Shontel M. Brown

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Virginia for her leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have broken the economy, and everyday people are paying the price.

Trump and his family, with their tax cuts, stock trades, and new military contracts got rich, while working-class people got the bill.

Earlier this month, in northeast Ohio, our county division of Senior and Adult Services held a return-to-work fair for people over 60. Why? Because older Americans and seniors can no longer afford the rising costs of gas, groceries, and housing.

You see, a lot of people that thought they had enough to retire are realizing Donald Trump had other plans for their golden years.

As one of the women told our local newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer: There is no way around it. We won't make it.

Paying the bills is especially hard when you have also lost your healthcare coverage or your SNAP nutrition assistance.

In Ohio, 259,000 people have lost their healthcare coverage in the last year--259,000. These numbers are staggering, but they are not just numbers, no. These are real people. Now, they are just one illness away from financial ruin, all because the Trump administration and Republican majorities in Congress have enacted the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, along with letting the Affordable Care Act tax credits expire.

Remember last year, the other side of the aisle raised, rushed, and sprinted--sprinted to pass tax cuts for the rich. But when it came to tax credits to help working people afford healthcare, they did nothing, nothing at all.

You see, it is not just healthcare. In Ohio, we are now up to 110,000 people who have lost their nutrition assistance. Nearly every day of the week, we have Trump's Secretary of Agriculture going on TV to brag about this, talking about it like it is a good thing. Spare me. In fact, why don't they come to Cleveland, Ohio, and tell someone who is trying to survive on $7 a day in SNAP benefits that these cuts are a good thing. Tell seniors, who are now having to go to job fairs, that they are living in a golden age. It is insulting.

Meanwhile, we have a confused, corrupt, cruel, and chaotic President roaming around the White House, a President in denial and out of touch.

Here is the bottom line: Americans got poorer last month. Last month, according to official data, inflation was higher than wage growth. That has been true for a lot of people, but it is official now, and that is for the people that actually have jobs, because in Trump's economy, Black unemployment is now 6 percent, twice the rate as White unemployment.

According to the Urban League, because of the job loss and the cuts, Black America is already in a recession.

Did anyone really expect anything different from Trump and a MAGA Republican Congress? Because I know I didn't.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of all of my constituents in Cleveland and northeast Ohio to say that enough is enough is enough. We have to turn this car around before Trump drives us further into a ditch. It is time to cancel the cuts and the illegal wars, stop the corruption, kill the kickbacks and the insider trading, and give the American people their country back.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate the Council of International Programs on seven decades of service and excellence. Founded in Cleveland in 1956 and still headquartered in Ohio's 11th Congressional District today, the Council of International Programs has spent 70 years building bridges abroad through professional exchanges and cultural connections. By welcoming emerging leaders from around the world and connecting them with communities across Northeast Ohio, the organization has strengthened global partnerships, showcased the best of Northeast Ohio, and served as a template for cultural exchange initiatives across America.

On behalf of the people of Ohio's 11th Congressional District, I am proud to recognize the Council of International Programs for its outsized impact and congratulate its leadership, staff, volunteers, and alumni on this remarkable milestone.

Mr. Speaker, as often the case with the current occupant of the White House, it all started with a lie.

Nearly 2 years ago, JD Vance got up off his couch and tweeted a racist smear that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs. Days later, Donald Trump shamelessly repeated it at a Presidential debate.

They knew it was a lie. They knew those families were here legally. They knew they were working, raising children, paying taxes, and helping rebuild a community.

None of that mattered because the point was never to tell the truth. The point was to make Americans fear Haitians, to turn them into scapegoats, to convince the country that Black immigrants were the source of their problems.

JD Vance admitted that he was willing to ``create stories'' to advance his political agenda.

We all saw what happened next: Springfield was terrorized. Schools were closed. Bomb threats poured in. White supremacists descended on the city.

So families lived in fear because two of the most powerful politicians in America decided that a racist smear was politically useful. They never apologized. Instead, they spent 2 years putting that lie to work and turning it into government policy. Now, that campaign of fear is the official policy of our government.

Last week, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to terminate the Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS, for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, not because Haiti is safe, not because the facts have changed, but because this administration wants more people for ICE to deport.

Haiti remains consumed by political collapse and humanitarian disaster. The conditions that justified TPS still exist.

These are people who care for our seniors, build our community, and pay billions in taxes. They followed the rules. They trusted the American promise. Now, they are being told that a racist political narrative matters more than the law they followed to a T.

This is not who we are, America. The House has already passed the bill extending TPS because the facts demand it and because decency requires it.

Now, the Senate must pass it before the mass deportation tears lives and communities apart, all because of a racist, reckless, bigoted, blatant, dishonest, and disgusting campaign lie.

Big Ugly Law Anniversary

Mr. Speaker, while families are struggling to keep up with rising prices for food, housing, gas, and utilities, this President is focused on something else entirely different--himself.

He is spending taxpayer dollars on a lavish White House ballroom. He is tearing up the reflecting pool for another vanity project. He is putting his name and image on anything he can.

While Americans are tightening their belts, Donald Trump is building monuments to himself.

One year later, Republicans are still celebrating what they call the President's signature legislative achievement.

That law ripped healthcare away from millions of Americans, cut food assistance for families and children, made it harder to afford college--all to hand out massive tax breaks to the wealthiest people in America.

It was a transfer of wealth from working people to wealthy people.

Mr. Speaker, 17 million Americans have lost healthcare. More than 4 million Americans, including 800,000 children, have already lost access to basic food assistance.

Meanwhile, the wealthiest 0.1 percent received tax cuts worth nearly a quarter million dollars just last year.

I will ask the simple question: How has Trump's big, ugly law helped the American people? As far as I can tell, it is just welfare for the wealthy and well-connected.

Meanwhile, we have gotten higher prices, higher inflation, slower job growth, and an economy that works even better for those already on top.

Republicans called it the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. I call it a big, ugly law, because there is nothing beautiful about taking healthcare and food away from families to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.

Happy anniversary to Trump's signature achievement. One year later, the verdict is in: Working families paid the price, and the wealthiest Americans cashed the check.