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gwen moore
'Completely Un-American': Progressives Slam Trump Plan to End Birthright Citizenship
"Emboldened by a Supreme Court that would use its power to uphold white supremacy rather than the constitution of our nation, Trump is on a mission to weaken the very soul of our nation," said Rep. Delia Ramirez.
Dec 09, 2024
Progressives in Congress and other migrant rights advocates sharply criticized U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for his comments on immigration during a Sunday interview, including on his hopes to end birthright citizenship.
During a 76-minute interview with NBC News' Kristen Welker, Trump said he "absolutely" intends to end birthright citizenship, potentially through executive order, despite the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Among many lies the Republican told, he also falsely claimed that the United States is the only country to offer citizenship by birth; in fact, there are dozens.
In response,
outgoing Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said on social media Monday: "This is completely un-American. The 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship. Trump cannot unilaterally end it, and any attempt to do so would be both unconstitutional and immoral."
Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) similarly stressed that "birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution as a cornerstone of American ideals. It reflects our belief that America is the land of opportunity. Sadly, this is just another in the long line of Trump's assault on the U.S. Constitution."
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, said in a statement: "'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' It is important to remember who we are, where many of us came from, and why many of our families traveled here to be greeted by the Mother of Exiles, the Statue of Liberty."
Ramirez argued that "the story of our nation wouldn't be complete without the sweat, tears, joy, dreams, and hopes of so many children of immigrants who are citizens by birthright and pride themselves on being AMERICANS. It is the story of so many IL-03 communities, strengthened by the immigration of people from Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Mexico, and Guatemala, among others. It is the story of many members of Congress who can point to the citizenship of their forebears and ancestors because of immigration and birthright."
"Let's be clear: Trump is posing the question of who gets to be an American to our nation. And given that today's migrants are from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin and Central America, it is clear he is questioning who are the 'right' people to benefit from birthright citizenship," she continued. "Questioning birthright citizenship is anti-American, and eliminating it through executive action is unconstitutional. Donald Trump knows that."
"But emboldened by a Supreme Court that would use its power to uphold white supremacy rather than the Constitution of our nation, Trump is on a mission to weaken the very soul of our nation," she warned. "I—like many sons and daughters of immigrants and first-generation Americans—believe in and fight for a land of freedom, opportunities, and equality. To live into that promise, we must stand against white nationalism—especially when it is espoused at the highest levels of government."
Although Republicans are set to control both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives next year, amending the Constitution requires support from two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures, meaning that process is unlikely to be attempted for this policy.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) highlighted the difficulties of passing constitutional amendments while discussing Trump in a Monday appearance on CNN. The incoming chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus was born in the Dominican Republic and is the first formerly undocumented immigrant elected to Congress.
As Mother Jones reporter Isabela Dias detailed Monday:
Critics of ending birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants argue it would not only constitute bad policy, but also a betrayal of American values and, as one scholar put it to me, a "prelude" to mass deportation.
"It's really 100 years of accepted interpretation," Hiroshi Motomura, a scholar of immigration and citizenship at UCLA's law school, told me of birthright citizenship. Ending birthright citizenship would cut at the core of the hard-fought assurance of equal treatment under the law, he said, "basically drawing a line between two kinds of American citizens."
Trump's NBC interview also addressed his long-promised mass deportations. The president-elect—whose first administration was globally condemned for separating migrant families at the southern border and second administration is already filling up with hard-liners—suggested Sunday that he would deport children who are U.S. citizens with undocumented parents.
"I don't want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don't break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back," Trump told Welker.
Responding in a Monday statement, America's Voice executive director Vanessa Cárdenas said, "There's a growing consensus that the Trump mass deportation agenda will hit American consumers and industries hard, but the scope of what Trump and his team are proposing goes well beyond the economic impact."
"Trump and allies are making clear their mass deportation agenda will include deporting U.S. citizens, including children, while aiming to gut a century and a half of legal and moral precedent on birthright citizenship," she added. "In total, their attacks go well beyond the narrow lens of immigration to the fundamental question of who gets to be an American."
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'A Mockery': House Passes Tax Bill That Favors Corporations Over Children
"The bill provides millions of dollars in tax relief for the wealthy and pennies for the poor," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
Feb 01, 2024
The U.S. House late Wednesday passed legislation that would modestly expand the child tax credit for low-income families while reviving significant business tax breaks, a trade-off that some progressive lawmakers rejected as far too lopsided in favor of corporations.
The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 passed the House in an overwhelming 357 to 70 vote, with 169 Republicans and 188 Democrats supporting the measure.
Nearly all of the 23 House Democrats who voted against the bill are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), a roughly 100-member coalition whose chair backed the $78 billion legislation.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said following Wednesday's vote that she opposed the bill because it is "deeply inequitable—at a time when we have seen the greatest rise in inequality with the biggest corporations making super profits at the expense of the consumer."
The American Prospect's David Dayen has estimated that "in the time period when all the tax credits are actually in place, the business tax changes are five times more costly than the CTC changes."
"It is a mockery of who representative government works for," DeLauro argued. "This bill delivers massive tax cuts for the biggest corporations while denying middle class families the economic security they had under the expanded, monthly child tax credit. This is a reversal of the largest middle-class tax cut in history. The bill provides millions of dollars in tax relief for the wealthy and pennies for the poor."
Unlike the 2021 child tax credit expansion that eliminated the program's regressive phase-in and drove the U.S. child poverty rate down to a record low before expiring at the end of that year, the legislation passed by the House on Wednesday would exclude families with less than $2,500 in annual income—the very poorest.
The bill, which now heads to the closely divided U.S. Senate, would also not restore the monthly payments that families received under the 2021 expansion. Eligible families would claim the CTC when filing their annual tax returns.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that the CTC changes in the House-passed bill would benefit around 16 million children in low-income families and lift around 400,000 kids out of poverty in the first year of enactment.
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), a CPC member who voted against the legislation, said that while she welcomes the bill's improvements to the CTC and the low-income housing tax credit, the measure "makes compromises that I cannot accept."
In a scathing statement ahead of Wednesday's vote, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said that "the richest 120,000 households would get a larger share of the tax benefits than the bottom 88 million families" during the bill's first year.
"The poorest 20% of families would receive just $60 on average, while the richest .1% get an average of $57,530 in tax breaks," said Tlaib, pointing to research by the Tax Policy Center. "Meta—a company making tens of billions in profits—would see its effective tax rate drop from 25% to -2% under this bill. Working families in my district should never be paying higher taxes than the richest companies on Earth."
Other Democrats, including CPC chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), similarly criticized the bill's corporate tax giveaways but argued that the benefits for children warranted a yes vote.
"While I find this trade-off troubling and I strongly believe that we need to do everything possible to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share, this vote was for the working families in Seattle and communities across the country who will benefit from an expanded CTC, and I recommit myself to ensuring that we fully fund the CTC to the benefit of as many people as possible when Democrats are back in control of the House," Jayapal said in a statement.
The bill's prospects in the narrowly Democratic Senate are uncertain, and Republicans could wield the chamber's 60-vote filibuster to tank the legislation.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) suggested that GOP senators could oppose the bill to deny President Joe Biden an election-year legislative victory.
"I think passing a tax bill that makes the president look good—may allow checks before the election—means that he can be reelected and then we won't extend the 2017 tax cuts," Grassley said, referring to Trump-era tax breaks for the rich.
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Dems Detail 'Catastrophic' Costs If GOP Hostage-Takers Force US Default
"House Republicans' approach is dangerous and destabilizing," warned Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. "Republicans are gambling with Americans' savings, benefits, and lives, all to play a political game."
Mar 23, 2023
Congressional Democrats on Thursday forcefully called out their Republican colleagues for holding the economy hostage by refusing to raise the country's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling without major spending cuts, risking the first-ever U.S. default.
Democrats declined to even try to raise the nation's arbitrary and arguably unconstitutional borrowing limit while they still controlled both chambers of Congress during last year's lame-duck session, setting up the current fight. Because the ceiling has already been hit, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is now taking "extraordinary measures" to give lawmakers more time to act, but the deadline to do so looms, with a default possible as early as June, based on the latest federal estimates.
"This report shows that a Republican default crisis means real dollars coming out of American families' wallets and savings decimated."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) along with other key party members came together Thursday to unveil an alarming six-page Joint Economic Committee (JEC) Democratic staff report.
"This report shows that a Republican default crisis means real dollars coming out of American families' wallets and savings decimated. This is not a hypothetical exercise to the millions of Americans—including veterans and seniors—who rely on the United States government for benefits, pensions, and disability," Schumer said in a statement.
"House Republicans' approach is dangerous and destabilizing," he added. "Even the threat of a breach will raise costs on everything from car loans to mortgages. Republicans are gambling with Americans' savings, benefits, and lives, all to play a political game."
Specifically, according to the report, if the GOP forced a historic and "catastrophic" default:
- The average worker close to retirement could take a $20,000 hit to their retirement savings;
- Small business loans could go up $44 a month, costing about $2,500 more over the course of the loan;
- Debt-limit threats could weaken the dollar and push up prices for consumers;
- A typical new homeowner could see their monthly mortgage payment go up more than $150, costing them an extra $54,300 over the life of their loan;
- A family buying a new car could pay over $800 more if interest rates spike;
- Americans with private student loans could see their monthly payments rise by $23, costing them nearly $4,200 in total; and
- Families with credit card debt could see their monthly payments rise, making it harder for them to become debt-free.
"A decade ago credit rating agencies downgraded the U.S. credit rating after Republican debt limit brinkmanship, and it drove borrowing costs for the American people higher in a variety of ways," noted Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). "This Joint Economic Committee report quantifies what kind of damage regular people could see if that happens again, and it is very bad."
"This would affect everyone who borrows money, including the United States government, which would have to pay more in its borrowing costs," he explained. "In other words, Republican hostage-taking on the debt limit would actually increase the deficit."
Beyer, Schumer, and Jeffries were joined at the news conference Thursday by Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) as well as Sens. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the JEC chairman-designate, who stressed that "the debt ceiling is not a bargaining chip."
While several of them slammed "MAGA Republican in the House," 71-year-old Moore chose to describe the GOP lawmakers whose actions are jeopardizing not only the U.S. but also the global economy another way.
"I have a great-granddaughter that falls out and rolls on the floor when she can't have her way. I tell her she needs to get up because she's not gonna get it," Moore said. "Republicans need to get up and stop holding our economy hostage."
"We are not going to devastate our seniors and our children, and we will not sabotage the world's standard credit rating," the congresswoman declared. "Republicans need to get up off the ground and raise the debt limit!"
Adding to concerns about the U.S. and global economies are recent bank turmoil and repeated interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve—which, along with Congress, is facing criticism for regulatory rollbacks that experts tie to the bank failures.
As Punchbowl Newsreported Wednesday:
Instead of expressing caution, senior GOP lawmakers are leaning into their plans to demand spending cuts in return for raising the nation's borrowing limit. The Republicans we spoke to doubled down, arguing the same factors that led to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank necessitate urgency in reducing government spending.
"This is the best time to do it," House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said of the debt limit fight. "That interest rate pressure that is creating some risk in the banking industry is a result of the inflation that has been induced by the massive amounts of spending."
[...]
Arrington's panel will play a central role in the Republican posture heading into negotiations with President Joe Biden. While House Republicans have yet to release their budget, GOP leaders have vowed to roll back spending to FY2022 levels. That would mean a cut of roughly $130 billion from last year's funding level. Democrats and the White House have assailed the plan as an attack on working families, seniors, and veterans, while Republicans insist the cuts are necessary to rein in inflation.
The Texas Republican said it "makes sense that when you have a debt ceiling negotiation," lawmakers would "reflect on the indebtedness of our country" and look to cut spending at the same time.
Punchbowl noted similar remarks this week from Reps. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) and John Rose (R-Tenn.) along with GOP Conference Secretary Lisa McClain.
Biden introduced his budget blueprint for FY2024 earlier this month. Though progressives condemned the president's historically high request for military spending as "madness" they also praised his push for massive social investments as well as tax hikes targeting wealthy individuals and corporations.
Meanwhile, "House Republican leaders did not respond to multiple questions from USA TODAY about when the GOP budget would be ready," the newspaper reported Wednesday.
As USA TODAY detailed:
An initial proposal from the House Budget Committee includes cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, Biden's student debt cancellation, and funding for electric vehicles for the U.S. post office.
It also includes reinstating work requirements to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
A proposal from the House Freedom Caucus includes $131 billion in cuts for fiscal year 2024.
"Extreme MAGA House Republicans are showing us what they value: tax breaks for the rich," Biden said of the caucus' proposal. "They demand the biggest Medicare benefits cut in decades, ship jobs overseas, defund law enforcement, devastate our national and border security. It's a gut punch to the middle class."
As Liz Zelnick from the watchdog Accountable.US warned, "The MAGA extremists running the House fully intend to manufacture a disastrous default crisis by making demands they know to be nonstarters—like letting wealthy tax cheats and big polluters off the hook."
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