{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://sewell.house.gov/2025/5/rep-sewell-opening-remarks-at-ways-and-means-committee-markup-of-president-trump-s-billionaire-tax-giveaway", "Rep. Sewell Opening Remarks at Ways and Means Committee Markup of President Trump\u2019s Billionaire Tax Giveaway", "2025-05-13", "2025", "2025-05", "Democrat", "House", "AL", "Terri A. Sewell", "S001185", "sewell.house.gov", "sewell", "https://sewell.house.gov/press-releases", "scraper", "Washington D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) provided the following opening remarks during the House Ways and Means Committee\u2019s markup of President Trump\u2019s tax bill. The legislation provides more than $4 trillion in tax giveaways to the wealthy while slashing $715 billion from Medicaid and $290 billion from SNAP. Follow along live here.\n\nWatch it on YouTube here.\n\nRep. Sewell: My colleagues, let\u2019s be honest about why we are here today. We are here because\u2014according to President Trump, Elon Musk, and Republicans in Congress\u2014the wealthiest individuals and the largest corporations in our country are not wealthy enough.\n\nThis committee could be working to help Americans deal with the high cost of living. We could be working to make healthcare more accessible and more affordable. We could be working to strengthen Social Security. And of course, we could be working to support our small businesses who are reeling from President Trump\u2019s reckless tariffs.\n\nBut what we\u2019re doing instead? At the direction of President Trump, we are marking up a bill that would give $4 trillion worth of tax giveaways to the wealthy, the well-connected, and the well-off.\n\nAnd how are we going to pay for it? Not by reducing the billions of dollars we spend to subsidize the oil industry.\n\nNo. Instead, my Republican colleagues would rather kick 14 million Americans off their health care, cut off food stamps and food assistance for hungry families, and bankrupt our small businesses because of this tariff war.\n\nIt\u2019s outrageous and it\u2019s unacceptable.\n\nIn my home state of Alabama, half of all births are covered by Medicaid, and more than half of the Medicaid recipients in Alabama are children. 60 percent of the nursing homes in Alabama have Medicaid beneficiaries.\n\nSo, let\u2019s be clear. The face of Medicaid are our children, our seniors, and the disabled. When our Republican colleagues cut $715 billion from Medicaid, it is our children, our seniors, and the disabled who will pay the price.\n\nMr. Chairman, these cuts are about more than just statistics. They are about lives and livelihoods. Real people will be impacted by the actions that we take.\n\nLast Friday, I had the chance to meet one of my constituents, LaToya Mims. LaToya\u2019s beautiful 6-year-old daughter Harper has cerebral palsy. She is one of the 3 million American children living with disabilities.\n\nIt was because of Medicaid that Harper is able to live at home with her family surrounded by her loved ones. Without it, she would be forced into an institution.\n\nTo strip children like Harper of their health care in order to cut taxes for Trump\u2019s billionaire friends is an outrageous betrayal of our American values. It\u2019s shameful.\n\nEveryone on this committee has a Harper in their district. Everyone on this committee represents tens of thousands of Americans who rely on Medicaid to make ends meet. We should be standing up for them instead of ripping the rug out from under them.\n\nThe people that I represent are good and honest Americans. They work hard every day. They make enormous sacrifices to support themselves and their families. But they are hurting. They are being crushed by the high cost of living, and many are living paycheck to paycheck.\n\nWhat are my constituents to do to make Donald Trump care about protecting their health care? They can\u2019t afford to bribe him by funneling millions of dollars into crypto scheme. They can\u2019t afford to buy him another jet.\n\nThe American people sent us here to speak up for their needs, not to do the bidding for the billionaire class. As members of this committee, we have the opportunity to build an economy that works for all Americans, but we are failing them.\n\nMy constituents deserve to have a voice in this democracy, and I will fight each and every day to provide them with that voice.\n\nThis is a sad day on this committee. A sad day for Congress. A sad day for the American people.\n\nI am a hard NO on this bill. Actually, I\u2019m a HELL NO on this bill.\n\nI will continue to fight to make sure that those who are the most vulnerable in our society get a voice. We have to speak up and speak out for the least of these.\n\nI will continue to do that, and I ask that my colleagues do the same.\n\nThank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T00:49:36Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://sewell.house.gov/2025/5/rep-sewell-opening-remarks-at-ways-and-means-committee-markup-of-president-trump-s-billionaire-tax-giveaway"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.0246522724628448, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}