John Yarmuth: “I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, just months ago, we were debating the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.…”

“I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, just months ago, we were debating the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. During that debate, I warned that it was the first of the Republicans' three-step plan to give to the wealthy and make hardworking families pay the price. Republicans were successful in enacting step one, the tax scam that gave more than 80 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent. Just one company, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, is now pocketing $218 million more every week under this new law. They are not alone. These tax cuts are showering big corporations and Wall Street with taxpayer money at an obscene level. That was step one. Step two, exploding our deficits, was confirmed this week by the Congressional Budget Office. They concluded that the GOP tax cuts will add nearly $2 trillion to the Federal debt over the next decade. That brings us to step three. Having provided millionaires and big corporations with huge tax cuts that do little to grow our economy, the GOP has starved our government of revenues. So, naturally, they are using the resulting deficits as an excuse for massive cuts to programs that millions of Americans rely on, including Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. That is what the amendment we are now considering would do. It would put in place a constitutionally mandated process solely designed to impose these extreme cuts.…”