Hi, this is Congressman ██████████████ asking you to join our live telephone town hall meeting. Just stay on the line and you will be automatically connected. You'll have an opportunity to ask questions, share comments. Vote in a poll, or you can just listen. We'll be discussing the government shutdown, the big ugly bill and tomorrow's elections, and, of course, whatever questions you may ask me. Again. Please stay on the line to be connected to our form, which is now in progress. My office can always be reached at ███████████. Thank you. You are joining a live conference already in progress. Please be aware that your local phone company may leave your line open for up to ██ seconds after you leave the conference. If you would like to ask the speaker a question, please press ████. Seven to get those email updates. Without further ado, I'd like to welcome Representative ██████████████. Please go ahead, Representative. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Thank you for the introduction. Covered a lot of ground there. And I do want to hear from all of you, so I'm going to keep my remarks a little shorter than note that I normally do. We are in a very, very difficult and in many ways a dangerous period in the course of America's march through our democracy and through the centuries. We're faced with a president that really meant it when he said he would become a dictator on day one. And he said, well, only for one day. Well, it turned out that he did become a dictator on day one when he slashed until and terminated so many programs, including USAID and others. Without any recourse to the law. And then he just continued that operating, doing whatever he wants to do. Regardless of what the laws might be. So, yes. We do have a problem in our democracy, but the problem also is in the everyday lives of Americans. And clearly the shutdown is one of the serious issues that all of us, myself and my family and your families and up and people up and down the state. Are facing very, very difficult situation given the government shutdown. Now. I'm going to take about ██ seconds here. How did we get here? When █████ and the Republicans decided they would do their big ugly bill, they slashed. Revenue. These are the tax cuts. ██% of those tax cuts, which are well over a trillion dollars, went to the super wealthy. Billionaires, millionaires and large American corporations. Now to pay for that. That is to fill the deficit hole, the Republicans decided that they would take on a whole series. Of programs that are specifically designed by both Democrats and Republicans over the years to assist Americans that are in financial trouble, health care issues, and looking to build their own life through educational programs. So the Republicans took the musk chainsaw to those programs. The biggest one of all was the Medicaid program, which we call Medical here in ██████████. It is going to be cut over $███ billion. And that money will not be available to support those programs. And this is a program where mom and pop are in the nursing home. We have a disabled child, you cannot work for any number of reasons. The Medic Cal program, Medicaid Medicare program is specifically designed to help those who are unable to participate. Now, it does help working families at the bottom of our income class, and these are families that are actually working but do not earn enough to pay. For Social Security. Part of that payment, part of those costs occurred in the elimination of the subsidization of the covered California. Insurance policies. These policies have been in effect since the early ████████████████████████. In that period of time, during the Covid period. There was an enhanced subsidy from the federal government and which allowed the policies, despite all the cost increases, to remain very, very affordable. those subsidies