Economic Populism

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, let me just say a thank-you to my colleague from Pennsylvania, who at his roots understands the plight of working Americans, middle-class families, working families, and the vulnerable and stands tall on their behalf and wants to utilize the good offices of this institution to make sure that it does what the Founding Fathers intended it to do, and that is to provide opportunity for people in this Nation. That is what my friend, Congressman Deluzio, is all about.

One thing about this current administration is clear. They are doing nothing about the cost-of-living crisis in this Nation, which is getting worse. President Trump said he will fight for the working class, but instead put Elon Musk and billionaires in charge of our government.

I applaud, again, Representative Deluzio for hosting this Special Order about economic patriotism, taking on corporate power, as well as for all his work supporting the right to organize, creating well-paying union jobs here in America. High prices are devastating the middle class, working class, and the vulnerable.

Since my very first day in the Congress, I have been focused on lowering the cost of living for Americans who struggle to get by, and I am appalled by how many families are struggling to afford basics while corporations get bigger, richer, and more influential over our lives than ever.

President Trump, as I said, campaigned on lowering prices and pledged to bring food costs down on day one.

Instead, the opposite has happened. Food costs are rising. His own USDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, recently reported egg prices could rise 41 percent over the next year. Since taking office, he has done nothing to help families struggling at the grocery checkout.

As a result, big corporations are consolidating, creating monopolies, and making unbelievable profits. Cal-Maine, which controls about one- fifth of the domestic egg market and is the largest producer and distributor of shell eggs in the United States, has reported that its profits through the second quarter of the 2025 fiscal year are 342 percent higher than the same period last year.

Instead of doing anything to address this cost-of-living crisis, the President has stacked his Cabinet with billionaire after billionaire, empowering them to slash the programs American families rely on with no oversight and no disclosures about the conflicts of interest. Elon Musk, the unchecked billionaire leading the efforts to end Social Security as we know it, owes the success of his company to billions in Federal contracts and huge factories in China. Yet he refuses to answer any questions from Congress about his investments.

These issues concern every American. Democrats are standing up for them. We are standing up against the blatant corruption of this administration, the giant corporations padding their profits at the expense of the middle class and the working class. The Republican focus is to rip away programs like Social Security and Medicaid.

The fact is that American families today are living paycheck to paycheck. Some of the biggest corporations in the country are taking advantage of it, all while Americans are paying more for less due to corporate price gouging and shrinkflation while the CEOs of the Nation's largest grocery stores and supermarkets rake in record salaries.

I just came from a congressional hearing of our Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on food prices and food stamps. I listened to the stories of working Americans with families who are hard-pressed and were frightened to death of a $230 billion cut to the Food Stamp program which would end that lifeline for themselves and for their families.

Last year, the FTC identified that large grocery store chains exploited the product shortages due to the pandemic by raising prices significantly more than needed to cover their added costs, and they have continued to increase their profits.

What is the Republicans' response to this cost-of-living crisis driven by corporate consolidation and power?

Why, it is to give out even more corporate tax cuts, of course, $4.5 trillion worth of them to be precise, paid for by slashing Medicaid which serves nearly one-third of all Americans.

Enough is enough. It is time for this Congress and it is time for Democrats to act to rein in this habitual price gouging from massive, massive corporations, rein in the unchecked billionaires enriching themselves while Americans suffer, and rein in Republican spending while targeting Social Security and Medicaid.

If the Trump administration continues to prioritize tax cuts for the rich over price cuts for the middle class, then I will continue to stand with my colleagues as we call out their broken promises and fight back against their disastrous policies.

There is another path forward, one which Democrats and Republicans could take together. It is a path of economic patriotism where we take on corporate monopolies and the self-serving billionaires who are squeezing the middle class, the working class, and the vulnerable. It is a path that listens to the American people and protects programs like Medicaid and Social Security while lowering the cost of living through proven policies like the expanded child tax credit which lifted one-half of our children in this Nation out of poverty, lowered the hunger rate, and provided a path forward in economic security for millions of families in the United States.

That is the path that I am taking. It is the path that I know my colleague, Congressman Deluzio, is taking, and I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join us in this effort.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for organizing this effort.

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