At House Budget Mark-up, Rep. Chu Delivers Remarks Hammering Republican Betrayal of Middle Class

VIDEO: Rep. Chu’s remarks at Budget Committee mark-up of FY2025 budget

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Below is the opening statement of House Budget Committee Member Rep. Judy Chu (CA-28), as delivered, during a legislative mark-up of the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget For Fiscal Year 2025:

Mr. Chair, I strongly oppose the Republican Rip Off. 

Let’s just say it: Prices aren’t any lower than they were on Inauguration Day. The picture of Donald Trump taking the oath of office in the Capitol Rotunda with billionaires in the front row tells us everything we need to know about where his priority is.  It’s certainly not with working people.  In fact, just yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported inflation rose much more than expected in January, meaning that everywhere you go, you see higher prices of fuel, groceries, and eggs.

What’s the response of House Republicans? It’s not an agenda or legislation to lower food, fuel, or housing prices. It’s not an agenda to make life more affordable for Americans.  Instead, they plan to give in entirely to Trump and billionaires’ agendas, and to give the richest man in the world and Trump’s biggest donor, Elon Musk, unfettered access to Americans’ private data. 

Republicans are clear-eyed in this budget proposal: sell out average American workers and the middle class to make the rich even richer. 

To justify their trillions in tax cuts for our country’s wealthiest in their Republican Rip Off, they must find a tradeoff. Now remember that their focus is on helping the wealthiest in the country, amounting to a $2 trillion giveaway to them.  In my district, it means the top wealthiest 0.1% get $314,000 in tax cuts that they don’t even need! 

And who loses out?  Working people, kids and our future generations. These spending cuts steal from future generations and deprive our kids from investments that could rebuild bridges and roads, improve their classrooms, and support the first responders in their towns. In fact, Republicans’ concerns about saddling future generations with our national debt have vanished into thin air.

Just last month, President Trump promised he wouldn’t cut Medicaid, our country’s largest healthcare provider that serves 80 million Americans of all ages. But Republicans have already gone back on this by ordering the House Energy and Commerce Committee to reduce spending by $880 billion. There is no way to make cuts this deep without slashing Medicaid, using our constituent’s healthcare to pay for billionaires’ tax cuts. 

With fewer Medicaid dollars, states will be forced to make drastic, life altering cuts. In my district alone, nearly 135,000 of my constituents, which includes mostly children and seniors, could be at risk of losing their Medicaid coverage. And that is way more than the population of a city. And this proposal comes at a time when my district is just beginning to recover from the Eaton Fire in Altadena and Pasadena, the fifth deadliest wildfire in California’s history that’s left 17 dead, more than 20,000 homeless, and 9500 structures in neighborhoods razed to the ground. 

As Republicans consider these cuts, I ask you to think of a constituent of mine. She is an 88-year-old civil rights activist and retired teacher. Last month, she lost her home of 30 years in the fire. Well, thanks to the Republican Rip Off, not only will she have to begin rebuilding her life at almost 90, but she’ll also have to worry about losing out on home and community-based health services paid for by Medicaid. 

Kids who lost their bedroom and all their belongings in the wildfires could also lose the ability to see a pediatrician.Children and adults with disabilities at the lowest points of their lives and living in unfamiliar places could lose the ability to have their behavioral and chronic health needs met. 

And for what? So Elon can buy a new yacht? So Zuckerberg can buy another home? So Bezos can buy another private plane?So billionaires can hoard even more of this country’s wealth?

My constituents deserve better. The American people deserve better.

I once again voice my opposition to this Republican Rip Off. Justifying tax cuts for the richest on the backs of the working class is betrayal at its worst. I yield back.