[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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