Rep. Chris Smith spoke on the House floor on Thursday, expressing and explaining his opposition to President Biden’s massive spending plan, titled the “Build Back Better Act,” which the congressman says will add billions to the national deficit and infringe on religious liberties.

Transcript:

Mr. Speaker, President Biden’s massive new multitrillion dollar tax and spend bill, the so-called Build back Better Act will cost at least $4 trillion according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

According to the Chamber, the Build Back Better Act will significantly increase inflation and lead to up to 3 million people losing their employer sponsored health insurance plans.

Astonishingly, as we debate this legislation on the floor of the House today, there is still no detailed cost analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Among the bill’s most egregious provisions, it:

Effectively bans Catholic and other faith-based schools from participating in the expanded child care program;
Dramatically raises taxes on businesses and individuals;
Grants more power to the IRS to target taxpayers by removing taxpayer protection requirements and hiring 87,000 additional agents;
Permits taxpayer money to go to entities involved in China’s genocide against the Uyghur Muslims;
Institutes price controls on prescription drugs and subjects companies that refuse to comply to a massive excise tax, which would cripple innovation and could cause the removal of life-saving drugs from the U.S. market.

And, shockingly, the legislation forces taxpayers to pay for abortion on demand in several new and expanded programs.

Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize or facilitate the killing of an unborn child.

The so-called Build Back Better Act:

• • Gives states $30 billion over three years to create reinsurance programs for health insurance issuers. There are no protections whatsoever to prevent subsidization of plans covering elective abortion,
  • Extends to January 1, 2027 the increases to premium tax credits available for consumers through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Premium tax credits allow taxpayer funding to subsidize ACA plans that provide elective abortion,
  • Provides $10 billion worth of public health funding grants that aren’t Hyde Amendment protected,
  • Makes permanent the Health Coverage Tax Credit without Hyde protection to prevent taxpayer funds in this program from paying for health plans that include elective abortion,
  • Mandates abortion coverage in the Affordable Care Act (ACA),
  • And more.

The National Right to Life Committee strongly opposes this legislation and pointed out that: “The 2010 Obamacare law as would the Build Back Better (BBB) created multiple new streams of federal funding that are “self-appropriated” flowing outside regular appropriations.

“That said, the Obamacare law contains a provision that specifically permitted states to ban elective abortion coverage in their exchanges, and 25 states passed legislation doing so. The BBB, starting in 2024, would explicitly override the laws of 11 of these states—states that did not expand their Medicaid programs. One additional non-expansion state (Wyoming) will also now be required to cover abortion.

“Further, the provisions mandate that Obamacare silver exchange plans cover abortion and transportation for abortions (without cost sharing) for the Medicaid coverage gap population. The BBB provides unlimited appropriations to finance this abortion expansion. The BBB would mandate coverage in the above-mentioned 12 states of “services described in subsection (a)(4)(C) of section 1905 of such [the Social Security] Act [family planning services] for which Federal payments would have been so available [“under title XIX of the Social Security Act] which are not otherwise provided under such plan as part of the essential health benefits package described in section 1302(a).” Obamacare specifically excluded abortion as a required essential health benefit under section 1303, and this BBB provision would effectively override the 2010 law.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote to every Member of Congress on Wednesday and said: “it is completely unacceptable that the current House version of the Build Back Better Act expands taxpayer funding of abortion…No proposal to support individuals needing affordable health care coverage should compel Americans to pay for the destruction of human life through their tax dollars… In addition, the latest text maintains the proposed health care affordability fund for states without Hyde protections, and provides funding for several public health grants without Hyde protections. This fundamental problem of expanded taxpayer funding of abortion in the Build Back Better Act must be remedied before the bill moves forward.”

The Susan B. Anthony List opposes the bill and said yesterday: “It is critical to remember that whenever abortion is not explicitly excluded from funding, it is included…A careful reading of this bill shows billions of dollars being appropriated outside of Hyde protections, leaving them available for direct and indirect abortion funding, upsetting the status quo and funneling money to the abortion industry…The ACA coverage provision mandates abortion coverage for its Medicaid-gap populations in the twelve states that opted out of Medicaid expansion for plan years 2024 and 2025. It is notable that none of these states currently fund abortion coverage. This language would coerce them states to cover abortion against the will of their constituents.”

The Hyde Amendment, Madame Speaker, has saved more than 2.4 million lives—about 60,000 per year since it was first enacted.

Hyde protections need to be added to this bill.

It is time, I believe, for more of us to face the harsh reality of what abortion does to children and look beyond the sound bites and slogans.

No-one in the media ever bothers to expose the violent methods of abortion that include dismemberment of a child’s fragile body, including decapitation, and that drugs like RU–486 starve the baby to death.

Or that unborn babies killed by abortion at 20 weeks or later experience excruciating suffering and physical pain. And until rendered unconscious or dead by these hideous procedures, the baby feels the pain every cut according to medical experts in life-enhancing prenatal surgery.

Abortion is not health care unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child to be analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanquished pregnancy is not a disease.

Mr. Biden once wrote constituents, explaining that his support for laws against funding for abortion, by saying ‘‘it would protect both the woman and her unborn child.’’

Mr. Biden went on to say ‘‘that those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.’’ I agree. Most Americans agree.

Over the years, the polls have consistently shown that Americans do not support taxpayer funded abortion.

The January 2021 Marist poll found that by a margin of 58% to 38% oppose taxpayer funded abortion.

The Marist poll found that a supermajority of 65% of Independents oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.

Unborn babies need the President of the United States and Members of Congress to be their friend and advocate, not powerful adversaries.