“First, they cut the staff. Then, they cut the services. And finally, they say it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. Privatize it. Let the billionaires run it. Put it in the market. What could possibly go wrong? Have you seen the market lately?”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor to warn of the Trump administration’s end goal of destroying essential government programs that support hard-working Americans to give billionaires like Elon Musk a tax cut.
Watch his full remarks HERE. Download remarks HERE.
Key Excerpts:
On the Trump administration’s plans to gut services to enrich themselves and billionaires:
In the simplest terms – it will make your life more expensive, make your health care more inaccessible and sow the seeds to slowly privatize or destroy Social Security. It will do those things because Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not care about you.
They don’t care about you. They care about Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They care about their billionaire buddies. They care about their bank accounts. They don’t care about you or the fact that whether you can afford a home or can’t afford a home. Whether you have money to take those vacation days you have saved up. Whether you can afford to take your kids to the hospital, whether you have to drive two or three hours to reach the nearest hospital. They don’t care.
They don’t care if you’re paying $6 for eggs, or $5 for a gallon of gas. Or depending on where you live, maybe a lot, lot more. They may say they care about those things but: this, their bill that we’re about to vote on says otherwise. This bill in my hand is evidence they don’t care about you. They could [not] care less about you.
Now, it’s easy to feel hopeless and powerless right now. That’s their goal. That’s how they want you to feel. They want you to look at the remnants of your retirement savings, and the closing of hospitals, and the destruction of small businesses and the decimation of schools and they want you to feel discouraged.
To look at the wreckage and say: “Well, I guess they’re right maybe none of it does work.” Because they want to break it all in pieces.
When they tear things down that you rely on instead of building them up, they want to turn to you and say: “See, none of this is working. Medicaid isn’t working. Social Security isn’t working.” Because they broke it. Because they’re breaking it.
And then comes the final step. That’s when they sell it all for parts. Where they sell off the Social Security you’ve paid into your entire life. Where they destroy the healthcare that you and your family rely on – so you’re forced to pay for private insurance that costs more and helps you less.
That is their plan. And you’re watching it unfold in real time. That’s the thing with Donald Trump. He’s broken every promise he’s made. Lower prices? Nope. Stock market growth? Hard opposite. Your 401k? If you’re lucky enough to have one, destroyed. A new Golden Era? Don’t make me laugh. Protecting your hard-earned benefits? They’re on the chopping block. Right now.
On the impact for all Americans if Medicaid is destroyed:
Even if someone isn’t on Medicaid, they’ll still feel the costs. They’ll still feel the pain.
Medicaid is the largest insurer in the nation, so when it goes down so will the care that so many families rely on.
Now, whether you are on Medicaid or you are not, it is your local hospitals that may close. Clinics will close. Doctors will have to move or shutter their practices.
Care that used to be maybe one town may now be an entire county away and a very long drive. Especially for Americans in rural areas – who already cannot afford the cost of living – this bill would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb on the care and the caregivers they rely on.
Read the transcript of his remarks as delivered below:
This week, Donald Trump spent his time doing three things:
Golfing at Mar-a-Lago. Announcing his latest set of tariffs that will cost families $3,800 more a year, and that are so chaotic and far reaching, that they included retaliatory tariffs on a remote island inhabited only by penguins. I kid you not.
And third, advocating for cuts that would destroy the services and benefits millions rely on for their healthcare and retirement savings.
Today, with the stock market in the tank and the nation’s economy in free fall, we’re expected to vote on this failed businessman’s latest “brilliant” financial plan for the nation.
So let’s talk about his budget. At its very core, this bill will give massive tax cuts to billionaires and make middle-class families pay for it.
Tax cuts that billionaires simply don’t need. And only the billionaires and Republicans in DC apparently support this.
But wait, the bill that will pass in the dead of night accomplishes other partisan fantasies, as well. It takes away health care and goes after the heart of Social Security.
It is the same old playbook: billionaires win, families lose. And lest we forget, it’s the exact same playbook they ran in 2017.
So how, exactly, is this a win for billionaires? Two-thirds of all of the benefits of this bill go to the super wealthy corporations. Two thirds! Over the next 30 years, this bill would spend $25 trillion – that’s trillion with a “t” – on tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. It would add $37 trillion to the debt. $37 TRILLION! That would double the nation’s debt — double it.
It will also by the way hand tens of millions to Elon Musk just in the next few years. So he makes out like a bandit.
But if you’re a family earning $30,000 a year, struggling to get by, or maybe $50,000, or $75,000 a year, you’ll be lucky to see any tax relief from this plan.
But if you’re in the top 0.1 percent, you’ll get an extra $300,000 a year at the very least. For every dollar that would go to people waiting tables or teaching at a pre-school someone in the top 0.1 percent would get over $52,000. That’s $52,000 for every $1 that someone waiting tables or teaching at a pre-school will get. To pass this bill would mean the top 5 percent of earners will get nearly half of all the tax benefits.
That’s just not right. Not fair. Not wise. Not sound. Not sustainable. Life is already too hard for working families without taking more from them to make the rich even richer.
So how is this bill a loser for families?
It’s a loser because it would raise costs by more than $1,000 on low-income Americans across the board. From health care to groceries to housing. Families who are already hurting and going to be hurting more – big time – because of Donald Trump’s tariff tax.
Tariffs that are raising the cost of everything they buy. From the coffee to the eggs, they have for breakfast. To the clothes they dress their kids in before school, to the gas for their drive to work. To the materials their small businesses imports. To the meal that they have when they arrive at home or the sandwich they grab in between jobs.
These families are getting punched right in the gut. And Donald Trump knows it. And knows that this budget would only amplify their pain. Because beyond exploding costs for working Americans — it will decimate Medicaid. Threatening health care for nearly 80 million Americans.
That’s 2 in 3 nursing home residents, 2 in 5 children, and 1 in 3 Americans in rural communities. But even if someone isn’t on Medicaid, they’ll still feel the costs. They’ll still feel the pain.
Medicaid is the largest insurer in the nation, so when it goes down so will the care that so many families rely on.
Now, whether you are on Medicaid or you are not, it is your local hospitals that may close. Clinics will close. Doctors will have to move or shutter their practices.
Care that used to be maybe one town may now be an entire county away and a very long drive. Especially for Americans in rural areas – who already cannot afford the cost of living – this bill would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb on the care and the caregivers they rely on.
Caregivers like Sabrina Bishop, a California home care provider. She serves three clients around San Diego. Two are disabled veterans, one receives care through California’s In-Home Support Services, all of which is funded through California’s Medicaid provider, Medi-Cal. Bathing them, medication management, cleaning, laundry, food preparation. She does it all.
She lives with her client Mike. He is at the end-stage of dementia and unable to communicate. He can’t dial 911. If he sees any medication bottles, he’ll just take them. If he sees a car door open, he’s going to get in it no matter whose car it is. Here’s what she told me. “My work means that he has someone to help him. That he can safely live, and with dignity in his twilight years.”
Many of the folks who rely on funding from Medicaid don’t have family who can help with around-the-clock care. And without the services that she provides – which are funded by Medicaid – those people won’t get their medication on time or be bathed or fed. We are talking about a person’s most basic needs.
If funding were to get cut more – Sabrina says she thinks many caregivers will decide they can’t afford to do the work they love anymore. There is already a major shortage of care providers. Thousands of people who need care are stuck on waiting lists. And Republicans in this bill want to make this so much worse. So much worse. So much worse.
Seniors and disabled individuals will be trapped in their homes without anyone to look after them or be institutionalized at greater cost, if indeed they can even find a skilled nursing facility that is still open.
When asked what she wants members of Congress to understand about her situation, Sabrina said: “Don’t be so quick to cut funding for Medicaid. You yourself may end up needing a caregiver. You may be diagnosed with a terminal disease at your next doctor’s appointment. You may have a car accident and can no longer take care of yourself.”
But without Sabrina – and the countless others who do the lifesaving work that she does, there may be no one to call. That’s what we’re talking about here. And yet, that’s what this administration and this Congress seem intent on doing.
To deny this care – to give Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and all their billionaire friends even more money. That is a disgrace.
What about Social Security? On that one, DOGE is starting the dirty work already. We’re already seeing the cuts, and the claw backs. Elon and his bros heading into the Social Security administration and firing the staff that make sure you get your check on time.
They have plans to close 26 Social Security offices this year alone.
They’re cutting phone services and pointing seniors to online options that are often unreliable and inaccessible. And if we’re being honest, something that not all seniors are able to do.
But this is their plan: they’re taking a program focused on helping seniors and then turning around and removing all the tools seniors use to get the help they need. And they’re not hiding it. They’re celebrating it!
Donald Trump’s co-president Elon Musk went on Joe Rogan to say that Social Security was “the biggest ponzi scheme of all time.”
The billionaire Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, said that his mother-in-law wouldn’t even notice or care if her check didn’t arrive. That only fraudsters would complain if theyir check didn’t arrive on time or at all.
And Donald Trump himself, who stood in front of the Congress and delivered an address so riddled with false claims about Social Security that it was impossible to disguise his true intention. And that is to sow mistrust, broad mistrust so they can come for it all.
So they can slash it – and leave seniors in the lurch. This is their plan for much of the federal government.
First, they cut the staff. Then, they cut the services. And finally, they say it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. Privatize it. Let the billionaires run it. Put it in the market. What could possibly go wrong? Have you seen the market lately?
Leaving your hard-earned benefits to the whims of the stock market that Donald Trump has recently destroyed. Plunging millions of seniors into poverty. That is their plan. All for a few more bucks in their pockets. It is up to each of us to stop them. To protect Social Security and Medicaid.
But I want to talk for a moment, not to my colleagues here in this fancy building, but to you at home.
Whether you’re in California, or anywhere around the country – I want to talk to you.
Right now, I’m standing on the floor of the United States Senate.
In just a few hours, we will be voting on a budget resolution that sets the framework for government funding.
Now that may sound wonky or unimportant. Complex and complicated.
But I want to cut through the noise and speak to you about exactly what this will do.
In the simplest terms – it will make your life more expensive, make your health care more inaccessible and sow the seeds to slowly privatize or destroy Social Security. It will do those things because Donald Trump and Elon Musk do not care about you.
They don’t care about you. They care about Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They care about their billionaire buddies. They care about their bank accounts. They don’t care about you or the fact that whether you can afford a home or can’t afford a home.
Whether you have money to take those vacation days you have saved up. Whether you can afford to take your kids to the hospital, whether you have to drive two or three hours to reach the nearest hospital. They don’t care.
They don’t care if you’re paying $6 for eggs, or $5 for a gallon of gas. Or depending on where you live, maybe a lot, lot more. They may say they care about those things but: this, their bill that we’re about to vote on says otherwise. This bill in my hand is evidence they don’t care about you. They could [not] care less about you.
Now, it’s easy to feel hopeless and powerless right now. That’s their goal. That’s how they want you to feel. They want you to look at the remnants of your retirement savings, and the closing of hospitals, and the destruction of small businesses and the decimation of schools and they want you to feel discouraged.
To look at the wreckage and say: “Well, I guess they’re right maybe none of it does work.” Because they want to break it all in pieces.
When they tear things down that you rely on instead of building them up, they want to turn to you and say: “See, none of this is working. Medicaid isn’t working. Social Security isn’t working.” Because they broke it. Because they’re breaking it.
And then comes the final step. That’s when they sell it all for parts. Where they sell off the Social Security you’ve paid into your entire life. Where they destroy the healthcare that you and your family rely on – so you’re forced to pay for private insurance that costs more and helps you less.
That is their plan. And you’re watching it unfold in real time. That’s the thing with Donald Trump. He’s broken every promise he’s made. Lower prices? Nope. Stock market growth? Hard opposite. Your 401k? If you’re lucky enough to have one, destroyed. A new Golden Era? Don’t make me laugh. Protecting your hard-earned benefits? They’re on the chopping block. Right now.
Donald Trump has broken every single promise he’s made. Except one: the promise he made from a gold-plated Mar-a-Lago podium. When he told a room full of the richest people in America, and I quote: “You’re all people that have a lot of money … You’re rich as hell… We’re gonna give you tax cuts.”
Well, it turns out those tax cuts are arriving right on schedule. And we will be footing the bill. But you can do something about it. You are not powerless. Make your voices heard.
Madam President, I yield back.
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