On the recordFebruary 27, 2025
reserving the right to object, I rise today to discuss Senator Sanders' request for unanimous consent for the Senate to pass his Social Security Expansion Act. Before I do so, I want to respond to a couple of points that were made. The accusation was once again made that Republicans are trying to cut taxes for billionaires. The reality is, Republicans are trying to stop a tax increase on all Americans. The TCJA, or 2017 tax bill, is going to expire at the end of this year, and if it is not stopped from expiring, every American will get a tax increase, and those in the lower income categories and middle-income categories will share $2.6 trillion of that tax increase. That is what the tax fight is about. Then, continuing what I call the politics of fear in the face of the reforms that we are bringing, the attack was, well, we are going to cut Medicaid, we are going to stop financing for community health centers, and we are going to do all of these terrible things. I have not seen such a bill in this Congress, in the House or the Senate. We are debating how to get rid of fraud, waste, and abuse. We are not looking at how to cut benefits in Medicaid. I believe that is very clear. Today was the first time on the floor that I heard we were looking at community health centers. I wasn't aware of that either. The bottom line here is we are trying to pay attention to our $37 trillion national debt by weeding out waste, fraud, and abuse.…





