Friends—
I just got off the House floor.
And I voted NO on Trump and Republican’s massive tax and spending bill.
In my over 30 years in Congress, I’ve never seen a bill that so blatantly undercuts the working class in this country to benefit the rich.
It makes massive cuts to health care, nutrition assistance, education, and clean energy while spending trillions on tax cuts for the wealthy.
Here are just some of the disastrous policies inside Trump and Republicans huge spending bill:
- $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid, which will result in 17 million people losing health coverage, including 285,857 people in South Carolina
- $200 billion in cuts to SNAP, which will result in nearly 5 million people losing some or all their benefits
- $975 billion in tax cuts to the richest 1% over ten years
- $3.4 trillion added to the deficit
- $470 increase in health insurance premiums for people in SC-6 covered under the Affordable Care Act due to Republicans’ failure to extend enhanced ACA subsidies
- 22,000 manufacturing and energy jobs in South Carolina will be eliminated due to cuts to clean energy incentives
Trump and the right will claim this bill “invests” in the middle class.
They’ll claim it delivers “historic tax cuts” to working families.
But the reality is this: the bottom 20% of Americans will see their incomes decrease through this bill.
Study after study shows that policies in Trump’s bill make the wealthy richer and working Americans poorer. It’s just that simple.
I’ve spent decades fighting for underserved communities. I know what it takes to target federal investments for the people and communities that need them most.
This legislation does the opposite.
Trump’s bill is a giant giveaway to wealthy Americans and large corporations at the expense of working people and persistent poverty communities.
I will do everything in my power to reverse the policies in this bill and push Congress to invest in all Americans—so everyone has a fair shot at the American Dream.
Today’s vote by my Republican colleagues compels me to invoke the admonition of my longtime friend and colleague, the late Congressman Elijah Cummings: “We are better than this.”