On the recordOctober 11, 2017
I think it is a new low for this Congress to allow the critical and bipartisan Children's Health Insurance Program to expire. This program is 20 years old, and this has never happened, where we have allowed the basic safety net healthcare program for children to expire. We hear over and over again, Mr. Speaker, you talk about the ne'er do well, lazy ones of our constituents who are poor and don't want to work. But, Mr. Speaker, these are children who are ineligible for work and unavailable to take care of themselves. We are destroying the health safety net for children. But it is not that we haven't had time to extend CHIP. We have renamed post offices. We have renamed a highway. We have advanced the House budget reconciliation riddled with unpaid tax cuts for the wealthy, including the repeal of the estate tax, which alone would increase our deficit by $269 billion by 2025. Mr. Speaker, that is billion with a B. Are Republicans in this body trying to solve the budget crisis and our deficit problem by cutting CHIP? I don't think so. Even more, Mr. Speaker, last week, we spent a considerable amount of time debating the 20-week abortion ban. We heard passionate speeches about how important it was to preserve the life of fetuses.…
Source
govinfo.gov




