John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, oh, absolutely. And I would say, also, that maybe it is an oligarch, and maybe we are creating one of those Russian oligarch societies here in which a few who are well connected to this President are going to do very, very well. We are not talking about the Russia thing here today, but it gives me some pause to think: Why are they working so hard to end the Mueller investigation? But that is another subject for another day.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we don't need to guess what they are going to do. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Ryan, has said very clearly that next year will be step two. They will take on what he calls the social safety net: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps. That is where the cuts are going to come. This is not our words. These are the words of the leadership of this House of Representatives, the words of the Speaker.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair for this time to talk about something that is rather important. Something we did today was to pass a horrendous tax cut that doesn't meet this fundamental goal. Really, whenever we legislate here, we really ought to keep in mind our values: What is the purpose? What are we trying to accomplish? What is the goal? What is the human value that we are trying to put in place? I often use this because it is here in Washington at the FDR Memorial. It is on the marble there: ``The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much.'' Let me read that again, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: ``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 want to use this as my compass, my guiding light on where we need to go. So this afternoon, this House of Representatives, by a vote of, I think, just over 200 voted to enact a tax law that goes in exactly the opposite direction of what FDR would say is our value, our goal. Here it is. The Speaker of the House came here to bring down the gavel to announce the vote that he was so proud to have. Eighty percent of the individual tax cuts don't go to the poor, don't go to the middle class. They go to the top 1 percent. How does that fit with what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said to the American Nation during the height of the Great Depression? No. You may as well take Franklin Delano Roosevelt's words, turn them on their head, because this House didn't follow the edict, didn't follow the value, but did exactly the opposite: gave away, to the top 1 percent, even greater wealth. How could that be? Why would they do that? Why would they do that? Well, I don't know why they would do it, but they surely did it. And in addition to that, not just the wealthy 1 percent, the wealthy 10 percent, why don't you add American corporations to that who are awash in cash? $2.5 trillion in the bank accounts of American corporations, and they don't know how to spend it to create jobs in the United States. Instead, the Republicans, today, decided they needed $1.43 billion additional cash as a result of the tax cut that no Democrats, not a one, but every Republican voted for, $1.43 billion--the number is from the Joint Committee on Taxation--of new after-tax revenue to American corporations. And what do you suppose they are going to do with that? Create jobs in the United States? Expand their manufacturing? No. Or higher wages for their workers? No. I will tell you what they intend to do with it. This is it. The corporate tax giveaway will give Wells Fargo an 18 percent earnings increase. How do they intend to spend it? Hint: Not on jobs. In his own words, Tim Sloan, CEO of Wells Fargo, December 2017--I think that is this month--said: ``Is it our goal to increase return to shareholders and do we have an excess amount of capital? The answer . . . is yes. So our expectation should be that we will continue to increase our dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year after that and the year after that.'' All right, Mr. Sloan. You can thank the Republicans, because when you buy back your shares, when you increase your dividends, guess what. The stock price goes up, and we know that your compensation is based on stock price. Are you going to use that extra money for loans to small businesses? to farmers? No, you are not. You are not going to make more loans. This is replicated across the American corporate culture. This is not unique. This new after-tax bonus that the Republicans are giving to American corporations is going to be used for the benefit of the wealthy. So you can add, if you will, to the tax cuts that are coming as a result of the reduction in the top income tax bracket for individuals from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, you can add to it, but, by the way, their investment portfolio is going to go up also. This tax program is an abomination, and it is going to hurt every American over time. I am joined here tonight by my colleagues who are probably as riled up about this as I am. I am not sure which one of them came in first. I yield to the gentleman from the State of Oregon, Peter DeFazio, my colleague.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), my friend.

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, 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. I thank the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for making a very clear case on how we might better spend our money. I yield to the gentleman from the great State of California (Mr. McNerney), my colleague and neighbor.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. The word ``we'' is incorrect.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, one of the tasks of having the second Special Order Hour is to find myself sitting here in this Chamber listening to the most absurd, ridiculous conversation that I think I have ever heard anywhere. My esteemed colleagues were here for the last hour in a different world, in a completely different universe, not of this world, but a different universe, And I am thinking: What in the world are they saying? By my recollection, every one of our intelligence agencies said that Russia was involved in the campaign and developing information that was supporting the current President. I am thinking: I think that is what I heard over the last 9, 10, almost 14 months now. And yet my colleagues are up here and in a different world. I will tell you what it is all about. This wasn't the subject matter that I was going to talk to tonight, but it was really about another scam, another scheme that is being perpetrated. This is all about, this last hour's discussion was all about somehow turning the table so that Special Counsel Mueller is demeaned, his work is somehow not authentic so that the investigation that is coming closer and closer to the Oval Office is discredited, setting the stage for what may very, very well be an extremely important task that this House has. As that investigation continues, we will hear even more shrill discussions from the President's supporters tearing down that investigation, undermining the integrity of it, so that when that task comes to the House of Representatives in an impeachment resolution, they will simply say: Well, his entire investigation is discredited and, therefore, we are not going to proceed. The American public isn't buying it, gentlemen. The American public is not blind. They are not deaf. They are listening, and they are understanding that an honest investigation is underway, based upon what our intelligence agencies discovered, based upon the fact--the fact-- that the Russians did hack the DNC and did hack the chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign and then weaponized those emails that were stolen. That is a fact, gentlemen, and you cannot wash away that fact. And from there, we now have a special prosecutor, a special counsel in place who is carrying on an investigation, and indictments have come forward and penalties have been assessed and people have pleaded guilty. All of that is the fact, and it is pointing closer and closer to the White House; and, therefore, I understand, gentlemen, I understand why you are so upset. I suppose if I were somehow to stand here and be an advocate for the President, I might be upset, too, because the net is drawing tighter, because information is coming clearer. So come to the floor, do what you can, do what you can to undermine the investigation; do what you can, through your falsehoods, through your incorrect interpretations of plain facts, to undermine the integrity of an investigation. I understand why you would be intent upon doing so. But the purpose of this evening isn't that. It is something that will affect America for the next two decades, at least. The purpose of this hour is to talk to the American people about what is happening here while these foolish floor discussions are going on. What is happening here in Congress at this moment, this week, is one of the biggest transfers of wealth ever in America's history; the transfer of wealth from the working men and women of America, from the poor, from the elderly, to the superwealthy of America. What is happening here in Congress now, in a conference committee, is the drafting of legislation, tax legislation, that will dramatically affect the American economy for decades. Transferring wealth, benefits that the elderly receive in Medicare, transferring benefits that the poor receive in food stamps, in Meals on Wheels, in Medicare, Medicaid, children's health programs; transferring those necessary benefits that these men and women need to survive, to be able to live; transferring those benefits to the superwealthy in a tax proposal that gives to the largest American corporations and to the top 1 percent, over $5 trillion over the next decade, that is what is happening. Here is a fact: American corporations that have already seen their share of burden to finance this government, to educate the Americans, to keep our military, to deal with national security, they have seen their share of the Federal revenues drop from some 20 percent-- actually, 30 percent in 1939, 15 percent in 1960, down to somewhere in the 5 to 10 percent range. At the same time, the burden is shifted to the middle class. That is what is happening. Here is what should be happening. Here is the way we ought to look at it. On The Mall here in Washington, we have the FDR Memorial. Etched in the marble is this: ``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 little.'' I presented this upside down almost on purpose because that is precisely what our Republican colleagues are doing. They are taking that value and turning it upside down. Instead of doing more for those who have little, they are doing much for those who already control the greatest amount of wealth ever in the handful of a few people since the 1400s, when the Spanish Empire was ripping off the Western Hemisphere. That is what is happening. Of all of this money, the top 1 percent and America's biggest corporations are gaining, and the rest of Americans, over the next 5 to 7 years, are going to pay for that. We have to stop this tax cut. We have to stop it because it is terrible public policy. American corporations don't need more money. It was reported today that Apple--the world's largest, most valuable corporation, Apple, in my State of California--is sitting on $2.5 trillion of cash today in the United States, and another $2.5 trillion of cash outside the United States, and they want their tax rate reduced. They are almost paying nothing now because they are able to escape American taxes. They say: Lower the corporate tax rate so that there will be investment in America. It ain't so. In the last 20 years, there has been a cataclysmic change in the way in which corporations use their profits. In the 1970s, 50, 60 percent of the after-tax profits of corporations went into building their business, building new equipment, new manufacturing plants, adding employees, increasing wages. The remaining 40 percent or so went to dividends. Where are we today? Less than 10 percent goes to increasing a company's manufacturing, the company's employment, wages for workers. Where does the rest of it go? It goes to stock buybacks and to dividends. It goes to the shareholders. And who are the shareholders? The top 1 percent. This is the scam of all times. They say we have got to reduce the taxes on corporations so that they will employ more Americans. If only they would. If only they would. I am sure you have heard of AT&T. Do you know what the effective tax rate of AT&T is? Not 35 percent, not 30 percent, not even 20 percent, as this tax bill would set as the maximum rate of corporations. The effective tax rate for the last 10 years for AT&T has been 8 percent. Eight percent. And during that time, did they use that after-tax profit to add employees, to increase wages? No. They laid off 80,000 American workers. What did they use that money for? Stock buybacks, corporate executives, $124 million to the CEO just 2 years ago. I could go on and on, but I would like to bring to this debate Mr. Cicilline, who has determined that there is a better deal, better wages, better future, better jobs. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I actually have seen something like this before. Last summer, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, or at least the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, where 24 million Americans were going to lose their health insurance, this House rammed it right through, just totally ignoring the welfare. And I am not talking about corporate welfare. I am talking about the well-being of 24 million Americans who stood to lose their insurance. Now that is being repeated. In fact, in this legislation, there is a provision that it would only cause 13 million Americans to lose their insurance. So not only are they doing this tax scam, as the gentleman so well described it, but they put in a provision that would cause 13 million Americans to lose their insurance over the next several years, and 4 million Americans next year. A person might say: What morality do you have? What are your values when you do that kind of thing? So, yes, I have seen it, and we are seeing it once again. So what is the value? It is not this. It is not the test of our progress of what we do for those who have little. It is the upside down of that. It is: How can we do more for those who have much, the top 1 percent: Mr. Cicilline is from Rhode Island. I am from California. I think the view from ocean to ocean and somewhere in between, there has got to be some sanity here, if you will.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman. He is absolutely correct. It used to be, I think just 2 or 3 months ago, that, on this floor, you would hear the sound of the deficit hawks. You would hear them screaming, crying out about the huge deficit. And, indeed, we do have a huge deficit. If you take a look at the growth of the deficit, this is 2027. At the end of this tax bill, it is growing at $500 billion a year without the additional deficit created by the tax bill. They would cry. They would lament the situation. Suddenly--maybe it is because it is winter, and, like the Canadian geese, they flew south--they have disappeared. They are nowhere to be found around Washington, D.C. But I suspect, with the new year, as the days grow longer, as it warms up, the deficit hawks will return, and they will come back with a vengeance, just as the gentleman said. Wait a minute. The gentleman didn't say it. He repeated what the Speaker of the House of Representatives said, what our Republican colleagues voted for in their budget proposal just ahead of this tax proposal. They said it very, very clearly. They intend to take $500 billion out of Medicare, right out of the healthcare for seniors. They intend--they did it in their budget. They did it in their words. The Speaker did it in his own words. They intend to cut Medicare $500 billion and Medicaid by $1.5 trillion so that the deficit that they created with the tax scam that gives all of that money to the wealthy and to the corporations, they are going to take it right out of the pockets of the elderly. They are going to take it right out of the pockets of the poor. Keep in mind that some 50 to 60 percent of Medicaid money goes to seniors in nursing homes and in extended care facilities. Something is dramatically wrong. Where is the morality of this? Where is the human value? Where are the words? Where are the words of FDR? Blowing in the wind, long gone. Mr. Cicilline, I have noticed we have been joined by one of our colleagues. I don't know if she wants to join me.

Mr. GARAMENDI. We will just continue.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, something is terribly wrong here. Four in my family are teachers. It is a little thing, but it means everything. It is little. Teachers are able to deduct from their taxes $250 for expenses that they have paid for classroom supplies. Gone. It is gone. If you want to hurt the system, stick it to the teachers. Why would you do that? It is not a big thing. It is a little thing, but it means everything to that classroom. It is the additional paper, the crayons, the chalkboard, whatever. How small is that? Is that a better deal for America? I don't think so. The casualty loss deduction hurts. Three hundred homes in my district were lost in the October fires. The casualty loss deduction is gone. I don't know, maybe they will be able to rebuild. But when it comes time to address that deficit, I can assure you that they will do everything they can to cut the programs that would support that family as they attempt to rebuild. So you get the program, you lose on the front end, your tax deduction is gone, and you lose on the back end when you go to get mortgage assistance. There has got to be a better plan. There has got to be a better way to do it. Mr. Speaker, over the years, in the last several months, Mr. Cicilline and his colleagues on the Democratic Caucus have put together a program for a better life for Americans. It involves much of what we talked about here. It involves a tax program that is balanced, one that provides the incentives for businesses to stay in the United States. We haven't talked about the corporate tax program that allows for territorial taxing, a specific effort in this legislation to encourage corporations to go offshore where their corporate income will never be taxed. That is not a better plan. That is not a better program for building American jobs and wages. It is a way for corporations to continue to escape. Someday soon I would hope Mr. Cicilline and his colleagues would bring to this floor--the three of them who have put together this program on how we can build the American economy--well, the gentleman can talk in specific ways about how we can have educational programs, apprenticeship training programs, and job training programs, how we can encourage corporations to invest in America, and how we can Make It In America. I would love to join Mr. Cicilline and talk about a bill that we are soon going to introduce that would require that, when we export a strategic national asset--our oil and natural gas--that it would be on American-built ships with American sailors. We could employ hundreds of thousands of people in our shipyards by changing the laws and by providing incentives for Americans to stay here and to work here. Mr. Speaker, I know this is Mr. Cicilline's effort. I know the gentleman wants to get to it. Perhaps we can wrap up.

Mr. GARAMENDI. But the individual can't deduct the moving expense to follow the job.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I have gone through three of the horribles here, the student loans and the graduate deductions. We have seen disasters across America: floods, hurricanes, California fires, thousands of homes lost in California. So what does this brilliant tax thing do? It eliminates the casualty loss deduction. It eliminates the casualty loss deduction. So if your home burns down in a fire--maybe it is one of the catastrophic fires that are now burning in California--your home is gone. Comes time the next year to pay your taxes, you can deduct the loss that you had incurred. Not anymore. Not what our brilliant tax writers on the Republican side would do. The casualty loss disappears. If that is not enough, you have lost your home, you have lost your job, and you need to move. You need to move your family. They eliminate the moving expense deduction. How is a family going to get a better job? You used to be able--you would today--to eliminate--you would be able to write off the moving expense. But not with the tax bill.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Cicilline so very much for joining me tonight. I really want to go back and plow this field one more time. I am just a farm boy from California. I don't know that we have said it enough nor have we said it all. We do know that in this tax scam there is a $1.4 trillion reduction in corporate taxes with no assurance that that is going to create jobs in America. But quite the opposite. It will be a great boon for the superwealthy, who will see their stock values go up as that additional after-tax income for the corporations is spent on stock buybacks, dividends, and executive pay. We know that the alternative minimum tax will disappear, and that is about $900 billion to the, again, top income earners. We know in California and across the Nation that the State and local tax deduction will be gone. That will probably cost those 32 percent of the taxpayers--the tax filers in my district that use that deduction-- $1,000 to $2,000 in additional taxes. We know this is going to go on and on, and we know that the deficit is going to be increased. There may be some growth. There has been one analysis that said there may be a couple hundred billion dollars of growth, but it is not going to make up for the $1.5 trillion deficit on top of the existing deficit. We know the deficit hawks will be back. They have said it very clearly. They are going to come back and they are going to cut Medicare and Medicaid. We know they are going to take it out of the healthcare for the poor. They know they want to end insurance in the Affordable Care Act for 13 million Americans. All of that has been laid out. We know all of those things. Oh, just in case you are one of those people who have high medical costs, like a senior 50 years of age, who has a serious medical condition and you have been able to deduct from your taxes the medical costs, forget it. Our Republican friends are eliminating the medical cost deduction. Why would they do that? Why would they take after people who have serious medical problems? Their out-of-pocket costs are covering all of that. This is a long story, but for my colleagues here on the floor, Democratic and Republican, be very, very careful because this particular tax bill, should it ever become law, is going to take this Nation a decade, maybe two decades, to get out of from underneath the extraordinary burden that it is going to place on the American economy, on the working men and women, and on the poor in America. The things we need to do, Mr. Cicilline talked about infrastructure. The President says: I am going to have a $1 trillion infrastructure program. Really? Really? He is going to do that? He just ripped the guts out of the American Treasury. Where is the money? Oh, it is going to be private money. No. He has already given up on that. His words, not mine. So where is the public investment? Five trillion dollars disappears. Five trillion dollars. Some of it made up by the elimination of these deductions that I have talked about. Still, there is at least a $1.5 trillion hole. The only way that they can possibly make up that after giving away all of that money to the corporations, all of that money to the superwealthy--and did I mention the estate tax? I probably should have. The House bill eliminated the estate tax. What does that mean to our esteemed President? Well, he says that he is worth $10 billion. Who am I to argue with him? If he is, and he were to die, it means $4 billion less tax to his children. Four billion. Now, others say he is only worth $4 billion. So let's take $4 billion. For his children, it is simply a tax reduction of $1 billion. What does that amount to? That is what this is about. This is all about the wealthy. This is all about those who have much. It is most definitely not about what FDR said. Etched in stone on the FDR Memorial: ``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 little.'' So where is our heart? So what is our moral value? Is it morality? Is it right to add more to those who have much? Or is the purpose, the central value of this Nation the opposite, to add more to those who have too little? That is where I am. That is where my Democratic colleagues are. I am afraid my Republican colleagues are proving the opposite. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GARAMENDI. That is precisely what they are doing. The gentleman talked earlier about a better plan. He talked about better education, about better opportunities. We know. And the gentleman and I have been on this floor talking about how to build the American economy. In that discussion, we know that the economy grows on research. It grows on research at universities all across this Nation. What do our Republican friends do in their tax bill? They are going to make it extremely difficult to do research at the universities by placing a very onerous tax on graduate students who are working in those research institutions. Right now, graduate students get paid a stipend, a small amount of money to do the research in those research institutions, and they get their tuition free. Our Republican colleagues, for reasons that make no sense whatsoever, would tax that tuition that is not paid. So these young men and women in these graduate studies are going to have to pay a tax, and they never receive any cash to pay the tax. What would be the result? Universities across the entire Nation are saying: Stop it. Don't do this. We will not be able to hire graduate students to do research because they cannot afford it. How stupid. If we are going to have a better economy, if we are going to have better jobs, better wages, education is the essential foundation for that. And yet what do they do here with this? They go right after the students. When it comes time for cuts--the gentleman said it before--Pell grants, other kinds of stipends, other kinds of assistance for education, gone. One of the fundamentals of the Democratic program is a better education, a better educated workforce so that there will be better jobs, better wages, better economy.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, we have heard that argument over and over. If I am not mistaken, the economy is working pretty close to maximum right now, 3 percent. The unemployment rate is 4 percent or in that range, maybe a little lower, and the Federal Reserve is looking at increasing the interest rate to slow down the economy. Our Republican friends say they need to beef up the economy. So tell me how it works. When the Federal Government borrows more money for this deficit, that will cause interest rates to go up because they are competing with other folks who want to borrow money. The Federal Reserve is increasing interest rates. So we can look for interest rates going up. The economy is slowing down. So how does this increase? It just doesn't work in macroeconomic terms in any way. But I don't want to be an economist. What I want to be is just factual. So if I might, for a moment, these are 10 popular deductions that the Republicans are limiting or repealing in their tax bill, the list of horribles: limits the State and local tax deduction, which is a big problem for California, a big problem for New York, a big problem for, really, every State because every State has taxpayers who deduct State and local taxes. For California, in my district, 32 percent of the taxpayers use this deduction, and it is over $10,000. We are a high-cost State, housing and so forth.

Mr. GARAMENDI. The gentleman mentioned this one, but I think we need to focus on it. Right now, if you are going to go to college, almost every person is going to have to borrow money. Student debt is over $1.2 trillion. Young men and women who graduate are burdened by that student debt. They are not buying cars. They are not building any business. They are trying to pay off the debt. They are able to deduct the interest on that debt. It helps them out a little bit. So what do our Republican friends do? They eliminate the interest deduction on student debt. The gentleman has spoken to this.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the distinguished career of Marjorie Dickinson, a tireless advocate for California higher education. Since 1987, Marjorie has served as the Assistant Chancellor for Government and Community Relations for the University of California, Davis. As the first person to be appointed to the position, her impact on shaping the university's Government and Community Relations program cannot be understated. Marjorie and her team serve to represent UC Davis to local, state, and federal government officials, advocating for the university community on a wide array of issues. Her work has cultivated positive relationships within the local community while also balancing a national perspective, helping UC Davis continue to be a leader in the field of higher education whose impact is truly global. A product of the University of California system herself, having graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, Marjorie has also served with the California Post-Secondary Education Commission. Her entire career is a testament to her dedication to higher education in our state, and her passion for the University of California is constantly on display. Marjorie's remarkable tenure is coming to an end, but she is preparing to embark on the next phase of her life: a well-earned retirement. We want to express our sincere gratitude to Marjorie for her three decades of service, and we are joined by the entire UC Davis community in wishing her nothing but the best for the future.