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katherine clark
'The GOP Promised to Make Life Easier for Working Families,' But Here's the Real Agenda
"Mike Johnson is committing to slashing Social Security and Medicare to get the speaker's gavel," said one progressive group.
Jan 03, 2025
As Republicans took full control of Congress this week and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepared to take office later this month, Democratic lawmakers renewed warnings about how the GOP agenda will harm working people and pledged to fight against it.
"Today, the 119th Congress officially begins. Our top priority over the next two years must be fighting for working families and standing up to corporate power and greed," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on social media Friday.
"While Republicans focus their energy for the next two years on giving tax breaks to the rich and cutting vital public programs, Democrats will continue working to lower costs and raise wages for all," Jayapal promised. "We'll always be fighting for YOU."
In addition to members of Congress being sworn in on Friday, nearly all Republicans in the House of Representatives reelected Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as speaker and the chamber debated a rules package that Democrats have criticized since it was released by GOP leadership earlier this week.
"Their governance will be marked by consolidated power, scapegoated communities, and campaigns of punishment."
The package fast-tracks a dozen bills on a range of issues; they include various immigration measures as well as legislation attacking transgender student athletes, sanctioning the International Criminal Court, requiring proof of United States citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and prohibiting a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for fossil fuels.
"Speaker Johnson has said that the 119th Congress will be consequential. Today, both in Speaker Johnson's address and in the rules package the Republicans have passed, Republicans have shown us what the consequences of their leadership will be," Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.) said in a statement. "In their first order of business, Republicans advanced a legislative package that abuses the power of Congress to persecute trans children athletes, take federal funding away from sanctuary cities like Chicago and Illinois, scapegoat immigrants, erode voting rights, and put new criminal penalties on reproductive care providers."
"For the first time in history, they seek to make the speakership less accountable to the full body of legislators and to limit our ability to consider emergency bills," Ramirez noted. "Overall, they are using the rules to make Congress less transparent, less accountable, and less responsive to the needs of the American people. Their governance will be marked by consolidated power, scapegoated communities, and campaigns of punishment."
Speaking out against the package on the House floor, Jayapal said it "makes very clear what the Republican majority will not do in the 119th Congress," stressing that the 12 bills "do nothing to lower costs or raise wages for the American people."
These bills also won't "take on the biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals who profit from the high prices and junk fees and corporate concentration that's harming Americans across this country," she said. "Because guess what? These corporations and wealthy individuals are the ones that are controlling the Republican Party for their own benefit."
Jayapal highlighted the exorbitant wealth of Trump's Cabinet picks, just a day after the president-elect announced corporate lobbyist and GOP donor Ken Kies as his choice for assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department—which is set to be led by billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, as Republicans in Congress try to pass another round of tax cuts for the rich.
GOP lawmakers are also aiming "to make meaningful spending reforms to eliminate trillions in waste, fraud, and abuse, and end the weaponization of government," Johnson said in a lengthy social media on Friday. "Along with advancing President Trump's America First agenda, I will lead the House Republicans to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, hold the bureaucracy accountable, and move the United States to a more sustainable fiscal trajectory."
In other words, responded the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), "Mike Johnson is committing to slashing Social Security and Medicare to get the speaker's gavel."
Republicans have a slim House majority and Trump-backed Johnson was initially set to fall short of the necessary support to remain speaker, due to opposition from not only Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) but also Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Keith Self (R-Texas). However, after a private conversation, Norman and Self switched their votes.
"Johnson cut a backroom deal with the members that voted against him so they'd flip their votes. So he will get gavel now. I'm sure in time we'll find out what he sold out just so he'd win," Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.) said on social media.
"What did Johnson sell out to become speaker? Social Security or Medicare? Or perhaps veterans?" he asked.
Citing a document circulated ahead of the vote by Johnson's right-wing critics that lists "failures" of the 118th Congress, the PCCC said: "Looks like all of the above. But his holdouts put Social Security in their first bullet of grievances."
After the vote, Norman and 10 right-wing colleagues released a letter explaining that, despite sincere reservations, they elected Johnson because of their "steadfast support of President Trump and to ensure the timely certification of his electors."
"To deliver on the historic mandate earned by President Trump for the Republican Party, we must be organized to use reconciliation—and all legislative tools—to deliver on critical border security, spending cuts, pro-growth tax policy, regulatory reform, and the reversal of the damage done by the Biden-Harris administration," they added.
Politicoreported that "House Republicans are hoping to start work on the budget targets for critical committees on Saturday—the first step in kicking off their ambitious legislative agenda involving energy, border, and tax policy."
According to the outlet:
"The Ways and Means Committee is just going to be able to draft tax legislation according to what the budget reconciliation instructions are," said House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who will be leading the charge on extensions of... Trump's tax cuts.
"And so when the conference figures out what they want in those instructions, we'll be able to deliver according to those parameters," said Smith, when asked about the primary goal of a GOP conference meeting tentatively scheduled for Saturday at Fort McNair, an Army post in southwest Washington.
That followed Thursday reporting by The Washington Post that Trump advisers and congressional Republicans "have begun floating proposals to boost federal revenue and slash spending so their plans for major tax cuts and new security spending won't further explode the $36.2 trillion national debt."
As the newspaper detailed, 10 policies that Republicans have considered are tariffs, repealing clean energy programs, unauthorized spending, repealing the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness, shuttering the Education Department, cutting federal food assistance, imposing Medicaid work requirements, blocking Medicare obesity treatment, ending the child tax credit for noncitizen parents, and cutting Internal Revenue Service funding.
"The GOP promised to make life easier for working families," Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), the Democratic whip, said on social media in response to the Post's article. "Now, they want to slash your school budget, raise your grocery costs, and hike your energy bills—all to pay for billionaire tax cuts."
"We will not allow Republicans to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food assistance to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy," she added Friday. "No way."
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Senate GOP Blocks Effort to Federally Protect IVF Access
"Remember this the next time they claim to care about freedom and family," said one Democratic lawmaker.
Feb 28, 2024
Democratic U.S. lawmakers and reproductive rights defenders on Wednesday blasted congressional Republicans and former U.S. President Donald Trump after a GOP senator blocked a bill to protect access to in vitro fertilization a week after Alabama's right-wing Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) objected to a request to pass by unanimous consent a bill introduced by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to federally protect IVF access, claiming that the bill is "a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far."
Calling the bill "a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far," Hyde-Smith claimed it would legalize human cloning, gene-edited "designer babies," and commercial surrogacy, "including for young girls without parental involvement."
Duckworth accused her colleague of misreading the legislation, asserting that "it simply says you have a statutory right should you choose to pursue assisted reproductive technology."
Democratic lawmakers reacted angrily to Hyde-Smith's move—and to Republican attacks on reproductive freedom.
"Once again, Republicans have shown their true colors,"
said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). "Republicans are claiming to support IVF while voting down the very bill that would do that. Actions speak louder than words."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)
said on social media: "I wish I could say I'm surprised. Senate Republicans just blocked our attempt to pass Sen. Duckworth's bill to protect nationwide access to IVF. Republicans will stop at nothing to deny women in America their fundamental rights and freedoms."
In the House, Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) lamented Republicans' attack on legislation that would "protect Americans' right to start a family through IVF."
"Remember this the next time they claim to care about freedom and family," Clark added.
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Duckworth said: "Let's be clear about what led to this moment. The overturning of Roe is what made last week's ruling even possible."
"Donald Trump is the one who bragged about taking down Roe v. Wade," she added. "Donald Trump acts as if that's something to be proud of."
Trump—the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner despite facing 91 federal and state criminal charges—appointed three right-wing anti-abortion justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. All three were part of the 6-3 majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which voided half a century of federal abortion rights.
Following last week's Alabama ruling—which prompted multiple IVF clinics to suspend operations in the state—Trump and other Republicans scrambled to distance themselves from the deeply unpopular decision.
However, Duckworth said Wednesday that "while it may now be convenient" for Trump "to claim that he had nothing to do with what happened in Alabama, we know the truth: IVF is at risk because of him. He is to blame."
"Him and every other GOP official who shamelessly kisses his ring, proving with every word that they they that they care more about protecting his poll numbers than protecting Americans' freedoms," she added.
At the Center for American Progress, senior vice president for inclusive growth Emily Gee said that "Republicans have been on a relentless crusade to strip women of their fundamental freedom to control their own reproductive destinies and medical decisions—seeking to ban abortion, restrict contraception, and limit fertility options for Americans trying to grow their families."
"They have been emboldened and enabled by Donald Trump and his hand-picked U.S. Supreme Court justices, who have misinterpreted the Constitution to rip away Americans' rights and enforce their extreme MAGA ideology on all of us," she continued.
"Senate Republicans' decision to block legislation affirming Americans' ability to obtain IVF treatment is a moral abomination as well as an insult to families devastated by the Alabama Supreme Court's recent ruling," Gee added. "Today, they have made painstakingly clear that there's no limit to their agenda to intrude upon women's most personal decisions. That is an intrusion that Americans will continue to reject."
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