Trump Making it Harder for Americans to Have Kids, Rules Committee Hears

Rep. Maxine Waters said Donald Trump's One, Big, Beautiful Bill is "making it harder for Americans to have kids" at a House Rules Committee hearing.

The committee met at 1 a.m. ET on Wednesday for a procedural vote on Trump's new bill that would extend the tax breaks approved during Trump's first term and implement domestic cuts.

Waters, a Democratic representative for California, criticized the bill, saying it will "harm hardworking American families." She added: "Americans are so economically anxious that they're holding off on starting a family."

Why It Matters

America's fertility rate is now projected to average 1.6 births per woman over the next three decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest forecast released in 2025. This is well below the level of 2.1 births required to maintain a stable population without immigration.

Trump, vice president JD Vance and Elon Musk, the billionaire who has been tasked with heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have all spoken out about America's low birth and fertility rates. "We want more babies, to put it nicely," Trump said during a campaign speech in December.

What To Know

Waters condemned Trump, and the Republicans in general, for touting themselves as the "so-called 'pro-family' party" while pushing through a bill she argues goes against those values.

Trump argues that the bill "is a generational opportunity to deliver the long-term changes Americans voted for." The White House says it "delivers permanent tax cuts and bigger paychecks."

But Waters said: "Our economy is falling behind Europe, China and Canada. And Americans are so economically anxious that they're holding off on starting a family and buying a home."

"The so-called 'pro-family party' is making it harder for Americans to have kids and ripping away the American dream of home ownership," she said.

Waters was discussing the cuts that Trump's One, Big, Beautiful Bill would introduce, including how it would slash the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's budget "by 70 percent … to cut taxes for billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk."

The government tried to shut down this bureau, which was created to oversee and enforce consumer protection laws in the financial sector after the 2008 financial crisis, in February.

What People Are Saying

Waters said the beginning of her statement: "Republicans have dragged us here in the dead of the night, under the guise of having a productive hearing about the GOP tax scam bill, but the truth is that Republicans couldn't care less about how bad this bill is."

She continued: "They're gonna sit here and ignore every single thing that I and my Democratic colleagues have to say about this bill and how it will harm hardworking American families. And it's all because they are afraid of Donald Trump."

President Trump told reporters on Tuesday: "We have a tremendously unified party … We're gonna have a bill, the one big beautiful bill, I think it's gonna be, it's the biggest bill ever passed and we got to get it done."

Representative Jim McGovern wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday: "If Donald Trump's big beautiful tax break for billionaires is so great … why not pass it in prime time? Why jam it through in the middle of the night? What don't they want you to know? They have such contempt for the American people."

What Happens Next

If the bill clears the House Rules Committee, a vote on the House floor could come as soon as Wednesday.