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Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. That prohibition includes American citizens as well. So if you are a veteran who served our country and who counts on your VA benefits, you had better not provide any financial support to your grandmother living abroad or, under this legislation, you could be fined $100,000.

The legislation comes straight from a very cruel playbook: First, target public programs that provide a lifeline to low- and middle- income people; second, smear the recipients of this help by characterizing them as fraudsters; and third, use the exaggerated claims as a pretext to slash funding. That was the playbook at the heart of the Republicans' major legislation, which made the biggest ever cuts to healthcare and food assistance in the history of America.

Why were those awful cuts made that are causing hospitals to shutter their labor and delivery units and slash staff? To fund the ICE surge that has led to untrained Federal agents roaming the streets of America's communities, committing violence with impunity.

That major legislation also lavished tax breaks onto the ultrawealthy while doing nothing to crack down on the billions that wealthy tax cheats don't pay their fair share with each year.

This legislation represents a dark heart--a dark heart of the Republican agenda: Scapegoat those who don't have a voice while letting the wealthy and well connected get off the hook.

If my colleagues on the other side really were worried about money leaving the United States, I can tell you, as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, they can look at their own tax laws that encourage giant corporations to ship jobs and factories overseas. They ought to figure out why the Trump economy is driving investors and their dollars away from America and into foreign markets.

It would be an understatement to say this legislation is a solution in search of a problem. This legislation is obviously some kind of messaging bill that would challenge the very foundations of what draws people from all over the world to America--the chance to imagine and create a better life for themselves and their families.

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Mr. WYDEN. Since my colleague is talking about my family's background, you might be interested to know that my parents fled the Nazis in the thirties. Not all got out. And we were especially proud of my two parents, who weren't at all interested in coming to America for any benefits, as my colleague is suggesting; they persuaded themselves that they should be in our Army. My dad was one of the famous Ritchie Boys, renowned for their service to the country, writing the propaganda pamphlets we dropped on the Nazis. So my colleague is way off base with his comments about my family.

Finally, you might want to do some checking. When I first read this, I thought maybe my colleague and his staff just didn't get the text written correctly because the people who are really upset now are the veterans, people who wore the uniform of the United States, who my colleague is putting in a hardship situation, according to staff.

I just wanted to make sure the record was correct.

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