On Tuesday, I participated in my first hearing as Ranking Member of the Oversight Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services, using my platform to push back at attempts to slash federal funding for critical social assistance programs like Medicaid, public housing, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), our country’s leading anti-hunger program. These programs, on which more than 700,000 Illinoisans and tens of millions of Americans depend, are deeply personal to me. After my family arrived in the United States when I was just a few months old, we fell on hard times and required social safety net programs to sustain ourselves. These programs gave us the opportunity to work our way into the American Dream of a middle-class life. Today, my father is a professor emeritus at Bradley University in Peoria, my brother is a doctor, and I have the privilege to serve as your member of Congress in Washington.

You can watch my opening statement here, my questions with hearing witnesses here, and my closing statement here. You can also watch my interview with Fox32 Chicago about the hearing here.

This week, I wrote an op-ed for Newsweek on the importance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for countering the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence around the world. Fundamentally, USAID is our ground game against the expansive Belt and Road Initiative—Beijing's "deal of the century" that leaves countries in debt with low-quality results. USAID provides needed alternatives to Chinese lending, contributing exponentially to development and national security through such initiatives as countering the proliferation of CCP spyware in consumer devices, preventing CCP espionage of undersea cable traffic, and helping independent consortiums win contracts for critical minerals, preventing them from falling into the hands of CCP-controlled firms and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

You only have to look at world autocrats' praise of Trump's attack on USAID to see how dangerous shutting it down is by ceding global leadership and soft power to our adversaries. Former Russian President and Putin puppet Dmitry Medvedev wrote on X, "Smart move by @elonmusk, trying to plug USAID's Deep Throat."

But USAID is not only critical to competing with the CCP and other adversaries abroad – it also boosts our economy here at home. Often overlooked, USAID contributes directly to the U.S. economy through contracts, procurements, and grants to domestic partners. In fact, USAID has funded at least $200 million in projects to date here in Illinois, supporting Illinois workers and businesses as we strengthen our national security through efforts abroad as well. You can read my op-ed in full here.