DeLauro Statement to House Rules Committee Opposing Republican Rubberstamp on President’s Stealing from the American People

WASHINGTON — House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) delivered the following remarks at the House Rules Committee in opposition to the Senate’s rescissions bill:

Thank you, Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member McGovern, and members of the committee. And it is really a pleasure for me to be on this panel with my appropriations colleague, Mr. Diaz-Balart, and in addition to being a colleague, he is a friend. We have worked together on many issues over the years.

As in June, I remain strongly opposed to this rescissions bill which is a rubberstamp on the Trump Administration’s stealing from the American people.

Since taking office, the Trump Administration has stolen funds appropriated by Congress, passed by Republicans and Democrats in the House and in the Senate and signed into law by the President – the law of the land. Appropriations bills are not suggestions, they are the laws of the land – they are upending the separation of powers and our Constitutional order. Article I, Section 9, Clause 7.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought – the architect of the Administration’s efforts to subvert our power of the purse – has made clear that he wants to end our appropriations process as we know it.

According to POLITICO, this was an article today, quote, “Vought said he’s looking to ‘change the paradigm’ of the way appropriations has worked.” End quote.

The article continues, and I quote again, “When specifically asked if he would reassure Democratic appropriators that the White House would abide by bipartisan spending agreements or commit to not using rescissions on future appropriations bills, he simply said he would not.” End quote.

We are on a dangerous and destructive path to degrade and usurp the authority and prerogatives of the Congress and the Appropriations Committee. 

I am afraid we are moving closer and closer to Mr. Vought’s paradigm where the bipartisan appropriations process is completely irrelevant – I underscore bipartisan. 

This is the only piece of legislation, appropriations bills are the only pieces of legislation where you must have Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, agree before it can go to the President for his signature. If that conclusion cannot occur, the government shuts down. So, he wants to make the process irrelevant, where continuing resolutions, reconciliation, and rescissions are where governing happens. 

The Appropriations Committee is one of the last places in Congress where bipartisanship happens. And we are proud of it.

This bill will shut down rural television and radio stations – cutting off coverage of local news, eliminating emergency information like severe weather alerts, and jeopardizing access to PBS KIDS children’s programming – Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

This bill rips life-saving support away from hungry, displaced, and sick people in developing countries and conflict zones, and to end programs prevent conflict and pandemics. 

This bill abandons the people of Ukraine while they resist Putin’s tyranny. This bill puts America last. 

When we retreat from the world, diplomatically, and through our assistance to vulnerable people, America will be alone – without allies, in a less stable world, without the support of the international community – and do you know who will come out ahead? China. Russia. Iran. 

Just yesterday in the Washington Post, retired Navy Admiral William McRaven, Navy SEAL, Four Star Admiral, warned that cutting the State Department and USAID will put every American at risk.

He participated in Operation Red Dawn, which led to the capture of Sadam Hussein.

He said, and I quote, “This is no time to weaken any element of America’s power. The dismissal of highly trained diplomats at the State Department and the dismantling of USAID will jeopardize national security and make the military’s job more difficult. Our national security has never depended on military strength alone; rather, it relies on collaboration with a strong Foreign Service and diplomatic corps.” End quote.

This bill inexplicably carves out the Countering PRC Influence Fund while also cutting $500 million in disaster assistance. When people in need see supplies coming through that say “USA,” that shows the power of the United States. That will be traded for food aid from China. 

This is already happening. When Burma experienced a devastating earthquake earlier this spring, instead of the U.S. being first on the scene, China surged to help. The aid that went to people in need was marked as ChinAid, instead of, quote, “From the American People.”

All of this is being done in the name of combatting waste. I will tell you what is waste: 500 tons of food grown by American farmers destroyed, at a cost of $130,000 to American taxpayers, because the chaos caused by the dismantling of USAID left it to expire. The same thing is happening to family planning and HIV prevention supplies. 

This is a bill to help Republicans claim they are practicing fiscal responsibility while concealing that what they are doing is ripping health insurance away from at least 16 million Americans in order to make billionaires even more rich, increases the debt by over $3 trillion. 

It codifies the right of the Trump Administration to steal from rural and vulnerable American communities, children, and the global poor, for the sake of handing even more money to billionaires. 

Congress needs to reassert its role and fight for the middle-class, the working-class, and the vulnerable, not protect the interests of billionaires and big corporations.

I strongly oppose this bill, which forfeits our global leadership, undermines national security, and steals from the American people.

Thank you, and I yield back.

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