Home of Representatives Minority Chief Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., blasted Republicans for not maintaining their promise to voters who elected President Donald Trump and gave his celebration full management of Congress to deal with the excessive value of residing. Throughout a Home ground speech on Monday, Congressman Jeffries chastised his GOP colleagues for not focusing their first weeks within the new 119th Congress on what they promised could be their focus if voters gave Republicans energy in Washington, D.C.
“Home Democrats need nothing to do with the Republican bait and change, and we’ll do the whole lot potential to cease it,” mentioned Rep. Jeffries, who made historical past in 2023 as the primary Black American to be elected as chief of a nationwide political celebration.
“The price of residing in the US of America is much too excessive. Housing prices are too excessive, grocery prices are too excessive, insurance coverage prices are too excessive, utility prices are too excessive, youngster care prices are too excessive,” the Democrat continued. “America is simply too costly. It isn’t acceptable within the wealthiest nation within the historical past of the world that far too many on a regular basis People are struggling to stay paycheck to paycheck.”
Regardless of signing 59 government orders up to now, President Trump’s agenda has targeted on decreasing federal spending and cultural points like range, fairness and inclusion, and gender id, not particularly driving down prices of issues like grocery costs, housing, or well being care. Final week, Trump met with Republican lawmakers to debate his prime financial priorities, which included completely extending his 2017 tax lower legislation and different further tax-related gadgets.
Congressman Jeffries known as the 2017 tax legislation a “rip-off” that primarily benefited billionaires and “rich” firms, citing that 83% of the advantages went to the nation’s “wealthiest 1%.”
“Every little thing is about large tax cuts for billionaires and rich firms, who, in lots of instances, aren’t even asking for it,” mentioned the New York lawmaker. “And so they actually don’t want the reduction that on a regular basis People want, that working-class People want, that middle-class People want that each one these individuals who aspire to be a part of the middle-class want.”
Democrats have lengthy warned about Trump and Republicans’ tax agenda and the way they might make important cuts to essential federal applications that tens of millions of People depend on so as to pay for it.
“Their plan is to destroy Social Safety, destroy Medicare, and destroy Medicaid as we all know it,” warned Jeffries, including, “And now, with Republicans controlling the Home, the Senate, and the presidency, it’s their intention to attempt to do it.”
Medicaid cuts could be “devastating,” the congressman cautioned. He continued, “Hospitals will shut, together with in rural America and concrete America and within the heartland of America. Nursing houses might be shut down, and on a regular basis People, youngsters, seniors, those that are struggling with disabilities, might be damage as a part of the Republican effort to focus on earned advantages.”
In the course of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign, Democratic nominee and then-Vice President Kamala Harris gave related warnings to voters. Harris launched plans like as much as $25,000 down funds for first-time residence patrons and a company grocery ban on value gouging. Regardless of her efforts, voters, who mentioned addressing the economic system was their prime precedence within the presidential election, elected Trump for a second time period.
Democratic strategist Joel Payne tells theGrio that People, pissed off by inflation and excessive prices, “voted in opposition to the continuation of Joe Biden and, by extension, Kamala Harris,” nevertheless, he emphasised, “They voted in opposition to the factor, not for a factor.” Payne mentioned he doesn’t consider that Trump’s actions so far are what they supposed, which embrace orders to freeze federal spending and permitting billionaire Elon Musk, who’s a non-government worker, and his Division of Authorities Effectivity to entry delicate and private knowledge.
Chief Jeffries mentioned Trump and Republicans have to this point spent their time in management “implementing probably the most excessive components of Venture 2025 and have completed nothing to decrease the excessive value of residing.” He continued, “Not a single factor, not a single invoice, not a single concept, not a single proposal from my Home Republican colleagues to do something in regards to the excessive value of residing In the US of America.”
He added, “We are going to proceed to show it to the American individuals. Home Democrats need nothing to do with it, and we’re going to do the whole lot in our energy to cease it.”
