Skip to main content

Pelosi Remarks at Press Conference on the Impact of the #GOPTaxScam on Children and Families

December 6, 2017

Contact: Ashley Etienne/Henry Connelly, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined House Democrats and advocates from MomsRising for a press conference on the negative impact of the #GOPTaxScam on children and families. Below are the Leader's remarks:

Leader Pelosi. Good morning, everybody. It's a special day for us because we have some very special guests. We have representatives to the future, representatives to a future we will never see but they will and they will carry values into that future that will make America stronger. Let us welcome the children who are with us today.

Today we're here, with MomsRising, moms continue to rise in great numbers across the country, I thank Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner for her leadership role, over and over again. Jamie Davis Smith is with us and Felicia Willems you'll hear from them shortly.

I'm also pleased to have joining us, the women members of the Appropriations Committee, specifically the subcommittee on [Labor], Health and Human Services, Education and [Related Agencies]. This is health, labor and education, it's a very important subcommittee of the Congress on which I had the privilege of serving for years.

It really answers – the response to the question – what are the most important issues facing the Congress. I always say the same thing – our children, our children, our children. Their health, their education, the economic security of their families, a clean safe world in which they can breathe safely and drink water and eat safe food as I say, the pension security of their grandparents which makes the economic security of their families intact.

Some of us were together a couple of weeks ago, right before Thanksgiving with the women members of the Ways and Means Committee because what we're talking about is what happens in this tax bill. And what violence it does, not only to families immediately, but the impact it has on other budget decisions.

We face a bill with dire consequences for families and children across America: the GOP Tax Scam. To pad the pockets of the wealthiest 1 percent, corporations shipping jobs overseas and GOP donors, Republicans are raising taxes on middle class families and putting our children's future on the chopping block as we go forward.

The GOP Tax Scam is a moral obscenity, it violates every standard of fairness and decency that we expect for our children, especially during this holiday season of generosity and goodness. This bill betrays everything we stand for.

We've been joined by some of Santa's elves and their mothers. Their stories speak directly to the stakes of this dastardly GOP tax bill and they are here to warn our Republican colleagues to vote ‘no' on the tax scam and get off the naughty list or get a stocking full of coal.

Again, we have some very special guests here who will be speaking, I don't want to tell their stories, I want you to hear it directly from them. But first, we're going to hear from the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, who is a member of the Labor, Health, and Human Services Subcommittee of Appropriations of the full Committee. She's been a champion for children her whole life in government and politics. Both in America and across the world

Congresswoman [Nita] Lowey, thank you for your leadership and thank you for being here with us.

* * *

I thank my colleagues for their very clear statements about what's at stake with this legislation, but we particularly want to thank Jamie [Davis] Smith, Felicia Willems, Kristin [Rowe-Finkbeiner] and all of MomsRising for the work you are doing.

This is about our children. Our children. The three most important issues facing the Congress: our children, our children, our children.

Again, their health, education, economic security of their families. Listen to the children. Support the children. Let's give a shout-out for the children.

The children. [chants]

Support the children, oppose this legislation. [The] Senate bill makes matters worse in terms of 13 million possibly losing their health care. 78 million American middle class families – 78 million middle class families will have their taxes increased. 62 percent of the benefit of this tax bill goes to the top one percent – why? To give a tax break to the high-end and to corporate America.

Who pays? The children, the children, the children. Their health and education and their future – they're robbing from the future – we can't let them do this. The public needs to know.

Thank you for being here to send that message.

# # #