Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this article appeared in May 2026. That
number is now estimated not at 700,000 but at 800,000 in this country.
  Think about it. The economy is doing pretty good, and in this country
that we live in right now, the United States of America, we have close
to 50 million Americans who don't know where their next meal is going
to come from, who are hungry. I don't think they think the economy is
pretty good. In fact, the majority of these people are working
families. They are working harder than ever, but because everything is
going up, they can't afford groceries.
  Go to any grocery store in this country, and you will see people
actually putting groceries back on the shelves because their paychecks
don't stretch as far as they used to because prices are going up.
  By the way, it is not just the big, ugly bill. It is the President's
stupid tariff policy, which is raising prices all across this country,
and the war in Iran that--I don't even know if he knows what the hell
he is doing. It just goes on and on and on. Again, we are spending
countless dollars on this war, again, which is resulting in energy
prices going through the roof.
  No, people do not think the economy is pretty good. They do not. I
suspect that that is what is behind this effort by Republicans to try
to rig the midterm elections, because they know that the American
people are not happy with where things are.
  It is not just Democrats, not just independents, but a whole bunch of
Republicans. A whole bunch of Republicans are also dissatisfied.
  I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to go to coffee
shops, to go to diners, to go to grocery stores, and to go to VFW halls
in their districts and listen to what people are saying. They are not
happy. They are very concerned about the state of the economy. They are
not confident that things are going to get better.
  They do not think that the person running this country right now has
any clue about what the reality is for working families. He lives in a
different sphere altogether. He is worried about reflecting pools,
building monuments in his honor, and redoing the East Wing that he said
would cost nothing but is going to cost us billions when it is all said
and done--cost the taxpayers billions. That is what he is consumed
about.
  They want a Congress and a government that cares about them.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how
much time is remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia has 14\3/4\
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Massachusetts has 8 minutes
remaining.

                              {time}  1310

  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as
I may consume. I don't have any additional speakers, am prepared to
close.
  I have listened a lot today, and I want to get back to the heart of
this matter, which is the National Defense Authorization Act. That is
what this rule is about. It is about H.R. 8884 and allowing--in the
case of the legislation that I had--Purple Heart recipients, people who
are wounded in combat totally and permanently having the ability to go
back to work and not worrying about losing their Social Security
benefits, at least for a period of time. It is about the appropriations
act for our State Department and things that we do around the world.
  There is a lot in this rule, Mr. Speaker, and this rule needs to
pass. Yes, the SAVE America Act will be attached to the legislation
when it goes across because, yes, we do think you all are letting
noncitizens vote in elections. We know you are doing it at the local
level, and we think that places like California ought to get their
ballots counted before the end of the night, not before the end of the
week.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time until the gentleman is
prepared to close.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not yet prepared to close, but I do want to remind
the gentleman that it was the Republicans that put into this rule a
bill to congratulate yourselves on the big, ugly bill, and it was the
gentleman who said that people think this economy is doing pretty good,
and I take issue with that.
  There are people who are losing their healthcare. Republicans like to
pretend that their big, ugly bill, which cut Medicaid and the
Affordable Care Act by more than $1 trillion, didn't actually hurt
anyone. I mean, there are lots of real stories of people being hurt.
  Kathy and Jeffrey Many, who live in Brandon, Vermont, are owners of a
garage door installation repair business. They said that their premium
was jumping up from $625 a month to nearly $2,670 per month, and the
cheapest alternative they could find was still nearly $2,000. Kathy and
Jeffrey ended up dropping their coverage. The economy is not working
good for them.
  Eric and Lisa Frankenfeld, a chiropractor and his wife, who live in
Point Pleasant, New Jersey, said their premium was set to skyrocket to
$1,928 per month, up from $340 per month, so they decided to go without
coverage this year. Lisa said: We are healthcare providers who cannot
afford benefits. Oh, the irony.
  Katelin Provost, a 37-year-old single mom and social worker from
Henderson, Nevada, saw her premium jump from $85 to $750 a month. She
said she would likely drop her own coverage in order to keep insurance
for her 4-year-old daughter.
  I mean, these are real-life stories. I can go on and on and on and
read them here. The economy is not pretty good for them. The economy is
lousy for them, and there is nothing that is in this rule that we will
consider that will help any of them.
  In fact, there is nothing that this Republican Congress has done to
help any of them. Instead, you have made their lives worse. The economy
is not doing pretty good. The idea that you are going to congratulate
yourselves on the passage of the big, ugly bill, well, I just have a
difference of opinion.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as
I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to address a couple of issues. One is he said
healthcare providers can't afford their benefits. Well, that is because
you turned the whole system over to a select few extremely large health
insurance companies that are accountable to nobody, and they are not
paying their claims. They are not.
  My father was a surgeon. A lot of my friends are in the healthcare
business. Let me tell you something: When you gave UnitedHealthcare and
the other multibillion dollar corporations control over all aspects of
our lives, you did a lot of damage, and you did that in your so-called
Affordable Care Act.
  If the Affordable Care Act had worked, we wouldn't be having this
discussion. You want to talk about the problems in the healthcare
system, you need to look in the mirror because you all wrote the bill,
and now those big insurance companies aren't accountable to anybody.
They own the PBMs. They own the pharmacies. They own the doctors'
offices. They own the hospitals. They are huge, huge oligopolies that
cater to nobody other than their shareholders.
  Look at the share price of the large health insurance companies. Look
who you made rich with the Affordable Care Act. It was the shareholders
and the executives of all of those major health insurance companies.
  When I talk about the economy, yes, I realize that the American
citizens are