[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 208 (Thursday, December 2, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H6901-H6906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF FREE STUFF

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I am fascinated to learn that I serve in the 
United States House of free stuff because that is what I have been 
hearing nonstop this entire week.
  There is an unlimited supply of money and resources apparently, an 
unlimited supply of dollars that we can continue to print while 
devastating our economy, devastating the American dollar, and 
transforming our society by encouraging Americans to believe that there 
is a free lunch. And there ain't no free lunch.
  My wife is the product of a single mom growing up in Texas. Her mom 
worked multiple jobs to send her to college. She worked hard to be able 
to go to college. She left with 70-something thousand dollars of 
student loans

[[Page H6902]]

despite going to two top public universities in the State of Texas.
  She is not asking for her loans to get repaid because she went there 
with a free will. She went there and made a choice. She could have 
chosen a different path. She chose to take the debt. I did the same 
thing when I went to law school at the University of Texas. I might not 
have chosen to go to law school if the loans hadn't been available, and 
that might be fine.
  What is the fundamental problem? Why has the cost of education 
skyrocketed in my lifetime at an inflation rate multiple times over 
virtually every other product and service in this country except for 
healthcare? Why is it up something like 3,000 percent?
  Is it perhaps because we are subsidizing the holy heck out of it? 
Just thinking perhaps that there might be a correlation to the 
availability--massive, widespread availability--of subsidized student 
loans, the massive subsidization of K-12 education and higher ed. Do we 
think there might be a correlation to why the costs have skyrocketed so 
much?
  But no, no, no, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle now walk 
in here and say, oh, you know, we are not the party of big spenders; we 
have got a chart here with $1.7 trillion on it with another chart 
saying, ``Cancel Student Debt.''
  Who is paying for that? Does anybody in this body give a rat's rear 
end about who is paying for anything at all? No. Oh, no, then they will 
come out here and say $3 trillion of tax cuts. They don't care about 
economic growth and opportunity. But fine.
  Why don't we actually have a conversation about spending and taxes? 
No, no, we don't do that. We just spend money we don't have. That is 
what we did today in the continuing resolution to keep this government 
running. Oh, my gosh, panic ensues if you dare question whether or not 
the government must be funded Saturday at 12:01 in the morning. What 
will the American people do? How will they function if the United 
States House of free stuff isn't doling out free stuff?

                              {time}  1945

  No one is in this Chamber, of course. Just reminding the American 
people how this place doesn't work. We are now on 5\1/2\ straight years 
of no amendments being offered on the floor of this august Chamber.
  I would like to remind the American people every once in a while that 
what they saw about how a bill becomes a law is a complete fraud. See, 
there is a handful of people who get into a room and they decide what 
you are going to vote on.
  The Speaker knows it is true, and my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle know it is true. And my colleagues on this side of the aisle 
know it is true because they did it when they were in the majority just 
as much as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle did it when 
they were in the majority.
  We get a massive bill dropped on our desk, and we say take it or 
leave it. Go offer an amendment in rules, they say. Never taken. Never 
accepted. Always prechosen, always pregamed out.
  This is deliberation and debate? This is the constitutional order? 
What value is there for an election certificate if you can't use it? 
You come to the floor and want to offer an amendment in good faith to 
try to make a piece of legislation better, and you can't do it.
  We have 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 people max who decide everything that goes 
on in this Chamber in all of their infinite wisdom. Then we come down 
and look at the board, and it is party-line votes, and then it is walk 
out on the steps and go give a speech and go to the press and go on 
Twitter and go on Facebook and go talk about why you are voting no or 
yes. That is what we are relegated to in the United States House of 
free stuff.
  But today, we just voted to extend the funding of government with a 
continuing resolution, which is going to barrel us toward a trillion-
dollar deficit this year, give or take. Who knows? Does it matter? Does 
anybody know what the difference is between a trillion dollars or $1.2 
trillion? Does anybody know the difference between $29 trillion in debt 
or $30 trillion in debt? Nobody knows or cares in this Chamber. 
Literally not a lick. We don't talk about it.
  Then each side comes down on the floor and offers more spending for 
whatever their priority is, defense, nondefense, mandatory spending, 
nonmandatory spending.
  If the unbelievably terrible circumstance occurred Friday night at 
midnight of this government daring to pause, do the American people 
know that about 82 percent of it is on autopilot with mandatory 
spending? I mean, does that matter? When you walk out and a gaggle of 
reporters come up with bated breath, oh, no, there might be a 
government shutdown. It always gets paid back. Eighty-two percent of it 
keeps running.
  There is never a serious debate about what is actually happening here 
in the United States of America. We never actually sit down like family 
or a small business, roll our sleeves up, and decide how to spend 
money. Do you imagine if we actually had to adhere to a budget like any 
business or American family, and we actually had to sit down, Madam 
Speaker, at that table and not leave this Chamber until we said our 
budget is $3 trillion or $4 trillion, whatever it is, here is our 
income; here is what we can spend; that is all we can do; let's figure 
out our priorities. Well, we disagree. You know, do you want to fund 
NEA? Do you want to fund the Department of Education, XYZ? Do you want 
to fund the military? Do you want to fund specific B-52 bombers? Do you 
want to fund healthcare? Do you want to fund border security?
  Make a choice. We never make a choice, ever--both parties, by the 
way, both leaders. We never make a choice. All we do is preen and 
posture and come down here with massive bills that have some of our 
priorities, depending on who is in the majority. That is it. Again, we 
are relegated to being the United States House of free stuff.
  You have to call it free stuff because we are just printing the money 
to do the stuff. We are down here talking about, oh, we have to cancel 
the student debt. Well, man, wouldn't that be lovely? Who cares about 
the people who have already worked hard their whole lives to pay off 
their student loans, whether they be Black, Brown, White, male, female. 
Who cares?
  They have worked their whole life. They paid off their student loans. 
They did what they were supposed to do, or they are in the middle of 
paying off their student loans. Oh, no, let's just go down here. One of 
my colleagues just said $50,000, President Biden. Did they just pick 
that number out of the air? $50,000 of free stuff, here you go.
  Somebody else chose not to go to college. Somebody else started a 
business, worked hard, borrowed money to run a business. Guess what? 
That money also had interest, to my colleague from Michigan who was 
down here talking about, oh, the pain of interest. As if it is not as 
old as time, as if it is not Biblical to say: Hey, I don't have the 
money to do something. I would like to have the money to do something. 
How might I get the money to do something? I don't know. One, get a job 
and earn the money, save the money. Two, ask for it from somebody who 
loves you. Three, borrow it.
  Okay, now what do you do with that? Go do something with it. Make a 
choice. Start a business. Start a lemonade stand. Go to college if you 
want. But, oh, no, let's just go pay off $1.7 trillion of debt. It 
doesn't matter if you went to school and got a degree in sociology or 
gender studies and you are floating around and trying to figure out 
what you are going to do with your life. Oh, no, let's pay off that 
$140,000.
  There ain't no free lunch. But we live in this fiction that we can 
just keep printing money, and the horrors of printing the money is not 
just that we have $30 trillion in debt; it is not just that we have 
rampant inflation; it is not just that we are undermining our dollar; 
it is not just that we are handing over power to China and every other 
country around the world to kick our rear ends; it is that we are 
funding a government to do things to us to interfere with us.
  We are funding an FBI to target parents for daring to question the 
wisdom of school boards around this country. People say: Oh, that is 
not true. You must be embellishing.
  It is not true? We just had hearings with the Attorney General of the 
United States. We just saw memoranda making it very clear that the FBI 
is targeting parents. We are funding that.
  For all Americans out there watching this, all 12 of you, we are 
funding

[[Page H6903]]

that. We are borrowing dollars, spending money we don't have, and we 
are taking those dollars, and we are funding an FBI to target parents.
  We are taking away dollars from police departments, and Federal 
dollars are going in and funding programs allegedly to take the place 
of police and then wondering why department stores are getting looted.
  Then you have the White House press secretary today literally at the 
podium saying that is the fault of the pandemic, all the looting. We 
are not talking about somebody breaking into a grocery store to buy a 
loaf of bread. We are talking about people swarming a department store 
and taking Gucci bags.
  Oh, no, let's not enforce the law. Let's not enforce the rule of law. 
Let's blame it on the pandemic. Let's blame Border Patrol for whipping 
migrants, which was demonstrably and totally and clearly false.
  There is no shame coming from the Press Secretary's Office of the 
White House. No lie that won't easily slip out about what is actually 
going on, like Border Patrol agents whipping migrants. No apology. All 
of those Border Patrol agents down there on the front lines dealing 
with COVID, dealing with being outmanned and outgunned, dealing with 
cartels, no apology.
  Here we sit in the United States House of free stuff funding the 
Department of Homeland Security not to secure the homeland; funding the 
Department of Education not to educate our kids, other than to 
indoctrinate them to hate our country and to believe they are racist 
for the color of their skin; $700 billion for a Department of Defense 
to now run climate training and to focus on chief diversity officers in 
the Department of Defense rather than focusing on, I don't know, 
blowing stuff up and killing people, which is what the Department of 
Defense, formerly known as the Department of War, is actually supposed 
to do; $11 billion for an Internal Revenue Service that took a record 
$4 trillion from Americans last fiscal year; $9 billion for an EPA that 
is destroying American energy through regulation, pushing a radical 
climate agenda. None of which, by the way, is actually going to drive 
down CO2 production, which we have been doing with clean-
burning American natural gas over the last decade.
  Today, we pass this continuing resolution in the United States House 
of free stuff to rack up another trillion dollars of debt, continuing 
to fund agencies to carry out their tyrannical activities, in 
particular to carry out vaccine mandates on the American people that 
are getting slapped down one by one by courts across this country 
because, of course, the President of the United States doesn't have the 
authority or the power to mandate that an American citizen go into a 
doctor's office and get a needle jabbed in their arm. He doesn't have 
that power.
  The United States House of free stuff here allegedly representing the 
people is supposed to actually care enough about representing those 
people to stand here as a board holding the line against an 
authoritarian President of the United States, against a President 
carrying out executive overreach. That is what we see happening. He is 
being slapped down left and right by the courts.
  Now, I don't believe in wearing a partisan hat when we are talking 
about standing up for the Constitution, standing up for the Article I 
branch of the Federal Government. I introduced legislation when the 
previous President, a Republican, President Trump, was in office called 
the Article I Act to take away powers from the President with respect 
to emergency powers being used. I did so, frankly, in the wake of the 
use of dollars for border fencing and wall construction, which I 
supported, which was important, which was a response to an emergency 
and, by the way, was working. But it was important for us to start 
laying out a foundation for protecting Article I, the United States 
Congress.
  Today we pass a continuing resolution that we sent over to the United 
States Senate, and we never had a vote in this body about the vaccine 
mandates that are being slapped down in courts across this country for 
being unlawful, unconstitutional, tyrannical overreach by the executive 
branch of the United States.
  Never in our history have we had Federal mandates applying across the 
country to the American citizens that they must be vaccinated. They 
have been local decisions, local schools, local counties in States and 
specific responses to highly communicable diseases that they knew might 
be communicable and be pulled back by a vaccine, and after many years 
of study with massive numbers of exemptions and protections for 
individual liberty and choice. That is the history of how we have 
handled it in a federalist 50-State republic, not a decision by a 
President or, frankly, probably more likely the President's advisers, 
that the American people must be vaccinated, that a small business or a 
business of any size must vaccinate their employees.
  People act like, well, it is no big deal. I ought to direct my 
remarks here to my Republican colleagues, my Republican colleagues who 
today were perfectly happy to vote no on this CR. Yes, I will go home, 
and I will give a speech: I voted no on this CR. I voted no because 
this continuing resolution had these terrible provisions in it. And, 
yes, this continuing resolution had vaccine mandate funding, funding 
the Department of Labor and funding OSHA and funding the Department of 
Defense to carry out these mandates. I voted no, don't you know.
  So what? Who cares if you voted no? You vote no, and you give a 
speech, pat yourself on the back. Good for you. Did you do anything, go 
stand with any of the Senators who had a chance to actually do 
something with this, with the Senators over there right now having a 
debate and trying to force a vote on an amendment to prevent the 
tyrannical application of vaccine mandates?
  Did my colleagues say let's go round up and go over and stand 
alongside Mike Lee, or did they hide behind the Article III judiciary? 
Did they hide behind the courts and say, well, let's let the courts 
sort it out. No, that is exactly what they did. Secure the blessings of 
liberty in the Constitution indeed by the supposed primary branch of 
government.

                              {time}  2000

  And these have real consequences for real Americans, real lives. 
Hospitals in Massachusetts are already limiting elective procedures due 
to critical staffing shortages. Do we care? Are we concerned about 
that?
  The New York Governor issued an executive order that postponed 
elective surgeries in order to deal with the staffing shortages. Do we 
care? Are we concerned?
  The largest children's hospital in Wisconsin is struggling to treat 
victims of the BLM extremist, who rammed his car through the Waukesha 
Christmas parade. Do we care?
  A dear friend of mind suffering from multiple sclerosis, teaching at 
the university, she is being told she may not be able to continue 
teaching because she believes, in consultation with her doctor, that it 
is in her best interest not to be vaccinated at this time. She should 
have the right and the ability to choose to do that for her and her 
family and her interest without coercion from an overextended Federal 
Government under an unlawful and unconstitutional mandate by the 
President of the United States.
  And this body, the Congress of the United States, should do its 
Article I job and stand up in defense of her and every other American 
who is facing losing their job at Thanksgiving and Christmas, or being 
discharged from the military of the United States that they proudly 
served because they believe in their interest, in their own personal 
safety, their own health interest, that they should be the one to 
choose, not a faraway President.
  We structured this government specifically not to do this. We 
structured this government with Federalism and separation of powers 
specifically to avoid having a king. That man on the painting over on 
this wall, in this House Chamber, the first President of the United 
States, turned down being a king, turned down the monarchy, turned down 
a third term because the Founders knew why that mattered. The Founders 
knew why separating powers and limiting powers mattered because they 
saw and foresaw exactly what we are seeing today in this country and 
across the world. Where, in Austria and Germany and Australia and 
places around the world, we see mandates forcing people to be in their 
homes and

[[Page H6904]]

not go out and not engage in society because they are not vaccinated. 
It is absurd.
  This country is built on a bedrock of liberty and protecting liberty 
and securing the blessings of liberty, and this President is stepping 
on it. And the United States Congress, Members of both parties, are 
MIA, missing in action, unwilling to stand up in defense of liberty 
while patting themselves on the back for voting ``no'' on a continuing 
resolution and then kicking it over to the Senate for one man to stand 
on the floor of the United States Senate, Senator Mike Lee, daring to 
say we should have a vote on an amendment, an amendment that says we 
shouldn't have this vaccine mandate. God bless Mike Lee for doing that. 
I hope he holds to his guns.
  And no, I am not going to freak out or panic if Saturday at 12:05 in 
the morning rolls around and, Oh, no, we haven't gotten that funding 
done. That funding, by the way, that is racking up, as I said before, 
another trillion dollars of debt. The United States House of free 
stuff.
  A father called me up in tears because his 13-year Army veteran son 
is likely going to be discharged because he believes, based on his 
conversation with his doctors, that it is not in his interest to get 
the vaccination. Millions of Americans who know they have natural 
immunity, who have been ignored, who have been absolutely ignored 
because the leaders of our national health organizations and agencies 
aren't actually focusing on natural immunity. We haven't had a study on 
natural immunity of any consequence out of our leaders. We have got to 
rely on Israel and the U.K. and other places, and private entities. But 
all of these millions of Americans who have natural immunity are being 
told, Sorry, you must still go get a needle stuck in your arm in order 
to have a job.
  In what world is this the land of the free? It is not. And in what 
world are the people in this Chamber who are supposed to represent the 
people of the United States, how are they doing their job in the 
Article I branch of our Federal Government if they are not standing up 
for these people?
  Those people who are going about their lives, making decisions in our 
interests--and by the way, as if this matters to me a whole lot--that 
even the experts, so-called, heading up our national health agencies 
and organizations, acknowledge that if you are vaccinated you still 
spread the daggone virus. It literally makes no sense.
  We are killing people. We are restraining and restricting 
therapeutics that can actually help people. We belittle people who are 
working in consultation with doctors to find ways to solve the problem 
if they happen to get the virus--whether they have been vaccinated or 
not, by the way. And we are mandating people to get the vaccination, 
irrespective of whether they had the virus and have natural immunity.
  For months, I have been hearing about, Oh, they laugh off natural 
immunity. And now suddenly, you start to hear--bow down to the altar of 
all things--Dr. Fauci, that he suddenly said, Oh, yeah, natural 
immunity, that is kind of a real thing. No kidding.
  What world do you live in? The world of Washingtonian magazine and 
propping your feet up with sunglasses and getting cool pictures and 
throwing baseballs out at games?
  I had a young woman who is 9 months pregnant. Remember all the 
frontline workers everybody was celebrating a year ago? She is one of 
them; she is a nurse. I saw all these people standing up at games, 
people in this Chamber going around praising the frontline workers. 
Well, good, we should have been praising the frontline workers who are 
out there, in an unknown virus, showing up and helping those who were 
sick. But suddenly now, if you are one of those frontline workers, and 
for your own health and well-being, you decide you don't believe you 
should be vaccinated, you might have natural immunity, maybe you have 
got an underlying condition and you choose not to. Then this young 
lady, a Texan, who is 9 months pregnant, is losing her job in direct 
response to the President's unlawful and unconstitutional mandates.

  Let's talk about those mandates for a minute.
  The OSHA mandate. When the President goes in and tells businesses 
across this country, You must get your employees vaccinated or go 
through OSHA rulings and fines. This body just voted to increase the 
OSHA fines, something like 700 percent or 900 percent. We just did that 
when we passed the so-called BBB bill that is going to destroy America 
with a whole bunch of more free stuff, $2 trillion of unpaid nonsense.
  Oh, no, don't worry. It's paid for. CBO said so. Garbage. Absolute, 
pure garbage. Of course, it is not paid for. It was games. The American 
people know all this. It is how this body works. Nobody here is serious 
about actually operating within the bounds of normalcy, like you would 
in a business or in your home, because they don't care. There is no 
consequence. There is literally no consequence to spending money we 
don't have, to printing money. But that is what we do.
  So we just voted to increase fines by OSHA. Now with those fines OSHA 
can go target businesses.
  Well, what happened? Now, that has been consolidated. U.S. District 
judge for the Eastern District of Missouri granted a preliminary 
injunction on November 29 for 10 States who brought forth a November 10 
lawsuit by State AGs.
  On December 1, in a similar ruling, Louisiana Western District U.S. 
Judge Terry Doughty issued a nationwide injunction to the CMS mandate, 
a separate mandate, a CMS mandate--sorry, I mixed these up.
  The OSHA mandate, a panel of judges with the Fifth Circuit Court of 
Appeals issued an order staying enforcement and implementation of the 
OSHA mandate.
  Now, back to the CMS mandate. Matt Schelp, the U.S. District judge 
for the Eastern District of Missouri, granted a preliminary injunction 
for 10 States. And on December 1, in a similar ruling, there is a 
nationwide injunction on the CMS mandates. So these are the mandates 
that are shutting down hospitals and nurses and doctors from carrying 
out their job.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't care. And I know 
they don't care because they just passed a continuing resolution 
continuing to fund the mandates of a tyrannical executive branch 
without holding him accountable.

                              {time}  2010

  I promise you if that were a Republican President they would be 
outraged at these mandates. My colleagues on this side of the aisle 
think voting ``no'' and walking out to go to dinner is perfectly fine 
because that is what is going on here. They are not over in the Senate 
backing up Mike Lee or here talking.
  Federal workers mandate, Federal contractors mandate--on November 30, 
U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove of the Eastern District of 
Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction halting the government's 
enforcement of the Federal contractor vaccine mandate, which, by the 
way, is mandating universities, which is causing my friend with MS to 
possibly or probably lose her teaching job.
  Veterans, Active Duty military, frontline health workers, university 
teachers, professors, visiting professors, people across this country 
in private business--hopefully, the courts will strike this down. Since 
when is it the job of the Article I Congress to punt to the courts, and 
say, Well, I hope you do it.
  Do we care about the power of the purse?
  Do we care if bureaucrats are targeting American citizens, saying, 
You must get a needle in your arm?
  There is no science indicating in any way, shape, or form that those 
mandates are solving any problem at all, but rather causing problems. 
Over 80 percent of Americans over the age of 12 years old have gotten 
one shot of the vaccine; 99 percent or something close to it are people 
over 65.
  We are not even a year into the broad rollout of the vaccines. This 
blows way past the polio epidemic. My dad had polio. I am well-versed 
in the impacts of the polio epidemic. It didn't roll out nearly this 
fast. It was targeted at kids, not people over 65.
  Any mandates were left to school districts, and it took them awhile 
to get there. This was a vaccine that had been worked on for years with 
a significant amount of knowledge. It was a different kind of virus, by 
the way, not a coronavirus.

[[Page H6905]]

  A 21-year-old nursing assistant in Crawfordsville, Indiana, worked 
60-hour weeks throughout the pandemic; she is facing termination. Do we 
care? Does the Indiana delegation care? Either side of the aisle? I 
would like to know.
  Is the Indiana delegation over alongside Mike Lee fighting to prevent 
the funding of the government bureaucrats that are going to enforce 
that mandate on Becca Pitts?
  Jen Peters, a 39-year-old San Diego maternity nurse was forced to 
resign from her position after not getting vaccinated.
  I recently met with heart surgeons that fly around the country saving 
lives doing heart surgeries. They come in and they do that. They do pro 
bono work. They do a lot of volunteer work. They fly all over the 
world. They have been providers for, roughly, three decades, and if the 
CMS mandates stay in place, they are no longer going to be able to save 
lives, they will have to shut down. Are we fine with that? Is that 
okay?
  Dozens of my constituents in the military have contacted me about 
this vaccine mandate. I represent thousands--like many of us do--but I 
represent San Antonio, a heavy population of veterans and Active Duty 
military. People call me in tears because it was their dream to serve 
their country and wear the uniform of the United States, and they are 
being told they must get the jab, or they will be discharged.
  I am not talking about the ability of a commander of a submarine 
going out for a 9-month tour, and saying, Okay. Sorry. I am going to 
make sure everybody in the submarine is vaccinated. Okay. Do you have 
to discharge the guy or gal? Or you can say, You know what, we are 
going to relocate you and leave you able to serve. But while this virus 
is going around, we are going to require the commander of the submarine 
to be able to make that decision. Okay. That is a reasonable outcome.
  Discharging under current law dishonorably, by the way, members of 
the United States military for not wanting to get the vaccine, for 
whatever reason they believe is in their interest, with young men in 
particular having concerns about the myocarditis and the heart issues, 
and we are going to say, Sorry, too bad, you get discharged.
  This body just funded the DOD, and the government is forcing those 
people to be discharged, instead of continuing to carry out their 
service to this country, and this body should be ashamed of it.
  A lot of people in this town seem to have forgotten that the American 
people are not our subjects. They are our fellow citizens, and we owe 
them the duty of representing them. They are our neighbors, our 
relatives, our friends. The people are sovereign in this country, not 
the President.
  George Washington turned that down, the Founders rejected that 
structure, and yet this body, which was supposed to be a check against 
an overbearing executive acting as a monarch refuses to check the 
executive.

  The CDC estimates that there have been 146 million infections, 
suggesting that nearly half of the United States has natural immunity.
  The first U.S. omicron patient was fully vaccinated and had mild 
symptoms. One study found the protective effect of the vaccine dwindles 
alarmingly at 3 months after the second shot, hence, the boosters. 
People are now saying that maybe we made a mistake, having the first 
two shots of the vaccine happen right next to each other reduced the 
effectiveness. Well, lo and behold, hard to believe when you are 
rushing and reacting to a virus that you might make an error.
  Financial institutions today are putting out reports saying their 
concern isn't about the omicron variant but rather governments' 
reaction to it. Of course, it is. One of the first doctors who 
discovered the variant in South Africa said, ``Most of the patients are 
seeing very, very mild symptoms. We have been able to treat these 
patients conservatively at home.''
  On the 626th day into 15 days to slow the spread, we have had enough. 
The American people have had enough of being lied to and told what to 
do by a tyrannical Federal Government and so-called experts that we 
cannot and should not trust.
  This continuing resolution that we passed today was considered under 
a closed rule. As I said earlier, no chance for amending it. I offered 
an amendment upstairs--rejected. We don't want to have a debate on 
vaccine mandates. Why would we want to do that?
  My colleagues, I assume, would not like to take a vote on a vaccine 
mandate funding repeal. Otherwise, why not have the vote? Why not have 
the debate? The more and more that we turn over the decisionmaking to a 
small group of people in this body and a small group of people in the 
Senate and a couple of people at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, 
the more and more this Republic is getting ripped apart thread by 
thread. It is happening no matter who is in the White House and no 
matter who is in charge of this body.

                              {time}  2020

  If we do not restore debate on the floor of this body and in the 
Senate--the greatest deliberative body in the world. Come on.
  When was the last time you saw any great debate or deliberation in 
that body or this one, Madam Speaker?
  You don't. We all know it. Nobody cares because all we are going to 
do is drop another 2,000-page bill, somebody is going to offer a motion 
to recommit. Boy, that will light things on fire. Oh, the previous 
question. Oh, man, the bars around town are talking about you.
  Did you see that previous question?
  Did you see that MTR?
  When are we going to represent the people again?
  When is this institution going to actually stand up and do the hard 
part of representation?
  We don't govern. We use that term a lot. We don't govern. We 
represent. That is what we are supposed to do in a republic.
  Next week we are going to turn to the National Defense Authorization 
Act, and if the Senate doesn't make any additional modifications, we 
are going to have another version of the NDAA, the National Defense 
Authorization Act, sent over to this Chamber for us to vote on again. 
In that legislation there are a number of problematic provisions. There 
is no accountability for the failed exit from Afghanistan, the 13 
marines who died, the failed drone strike that led to the killing of 10 
people including seven children. No accountability.
  There is no accountability for the $85 billion of assets left behind 
in Afghanistan that were just being used in a parade by our enemies, by 
the Taliban. No accountability.
  Madam Speaker, you have legislation that requires the Secretary of 
Defense to submit to Congress their plan to reduce greenhouse gas 
emissions and praises the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 
Well, praise the Lord. Our Department of Defense is focused on the 
really important stuff as China is doubling and tripling and 
quadrupling their navy, ramping up their military prowess, and shooting 
missiles around the Earth at low orbit hitting their targets. Yes. 
Let's focus on diversity. Yes. That will get them.
  That NDAA requires the DOD to hire and train gender advisers. Boy, 
that will send the Chinese packing.
  Yes, the National Defense Authorization Act will for the first time 
in the history of this country require women--girls--18 years and older 
to register for Selective Service, to register to be eligible for the 
draft.
  My daughter is 10 years old. The infinite wisdom of this body is 
going to require that my daughter be forced to register for the draft. 
If we want to have a debate about ending the draft, I am happy to do 
it. Let's offer the bill, let's have a debate and decide if we need to 
draft. I think most people in this body would probably vote the draft 
down. But that is not what we are going to do because my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle and, frankly, the retreat by my colleagues 
on my side of the aisle from such touchy issues, they want to make a 
statement. They want to make a statement about so-called equity, and 
they want to use my daughter to make that statement. They want to make 
your daughter, America, part of that statement.
  If you are one of the thousands of people across this country who 
have been reaching out to my office enraged because this body with no 
debate, no amendment, and no vote on the substance is going to adopt 
the National

[[Page H6906]]

Defense Authorization Act that for the first time in history will 
require your daughter, your sister, your mom, and your wife to register 
for the draft. Well, don't worry, I am going to keep fighting it.
  I am not going to retreat, and I am not going to run away from some 
pollster coming in saying, Well, I don't know. I am not sure how people 
feel about it.
  I know how people feel about it. I know how they feel about it in my 
district. I know how they feel about it in my kids' school, in my 
communities. I know the people who have stop me in the airport saying 
thank you for standing up for some sort of common sense about how we 
should actually function as a society.
  Speaking of the United States House of free stuff, we spent $36 
million for a study to determine whether single-sex units performed 
better or worse than mixed-sex units.
  What do you think they found?
  Madam Speaker, you will be blown away by this piece of information. 
The single-sex male units performed better. Oh, we don't want to have 
that talk. My colleagues don't want to have that debate. But I am going 
to keep having that debate.
  Whatever they do at the NDAA, if the Senate doesn't have the 
backbone, if my Republican colleagues in the United States Senate won't 
stand up for my daughter--our daughters--I will keep calling them out, 
every single one of them. I will call on every one of my colleagues in 
this body, and I sure as heck will not ever vote for a single one of 
them for any office if they are going to make my daughter eligible for 
the draft.
  This is not the way we should do things.
  Have a debate, offer data, have amendments, have the courage to have 
straight up-or-down votes on subjects rather than mega bills cooked up 
in back rooms so people can go preen and posture in front of cameras 
outside on the steps.
  No matter who is in charge of this body, restore this body, and don't 
continue to operate as the United States House of free stuff doling out 
dollar after dollar and printing money to create programs that we can't 
even afford and to fundamentally alter and transform this society into 
one that is expected from government rather than serving themselves, 
their fellow man, and their communities.
  We are destroying the core of this great country by empowering 
government and doing so knowing full well we don't have the dollars or 
the resources to do it; knowing full well that we are ripping out the 
soul of people by taking away the value of work; and destroying family 
units; destroying the public education system, by turning them into 
political corruption entities. The veil having been lifted now after 
COVID has exposed so much of that corruption, and what we just saw in 
Loudoun County, Virginia, what we just saw unfold in the Commonwealth 
of Virginia.

  The American people are seeing the corruption that flows from the 
dollars that flow from this town without any responsibility. Again, 
that is not a partisan statement. Both sides are equally guilty of 
walking into this Chamber and writing checks they can't cash. And if we 
don't stop it, this country will not survive. This country will not 
make it. We will not keep the Republic if we keep spending money we 
don't have. If we keep turning over power to a small group of 
individuals in this Chamber, the other Chamber, the other end of 
Pennsylvania Avenue and, oh, by the way, the courts to make decisions 
rather than the people's Representatives.
  It is time, Madam Speaker, for this body to function again. And it is 
time for us to do it without regard to who is in the other end of 
Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House. We have a duty in Article I to 
use the power of the purse responsibly, to stand up for the people, to 
defend the people, and to stop the encroachment in their lives by 
unelected bureaucrats or a President using power that has now already 
in three different courts been found to be unconstitutionally and 
unlawfully executed against the people while they are lose their jobs, 
lose their livelihoods, destroy their lives because they want to make a 
decision that they believe is in the interest of them and their 
families.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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