Press Releases

Congresswoman Gwen Moore Votes NO on House GOP’s Reckless Default on America Act

“Republicans continue to push our country toward economic disaster unless Democrats meet their extreme demands. Their Default on America Act shows their hand, proving again they are uninterested in lowering our deficit. Instead, their bill would only enact their MAGA agenda and roll back Democrats’ progress building a clean energy economy and creating a fair tax system, as well as to health, education, hunger, transportation, job training, and many other programs that tens of millions of Americans benefit from.

As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, this MAGA bill includes many provisions that affect our committee’s jurisdiction. Astoundingly, their bill repeals critical pieces of the Inflation Reduction Act that I championed. If House Republicans have their way, cost-saving, clean energy incentives families can benefit from would disappear. Manufacturing opportunities and the good paying jobs they offer in our growing clean energy sector would likely dry up. And wealthy and corporate tax cheats would have an easier time evading existing federal tax law with an IRS deprived of the staff, technology, and other resources it needs to handle complex tax returns because House Republicans want to rescind most of the funds Democrats appropriated to support IRS operations, customer service and enforcement of our tax laws.

Republicans want to do even more harm, including cutting discretionary spending all federal programs and then arbitrarily capping those programs over the next decade to that by 2033, funding programs will continue to be funded below FY 2023 levels. These cuts will adversely impact every part of our society, including seniors, veterans, and our children as federal agencies will be starved of the support they need to serve our communities and the American taxpayers.   For example, these cuts will affect the Social Security Administration which already has long case backlogs adversely impacting the ability of the agency to provide services at field offices, potentially forcing some to close.  I will remind everyone that the last time we imposed caps, at least five times in the ensuing decade, Congress had to come back and reach agreement to raise those caps because of the adverse impacts they were having on our communities.

This MAGA bill also doubles down on the trope-driven policies Republicans have been using for decades. The Default on America Act will add burdensome and unnecessary work requirements to our safety net programs on top of the ones that already exist. Let me be clear: most individuals who rely on our safety net programs do work. When Republicans talk in scornful language about programs like SNAP, TANF, and Medicaid, they need to remember who actually benefits from these programs: the elderly, people with disabilities, struggling families, women providing unpaid care, and children. The picture Republicans paint of a healthy, strong person who relies on these programs to bilk the system is so different from true lived experiences. 

And as they continue to depend on myths and tropes for policymaking, Republicans are again failing to seriously address the barriers to work, such as a lack of childcare, transportation, domestic violence, medical and mental health challenges, and inadequate education. If Republicans wanted to connect individuals to long-term, family sustaining careers, they would expand access to childcare, public transit, higher education, and skills training. These additional bureaucratic barriers are designed to make these programs inaccessible and discourage our most vulnerable from using these programs. And as a result of their proposals, hundreds of thousands of Americans will end up losing health care coverage and many more will become more food insecure, challenges that do not make them more employable.

I cannot overstate how harmful this legislation would be and am thankful Leader Schumer has said this debt default bill will be dead on arrival in the Senate. But time is ticking. And I hope Republicans will finally get serious and help us move a debt limit increase that will help our nation pay for its outstanding obligations, rather than continue to engage in hostage taking.”