[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 199 (Wednesday, December 21, 2022)]
[House]
[Page H9916]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          FAREWELL TO CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Meijer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MEIJER. Madam Speaker, I rise today for the last time as a Member 
of the 117th Congress. I do not seek to dwell on the circumstances of 
my departure, although it does bring to mind a few lines from Yeats' 
``Second Coming'':

       The best lack all conviction, while the worst
       Are full of passionate intensity.

  Perhaps it takes a cataclysm like World War I to capture the naked, 
malevolent cynicism of our politics. Yeats also well captured the 
harrowing consequence of elite ineptitude that precipitated the 
slaughter of tens of millions:

       Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
       Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

  I read and re-read those words while flying from Hamid Karzai 
International Airport last August during the shameful end to 20 years 
of America's war in Afghanistan.
  What I saw on the ground during that waking nightmare exemplified 
some of the best of the American men and women in uniform, but it also 
reflected the haplessness and incompetency of American policymaking.
  It is easy to question why we are here in this Chamber, what our 
purpose is, and what it is we seek to achieve. I did not enter this 
body as some wide-eyed innocent; three years in war zones had stripped 
me of that.
  But what I did not anticipate until I got here was how many of the 
problems we are confronting are problems of Congress' own making.
  Look at Afghanistan. Across the rotunda, we are fighting an uphill 
battle to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act so that our allies who have 
risked their lives to support our operations aren't deported back to 
the same hell that 13 American servicemembers sacrificed their lives to 
rescue them from.
  This should not be a Herculean task. Yet, Senators have the privilege 
of wrapping their hands around the neck of critical legislation and 
strangling it in back rooms. If they want to slit the throat of the 
Afghan Adjustment Act, then let them do it on the Senate floor in full 
view of the allies and veterans they are betraying.
  The reason in the first place why we have to pass the Afghan 
Adjustment Act is due to the failure of our war in Afghanistan--a 
failure abetted by decades of Congress' lax oversight of the President 
and his Department of Defense.
  To solve this, I pushed for Congress to take back its war powers, to 
take back that constitutional responsibility. But even when it comes to 
Congress asserting its own prerogative, this body has shown itself 
unwilling to do its job.
  The current budget negotiations taking place on the other side of the 
rotunda also show a Congress unwilling to confront the very basic task 
of passing a budget on time. The last time we had a budget passed 
before the fiscal year started, I was in second grade. And here we sit, 
72 hours before a government shutdown, while the Senate pats itself on 
the back for dropping a 4,155-page omnibus bill at 2 a.m. yesterday 
morning.
  When Congress is incapable of solving problems of its own making, how 
can the American people have any faith that we can tackle the problems 
arising from the broader world?
  What hope do we have of out-competing China and of winning this 
coming century if we can't even get out of a mess of our own making?
  We need the best to regain their convictions, to set an example of 
what clear-eyed leadership looks like both at home and abroad. We need 
to hold the worst to account and reprise the moral resolve that has led 
us through dark times in this country many, many times before.
  Too many have sacrificed too much for us to squander the opportunity 
before us, the opportunity to rise to the challenge of this moment, to 
set aside petty squabbles, the opportunity to build on the promise of 
limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty--the 
promise that underpins the American Dream.
  While I will not be in the 118th Congress to fight for the government 
our great people deserve, I remain steadfast to my commitment to make 
our Nation at last worthy of the sacrifices made in its name. And I 
pray that the next Congress learns from the mistakes of the last 2 
years, that we learn from the mistakes of decades before, and that we 
have the courage necessary to fulfill the promise of a government of 
the people, by the people, and for the people.

                          ____________________