Sánchez Opening Statement at Field Hearing on the One, Big, Ugly Law
(As prepared for delivery)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Make no mistake. Republicans are trying to trick working Americans into believing they are getting a tax break while delivering the single largest health care cut in American history.
While the Republican party pretends to be the party of the working class, they consistently prove the opposite.
This bill gives the top 0.1% an average tax cut of $309,000 in 2027 alone.
Los Angeles County’s child poverty rate is 17.7%, which is over 4% higher than the national child poverty rate.
Do you know what the average Angeleno parent could do with an extra $300,000? That’s $847 a day for billionaires.
Imagine if that money was going to children in poverty instead. And Republicans might say, but we did expand benefits for children in poverty! Well, for people making under $50,000 a year, that expansion is only 68 cents a day.
If those numbers were flipped, we could give working families hundreds of dollars a day in benefits.
Do you know how much childcare, how much food, how much college savings that would mean for the average American family?
Republicans don’t care. This bill delivers crumbs to working families while stealing their healthcare.
This bill will also raise your healthcare premiums, cut health coverage for over 17 million Americans, close hospital doors, and cut doctors’ payments.
Republicans are cutting kids’ healthcare. 1.6 million kids in California are enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
This cruel bill locks children out of CHIP coverage and imposes annual and lifetime limits on care.
They also want to cut healthcare for our parents and grandparents.
The so-called party of fiscal responsibility is exploding our national debt, triggering $500 billion in cuts to Medicare.
This is after repeated promises to not touch seniors’ healthcare.
The elderly and people with disabilities will get kicked out of their long-term care facilities.
Hospitals will close. Nursing homes, which primarily take Medicaid dollars, will shutter.
Republicans on committee boast about no tax on tips – which this bill does not do. Taxpayers are still required to pay payroll taxes on their tips, which, especially for low-wage workers, tend to be the highest.
And President Trump has been bragging about no tax on Social Security – which isn’t even in the damn bill.
To my Republican colleagues, you have failed your constituents once again. Mr. Chairman, your district has over 250,000 Medicaid enrollees. Don’t you care about them? Or do you just care about the 1% who is benefiting.
I’m proud to be here to stand up for all Americans, not just the wealthy few.
Thank you and I yield the balance of my time.
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