00:00Madam President, Senator from Georgia. Madam President, I rise tonight in a moral moment
00:13in our nation. As we debate this bill, so much is on the line. The health care of over 16 million
00:26Americans, 750,000 of them Georgians, is on the line. Food for hungry children in a wealthy
00:36nation where one in five children are already food insecure. They don't know where their
00:47next meal is coming from. Their livelihood, their welfare is on the line. The well-being
00:55of seniors in nursing homes and the disabled who rely on Medicaid and those who care for
01:01them is on the line. The fate of rural hospitals in Georgia, in Alaska, in Louisiana, in little
01:13towns all over this nation that are right now barely hanging on is on the line. And the
01:21scraps that they are throwing them while cutting them will not save them. And my friends on
01:32the other side of the aisle know it. They know that these scraps that they're throwing at
01:39rural hospitals will not save them. And so in a very real sense, lives are on the line. We
01:50are in a moral moment. Because something else is on the line. I submit that the character
01:59of the country is on the line. In a real sense, the question tonight is who are we? Not who do
02:12we tell ourselves we are, but who are we really? What and who do we care about? What kind of nation
02:23are we? And what kind of people do we want to be? Who matters and who doesn't? Who do we think
02:38is dispensable? In no place is the answer to that question clearer than in a nation's budget. I submit
02:50that a budget is not just a fiscal document. A budget is a moral document. Show me your budget
02:59and I'll show you who you think matters and who doesn't. And if this awful budget were an EKG,
03:07it would suggest that our nation has a heart problem and is in need of moral surgery.
03:14And so I'm clear tonight, I understand the nature of what we are engaged in. This is a political
03:24process. It is. But it is also a moral exercise. Not only for the nation, but for each of us individually.
03:38And especially for the mere 100 of us out of a nation of 300 million who get to vote, perhaps
03:56in a matter of hours. We have the rare privilege of standing up for people who have entrusted with
04:05us the covenant of centering their families. It's a real privilege for the people of your state to say
04:16that since we can't go to Washington, we're going to trust you in rooms of power to be thinking about our
04:27children. To be thinking about our parents as they deal with the blessings and the burdens
04:35of growing old. And so the question for me tonight is, how will we show up in this moment?
04:48And that's why yesterday, I gathered in the Russell Rotunda with a multi-faith coalition of clergy
04:57to pray that lawmakers might have the courage to stand up to stand up to their party, to stand up to the
05:09special interests, and protect seniors in nursing homes and pregnant mothers on Medicaid, and children
05:18who risk going to school hungry every single day in this country. One in five children in the
05:27wealthiest nation on the planet, already food insecure. And with these snap cuts,
05:34this body is about to make it worse.
05:40And so surrounded by clergy of many faith traditions yesterday, I prayed that we would have the courage.
05:49I prayed that we would have the grace
05:51to stand as voices for the voiceless.
05:54And as I stood there, I could not help but feel a sense of deja vu. This is not the first time
06:05I've been in our nation's capital speaking out against these policies that betray hardworking
06:12families. It was eight years ago, almost to the day in 2017, when Washington Republicans were trying to pass
06:22a tax bill that favored wealthy Americans over working families, that I came to this building not as a
06:33senator, but as a pastor. I had no idea that eight years later, I would be serving in this body. I had
06:41no notion that I would even run for the Senate. I came as a citizen, and standing with a multi-faith coalition, we were praying for our nation's leaders.
06:57We were gathered in the rotunda of the Russell building, and as we were singing and praying, the Capitol Police said,
07:09I'm sorry, pastors, you can't sing and pray in the rotunda. If you do not disperse, we will have to arrest you.
07:18And let me say that the Capitol Police did not mishandle us that day. They were first-rate professionals.
07:33But they said that if you don't disperse, we will have to arrest you. What they didn't understand is that I had already been arrested.
07:42My conscience had been arrested. My heart and my imagination, my moral imagination had been arrested by this idea that we as a country are better than this.
07:57I come from a tradition where you don't just pray with your lips, you pray with your legs.
08:03You put your body in the struggle for other struggling bodies.
08:15And so here I am tonight, eight years later, having transformed my agitation into legislation.
08:27I was arrested that day, but I have transformed my protest into public policy.
08:38Eight years ago I was on the outside, tonight I'm on the inside, but it's the same fight.
08:48Some of us fight on the inside, some of us fight on the outside, some of us get to serve in the Senate,
08:54or in the house, others are just watching at home tonight, but be really clear that we are in the same fight,
09:00whether we are on the streets or in the suites.
09:06Same fight.
09:11And in some ways, this is the same bill, eight years later, just worse.
09:16Like most horror movies, the sequel tends to be worse.
09:26We were here eight years ago.
09:31Washington politicians were trying their best to gut the Affordable Care Act.
09:37Remember that?
09:38They were trying to gut the Obamacare out of political motives.
09:50Millions of Americans were spared.
09:55But tonight is the sequel to that horror movie.
09:58They are back to their old political tricks.
10:01Trying to dismantle the ACA again with this legislation, it's the same fight.
10:12Just worse this time.
10:15Instead of extending tax credits that would lower health insurance costs for the middle class,
10:20my friends on the other side are giving billionaires and the riches of the rich a tax cut.
10:27They are working real hard tonight to help billionaires because God knows they are having a hard time, apparently.
10:40What that means is that 1.2 million Georgians and nearly 20 million Americans are going to see their health care premiums rise.
10:53That's what's at stake tonight.
10:54If they enact these deep cuts to Medicaid,
11:00as they are positioned not to extend these premiums, these tax credits,
11:09they are raising the cost of health care for all of us.
11:16Even if you are on private insurance, you are not safe.
11:20Your health care is about to go up.
11:26Your hospital might close.
11:31Because they are cutting these clean energy tax cuts, your utility bills are about to go up.
11:39And so I have a question tonight, who voted for that?
11:42Some of us are Democrats, some of us are Republicans, some of us are independents, some voted for one party, some voted for the other party.
11:53I get it.
11:54I get it.
11:55But who voted for that?
11:56Who voted for everybody's health care premiums to go up and their hospitals to close?
12:01Here's what I know, the folks back in Georgia didn't vote for that.
12:08They voted for me and they voted for Donald Trump, but they didn't vote for that.
12:17Ordinary folks don't want this.
12:24Just ordinary everyday people who barely pay attention to politics, they don't want this.
12:34Even a Fox News poll, and you won't often hear me say that, but even a Fox News poll from this month found that Americans don't support this big ugly bill.
12:53This is symptomatic of the ways in which the people's voices have been squeezed out of their democracy.
13:04This is not just a health care fight.
13:07It is that.
13:08It is not just a fight for food security, for SNAP.
13:11It is that.
13:12But in a real sense, it is a fight for our democracy whose voice gets to be heard in this chamber.
13:18That's what this is about, the character of the country.
13:21Ordinary Americans don't want to do this to our children.
13:26That's why they need to know that 71% of all Medicaid enrollees in Georgia are children.
13:3771%.
13:40Taking away health care from kids to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
13:46Now, let me be clear.
13:49I'm all for tax cuts.
13:51I believe working families deserve a tax cut, and I certainly don't want to see them face a tax hike this year.
14:01That's why I want to nearly double the child tax credit.
14:05I believe in tax cuts for hard working families, for middle class people, for working class families.
14:12But instead of doing that, instead of helping working class families who are struggling now against a 10% tax on everything, and rising costs, we're now burdening our children by adding $3 trillion to the debt.
14:39We're taking away health care from kids.
14:42We're taking away health care from kids and then burdening them with the debt.
14:46We are engaged in Robin Hood in reverse, this body of stealing from the poor in order to give to the rich.
14:55This massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.
14:59Yeah, this is socialism for the rich.
15:08And when the people hear about it, guess what?
15:12They don't like it.
15:14Democrats and Republicans and independents, when the people hear about what's in this big ugly bill, they don't like it.
15:22And that's why the folks on the other side are trying their best to fast track it.
15:30That's why they're trying to pass it, and they haven't even finished writing it.
15:39They're twisting themselves in knots, making their members walk the plank under the threat of a primary to pass this big ugly bill.
15:50The American people do not want to rob our children of food and health care and then burden them with trillions in debt to give billionaires and wealthy corporations another tax cut.
16:02The people do not want this bill.
16:08And so if the people do not want this bill, but they are trying to pass it, here's the question you've got to ask yourselves at home.
16:20You have to ask yourselves, well, who are they working for?
16:27Who are they fighting for?
16:31Who do they think matters?
16:37Do you think they are working for you?
16:48This is a moral moment, and a budget is a moral document.
17:00And we have been summoned to this moment people of faith and people of moral courage who claim no particular faith at all.
17:08And maybe because I was here yesterday and eight years ago for a similar fight with faith leaders, maybe because I'm a preacher and it's Sunday.
17:17And I've been here instead of church.
17:21I have especially been thinking about those of us who are people of faith, people whose lives are informed by scripture, people of the book.
17:34And maybe those of us who have different politics, but read from the same book ought to spend some time together reading the book.
17:48Because I do sometimes wonder, and I say this with all humility, none of us, none of us owns the truth.
17:59But if I'm honest, there are days when I have to ask people of my faith tradition as a Christian, are we reading the same book?
18:14The book I know says, I was hungry and you fed me.
18:20I was sick, I was in prison, and you visited me.
18:24I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.
18:28Inasmuch as you've done it to the least of these, you've done it also unto me.
18:32The book that I love says, learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
18:43Speak out for those who cannot speak for the rights of the destitute.
18:49Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy.
18:58My book says, whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and will be repaid in full.
19:05The prophet Amos condemns those who buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
19:13They sell the poor out and working class people for cheap.
19:20And for those of us who have a vote in this moment, for my colleagues who are swinging on a moral dilemma,
19:40I hear the prophet Micah say, he has already told you what is good.
19:52And what does the Lord require?
19:56But that you do justice.
20:01Love kindness.
20:04And walk humbly with your God.
20:08May God be with our nation and grant us grace, wisdom and courage for this moment.
