John Garamendi: “Today is Tuesday, January 31. It has been 11 days since the inauguration of our new President; and, oh my goodness, has…”

“Today is Tuesday, January 31. It has been 11 days since the inauguration of our new President; and, oh my goodness, has it been an extraordinary 11 days. I just hardly know where to begin. Normally I come up here, and we talk about how we can grow the American economy, how we can provide jobs, how we can see a return of our manufacturing industries, but I am compelled today to pick up comments on the last 11 days. I was at a dinner out in California on Friday evening, and a wide variety of people from multiple interest groups were there: some labor unions, some farmers, senior citizens, healthcare folks, teachers. There was an overwhelming sense of concern--deep concern--about the direction this country is going. Some of these friends of mine were Republicans and others were Democrats; some liberal, some conservative. But to a person, they came up to me and said: Oh, my God, what is happening in Washington? Where is this going? What is he doing? What does it mean to us? And some of them said: Will they really actually terminate the Affordable Care Act? Is ObamaCare really going to end? What about my insurance policy; will I lose it? I am on Medi-Cal. What will happen to me? And teachers saying: How does this fit with the effort to improve our schools? And some that had been in the military looked at some of what was going on and said: But veterans' care, this hiring freeze affects the Department of Veterans Affairs. What does it mean to me?…”