Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, this is an unprecedented challenge to the health and economic well-being of the United States of America, and I am proud to be a Member of the House today here to address this.

There are numerous provisions of this bill with which I disagree, and I know there are numerous provisions that my Republican colleagues disagree with, but let's put it a little bit in perspective.

After 9/11, we bailed out the airlines, and they got a bunch of cash.

What did they do then? They declared bankruptcy, and they preserved their assets--except not their most valuable assets. They screwed their employees. They lost their pensions; they lost their stock options; and they lost their jobs.

I remember talking to a 55-year-old flight employee who had been flying 25 years. She said: Now I have to fly 10 more just to get the guaranteed pension at 35 percent of what I would have gotten.

Mr. Speaker, that can't happen again.

Then, in 2008, Hank Paulson came to us, and he said: Just give me the key to the Treasury, and I will take care of this.

Well, for 1 day in the House of Representatives, we stood strong, and we defeated that. Two days later, we came back with something a little bit better but nowhere near adequate.

We need to learn from those mistakes. That was supposed to save people's homes and their jobs. Millions lost their homes, their jobs, and their pensions. But Wall Street, hey, they prospered.

Never again.

We started a week ago with Secretary Mnuchin proposing the same thing that Hank Paulson proposed--they all come from Wall Street--a couple of decades ago.

The Democrats fought back. We said: No, it is going to be workers and families first.

This is a different kind of recovery package. It is an ultimate bipartisan product. It passed the Senate unanimously, and it emphasizes payrolls--maintaining payrolls and maintaining benefits. It is going to get help to small businesses, from individual owners to larger businesses. It is going to target people with extended and enhanced unemployment benefits. Some who work in the gig economy wouldn't be eligible for anything. They are totally out.

So, these are really good things in this bill.

The aviation section should be a model for any industry that gets money from the funds that Mnuchin distributes.

There are two packages. One is a payroll passthrough to keep the people working, keep their benefits, and keep their pay. The other part is heavily conditioned loans: no stock buybacks, no dividends, no executive bonuses, and no bankruptcy for a year after you take these loans. Keep the industry intact. It is vital.

And $3 billion goes to the contract workers and the service workers, who are the most abused people in the industry. They are the ones whom you never see who keep the plane clean, who load the food, and who move your bags and do everything else. They push the wheelchairs. They get rotten pay. They get assistance in this bill.

So, this will keep the framework of this industry alive.

COVID-19 is what we are battling now, but we have been battling something else in our economy for a long time: corporate greed. Wall Street demands to put profits over people. $2 trillion in tax cuts went to the people at the top. For too long, the working people of this country have been ignored. Not this time.

We need a system that always puts workers and families first, not just during a national emergency and not just when it is politically convenient. I am ready at any time to roll up my sleeves for that fight.

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