Louise Slaughter: “I yield 3 minutes to gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio). Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, 3:10 a.m. The Republicans do all…”

“I yield 3 minutes to gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio). Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, 3:10 a.m. The Republicans do all their best worst work at this time in the dark of night. Well, they have done a new thing here. They have bifurcated Santa Claus. We have two Santa Clauses. We have Santa thief who is going to wriggle down the chimney and he is going to steal from the least among us. He is going to take $16 billion out of student loans, kids struggling to get ahead. Why? So we can finance tax cuts on dividend paying stocks. He is going to take money from struggling families in the form of Medicaid, seniors on Medicare. Oh, he is going to give another $1 billion to the LIHEAP program, thank you to Santa thief. He has also given $9 billion in subsidies to the oil, coal and gas industry in the so-called travesty of an energy bill that passed this House. But that old St. Nick, he is still alive, thank God. Republicans have kept him alive, but he is in the Bahamas with the expatriate people who are avoiding taxes, clinking champagne glasses, hopefully not French, owing to the sensibilities of the Republicans here and those French, and he is giving them wonderful benefits. We are going to reduce taxes on people who earn over $300,000 a year so their tax rate on dividends or capital gains is less than the tax rate paid by the checkout clerk at the supermarket. Now, that is fair. That is equitable.…”