[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 200 (Thursday, December 22, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H10043-H10049]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bowman). 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. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I wish 
him well and a very Merry Christmas with his family, and save travels 
home.
  I too share his affinity for wanting to work across the aisle. I have 
done so on numerous occasions. I am fairly well known for speaking my 
mind on the House floor. But I am happy to work across the aisle, and 
also an equal opportunity basher of both sides when I disagree.
  But I wish we would have vigorous debate here on the floor of the 
House. A lot of things that the gentleman from Texas talked about, I 
agree wholeheartedly. The immigrants he discussed wanting to come to 
the United States; I would like them to have safe passage under our 
rules and under our laws.
  Right now we have a broken system that is endangering lives; lives of 
immigrants and endangering lives of Americans.
  We talked about the ideals and the values of this country, and I 
share those ideals and values.
  I would ask and inquire of my colleagues in the body broadly, how can 
we maintain those ideals if we are bankrupt?
  How can we maintain those ideals if we are writing checks we can't 
cash?
  I can give speech after speech after speech about this topic, but 
unless we change our ways on both sides of the aisle, this country will 
not survive.
  I don't know what it is going to take to get the people who are 
entrusted to run this country--and that starts in this Chamber, the 
power of the purse, entrusted to the people's House, we are abusing it. 
We are conducting our duties irresponsibly, both sides of the aisle.
  Today, the United States Senate, the Senate, supposedly, the ``upper 
chamber,'' the House of Lords in the United States, if you will, sent 
us--or is in the process of sending us, after voting for it, a 4,155-
page bill, unveiled yesterday morning at 1:30 a.m., that will cost $1.7 
trillion.
  This bill will increase spending $118 billion. This bill has $45 
billion for the country of Ukraine; 21 percent over President Biden's 
request, by the way.
  $40 billion for disaster relief. $15 billion for 7,234 earmarks, with 
the senior Senator of Alabama, Richard Shelby, walking out of the 
Senate with a legacy of $670 million. I believe the senior

[[Page H10044]]

Senator said that monuments are for pigeons and dogs in response to my 
criticism.
  Well, there is a lot of stuff in your name in Alabama, and you just 
got some more, Senator Shelby. Is that what this is about?
  Because who is paying for that? He is not paying for it. Our kids and 
grandkids are paying for it.
  You know what else we are paying for? We are paying for $500,000 to 
the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth Incorporated; $113,000 to the 
LGBT Center of Greater Reading, Pennsylvania; $1.5 million for The 
Loft: LGBTQ+ Community Center new home project in New York, which I got 
excoriated as somehow being hateful for tweeting that out earlier by 
one of my colleagues.
  Now, hold on a second. So I am hateful for raising whether or not we 
should have $1.5 million set aside for The Loft: LGBTQ+ Community 
Center in New York that is then divvied up by both age and sexual 
identity or preference. Okay. I am the bad guy for thinking that maybe 
taxpayers are thinking, Why are we doing that?
  $750,000 for New York-based In Our Own Voices, Inc., which aims to 
strengthen the voices of LGBT people of color and increase their 
capacity for combating oppression and marginalization.
  $250,000 to support Wisconsin's first in the Nation gay rights law 
book and archive.
  How about the climate agenda? $1.3 million for workforce development 
activities at a climate change education center in the Los Angeles 
Community College District.
  $3 million for clean energy workforce development at the New York 
State Energy Research and Development Authority; $200,000 for the Rhode 
Island AFL-CIO's climate jobs workforce training initiative.
  $875,000 for green energy on demand at Clarkson University; $400,000 
for the placement of at-risk young adults into the green jobs industry.
  $2 million for community driven air quality environmental justice 
assessment at the University of Illinois.
  $2 million for a climate change impact on water initiative at Texas 
State University. I represent Texas State University and that is 
garbage. Why are we doing this?
  $10 million for the State of Hawaii's zero emission bus program; $1.6 
million for the Center for Wind Energy at UT Dallas. Texas is pretty 
well represented with all these earmarks.
  Inequality and equity, the omni funds pointless equity initiatives 
and subsidies even more radical ideologies, such as $1.5 million for 
equity and ecosystem help through water column development; $2.25 
million for the shoreline equity and adaptation hub.
  $750,000 for the acquisition of a building in Brooklyn, New York, to 
create the Brooklyn Center for Social Justice, Entrepreneurship, and 
the Arts.
  $300,000 for the city of Sacramento's Neighborhood Equity Initiative.
  $477,000 for the Equity Institute's ``teacher professional 
development.''

                              {time}  1715

  How about racial wokeness? A few examples:
  $443,000 for the Racial Justice Improvement Project, Montgomery 
County DA's office.
  $1 million for the Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota, to 
develop and implement a curriculum for racial healing and equity 
training.
  $800,000 for Economic Development For Black Communities in Colorado.
  $750,000 for a minority-owned small business emergency assistance 
program in Seattle.
  I could go on and on and on. For all the things that are put in here 
divvying us up by race, divvying us by gender ideology--all of those 
earmarks just flooding out with money we don't have.
  That is not even the worst of it. That is not even the actual 
irresponsibility of this body. That is just pork spending that this 
body is used to doing to the tune of $15 billion, $16 billion.
  The real problem is that we are funding a whole alphabet soup of 
Federal agencies that are demonstrably not doing their jobs--more 
importantly, are demonstrably targeting the American people.
  The Department of Homeland Security is getting $3.2 billion more with 
no policy changes required, in fact, unbelievably, with restrictions on 
how that money can be used. It may not be used for security. It may 
only be used for processing more people.
  That is what our Democratic colleagues and, unfortunately, a sizable 
bloc of Republicans believe is a good use of your taxpayer money.
  Hey, guys, the Department of Homeland Security is doing such a crack 
job of securing the homeland, they are doing such a great job at the 
border, let's give them some more money to not secure the border, and 
let's restrict it from being able to be used to do any of the security 
that the line Border Patrol agents actually want to do their job.
  There you go. That is what you got. And what happened in the Senate 
today? What happened in the Senate today? I will tell you what happened 
in the Senate today.
  Blunt, Boozman, Capito, Collins, Cornyn, Cotton, Graham, Inhofe, 
McConnell, Moran, Murkowski, Portman, Romney, Rounds, Shelby, Thune, 
Wicker, and Young: 18 Republicans who campaigned on fiscal 
responsibility, who campaigned on securing the border, who campaigned 
on balancing the budget, who campaigned against the swamp, who run 
commercials saying they are going to change this place did the 
swampiest thing you can possibly do, and that is to vote for a 4,100-
page bill they got just yesterday, not knowing remotely what all is in 
the bill because it was cooked up behind closed doors with no 
appropriations meetings, jamming it over a new House Republican 
majority, doing it intentionally to prevent us from being able to 
debate and vote on how we are going to fund Ukraine, how we are going 
to fund our own national defense, how we are going to fund nondefense 
discretionary spending, and ensure that we use that money to secure the 
border of the United States.
  That is what your Republican Senators, those 18, did to you, America. 
Remember it. Remember it when Republicans are going around thumping 
their chests, talking about changing this town when they are neck-deep 
drowning in the swamp, when they are emblematic of everything wrong 
with the swamp. Remember it. Remember it.
  I don't like saying it. I have friends on both sides of the aisle, 
and some of these 18 are my friends. But do you know what? John Adams 
and Thomas Jefferson had a pretty testy relationship because they 
fought over the way this country should be run and be set up.
  We are hired to fight for the people we represent, so I will be 
damned if I am going to give a rat's rear end whether I offend some of 
the people in this godforsaken town because I dare question, regardless 
of which party they are in, regardless of who they say they are friends 
with or who they campaign with, I will be darned if I am going to be 
cowed into not calling out what you see unfold before you with your 
very eyes.
  Leader Mitch McConnell called the bill ``a strong outcome for 
Republicans.''
  The arguments that I have heard from some of the Members include this 
argument. Having lost a vote for a continuing resolution until the new 
Republican majority takes over in January, we had two bad choices: cast 
a protest vote against funding our military, veterans, Border Patrol, 
and other essential government functions, or vote for a flawed bill.
  That is what happens in this town. This was a setup, ladies and 
gentlemen. It was purposeful. Well orchestrated by Mitch McConnell. I 
do not question that. He is good at playing these games in this town, 
as is virtually everybody associated with the appropriations process 
and leadership of the House and the Senate.
  They have all the excuses in the world: There is a troop pay raise. 
There is a helicopter that we need to buy. There are missiles we need 
to buy. There are boats and planes we need to buy. Because of that, we 
must cast a vote for a flawed bill rather than ``a protest vote.''
  A protest vote? What is a protest vote? My vote, which I will cast 
whenever we get this monstrosity finally sent over here, whenever the 
Committee on Rules goes through their sham process--and it is a sham 
process, ladies and gentlemen.

[[Page H10045]]

  They will entertain some amendments, and they will give some 
perfunctory, ``Let's review it.'' They will kick it down here to the 
floor. There will be no debate, no amendments offered. It will be 
jammed through because every one of the people in this Chamber, both 
sides of the aisle--maybe not everyone, the vast majority--they want to 
get on their jets and get home for Christmas.
  You should have seen the wailing and gnashing of teeth last night 
when Mike Lee was offering an amendment over in the Senate to try to 
address the expiration of title 42 and what is going to occur if the 
Supreme Court lifts its stay. What is going to happen in Texas, what is 
going to happen to the United States, what is going to happen to 
migrants, the empowerment of cartels, the fentanyl pouring into our 
country, Mike Lee dared to try to do something about that.

  You should have seen the wailing and gnashing of teeth: Well, what 
are you going to do? We don't want to be here until Christmas.
  Why don't you tell that to George Washington and the boys crossing 
the Delaware in 1776 or the boys in Bastogne in 1944?
  What were they doing on Christmas? Were they trying to fly out of the 
Nation's Capital in their jets back to their homes around their warm 
fireplaces so they could be with their families after they absolutely 
just royally screwed the country and their kids and grandkids? Because 
that is what they just did. That is what this body, this House Chamber, 
the people's House, is going to do tomorrow morning.
  Mr. Speaker, $600 million more for the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation while doing nothing to stop it from colluding with Big 
Tech, targeting parents, or harassing pro-lifers, all of which the FBI 
is doing as we speak.
  It is better than that, ladies and gentlemen across the country. They 
are getting a brand-new headquarters. Do you want to know what almost 
derailed this lovely $1.7 trillion piece of legislation? A fight over 
where to put the fancy new FBI headquarters.
  These are the important things we do here in this city. Let's figure 
out who can get their pork back home in the form of a massive Federal 
agency that is involved on a daily basis in targeting the American 
people in the name of law enforcement. That sounds like a winning prize 
for the people of either Maryland or Virginia. Let's grow this greater 
metropolitan area even more.
  What could do more for the people of the United States than to have a 
fancy new FBI headquarters filled with all sorts of people who are 
conspiring to target the American people and actually label a father as 
a domestic terrorist for daring to go to a school board meeting?
  By the way, the superintendent of that school system has been 
indicted. These are all the things that just get swept aside, pushed to 
the corner. Nobody wants to talk about it.
  Where are my colleagues, by the way? I get an hour of debate time 
down here. Where is everybody? Are they sipping on some eggnog with 
some whiskey and having some steak dinners or something?
  What is more important than sitting down here on the floor and 
highlighting the fraud being perpetrated on the American people right 
before our eyes, a complete and utter disastrous fraud, endorsed by 18 
Republican Senators--I hope none of my Republican colleagues in this 
Chamber, but we will see--a bill that will fundamentally limit our 
ability to secure the border.
  It is actually in the dang bill. They don't even pretend anymore, 
ladies and gentlemen. They don't even try to hide it. They actually put 
the text in the bill that says this money cannot be used to secure the 
border of the United States. It can only be used to process people. 
That is in the text of this bill.
  Let me be clear to those 18 United States Senators: That alone should 
have been enough to have you vote ``no'' on this bill. Yet, you voted 
for it.
  It should have been enough that we are giving another $600 million to 
the FBI and building a new headquarters.
  It should have been enough that there is more money for ATF and all 
sorts of provisions to go after law-abiding gun owners. It should have 
been enough that there was $2.5 billion more for NIH, which funded 
gain-of-function research in Wuhan and pays Anthony Fauci's salary in 
perpetuity, and hires CRT propaganda speakers.
  I say again to those 18 Republican Senators: You own this. You own 
every one of those earmarks that I listed and said in this speech, 
every one of those earmarks that I put out in a tweet thread earlier. 
You own it. You own it with the kind of reasoning that says: Well, you 
vote for a flawed bill instead of casting a ``protest vote.''
  It is not a protest vote to come to the Chamber where you were hired 
by your constituents to fight for them and vote against the funding of 
the very tyranny you campaigned against; to vote against the very 
irresponsible spending that is driving up our national debt, increasing 
inflation, weakening the dollar, undermining the American family; to 
vote against that; to vote against the funding of the Federal 
bureaucrats like, for example, the $760,000 more going to the CDC, 
whose Director lied about vaccine efficacy while the CDC colluded with 
Big Tech to suppress free speech about vaccines.
  How about the World Health Organization, giving them more money?
  The State Department, $3.6 billion: They fund drag shows in Ecuador 
and an LGBT group in Kazakhstan that advocates for transwomen sex 
workers with migration experience.
  I don't care what you believe about these things. Why in the hell are 
the American people borrowing money to fund them? Someone explain that 
to me. Someone explain to me how it is in the interest of the United 
States, when we are sitting here $31.4 trillion in debt, to borrow more 
money to build more Federal buildings, to hire more Federal 
bureaucrats, to fund these kinds of earmark programs throughout the 
world, things that nobody in America actually wants to see happen. Poll 
it. Go ahead.
  Elon, if you are listening, throw this out on Twitter for a poll. I 
promise you what the result will be.

                              {time}  1730

  The American people are beside themselves at an incompetent Chamber 
in this body and the other side of this building in the Senate who seem 
to wake up every single day and decide, how can we screw the American 
people over more today than we did yesterday?
  Well, today is a banner day in the annals of this supposedly august 
institution known as the United States Congress:
  $560 million for an EPA destroying reliable energy;
  $574 million for a Department of Interior that has leased fewer 
Federal acres for oil and gas development than any administration since 
World War II.
  Before I turn it over to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), 
my friend, I assume tomorrow, after voting for this monster of a bill 
as a body--not individually--I assume that we will all be heading out 
for Christmas. This bill will pass. This bill will become law.
  My question for this body, heading into the 118th Congress, is what 
are we going to do to change the way we do business? This is no way to 
operate. You cannot drop 4,000 page, $1.7 trillion bills onto the floor 
of the Senate, jam it through, send it over here so bad that we are 
having to wait to get it by midnight, work through the Rules Committee 
to vote on it in the morning so everybody can get out to beat a winter 
storm.
  We had all year. All year we had to try to fund this Federal 
Government responsibly, and we failed. We fail every year. No 
corporation would put up with this garbage. Every one of us would be 
fired. And we should be.
  And I will just say right now, if my colleagues will join with me to 
all resign, I will resign. I would love to clean this place out. I 
would love to get rid of every last person in here, including my 
friends, because if you took, in the words of William Buckley, the 
first 435 names in the phone book, can they do any worse than the 
schleps in this body? I don't for the life of me understand how it can 
be possible to do worse than we do.
  And the Senate itself, hell, the Senate makes us look like William 
the Conqueror. They don't even bother to do Appropriations Committee 
work. They just scoff and sit at their tables and go, well, we will 
just do the work for them. Yeah, thanks, Mitch.
  Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield?

[[Page H10046]]

  

  Mr. ROY. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania for the purposes 
of a colloquy.
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I wish 
to offer him a Merry Christmas and a Merry Christmas to the people of 
the United States of America.
  Unfortunately, in your stocking is not going to be something you 
probably hoped for. I don't think it is going to be a lump of coal. It 
is $1.7 trillion that we don't have. $1.7 trillion, 4,155 pages plus, I 
don't know, a couple thousand pages of what is called report language 
that barely any of us had an opportunity to read, released in the--was 
it last night, Chip?
  Mr. ROY. Yes, 1:30 in the morning.
  Mr. PERRY. The shortest day of the year, the darkest day of the year, 
and now we are voting on it without--
  Let's face it, let's talk about some of the things we know that are 
in it. We already know, as the gentleman from Texas told us, that your 
tax dollars, the dollars your Federal Government is spending, is 
prohibited from stopping people coming across the border illegally. 
Prohibited to be used for that.
  Here is what can be used: $400 million for the border security of 
Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, and Oman. Think about that. Right now, 
while title 42 is on the verge of going away, they are estimating we 
literally have 18,000 people per day coming across the border 
illegally. We are going to spend $400 million in the Middle East to 
secure their borders, and we are going to say to the United States of 
America, you can't spend any tax dollars to defend your own border. 
That passed in the U.S. Senate today.
  $140 million on carbon dioxide removal technologies;
  $540 million on energy storage because the preferred sources of 
energy by my friends on that side of the aisle don't work. So we need 
that.
  $220 million on solar energy. I thought solar energy came of age and 
was supportive of itself without subsidy.
  $380 million for alternative modes of transport because, ladies and 
gentlemen of America, my friends on the other side of the aisle 
actually don't want you to drive a car or own a car. And if you do have 
the temerity to think you are going to go somewhere in your own car, it 
better be an electric vehicle that you are going to plug in and charge 
when they allow you to charge it. We need $380 million for that.
  I was at the grocery store a couple days ago with my family--my wife, 
our girls were there--having a conversation about what we are going to 
buy for Christmas for the in-laws and family coming over, and a lady 
was listening to the conversation, Chip, and she said, ``I am not 
paying $5 for a dozen eggs. I am not paying $5 for a dozen eggs.''
  I don't see one darn thing in this bill that is going to solve that 
lady's problem.
  Whether it is the gas prices--right now the temperature is dropping 
all across the United States of America, and people are going to have 
to pay for the electricity, the heating oil, the propane, the natural 
gas, something to heat their homes, and they are going to be paying a 
lot. And there is nothing in here for that.
  But I will tell you what is in here: $1.3 million in an earmark for 
water storage tanks just outside of Washington, D.C. The wealthiest 
counties in the United States of America right here, but we have got an 
earmark for them because they need a water storage tank.
  How about $1.5 million for the Pasadena on-street dining project? 
$1.5 million for a student garden in Sacramento?
  I am not saying that these projects aren't worthy of discussion for 
somebody. If you live in Pasadena and you want on-street dining, God 
bless you. It is probably important to you.

  You tell me, Mr. Roy, when our country is at $31.4 trillion in debt 
and careening headlong into $32 trillion, how in the world is that a 
Federal project? The people in Pennsylvania, who would love to go to 
Pasadena, we would love to see our team in the Rose Bowl. That is on 
our team.
  Mr. ROY. There is a joke in there somewhere.
  Mr. PERRY. That is on our team, I get that. But how is it the people 
of Pennsylvania or Texas or Maine or anywhere across the country's job, 
why is it their responsibility to pay for that? I don't get it.
  $2 million for programs promoting career pathways into government 
service because, goodness knows, there is not enough people in 
government service. We need to find a way to get them into it.
  How about a $50 million endowment fund at the University of Alabama?
  Let's not stop there.
  How about $10 million for an Institute on Public Service and 
Leadership at the University of Alabama?
  Mr. ROY. Hey, wait a minute. Does the gentleman have any ideas about 
why Alabama might be receiving so many of these earmarks?
  Mr. PERRY. Well, the retiring Senate chief appropriator, Senator 
Shelby, happens to come from Alabama. I have got nothing bad to say 
about Alabama. I spent a fair amount of time down there. I love 
Alabama.
  Here again, I don't know why Pennsylvanians, Texans, North Dakotans, 
Californians, whoever, have to pay for this. What is the Federal nexus 
to this spending of money that we don't have?
  I am going to turn it back over to my friend here in a minute. We can 
just go back and forth because I have got plenty here. I know he does, 
too.
  How about $4 million for a Bahamian Museum of Arts and Culture, 
Florida?
  $1.4 million to restore an outdoor amphitheater in California.
  $1.7 million for an urban agriculture garden in California.
  Look, the list just--we are going to get into it, but, people, when 
are we going to start asking ourselves whose responsibility this is and 
when are we going to start asking ourselves, is this ever going to 
change?
  We haven't had the process here where the Senate and the House passed 
its own budget, its own appropriations bills, conferenced them, worked 
out their differences, and then had a vote on that, that process that I 
just described, how our government was set up to spend your money, that 
hasn't happened since 1996.
  It is 2022. What is it going to take for us to finally say, ``Man, we 
have had enough. I call uncle. I can't take anymore,'' and change this 
place?
  I would submit to you that the leadership that has allowed this to 
continue--and not only allowed it to continue, to ensure that it has 
continued--is derelict, irresponsible, and accountable to this tragic, 
epic, enormous failure. This is a failure, and there has got to be an 
accounting for it.
  Just because it is hours and days before Christmas, and it is real 
cold outside, and we have got worries about our children's schooling, 
being able to pay the bills, grocery bills, fuel bills, electric bills, 
don't think that we as the American people don't see what is happening 
here. We see it, and we see who is doing it. And we are not going to 
tolerate it.
  Mr. Speaker, I turn it back over to my good friend from Texas.
  Mr. ROY. My friend from Pennsylvania makes a great deal of sense, and 
I can't help but observe the utter hypocrisy, with all due respect, of 
so many of our colleagues on this side of the aisle in both the so-
called upper Chamber and the so-called people's House.
  How about the junior Senator from Utah, Mitt Romney, when he said in 
2021, quote, Democrats want to spend boatloads of money at the wrong 
time and in the wrong ways instead of addressing inflation and dealing 
with the emerging threat of China. They are dead set on raising taxes 
and government giveaways. This isn't how we solve the problems facing 
Americans, end quote.
  Well, the junior Senator from Utah just supported this monstrosity--
opposed, I believe, the senior Senator from Utah in the election this 
year, the senior Senator from Utah being the one who was trying to stop 
this monstrosity today.
  How about the exiting senior Senator from Alabama? In July of 2022, 
just this year: ``Inflation hit 9.1 percent today, another record high. 
This is devastating news for millions of hardworking Americans. The 
Biden administration remains remiss in getting inflation under control. 
Passing another massive tax-and-spend bill would be a mistake we cannot 
afford.''
  Well, here is the problem with Republicans, with all due respect to 
Republicans, they love to use the phrase tax

[[Page H10047]]

and spend, but my Republican colleagues, who oppose tax increases, 
which I generally do as well, sure have no problem with spend and 
spend.
  Spend for defense, spend for nondefense discretionary, and then go 
with their tail tucked between their legs back home and go: I am sorry, 
I couldn't really do anything about it. Our hands were tied because we 
must have the spending for defense, and we must have the spending for 
Ukraine because somebody gave a fancy speech in this Chamber last 
night.
  Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
  Mr. ROY. I will yield.
  Mr. PERRY. You were talking about defense. Of course, as a citizen 
who has been honored to wear the uniform for over three decades, 
certainly the number one priority outlined in our Constitution is 
defending our Nation and its citizens. When we talk about spending for 
defense, are we talking about spending for the defense of the United 
States or is there anybody else here that you would like to discuss 
that we are spending on their defense?
  Mr. ROY. That is a great question that my friend raises. The omnibus 
spending bill that is coming over to us from the Senate, to the best of 
my understanding, raises defense spending somewhere in the neighborhood 
of 8 to 10 percent, right?

  Mr. PERRY. Is that what the President asked for?
  Mr. ROY. It is more than what the President asked for, I believe.
  Mr. PERRY. The President is the Commander in Chief, right?
  Mr. ROY. Correct. But in addition to the increase in spending for our 
national defense, there is also an additional $45 billion, which is 
almost the entire budget of our Department of Homeland Security, by the 
way, $45 billion additional to go to Ukraine on top of the almost $60 
billion already approved, authorized this last year, bringing it to 
somewhere around $100 billion, again for Ukraine, well eclipsing, 
almost doubling our own Department of Homeland Security budget, well 
eclipsing the entire defense budget of Russia. American taxpayers are 
paying for that.
  We talked about, I think, the 8 to 10 percent increase in defense 
spending. I would have to look at my notes. A sizable pop of money.
  Is the gentleman in agreement, because the gentleman served in the 
United States military for 30 years, and I thank him for it, just like 
I thank every other veteran and every other Active-Duty member of our 
United States military for standing up to defend this country, but I 
don't think the gentleman did that in order to rack up more debt and to 
destroy our financial security. I don't think the gentleman did that in 
order to throw 10 percent more money to the Department of Defense, a 
Department of Defense which is continually more of a social engineering 
experiment wrapped in a uniform than it is a military designed to kill 
people and blow things up. Would the gentleman agree?

                              {time}  1745

  Mr. PERRY. I would agree with that, and I think that the gentleman 
from Texas would also agree. Look, neither of us like what Vladimir 
Putin or the country of Russia has done to its neighbor, Ukraine. Being 
a bully, invading, blowing up their buildings and their infrastructure, 
killing their citizens is unacceptable. It is unacceptable. We all know 
that, and we all want to help.
  At the same time, our military is being destroyed by our own country, 
not some other country. We are not focused. As an individual citizen 
who has been privileged and honored to serve in uniform, I can tell you 
we are not focused on keeping our country safe; we are focused on a 
bunch of woke policies that are undermining the good order and 
discipline and the fighting spirit and the focus of our military.
  If we are spending money on the military, we need to spend money on 
our military. If we are spending money on the borders of Ukraine or 
Tunisia or Egypt, we certainly need to spend money on the borders of 
the United States of America, not just to process individuals coming 
across illegally--that is what we are doing--but actually to thwart 
those people coming illegally.
  And as important, the criminal element is coming in, the cartel 
involvement, the human trafficking and smuggling, the fentanyl is 
coming in and killing American citizens--now just reported at a record 
rate higher than the year before, which was at a record rate.
  What will it take, 4,100 pages? What will it take before we start 
concentrating on the citizens of the United States of America?
  No one raises their right hand in this Chamber and takes an oath to 
defend Tunisia or Ukraine or any of those other countries. It is the 
United States of America, our Constitution, and our citizens.
  Mr. ROY. I would just ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania: Do you 
recall when the gentleman and myself came to the floor of the House 
right after the invasion of Ukraine by Putin, and we spoke right here 
at this table, and we spoke about the horrors being inflicted and the 
evil being perpetrated by Vladimir Putin, the extent to which we were 
in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and wanting to stand up and 
defend their country against the thuggish behavior and the willful 
destruction of lives and the carnage that had been carried out by 
Vladimir Putin and the Russian Army?
  Does the gentleman remember our being here on the floor talking about 
that in the early stages, wanting to stand up and support the people of 
Ukraine before this Chamber embarked on a 9-month spending spree 
without any pay-fors and without any significant accountability or 
knowledge of how the dollars were flowing and without any care and 
concern about what we are doing for our sovereignty and security on the 
home front; does the gentleman remember that?
  Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROY. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. PERRY. Of course, I do. Of course, I remember.
  Mr. ROY. And does the gentleman believe that it is possible for 
people who have concerns about these things--about the spending, about 
the ridiculous decisionmaking in this Chamber--to want to stand up and 
be able to say that they stand with the people of Ukraine in solidarity 
but don't believe that writing a blank check is in their interest, our 
interest, or anybody's interest?
  Mr. PERRY. That is exactly right. We all want to help, but you don't 
write a check that you can't afford. There is no money in your bank 
account to pay for somebody's house down the street while leaving your 
house unpaid for and your back door open where you know criminals are 
going to be walking in and taking your children out and leaving life-
threatening drugs on your kitchen table; you would not do that.
  Mr. ROY. I want to lay that foundation about our shared desire to 
stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine; whatever that means in 
terms of resources, that should be debated.
  And by the way, side note: Have we ever had a full, robust debate 
with amendments and being able to offer any kind of discussion here 
about Ukraine on the floor of the house?
  Mr. PERRY. Have we had any debate?
  Mr. ROY. On any matter whatsoever.
  So what I would inquire of the gentleman is does he agree with this: 
If you go back and look about what is going on, everything you are 
seeing unfold before your eyes, America, is a setup? It is a complete 
setup.
  You go back to September, and a block of about 42 of us wrote a 
letter to the leaders of these august bodies saying, Hey, how about not 
doing a continuing resolution into the middle of December right before 
Christmas? How about you not do that because we know exactly what that 
results in.
  We sent that letter.
  What happened in September?
  A continuing resolution right until the middle of December.
  Now, you get to the continuing resolution in the middle of December, 
and there is all sorts of chatter about: Will there be a continuing 
resolution into early 2023 with a new House majority?
  Never in the last 70 years have we had a change, a transfer in the 
majority of the House Chamber and had the Senate do what it did today, 
which is jam through a massive spending bill with the existing House, 
soon to be minority, and jam it through.

[[Page H10048]]

  Now, fast-forward to right now, and what do you have? We have this 
bill sent to us that spends $1.7 trillion: a 10 percent increase in 
defense spending; $42 billion increase in nondefense spending, which is 
6 percent; Ukraine funding of $45 billion; disaster relief funding of 
$40 billion; and $15 billion of earmarks that I went through and 
described a little bit ago.
  Who spoke in the Chamber in the United States House of 
Representatives last night, other than the President of Ukraine?
  Now, does the gentleman believe, as I do, that that is not an 
accident?
  The entire setup from the House Republicans and the Senate 
Republicans working with the Democrat leadership in both Chambers was 
to set that up so that you have the President of Ukraine speaking here 
saying we have got to pass this massive spending bill because you had 
the whole theatrical event set up from the beginning, set up to expire 
right before Christmas to then jam through 7,200 earmarks, a massive 
amount of spending, a continued explosion of the bureaucratic state, a 
restriction on the ability to secure the border, all because you knew 
you had a handful of Republicans on the hook who couldn't help 
themselves because we are talking about defense and we are talking 
about Ukraine.
  Does the gentleman think that maybe that stuff is not a coincidence?
  Mr. PERRY. Is the gentleman suggesting--even though we all know that 
we want to help, what is happening in Ukraine is objectionable, we 
disagree with every bit of it, what Russia is doing--but is the 
gentleman suggesting that the first time since the war started that the 
leader in Ukraine left the country, are you suggesting it is a 
coincidence that he ended up in the United States speaking on this very 
House floor from that dais right there on the night before the 4,155-
page omnibus passed with billions upon tens of billions in funding for 
his country was included, are you suggesting that wasn't just a 
coincidence?
  Mr. ROY. I am suggesting that it was in no way, shape, or form a 
coincidence. I am suggesting that it was purposeful theater designed 
very specifically to create the winds in the sails of the appropriation 
process which is badly broken, and we get a 4,100-page bill dropped on 
us that we then must vote for. Right? Have to vote for it.
  Mr. PERRY. You don't want to shut the government down right before 
Christmas, Chip. That can never happen, which is why the gentleman from 
Texas suggests that this is a setup.
  The CR, the continuing resolution--because we don't pass budgets, 
because we don't complete our appropriations process, so we don't know 
what we are going to fund, so the continuing resolution has to keep 
going, and we do it right into December right before Christmas 
knowing--like this has never happened before--but we know that, guess 
what, people that come to Washington, D.C., from around the country, 
you know what they would like to do, Mr. Roy from Texas?
  They would like to go home to see their families on Christmas. But 
the only way they are going to be allowed to do it is if they vote for 
whatever is in that bill. They can object or whatever, but they know if 
it doesn't pass, if the 4,100-page bill with $1.7 trillion loaded up 
with earmarks doesn't pass, what happens then?
  Well, you just have to stay during Christmas, and, oh, my goodness, 
just like you said, the gentleman from the 28th Infantry Division 
fighting in Bastogne fighting to save Bastogne before the 101st could 
get there, they spent their Christmas away from home.
  This is all designed to get exactly what we got. This is broken, and 
the leadership here in the House and the Senate has done nothing to 
change this trajectory. It cannot continue.
  Mr. ROY. I would add that my 13-year-old son was telling me yesterday 
morning while I was getting ready to catch the plane to come to 
Washington, as we were stacking firewood for my wife and daughter and 
son to use during this cold snap coming into Texas, and he and I were 
talking and he said, ``Well, Dad''--basically begging me--``you are 
going to be home for Christmas, right?''
  You know, that is my 13-year-old son, and I don't get to see him a 
lot when I am up here. And he is saying, ``Dad, you are going to be 
here for Christmas, right?''
  And my daughter was saying the same thing, but my son was asking the 
question. And I said, ``Look, son, I hope so. Of course, I want to be 
here for Christmas, but under no circumstances am I going to walk away 
from my duty to fight to give you the country that I inherited, that my 
dad inherited from his dad, and so forth and so forth.''
  Yet, most of my colleagues in this Chamber were so itching to be able 
to get on their plane or get in their car and go home that last night 
there was group that were apoplectic that we might be stuck here, that 
we might be stuck here until Sunday, which is Christmas day, I had 
multiple people come to me and say, ``Well, what is Senator Lee going 
to do?
  What is going to happen?''
  Well, heaven forbid, we do our job. Heaven forbid, we do something 
responsibly. I would ask the gentleman, with a $118 billion increase in 
spending on our annual year-over-year spending, not including Ukraine 
spending, not including the disaster relief spending, the emergency 
spending, on top of the almost $5 trillion we spent in response to 
COVID, do you think there is a correlation to government action and 
government spending to inflation?
  Would the gentleman agree that it is government that causes inflation 
based on our actions, our spending, our policy choices?
  Mr. PERRY. So to answer the good gentleman from Texas, the Federal 
Reserve is trying to cool down the fires of an overinflated, overheated 
economy by raising the interest rates and targeting the housing market. 
New home buyers that are hoping to get out there and start their lives 
in their new homes, they cut their purchases in half or whatever, 
because they can't afford it. The Federal Reserve is trying to cool 
down this overheated economy, inflationary pressures and food and 
gasoline and oil, electricity, housing, meanwhile the House of 
Representatives and the Senate and the Presidency here in Washington, 
D.C., are throwing the gasoline on the fire, the gasoline of 
unaccounted for money, unprinted money, untaxed money, just creating 
money out of thin air and throwing it onto the fire.
  I would agree with the gentleman from Texas.
  I would tell him, as well, that my daughters would like their father 
to be home for Christmas, too. My daughter texted me today when she 
knew I wasn't coming home yet, she said, ``Stay strong and save 
America.''

  So me and Mr. Roy, the gentleman from Texas, we are going to stay 
here until the bitter end and do our duty, and we are going to say 
things like $4.2 million in earmarks for parking spaces in the Northern 
Mariana Islands or $6 million to expand the reach of the Ulysses S. 
Grant Presidential Library might be important things, but can we afford 
them?
  What is the Federal responsibility?
  And oh, by the way, regarding the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential 
Library, look, I am a fan, but the lady that offered that, her party is 
in favor of tearing down the statue of Ulysses S. Grant in New York.
  The great emancipator, right? The guy that carried out Lincoln's 
order to make sure that slaves were no longer held in the United States 
of America.
  But, you know, you can't tear it down on one hand and then spend $6 
million on it on the other hand while people are struggling to buy 
their Christmas presents or their Christmas meals.
  Mr. ROY. I assume the gentleman would agree that when we are talking 
about this spending--let's pause for a second.
  Let's just set aside the fact that we are giving a $76 billion 
increase to a Defense Department, which has not been held accountable 
for its departure from Afghanistan, leaving billions behind, walking 
away from Bagram, undermining our interests, no accountability, no 
review of the woke policies, orders not to use terms like ``mom'' and 
``dad'' at the Air Force academy or a whole story yesterday about the 
Marines maybe walking away from the use of ``sir'' and ``ma'am,'' it is 
just a fundamental undermining of the culture of the Department of 
Defense--purposeful by the way.

                              {time}  1800

  Every recruit and every member of the Armed Forces Active Duty whom I

[[Page H10049]]

have talked to says that it is gutting the ability to recruit, and it 
is gutting the ability to have strong morale.
  Let's put aside that. Let's put aside $45 billion for Ukraine without 
accountability and a knowledge of how it is being spent and what it is 
being used for in our national security interests. Let's set aside $40 
billion for disaster relief. I don't even know where it is going.
  Let's set aside the $16 billion in earmarks my friend just talked 
about and that he and I outlined. Let's set aside the $3 billion for 
DHS with no policy changes and, in fact, language inserted in the bill 
that prevents us from actually securing the border while processing 
more people; the $600 million for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
the new headquarters for the FBI; the $215 million for ATF; $2.5 
billion for NIH which is basically at war with freedom and forcing 
needles into the arms of the American people and undermining the 
freedom of the American people in terms of their health choices and 
paying Anthony Fauci's salary; a CDC of $760 million; the World Health 
Organization; the State Department at $3.6 billion; an Education 
Department which is administering Biden's $400 billion student loan 
bailout, all of that stuff, let's ignore all of that.
  Let's ignore all of those horrible policies and all the things that 
he is doing to undermine our freedom and creating the alphabet soup and 
expanding the alphabet soup of bureaucracy that is tyrannizing the 
American people.
  Let's put all that aside. We are just talking about inflation, and we 
are spending more money and dumping more money. While we are raising 
interest rates to cool it, we are going to spend more money causing 
more inflation, undermining the dollar even more.
  In July of 2022, we had Mitch McConnell just saying that, oh, a few 
years back Republican policies created the best economy for American 
workers in a generation, low inflation, robust growth, record 
unemployment. Democrats' recklessness--Democrats' recklessness he 
said--has produced soaring inflation, slowing growth and growing risk 
of a full-on recession.
  How about Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia in August of 2022 
in an op-ed, thumping the lectern about the Inflation Reduction Act: 
``Americans understand pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into the 
economy and raising taxes will certainly not reduce inflation.''
  How about Todd Young from Indiana: ``About the border, this is a 
national security crisis. We must strengthen our border security.''
  How about Mitt Romney from Utah who told Mayorkas that he needed to 
secure the border and urged him to keep title 42 in place. And then he 
just worked against the whole effort today by the junior Senator from 
Utah.
  Things are upside down, and we are spending money we don't have 
causing inflation. Republicans go out and campaign against it, and then 
they do it.
  And my Democratic colleagues have never once had an honest 
conversation on the floor of this House about what we are going to do 
about inflation, what we are going to do about spending money we don't 
have and racking up debt.
  When I came to Congress as a staffer on the Senate Judiciary 
Committee, our national debt in 2003 was about $6 trillion, I think. We 
are at $31.4 trillion and climbing.
  The question here is: Are we going to do anything about it?
  The resounding answer from this body,--including my colleagues on 
this side of the aisle--is: No, we are not.
  So I think my question for the gentleman is: Does he share my belief 
that it is time to end the status quo and that it is time for a radical 
departure from the way we are doing things?
  It is time to change the way we are doing business in the House of 
Representatives. It is time for a change to do the way we are doing 
business in the United States Senate, and it is our job to keep our 
heads up high as not conservatives and not Republicans or Democrats but 
as Americans who want to actually do the hard work necessary to be 
responsible stewards of this country and of our great birthright.
  Does the gentleman agree with me that as we head into the 118th 
Congress and as Republicans are in the majority that we must 
fundamentally change this institution from top to bottom, from the 
leadership down?
  This place must change, and we will not accept anything but change. 
That is why we were sent here. As we exit here for Christmas, as my 
friend goes home to his daughter and I go home to my son and my 
daughter, I am not going to look them in the eye and say that I didn't 
do everything I know how to do so we can change this place so that we 
can save America for them.
  Mr. PERRY: I agree with the gentleman with this caveat: It is not 
just time; it is long past time.
  I would suggest to the good gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) that he 
has worked diligently in his time here within the system, within the 
status quo, to make these changes.
  Others do not want to make too many ripples because you have to work 
with these folks, and this is the system that is set up, and if you 
make everybody mad at you, how are you going to be effective?
  The status quo is not working, ladies and gentlemen. We have tried. 
We have tried to work within the system that is here. The system that 
is here produces this.
  Do you know how I know?
  Because since I have been here, this isn't the first time I have come 
to the mic. I can come here probably every few months and go through 
the same thing. It is not the first time right around Christmas we have 
got a short-term continuing resolution right before Christmas so we can 
pass an omnibus and just keep on spending the money that we don't have 
and more programs that don't make any sense.
  We have got $3 million for the University of Maine system to research 
wild blackberry production for changing markets and climates.

  Well, my goodness, as a man who had to pick blueberries--that was my 
first job was picking fruit, and blueberries were one of them--I don't 
know why it is the job of the whole country to pay for the University 
of Maine to figure out about blueberry production.
  Ladies and gentlemen, this system is broken. The status quo doesn't 
work for Americans. The lady that has to buy these blueberries and 
can't afford them doesn't care about this system here. She doesn't care 
about the status quo and making colleagues uncomfortable in this 
Chamber or the other one. What she cares about is feeding her children 
and feeding her family. And right now she can't afford to do it because 
of the status quo.
  This cannot continue. Something has to change. Einstein said that 
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different 
outcome is the definition of insanity.
  Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of America, we are doing the same 
things under the same conditions with the same people, and somehow, we 
think something is going to change.
  Well, it is not going to change unless we change it.
  We are highlighting this tonight. The gentleman from Texas and I are 
here highlighting this tonight to tell you how egregious it is, how 
long it has been going on, and to elicit your support--your support--
calling your Representatives and your Senators and saying: This will 
not stand. We are sick and tired of this: $2.52 million for an electric 
battery and an electric charging station program at some community 
college; $6.85 million for real estate strategies to obtain equity 
property acquisition and redevelopment in Delaware.
  Why is that your job to pay for that?
  We don't have the money to pay for that.
  You would like it in your community I bet. But you are going to pay 
for it in someone else's.
  Mr. ROY. Merry Christmas to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and 
merry Christmas to the staff here. God bless you all and thank you for 
all the work you do for this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their 
remarks to the Chair and not to a perceived viewing audience.

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