Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Raskin of Maryland, for his incredible leadership and for the opportunity to continue to lead the Special Order hour for the Progressive Caucus here every week. And every week we do try to pick a different topic.

For those of you in the audience, we pick a different topic, and this evening that topic is the ties to Russia of this administration.

Yesterday, Sean Spicer told veteran White House correspondent April Ryan that she was ``going to have to take `no' for an answer'' when she asked him about the President's collusion with Russia.

Well, Mr. Spicer, we are here to tell you that we will not just take ``no'' for an answer. We are not going to sit back and believe everything that is coming out from the White House when there is mounting evidence that President Trump's campaign may have colluded with Russia to tip the election in his favor.

And for those of you who saw the Judiciary Committee today, we had a resolution of inquiry from Representative Hakeem Jeffries and Ted Lieu about this very issue in relation to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his ties to Russia.

Let's not forget that President Trump's former national security adviser and campaign adviser only lasted a record-setting 24 days in the role because he blatantly lied about meeting with Russia's Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, during the campaign.

So what other ties to Russia have been confirmed?

There are so many of these ties that I thought it might be helpful to have a diagram and to really show exactly what the connections have been between top Trump officials during the campaign who are now the same officials that are serving in the White House and are the President's close and personal confidants. The fact that a diagram is even necessary tells us something.

Let's start at the top with the President himself.

President Trump has a long history with Russia. His first trip to Moscow was actually 30 years ago. He went to explore potential real estate opportunities. His relationship with the country has clearly grown.

In the late 1990s, Trump started banking with Deutsche Bank, which has since been investigated for funneling Russian money offshore.

Soon after that, he linked up with a Russian company called the Bayrock Group, which has ties to the Mafia and to criminal interests in Russia. Their partnership was integral to helping to

expand The Trump Organization to new heights, with properties springing up across the country.

His ties to Russia only grew deeper. In the late 2000s, several Russian businessmen bought properties from The Trump Organization, netting them hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.

Now, let's fast-forward to 2016 when then-candidate Trump was building his team. He brought on Carter Page, who is now under investigation for communicating with Russian officials. And, in fact, it was the Trump campaign's former manager, Corey Lewandowski, who gave Carter Page the green light to visit Moscow just last July. A couple of weeks later, Mr. Page met with Sergey Kislyak, but he said that he will not reveal the details of that conversation to the public.

This is a very important, consistent fact that we see. Our resolution of inquiry today that we debated in the Judiciary Committee was about the release of information so that we understand what is going on. Without any accusations, what we are trying to say is let us investigate what these ties are, what the conversations were, and let us determine, in an independent, bipartisan way, let us determine that there has not been collusion, and let us make sure that there is no foreign government that is affecting our democracy.

So various members of Trump's team met with Russian officials during the campaign. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions didn't just meet with officials, he lied about meeting with officials during his confirmation hearing.

And again, the top prosecutor in the United States of America lied under oath during a confirmation hearing. This cannot be ignored.

Once again, we are not saying don't have conversations, but don't lie about them. Don't make us wonder what happened during those conversations. How do we trust the Attorney General of the United States of America to fairly and impartially preside if he has shown that he is willing to make false statements just to get the job?

He is not the only high-level Trump official who has been blatantly dishonest with the American people. Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, was put in place by President Trump and resigned due to the shady backdoor dealings that put him in the pocket of Russian officials. He was paid $45,000 to attend a state-sponsored gala dinner and sit at the table of Vladimir Putin.

These connections are more than just mere coincidence.

And in addition to Flynn, Page, and Sessions, there are several others who have been implicated: Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort; former campaign adviser, Roger Stone; his personal lawyer-- all of these folks are up here--his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, are all under investigation for their connections to Russia. And now President Trump's son-in-law, who has become one of his top advisers, is under investigation as well for his actions during the campaign.

Not only did Jared Kushner meet with Ambassador Kislyak, he met with the Russian bankers as well. And the White House has claimed that the meetings were ``diplomatic,'' but it is deeply troubling that one of the bankers that he met with was Sergey Gorkov.

I want to be clear about who this person is. He is a graduate of the Russian Academy of the Federal Security Service, which is an academy that is tasked with training individuals to become members of Russia's security and intelligence forces. He is now the chairman of the Vnesheconombank, and he was appointed by Putin, himself. This is not a mom-and-pop bank. This is a state-owned corporation that has been under sanctions by the United States for the past 3 years. And that is a big deal.

Jared Kushner, whose family is worth nearly $2 billion, has real estate interests around the world, sat down, allegedly under the auspices of his role with the President, to chat with this owner of the bank. A spokesperson for the Kremlin has alleged that this meeting was ``absolutely the bank's prerogative'' and that the Russian Government was unaware of the meeting.

We need more information to know what happened in that meeting because, otherwise, where there is smoke, we think there is fire. So we need to have the information so that we can actually determine what is happening with these connections because, if somebody from the Trump campaign and the Trump administration is meeting with Russian officials and they don't want to tell us why or what is discussed, then we have to start wondering whether the conversations are in the interest of the American people or in the interest of the Russian Government.

We also have Rex Tillerson, President Trump's Secretary of State, who has strong business ties to Russia and was awarded the Order of Friendship from Vladimir Putin in 2013. This is the highest honor that Russia can bestow on noncitizens. Just 2 years prior, Tillerson had struck a massive $500 billion oil deal with the Russian Government.

Now, we could go on and on with this, but what is important for the American people to understand is that we have expectations that the President of the United States and that his Cabinet are working in the interests of the American people.

We have expectations that, if a deal is struck, it is not for the benefit of some other country or for the personal benefit of any individual in office, but that it is for the public's benefit. And if a deal is struck that takes benefit away from the public in order to give it to a foreign government or to an individual personal interest of our government, then that is an enormous disservice to our democracy, and, of course, there are constitutional ramifications for all of this.

This administration has tried to tell us that the conversations between Trump's advisers and high-level Russian businessmen and officials were about diplomacy. Yet this shroud of secrecy that continues every time we try to get information, every time we try to make sure that there is an independent, bipartisan investigation, the shroud of secrecy continues, and it begs the question: If this is really about advocating for the interests of the American people and not the Russian Government or the pocketbooks of Cabinet members, then why the secrecy? What is there to hide?

We don't understand that. If there is nothing to hide, then let us have the information. There have been plenty of requests to do that in a classified way in case there is some information that is classified.

But why are the President's campaign advisers and officials denying under oath that they have communicated with Russia only then to be forced to walk back their statements or recuse themselves, as Jeff Sessions had to do, or to even resign?

Foreign policy is key to American interests, but these backroom conversations and subsequent lies are doing nothing to make the American people feel confident in an administration that is supposed to represent them. It is clear that there is a strong tie here that was only strengthened during the campaign.

But let's be very clear about what is the connective tissue in all of this, in all of these lines that go back and forth. What is the connective tissue that connects all of this? It is money.

How did we get to this point?

Of course, we remember the hacking of the election that occurred last year. It is in the process of being investigated, even though the chairman of the Intelligence Committee feels that his first duty is to the President and not to the members of the committee.

But last year, President Trump defended Vladimir Putin by placing the blame on the Democratic National Committee to distract the American people; and then, in July, he outright urged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails, saying: ``Russia, if you are listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.''

In December, a CIA assessment concluded that Russia was trying to help then-candidate Trump win the election. Why? Because they know that they have an ally in President Trump. They have someone who is willing to do business with them, even if it may not be in the best interests of the American people. They know that they are well connected at every level of his administration.

And let's be clear about who we are talking about with Mr. Putin. This is a

dictator, a human rights abuser, somebody whom Republicans and Democrats, alike, have said we cannot be associated with.

You have heard of ``The Manchurian Candidate.'' In the most recent election, we may have ended up with the Kremlin candidate, and the script truly writes itself.

We were hoping to have a chance to get to the bottom of this, as I said. We were hoping to have a chance to get to the bottom of this in a hearing in the House Intelligence Committee, but we never got the chance.

Last Tuesday, Representative Nunes went to the secret briefing in a National Security Council facility, and what he found apparently wasn't good for the President because he ran over there to tell the President. Instead of doing his duty and reporting the information to the House Intelligence Committee, he went straight to the White House with his findings. And he is supposed to be chairing an investigation into what happened, not being the runner for information to the President.

After briefing President Trump, Representative Nunes canceled the hearing, denying Americans the opportunity to hear from former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. And Ranking Member Jim Himes was right when he said that ``the Monday hearing last week was, I'm sure, not to the White House's liking.''

He went on to say: ``Since Monday, I'm sorry to say, the chairman,'' Chairman Nunes, ``has ceased to be the chairman of an investigative committee and has been running interference for the Trump White House.''

This is absolutely unacceptable. The fact that we are questioning whether or not several members of the President's Cabinet--not just one, not even just two, but several members of the President's Cabinet, including the President, himself--are guilty of collusion with a foreign government is a downright outrage.

In my home district, the Seventh District of Washington State, I have been receiving numerous calls, hundreds of calls from constituents since day one, saying: How can this be happening in this democracy? How is this possible in America? How do we make sure that our government is representing us and not a foreign entity?

Why is it that somebody would lie about whether or not they had a conversation with the Russian Government if there was nothing to hide?

People are losing faith in the United States Government. It is a crisis of democracy when people can't trust that their government is actually trying to get to the bottom of what is going on and actually representing the interests of the American people.

The White House may have a friend in Representative Nunes, but I want the American people to know that they have a friend in us. We won't back down on our demands. Representative Nunes should recuse himself from this investigation. There is no way we can expect a full and impartial investigation after what has just occurred.

This should not be a partisan issue. Every Member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, should be demanding to know the facts. We are not making judgments. We want to know the facts. If there are facts that we don't know that say, no, there were very legitimate conversations, there was no collusion, then we are done. Why tie up the airwaves with this?

So tonight, as we think about where we are in this debate and we think about the fact that, for 3 months, this administration has been under the shadow of secrecy, under the shadow of mistrust from the American people, there is a very easy way to clear all of the names of the people who are on this list, including the President of the United States, and that is to ensure that we have an independent investigation; to ensure that Representative Nunes recuses himself and steps down as the chair of the Intelligence Committee, given what has happened; and to ensure that, at the end of the day, we remember that the Government of the United States of America, the President of the United States of America, the Congress of the United States of America, our one duty is to represent the people of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin) for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman for yielding and for his tremendous leadership.

Mr. Speaker, this reckless Republican plan is a betrayal of the American people. How is it a betrayal?

Callously stripping 24 million people of health care is a betrayal.

Putting an age tax on people aged 50 to 64 who will pay up to $14,000 more in annual premiums is a betrayal.

Gutting essential benefits like maternity care, prescription drug coverage, emergency services, and fundamentally destroying protections for Americans with preexisting conditions is a betrayal.

Slashing Medicaid by $880 billion and stripping the safety net for our seniors, our kids, and people with disabilities is a betrayal.

The burden of all of this, Mr. Speaker, will fall on the States, who will have to come up with billions of dollars.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is not about freedom or choice. This bill is a travesty, and the American people will pay the price.

This is not a healthcare bill. The only people who benefit are millionaires, billionaires, and insurance companies, who will get $1 trillion in tax benefits while working Americans pay more and get nothing.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is pure greed, and real people will suffer and die from it. Vote ``no,'' and protect our care.

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, tomorrow we will be voting on the American Health Care Act. We are doing this in spite of the fact that we just found out that there is an even more dire and harsh plan. We still have not received the Congressional Budget Office's estimates of what that plan will do, but we do know that TrumpCare will throw at least 24 million people off of their health care.

Tonight, for the next hour, I am proud to help lead our Congressional Progressive Caucus Special Order hour with my distinguished members from the caucus.

I yield to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Watson Coleman for her excellent statement.

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to yield to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Rhode Island for his incredible leadership on so many issues and for reminding us again that 24 million is just a number, but behind that number are all of the people and all of the stories that will be impacted.

Mr. Speaker, now it is my great honor to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu), my good friend, the chair of the Asian Pacific American Caucus here in the House.

I thank the gentlewoman from California.

Now it is my tremendous honor to introduce and yield to the co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), a dear friend and somebody that has been on the streets and been a leader on so many issues, from immigration reform to healthcare.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Grijalva.

I am so proud to introduce my colleague from Massachusetts, Representative Joe Kennedy.

Two weeks ago, during the Energy and Commerce markup on TrumpCare, the gentleman actually forced Republican lawmakers to admit that the bill--their bill, the TrumpCare bill--would not guarantee essential healthcare benefits for the millions who are covered under Medicaid expansion, and, later, the gentleman went on to give an incredibly compelling speech about this bill not being an act of mercy but being an act of malice. I hope that the gentleman is now going to tell the American people exactly why he said what he did.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the State of Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Kennedy so much. As the gentleman was talking, I was thinking about the simple rule that we are all better off when we are all better off. I appreciate everything that you just said.

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor for me to yield to the gentleman from the great State of Minnesota (Mr. Nolan).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the good gentleman from Minnesota for his tremendous work and for his words. As the gentleman spoke, I think about all the names that we could call this bill that is before us. We can call it TrumpCare, we can call it the pay more get less bill, and we can call it the broken promises bill. But I think what the gentleman's words have shown us is that this is a bill that is going to deeply affect 24 million Americans across the country and tear them off of their health care, and that is just not acceptable.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley). It is a great honor to introduce my colleague who is a champion for so many issues.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my colleague on both the Judiciary Committee and Budget Committee and a champion for people of color and folks across this country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. Speaker, Ms. Norton is right: the uninsured rate in my home State of Washington got cut more than half. So we are down to not quite as low as you, but 5.6, I think now, compared to over 13 percent before the Affordable Care Act.

I often get to co-chair this Special Order hour with my good friend, a brilliant colleague. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from great State of Maryland (Mr. Raskin).

Mr. Speaker, once again, it looks like we need to school our colleagues on the Constitution. I thank Mr. Raskin for consistently doing that.

Now it is a great honor to yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the dean of the congressional delegation, a champion for women and families, paid leave, and health care across our country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague from Connecticut so much for that incredibly compelling testimony of why we cannot let this bill pass.

Let me summarize what you heard in this last hour from Members across our country who are terrified. Frankly, this plan--TrumpCare, the pay more get less plan, the broken promises plan--might actually pass. We have to make sure that it does not pass.

So, in summary, TrumpCare strips healthcare coverage from 24 million Americans. It cuts $880 billion--that is almost a trillion dollars-- from Medicaid expansion, and it gives $600 billion in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and corporations while cutting benefits for seniors, working families, and the most vulnerable among us.

Frankly, we don't know everything it does because there have been amendments after amendments that have been passed today. We still don't know what the full impact of this bill is, yet they are pushing through a vote tomorrow if they can get enough votes to pass it.

TrumpCare is going to raise the cost of health care by about $14,000 for those between the ages of 50 and 64. That is the age tax you have heard about on the floor tonight. And it is going to raise premiums for almost everyone. It puts a 30 percent penalty for getting health care to anyone who suffers any kind of a catastrophic event that throws you off of health care. If you lose your job and somehow you end up without health care for a couple months, you are going to have to pay 30 percent more in order to get your health care back.

You heard from Representative Kennedy about mental health, you heard from Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton about work requirements, and that is just a piece of what this TrumpCare bill does.

Tomorrow I will join my Democratic colleagues and hopefully enough Republican colleagues who know that our job is to make sure we provide health care for everyone across this country. Tomorrow I will vote ``no'' for the 24 million people who will lose their coverage. I will vote ``no'' for the almost 15 million people who will lose their coverage under Medicaid expansion alone. I will vote ``no'' for the millions of low-income women who rely on services from Planned Parenthood. I will vote ``no'' for the tens of thousands of people who will literally die each year if the Republicans succeed in repealing the health care that we have now.

Let's be clear that the Republican majority has been passing legislation and voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act for 7 years, yet they could not come up with a plan that would, in fact, do what they promised, which is to make sure that we are covering more Americans at lower prices. As my friend, Representative Raskin, said, this is not a healthcare plan. A

healthcare plan would cover more people. This is a tax plan to take the benefits that working families were receiving on healthcare coverage across the country and convert it into tax benefits for the wealthiest, $600 billion in tax benefits.

People around the country are calling in to say if you care about the American people and if you care about providing health care for all of us, this is a bad plan, you should not vote for it. And Republicans are hopefully listening to constituents across the country, to their Governors in Republican States, Republican Governors who have said how much Medicaid expansion has helped their States. They have asked and pleaded for people to keep what we have; to make it better, yes, but not to strip $880 billion away.

Just recently, Paul Ryan, the Speaker of our House, was quoted as saying that he has been dreaming about yanking health care away from the people who need it the most since he was ``drinking at a keg.''

This is what he said: ``So Medicaid, sending it back to the states, capping its growth rate, we've been dreaming of this since I have been around--since you and I were drinking at the keg. . . .''

Well, I don't know what he was thinking about when he was drinking at the keg, but I can tell you that what we have been dreaming about as Democrats, as people who care about the health care of people across this country is that we cover people, that we don't put anyone in a position where they are one healthcare crisis away from bankruptcy, that we make sure that kids can get asthma inhalers, that we make sure that grandma and grandpa can go into the nursing home and get the care that they need. If we pass this bill tomorrow, those grandparents are not going to have the care that they need. Nursing homes are going to shut down. We are going to take away jobs from rural areas, rural hospitals across this country.

Mr. Speaker, today, as we close this Progressive Caucus Special Order hour, I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that I believe we all have the interests of the American people at heart, and if we do, then I hope we will stop this TrumpCare bill from moving forward tomorrow.

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

Mr. Speaker, late last night, in a callous betrayal of the very people who elected them, Republicans hatched up the latest plan to deprive more than 24 million Americans of their health care. Let me say that again. 24 million people. In fact, perhaps more because we have yet to receive the CBO estimates on this latest plan.

This incarnation of TrumpCare would freeze Medicaid expansion in its tracks on top of the $880 billion cut that was already in the bill. In my home State of Washington, this plan would put in jeopardy 600,000 people assisted by Medicaid expansion, people who have gained access to critical treatments for substance abuse, diabetes, and cancer screenings.

Dominic in Seattle has a son who, along with many others who suffer from asthma and other respiratory diseases, will not be able to afford his inhaler anymore. Nursing homes will shut down and throw thousands of grandparents out with no help. New so-called work requirements will add even more obstacles to healthcare coverage for our most vulnerable.

TrumpCare will strip coverage from 24 million. It is past time for my colleagues to reject this pay even more for even less plan.

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, this evening I rise to speak on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and I believe some of my colleagues will be joining me, to talk about the budget that has just been released by this President.

I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, that while it is being called a skinny budget, we call it the billionaire's budget. It is the same misguided, rambling, unfocused, bloated giveaway to rich and corporate interests that has been offered for years.

My belief is that a budget is a statement of our values. This budget ensures that the rich get richer at the cost of working people, the environment, and the future of our country.

Funding has been axed for nearly 20 agencies, from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition to elimination of these important agencies, the billionaire's budget guts funding for several other important agencies.

You can see here by this chart from The Washington Post exactly what is happening: the Environmental Protection Agency chopped by 31 percent; the State Department cut by 29 percent; Agriculture cut by 21 percent, the Labor Department by 21 percent.

And the cuts go on through every single agency of critical importance to the American people: Department of Health and Human Services, Commerce, Education, Housing and Urban Development at a time when we have a tremendous housing crisis in this country.

Transportation, from a President who said that he was going to invest in our infrastructure, yet here you see that the Transportation budget has a 13 percent cut.

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the cost of security for the Trump Tower is $183 million a year. The budget for the National Endowment for the Arts is $148 million a year.

There are some other cuts that we could do if we were that concerned, but let's talk about housing. Housing access and affordability is squarely on the chopping block in this billionaire's budget.

With a $4.3 billion cut, HUD will lose its Community Development Block Grant program. Now, some people don't know exactly what the Community Development Block Grant program does; and, in fact, it sounded like Director Mulvaney didn't know that either when he was asked about a critical program that is funded through this Community Development Block Grant program, and that is funding for Meals on Wheels.

There are communities across this country that fund their Meals on Wheels program, which is funding for meals for the elderly who cannot get to somewhere where they can get a meal, and so we take them a meal. That is Meals on Wheels, an incredibly bipartisan, beloved program. Unfortunately, that would go away because the CDBG program would be cut; and, therefore, the Meals on Wheels program would be cut.

These programs are an integral part of building up our communities, both through affordable housing as well as through some of these critical programs that go as wraparound services to affordable housing.

The city of Seattle, which I represent, is currently in a state of emergency due to its housing crisis. Right now, there are around 3,000 people experiencing homelessness in the city and nearly 10,000 in the surrounding areas--veterans, families, LGBTQ youth.

This is unacceptable. Access to stable housing is absolutely critical to making sure that members of our community are safe and able to access the services they need to get back on track and live full lives.

Let's talk about Health and Human Services. The Department of Health and Human Services is facing an 18 percent cut to its funding, which could have devastating--and I am talking about life and death-- consequences here, absolutely devastating impacts.

It would decrease the funding for the National Institutes of Health, for cancer and medical research, critical programs that help us to figure out how we save lives in this country and actually are part of the innovation that the United States offers. Gutting this funding would put us at a grave disadvantage, and it would put people's lives at risk.

Transportation, another critical area that this President promised that he was going to invest in. He was going to make sure we were bringing forward jobs, that we were investing in our infrastructure, our crumbling roads and bridges, making sure that we are investing in critical transit and transportation projects. But in this budget, the Transportation budget is facing a 13 percent cut. That is nearly half a billion dollars from the TIGER grant program, which has allowed our country to carry out critical infrastructure improvement projects not just in one kind of a city, not just in urban areas, but urban and rural areas alike.

The billionaire's budget would also cut funding to all new fully funded grant agreements, including some really important projects in cities across the country.

In Seattle, our critical streetcar project would be cut; and light rail expansion, which we have been working on for years, the State has invested in a bipartisan way--when I was in the State senate, we actually passed a $15 billion transportation infrastructure package because we knew that we had to deal with the transportation infrastructure needs of business, of our communities across the State and the influx of people into our State.

We agreed in a bipartisan way that this was something we needed to do. Part of that agreement included being able to fund the next phase of light-rail across our region.

Our Sound Transit CEO, Peter Rogoff, calls this budget a ``body blow.'' I couldn't agree with him more. We are looking at potentially a $7.7 billion cut to Sound Transit.

These are major transportation projects for our cities. They would create jobs, which is what this President said that he wanted to do, is create jobs. But by gutting these funds and gutting investment in transportation infrastructure, we will be stopping the very projects that are going to create those jobs and help our cities and rural areas make the necessary upgrades that they need to thrive.

Mr. Speaker, one of the worst areas that is hit in this budget is the environment. This billionaire's budget is an all-out assault on our environment and efforts to fund research and curb climate change.

President Trump has found ways to wreak havoc on our efforts to protect our planet by, in this budget, cutting climate research and protection funds to multiple departments. This isn't just the Environmental Protection Agency, but we are talking also about NASA space exploration and many other areas that ensure that we preserve this planet for the next generation.

I have got a 20-year-old, Mr. Speaker, and when I was running for Congress, he said to me: Mom, you have got to work on climate change. It is one of the most important issues facing my generation. You are the stewards of our lands. If you don't take care of this planet, then we won't have anything left and my children won't have anything left.

This is my 20-year-old son telling me this. Mr. Speaker, I promised him I would do everything I can for his generation and future generations to protect our planet.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest cuts in this budget is to the Environmental Protection Agency. This is a 32 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency. This decimates all of our work on climate change, all of the research that we need to do so we know how to protect our climate, all of the work on environmental justice programs, which is really essential when you think about who is taking the burden of climate change. It is our low-income communities, communities of color, and other vulnerable and marginalized communities.

I have always believed that we should rename the EPA. Environmental Protection Agency makes it sound like it is something off in the distance, like it is about something out there. But, in fact, what the Environmental Protection Agency does is monitor our water so that we have clean water to drink and use. It monitors our air so that we have clean air to breathe and we don't have asthma and other respiratory diseases that come with air that is so polluted that we can't even survive in it. It ensures that we are protecting human health.

We could rename the EPA the Agency for Clean Water, Clean Air, and Human Health, and I think that that would cover a lot of what the EPA does.

The EPA's cut is going to result in 3,200 lost jobs. That is 20 percent of the department. Research programs would be discontinued both domestically and around the world, and programs like the Clean Power Plan and numerous restoration projects, including a critical restoration project in the Puget Sound, the Puget Sound Restoration, would lose 93 percent of its funding. This is true of the Great Lakes region. There are places in Republican and Democratic districts across this country that are going to suffer and see environmental protection being rapidly undone.

President Trump has made it painfully clear that he and his administration are enemies not only of the environment, but of the science that tells us that yes, we must address climate change because it is real and it is manmade. Yet, we are fighting efforts to consistently undermine the research and the science that shows us exactly

where we are as a country and what we must do in order to protect our environment.

Let me talk about education for a second. With the appointment of Betsy DeVos to the Department of Education, President Trump has signaled that his administration has every intention of doing whatever they can to privatize our education system. The billionaire's budget takes the first steps in that process.

It increases charter school funding by $168 million and it adds $250 million to create a new, private school choice program. It cuts $3.7 billion in grants that go toward after-school programs, aid programs, and important teacher training.

This budget would decimate Head Start. Head Start is a program that has been shown to be successful. When you invest early in kids' education and you make sure that you give them that early support, it definitely has an impact in diminishing and breaking that school-to- prison pipeline.

These are investments that save us money in the long run. Not only are they the most humane thing to do and the right thing to do, but they are actually cost-effective programs that stop us from having to spend millions of dollars down the line when people can't get a great public education.

We should be investing in our public education program and making sure that we are helping kids to go all the way from early learning to higher education. That is the foundation of a great country, when we are educating and investing in our students to have that kind of a great education.

Mr. Speaker, I see that my colleague from the Progressive Caucus is here. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), the wonderful Representative from that State, because I know he has got somewhere to go right after this. I invite him to come up here, and I thank him for his leadership on all issues constitutional and otherwise.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Raskin for his consistent brilliance and leadership. I so appreciate it. It has been a tremendous honor to serve with him here.

I want to talk about another area that we haven't covered yet, which is the State and development programs budget. This is essentially our efforts around diplomacy and development around the world. This would be incredibly hard hit. The prime target is the United Nations. Climate change initiatives at the United Nations would lose all of their funding. The government would cut back its regular contribution to the U.N. and pay no more than 25 percent of the cost of U.N. peacekeeping operations. The budget would hit all of the multilateral development banks, like the World Bank, which would be trimmed by $650 million over 3 years, and cultural programs like the East-West Center in Honolulu.

Today a number of Republican colleagues talked about how misguided this cut was, and it made me very hopeful, to be honest. Representatives Hal Rogers and Ted Yoho both agree that this cut is absolutely misguided.

Several retired three- and four-star generals wrote a letter to Congress expressing their deep concern over these serious budget cuts that are being made to the State Department because they know that diplomacy goes hand in hand with any kind of defense that has to be put out there. You have got to have the two together. Here is what they said: ``The State Department, USAID, Millennium Challenge Corporation, Peace Corps and other development agencies are critical to preventing conflict and reducing the need to put our men and women in uniform in harm's way.''

In 2013, General Mattis himself said that if more funding for development wasn't provided, he would have to buy more bullets. Development programs are inextricably linked with our national security, and this President should not be cutting these funds if he wants to bolster national security. If he wants to bolster national security, then we should be investing more of our dollars into diplomacy and development as two of the other legs of a three-legged stool. Unfortunately, he is going in the opposite direction.

Our aid and development efforts have to be well-rounded and holistic. I know this because I have worked in international development before all over the world. I have worked along the borders of Laos and Cambodia, in Thailand. I have worked across south Asia. I have worked in Latin America. I know and I understand that our relationships and our ability to build

strong multilateral coalitions and to invest in the stability of countries as war is happening there is absolutely essential to preserving peace.

The generals wrote: ``We know from our service in uniform that many of the crises our nation faces do not have military solutions alone-- from confronting violent extremist groups like ISIS in the Middle East and north Africa to preventing pandemics like Ebola. . . .''

This 29 percent cut is absolutely unacceptable and will not keep us safe.

The billionaire's budget doesn't just cut funding for these programs, though. It also increases spending, and not for the benefit of our communities. This administration is calling for $3 billion to detain more immigrants, deport more people, and build a bigger border wall. The staggering increase to detain an unprecedented 45,700 men and women is unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, 167 men and women have died in detention since October 2003. The organization that I used to work at put out a human rights abuses report about the detention center controlled by the GEO corporation, private detention center way back in 2005 or 2006. We looked at all of the human rights abuses that were happening not only in that detention center, but we did research on what was happening around the country.

Among the 35 death reviews in this recent report that came out that have been released through Freedom of Information Act requests, substandard medical care contributed to at least 15 deaths. And even when government investigations concluded that a facility violated government detention standards, the government fails to hold these private facilities accountable and make sure that changes are made to address deficiencies that lead to the loss of human life.

Instead of spending $3 billion on immigration enforcement and detention, here is what we could do with that money: We could create 45,000 new middle class jobs. We could build 184 new elementary schools. We could hire about 55,000 new kindergarten and elementary schoolteachers. We could provide close to 337,000 Head Start slots for young kids. We could pay for nearly 311,000 people to attend a 4-year college per year. We could help States protect and save up to 12,000 at-risk wildlife and plant species in the United States every year for the next 2.3 years. By the way, we could also provide nearly 2.1 million households with solar energy. We could weatherize over 460,000 homes nationwide, saving the average household about $283 a year. And we could provide 10 million lifesaving HIV/AIDS treatments.

Mr. Speaker, this budget is about profit over safety, privatization over public good. It is about war over peace and diplomacy. And it is about incarceration over rehabilitation. It is fundamentally about billionaires and lobbyists over the American people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of a group of 11- and 12-year-old girls from my district who have noticed an unsettling trend in modern politics and who are absolutely determined to do something about it. They see bullying from leaders who are supposed to be their role models. They witness fear, intimidation, and vitriol being thrown at religious minorities, LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, communities of color. And, yes, I am also somebody else's baby.

In the face of this hate, these girls have decided to take action by forming the D.C. Bully Busters. These change-making girls, not even old enough to vote yet, but certainly old enough to make their voices heard, have vowed to stand up against the bullying they are seeing in American politics.

Mr. Speaker, if grade-schoolers can say that bullying, intimidation, and silently standing by are cowardly tactics that have no place in politics, then the adults who represent them must be courageous enough to do the same thing.

On Friday, I will be proudly signing the D.C. Bully Busters pledge, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me so that we can let everyone know at every level that bullying is never acceptable.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to TrumpCare, the Republican plan to privatize Medicare, penalize working families, and prioritize the wealthy.

The Republican majority is in denial about the tremendous gains of the Affordable Care Act in covering tens of millions of people across this Nation.

In my home State of Washington, Mr. Speaker, because of the Affordable Care Act, the average annual premium increases have dropped from 18.5 percent, before the passage of the ACA, to 6.7 percent in 2017. The growth of individual enrollment reached nearly 320,000 people in 2015; and with Medicaid expansion in Washington State, the decline in the uninsured plummeted to 7 percent in 2015, from over 13 percent in 2009. 605,000 Washingtonians also gained coverage through Medicaid expansion.

All of these gains, Mr. Speaker, are in jeopardy as TrumpCare threatens to strip 20 million people, many of whom voted for Mr. Trump, of their health care. Across the Nation, older Americans will be forced to pay premiums five times higher than what others will pay for health care.

Four hundred of the wealthiest families in America will be handed a tax break worth $7 million a year, all on the backs of working families. According to the Tax Policy Center, under TrumpCare, the top 0.1 percent of earners would receive an average tax cut of $197,000, while older Americans would face increases of almost $7,000 each.

Under TrumpCare, many employers will stop providing coverage, letting their employees fend for themselves with a tax credit. Compared to the subsidies that Americans have today, the tax credits will end up being a tax hike.

Not only does TrumpCare impose radical new restrictions on a woman's right to comprehensive health coverage, it defunds Planned Parenthood, robbing women with nowhere else to turn of essential preventative care and affordable contraceptives.

Mr. Speaker, these are sad, sad facts. But the stories from hundreds of my constituents are even more heartbreaking. Lynn told me:

If I were to get a bad illness, it would kill me

financially. And the stress alone from having my health

insurance taken is causing me health problems already.

Luke wrote to tell me that when his wife needed emergency gall bladder surgery while he was a student, the bills would have been crushing. He said:

Without the ACA, we would have been saddled with nearly

$40,000 in hospital bills, ER, one surgery, and one overnight

stay.

Kristy shared:

Without contraceptive care that is covered in the ACA, I

would never be able to afford my IUD. I might have an

unwanted pregnancy, and I wouldn't be able to afford another

child. This means so much to me as a woman, a mother, and as

a human. I am able to have power to make decisions about my

family, and this means the world to me.

The lessons and stories like this, Mr. Speaker, are what we should be incorporating into our legislative deliberations, not cynical attempts to penalize people for wanting to have basic health insurance coverage for themselves and their families.

What is worse, the Republican majority seems intent on obscuring the real cost of this misguided proposal. Mr. Speaker, the majority deserves this President. They are cut from the same cloth and relying on the power of obfuscating the truth.

Since President Trump is not being forced to be transparent about his taxes or his financial entanglements with foreign interests like Russia, the Republican majority doesn't think that they need to ask the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to offer the true picture of how many people will be hurt by their bill and how much it will cost the American people. This is simply no way to govern.

At the most fundamental level, health care is a human right and not a luxury, as our Republican colleagues would have us believe; a healthy population is a healthy workforce; a healthy workforce is a healthy economy; and a healthy economy is a healthy nation.

TrumpCare puts all Americans at risk. Let's work together to protect and expand our health care and put this mess behind us.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose potential deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency.

According to many recent press reports, the EPA budget to restore our critical Puget Sound in my home State of Washington is facing a 93 percent cut. What is worse is the EPA, overall, is potentially facing a 25 percent budget cut, resulting in a loss of 15,000 jobs.

Let us be clear that the EPA is the entity that ensures clean air, clean water, and strong human health. Because of the EPA's work on accountability and oversight of strong environmental regulations, we have seen progress on pollution mitigation, shoreline restoration, water treatment, and education projects that are aimed at protecting our sound and our environment.

This administration's cuts will be devastating to our environment. By signing an executive order to move forward on Keystone and the DAPL pipeline, appointing Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA, and rolling back environmental regulations, we are showing overt hostility to protecting our environment.

We need to be investing in our environment and not slashing it, and we need to make sure that we restore our environment and preserve it for our future generations.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I am opposed.

Mr. Speaker, this is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.

Simply put, Mr. Speaker, this amendment restricts the President from making public statements to promote his own business interests in the same way that the bill restricts statements by agencies on pending rules. If we intend to hold agencies accountable for their statements, we should certainly be willing to hold the President of the United States to those same standards. Donald Trump's enormous web of business interests and conflicts of interest make it clear that it is necessary to explicitly expand this restriction to the President.

It is deeply disturbing, Mr. Speaker, that the President has refused to release his tax returns or create a blind trust for the proceeds of his assets. Numerous U.S. Presidents have placed their financial holdings into a blind trust that is managed by a trustee without any input from the President. This allows for the President to minimize any conflicts of interest and any suggestion that the Presidency of the United States is being used for his own personal profits.

This President, however, has avoided those calls for him to sell his assets or place them into a blind trust. Instead, documents obtained through public records requests show that President Trump has moved the assets over, just in name, to his son and a longtime employee, but that Trump himself, the President of the United States, is the sole beneficiary of all of those trusts.

In other words, there is no wall erected between his businesses and his Presidency, and anyone who wants to buy influence can simply do so openly. His entire Presidency can be seen as a promotion of his business interests and be used by domestic and foreign governments to curry favor and produce benefit to his personal empire.

Trump Tower in D.C. is one example of this. The building, which is leased to him by the Federal Government, stipulates in its lease that ``any elected official of the Government of the United States'' may not derive any benefit from that agreement. At 12:01 p.m. on Inauguration Day, Trump was in violation of this clause. That lease should be terminated effective immediately.

Just last week, the Kuwaiti Embassy held its annual event to celebrate the country's national day at the President's D.C. hotel. The event was initially scheduled to take place at the Four Seasons, and, in fact, a ``save the date'' went out with the Four Seasons location. But Kuwait canceled that reservation just a few days after the election, and moved the event to the President's hotel after that happened.

These are not isolated instances. They constitute a pattern of conflicts of interest every time a foreign government holds a reception or rents a room at a Trump property, a problem so important to this country that it was put into the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution of the United States of America.

The American people should also be deeply concerned about conflicts of interest at the President's Mar-a-Lago resort. On January 1, 2017, just 2 months after the election of Donald Trump, the exclusive resort doubled its membership initiation fee from $100,000 to $200,000. When Trump took Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there, it created even more free publicity for the resort as several social media posts were made throughout the weekend.

Conducting government affairs in public settings not only has serious national security concerns, but indicates that anyone who wants to be a member of the club will have access to the President of the United States, and the President will personally profit off of their membership.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have a right to know what the entire web of conflicts of interest are, but we have yet to get this information because we have not received--we have yet to get any information from this President, his tax returns, or any of the documents that help us to ensure that he is complying with the Constitution of the United States of America, that document that he swore to uphold and protect, so that we can make sure that he is not using the highest office of this land to profit.

The American people have the right to demand that this President put their interests first rather than his own business interests.

I urge all of my colleagues to pass this motion to recommitment and demand that we uphold our Constitution, protect this democracy and the duty of this President to work not for the business interests, but for we the people.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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, today I stand here for this Special Order on behalf of our Congressional Progressive Caucus, and we have decided that we would like to use this Special Order hour to address our reactions to the President's address to the Union last night.

Before I offer my part of those remarks, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), my friend and colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague from Maryland for your tremendous work already in these 7 weeks and schooling us all on the Constitution and making sure that we continue to recognize the tremendous responsibility that we have here in this body to protect that Constitution and everything that it stands for.

Last night's State of the Union Address deserves a response for lots of reasons and, unfortunately, none of them are good.

Last night, we heard from this President a toned-down version of his campaign speeches. The speech was well delivered. He stuck to his script. It may be the first major address that he has conducted where he did stick to the script. He had a lot of diligence in that. And he even started with some very necessary recognition of the anti-Semitic acts that have been taking place across the country, and he denounced those acts.

He denounced the killing of an Indian American in Kansas. I, too, am Indian American, and I know that that killing hit home hard for many of us across the country who wonder if we, too, are going to be the targets of hate. The President did say that he denounces hate, that there is no place in this Nation for hate, and that, in fact, we need to do a lot of work to make sure that we preserve this place, this country as a country that is safe for everybody.

Unfortunately, it took a while to get there, and his words belie the rhetoric that he has put out there in the past. In fact, I think that this President has not spoken out against the kind of hate and, in fact, has sometimes said things that encourage his followers to act in ways that simply do not meet the rhetoric that he had yesterday.

The first place that that was so obvious to me was in the space of immigration. Now, I have been an advocate on immigration for many, many years. I have worked across the aisle with friends and colleagues in the U.S. Senate, in the U.S. House of Representatives. At that time, I was an advocate. But together, we understood the tremendous contributions of immigrants to this country, and we understood that unless you were Native American, that, willing or unwilling, everybody in this country has been an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants.

And so to come into the Chamber and yet again hear the fear-mongering and the characterization of immigrants, undocumented immigrants, as this enormous swath of people who simply all they do is commit crimes is simply a travesty and a disservice to the millions of people across this country who work every day to pick our vegetables, clean our homes, serve us in so many different capacities, as well as to all of those who have come through the legal immigration system, but with many challenges.

You know, it took me 18 years to get my citizenship. I went through visa after visa after visa. I understand the barriers. But for this President to continue to focus on a stereotype of undocumented immigrants as criminals is simply disingenuous, unfair, and, frankly, un-American.

DREAMers and refugees and immigrants and others who have helped build this country were the guests of many of us Democrats in the Chamber. We each brought incredible men and women to join us for the State of the Union; people who we feel demonstrate the resilience and the strength and the courage of immigrants across this country.

I was proud to be joined by an amazing woman, a good friend named Aneelah Afzali, who is the executive director of the American Muslim Empowerment Network, an initiative of the Muslim Association of Puget Sound. Aneelah is a Harvard-trained lawyer. She is an incredible snowboarder. She is a 12th Man Fan. She loves the Seahawks, and she is a strong advocate for a community that has been, frankly, terrorized since the passing of the President's Muslim ban. Now, of course, courts have said that that ban is unconstitutional.

The President seems to be accepting that it is unconstitutional, but we also know that he has reshaped that ban to continue to target people simply for the country from which they come, simply for the region that they come from.

The reason we invited all of those guests to be here in the Chamber with us is because we wanted to send a message to this President and to our country that we are strong as a country because of our diversity, that we are better for the perspectives and the values that people bring, and regardless of what religion you are, we all, as the President said yesterday, do bleed the same blood, and we all believe in the promise of the United States of America.

We wanted the President to understand and our colleagues in this body to understand, when we pass laws, when we approve of executive orders, to target people simply based on religion or place of origin, that we are doing a tremendous disservice to this country and we might be violating constitutional laws in some of these cases, but that America deserves better in terms of how we position what immigrants have done for this country.

Now, the President last night kept talking about these heinous crimes that immigrants commit. In fact, he had some people here in the Chamber, his guests, who were tragically affected by the murder of individuals in their families who were killed because of a single, undocumented immigrant. A heinous crime committed by an undocumented immigrant is simply not representative of the millions of law-abiding immigrants across our country.

This is a continuation of what the President did during the campaign: fear-mongering and otherizing people. The reality is that, just like Dylann Roof's horrific murders in South Carolina cannot be representative of all Caucasian Americans, there is no way that one undocumented immigrant or even a couple of undocumented immigrants can be representative of 11 million who have served this country, helped build our economy, helped drive our industries, and who contribute so much to our country every single day.

The President also seemed to paint this picture of immigrants as driving up crime, that when you have undocumented immigrants, then you have higher crime. In fact, the statistics show that immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than native-born Americans and that our sanctuary cities, the cities around the country that have policies that are friendly to immigrant communities, including undocumented immigrants, that those actually are safer as cities than comparable cities that are not sanctuary cities.

That was a report that came out, and it is an important one for people to understand. Why? Because, when you have trust and when you understand that the fix that we need is for a system that is broken, an immigration system that has been broken for a very long time, the way to address these issues is not to criminalize and otherize and fearmonger about people who are trying to help our country, but to actually get to work on a real fix for our immigration system.

I was initially pleased that the President talked about fixing a broken immigration system, but then he said we are going to look at a merit-based system. Now, I would not have been able to come to this country under a merit-based system because I came here by myself when I was 16 years old. My parents sent me over here. They had very little money in their bank account. They used their $5,000 to send me by myself because they felt like this was the place I was going to get the best education.

And if you look at a merit-based system, what you do is you exclude the millions of people who have actually come to the United States seeking refuge from famine, from devastation, from drought, from persecution. You exclude all of those people. You also exclude all of the families who are trying to reunite with their loved ones when they come here and they bring their spouse or they bring their parent or their child. That whole system of family-based immigration that the United States has built so much of our country around, that, too, would be excluded.

Unfortunately, this President is still not at a place where he has said and embraced the idea of comprehensive immigration reform, an immigration reform that has been, until this point, traditionally bipartisan--68 bipartisan votes in the U.S. Senate in 2013 for a comprehensive immigration bill that would have brought $1.5 trillion into our economy over the next 10 years by legalizing and providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants but, perhaps equally importantly, would have provided the dignity and respect to undocumented immigrants in a very different way than what the President spoke about last night.

My colleague Mr. Raskin talked a little bit about health care and the Affordable Care Act, and during his speech, the President, unfortunately, again renewed the theme that the Affordable Care Act has been a disaster. He talked about his ideas for health care, and he said some things that maybe all of us could agree with.

He said that we deserve health care that lowers costs for people. Yes, I would like that. He said that we deserve health care that increases quality of care--absolutely.

But unfortunately, neither the President nor Republicans in this Chamber have offered us a replacement plan. So to repeal the Affordable Care Act which has provided so much benefit to people--more than 20 million Americans gained health care through the Affordable Care Act. But if Republicans succeed in repealing it, 30 million people will lose it.

The 150 million Americans with preexisting conditions will see their protections stripped away, leaving them vulnerable to a lack of coverage. You cannot protect the most expensive and the most valuable provisions of the Affordable Care Act if you do not continue to keep the pool large enough, full of healthy people, so that those provisions actually become affordable. And you need to ensure that the pool is large enough through the individual mandate.

So we have not seen a plan that improves health care, and it is important that we recognize we have improvements to make. There are too many Americans across the country that still, today, don't have access to health care in the way that we would like them to. But the solution for that is a Medicare-for-all plan, a public plan that allows us to take profits out of the business of health care. It should not be a business. It should be about making people better. It should be about making people well and not about making corporations rich. That, I think, is a very important piece.

The President said that he would support a plan that would actually provide us with the ability to negotiate for prescription drugs for Medicare. That would bring down the cost for those prescription drugs. I am all in for that plan, and that is why I hope the President supports the bill that was introduced.

Senator Cantwell introduced a bill yesterday that would allow the United States to import more affordable drugs from Canada while also allowing Medicaid to negotiate drug prices directly, and that would lower the costs for our seniors and for others who rely on those lifelong medications.

I am so proud to have sponsored that same bill in the House. That is the solution that we need to move to is lowering the costs of prescription drugs, lowering the cost of health care, increasing the quality of the care that we provide.

Let's talk about the environment for a minute because the President mentioned yesterday that he cares about clean water and clean air, but at the same time, the President has proposed in reports that have been published in the news that he intends to cut the Environmental Protection Agency by 25 percent, the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Scott Pruitt, our new Secretary of the EPA, has talked about putting in place plans to repeal progress on climate change. The President also signed a rule to essentially roll back progress on the Clean Water Act, and we are talking about cutting agencies and staff of the EPA across the country.

The reality is that we need to be thinking about how we preserve our planet for the next generation. I have got a 20-year-old son and he says to me: Mom, this is one of the most important things you can do is preserve the planet for me and for my kids. That is what we need to do is look at the science of climate change, look at the ways in which we can strengthen our ability to protect the environment, instead of what this President has said he will do, which is to repeal so many of the rules that the Obama administration put in place to make sure that we check the notion that corporations should be able to mine our land, literally and figuratively, for profit while destroying it for the future.

Budget and taxes, this was a really interesting one. One of the most common refrains of President Trump's campaign was that he was going to drain the swamp, and last night he talked about that. He said he promised he would do it, and he is now draining the swamp. He has put a ban on lobbyists.

Unfortunately, what he didn't talk about is that, even with the ban on lobbyists, it is as if he is draining that swamp and then pumping it into another spot, which happens to be his Cabinet, that is filled with people who represent Goldman Sachs ties, the CEO of ExxonMobil, plenty of other elites who--we don't begrudge people to make some money, but these are people who have made profit off of a vast majority of Americans losing their income.

These are people, frankly, who lobbied the United States Government so that those corporations could do better and so that they, as CEOs, could do better while caring not at all for the broad interests of people across this country.

Based on these picks, it is clear that the President's priority is for the wealthiest in our country and not, as he promised over and over again, for the working people in our country.

Now, I would love to be proven wrong on this. But unfortunately, all of the tax plans, all of the proposals that we have seen so far, or, at least, the blueprints that we have seen so far would not do as he said last night. Last night, he said he wants to provide a huge tax cut or tax relief for middle class families. We would love to see that. Unfortunately, the plan looks, in fact, like it is going to provide relief to the top tier of income earners in this country and not to the middle class.

He has talked about a $54 billion cut in domestic spending, and I wanted to have people understand exactly what $54 billion amounts to because most of us don't really know. We can't really imagine that because we don't have $54 billion lying around.

If we added up the entire budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, the entire budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the entire budget for the National Park Service--and I should give you these numbers because they are interesting: $8 billion for the EPA, $5.85 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $3.1 billion for the National Park Service, $2.9 billion for the Department of Energy efficiency and renewable energy program, $1.6 billion for the Fish and Wildlife Service, and $1.2 billion for the U.S. Geological Service--you still don't get to that $54 billion. There are a whole bunch of others that are in that list. You still don't get to $54 billion, even if you remove all of those agencies.

So the work that we have to do is really to have people understand that if we are going to cut nondefense discretionary spending by the amount that he is talking about increasing our defense budget by, our military spending by, then you are going to have to cut into the very programs that help middle class families to continue their lives and have dignity, respect, pull themselves up and know that they are

going to have food on the table and a roof over their head and be able to send their kids to college and be able to retire in security. All of these programs help people to do that, to have opportunity in this country, which is why America is such a great country because we provide that kind of opportunity. But if we decimate our nondefense discretionary spending by cutting it by $54 billion, then we are taking away that opportunity from millions and millions of families. This is not how we build up our communities.

Our budget is a demonstration of our values as a country. We have to understand that this is a time of tremendous insecurity for Americans across our country. Wealth inequality is at the highest level that it has been in a very long time, and people do not see the opportunity for themselves.

They elected this President, in part, because of the promises that he made; and so if he is going to follow through, that would mean protecting those social safety net programs. It would mean investing in the environment for the future. It would mean expanding Social Security and Medicare. It would mean saying that the answer to health care is actually a Medicare-for-all program, a way to make sure that every American does not have to be one healthcare crisis away from bankruptcy.

The President also talked about education last night, and he said it is the civil rights issue of our time. I couldn't agree with him more, but I do not understand how you go from that place to then saying that the answer to that is school choice.

Ninety percent of the kids in this country go through the public education system. That is what my son went through. We need to make sure that we preserve the ability for people in this country to send their kids to good public schools.

We should be investing in our public schools, investing in our teachers, making sure that we provide the tools and the resources to teachers so that in our public schools--the place where our kids are going to spend the most amount of their days--that they are getting the kind of education that allows them to earn a future, contribute back to the country, be trained for all the jobs that we need to fill right here in the United States of America.

We should be investing in preapprenticeship programs. We should be investing in debt-free college for all of our young people because it is ridiculous that a young person has to choose between being $45,000 in debt or not going to college, not seeking a higher education.

Higher education is what gave me everything that I have today. It was my parents' belief in me and my future and the $5,000 that they had in the bank that they used to send me here so that I could get a college degree. I was 16 years old, and now I have the tremendous honor of standing in this Chamber, the U.S. House of Representatives, in the greatest country in the world, going from being an immigrant to being a United States Representative.

I want every American--no matter what color you are, no matter whether you are rural or urban, no matter whether you have money or don't have money--I want you to have a great public education that you can go to. That is choice. That is real choice.

Choice is not privatizing our public education system, and then saying, hey, 10 percent of the people get to go to that, and then everybody else is going to go to schools that don't give them that opportunity.

Real choice is about having an investment in our public education system as the doorway, the gateway to a future of opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, the most important thing I think is that last night's address was a softer tone. It was a disciplined speech, and there were some good statements.

Unfortunately, the rhetoric of last night doesn't match the actions. It doesn't match the executive actions of the last 7 weeks that have thrown this country into chaos on immigration. It doesn't match the fact that we still don't have a replacement plan that will make things better for health care, not increase payments, not give giveaways to insurance companies, not decrease subsidies so that health care can be affordable.

His speech last night did not reflect specifics around how he is going to accomplish some of the good things that he said he was going to do. And it continued to put fear into people's hearts and minds about who our neighbors are, about the immigrants across this country who have done so much to build and contribute.

He is the President of the United States. He has a remarkable microphone. He talked about unity last night. But unity means being a President for everybody, and it means not creating stories that somehow draw pictures of an immigrant community that is full of crime, inner cities that are full of crime. That is not the inner cities that I know. If he is talking about inner cities in Chicago and other places, we should be talking about how to fix crime, but not calling everybody who lives there criminals.

We have got to understand that our country deserves a body in this Chamber, in this United States Congress that really preserves the opportunity, the dreams, and the ability for everybody in our country to know that they have got a fair shot. That is what America has been for so long for so many people across the world.

When he talks about improving the vetting of refugees to this country, let me tell you, I know a lot about this issue. There are 20 steps you have to go through if you want to be vetted into this country as a refugee. All of our multiple intelligence agencies, multiple agencies in other countries, the United Nations and others are involved in that vetting process. Our own intelligence agencies vet people.

Out of the seven countries that he put on the list for the Muslim ban, the 9/11 hijackers didn't come from any of those countries. They came from another country that is not on that list: Saudi Arabia.

So if we are really going to think about how we improve our security in this country, we should be thinking about economic security that gives people the opportunity that they need in this country, the ability to fill our jobs with well-trained folks from this country, and then we continue to allow immigrants to come in as we need them. But don't allow them to come in because we are not training enough people and we are not investing in people right here in this country and then criticize those immigrants for taking these jobs.

Let's raise our wages. Let's invest in apprenticeships. That is good in rural areas, and that is good in urban areas. Let's invest in our community and technical colleges. Let's provide opportunity for people who are ready to take that opportunity.

Let's be compassionate. It is Ash Wednesday today. I am not an observing Catholic, but I think today--because I went to a Jesuit university--and I think today of what we were taught in that university about compassion.

I think it is time for us to recognize that true greatness for our country doesn't come from fear mongering. It doesn't come from otherizing. You can tap into that. You can mobilize people around that. You can enrage people around that.

Ultimately, true greatness and the greatness of this country has always come from our ability to have a vision of opportunity for everybody and to actually work to perfect this Union, to actually work to make democracy real, to actually work to engage people in a vision that says we are all better off when we are all better off. That means that my boat rising lifts your boat rising. It is not about fighting over the spoils that are too small for us anyway. It is not about whose pie we are eating.

It is about having more pie for everybody and ultimately opportunity, education, jobs, higher wages, health care, paid family leave, the ability for people to live with dignity and respect, racial justice, all of the fights that this country has been having for a very long time. Some we have won, and some we have won a little bit on, and some we have won a lot on. We still have a ways to go.

What I hope we do, as we think about the state of the Union of this country, is understand that our state of the Union is strong when our communities are strong. Our state of the Union is strong when we invest in our future.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution. For many people, particularly women, title X funding literally means the difference between receiving reproductive health care or being forced to go without birth control, critical cancer screenings, and other preventive care.

For the 4 in 10 women who access health care at title X-funded providers, cutting this funding would mean cutting their access to health care altogether. For people of color, rural communities, and those who struggle to make ends meet, cutting title X funds will certainly have a disproportionate impact.

Let's be very clear that these funds are not controversial, but the Republican majority in Congress and anti-choice groups are doing their best to create a false narrative in order to demonize this funding, which has done nothing but improve the lives of millions of people. Cutting this funding would actually increase the number of unwanted pregnancies by nearly 1 million in just a year alone and would increase abortions by 33 percent.

Women need title X so they can continue to make decisions with their doctors. It is 2017, and a woman's uterus is not a political football.

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my hometown, the city of Seattle, on its historic decision to terminate its $3 billion relationship with Wells Fargo Bank over its financing and support of the Dakota Access pipeline.

Last week, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to divest from Wells Fargo, making it the first major city to do so.

Led by Native American and environmental activists, our city made an important statement about the vision that we have for our community and for our world. That vision centralizes both the rights of our native brothers and sisters, and our environment.

Just like it did with the $15 minimum wage, Seattle continues to be a leader and a model for the rest of the country, and activists and cities around the United States have picked up the torch.

We stand united in prioritizing our environment, as it is deeply connected to the health of our communities. Rather than allowing dangerous pipeline projects to continue, putting millions of people at risk, we should be focused on being leaders in the international fight against climate change.

I am committed, Mr. Speaker, to taking every opportunity to protect our resources and fight for a bold alternative energy plan that includes a just transition that creates great union jobs and puts us on a sustainable path forward.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I introduced my first bill, H.R. 1006, the Access to Counsel Act; and it was a great pleasure to work with my colleague in the Senate, Senator Kamala Harris, who introduced that companion version. The legislation is a direct response to the President's misguided Muslim ban.

In the chaos following the release of the executive order, people across the country were detained at airports and denied opportunities to consult with hundreds of attorneys who were there ready to provide legal support. Some of these people were deported without any access to due process. Even now, we are getting reports of people who are literally relinquishing their legal permanent resident status without consulting with anybody because they don't understand what they are signing.

Detention and deportation without due process happens far too often, even though due process is a right that we hold so dear as Americans. For years, we have heard these cases of people being denied the right to counsel, and my bill, the Access to Counsel Act, ensures that anyone who is detained by CBP or held in ICE custody will get access to counsel.

This is a commonsense measure, and I know that there are many who are fearful of what will come next. I want them to know that we will continue to fight for their rights and for their access to due process.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), my friend and colleague, and I thank my other colleagues also who are here today to shine a light on the abuses that happened last week and last weekend with the executive order that was passed and signed into law by this President.

Mr. Speaker, this order is in direct contrast with the values that this country was built on: foremost, to be a refuge. That is how so many people in the history of this country have come here. Instead, our President has chosen to close the doors on people who are fleeing violence in their home countries, and it is based on their religion.

This ban is discrimination in its purest form. It does not make us safer. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I believe that doing what we did has actually put fodder into the hands of those who really do wish to do us harm by being able to say that America hates Muslims, that America hates Islam, and that America hates immigrants and refugees, none of which is true to the history and the founding of this country.

The reality, Mr. Speaker, is that the International Rescue Committee has said that it is more challenging for refugees to get into the United States than anyone else. They are the most heavily vetted group there is. As you can see here, there are 20 steps involved in the process, and those who do get approved have been through the most rigorous background checks, fingerprinting, and questioning.

Instead of making us safer, this ban is simply throwing people into chaos. Many of us over this last weekend went to our airports across the country--Dulles; New York; Seattle, Washington, my hometown. We were called to the airport because there was chaos that erupted across the country, chaos that erupted at the airports, because people who had legal documents to come to the United States were coming in and being told that the executive order meant that they no longer could actually stay here in this country.

Mr. President, what happened then for me, when I went to the Sea-Tac Airport at 1 in the afternoon on Saturday, I found a Somali family who had been waiting, a U.S. citizen woman who had been waiting to be reunited with her husband. She believed that finally she was going to get to hold him in her arms. Instead, Mr. Speaker, what happened is that he was put on a plane and sent back to Heathrow, but perhaps somewhere else. We were not given any information about what was going to happen to that gentleman.

We found out that there were two additional individuals who were already put on a plane ready to be deported. We, along with the ACLU, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and our governor, were able to file for a temporary restraining order. We were able to take that restraining order on our phone to the plane and say: Stop this plane.

That literally, Mr. Speaker, is how we were able to get those two people off of the plane. We were able to then get them legal counsel after much intervention.

Mr. Speaker, it should not be this way. This is a country that was built by immigrants. It is a country that has welcomed people from across the world to come here as a refuge, as a sanctuary. My State of Washington is one of the top States in the country for refugee resettlement. The reality is we are destroying the very principles of compassion, of humanity, of being a refuge, of building this country with immigrants and refugees.

Literally thousands of people came to the airport to say: We welcome refugees; we welcome immigrants.

This is not the America that we know and love. We are better than this.

This is not the first time I have had to fight against these illegal deportations. After 9/11, we had similar situations, not as bad as this, but we had the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, NSEERS. It required that men from 25 Muslim and Arab countries were going to be fingerprinted and registered. This was under the Bush administration. At the time, Attorney General John Ashcroft said: You are either with the terrorists or you are with us.

That is a false choice, Mr. Speaker. The reality is that security and liberty do not oppose each other. They go hand in hand, and we cannot sacrifice one for the sake of the other.

Mr. Speaker, we were able to fight that, and we finally did end that special registration program, but now here we are again. We know the shame of history when we have not been on the right side of it. We know that in 1942, 125,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were put into internment camps, and it took us a very long time to come back and apologize. Mr. Speaker, when we did, we said we will never do that

again. Yet, here we are for the first time again instituting a religious test as to who can get into this country.

Let us be clear that it is a Muslim ban. It does not mean that every single Muslim country necessarily has been targeted yet. But what it does mean is that Muslims are being scrutinized in a different way simply for being Muslim.

A constituent of mine called my office this week to tell me another very disturbing story, and she told me that I could tell it here on the floor. She was passing through immigration into Houston on her way back home from Seattle. Dr. Angelina Godoy was traveling back from Central America where she was doing research. She is a U.S. citizen. She said she was so alarmed by what happened to her that she wanted to call and get it on the record.

Angelina is a human rights professor and she has traveled through immigration many times. This was the first time she said she had experienced anything like this. Her immigration officer asked her about her political views. When she said that she was deeply concerned about the President's actions, he asked her why she wasn't concerned with all the refugees that were flooding into our borders. And he used that word ``flooding.'' When she said she didn't think that they were flooding in, he told her that she can't tell him that based on the fake news she is seeing on television.

Mr. Speaker, this is incredibly disturbing. Are we going to now check the views of every U.S. citizen who is coming into the our borders to see whether they agree with these executive orders or not?

Well, I am here to tell you that it may be the thought that fear and patriotism together is the way to suppress dissent. We will not be suppressed with fighting for the very values that make us great.

In cities around the country, what gives me hope is that people stood up to stand up against this hatred. The Muslim ban is unconstitutional, and we are standing here today to demand that it be repealed.

You can see here the chart that I referred to earlier. There are 20 steps that you must go through in order to be screened. Syrian refugees are probably the most screened individuals in our country today. And there are 5 million Syrian refugees who are pouring out of the country.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a time to turn our backs on them. This is a time to make sure that we are taking care of the women, the children, the families, the majority of refugees to this country who are women and children and families. The majority who have family members here that they are waiting to be reunited with, that is who we are talking about, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I want to just conclude our earlier Special Order where many of my colleagues spoke out in strong opposition to the Muslim ban that was just signed by President Trump.

I would like to read a short paragraph from the letter that we have now

submitted to Secretary Kelly. It has been signed by over 110 of my colleagues in the House. It requests that we have an immediate emergency meeting and briefing. I include in the Record the entire letter, and I will just read a short portion.

``The Executive Order is both controversial and confusing. For example, the International Rescue Committee called the Order `harmful and hasty' noting `America has the strongest, most successful resettlement program in the world.' Over 4,000 academics, including 25 Nobel Laureates, have signed a petition denouncing the Order, writing `this measure is fatally disruptive to the lives of these immigrants, their families, and the communities of which they form an integral part. It is inhumane, ineffective, and un-American.' ''

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC, February 1, 2017.

Hon. John F. Kelly,

Secretary of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland

Security, Washington, DC.

Secretary Kelly: We write to strongly condemn the

President's executive order issued January 27, 2017, titled

``Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry into the

United States,'' and the ensuing actions taken by the U.S.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its agencies, in

particular Customs and Border Protection (CBP), to implement

the order, and to request an urgent briefing regarding the

same. We hope you will urge the President to immediately

rescind the Executive Order, which has created profound chaos

and fear among refugees and immigrants who have been admitted

to the United States, as well as their families. As a nation

of immigrants that has been a refuge for people fleeing

persecution from around the world, these actions are contrary

to who we are as a nation.

We understand that you met yesterday at 4:30 PM with Chairs

and Ranking Members of relevant Committees to discuss

``recent executive actions.'' You should understand that such

a time limited meeting with a subset of Members and Senators

in no way obviates the need for the briefing we are

requesting for all Members. Such full Member briefings are a

frequent occurrence on Capitol Hill after important events

such as the issuance of the January 27 Executive Order. They

allow all Members to benefit from the knowledge and

experiences of the executive branch so that we may be well

informed in our legislative and oversight affairs and serve

our constituents best. The full Member briefing regarding the

Executive Order is particularly needed given the unsettling

events of last evening--the abrupt firing of Acting Attorney

General Sally Yates and the termination without explanation

of Daniel Ragsdale as acting Director of Immigration and

Customs Enforcement (ICE). The need to brief the full

Democratic.Caucus is also necessary as we now understand that

guidance concerning the January 27 Executive Order has been

provided to Members of the Republican Conference, but not the

Democratic Caucus. According to yesterday's Washington Post,

``substantive guidance [concerning the Executive Order was

given] to congressional Republicans . . . late Saturday. . .

. In a two-page memo that offered some details on the policy

. . .''.

The Executive Order harms our families, economy, and

national security. Over the weekend, individuals--some of

whom have been lawful permanent residents for decades--were

found stranded outside the United States, leaving families in

turmoil. Technology companies, including industry leaders

like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, report that the Executive

Order could directly impact their employees and hinder their

ability to attract the best talent from around the world. In

addition, the policy reflected in the Executive Order is

counterproductive to our national security. We understand

that scores of American diplomats stationed across the globe

are drafting a formal ``dissent memo'' to register their

objections, stating that the order will ``not achieve its aim

of making our country safer'' and will instead result in a

``drop in international good will towards Americans and a

threat to our economy.'' We need to develop relationships

with Muslim countries and others seeking to combat terrorism.

Unfortunately, the Order alienates many of the groups we need

to have working alongside us.

The Executive Order is both controversial and confusing.

For example, the International Rescue Committee called the

Order ``harmful and hasty'' noting ``America has the

strongest, most successful resettlement program in the

world.'' Over 4,000 academics, including 25 Nobel Laureates,

have signed a petition denouncing the Order, writing ``[t]his

measure is fatally disruptive to the lives of these

immigrants, their families, and the communities of which they

form an integral part. It is inhumane, ineffective, and un-

American.'' The Order has resulted in widespread confusion,

as hundreds of individuals have been improperly detained at

our airports, at least four federal courts have issued stays

concerning the Order, and protests have broken out at

airports and other venues nationwide. At the time this letter

was sent, 16 State Attorneys General have condemned the

Executive Order.

In the interest of exercising proper Congressional

oversight of DHS and CBP and of holding agencies accountable,

we write to urgently request an emergency briefing this week

with you and others at DHS and the Administration concerning

the Executive Order. Among other things, we would like to

receive the following, either at or in advance of the

briefing:

Any DHS guidance, directive, or policy regarding

interpretation and implementation of the Executive Order,

specifically is it pertains to current visa holders seeking

entry into the United States, visa applicants, lawful

permanent residents, dual citizens, and U.S. citizens, as

well as clarification on the status of the individuals from

the seven designated countries in the Order who are applying

for or renewing immigration benefits.

Details on individuals who have been prevented from

entering the country, including the airport at which they

arrived, location of detention, number provided with

interpretation services, number who have been released broken

down by airport, number of individuals who were sent back

broken down by nationality, and a breakdown of the

immigration status of those being detained and those who were

sent back.

The manner in which DHS is complying with the various

court-issued stays of removal, including the number of

individuals who have been provided access to counsel.

What, if, any accommodations are being considered for

interpreters and translators from the seven designated

nations who have worked with our military and intelligence,

as well as notable academics coming to do research in the