Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to denounce Senate Republicans’ decision to move forward with the rescissions package, at the behest of Donald Trump, despite the fact that it will eviscerate funding for global health and public broadcasting, which will have devastating effects on the American people and the United States’ standing abroad. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Today, Senate Republicans will press ahead with a terrible bill that guts local news, defunds rural radio stations, and makes America less safe on the world stage. And they're doing it all to continue funding tax breaks for billionaires.
Today, Senate Republicans turn this chamber into a subservient rubber stamp for the executive, at the behest of Donald Trump.
And do you want to know the most galling part of this whole bill that Republicans are hell-bent on jamming through? They have absolutely no idea how OMB plans to apply the cuts.
Don’t take my word for it. My colleague, the Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, the senior senator and former Republican leader from Kentucky, and my colleague from Mississippi – who said he’s voting for the bill – all say the bill is lacking specific information. And some claim they haven’t even been told how the cuts will even be applied.
How can we devastate programs, rip away bipartisan funding, and impact millions of Americans without even knowing how this bill will be implemented?
Republicans embrace the credo of cut, cut, cut now, and ask questions later.
Cut healthcare for seventeen million Americans.
Cut food assistance to hungry kids.
Cut good-paying energy jobs and let the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, get ahead of us.
Never mind the kids who will go hungry, or the families who will lose insurance, or the people who will get sick and die.
It’s all worth it, Republicans seem to think, so long as billionaires and special interests pay less in taxes.
Senate Democrats, however, know that our job in this chamber is to govern, is to legislate, not simply eat dirt from the executive and ask for more, which is unfortunately what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing.
So, today we're going to have a debate on the floor. Democrats are going to show the American people exactly what Republicans are doing.
We will highlight through amendments the devastating cuts to local television and radio stations across the country, as well as the damage these cuts will do to America’s standing as world leader.
We will hold Republicans accountable through amendments wherever they have claimed to want to improve this awful bill, and make it abundantly clear they have not materially improved this proposal.
We will do everything in our power to mitigate the damage Republicans are unilaterally doing to the American people.
Now, let's talk about cuts to the CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Millions and millions of Americans – over ten million Americans – live in regions of the country that will be affected by these cuts, including millions of rural Americans and native tribes.
And these cuts to local stations couldn't happen at a worse time with floods and natural disasters front of mind.
When a flood happens, when a tornado touches down, when a hurricane makes landfall, people need immediate, up-to-date alerts to stay safe, and sometimes, all too often, public broadcasting is the only way for people to hear what's going on. It’s a matter of life and death.
So, why is Donald Trump so hell-bent on taking away funding for local stations that can literally save lives?
And it's not just public broadcasting. Cuts to foreign aid will make Americans less safe. It will empower our adversaries. The changes Republicans say they’ve made to PEPFAR are not enough, and nobody's fooled by small tweaks to this package.
Let me be very clear: Donald Trump's hatred of foreign aid has nothing to do with making government more efficient. And it has nothing to do with eliminating waste. It’s incompetence – simple incompetence and cruelty based on extremist ideology.
Here is one glaring example: a very troubling report yesterday from The Atlantic, saying that nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food that has already been purchased by the federal government is set to expire today and will quite literally be incinerated, instead of going to hungry kids.
Again, this emergency food could save lives. It could prevent kids literally from starving to death in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has been sitting idly in a warehouse in Dubai for months.
And because of the administration's incompetence, because of the reckless canceling of foreign aid at the start of this administration, these 500 tons of food will be turned into ash.
This is just one very glaring, very troubling example of how our Republican colleagues are really full of it when they say they want to eliminate waste. They don't really care about that. They care about just cut, cut, cut, slash, slash, slash, and use the DOGE chainsaw again so the billionaires can get their tax breaks.
What's happened with this food is a deep violation not simply of common sense, but of the moral obligation to care for the hungry and care for those in need, which our scriptures teach us. It is disgusting. And it crystallizes the core issue: Republicans do not care about eliminating waste. They simply want to cut funding and damn the consequences, even if it means kids starve to death abroad. It is incomprehensibly mean-spirited.
But foreign aid is not about charity – it is strategic.
It is about American security. And when Republicans cut foreign aid, they expose Americans to global health risks. They make it easier for terrorists to recruit people in susceptible parts of the world. They harm our farmers and researchers and our businesses. Cutting foreign aid makes it harder for U.S. companies to access new markets.
And when Republicans cut American aid, they essentially tell China and Russia the floor is yours. It creates a vacuum that China and Russia are all too eager to step into.
Now, Republicans know all this. They know this rescissions package is bad, bad news, even though most of them still choose to support it.
Listen, for example, to the words of our colleague from Nebraska: “I am very concerned also about the emergency alerts that come to many places in Nebraska only through that rural radio.”
Or our colleague from South Dakota: “To me, it's a very serious concern and there were just a number of these stations that would have lost over 90% of their funding.”
Consider, also, what our colleague from Alabama said with regard to foreign aid: “And I think that’s important, not only being the right thing to do and the American way, but I also think it’s important as we know that if we leave a void it will be filled by…our adversaries.”
Now, these are nice words, but every single one of the Republicans I just quoted voted yes yesterday. And actions speak louder than words: it does no good to express concern about legislation only to vote yes in the end.
Again: we were not sent here by the voters to rubber stamp whatever Donald Trump wants. We were here to govern as a co-equal branch of government. This bill today represents the very opposite of that. It is enabling Donald Trump’s lawlessness.
At worst, this is just one piece of an evil puzzle. If Republicans get away with passing this bill now, we will likely be back here in the very near future with other rescissions that cut things like health care, like housing, like food for kids.
Donald Trump and Russell Vought have made very clear they want to keep pushing additional rescissions packages with even more cuts.
So it means that health care is at risk. Education is at risk. Housing is at risk. Research dollars are at risk. Money for veterans is at risk. Additional aid that keeps Americans safe will be in danger.
Remember, Donald Trump and Republican leaders reportedly struck up a crooked bargain: if hard-right members of the House Freedom Caucus agreed to support the “Big, Ugly Betrayal,” Donald Trump would reward them with even deeper cuts to health care and other things the hard right despises.
Make no mistake, this is a short-circuiting of the appropriations process. What Republicans are doing through impoundment and rescissions compromises the legislature's ability to act as a co-equal branch of government, to reach bipartisan and reasonable appropriations deals that represent the best interests of this country, not merely the partisan wishes of a small band of extremists.
So, today Republicans will push the Senate down a dangerous road. They will not only cede power to Donald Trump, but they will also tell American people they won't fight to protect their hospitals, seniors, education, nutrition funding, public health, public safety, and so much more.
Democrats will continue to fiercely oppose this package. We firmly believe in protecting public broadcasting. We firmly believe in the role of Congress in checking a reckless executive.
We're going to fight every day to protect people's health care, their education, the care our veterans need, food assistance for seniors and other kids, and to make sure the needs of working middle class and middle class American families come first, not the billionaire class.
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