[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 8, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H777-H780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AMERICA NEEDS SOLUTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Roy) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona being 
down here talking about the trajectory this Nation finds itself on with 
respect to all spending, but in particular mandatory spending as we 
call it, and the need for all of us to get serious about doing 
something about it.
  We sat here in this Chamber last night. The President of the United 
States did what you do in a campaign speech, not in the State of the 
Union. He did what you do when you have a failed agenda and you want to 
try to scare the American people rather than inspire the American 
people: Accuse your opponents of being against Social Security and 
Medicare with no real backing, but offering no solutions himself to the 
very problems articulated by the gentleman from Arizona.
  Did anybody hear the President of the United States last night 
address at all the reality that Social Security and Medicare are on a 
path to bankruptcy in terms of their funding relative to the demands to 
pay benefits? Of course not. Of course not. Because the President of 
the United States, Joe Biden, has zero solutions to the problems facing 
this country. Not one.
  Not one solution last night was offered. Standing at the well where 
the Speaker currently sits, not one solution was offered. Instead, it 
was a campaign speech.
  The fact is, the American people, I think, saw through it because in 
the same speech that the President attacked Republicans for not having 
a solution for Social Security and Medicare, accusing Republicans of 
saying we were going to walk away from the obligations for Social 
Security and Medicare, the President offered no solutions on the 
border. None.
  The President said not a word about our men and women in uniform. The 
President referenced Ukraine but didn't provide an actual strategy or 
desired outcome besides ``Putin bad, Ukraine good.''
  Look, the fact of the matter is, the entire Nation is tired of 
exactly what we saw last night. Tired of it. The President came in and 
tried to offer populist rhetoric. Frankly, stealing some of the 
rhetoric almost directly from President Trump.
  He tried to offer some old school Democrat rhetoric, saying, we have 
got a program for everybody in America. Don't worry, we are going to 
pay for it. I gave a speech on the floor of the House about a year ago 
entitled the United States House of free stuff about this body. A 
number of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle came down and 
talked about all of the student loans that would be forgiven, all of 
the spending that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would 
offer with no indication of how it would be paid for because why would 
you do that?
  Look, the fact of the matter is, this body, the people's House, is 
never going to be serious about representing the people until we stop 
spending money we don't have, stop allowing for the printing of money 
to carry out the very things the American people sent us here to stop 
doing, stop funding the very bureaucracy that are carrying out the 
actions that we decry in our own campaigns. We are never going to get 
this country on track until we stop printing money, borrowing money, 
and spending money we don't have.
  I would defy any one of my colleagues, anyone this side of the aisle 
or the other side of the aisle to come prove that statement wrong.
  When we are $32 trillion in debt, or almost, and we keep having a 
debate about who is going to spend more money on which program of our 
choice, how is that going to save the country?

  With all due respect to colleagues on my side of the aisle, I have 
heard numerous Republicans say, ``We are not going to touch defense 
spending.'' Okay. Good for you. Maybe I agree. Maybe we shouldn't touch 
defense spending. Maybe we need more defense spending to beat China.
  But then what, pray tell, is your solution to fund it? I promise 
you--look, I request all my Republican colleagues

[[Page H778]]

out there, come on down. If you are the one saying you will not touch 
defense spending, you come down here and you give me a solution. Don't 
hide behind the men and women in uniform. Don't go, oh, no, we are not 
going to touch defense spending, we need more defense spending, we need 
to beat China.
  I might agree with you, but I am not going to sell printing and 
borrowing money that undermines the very national security that you are 
going out and talking about.
  To my Democrat colleagues, you come down here, don't say a word about 
how you are going to pay for any of the spending, any of the programs 
that you stood up and applauded last night when the President of the 
United States was talking about it.
  You say you want to have nondefense spending; you want to have more 
funding for HUD, more funding for HHS, more funding for programs, more 
funding for some cop grants or whatever it is. It wouldn't be for cop 
grants. You want more funding.
  How are you going to pay for it? The answer is, no one is going to 
come down here and give an answer to that with the possible exception 
of two things. My Democratic colleagues will come down and say taxes. 
Okay. Come down, let's have a conversation about taxes. Come down and 
show me what taxes you want to raise that will not cause economic 
impact such that our revenues actually go down. Come show that to me. 
Let's have a debate about that.
  My colleagues on this side of the aisle will tend to say, well, it is 
the mandatory spending, don't you understand? Don't worry about 
discretionary spending, that is small ball. Well, a third of our budget 
is discretionary spending still, so I am not sure that is small ball. I 
mean, it is, after all, $1.6 trillion. I don't consider that small 
ball.
  My colleagues aren't incorrect that we have got to deal with 
mandatory spending, but you can't hide behind mandatory spending, say 
that is the problem, while you then say, whoa, we have got to increase 
defense spending, and, well, I don't know that I would increase all 
that other nondefense spending, all those agencies, but you know what? 
That is what my Democrat colleagues want, so the only way I can get my 
defense spending is to agree to what they want, and one day we will 
deal with mandatory spending. What the hell, $32 trillion of debt and 
counting.
  That is exactly what happens. And, again, to any of my colleagues, 
come down here and prove me wrong. Come on down. I am here. Come debate 
me. The American people actually want to have a debate. Maybe we should 
have that debate every day, all day, until we come to some conclusion 
about how we are going to stop doing the same thing over and over 
again. Stop spending money we don't have.
  Now, I will tell you my solution. I actually believe you should come 
to the floor and come here to debate and have solutions. I believe that 
the bureaucracy of the Federal Government is plenty big. I don't 
believe it needs to get any bigger.
  Call me crazy, but I think maybe returning the bureaucratic state, 
the administrative state, the bureaucracy, the Federal Government 
bureaucracy, returning it to preCOVID levels--I am not asking for that 
much. I am just saying, let's go back to the size of the bureaucracy 
before COVID spending blew the spending out of the water. That would be 
2019 spending levels. Are you with me? Let's just take the bureaucracy, 
take it back to preCOVID spending levels.
  Now, do that. Hold defense spending at 2023 levels that were just 
passed, that all the hawks were running around going, all right, we got 
more money for defense, we got a 10 percent increase in defense. Okay. 
Let's hold that spending. If you do what I just said, freeze the 
bureaucracy at 2019 levels, freeze defense spending at 2023 levels, the 
one we just passed, if you do that and you do that for 10 years, freeze 
that number for 10 years, you will save $3.6 trillion and reduce our 
deficit spending. You will get about, I don't know, probably about a 
third of the way toward balancing the budget in 10 years. I think that 
is a pretty good start.

                              {time}  1930

  Does anybody in America want to raise their hand and say that the 
Federal bureaucracy in 2019 was too small? Does anybody want to come 
down and say: The size of the nondefense Federal Government in 2019, 
man, that government, oh, my gosh, it was so small. There were no 
bureaucrats interfering with my life. There were no regulations cutting 
off economic activity.
  Again, come on down. Tell me how that government of 2019 just a few 
years ago was so efficient, so great, such a good size; that you think 
that is the right size and that we need it to be bigger; that it is not 
the right size and that we need it to be bigger.
  I don't know many Americans--if I go to my district that I represent, 
750,000 Texans, I don't know many of them that would raise their hand 
and go: Oh, please, I need that bureaucracy to be bigger. Hire more 
Federal workers into all of those programs. Fill up more buildings in 
Washington, D.C. We need more of that.
  Defense spending, we just got defense spending increased a bit here 
in 2023. Well, you say, do we need more spending for defense? There are 
a lot of people who might say we might. Why? Well, is our Navy what it 
needs to be to beat China? Do we have all the latest technology that we 
need to be able to beat China or another world foe? Do we have all the 
latest and greatest intel? Do we have all the personnel trained 
properly at the levels we need to ensure that we can be the finest 
fighting force in the world and that we can kill people and blow things 
up when necessary? That is what our military is supposed to do.
  We might need more spending. I will grant that.
  I will tell you what, take my plan of freezing the Federal 
bureaucracy, nondefense. Take last year's defense levels at 2023, and 
now increase it 2\1/2\ percent for the next 10 years. Instead of saving 
$3.6 trillion, we would save $3 trillion. It is still a pretty good 
step toward a 10-year balance.
  That is one idea. I think it is the right idea. I will tell you why I 
think it is the right idea. I don't know why I want to give more money 
to an EPA that puts Joe Robertson in jail because he had water on his 
land and somehow that violated the waters of the United States laws.
  I don't want to give more money to the bureaucrats at the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation to build a new $400 million facility in 
Maryland like we just voted through in December, to hire more FBI 
agents to put more people like Scott Smith, a dad in Loudoun County, on 
a list to be a domestic terrorist because he dared to go to a school 
board and challenge a school board for not doing enough to protect his 
daughter.
  Scott Smith joined me in this Chamber last night and sat right up 
there listening to the bloviating nonsense we heard coming from the 
other end of Pennsylvania Avenue sitting here last night.
  I don't want to give more money to those bureaucrats. I don't. I 
don't mind saying it.
  I was a Federal prosecutor for a couple of years. The Department of 
Justice has plenty that it can cut. All I am talking about is going 
back to 2019 levels.
  Do we want to fund NIH or FDA or CDC further to carry out more gain-
of-function research? Anybody? Raise your hand. Raise your hand if you 
want more gain-of-function research coming out of your Federal labs, 
maybe even working with China to do it. Anybody sign up and say: Yes, 
that is a great idea. Good use of money. Well done. Does anybody want 
more of that, more of those programs, again, with borrowed printed 
money?
  Do you want more money to go to the Department of Labor to shut down, 
for example, Rhea Lana Riner's children's clothing consignment company 
because she violated some standards, according to the Department of 
Labor?
  How about more money for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, 
and Explosives to issue by regulation--not a law that we passed--a 
barring of pistol stabilizing braces that potentially make felons out 
of, I don't know, 10 million or more Americans? Does anybody want to 
give the ATF more money to go after and target the American people? 
That is what we do here.
  With all due respect to my Republican colleagues who like to go take 
shots at my Democratic colleagues for

[[Page H779]]

a lot of good reasons, by the way, it is not enough to campaign against 
this stuff and then come here and fund it. That is what we do. We 
campaign against these terrible regulations and these terrible actions 
by bureaucrats.
  The IRS is going after nonprofits and faith-based organizations 
because of their beliefs. The FBI is targeting Mark Houck, a dad. The 
FBI showed up at 7 a.m. in the morning with a SWAT team to go after his 
family in Philadelphia because he dared to defend his son when they 
were outside of an abortion clinic engaging in their First Amendment 
right to stand up in defense of life. Oh, but let's go give some more 
money to them.
  That is what we will do. Let's give more money to that bureaucracy, 
the woke, weaponized, wasteful bureaucracy at war with the American 
people, targeting the American people.
  The truth is, we have an obligation to reduce Federal spending even 
if it were filled with nothing but angels doing nothing but angelic 
things because we are spending money we don't have. The truth is that 
bureaucracy is doing anything but those angelic things.
  Why do we continue to fund it? The funding that we continue to 
provide for a bureaucracy that not only is at odds with and targeting 
the American people, targeting the Scott Smiths, targeting the Mark 
Houcks, targeting the Joe Robertsons for having water on his land, 
targeting Marvin Horne for his raisin crop, fining him $685,000 because 
he didn't comply with certain New Deal-era restrictions that the 
Department of Agriculture put on him--think about that.
  I am not saying that I can say every single thing that every example 
you bring up that someone didn't violate some reg or some rule because 
who the hell knows how many there are? I have asked. No one can tell 
me. How many Federal laws are there? Again, if any of my colleagues can 
come down here to the floor and bring me a footnoted cite and say this 
is how many Federal laws there are, I would love to see it. Come tell 
me how many regulations there are with laws and crimes attached.

  According to one report I saw, there are an estimated 4,500 Federal 
laws, statutes, criminal statutes--sorry, not laws, criminal statutes--
and some 300,000 crimes attached to regulations. That is just one 
report that I saw. The Department of Justice apparently tried to 
calculate this in the early 1980s, and they gave up. They came up with 
a certain number, and they just kind of stopped.
  How can any American engage in activity and not essentially be 
violating something somewhere where some eager bureaucrat is just able 
to go: Nope. You are in violation. You are shut down.
  We were sitting up in the Rules Committee the other day talking about 
vaccine mandates, and one of the witnesses testified. One of my 
colleagues said: Well, why aren't you taking this end to the public 
health emergency or this end of the vaccine mandate through regular 
order?
  Look, I am a big supporter of regular order. I think we should take 
things through committees and bring them to the floor and offer 
amendments. Let's keep in mind that is a one-page bill that is pretty 
straightforward, and I will just say this: What was the regular order 
carried out by the executive branch in just unilaterally executing an 
order to force vaccines upon private citizens through OSHA 
requirements--shut down by the courts, by the way. Where was the 
regular order? Where was the sort of equivalent to due process for the 
American people where we can at least go through and make some good 
decisions for the executive branch when they said: Yes, you military 
guys, you have to get this COVID vaccine.
  Based on what? Well, Anthony Fauci said so. Rochelle Walensky said 
so.
  Wait, but didn't CDC Director Walenski say that the vaccines don't do 
anything for transmission? Well, don't mind that. We will just keep 
mandating needles get stuck in the arms of our men and women in 
uniform, notwithstanding some of the concerns of myocarditis among the 
young, healthy population that predominantly make up our military, by 
the way.
  Last night, my friend Senator Cruz was sitting right over here during 
the State of the Union. He brought a young man, a member of our 
military who has been kicked off the career track. They are coming 
after him to get $75,000 of money from schooling. They are coming after 
him. He has to write that check or they are going to keep coming after 
him. They have not fired him because of the bill that we passed in 
December saying we are not going to allow you to remove members of the 
military if they don't want to take the vaccine, but he is still being 
punished.
  Right now, a patriot who signed up to serve his country has his 
government going after him for money that he has gotten for his family 
after his sacrifices to serve the country. They are going after him. 
His government is going after him when all he wanted to do was serve 
his country and not stick a needle in his arm because some bureaucrat 
said so.
  Let me be perfectly clear to my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle: This is going to change. We are not going to do this. We are not 
going to allow the government to do this to the American people. I mean 
that.
  When we fund the government this year, things better change, Mr. 
President. You come down here and make threats to us about what you 
think is going to happen with respect to default. You come down here 
and lecture us in the people's House. Well, let me tell you, Mr. 
President, we are a coequal branch of government. We are not going to 
allow the American people to continue to be targeted by the very 
government that is supposed to protect them, that is supposed to do 
their constitutional duty, that is supposed to secure the border of the 
United States, that is supposed to stop fentanyl from coming in, that 
is supposed to have operational control of the border so that neither 
Americans nor migrants are dying, that it is supposed to stop dangerous 
cartels, that is supposed to stand up to China, that is supposed to 
have a strong military sparingly used but not woke.
  We are not supposed to spend money we don't have. We are supposed to 
balance our budget. We are supposed to defend the American people.
  I am not going to agree, sitting in the Rules Committee or on this 
floor, to continue the process of spending money we don't have, of not 
changing the status quo, and not demanding that the President of the 
United States act like it, act like he is the President, defend this 
country, secure our border.
  He doesn't get to come down here and lecture us. The people's House 
decides how dollars get spent. The people's House represents the 
people.
  We need a reckoning. We need to stand up and fight, to stand up and 
be counted. I am not going to go around in the circles that we 
constantly go around in this place, having another meeting about 
another meeting about another meeting.
  How about we just stand up for something? How about people be on the 
floor of this body debating? Get another hour of Special Orders, 
another half-hour of Special Orders.

                              {time}  1945

  I am sick and tired of watching my fellow Texans in the State 
legislature debating right now spending more Texas taxpayer money to do 
the job the Federal Government is supposed to do and secure the border.
  I am sick and tired of walking around on eggshells around a body 
comprised of Members on both sides of the aisle that refuse to do their 
job to stop spending money we don't have and say, oh, well, what 
political poll-tested 80-percent-issue can we put out there and go to 
the American people with so that we can sound reasonable in our 
demands?
  How about you just demand what is right?
  Why don't we just stand up and say, you know what? We are going to 
balance our budget. Giddyup.
  That is what every American does. It is what every business has to 
do. But no, no, no. We will keep going around in circles, each side 
going to their pet projects.
  Meanwhile, the Federal bureaucracy is going to continue to be at war 
with the American people like my friend, Scott Smith, who was here last 
night. Not one single mention by the President, hasn't apologized a 
lick for putting him through that, domestic terrorist.
  Hasn't apologized a lick for the fact that his Secretary of Homeland 
Security, who was here last night, stood up

[[Page H780]]

at a lectern and said that his own border patrol employees that work 
for him whipped Haitian migrants when he knew full well--both from the 
video evidence that we all saw with our eyes and a memo from his own 
people in the Department of Homeland Security--that was not true.
  He knew it. And then he blamed it on systemic racism.
  Has he apologized? No.
  And the reason he hasn't apologized is because he is at war with the 
people of the United States and the fact that his job is supposed to be 
to secure the border.
  And the President knows it.
  The President goes down and does a photo op with a preset visit in El 
Paso where they literally go out and clean out the streets of the 
migrants who are piling up in El Paso and sets up a photo op, and then 
last night dares to come down here, lecture us, lie to the American 
people that we are trying to go after their Social Security and 
Medicare, and offer nothing about his constitutional duty as President 
of the United States to secure the border.
  Mr. Speaker, I will yield back here in a minute. I assume my time is 
running short.
  I will just close by saying this: The American people expect more out 
of the people's House.
  They expect more out of the President of the United States than what 
we saw last night. It was not a State of the Union. It was a state of 
confusion.
  We have an obligation to do our job and stop spending money we don't 
have, secure the border of the United States, and actually represent 
the people.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks 
to the Chair and not to a perceived viewing audience. Members are 
reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the 
President.

                          ____________________