John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I was trying to add up the number of times that we have been here on floor over the last decade to talk about infrastructure. I suspect it is maybe 20 or 30 times that we have talked about it, and this last weekend, guess what happened on Monday. The President decides to talk about infrastructure. So here we are. On Tuesday, we are going to pick up the issue of infrastructure. Let me just take a quick tour. Since they don't allow movies or slides here on the floor, we are going to run through these fast. Some of you remember this. This was 1 year ago yesterday when the Oroville Dam spillway gave way and we had the biggest waterfall in the entire world. It came very close to wiping out 200,000 people--bad maintenance problem. Or maybe this one. This is not the bridge to nowhere. This is the Interstate 5 bridge between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. It collapsed, and I-5 didn't work. Or maybe this one. Oh, I think you have heard about this. That would be the water in Flint, Michigan. Still haven't solved the entire problem, but maybe several thousand kids and families were drinking contaminated water, water contaminated with lead. And I didn't need to go all the way back to Flint, Michigan, to find a problem. In my own State of California, many communities are facing the same problem: either contaminated water or no water. We have got an infrastructure problem: dams breaking, bridges falling, water contaminated. Are you wondering why? Well, this is illustrative. You see, way, way back in 1973, we were spending somewhere about $10 billion a year on clean water and sanitation, drinking water. And over the years, we have seen a decline. This is constant dollars, 2014 dollars. We have seen a decline in the purchasing power so that, in 2016, we were somewhere around $2 billion, so from 10 to 2. Do you wonder why we have a problem? We are not spending the money on it. And so the American Society of Civil Engineers comes out with an annual report card. Now, if your kids sent home this report card, you might have a serious conversation with them. So Donald Trump comes into office and, whoa, we have got an infrastructure problem. And he comes up with a solution to address this report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers: oh, aviation, D; bridges, C-plus; dams, D; drinking water, D. Let's go over here; rail is a B. That is good. But most of those are private companies. Ports, a C-plus; parks and recreation, D; schools, a D-plus; solid waste, transit, D, D, D, all the way down. Yep, we have got a problem. We have got a serious problem. And so what does it mean if we were to solve the problem? Well, here, let's solve that problem. We will turn this around. Well, the problem is all of those D's that you saw. So what if we were to spend $1--how about $1 billion--on transportation infrastructure, the return to the economy is somewhere around $3.54; or, for every $1 billion that we invest in transportation and infrastructure, 21,671 jobs. A 6-year bill with at least $100 billion of annual funding supports 2.18 million American jobs. Now, what is it that our esteemed President proposed? Well, here is his infrastructure plan: He cuts more than $168 billion over the next 10 years from existing transportation and infrastructure programs. He provides Wall Street with an opportunity to invest and slashes the Federal investments and passes the buck to the cities and the counties in the State. That is his infrastructure plan. Oh, did I tell you he said he had $200 billion that he was going to use to leverage $1.3 trillion of private money? Well, it doesn't really work. And we are going to talk about that because what actually happens, that $200 billion that is so beautiful, so awesome, incredible--what is it? Well, let's see. I have already said that, from the highway safety programs, total, $122 billion; from the TIGER grants, which are very popular, that go out to local entities to build specific transportation programs like intermodal--train, bus, rail, highway stations--cuts that by $5 billion; Amtrak, cuts that by $7.5 billion over the next 10 years; rural air service, cuts by $590 million; the Army Corps of Engineers, cuts that by $10.1 billion over the next years. These are real programs. So what is that $200 billion that the President takes such pride in presenting to the American public? It is money that is already spent on infrastructure projects. There is zero-- no, nada, no new money. He is simply taking money from those programs that I just described and transferring it to a new set of programs that, well, he will probably put T-R-U-M-P in gold across the top of it and say: Look what we have done. All you have done is to create administrative chaos. Not one nickel of new money. It is the repurposing of existing dollars and transferring it to new programs which, instead of 80 percent Federal money to 20 percent local money, he flips it on its head, and now the Federal Government will spend 20 percent and the local governments and State governments will spend 80 percent. Huh? How does that work? Where is the Federal investment? No new money. And instead of the Federal Government being the big partner, the Federal Government becomes the minor partner. What is that all about? Well, unless you happen to be a Wall Street baron and you want to buy Dulles Airport, in which case his program would pony up 80 percent of the money and the private investor would put up 20 percent of the money; and I guarantee air travelers, international and domestic, would be thoroughly paying higher fees for the privilege of going to Dulles, which is now a private airport. It doesn't make much sense. Or maybe you want to travel on Interstate 5 from Mexico to Canada. He would propose that we turn Interstate 5, all the way up the West Coast, into a privately held toll road, of which, presumably, 80 percent would be paid for by some loan or some grant from the Federal Government and 20 percent by some Wall Street investors. Final point, and then I want to turn to my colleagues, as I said, we have been here on the floor perhaps 20 or 30 times over the last several years talking about infrastructure. I will tell you this: The Democrats are proposing a better deal for America. We want to invest in America, and we want it made in America. Oh, by the way, in the President's proposal is the elimination of the Buy America standards and the Davis-Bacon fair wage program. So we have a better way of doing it, and we are going to spend a little bit of tonight talking about how we might have a better real deal for America, not some fake program that doesn't have any new money. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the Congressman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) to talk about infrastructure.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, there are so many things that we are going to talk about over the next several months. The President did a good thing by putting the infrastructure program on the front burner. Now, obviously, from what I have said this last hour and my colleagues, Mr. Cicilline, Mr. Payne, and Mr. Price, the proposal doesn't fly. It is not a solid proposal that will solve the problems of America in a way that is good for the people you just talked about, the working men and women and the families of America. But we can work together on this, the program that the Democrats have put out, A Better Deal for America, an infrastructure plan that includes all of the elements. We haven't talked about broadband and the availability of broadband in rural areas, which I happen to represent, high-speed internet, but that is also a problem in the urban areas. We have a common interest in a good, solid infrastructure plan. Unfortunately, we are looking at the deficit hawks returning. They disappeared last November and December when the tax bill went through. In fact, the President's budget contemplates a $1 trillion deficit each and every year for the next 10 years. So where's the money? Well, $1.5 trillion wound up in the top 1 percent and for the American corporations and the LLCs and golf courses, as you said. That is money that could have been used for the infrastructure, building the foundation for economic growth, educating, reeducating, teaching the skills. Now, the President mentioned that in his address on infrastructure, and good. But where's the money? Show me the money. Well, it is a shell game. It ends one program, starts a new one. Administrative chaos will ensue. We need real, solid investment, and we can do it. The proposals are there. And we are going to talk about this every week, every day, every community meeting. We are going to talk about the tax scam and where the money went. We are going to talk about the wealthy getting wealthier. We will talk about income inequality and the way in which it invests, it actually creates more. And we are going to talk about the great missed opportunities: education, highways, water systems, sanitation systems, ports, multimodal. That is what we need to do. Mr. Speaker, I am losing my voice, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Cicilline seems to have prompted some energy and excitement for Mr. Payne. It seems as though he wanted to jump in and say a few more words. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, is the gentleman saying that the President's budget is inconsistent with the President's transportation plan? In the transportation plan he talks about new starts, new programs, and so forth, but he is eliminating those in the budget, transferring that money over to the new programs that I guess he wants to call the Trump programs. Is that what is happening here?

Mr. GARAMENDI. The tri-State entity comes up, in this case, as the gentleman said, 50 percent. But that is not good enough. He wants 20 percent Federal and 80 percent tri-State. It is a formula for a major disaster for America's infrastructure, because it is not just tunnels and Amtrak, it is water systems. It is repairing the Flint system, repairing the Chowchilla water system in California; it is the flood control. It goes on and on and on. Unless, of course, you happen to be a Wall Street investor, and you want to--well, let's say you want to build that tunnel. Well, the Federal Government will give you 80 percent. You come up with 20 percent. And by the way, what is going to be the cost to the commuter? So none of this makes much sense, except for one thing. Thankfully, the President, after a year plus, has come forward with a plan. We will work with that. We will take his bad plan, we will do a judo move on it, we will flip it, and then we will build a definite program for America. Let's call it a better deal for America, a better infrastructure plan. What do you think? Can we do that, Mr. Payne? I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, there are so many things we need to talk about. First of all, that $200 billion is simply repurposing existing programs, and they are laid out here. The highway fund, $122 billion reduced, transferred over to his new program, which is really, really strange. He calls it $100 billion of innovation. Who is going to determine what is innovative? Who is going to determine what is going to be funded? A whole new administrative and serious chaos is going to occur--TIGER grants, gone, Amtrak. Mr. Payne was just talking about Amtrak and the importance here in the Northeast corridor. I am from California, but I have got to tell you, I care a great deal about Amtrak because that is how I like to get from Washington to New York City. That is the best way to do it. Airplanes are fine, but, actually, Amtrak is just faster if you want to get downtown to downtown. But not to worry. He is going to privatize Reagan and Dulles. And you think that is going to work out well for us? Oh, if you want to pay more money, yes. Rural air service. Army Corps of Engineers, extremely important to us on the West Coast, in my district. I have quite possibly the highest flood potential of any place outside of New Orleans, and we depend upon this, and yet they are going to cut it by $10 billion. It goes on and on and on. This is just the beginning of what is proposed. It is a massive shell game. The money is under this shell. No, the money is under that shell. It is the same money back and forth. We need a real program, and I am so pleased that you and your colleagues put together a real trillion-dollar program. It is solid. It is foundational. And what an opportunity was missed in this wonderful Christmas gift that the President gave to whom? The top 1 percent and American corporations. Ponder this for a moment: For every 1 percent reduction in the Federal corporate tax rate, it is $100 billion. Corporations and the Chamber of Commerce were saying from 35 take it down to 25 percent. No. Our Republican colleagues and the President went all the way to 21 percent. Let's see, 25, 21, 4--4 percentage points. That is $400 billion over 10 years. Think of the possibilities if, instead of that money flowing to corporations who apparently are going to use that money for stock buybacks and dividends, not for new investments--oh, excuse me. They did say they had increased the wages. Do a careful study. Most of those wage increases are in States and localities that have increased the minimum wage. So $400 billion right there. Could it have been used? Yes. Foreign earnings? Mr. Delaney, 40 Democrats, 40 Republicans put on the floor a proposal to repatriate those foreign earnings back here to the United States, very low tax rate, far lower than what is in the tax bill if that money was going into an infrastructure bank, into investments, real investments in America. Mr. Speaker, I know Mr. Cicilline has worked long and hard on this. I would like to hear more. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I do need to move on to Mr. Cicilline here, but Mr. Payne was asking about the water systems. Just look at real dollars, 2014 dollars, where the Federal investment has gone over the last 25 years, almost 30 years. So no wonder that we are not repairing and rebuilding. Mr. Speaker, let me turn to Mr. Cicilline who, together with his teammates, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Bustos) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), developed a way of describing what it is we need to do. Last week, Mr. Cicilline took on this issue of transportation, infrastructure, generally, and made a proposal. Could the gentleman share with us. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the incredible life of Donald L. Christians. Donald L. Christians recently marked his 90th birthday. His is an American story of the last century in which an adventuresome, generous soul migrates from a small farming community to cities and broader global experience. Don looked back on Grafton, Iowa where he grew up (recent census of 252) and wrote Homer's Whip, that depicted a tiny prairie town with timeless small-town values. At the same time, he embraced the diverse world. During his second year at Luther College he enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War II, and served 1\1/2\ years in the occupational forces in Japan in 1946 when he was just 18. Like so many farm boys, his world was transformed. Upon discharge, Don finished college with a degree in political science from the University of Northern Iowa in 1950 and later earned a Master's Degree from Northern Colorado University. Don headed to California in 1955, settling in North Beach, living the life of jazz, card playing, bocce ball, horse racing, and writing, while beginning his 29-year career teaching in the San Francisco Unified School District. There he met and married the artist/fellow teacher, Joan Clay, in 1960 and they spent their honeymoon driving a VW Camper Van to Tierra Del Fuego in Chile. Both often taught the most challenging students to whom they devoted their creativity, respect, and good humor. In 1967, Don was appointed Associate Director of the Peace Corps Program in Ethiopia where Don and Joan lived until 1969 where Don was assigned to support the work of volunteers in a remote region of the country. He was extremely effective in all aspects of this assignment. He mentored volunteers in the classroom and in school protocol and interaction, e.g., with headmasters who required extensive memorization even though the students did not have pencils or paper. He also modeled the expected interaction with the broader community. His expertise, life experience, and winning manner made him the ideal person to relate to volunteers, faculty, administrators, townspeople, as well as the Peace Corps bureaucracy. He supported volunteers who undertook ambitious, often impactful projects that departed from the mainstream and served as the trusted confidant of Peace Corps Ethiopia leadership, shaping policy for the Program as a whole. In 1969, Don was appointed Country Director Peace Corps Dominican Republic. Visitors recall Don selling co-op crafts to tourists on cruises on Christmas Day. Don and Joan remained in the Dominican Republic until they were recalled by President Nixon and Don worked on the Muskie campaign until Don and Joan returned to San Francisco in 1973. Don taught high school Civics for 29 years, retiring from Galileo High School in San Francisco in 1986 where he was beloved as an inspiring teacher by a wide range of students. Over the years Don made an enormous number of friends from his many interests and vocations, reflecting his enthusiasm and variety of interests. He and Joan owned shares in 22 race horses and had particular success with ``Mac Rhapsody'' and ``Pleasure Grounds''. Don worked at Golden Gate Fields as a mutuel clerk. He wrote numerous articles for horse magazines and hosted a radio program for 5 years on KWMR in West Marin interviewing authors. After Joan's passing, he met Neva Beach, a book editor, and they were together until her passing in 2010. Don has been living with their dog Cody in San Francisco's colorful Mission District since he met Neva and they were often seen feeding homeless men and women in a local park as well as taking neighborhood children to zoos and museums. Don loves bridge and bocce ball and excels at both. He was a member of the Marin Bocce Ball team that won the Northern California Seniors championship, and he played in bridge tournaments around the U.S. as a Silver Life Master. He places bets on horseraces and plays bridge online every day when he is able. On behalf of the people of California's Third District, I commend Donald L. Christians on his distinguished life and wish him the best in the coming years.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, with all the things that are happening in Washington, it is pretty easy to feel concerned and to lose faith in what it is that we are doing here. It is language, questions of racism, questions of tax policy, winners, losers. Mr. Speaker, I decided today to be optimistic, to be upbeat, and to say: Hey, there really are things that we can do if we just put our minds to it and begin to work together. Before I start these sessions on the floor, I always like to ground myself in what is it that I would like, and that I would like my colleagues, to accomplish. I always turn to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who brought us through the Great Depression and the Great War. Etched in the marble at his memorial here in Washington, D.C., are these words: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much . . . .'' I probably ought to repeat that. ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'' I always want to start with that because it grounds me as I look at the multiple opportunities we have here to do just this: add more to those who have much. For example, the tax bill that passed just before Christmas and was signed into law clearly does more for those who have much. Well over 80 percent of the $1.5 trillion--actually, far more than that--that were involved in the tax giveaway went to the superwealthy and America's major corporations. But I said I was going to be positive and I didn't want to drag all of us down further in that tax scam, but what I really want to talk about is what we can do to add for those who have too little. So let me start with that. My Democratic colleagues and I have been talking for the better part of 6 months now about a better deal for America, things that we can do to improve the lot of everyday Americans so we can provide enough for those who have too little. We all know that middle class America has stalled out over the last 20 years. So we set up a series of policies, programs, and legislation to improve the situation for working men and women of America, for those who clearly have too little and those who are struggling every day to meet their mortgage, keep their kids in school. So it is really about investing in America and making it in America, a series of programs and policies. I am not going to talk about all of those tonight, but I want to focus on this one: making it in America and investing in America. Before I go on to explain more about it, the rest of the program, really, is this: better jobs, better wages, and a better future. So when we talk as Democrats about a better deal, a better deal for America, we are really talking about these three fundamental things: better jobs, better wages, and, therefore, a better future for Americans. There are many different ways that this can be done. One of the principal ones is this: those of you who follow this--and I suspect there are very few of you--but if you have been following these floor sessions that I and others have been doing for the last, in this case, 6 years, we developed this little placard: ``Make It In America. Manufacturing Matters.'' It is pretty fundamental. Over the years, we have looked at the hollowing out of the great manufacturing centers of America. Some people like to say it is the Rust Belt. Well, the Rust Belt is coming back, and it can come back, roaring back, if we pay attention to the policies that create manufacturing opportunities. The President has talked about this, but, unfortunately, the policies that actually have emanated from the administration, in many cases, harm the manufacturing sectors--I am the ranking member of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee--maritime, ocean, inland waterways, the great Mississippi, the Ohio River system, the Great Lakes of America; and, of course, the coasts; the harbors, New York Harbor; Charleston; the harbors in Florida and across the Gulf Coast; in California, the great harbors of San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, and the San Francisco Bay Area; and further North, Oregon and up into Washington. These maritime opportunities are enormous. And, unfortunately, we, far too often, ignore those opportunities. And so on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we are trying to focus on ways in which we can actually rebuild the great American maritime industry. If you go back in the history of this Nation, back to its very earliest days, in the early policies of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, they set out policies to encourage the maritime industry. By the way, for those of you who really want to know where the first inheritance tax came into being, it was John Adams. He actually put the inheritance tax in place to build a frigate for the U.S. Navy. So it goes way, way back. That takes me back to tax policy, and I said I wouldn't deal with that too much, but it is hard to ignore the fact that it was a very bad tax bill for the working men and women. One of the reasons it was a bad tax bill is that we need to build our infrastructure. There is going to be a lot of talk here in the next several weeks about the President's infrastructure plan--$1 trillion infrastructure plan. Good idea. Let's do it. What was that movie? That famous line? ``Show me the money.'' It disappeared. It disappeared in that tax bill. Where did it go? It went to the superwealthy. Maybe they will build the infrastructure. I am sure the top 1 percent, the top 10 percent, would be happy to build a road if, of course, they could charge a fee to get the people who use the road to pay that fee. But that doesn't make much sense. I will take you back to Alexander Hamilton and George Washington. They put into America's public policy, in the very first Presidency, a road-building policy, and it has, more or less, been with us over the years where the public pays for this in fees and services. But the money disappeared. It is gone. It is gone in the tax cut. It is not there. $200 billion will be discussed over the next several weeks. Where are you going to get $200 billion in this year's budget? More than $150 billion disappeared now in the tax scam. So maybe they can find it somewhere. The military wants another $50 billion, and, of course, there are healthcare services, and there is a need for education and so forth. So here is what we can do without going into the budget bill, without trying to find new money, but, rather, to use a public policy that was first enunciated and written into law when the Arctic opened. Do you remember the North Slope of Alaska back in the 1960s, when the U.S. Government decided to allow oil drilling on the North Slope of Alaska? It was written into that law that allowed for the pipeline to be built from the North Slope down to Valdez in southern Alaska, that all of the oil that would come through that pipeline would have to be on American- built ships with American sailors. And guess what? Ships were built, mariners were hired, and oil was put on those tankers and shipped into the American ports. Later, that oil was shipped offshore to Japan. And over the years, the petroleum industry was able to whittle away at that requirement of American ships built in America with American mariners. And so today, there is no requirement that any oil developed in the United States, any natural gas developed in the United States and exported, be on American-built ships. So what does it mean? It means that ships are coming into our ports to take a strategic national asset, our oil and our natural gas. It is being put on a foreign-built ship with foreign sailors, foreign mariners who come and go, who don't pay taxes in the United States; ships that are not built in the United States with American steel, American-made engines, and all of the electronics and pumps, and all of the other equipment, not made in America. So here is the deal. What if we decided to go back to the future? What if we decided the future ought to be like the past, and this strategic national asset be used to rebuild our shipyards, to employ our mariners, to give us in the United States the ability to build commercial ships of all sizes, and, at the same time, enhance the productivity of our shipyards as they build our U.S. Naval vessels and our Coast Guard vessels? What if we were to do that? Well, we would employ thousands of people in the shipyards; our steel companies operating, taking ore from the North, bringing it to the steel mills, manufacturing that steel for the shipyards, the engines that go into those ships--which, by the way, are maybe about a quarter of the size of this room. I mean, huge diesel engines--and all of the other pumps and all of the other equipment, what if we were to do that? Why not? What would that mean? Well, let's see. We could make it in America, or they could continue to be built in China, Korea, India, but not in America. Here is the deal: all we need to do is to write a law. All we need to do is to go back and copy the law that was written in the 1960s that required that the oil from the North Slope of Alaska, coming down the pipeline to Valdez, be on American ships. That is all we have to do. And if we were to do that, wow, we would employ thousands of people in our shipyards. We would have thousands of men and women on those ships across the oceans delivering a strategic national asset to far places in the world, to Japan, to China, and to beyond. It is possible. Our work here is to have a better deal for America, a better deal for Americans, policies that lead to the employment of Americans, policies that help to rebuild our steel industry, that bring strength back into our shipyards so that we can provide the jobs. We are not talking about minimum-wage jobs here. We are talking about jobs that are at the higher echelon of the middle wages, of middle America. We are talking about skill sets, welders, pipefitters, steamfitters. We are talking about engineers who design these ships. We are talking about marine architects. We are talking about the financing of these. We are talking about thousands upon thousands of jobs spread out across America, and all we need to do is to go back, visit the past, bring it forward into law, and make sure that a strategic national asset is used to bring jobs to America. It would be nice if 100 percent of that oil and gas were on American- built ships, but, frankly, the American shipyards don't have the capacity to do it. Now and probably never would they have the capacity to build all of the ships that are necessary. Right now, at a facility in Texas, the Sabine Pass, a company called Cheniere Energy is shipping natural gas taken from the ground in the United States, brought to Texas, put on ships that are taking that natural gas all around the world--most of it going to Asia. That natural gas could also go to Europe, and if we were to work out a deal with the European Union and the countries in Europe, we would use that natural gas as a strategic asset to put in place in those countries of Europe that now have to depend upon gas from Russia. And let's understand this. Russia is using their natural gas as a lever against the European Union and against the Europeans as we try to build our relationship with Europe. So how many ships are being used? Probably when that one export facility in Texas is up and operating at its full capacity, it will take over 100 LNG tankers to meet the demands of that one export facility. Now, it happens that there are five--maybe six, but certainly five--new export facilities that are being licensed around the United States: one in Maryland, not too far from Washington; another in Oregon; and others in other parts of the coastal areas of the United States. So how many ships? We don't know for sure. But I do know this: if, over the next 10 years, we were to require that just 15 percent--well, let's make this over the next 20 years--that just 15 percent of the expected export of LNG were to be on American-built ships, we would, in American shipyards, build at least 25 ships. And these are not small, little tugboats. We are talking about major oceangoing LNG tankers. Now, for the crude oil, if just 10 percent of the crude oil were on American-built ships, by 2032, we would have 31 ships built here in America. So we are talking well over 50 ships built in the United States. To put this in context, major, deep-draft ships built in America's shipyards over the last 3 years, the average number of ships, deep draft--these are big ships--built in American shipyards has been in the range of 10 to 12 ships. Eight of those are for the U.S. Navy; maybe three have been for the commercial fleet. So we are talking about the potential for a very significant expansion of work in American shipyards if we were to write just a couple of lines of law to require that, beginning in 2022, just 1 percent of the natural gas be on American-built ships. That would bring three ships in. And then they would ramp it up over time, increasing the percentage: 3 percent by 2026, 10 percent by 2034--that would be 16 ships--and 15 percent by 2040. So that would be 25 ships built in America carrying LNG, liquified natural gas. For crude oil, let's start at 1 percent. That would be three ships; 4 percent by 2026, 12 ships; 8 percent by 2029, 24 ships; and 10 percent by 2032, and that would be 31 ships. This is the art of the possible. What does it mean for America? It means good middle class jobs. I will give you another example. This is a locomotive, an electric locomotive built in Sacramento. Some 70 of these locomotives were built for the railroads for Amtrak here in the East on the Eastern corridor. It took probably more than 1,000 jobs in Sacramento, California, to build these locomotives. One hundred percent American made. How did that happen? Do you remember back in the Great Recession in 2009, Congress--Democrats, without Republican support--put in place the stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? Some $800 million were set aside to provide locomotives for the East Coast, for the Eastern corridor. Most companies said: We don't build locomotives anymore. So General Electric and GM just waved off the possibility. But in Sacramento, there was this German company called Siemens that was building light railcars, transit cars and the like, at a newly established plant in Sacramento, California. They looked at it and said: $800 million, 100 percent American made. We are a German company, but we are operating in America. Do you want 100 percent American-made locomotives, the wheels, the electrical engines, the electrical motors, all of the electronics? That German company said: Bring it on. $800 million, they signed the contract, and they produced 70, 100 percent American-made locomotives. So what is the point? The point is, maybe 1,000, maybe a little less, middle class jobs in Sacramento, California, and you can bet that steel wasn't made in California. It came from the Midwest. You can bet that those wheels were made outside of California. The electric motors came in from the East and the Midwest. So this opportunity was spread out all across America. It is exactly the same if we were to require that our liquified natural gas, a strategic American asset, were exported on American-built ships, and the same for the oil that comes from the Bakken up in the North and the Middle American States. All of that is the art of the possible. So we are all about doing this. We are all about making it in America. I will take a couple of seconds, and I am going to give you one more example. For those of us in northern California and anybody who wants to tour San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay Area, you will see a fabulous new bridge spanning the bay from Oakland to San Francisco. It is a beautiful bridge. However, it was a bridge that was built with Chinese steel. It was supposed to be 10 percent cheaper, so they went for the cheap, but they wound up with the crud. They wound up with steel that had weld problems and that had quality problems. It ultimately wound up to be way, way over the budget, and 3,000 jobs and a brand new, high-tech, most advanced steel manufacturing plant perhaps in the world was built in China. No jobs in America, no new steel mill in America, but there was in China. That is what happens when you buy foreign. I guess New Yorkers were a little smarter than my California colleagues. So in New York, they wanted to build a new bridge called the Tappan Zee Bridge. They said: We are going to make it with American steel. It costs $3.9 billion, under budget, and there were 7,728 American jobs. It makes a difference. Public policy makes a difference. If you want jobs in America, then you set about to give Americans a better deal. Public policy and laws, that is our work. We are your Representatives. We ought to be representing you, not the Chinese steel mills. We ought to be representing you, not the shipbuilders in Japan or Korea. We should be representing you, the American people, the people who are working in the shipyards of America. The children of today's shipbuilders need an opportunity to continue the work of their fathers and their grandfathers in America's great shipyards. I will tell you this: our public safety, the security of America, depends upon the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy depends upon shipyards for their ships. The more commercial ships we build in the shipyards, the more competition there will be to build naval ships. So here it is, a better deal. This is what we Democrats are offering. We are offering a better deal. We are going to focus directly on better jobs. Tonight, we have talked about American manufacturing. We talked about making it in America. We talked about making ships in America once again. We are talking about high-paid, middle class jobs in American manufacturing, whether it is the shipyard or whether it is where these great engines are manufactured, wherever it may be in the United States. So better jobs, better wages from these high-quality jobs, and, therefore, a better future for America. So here, while we spend all of our time wondering what the next tweet will be from our President, I want us also to think about the art of the possible, about legislation that provides Americans with a better deal. We will talk more about this in future days, but, right now, I want us all to think about what we can do for America so that we will have a better deal for the working men and women of America. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank Mr. Jeffries, Mr. Cicilline, and Mrs. Bustos for developing the Better Deal program for our caucus. Mr. Speaker, I am going to end where I started. So, for the American people, I want them to know where we are coming from as Democrats: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'' If you want to know where I am coming from, read that sentence. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, it is probably not really appropriate that we get into a rage about the way in which this tax bill purposefully harms contributor States and forces the taxpayers in those States to pay Federal taxes on the taxes that they have paid to the State governments. We could probably go on and on here for some time about the inequities and the harm that this tax bill does, and we certainly should. We should probably come back tomorrow and every day thereafter and tell the American people what has happened to them as a result of this tax scam. In doing so, I really want to thank the gentleman and his two colleagues for developing, within the Democratic Caucus, a set of proposals, legislative proposals, policy changes, that will give the American public a better deal. We can juxtapose that against the tax bill, which is a raw deal for the American working family, but the gentleman has developed a better deal. In the days ahead, I would love to join the gentleman and his colleagues juxtaposing the tax bill against the proposal that it is beneficial to working men and women in America, so perhaps we can do that. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would like to wrap up, I will follow him with a wrap-up. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Something is radically wrong here.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for laying out the essential agenda of the better deal proposal that the Democrats are putting forth. There are many, many elements to this. He mentioned education. Infrastructure is a piece of it, medical care, research, and so forth. Staying with the infrastructure, the Democrats have proposed several different ways to pay for the infrastructure program. Two of those, or one big one, is now gone. American corporations held $1 trillion--I think, almost $2 trillion-- of profits offshore. In the tax, bill that money cannot be retrieved. It is going into the coffers of the corporations if they bring it back to the United States, with a very small tax. One of the proposals brought forward by the Democrats was to repatriate, bring that money back to the United States and use it to support infrastructure, to use it to pay for immediate bonds, that we could then sell those bonds and use that money for infrastructure investment. That, of course, is gone as a result of the tax bill. There is another proposal that really, I think, dovetails with the extraordinary ramp-up of the stock market. A lot of that has to do with transactions, billions of transactions every day. A small fee of less than one one-hundredth of a penny on each transaction would raise billions of dollars and go directly to deal with what is a problem in the stock market, and that is computerized gambling that goes on in the stock market. There are other ways that we have proposed to raise the money, but one of the things that I fear is that the President is going to come up with a plan that saddles working men and women of America with the infrastructure cost. Already, working men and women pay for most of the infrastructure. They are the ones who are driving the cars, paying the fees and so forth. This, we have to tackle. We need to do it in a bipartisan way as Mr. Jeffries has suggested, but we ought to do it in a way that tries to claw back as much of that unnecessary wealth that has been transferred to the superwealthy. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, did I hear the gentleman correctly that an individual who lost their job, for whatever reason, and moves to another State can no longer deduct the moving expense? Is that correct?

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair for the opportunity to talk about a couple of issues here on the floor of the House. I really have two things I want to talk about today. One is the incredible tax bill that was passed by the Congress and signed by the President just before Christmas, a tax bill that has profound effects on the American economy, most of them negative and bad, but also a tax--I will use the word ``scam''--that will really--well, if you happen to be superwealthy, it is terrific. I guess, Mr. Speaker, the President, when he went to his Christmas party at Mar-a-Lago, spoke to his guests, most of whom I suspect were rather wealthy, and he said: I just made you a whole lot richer. Indeed, he did. So we will talk about that in a little more detail. I also want to talk about the ongoing Mueller investigation. On the floor of the House, from time to time, many of my colleagues from the Republican side come here to the floor, or on cable television, and attack Mueller, attack the FBI, and anybody else who happens to be standing nearby, in an effort to discredit the special counsel's investigation of what happened in the 2016 Presidential election. It seems to me that here in America, since the very first days of our constitutional government, we have always said that we are a country of laws and that the laws dictate what we do. We are not a country of individuals that dictate what happens but, rather, a country of laws. What is happening here in this effort to discredit the Mueller investigation is to move away from that nearly century and a half of profound importance in how people govern themselves not by the will of an emperor or the will of a king or even the will of a President, but we govern ourselves by the laws that are enacted by elected representatives: Senators, Members of the House of Representatives, in the case of the National Government, or legislatures, county commissioners, county supervisors, or city council members. We are a country ruled by laws that are enacted by the citizens; however, the effort to discredit, to derail, to stop the investigation of the appropriate entity--in this case, the Department of Justice, acting through the special counsel--is contrary to the fundamental foundation of the way in which we govern ourselves. That is to say that that discrediting, that effort to stop the investigation of whether laws were broken, disobeyed, or not followed completely undermines the foundation of our government and our relationship as individuals. None of us want to be subject to the whims of an individual like a king or an emperor or a President. We want them--in this case, the President--to act through the law, that is, to follow the law and, in this case, an agency within the executive branch, the Department of Justice, to carry out its responsibility to determine if the laws have been followed, if there has been a breach of law, if there has been some other element that is contrary to the rule of law. It is that simple. So I would ask my Republican colleagues here in the House of Representatives and in the Senate and those who are constantly on cable television who are attempting to knock down the Mueller investigation, to discredit his investigation, to discredit the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies of the Federal Government to slow down, to stand back, and to let the operation that is fundamental to our well-being, that operation of enforcing the law to occur and see where it goes, let the investigation play itself out and not get caught up in questions of whether the Steele dossier was the reason for the investigation. It was not. Clearly, today, we have learned from Senator Feinstein, whom I thank and whom all of us should thank, for making public the 10 hours of testimony from Fusion GPS available for all of us to see so that we can, as individuals, judge the validity of the charge that has been made that somehow the Steele investigation is all that this is about. It is not. It was not and is not. It is about information that came to the FBI from multiple sources, including counterintelligence information developed by our intelligence agencies. That then led to the investigation and eventually to the establishment of a special counsel. So take a deep breath. Let this process unfold. Let the facts lead the way. Let the development of those facts be done, and let us then judge the outcome of the investigation. It seems to me that a lot of the heat that has been put on the FBI and the Mueller team comes from a fear that there is something to fear. So the question should be asked: What is it that you fear? Why is it that you are doing so much to try to waylay, discredit, stop the investigation? Is there something that you know that the American public should know? Is there something that you fear that Mr. Mueller will find out about the 2016 Presidential campaign, about connections to Russia? Do you know something that would cause you to so aggressively try to stop the investigation? Perhaps you do, in which case, come to the floor and share with us. I will let it go at that. It just seems to me that we ought to recognize that we are a nation of laws. We are not a nation of a king or an emperor or of a President. We are a nation of laws in which the President's task is to faithfully carry out the Constitution and the laws. If you don't like the laws, come here and change them or go to the Supreme Court and get a ruling that somehow that law is not constitutional. That is the way we should do it. So enough of that. I have taken a few moments to look at this profoundly important issue about the very nature of government in the United States. Let me take up another issue, which I actually opened on for just a few moments, and that was tax policy. I have stood here on the floor before, many times, and talked about the tax bill as it was being developed, and I raised the alarm that somehow this tax bill would not be good for American families and working men and women in America. I always want to start this discussion with this placard. Those of you who have followed me on the floor may have seen it before, but I want to frame what I am concerned about. I want you to understand the scope of this discussion and why it is of concern. I found this to be an extremely useful way to frame my values and, I think, to frame the values of my colleagues in the Democratic Party. What is it that we want to accomplish? What is the value that we put forth? What is our goal? What are we trying to do with our public policy statements? What did we attempt to do with our unanimous opposition to the tax bill that the House of Representatives and the Senate passed and the President signed? This is the framework. If you would, this is the statement of values. It comes from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That is actually etched in marble at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial here in Washington, D.C. These are his words: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much.'' Let me repeat that: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'' For myself, and I know for my Democratic colleagues, this is the touchstone. These words are the touchstone about our policies, about the programs that we push forward. These words are the touchstone that give us a foundation upon which we then analyze the legislation and come to a conclusion to vote ``yes'' or ``no.'' In our analysis of the tax scam, we found that that legislation, now law, failed this test. It failed the fundamental test. Did that legislation help those who have little or did it add to the abundance of those who have much? The answer is this from the Joint Tax Committee: during the 10-year life of this legislation, the result of the tax scam is that 83 percent of the $1.5 trillion goes to the top 1 percent. How can that be? How could it be that a piece of legislation that has been enacted and is now the law of the land will, over the next decade, shift more than $1.5 trillion to those who are already the richest men and women in this Nation, if not in this world? Why? Why would we add a king's ransom--no, a national ransom--to those who already have 80 percent of the wealth of this Nation? Why would we do that? Why? Why would we ignore this test? We didn't. We Democrats did not. We said ``no'' 186 times because it fails the fundamental test of fairness. We know across this Nation, it is in economic study after economic study, that America has concentrated wealth in the handful of the top 1 percent to an extent only seen once in America's history before this time, and that was the Gilded Age at the turn of the 19th century. Never, other than now and then, did so few have such a high concentration of America's wealth. Now, there are those who would argue that is a good thing because all of that wealth will be spent and trickle down to the rest of America. There is not one economic study anywhere that says that trickle down will actually happen; but, rather, what the tax scam bill does is to continue the concentration of wealth for the next decade. So what of the poor, what of the elderly, what of the students in school who are borrowing vast sums of money so they can get an education? What of the men and women who have been able to acquire a health insurance policy through the Affordable Care Act because they were able to have that cost of the premium subsidized? What of those people? The working men and women of America were dealt a very, very bad hand. But, Mr. Speaker, as the President said when he walked into his club for a Christmas party after signing the bill: I have made you so much wealthier. So here we are. We had meetings today with military. We need to build new nuclear bombs. We need to build new missiles. We need new ships. We need new tanks. Whether they do or not, you can debate, but there is an incredible demand for money from the military. By the way, we need to fight wars. We need to prepare for conflict on the Korean Peninsula. Need, need, need, we need--yes, they do need. Not all of it. I would disagree with much of it, but nonetheless, enormous demand. And in this tax bill, where is the money for that? Where is the money for the military? If you are a military hawk, ask yourself: Where is the money? It went to the top 1 percent and American corporations that already had $2.5 trillion of cash stashed away in their treasury. They didn't need more money. They were not even investing what they had, yet they received even more as a result of this tax scam. So what is the purpose of all of this? Oh, did I mention that in this bill--for that family out there that was able to get health insurance for the first time so they could have a baby, so they could have an operation that they needed, so they can have continuing access to preventative care, do you know what was in this bill? Do my colleagues understand what was in this bill? Six, seven, eight million of our American families will lose their health insurance as a result of this bill, and all the rest of us are going to wind up paying anywhere from 10 to 20 percent more premium cost as a result of the language that was in this bill that restricts and literally guts the Affordable Care Act. A test of our progress. So what did the tax scam do? It shifted a king's ransom--excuse me--a Presidential ransom to those who already have much, the top 1 percent. There you have it, 83 percent of it. And it purposely harms millions of Americans because they will lose their health insurance as a result of the language of this bill that guts the Affordable Care Act's programs. How could it be? How could we do that? We Democrats didn't. We said: No. This is bad public policy. Now, guess what. That was step one of what I like to call the Texas Two Step. Do you know what step two is? Step two is to suddenly wake up and realize: ``Oh, my, we have just added $1.5 trillion plus interest, maybe another 3- or $400 billion of interest to the national debt. Oh, my goodness. We have to do something,'' they say. In fact, it has already been said by our esteemed Speaker. Not the gentleman that is in the chair at this moment, but Mr. Ryan. He has already said: We have to take the next step now. We have to cut entitlements. Oh, my, the entitlements, we have to cut them in order to deal with the huge new deficit that was created by the tax plan. Wait a minute. Mr. Speaker, you just created the deficit and now you want to go after entitlements. Stop. Time out. Do we understand what an entitlement is? Do we know what an entitlement is? Let me tell you. Social Security. Medicare. Oh, we are talking about seniors. Social Security. Seniors. You mean we have got to cut entitlements, Social Security? Oh, Mr. Speaker, that is what you want us to do? You want us to cut Medicare? You are suggesting we do that by raising the eligibility age, not from 65, but maybe 67, 68. Terrific. And you just cut the ability for these people to get health insurance at the same time? How does that calculate? In my mind, it doesn't. Did I mention Medicaid? You know those programs--Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, education--those are entitlements. That is what you want to cut? When 60, 70 percent of Medicaid goes to seniors, nursing homes, other disabled people, extended care, and nursing home facilities, that is what you want to cut? Guaranteed, as sure as I am standing on the floor at this moment, that is the second step. And I am not dreaming this up. These are the words of the Republican leadership in this House and in the Senate. So be prepared, America, there is a critical fight, an absolutely important fight that is taking place in your National Legislature, the Congress of the United States. It is about the very future of this fundamental notion. What are we here for? Are we here for the superwealthy, those who have much? Or are we here for the rest of America? I know where the Democrats are. I know why we are here. I know why we fight every single day for policies that address issues that help those who have little. We respect those who have much. They are wonderful people. Well, not all of them. But that is not our concern. They are doing quite well by themselves. It is those who have little. I see my colleague from New York has joined us. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries.)

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Jeffries very much for his remarks. If he can stick around, maybe we can have a colloquy here and discuss this a little better. Mr. Jeffries and his two colleagues, the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Bustos), developed the Better Deal discussion, and I would like to talk about this in the context of infrastructure. Now, in the next couple of weeks, the President says he is going to deliver to the Congress his infrastructure plan. Well, we know across this Nation that we definitely need infrastructure. He just talked about it a moment ago. And the question will arise: How do you pay for it? This year, right now, the current fiscal year where we are talking about ``can we fund government before it shuts down,'' $150 billion was ripped out of the Treasury. It is gone for the wealthy tax cuts. So where do we get the money to pay for infrastructure? How do we do that? Here is my fear. My fear is that the wealthy 1 percent, top 10 percent, the big corporations have already got their big chunk of the pie, 83 percent of it. Where do you go to get the money? I think that the proposal coming from the President will be to tax fees on folks who are using the transportation system. And who are they? They are the American families. They are the people commuting to work on the trains or in the buses or in the cars. We need to think through how is it that we can do the infrastructure so there are better jobs, better wages, and better life for Americans? Mr. Speaker, I yield to Mr. Jeffries to expand on the way in which the Better Deal proposal that we talked about can accomplish that transportation education.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I was reading the tax bill yesterday, which is not a good read, and I found a provision that was of particular interest to me. Back in the 1990s, I was Deputy Secretary for the Department of the Interior, and we were trying to deal with the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. We have also, since that time, had this little thing called the Deepwater Horizon. There has been a small 9-cents-per-barrel fee that the petroleum industry has been paying for the cleanup of oil spills. The big ones, Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon, there was even more money as a result of the legal action taking care of them. Little oil spills in the rivers and lakes and harbors are cleaned up using that fee. It is about $400 million a year--small, but absolutely essential. In the tax bill, they eliminated that small fee, and it is a $400 million windfall to the petroleum industry. You go: Why would you do that? Who, then, is left to clean up? It is going to be the taxpayer in the State. Mr. Speaker, did the gentleman mention State and local taxes? He is from New York. I am from California. Perhaps the two of us can get in a bit of a rage that the tax bill forces Californians, New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians, and Illinoisans to pay a tax on a tax that they have paid. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. GARAMENDI. However, a corporation that decides to close that plant, that facility, that laid off that individual, and open a factory in China can deduct the cost of doing that?

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's final sentence was ``rushed through.'' There has not been one substantive hearing in either House. There has been a markup hearing, but that is not a substantive hearing. No Democratic amendments have been accepted. Not one economist has been called to testify--not one accountant, not one tax lawyer. No hearings whatsoever. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) to share with us his perspective.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, did I hear Mr. Cicilline correctly that the action taken here on the floor is not dispositive, but has to be modified in the Senate and brought back because they screwed up? Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, this bill would seem to further the skewing of wealth to the wealthy.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Raskin so very much for his remarks. The voice of Maryland is strong and powerful and quite correct. Mr. Raskin spoke of income inequality. The wealthy in America, the top 1 percent, own as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent?

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Cicilline for bringing to our attention some key elements here: The deficit issue, which we will discuss a little longer today. Also, the issue of really growing American jobs: growing wages, growing the future, and creating a better future for American workers. I know that has been the gentleman's passion and his work. We will go through all of those things in the day ahead. This bill may very well become law, but I would surely like to see exactly how the President is going to do with this. I suspect this passthrough business in which he has 500 passthrough corporations--he is not an active investor. He will make out very, very well, and the working men and women of the middle class are going to lose. I am just looking at this. This is the distribution tables from the Joint Committee on Taxation, December 18, 2017. Income category, a distribution of individual income tax side of the proposal. 2019, a small $127 million reduction for everybody making less than $10,000. In 2021, they are actually paying higher taxes. So the very, very bottom, in just 3 years, they are going to pay higher taxes. I notice that my friend from North Carolina has joined us, and I thank him so very much for joining us. I know he has a few things on his mind, as do Mr. Cicilline and I. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) to share with us his views on what has happened today and where we are going.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Price of North Carolina so very much. His thoughtful discussion of this is much appreciated. He mentioned the deficit issue. $1.5 trillion does not include the interest on the $1.5 trillion. So if you were to add the interest to the $1.5 trillion, it would actually probably be over $2 trillion to $2.3 trillion that this will cost. The actual reduction in revenues, $1.5 trillion, interest on top of that another $600 billion or so, so we are looking at something really serious here. I would like to go through some of the numbers. I looked at this. This is not something that is off 10 years from now. This is now. In 2019, the structural deficit that is already in place, without even talking about this additional burden of increased deficit, the underlying structural deficit in 2019 is right around $600 billion. This tax bill will add maybe $250 billion to $300 billion of additional debt in 2019. So we are going to get very close to $1 trillion of deficit in 2019. And, by the way, the military budget is increased by about, I think it is over $50 billion. That is not paid for, so that is additional debt. That is going to be here on the floor tomorrow or the next day. In addition to that, there is this ongoing effort to deal with the hurricanes, fires, and so forth. That is another $120 billion that is not paid for. So if you take $120 billion, you take $50 billion, and you take the $250 billion to $300 billion in the tax bill and you add that to the $600 billion that exists to begin with, in 2019, it will be over $1 trillion of new debt. And I will guarantee that the exodus, the migration of the deficit hawks from Washington, D.C., during December of 2017 will reverse in the warmer weather, coming back next year. And those deficit hawks will come back, they will come back to Congress, and they will go right after the programs that FDR talked about: those who have the least. Our colleague, Mr. DeFazio, from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee talked about what we could do if we had the money in infrastructure or if we had that billion dollars; 15,000 people would be employed. But we won't--we won't--have an infrastructure program, and they will be back here. They will be back here to make cuts in the social safety net, as the Speaker has already said he intends to do. Medicaid, $800 billion to $1 trillion reduction in Medicaid over the next decade. Who are the beneficiaries of Medicaid? We think they are the people on welfare. Well, yes, but some 60 percent of Medicaid recipients are seniors, seniors in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. I thank Mr. Price very much for joining us. I think I am going to stop for just a moment and turn to my colleague from the great State of Maryland. If the gentleman would care to join us, I yield to Mr. Raskin for his remarks.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, that is interesting. Perhaps the House of Lords is in our future. I was just thinking, as Mr. Raskin was talking, of an old comic book that used to be popular. It was one of the Donald Duck comic books, and I remember it was Uncle Scrooge McDuck. I guess, in his treasury, he was playing with the dollars, throwing the coins up into the air. I am wondering if that is what we are really into here. The superwealthy are just accumulating more and more wealth. For the benefit of the economy? Not really. It doesn't trickle down. There is absolutely no evidence that it does. In fact, there is plenty of historic economic evidence that trickle down doesn't work, but pushing up from the bottom would. We could have had a tax bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin).