Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, my friends are so proud of this bill that they are doing it at 1:25 a.m. The bottom line is the reason why we don't like the bill is that we don't think billionaires deserve any more tax cuts, and we don't want to support a bill that screws regular people. Mr. Speaker, I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question. If we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to make in order amendment No. 233 offered by Leader Jeffries, which strikes all provisions that would cause millions of Americans to lose healthcare and food assistance. We spent over 20 hours in the Rules Committee today trying to stop this ugly, cruel Republican bill. Over 100 Democrats came to testify. We did everything we could to get them to change this bill so that it would not strip healthcare and food assistance from the most vulnerable people in our Nation. Now, we will give Republicans one last chance not to strip vital programs like Medicaid and SNAP away from millions of Americans. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Underwood) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), a man who is not afraid to speak his mind about fiscal responsibility.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, you have got to love these Republicans. The two things they don't want to talk about are tax cuts for billionaires, which are in this budget reconciliation, and the debt. This bill adds trillions to the debt. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, boy, that was weird. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Ms. Pou).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman the reason why the tax cuts for middle-class families might expire is because that is the way they wrote them in the 2017 Republican tax scam bill. Republicans made the corporate tax cuts permanent. Republicans made those tax cuts for working people expire. It is their fault. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Casten).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Pappas).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Sykes).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 15 seconds to the gentlewoman from Ohio.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Figures).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. McBride).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Aguilar), chairman of the Democratic Caucus.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Ocasio-Cortez).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Speaker Emerita.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, one of the previous Republican speakers got up and said: Rome is burning. I hate to tell him, but Republicans are in charge, and Trump is your Caesar. CBO just did an analysis of this budget, and they did an analysis as to how it impacts the bottom 10 percent and the top 10 percent income earners of this country. Guess what? The bottom 10 percent gets screwed, and the top 10 percent gets a big raise in terms of revenue, in terms of tax breaks. Let me end where I began, Mr. Speaker. This is about whose side you are on. Whose side are you on, Mr. Speaker? From where I stand, it looks like you and the entire Republican Party betrayed the American people to side with the billionaires. People are so tired of getting screwed over by a system that doesn't work for them. They are fed up, and they want change. They want us to make things better for regular, hardworking people, not just the rich and the powerful. What Republicans' big, ugly bill does is the exact opposite. Our colleagues and Trump are perpetuating the exact broken system that people hate and despise: more tax breaks for billionaires while regular people get screwed; more giveaways for the rich and powerful while moms and dads struggle to get by; and more loopholes into the tax code for Wall Street while working families fall further and further behind. That is the Republican agenda. That is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think is big and beautiful--greed, corruption, and tax breaks for billionaires. My State of Massachusetts funds States like Indiana, where the gentlewoman is from. We get back less than we give. How dare she or anybody else vote to steal our tax money and give it to billionaires. Mr. Speaker, no, we will not go quietly. No, we will not give up. We will fight this cruel, corrupt, immoral bill every step of the way because the people we represent are counting on us, and we will never stop fighting for them. Mr. Speaker, I urge every Member of this House to vote ``hell no,'' ``never,'' ``absolutely not,'' on this terrible disgrace of a bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I have news for insomniacs. Republicans have scheduled a Rules Committee meeting on their one big, beautiful bill at 1 o'clock in the morning. This is the bill that will cause millions of Americans to lose their healthcare and nutrition assistance in order the pay for tax breaks for billionaires. Who does that? Why are they meeting at 1 o'clock in the morning? It turns out their big, beautiful bill is really a big, ugly bill. Republicans don't want you, the American people, to know what they are doing. Tune in tonight at 1 a.m. Call your Congressperson and tell them to vote ``no'' on this garbage. Watch as Democrats fight like hell to protect you, the American people.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, we are here today for a rule on two measures, two lousy measures doubling down on the Republicans' agenda to help big banks and big polluters. S.J. Res. 13 is a gift-wrapped giveaway to Wall Street, plain and simple. It would make it easier for big banks to get even bigger, hurting small businesses and communities in the process. S.J. Res. 31 is even worse, a blatant handout to big polluters, putting corporate profits ahead of our constituents' health and safety. This isn't new, Mr. Speaker. That has been the Republican playbook all Congress long: Help the polluters. Help the banks. Help Wall Street, and help the CEOs. They want to help everyone except the working people who actually need it. Mr. Speaker, you may ask: Why? I would say: Follow the money. Look at the donations. One of the things we need to get serious about in this Congress and hopefully when Democrats take control of the House after the next election, this will be a priority, and that is campaign finance reform. All this excessive money from big industries, from big banks, from corporations, and from people like Elon Musk pollute this Chamber in a way where the needs and the wants of regular people get put to the side. It is disgraceful, if we are being honest here, Mr. Speaker. As bad as these two bills are--and I can't emphasize enough that they are really bad--they are just the warm-up act. In fact, this is filler. We weren't even supposed to be dealing with these bills. We were supposed to be dealing with the budget reconciliation bill. Mr. Speaker, because of the disarray within the Republican Conference, all of a sudden, these bills appeared. That is because in just over 13 hours, Mr. Speaker, the House Rules Committee will meet starting at 1 o'clock in the morning to debate a bill that steals from the American people so they can help out the billionaire donors who write them big checks. Now, let me ask: If this bill is so great, so big, and so beautiful as Donald Trump says it is, then why the hell are we debating it in the middle of the night? Why not debate it in broad daylight where the American people can tune in and hear what it is really about? We all know the answer. I encourage the American people to pay attention to what is happening very, very, very early in the morning here in the United States Capitol. Watch what happens in the Rules Committee at 1 o'clock in the morning. To all the insomniacs out there: Tune in at 1 o'clock in the morning and watch what unfolds in that committee. Republicans do not want you to pay attention to their tax scam. Hell, Trump doesn't even want Republicans to pay attention to what is in this bill. Mr. Speaker, he told you guys to close your eyes and vote for this garbage. Republicans were ordered not to say a word in committee, just fall in line and rubber-stamp it. Now listen to this: Now they are sneaking a change into the rules buried in the fine print of this rule to give themselves same-day authority to bring the bill to the floor with a moment's notice. This bill is over 1,000 pages long. They want to ram it through the Rules Committee, potentially changing it, and we know that there are changes coming, and then vote on it just hours later. It is a bill that adds trillions to the deficit and kicks millions of people off their healthcare. Republicans once bragged about requiring 72 hours to review legislation. Mr. Speaker, do you remember that? Now Republicans are ready to toss that promise in the trash to serve Trump's demands. If my colleagues in the Freedom Caucus vote for this rule, then they will have reached a new height of hypocrisy. It is unbelievable to me that they cry and whine about passing bills without the time to read them, and then they come down here and support ramming a bill through committee in the middle of the night and bringing it straight to the floor. It is unbelievable and hypocritical. Let's be real, Mr. Speaker. This budget reconciliation bill is a disaster. It is unpopular, and it is indefensible. This is all about massive and huge tax breaks to billionaires paid for by stealing from working Americans. That is not hyperbole. That is just the truth. It rips away Medicaid from parents and grandparents. It slashes food assistance for children. The biggest cut in food assistance in history is contained in this bill. It drains resources from the moms and dads all to fund giveaways for those at the very, very top. Any backroom deals made in the next few hours to twist arms and to buy votes will only make this terrible bill even worse. This is not what democracy looks like. This is what corruption looks like. Shame on every single person who votes to advance that awful process by torching any semblance of a fair process. A vote for this rule is a vote to allow Republican leadership to jam this bill through the House without enough time to even read it. There is zero transparency and zero respect for this institution or the Members here. Just close your eyes and vote for it. That is what Trump told Republicans to do: Close your eyes and vote for it. Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve a hell of a lot better than this rushed, reckless process. They deserve leaders who work for them, not for the billionaires. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of things. First of all, I want to correct the record. The gentleman said that this budget reconciliation bill reflects a full, fair, and open process in all the committees of jurisdiction. I hate to tell him, but I am on the Agriculture Committee, and the chairman actually cut off debate when there were dozens of amendments still yet to be offered. That is not a full, open, and fair process. Maybe by Republican standards it is, but by most people's standards, it isn't. The gentleman is on the Rules Committee. We are debating the rule, so I have a question for my Rules Committee colleague. This rule contains a fast-track process for the Republican tax scam, this so-called budget reconciliation bill. We all know that deals are being made behind closed doors, changes are still being negotiated--big changes, we are told. I would like to know if the majority will commit to ensuring a Congressional Budget Office score is available on the final bill before it moves forward. We need to know the impact on our constituents, not only how much it will cost, but how many people will lose their healthcare and how quickly they will lose their healthcare. Those are legitimate questions that, quite frankly, Democrats not only want to know but Republicans should want to know, as well. Can I get the gentleman to kind of give us some assurances that we know the impact? Will he commit to ensuring a Congressional Budget Office score is available on the final bill before it moves forward? I am happy to yield to him. I guess we are not going to get an answer. I mean, I guess we all know why they don't want the nonpartisan, expert analysis to be made available before a vote on this bill. This vote is a monstrosity. This vote is going to throw at least 14 million people off their healthcare. This is going to constitute the largest cut in food assistance in history. People are going to see their nutrition benefits reduced, which will impact children, senior citizens, veterans, and those with disabilities. It is relevant to what we are talking about here today because in this rule you provide the authority to immediately bring the budget reconciliation bill to the floor without giving people any time to debate the bill, to be able to analyze the bill, for CBO to do their work on this, or for us to even know what the impact is going to be on our constituents from something this big. By the way, I hear Republicans say that they have this deadline. There is no deadline. There is nothing magic about having to pass this bill by tomorrow or the next day. You could do this right. You could actually have a Rules Committee hearing in markup in the light of day. You could do it when you come back after the Memorial Day recess. People should ask the question: Why are they rushing so quickly? Why are they doing everything they can to jam this through before people have a chance to understand the full impacts of this bill? The reason why is that they don't want the American people to know what they are doing. They are ashamed of what is in this bill--again, throwing people off healthcare, throwing people off food assistance. Why? It is to give a tax cut to billionaires. Give me a break. We are here to help lift up people in this country, to be there for people who are struggling. Instead, this Republican Congress is about enriching those who are well-off and well-connected. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.