Will and Jane (Mike and Kate), and Benson and Emery (Colin and Allie), and they are anxiously awaiting two more grandchildren later this year.

As Mr. Hartford embarks on a new chapter in life, it is my hope that he may recall, with a deep sense of pride and accomplishment, the outstanding contributions he has made to ATI, Western Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the United States of America. I would like to send my fellow Yinzer my best wishes for continued success in his future endeavors and a well-earned retirement.