On the recordMay 7, 2018
I thank Mr. Evans for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate having time here on this Congressional Black Caucus hour to discuss so-called welfare reform and efforts on the part of the majority to shred the safety net. Mr. Speaker, I think you just have to sort of sympathize with the majority, given the conundrum that they have put themselves into. What they did, in an effort to have some sort of win and to take advantage of having the majority in the House of Representatives, in the United States Senate, to be holding power in the White House with the new President, even seizing the Supreme Court, this was a very opportune time to do what the majority thought, and I give them credit for thinking that they wanted to implement and execute their greatest policy imperative, and that was to provide tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and to corporations. They wanted to take this one opportunity to do that because, in their opinion, that is what would move our economy forward. In December, they were able to accomplish it over the protests of economists, over the protests of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that said if, in fact, these $1.9 trillion in tax cuts are given to the wealthiest Americans and corporations, that we would see deficits for the next decade at about $1.5 trillion, and that would add to the deficit we are already experiencing.…
