[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 13 (Thursday, January 20, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H283-H286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LET'S HAVE A DEBATE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Roy) for 30 minutes.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleagues who have been
down here on the floor of the House of Representatives for the most
part of the last hour talking about the importance of defending life,
those infamous--or famous or important words, I should say, in the
Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
Nothing can be more important than this body focusing on defending
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and my colleagues' focus
on life, as we sit here now 49 years removed from a Supreme Court
decision taking out of the hands of the people and putting it into the
hands of unelected judges' decisions, about the beginning of life, when
life begins, the important reality of a people defending life.
What is controversial about defending life?
It is a question for this body.
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What is controversial about defending life when we talk about life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and when we talk about living on
this Earth while God gives us the precious time we have here?
What are we going to do with that time?
Are we going to live free?
Are we going to be able to pursue happiness?
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: one might wonder here
now 1 year into the current administration, the Biden administration,
whether the average American would say that he or she is free to pursue
happiness.
Are we free?
Are we free to pursue happiness when, in fact, just a few miles
away--and, frankly, a few thousand feet--from this Chamber where we are
right now, restaurants are being chastised and pursued by the
Government of the District of Columbia representing this area that
forms our Nation's Capitol because those restaurants may not believe
that it is in their interest or the interest of the people whom they
serve to be checking papers and to be checking so-called vaccine
passports or vaccine passes?
One restaurant in particular over on H Street--which was one of the
early restaurants on H Street as it was revitalizing--has been fined,
berated, and harassed by the Government of the District of Columbia for
wanting its doors to be open and not wanting to harass its patrons.
They want them to use their own free will to make a decision about what
is in their interest. They don't want to live in a republic where you
are forced to show papers to walk about and to engage in society, to
freely move about and engage in commerce.
The very heart of the kinds of ideas that the Founders meant and what
Jefferson meant when he penned pursuit of happiness is that we not
allow a government through tyrannical policies to interfere with our
pursuit of happiness: our ability to go have a business, our ability to
go out and take care of our family, our ability to move about and to
engage in commerce, our ability to create wealth and opportunity for
our children and our grandchildren, to be able to get healthcare, and
to be able to be secure in our possessions, secure in our belongings,
and secure in our own homes.
I would ask this question: Is the United States more secure than it
was 1 year ago?
Is the United States stronger economically than it was 1 year ago?
Is the United States stronger on the world stage?
Are we safer from our enemies than we were 1 year ago?
Is our border secure?
Are we able to afford energy and have reliable energy to heat our
homes, fuel our cars, provide jobs, and keep us warm in the winter and
cool in the summer?
Are we able to do that better more than 1 year ago?
The answer very clearly to all of those questions is a resounding
``no.''
Do you think it is an accident that I just spent 2 hours in a hearing
in the Judiciary Committee bemoaning the United States Senate for
holding the line on the filibuster which Democrats and this President
wanted to throw over the wall in the name of voting rights because
nobody can oppose something called voting rights?
They put up those words, they call it the Voting Rights Act, and they
name it after people we serve with in the Chamber to provide maximum
guilt if you dare stand up and say, Mr. Speaker, that the people in the
States ought to be able to decide how to ensure that the elections of
the people who represent them are secure; that you dare to have a voter
ID favored by 80 percent of the American people.
But yet let's go back to what I just said: I have to have an ID just
to walk in and buy a hamburger in the Nation's Capitol, but I cannot
have an ID to vote. No. No. No. That is Jim Crow 2.0 I am told by my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
I actually had colleagues on the committee today walking through the
horrors of the poll tax--the jelly bean counting and all of the
obstructions put into place for voting in the 1950s and 1960s that the
Voting Rights Act nobly pursued to correct--and then tried to compare
that to voter identification.
They tried to compare that to wanting to make sure that mail-in
ballots aren't abused by anybody in any party, even though, by the way,
those bastions of crazy conservatism, Jimmy Carter and James Baker,
came out in a report over a decade ago that The New York Times quoted
saying precisely that mail-in ballots are the area where you have the
most fraud.
Now, all of us want to have integrity and belief in our elections.
But our Democratic colleagues want to use that issue to divide us, as
President Biden literally admitted yesterday. In his 1-hour marathon
wandering, meandering press conference, he literally said that he could
not say whether the elections will be legitimate this fall unless--
unless--we embrace the legislation that he says must get passed and
that we must set aside the traditions of the Senate to jam it through.
And all of it, very clearly, is to set the stage for a lack of faith
and belief in the elections that are coming this November.
Again I ask: Is America stronger or weaker?
Is it richer or poorer? More secure or less safe?
We know the answer, and that is why my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle wish not to talk about those issues. We don't want to have
a debate about crime on the floor.
Do any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to come
down to the floor right now and have a debate about crime in the United
States?
Do they?
Do you think a 50 percent increase in crime in Austin, a 50 percent
increase in crime in San Antonio, a 19-year-old woman shot in a Burger
King in New York City, a 24-year-old student murdered walking the
streets of Los Angeles, train robberies in 21st century America with
litter all over the tracks in Los Angeles, is an accident?
Or could it be that radical leftists who are funded to take over the
district attorneys' offices in cities across America and radical city
councils like the Austin City Council and leftists in this Chamber
believe that letting criminals out on the streets and believe in not
prosecuting people is going to make our country safer?
It is empirically and obviously untrue.
The American people see it. And I promise you, Mr. Speaker, take this
bet: We will not have a debate on the floor of this body about crime
while I am here this year. It will not happen. My Democratic colleagues
would not dare have a debate about crime because they would get
absolutely decimated.
They sure as heck do not want to have a debate about the border.
Do you want to talk about 2 million apprehensions?
Do you want to talk about 1 million people released?
Do you want to talk about dead Texans?
Do you want to talk about fentanyl pouring into our communities,
100,000 dead Americans, opioid poisonings of our youth, and kids taking
Xanax and dying because cartels are flooding into our country while
China drives them right up through Mexico?
Not a person in this Chamber on the other side of the aisle wants to
come to the floor and have an adult debate about why our country is
much less secure and much more endangered at the hands of the cartels
and of people making money trafficking in human beings and undermining
our security and safety in the United States of America.
I promise you, Mr. Speaker, Joe Biden and the Nancy Pelosi Democrats
have no interest in having a debate about the border because it is an
embarrassment and it is a travesty.
Ranches are getting overrun, people are dying, bullets are being
fired across at our own Border Patrol, the National Guard is having to
fire at cars coming across the border, livestock is getting out, bodies
are stacking up in body trailers in Brooks County, Texas, and cartels
are making hundreds of millions of dollars on a daily basis driving
fentanyl into our kids' communities and schools.
No, no, no. We do not want to have a debate about the state of our
border.
Do we want to have a debate about the state of healthcare mandates?
No. No. This body has no debate but embraces rules. We must wear
masks, they say. For a year and a half we have
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been excoriated--even fined--if you don't wear a mask the floor of the
House of Representatives--masks which are very clearly proven--fabric
masks--to have no real discernible benefit over the last year and a
half of the mandates that say you must wear a face covering.
They said: Well, are we going to mandate N95s?
Are we going to have to wear N95s on the floor?
Do they want to talk about the negative effects in the study that
wearing N95s for a prolonged period of time, what that does for
people's health and well-being, breathing carbon dioxide, minimizing
your cognitive ability if you wear N95s for a long time?
Some people might joke: Would it make any difference on the floor of
the House if you minimized the cognitive ability of the Members of the
House? You could argue that it may not make any difference whatsoever.
I am looking in the mirror myself.
We do not want to have a debate on the floor of the House on
anything, by the way, much less the reality of what has been happening
with respect to this virus and our response to it; and what Anthony
Fauci engaged in with respect to the reality of the truth of funding
gain-of-function research knowing full well the dangers, working to
cover that up and hide from the American people how this virus came
about; not wanting to pursue the truth on that, not wanting to pursue
the truth or conduct studies on natural immunity.
We have study after study after study coming out right now. I could
pull out on my phone and pull up study after study now finally
demonstrating and showing how natural immunity is more powerful than
vaccinations, and people don't want to be able to have that honest
conversation.
{time} 1400
An adult leadership would have done like the Nation of Japan saying:
We believe that vaccines are effective for a large group of people. We
believe that there are some risks. You are adults. We won't mandate.
You decide.
We can't do that in the supposed land of the free? We sit up here and
we stare at that American flag and we talk about the Senate being the
greatest deliberative body. They don't really debate. This being the
people's House, the people's Chamber, when was the last time the
Speaker heard a robust debate on the floor of the House with multiple
Members?
When was the last time we offered an amendment on the floor of the
House in open debate that wasn't predetermined by all of the Rules
Committee overlords who govern our lives? Democrat and Republican, I do
want to say.
Mr. Speaker, it has been 6 years since we have had an amendment
offered on the floor of the House in open debate. Do you want to know
why we can't do anything in this Chamber? Because we don't ever debate.
We don't ever actually have a discussion, throw things out there and
then vote. Maybe, just maybe, we come to some bipartisan agreement.
I am happy to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
Dean Phillips and I worked on the PPP Flexibility Act. Abigail
Spanberger and I have introduced legislation called the TRUST Act to
deal with stock trading believing that might help improve people's
faith and confidence in this body. I have introduced numerous bills and
passed numerous bills with my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle. That is not what this is about.
It is about a broken body refusing to actually debate, refusing to
actually engage, refusing to offer amendments. Both sides do it. That
needs to end.
The last point that I will make on that point, if you want this body
to function again, you have to stop spending money we don't have. If
you keep writing blank checks, how on Earth is there a check against
the wisdom of the policy? You just keep writing a check to keep doing
the same thing or to do something different. You can't run a business
that way. You can't run a home that way. You can't run a church that
way. You can't run a legitimate school that way. But no, no, we just
keep writing checks to fund the expansion of government, to fund the
creation of programs no matter who is in power.
Over the last year, we have seen what that causes when it is then
left in the hands of an administration that literally does not care
about the rule of law.
To be very clear, this administration is ignoring the rule of law,
ignoring their oath, ignoring their duty to enforce the laws of the
United States, ignoring their duty to secure the border, ignoring their
duty to stand up in defense of the men and women in blue, to follow the
laws around the United States, ignoring their oath to stand up and
defend the United States against our foreign enemies; hold the line
against Russia; push back on Russia; sanction them; hold the line on
Nord Stream 2; stand alongside Ukraine; push back on China; stop
appeasing them.
Don't leave $85 billion sitting there in the hands of terrorists when
we walk away and abandon our duty and leave those men and women in the
field, and then have 13 dead marines to show for it.
That is the legacy of the first year of this administration. But will
President Biden, when he strolls to that podium on March 1 for his so-
called State of the Union, and we are all spread out, and all wearing
masks, and doing whatever the heck we are going to do--not actually
doing the people's business--will he address any of those issues?
Will he talk about border security? Will he talk about how we are
weaker around the world? Will he talk about the crime on the streets of
Los Angeles, New York, Austin, San Antonio, and Chicago?
Will he talk about the businesses getting crippled by mask mandates
and health mandates?
Will he talk about the children who are now having mental health
issues, the people who are sick; the diseases that weren't dealt with,
all to push a vaccine mandate that goes contrary to the pursuit of
happiness and our right as Americans to live free?
Will he talk about any of those things? Will he talk about the fact
that the United States of America is sitting on one of the world's
largest reservoirs of energy and, yet, we are wondering even in Texas
whether you can have the lights on because we built no nuclear power
plants.
We slowed down our production of clean burning natural gas, all
chasing unicorn energy policies of wind and solar as if they can
possibly, possibly power the world at the level that is needed for the
proper amount of human flourishing while 3 billion people around this
planet do not have access to abundant energy and power.
Will the President of the United States come down here and talk about
that or will he get up there and just talk about: Well, we are going to
be net zero in our carbon production by 2035, or 2050, or make up some
totally arbitrary number without regard at all to what that does to the
price of energy and the availability and abundance of energy.
All of this has real-life consequences for Americans. People die.
Houses get cold. People can't get access to energy. They can't afford
energy. They lose jobs. You have stagnation and then you have the
brilliance of this administration and the brilliance of those in the
media starting to talk about energy and food price control because, of
course, that is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will
resort to.
They will sit there and bemoan markets when they don't let the
markets work. Healthcare markets never work. We haven't had a
healthcare market in decades. It is an absolute lie; and I am looking
at you Big Healthcare. I am looking at you Big Pharma. I am looking at
you hospitals. I am looking at you Big Insurance. You made out like
bandits after ObamaCare. You minted money. And probably three-quarters
of the people in this Chamber fattened their wallets and
their portfolios riding the back of all of that Big Healthcare
enrichment, all at the expense of poor Americans around this country
trying to get access to a doctor without having to call some bureaucrat
in the government, the VA, or an insurance company, or however it may
be, but it sure as heck isn't their doctor.
We don't have health freedom in this country. We have mandated Big
Healthcare, Big Government, Big Insurance, bureaucracy. And everybody
knows it. Everybody knows it because you all had to deal with it. You
have
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had to call somebody. You had to call some kid sitting in Omaha in some
phone bank telling you which doctor you can go to 2,000 miles away.
That is the truth, and we all know it. We sit in here, we roll in here
and we say: Let's spend more money and create a government program.
Let's spend more money we don't have.
Not one person in this body will come down here and truly debate any
of these truths when you are $30 trillion in debt; when you are funding
the very FBI going after parents for daring to stand up and defend
their children in a school board meeting; when you are funding the
Department of Homeland Security that is literally lying to the American
people saying our border is secure while hundreds of thousands of
people come across.
You want to know what happened in that synagogue? Because we don't
have a dang clue who is coming to the United States, and this
administration doesn't care. They don't care. They don't care what list
they are on. They don't care whether they pose a danger to the United
States of America. They don't care at all who is coming into this
country. And they sure as heck don't care what is happening to the
people of Texas, Arizona, or, frankly, everybody around this country
who is having to bear the cost, who is having to bear the burden of
what wide-open borders means to the United States of America.
Complain about Mayorkas? We should impeach him for failing to
faithfully execute the laws of the United States of America,
endangering Americans in the process, ignoring the laws of the United
States. And that is what is happening. That is what is happening.
America is poorer, sicker, and less safe a year into the Biden
administration, and that is the truth. Our enemies know it. That is why
Russia is going after Ukraine. That is why China is rattling on a daily
basis. That is why Russia, China, and Iran are talking about joint
exercises. That is why the cartels are emboldened. That is why there
are people marching through Mexico from all over the world coming to
our southern border. That is why there are people on the streets
breaking into businesses, assaulting people on the streets and killing
them, raping them. It is happening every single day in the United
States of America with reckless abandon while Democrats in district
attorney's offices, Democrats in the House of Representatives,
Democrats in this administration do nothing about it and do not care
that the American people are left holding the bag.
Then they want to talk about taking away our Second Amendment rights
and our ability to defend ourselves. Well, that crap ain't going to
happen because we are going to defend ourselves in the land of the
free. We are going to stand up and defend our communities and defend
our families. We are going to stand up in defense of the Constitution
and limited government and freedom to be able to protect our families
and protect our States when this administration is letting this country
burn.
It dares to do an hour-long press conference, lecturing the people
for wanting to make sure their elections are secure, for daring to say
that we should have voter identification when that same administration
is ordering vaccine mandates that are causing healthcare workers to
lose their jobs; causing healthcare workers in long-term health
facilities to be unable to carry out their jobs.
And then there is the talk about, oh, the burden on hospitals. Well,
you just caused 20 percent of nurses to have to leave because you were
mandating they take a jab for something that is a year old that Pfizer
is making billions of dollars on. Then we won't even have a hearing
about why on Earth we are having this virus in the first place, because
of what Anthony Fauci knew and what NIH was up to and what China was up
to.
We won't have a hearing about natural immunity. We won't have a
hearing about the dangers and levels of dangers of the vaccines, what
they may be. Again, my polio-stricken father who is 79 has been
vaccinated. I refuse to say whether I have been vaccinated. I think it
is a principle for Americans that they shouldn't have to say.
My point is, there are people for whom the vaccine makes sense. There
are people for whom the vaccine does not make sense. Mandating a jab in
a 5-year-old is irresponsible and it is dangerous. We should have that
conversation instead of blindly walking around preaching what other
people should stick in their dang arm.
But that is what we do in the people's House. I am sitting here in an
empty Chamber--with the Speaker, respectfully--and that is it. They are
all jet-fumed out, leaving town. Oh, we shut down earlier. Let's get
out of here. Or they are out at some fundraiser or something.
Let's have a debate on these issues. Let's seek the truth. I don't
know all of the truth on all of those issues. I don't know the specific
risks. I have read a lot about what is going on with the vaccines,
positive and negative. But it is becoming very, very clear that it
doesn't do squat to stop the spread. So you are left basically saying:
Well, it is better for you so that you don't die in the hospital.
Well, let's look at the data on that. But why don't we just present
the information and let the American people decide? Japan's vaccine
rate is a lot higher than ours and ours has mandates. All they did was
say: We think it is good. There are some risks. You decide. We can't do
that in America?
We can't just go down to the border and say: You know what, it is
better for migrants, better for Texans and all Americans, bad for
cartels, bad for China, if we secure our border. That is the truth.
Talk to the migrants getting abused. Talk to the people in south Texas.
Go to Laredo and Webb County. Sit down with the Brown people in Laredo
who will say: We are pretty ticked off with this administration about
how they are handling the border.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle might be up for a rude
awakening pretty soon about their expectations of what voters are
voting for them and what voters are not because there are a lot of
people in this country that are sick and tired of the elite in this
town, immersed in the swamp, promoting Big Healthcare, promoting Big
Tech, promoting Big Government, minimizing the rights and the abilities
of Americans to live their lives the way they see fit.
That is our calling as we head to 2026, our 250th birthday of the
United States of America, which comes up in 4-and-a-half years. Will we
be able to say that we live in the land of the free? Will we be able to
say that we are pursuing happiness; that we are the country of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
We will only be able to do that if we stand up and secure our
Nation's sovereignty, defend our streets, protect our families, stand
up to enemies around the world, and limit this body to the job that it
was given in the Constitution: limit our spending to the dollars that
we have and responsibly lead this country and represent the people so
that this country can, in fact, be great in our agreements and our
disagreements in a Federalist Republic where we are able to live free.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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