Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for yielding. This is a very serious and important issue that we are talking about tonight. I really want to provide the context to what got us to this point where the Trump administration is now trying to balance the budget on the backs of working people: the poor, seniors, children, and needy families. The President and Republicans in Congress during the last Congress passed the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. What that Tax Cuts and Jobs Act actually did was add $1.5 trillion to our deficit. The tax cuts that were so-called were supposed to help the working poor. Eighty- three percent of the benefit from those tax cuts went to 1 percent of the wealthiest, the well-connected, and the powerful. Now, to balance the budget, they are proposing these draconian measures--cuts and revisions--on our budget, and they are targeting the poor, those who are relying, as my colleague said, on important programs such as SNAP, Head Start funding, the Children's Health Insurance Program, the National School Lunch Program, and other anti-poverty programs. Let me talk to you for a moment, Mr. Speaker, about what these cuts mean to the people in my home State of Nevada. Nearly 434,000 Nevadans would be at risk of losing their SNAP benefits. SNAP benefits help families put food on the table and also help contribute to our local economy because they are buying those groceries at our local grocery stores.…”