[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 70 (Wednesday, April 26, 2023)] [House] [Pages H1979-H2039] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-26
Chamber: HOUSE
Mr. SCHNEIDER: I rise today in strong opposition to this unserious bill that cuts lifesaving and life-sustaining programs, hurts our economy, guts historic action on climate change, and needlessly adds to our deficit by carving out loopholes for the wealthy. The Republicans' cut, slash, and shrink default on America bill will devastate America. First, it guts the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, which is not only addressing inflation but is the largest ever effort in our Nation's history to combat climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs. Second, it grows the already large tax gap and irresponsibly adds to the deficit. The bill, seemingly with bad intention, guts tools at the IRS to be both more responsive to responsible taxpayers and stronger in the face of wealthy tax cheats. Finally, this bill would make extreme cuts to discretionary spending, cuts that could amount to as much as 59 percent by the year 2025. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities titled: ``Roundup: Analyzing Speaker McCarthy's Harmful Debt-Ceiling-and-Cuts Bill.''  [From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Apr. 26, 2023]  Roundup: Analyzing Speaker McCarthy's Harmful Debt-Ceiling-and-Cuts Bill  (By CBPP)  Last week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy released a debt- ceiling-and-cuts bill that would use the need to raise the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to force a set of unpopular, harmful policies. We've collected our analyses of the bill here: McCarthy Bill Uses Debt Ceiling to Force Harmful Policies, Deep Cuts. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's debt-ceiling-and- cuts bill puts the U.S. economy at grave risk by using the need to raise the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to force a set of unpopular, harmful policies--policies that would make deep cuts in a host of national priorities; leave more people hungry, homeless, and without health coverage; and make it easier for wealthy people to cheat on their taxes. The bill would also repeal the Inflation Reduction Act's funding to address climate change and would undertake harmful changes that would undermine how regulations are crafted . . . CBPP President Sharon Parrott tweeted about the ten years of deep cuts that the bill would exact in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Parrott also detailed our cross- cutting analysis of the bill. Vital Government Services Would Take a $3.6 Trillion Hit in McCarthy Bill. The bill containing House Republicans' demands for raising the debt ceiling would impose severe cuts amounting to $3.6 trillion over the next ten years, along with the many other harmful changes it would make. The funding cuts would hit a wide swath of vital programs and would grow from bad to beyond extreme--reaching between 24 and 59 percent in 2033, depending on whether programs such as defense and veterans' medical care are protected from cuts, as many House Republicans propose . . . David Reich tweeted about the cuts to annual appropriations in the bill. Michael Leachman explained the bill would make deep cuts to discretionary federal aid to     states, local governments, tribal nations, and U.S. Territories, and his analysis included a state-by-state table. And Zoe Neuberger pointed out that the bill includes billions in cuts that would harm families with low incomes, including WIC participants. McCarthy Medicaid Proposal Puts Millions of People in Expansion States at Risk of Losing Health Coverage. A Republican proposal led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy would take Medicaid coverage away from people who do not meet new work- reporting requirements. The proposal would apply to all states, but in practice it would heavily impact people covered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansion. Of this group, more than 10 million people in Medicaid expansion states would be at significant risk of losing coverage under the McCarthy proposal. This group would be subject to the new Medicaid requirement, and they are not part of a group that states could readily identify in existing data sources and exclude from burdensome reporting. The McCarthy proposal could jeopardize coverage for millions more, by prompting some states to drop the ACA Medicaid expansion or dissuading states that have not yet taken the expansion from adopting it . . . Gideon Lukens tweeted state-by-state numbers of Medicaid expansion enrollees whose coverage would be at risk under the McCarthy proposal. Lukens also tweeted the Department of Health and Human Services' estimates of Medicaid enrollees at risk of losing coverage under the bill. Sarah Lueck tweeted about the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of Medicaid coverage loss. Taking Medicaid Away for Not Meeting a Work-Reporting Requirement Would Keep People From Health Care. Led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, congressional Republicans have revived harmful proposals to cut federal spending on the Medicaid program--the Nation's single largest source of health coverage--by taking Medicaid away from people not meeting new work-reporting requirements. Adding such requirements to Medicaid would cause many low-income adults to lose coverage due to bureaucratic hurdles that don't reflect the complexity of people's circumstances, as failed experiments in several states show. These requirements would leave people without the health care they need, including life-saving medications, treatment to manage chronic conditions, and care for acute illnesses. Laura Harker tweeted about how the bill would resurrect this failed policy. Speaker McCarthy's SNAP Proposal Would Take Food Away From Older Adults for Not Meeting Work Requirements. Speaker McCarthy's bill would expand SNAP's already harsh policy that takes food assistance away from many people aged 18 through 49 who don't have children at home and can't secure an exemption. Such individuals can receive SNAP for only three months (in a 36-month period) if they don't document that they meet a 20-hour-per-week work requirement. The bill would expand that policy to include people aged 50 through 55. About 1 million such individuals participate in SNAP and meet those criteria in a typical month. (The figure was 900,000 in 2019, the most recent year for which a full year of data are available. A larger number participate in SNAP over the course of a year.) Ty Jones Cox tweeted about how the bill would worsen SNAP's work requirements. TANF Provisions in McCarthy Bill Give States Incentives to Take Cash Benefits Away From Families With the Most Significant Needs. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provisions in Speaker McCarthy's bill double down on TANF's already expansive, rigid, and ineffective work requirements. The bill would so severely limit states' flexibility in how they provide assistance and employment services to families with children that some states could decide to stop providing cash aid to large numbers of families, with devastating results. Aditi Shrivastava tweeted about how the bill would further restrict TANF's reach. Samantha Jacoby explained that the bill's proposal to rescind the Inflation Reduction Act's IRS funding would add to the deficit because it would let wealthy tax cheats off the hook. Jacoby also noted that while giving billions to high-income tax cheats, the bill would take health care, food, and cash assistance away from people who need it.