PROBLEMS CAUSED BY DOGE CUTS

PROBLEMS CAUSED BY DOGE CUTS

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2025)] [House] [Pages H909-H911] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] PROBLEMS CAUSED BY DOGE CUTS The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) for 30 minutes. (Mr. SHERMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, he got his start on a TV show called, ``The Apprentice.'' We saw how entertaining it can be to fire people, but that is entertainment. That is not how you run an organization. We have seen a performative effort to try to convince us that they are saving money. They are doing this in order to justify their plan for a $3.5 trillion tax cut for hedge fund managers, multinational corporations and billionaires, but they are really not saving anything. Then, yesterday, we passed a budget resolution, and all my Republican colleagues are on Twitter, X, whatever they want to call it, saying that that resolution contains statutory language to say no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. Well, what did Elon Musk have to say about that or what did his organization have to say? They organized the readers content comments to correct falsehoods that people put in their tweets, and every single time a Republican went up and said that that resolution had eliminated taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security, the Musk organization said: Readers added context. None of the policies mentioned in this post were included in the House budget resolution. It does nothing to exempt tips, Social Security, or overtime. We know they are not ultimately going to do that because they need the $4.5 trillion to provide tax breaks for hedge fund managers, multinational corporations, and billionaires. Now, government is frustrating. It frustrates me often. It needs to be improved. You know what is also frustrating sometimes? My computer is on the blink a little bit, and I just want to take a hammer and hit it up the side. That makes me feel good, but it doesn't actually make the device work any better. There are several techniques being used by the Federal Government that may make us feel good but don't make it work any better. You see, you can fire people--and they are firing just about everybody in the government with less than 2 years of government service, the probationary employees. That destroys our future. The people hired in 2024 are those that we are going to need in 2034. The Dodgers are a pretty well-run organization. I think better run than government. Imagine if the Dodgers were going to fire all the players who had joined in the last 2 years, just eliminate everybody in single A and double A ball, I would say they would be worse than the White Sox. You can fire people. You can also do the buyouts. They offered everybody in government a buyout. Who took the buyout? The people who could easily get another job elsewhere because they have very high capacity and the people who are going to retire in the next year or two anyway, so why not get 8 months free vacation. Then they have the hiring freeze. Imagine if the Dodgers stopped signing new talent, where would they be in the 2030s? You can also stop all research, and I will get to an example of that, and then you argue, well, hey--in 2026, they can say: Hey, we saved all this money, and the research wouldn't have benefited you by 2026. However, who is going to be dying from cancer and other diseases in the 2030s because of the research they are stopping now? Then they can do an oopsy-daisy and say: Oh, we stopped the research, and we started it again. No, no, no, no, you stopped the research. All those little white rats are dead. You can't start again. You have to start the research over. You can stop maintenance, and I will get to an example of that. It saves you money unless you actually want things to work well. Again and again, we are told that there is just a government mulligan, let's just do it over. Oopsy-daisy is not the way to run a multitrillion-dollar organization. We are told that there is $50 million for condoms and $100 million for condoms in Gaza, and then they said, never mind, we got it wrong. We made a mistake. Oopsy-daisy. They decided to offer all of the air traffic controllers 8 months free pay for quitting, and then they say, oopsy-daisy. Then today Elon Musk tweets: There is a shortage of top-notch air traffic controllers. If you have retired but are open to returning to work, please consider doing so. He just gave them 8 months' pay to stay home. Now he hopes they are going to come back. No, the fishing is good, the 8 months' pay is guaranteed. However, it is even worse. You see, not only did they give buyouts to the air traffic controllers, but they have fired the navigational aid maintenance personnel. Those air traffic controllers are going to be looking at empty screens, and those folks remain fired. What could go wrong? {time} 1345 They also stopped our efforts against Ebola. Some of the charities were barely getting by. They have gone bankrupt. They pulled their people out of Africa. Then he says: Oopsy-daisy, we are going to start that again. What a way to run a government. There are people who are going to get Ebola as a result of this oopsy-daisy mistake, and that is another opportunity for Ebola inside a human being to mutate a little bit and then be a more pathogenic Ebola when it comes here. Finally, they fired 300 people who were in charge of security of our nuclear weapons. Oopsy-daisy, what could have gone wrong? Keep in mind, if somebody is fired and then hired back or told they are going to be fired but then not fired--if you say, oh, no harm, no foul, oopsy- daisy--once that happens to a person, their resume is on LinkedIn. They are looking for a new job. Nobody wants to stay with an employer, if they have other opportunities, if that employer is teasing them about firing them or, worse yet, actually fired them and got them back. Some of our best people will be leaving in the weeks to come, even if they hire them back. There is real waste, fraud, and abuse in government. This is an example. Mr. Speaker, $200 million of our taxpayer money is being spent on advertisements praising Donald Trump. How do they justify this? They aim these at their own base, to tell their own base: Hey, Donald Trump is great. Here is a commercial to tell us that. They claim that these ads are aimed at undocumented immigrants and that somehow, by watching a 30-second ad, the immigrants are going to say: Oopsy-daisy, I made a mistake. Venezuela really is better than California. I don't think so. There is nothing that can be put in a 30-second ad that is going to cause somebody who is here to decide they want to be back there. These are people who walked here from Venezuela. They went through the Darien Gap. They dealt with the forest. They dealt with the snakes. They dealt with the predators. They dealt with the drug dealers. [[Page H910]] They came into our country at great personal risk. They are going to see a 30-second ad praising Donald Trump and decide to walk back or even fly back? What a stupid excuse that is for the obvious election interference of spending $200 million of taxpayer money on ads praising Donald Trump. Let's look at what is happening at the VA. They fired 2,000 people there. They are still hiring, but they have fired 2,000 people there. They have a nursing shortage in this country. The nurses they have fired are going to find jobs elsewhere very quickly, and they are not going to get them back. The VA has stopped its clinical trials on cancer. Even people who are not veterans may be dying next decade because of the research that is not being done this decade. They are canceling operations. They are increasing the wait times at the VA. They have fired the suicide crisis line counselors. There is veterans' blood on the hands of a man who never served his country. That is right. Elon Musk never served in the South African Army. My district includes the Pacific Palisades. I thank so many of my colleagues for their expressions of sympathy. I have had a chance to work, as I always do, with my constituents dealing with government. It is sometimes frustrating. There are short deadlines imposed on people who have fled their homes and form letters that are confusing as hell and make people think they are not eligible. How do we make it all worse? Fly to my district, as the President did, and announce the elimination of FEMA entirely, while I have FEMA workers working 12 hours a day with my constituents, trying to solve problems. Offer the FEMA workers, including the temporary workers, a buyout. In any disaster we go in, we have to hire temporary workers. They may only have a 3-month or 4-month job, but they are offered 8 months of pay to stay home. What a way to deal with a disaster. Then the President says he wants to impose conditions on the aid. They want to abolish the California Coastal Commission which takes steps to prevent billionaires with beachfront property to not wall off the beach and prevent anybody else from getting in the sand. I can see why Donald Trump would identify with those billionaires. That is the condition he wants to impose? I voted for aid for hurricane victims in Louisiana, and it never occurred to me to turn to a victim after a hurricane in Louisiana and tell them to stay on their cousin's couch and no Federal aid until their State changes its abortion laws. Now is not the time to take hostage fire victims or hurricane victims in an effort to try to force a State government to take an action that this or that Member of Congress or this or that President wants them to take. I want to assure the country we are going to build back better. We are going t