Secure America Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, on Monday, Tina Peters walked out of prison. The convicted felon and former county clerk is free after serving less than a quarter of her sentence, a sentence she earned when she violated her oath and tried to undermine Colorado's free and fair elections.
That doesn't just make her a conspiracy theorist; it makes her a criminal. Tina Peters had her day in court. She was prosecuted by a Republican district attorney and convicted by a jury of her peers in a Republican stronghold. The verdict was unanimous. Tina Peters was guilty as sin. But if you ask the Trump administration, they believe she needs and deserves a payday.
Last month, the Department of Justice announced the creation of a $1.8 billion fund, a slush fund--can't call it anything else--for criminals just like Tina Peters.
President Trump plans to hand out nearly $2 billion of your tax money, taxpayer dollars, to January 6 rioters, to wealthy business partners, and people who have attacked democracy.
We are going to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen. The Acting Attorney General says they will no longer pursue this slush fund. I am not sure I believe that for 1 second.
The only promises this administration has seemed to keep are to billionaires and President Trump's cronies. The President calls it the ``Art of the Deal.'' Well, what is the deal? The taxpayers pay in; his allies get payouts?
This administration isn't just trying to give your tax dollars to criminals. They are spending literally trillions of dollars, when you add it up, trillions of dollars on bombs and tax breaks for billionaires. And what do Americans get in return? Higher bills, benefits that have been gutted, and a tab that they never agreed to pick up.
While the Trump administration is busy cashing in, people working-- the so-called working people of America--are facing a cost-of-living emergency. The President's war in Iran--his war of choice--is sending costs through the roof. The costs are already adding up. On energy alone, Americans have spent an average of $450 per person more since the start of this war. Gas in Colorado is now roughly $4.50 a gallon. Before the year is out, Americans will spend hundreds of dollars more than they would have before just on groceries.
Here is how bad it has gotten. Americans now carry a record $1.25 trillion in credit card debt. That is the highest level since the stock market crashed in 2008. That is the equivalent of every single American owing $3,600. That is not a working class that is thriving. That is one that is barely surviving.
And here is the cruel reality: People are working harder than ever. Coloradans are doing everything they can to hold up their end of the bargain--long days, multiple jobs, paying taxes. But the more they contribute, the less they get back, the less they get in return.
And there is a clear explanation for this: The President doled out roughly $4 trillion in tax breaks--so that is over 10 years--but roughly $4 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans so that the largest corporations, so the wealthiest individuals like him, can skip their taxes. And to pay for it, they slashed--over 10 years, they slashed $1 trillion from the healthcare of Americans. That is astounding.
Trump's tariffs generated $133 billion. Nearly every dollar came right out of the pocket of American consumers' pockets--an average of more than $1,000 a person.
Now, the Supreme Court ruled that these tariffs were illegal, and a Federal court ordered the administration to repay American businesses. Has the government responded? Have they complied? No, of course not. They are using every excuse they can to resist. They have failed to pay back the $166 billion that they owe. Even worse, just yesterday, President Trump announced new tariffs on 59 countries, in addition to the European Union.
When they are not busy taxing Americans, the Trump administration is pouring hundreds of millions into this new ballroom. Meanwhile, 9,000 families in Colorado just lost their SNAP benefits. That is their food stamps, their nutrition. Our economy is leaving too many Americans behind.
Just talk to Leah, a young woman I met recently at a healthcare roundtable in Colorado Springs. She is the full-time medical caregiver for her daughter Victoria, who was diagnosed as a baby with spina bifida. Victoria is a paraplegic, fed through a tube, and requires a ventilator.
Leah works around the clock to keep her child alive. That hard work is about to get even harder. This year, Leah's income will be cut by 40 percent as a direct result of this administration's Medicaid cuts. That cut puts her daughter's life at risk.
The Trump administration claims these Medicaid cuts were about preventing graft and fraud, but there is clearly no fraud whatsoever in a mother doing everything she can, trying to keep her child alive.
Leah doesn't even know if they will be able to keep their house, whether they will have enough money to make their payments. That house had been specifically fitted to take care of Victoria's needs.
Without Leah's around-the-clock care, Victoria would have to be institutionalized in an acute care facility at a dramatically higher cost. Now, that is waste. It might not be fraud, but that is waste.
Leah is living every parent's worst nightmare. She works as hard as she possibly can every day to try and keep her child alive, and now it is still not enough. So many Americans are living with these kinds of fears.
At a local nonprofit in Boulder--I take that back. At a local nonprofit in Denver, I met a woman named Brittany, who told me that healthcare is one of her biggest stressors, one of the major things that causes her emotional stress.
Brittany's daughter recently had a severe asthma attack. Brittany watched her daughter gasp for breath and begin to turn blue. In that split second, she faced a second fear. Should she rush her daughter to the hospital herself and risk the drive with no one to care for her daughter or call an ambulance, which she knew she wouldn't be able to afford?
That is a fear no parent should have to live with. The Trump administration made it a reality because they chose these tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country, many of whom--if not most of whom--don't even want the tax breaks. But they chose tax breaks for these billionaires over healthcare for working people.
At another event in Denver, I met Luisa, who spends $90 a week on gas as she drives 28 miles to work and home every day. She had moved farther from Denver because the housing was more affordable. Now she wonders if she made the right choice.
Luisa is watching costs increase while she takes home less every week. She does everything she can to insulate her kids from fear--from her fear. On weekends, she tries to take her kids to the park right about lunchtime. She hopes they are too busy playing to remember how hungry they are. As she says, ``It's one less meal to buy.''
Our country is measured in these moments: the way we care for the most vulnerable, the life-or-death journey between the house and the hospital, the cost to fill an empty refrigerator.
By every measure, our President--President Trump--is failing. He has run up costs; he has paid himself and his friends; and he has stuck Americans with the tab, waiting for Americans to pay the bill.
This is the moment where we decide whether that is acceptable-- whether the people who work the hardest, already pay the most, and ask for the least finally get a country that works for them. It is a question that echoes throughout our entire history, one that built the Civil Rights Movement, women's suffrage, and the long fight for workers to have a seat at the table.
At its core, it is the American question: Whom does this country actually work for? This administration has given their answer to Coloradans. Leah from Colorado Springs will lose close to $80,000 in support. Brittany calculates the cost of an ambulance while her daughter is turning blue and can't breathe. Luisa hopes her kids will not remember that they are hungry.
Americans fund the system. Trump takes billions for himself, and Americans--Americans--get the shaft.
We know there is a better way. Americans have held up their end of the bargain long enough, with long days and multiple jobs and taxes paid over long periods of time. They have earned more than a slush fund for felons, more than a government that builds ballrooms while 9,000 Coloradans lose their groceries. And these are families that are struggling to put food on the table. It is more than an administration that takes everything and returns nothing.
And we have introduced an amendment to stop elected criminals like Tina Peters from getting a dime of your taxpayer dollars. Soon, Republicans are going to be forced to vote on it. So while hard-working Americans struggle with rising costs, those who undermine our elections are the last people our government should subsidize, the last people that should ever get your hard-earned tax dollars.
We need to put an end to the slush fund. We need to put that end in writing so the Trump administration can't change their mind later on. Working Americans have paid in too long to keep getting played, and we will fight tooth and nail to make sure they get what they are owed.
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