Danger of Default on America

Floor Speech

Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania.

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Ms. Lee of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the mothers, fathers, children, sons, daughters, beloved friends, and community members whose livelihoods, dignity, and in some cases, survival is under attack by Republicans in Congress who are threatening to crash our economy if we don't bend to their pro-hunger, antifamily, antisenior, antiworking-class agenda to pay for handouts for their billionaire donors.

Like so many of the folks I proudly represent, I was raised by a single mother in a working-class home. When times were tough, we depended on food assistance from SNAP and healthcare from Medicaid. I became the first in my family to go to college because I received a Pell grant, and I am still hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt because I had the audacity to attend law school.

I am able to be in Congress uplifting the voices of poor and working- class folks in my community and across the country because of the lifelines Republicans are hell-bent on tearing away.

So let's not get it twisted. Right now, Republicans are trying to fool you into thinking that they genuinely care about spending. They hurt everyone with their giveaways to the price-gougers that fund their campaigns, and they turn around and blame Black folks, Brown folks, poor folks, and immigrants for the mess they created.

They claim that if we don't strip away food from the struggling, subsistence from seniors, and earned benefits from the elderly to give billionaires the benefits of a tax break, you and your family will pay the price.

They are lying to you. You deserve the truth. The truth is that this isn't about balancing the budget. This is about attacking working class, middle class, poor and marginalized Americans to serve themselves and their filthy rich friends.

The truth is that if Republicans get their way, in Pennsylvania alone, almost 100,000 women, children, and seniors will lose access to food assistance. Over 15,000 children and parents would lose access to preschool and childcare. Housing costs would increase for over 20,000 people already struggling to keep a roof over their heads. College would get more expensive or out of reach entirely for nearly 200,000 PA students.

Madam Speaker, 310 rail safety inspection days would be cut, just months after western Pennsylvania, right next to Ohio, suffered from the train derailment in East Palestine.

Half a million Pennsylvanians would be at risk of losing lifesaving healthcare coverage under Medicaid.

The truth is that if Republicans don't get their way, they are threatening to default on our Nation's bills, crash our economy, and unleash economic catastrophe that would kill at least 7 million jobs-- 7,000 in my congressional district alone.

They are threatening Medicare, Social Security, and veterans' health coverage for nearly 300,000 people in the two counties I represent. They are threatening to increase lifetime mortgage costs by $37,000, and they are threatening the retirement savings of 100,000 soon-to-be seniors, eliminating $20,000 from the typical retirement portfolio.

This isn't about statistics. This is about people's lives. This is about the single mother who, like mine when I was growing up, is paid wages so low at her multiple jobs that she needs food assistance to make sure her kids don't get on the schoolbus hungry.

This is about the nurse who is in medical debt to the hospital she works for where the CEO is paid millions of dollars but she is paid so little she depends on Medicaid for healthcare for her and her children.

This is about the student who has no choice but to take on so much student debt that they know it will be impossible to ever pay it off and might not be able to start a business or buy a home or start a family or build the life they deserve.

It is about the student whose great-grandparents were enslaved who today's Republicans are hell-bent on keeping shackled by hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to the point where their dream of becoming the first in their family to go to college will be torn away entirely.

This is about the child getting ready to start preschool whose parents will now have to choose between putting gas in their tank, getting their car repaired, and giving their child the head start we know could determine their future and ability to thrive.

It is about the moms and dads who want to work but know they won't be able to because this Republican majority wants to raise childcare costs that are already so high that it makes more sense to just stay home.

It is about your parents, Madam Speaker, who could lose their ability to retire in dignity and the veteran who could lose access for treatment for PTSD after spending their life serving this country.

It is about our grandparents who won't be able to afford the medication they need to stay alive to meet their grandchildren if Republicans cause a default.

Let's not forget that this is also about the billionaire CEO who is bankrolling the Republican politicians behind this attack on working families to win themselves yet another handout that will be paid for by tearing food and shelter away from all the folks I just described, millions of families, just to buy another shiny new yacht or another vacation home or another fat check to those same politicians as a thank you for the favor.

By forcing a choice between agreeing to their authoritarian tactics or default, Republicans are erasing the voices of millions of people in this country who oppose default, who oppose economic catastrophe, and who oppose tearing away food stamps, healthcare, Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. Republicans are using the threat of default to override the will of the majority of the country and bury poor and working-class Americans.

Madam Speaker, we cannot and we will not let them.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia).

Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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