[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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