WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-5) joined Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8) in offering an amendment to the Republican budget bill. The amendment would prevent massive premium hikes by extending ACA tax credits for three years. Below are excerpts from her testimony to the House Rules Committee:

On the Devastating Impact of the Republican Budget:

"I hope you got a chance to hear from the people who traveled to the United States Capitol trying to secure meetings with their Republican Members of Congress. Americans like the farmer I met, Anne from Minnesota.

"She's a soybean farmer already suffering from the market disaster caused by Republican tariffs. Then she found out her local hospital was closing because of the Medicaid cuts in your budget. And now you're going after her ACA coverage – and by the way, 1 in 4 out of our farmers get their health care coverage through the ACA. You have sent her premiums skyrocketing.

"I have heard this same story from small business owners, from gig workers, from parents, from people who live in your states.

"So what are we doing here today? You've already voted to dismantle Medicaid, the largest health care program in America. A program that covers 40% of all births in this country. 40% of children in this country. 40% of disabled people in this country. But you couldn't leave it there.

"Now you're going after the millions of families who get their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. And let's be clear about what that actually means, specifically to your own constituents.

"Let's take a couple making $88,000 a year. In each of your districts, that couple currently pays, for the silver plan, at $623 a month. It is by no means cheap. But here's what that couple will pay in 2026 if you vote ‘yes’ on this budget.

"In Pendleton, New York, this couple will go from paying $623 to $1,160 per month. In Tifton, Georgia, they will pay $2,134 a month. In Greensboro, North Carolina, they will pay $2,300. In Rock Hill, South Carolina, they will pay $2,600. And in Fredericksburg, Texas, this middle-class couple will pay $3,000 every single month to get themselves some halfway decent health insurance."

On Offering an Amendment Extending the ACA Tax Credits: 

"This budget will raise costs on people who voted for Donald Trump. People who believed him, who believed their Republican Members of Congress when they promised to lower their cost of living.

"And instead, they're being asked to spend up to $3,000 a month for ACA coverage. That's $36,000 a year. Before their deductible. Before their co-pays.

"What a betrayal of a straightforward promise.

"But this is not a given. This does not have to happen to the American people. This is a choice. Democrats have been presenting off-ramps all year. We've been giving you a chance to reverse course day after day.

"...Here's another chance to do right by the people you represent, who believe in you and voted for you. I urge you, for the sake of the American people, to make Leader Jeffries' amendment extending the ACA tax credit for three years in order, and bring it to the House floor for a vote."

On Republicans’ Refusal to Release the Epstein Files:

"This is about lowering people's costs – whether that's housing, groceries, utility bills – and affording health care. This should be something that Republicans should have come and negotiated with us, but they wouldn't do that. They showed so little regard for the American people.

"Not only did they make this extreme bargain where they took away health care – Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, tax subsidies, medical research – all to pay for permanent tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans, they couldn't even swear in a duly elected member of Congress.

"They would rather not do that than actually have to talk about the fact that they are shielding those in the Epstein files.

"The outrages and the disdain and arrogance that they look at the American people with is truly hard to take in."

On the Republican Health Care Crisis: 

"Let's not sell the Republicans short. They had a plan.Their plan was to come in and take $1 trillion out of Medicaid, trigger a half-trillion-dollar cut to Medicare, take away the ACA tax subsidies, and then cut medical research, so while we take it away from people in the immediate now, we are also saying to the future, 'Good luck.'

"As one researcher who recently lost her lab due to federal funding cuts under the Big Ugly Bill, said to me, 'All the hopes of the patients I've been working with are now in the freezer...'

"That plan that they have is to take all of that funding and give it to the very wealthiest Americans in a permanent tax break.

"They couldn't wait to get us back here – we had to come back on July 3rd to make sure that we did that in time. But we've sat here for 54 days without a single hearing, a single negotiation, a single offer, and the one most moderate of proposals – to have a one year extension and a bipartisan commission to look at ways we can work on this system and make health care work for people – rejected out of hand and no comment."

On Republicans' Cruelty Toward Working People: 

"… We have heard nothing from our Republican colleagues as this administration saw their shutdown as an opportunity to fire another additional 4,000+ federal workers to the 200,000 they have already let go.

"To threaten furloughed federal workers they might not get their pay after this shutdown concludes, where was the outrage? And going on and lecturing our air traffic controllers that somehow they're not patriotic enough to be working without pay? And then we just go through the parade of horribles on the split screen, people so concerned their spouse may not be able to have the cancer treatment they need, they may not be able to manage their diabetes, get that inhaler that their child needs and the continuing medical care to survive. And nothing as the president takes down the East Wing to build a ballroom, hosts a Great Gatsby party with a burlesque show thrown in, $40 billion to bailout Argentina?

"And then we get to SNAP, where this president and the loyalists in Congress sat on their hands and made up excuses while they took food away from hungry kids, seniors, veterans, disabled people and said, 'We legally can't give this out.' They knew that was not true then, and they have taken it all the way to the Supreme Court in order not to feed hungry kids.

"It went from 'Let them eat cake' to 'Let them eat nothing.' How dare you lecture us when you are willing to let hunger in this country be a political weapon?"

On Republicans Sneaking Payouts for Themselves in their Budget:

"This particular provision would be outrageous in the best of times. To say that we are going to use our appropriations process to put in specific personal payments to eight specific senators in relation to an investigation ... It is outrageous.

"I heard our colleague ... what struck me was his reluctance to act in this moment. This is exactly the moment where we are not Democrats or Republicans. We're Americans who have identified something is wrong, a payout in a bill when Americans are waving their hands and saying, ‘we're not making it in this economy’ ... We have to hold ourselves accountable. And if we cannot reject and demand that [that provision] get out and proceed quickly with our work, then I would question what you think you're doing here.

"I don't think we have heard a single person try and muster any defense of this payout that was snuck into this bill. And the fact that, at minimum, we're going to pay U.S. sitting senators $8 million while we dismantle health care for people? While they can't afford to buy meat and coffee and groceries? They can't afford their electric bills?

"What are we doing? We have to be able to say no to this. This is blatant corruption and payouts that were snuck in. And we have to do this now. There is no excuse in the world for not acting."

To view Whip Clark's full remarks, click HERE.