[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 46 (Friday, March 10, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H1264-H1269]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HOW YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE BEING SPENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we were given the President's budget, 
which outlines the President's so-called priorities.
  Well, his priorities were pretty clear: Continue to expand government 
at the expense of the American people. Expand government, a government 
that is at odds with the freedom, well-being, and prosperity of the 
American people every single day.
  The simple truth is, as my friends in the House Freedom Caucus and a 
large number of my other colleagues in the Republican Conference have 
been articulating, we need to shrink Washington so that we can grow 
America.
  We cannot sustain and grow out of the $32 trillion of debt and the 
$20 trillion of debt that the Congressional Budget Office just outlined 
that we are going to add over the next decade. We will not, as a 
country, survive through that if we do not get economic growth to the 
3, 3\1/2\, and 4 percent levels that we saw under President Reagan, 
President Clinton, and in previous years. You are not going to get 
economic growth if you don't get the Federal Government off the backs 
of the American people and stop empowering them to target Americans, to 
undermine American freedoms.
  Biden's budget would increase taxes and implement price controls to 
the tune of $3 trillion. That is the President's plan.
  What does the media do?
  They run around and go: Oh, he is reducing the deficit. He is 
reducing the debt.
  Yet, by his own measures, he would be increasing the debt another $17 
trillion over the next decade.
  The American people look to this body and this town with utter 
amazement at how stupid we could possibly be. If you set out and tried 
to be more incompetent and more stupid than the people that have been 
running this town for as long as I can remember, I am not sure how you 
can do it.
  Seriously. That would be a great exercise. Could anybody, if you put 
together 435 people here, 100 people on the other side, Presidents and 
bureaucrats, swapped out over the last, say, three decades, could it be 
any worse?
  William F. Buckley said he would rather be governed by the first 435 
people out of the phone book than the 435 people we send here. Is he 
wrong?
  Seriously, it would be a great inquiry for us to consider.
  We are $32 trillion in debt. Our borders are wide open. We have got 
American citizens unable to carry out their livelihoods, men and women 
in uniform who are being denied promotions and the ability to do their 
job in the Defense Department. We have got kids shut out from their 
schools, forced into the corners wearing masks, mental health issues, 
and they are set back generations in terms of their academic 
capability.
  That is the best we have got? That is the best we can do?
  We reject that. We believe in America. We believe in Americans. We do 
not believe that investing in Washington, investing in the Federal 
bureaucracy is good for the American people. We believe the opposite.
  The President wants to tax and regulate $3 trillion to save 
increasing the debt $3 trillion over the next decade, down to $17 
trillion. Whoo, boy, that will do it.
  We propose an immediate savings of $3 trillion right now by cutting 
back

[[Page H1265]]

the woke weaponized Federal bureaucracy that is undermining the freedom 
of the American people so that we can make them more free and 
prosperous so that they can grow this economy so we can shrink the 
deficit, reduce debt, and reclaim the inheritance of being an American 
for our kids and grandkids.
  Think about what Biden's budget would do. It would spend a total of 
$6.8 trillion next year, $500 billion more than this year, $2 billion 
for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to increase 
regulation of the firearms industry. I have got thousands of Texans 
that I represent who are facing being made a felon because a bureaucrat 
at ATF decided what precisely a pistol brace might mean for how their 
gun is regulated.

                              {time}  1100

  Think about that. Just some guy some, some gal sitting in central 
Texas bought a weapon under the law, and now a bureaucrat says you have 
got to do this, register this, or you are a felon.
  Now, I think the Court will strike that down as unconstitutional, but 
why would this body, why would any Republican fund the bureaucracy that 
is going to make a felon out of the law-abiding citizen back home?
  To my Republican colleagues: Don't do that.
  How about $3.9 billion for the Department of Homeland Security's 
climate resilience programs? Think about that. $3.9 billion for the 
Department of Homeland Security, which, by the way, refuses to secure 
the homeland, allows 72,000 Americans to die from fentanyl poisoning, 
allows cartels to get empowered and slaughter Americans in the streets 
of Matamoros in northern Mexico without a peep from this 
administration. Nothing. Let's give that department $3.9 billion for 
climate resilience programs. Does anybody wonder why the American 
people look at us and say what in the hell are you doing?
  $2 billion increase for the EPA to target American energy. Now, I 
want to remind people, I want to remind all the kids out there watching 
this thinking, oh, my God, but the world is going to end, we are going 
die, climate change, we are going to get extinguished. Oh, really? Oh, 
really?
  Why is it that my Democratic colleagues who believe that the 
production of CO2 is going to be the end to humanity and the 
Earth as we know it will not remotely consider nuclear power, which 
produces not an ounce of CO2, but they won't consider it? 
Why? Because it is a religion. It is climate fetishism. It is about 
government control. It is about being able to target the oil and gas 
industry to undermine the well-being of the American people by 
empowering bureaucrats so they can feel good about themselves while 
China continues to pump out more CO2 than any other country, 
ratcheting it up week by week. There are 1,100 coal-fired plants in 
China. They build two a week while we sit around and play tiddlywinks 
with solar panels and windmills, leaving our grid in Texas unreliable, 
now almost 50 percent wind and solar. We have to think, wait, what 
happens on a windless, cloudy day? I don't know. How do you want to 
power up your schools or your hospitals or your homes or your 
businesses? Could it be that you have to rely on coal or gas or nuclear 
power? Of course, you do. Yet, my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle--not here, of course; of course, with all due respect neither are 
my colleagues on this side of the aisle with the exception of the 
Speaker. This is just how we do things in Washington. This is debate.
  A $2 billion funding increase for the Internal Revenue Service is in 
the President's budget. Now, I want every American to understand that. 
They just passed a bill last summer supposedly called the Inflation 
Reduction Act that gives the IRS another $80 billion to expand. So that 
is what the American people want: More IRS agents to go target more 
Americans to raise at most by the CBO's own estimate 100 or $200 
billion over 10 years? So you're going to spend $80 billion to go 
target American citizens to bring in more money. By the way, the IRS 
targets poor people and minorities three to five times more than other 
Americans. So you're going to go hire more bureaucrats, you got $80 
billion, and what does Biden do? Oh, that is not enough. $2 billion 
more for the IRS. Genius.
  $100 million to the Department of Education in grant funding for 
communities to promote racial and socioeconomic diversity in their 
schools.
  $62 million for the DOJ to exploit the FACE Act to target pro-life 
Americans. I could go on and on about the amount of money given to 
agency after agency, bureaucrat after bureaucrat to target the American 
people. The FBI targeted my now-friend Scott Smith in Loudoun County, 
whose daughter was assaulted in a school. He dared to go to the school 
board. He got challenged by law enforcement, and the DOJ was going to 
be putting him on a list as a domestic terrorist because the National 
School Boards Association was colluding with the White House to do so. 
Is that what we want to fund: a Department of Justice that would put a 
dad on a list as a domestic terrorist because he went to his school 
board to try to defend his daughter who was assaulted in a bathroom?
  That is what this administration wants to prioritize: Funding a woke, 
weaponized bureaucracy that is undermining freedom. They want to fund 
the FBI that went after Mark Houck in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for 
daring to defend his son when they were outside of an abortion clinic 
and somebody was challenging his son when they were exercising their 
First Amendment rights, and he defended him without anything 
significant happening. They were not prosecuted by State law. The feds 
went in, had a SWAT team at 7 in the morning on a Sunday--the whole 
family--went into their house threatening Mark Houck.
  Is that what we want to fund?
  Is that what we want to use the power of government for?
  How about the $16,000--I know it is just $16,000; I realize that is 
chicken feed in this establishment--in State Department funding for a 
pro-prostitution LGBTQ group in Colombia. Is that how we want our tax 
dollars spent? That is just $16,000. It doesn't mean anything, does it? 
It does.
  $1.9 million in Department of Education funding for an Illinois 
nonprofit that trains teachers to center equity in the classroom. We 
need our kids to know math, how to read, science, how to lead the 
world, how to beat China, and we got $1.9 million to center equity, 
whatever that hell that means.
  $2 million for the State Department's Race, Ethnicity, and Social 
Inclusion Unit. As if the State Department is out doing wonderful 
things in the first place these days.
  How about $158 million in economic law enforcement and military 
support for Mexico? Pause. Yes, you just heard that correctly. We, the 
taxpayers, are giving $158 million to Mexico for economic law 
enforcement and military support while we are getting flooded at our 
border, cartels are absolutely running amuck and owning the state of 
Mexico as a narco-terror state, running fentanyl into America, and 
killing Americans in Mexico. Congratulations, American people, you 
bought with $158 million a narco-terrorist state that is undermining 
our freedom and liberty killing Americans, endangering migrants, and 
endangering Texas. Congratulations, Americans.

  $34 million for the Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security, 
Alejandro Mayorkas. $34 million for Alejandro Mayorkas to screw up 
America. Congratulations to the American people on how your tax dollars 
are being spent.
  $1.7 billion, for the ATF that I described earlier that will make 
owners of the 10 to 40 million pistol braces in the United States 
felons. $6.3 billion for Anthony Fauci's NIAID, which was weaponized to 
completely lock down the United States and force vaccines on millions 
of Americans, massively increasing the profit of pharmaceutical 
companies--Pfizer and Moderna--making like $100 billion under 
government mandates for vaccines--government mandates for vaccines with 
liability protection for the companies for a vaccine that even the 
morons in the departments over at CDC, NIH, FDA are now at least 
acknowledging don't really do much for transmission; but, oh, yes, 
let's give them $6.3 billion.
  $128 million for the office of the CDC Director who actively mislead 
Americans about COVID vaccine efficacy while CDC and Big Tech colluded 
to suppress vaccine information, which we know to be true. We saw 
testimony yesterday.

[[Page H1266]]

  Our own colleague,   Thomas Massie, had his own social media posts 
being edited and targeted in a disinformation campaign because anyone 
who dared question the wisdom of Anthony Fauci, anyone who dared 
question the government mandate that you stick a needle in your arm 
because they say so because they politicized a virus and a vaccine, you 
are going to be set aside. There was going to be disinformation on 
social media, Twitter, in collusion with all of those guys. They were 
shutting down free speech.
  We should be horrified that the United States of America with a First 
Amendment to the Constitution, which is supposed to protect free 
speech, but not for   Thomas Massie as a Member of Congress--yes, for 
him, too--but for every American, every American regardless of the 
``truth'' of what you are saying, the government doesn't decide what 
the truth is. That is the whole point of free speech.
  Yet, we are funding the very tyrants in the executive branch shutting 
down free speech, mandating vaccines, using the power of government to 
go after people and shut down their livelihoods, undermine freedom, 
undermine economic activity, and put us $32 trillion in debt so our 
kids and grandkids are going to inherit a bankrupt, tyrannical America.
  We should change that. We should reject that. The great news is 
Americans across this country are rejecting it. They are saying no. 
They do want to live free. They don't want a government that is 
shutting down their ability to live free or their kids and their 
grandkids. They do want to send their kids to schools that teach them 
that America is great and good and teach them the tools they need to 
succeed in life, rather than teach them that they should be ashamed of 
their country or be a victim.
  The American people under COVID woke up. More parents are 
homeschooling their kids. More parents are looking for private school. 
More States are adopting school choice. More businesses are rejecting 
the vaccine mandates. More individuals are saying no to those mandates.
  God bless the young man who is in the United States Navy who rejected 
the vaccine mandate, and because of our bill that we finally jammed 
through in December as Republicans isn't being kicked out of the 
military, but he is still being harassed, he is still being denied the 
commanding officer job he always wanted. He is still being denied the 
ability to advance. They are going after him to pay the $75,000 of 
previous student loans. That must end.
  $122 million for the World Health Organization, which pushed 
lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and colluded with the Chinese Communist 
Party to cover up its role in COVID's origin, and now with this 
administration wants to control our healthcare and control how we are 
going to deal with vaccines in the future. Why would any Republican 
vote to fund the World Health Organization today? Why? We should not. 
We should reject that. We are Americans. We decide how we are going to 
live.
  $234 million for the EPA's clean water program so-called under waters 
of the United States, WOTUS, that put a 78-year-old veteran in jail for 
violating the waters of the United States by digging ditches on his 
land.

                              {time}  1115

  That is your government at work, ladies and gentlemen, $456 million 
for EPA ``clean air programs.''
  Everybody wants clean air. I don't know anybody who doesn't want 
clean air. I don't know any State regulators who don't want clean air.
  What we don't want is that to be used as an excuse to carry out the 
new methane tax, drive up gas prices via the ethanol mandate, and 
destroy reliable coal and natural gas power plants via regulation, 
which is precisely what it is going to do.
  Yet, we are all going to just sit by as Republicans and go, well, 
shrug. I guess that is just what we do. We have to increase government.
  All these kids are running around going, ``Well, we have climate 
change. What are we going to do?'' How about we embrace clean-burning 
American natural gas, develop more nuclear power, and recognize that 
China and India are the ones that are vastly growing and producing 
CO2 by developing more coal-fired plants while we sit around 
and play games, as I said earlier, with wind and solar, leaving us with 
unreliable grids and living on unicorn energy policies.
  Mr. Speaker, $108 million in woke EPA environmental justice funding 
that will funnel through EPA's new Office of Environmental Justice and 
External Civil Rights, $108 million of your taxpayer money for 
environmental justice when we are $32 trillion in debt, you literally 
can't make up how stupid we are. Literally, you just can't. It is, 
like, no, no, no.
  I mean, imagine the Founding Fathers going: Wait a minute. Hold on. 
In 2023, we are going to be $32 trillion in debt. We are not going to 
actually secure our borders as a sovereign Nation, allowing them to be 
wide open. We are going to submit to the authority of international 
organizations to tell us what to do and fund those international 
organizations to tell us what to do. We are going to fund massive 
bureaucracies to create things like the so-called environmental justice 
department with $108 million when we are spending a trillion and a half 
dollars more every year than we take in.
  I mean, that is just, like, the tip of the iceberg. How stupid can a 
people be? The American people aren't stupid. That is why they look at 
Congress with utter disdain.
  We are stupid unless we change, and that is my request of my 
colleagues on this side of the aisle, that we demand change.
  When there is a debt ceiling fight this summer, when the President 
wants to play chicken and Russian roulette with the debt ceiling 
increase to borrow more money to raise our credit card limit, we should 
demand change. We should demand actual change. We should demand 
immediate change.
  When we say return spending for the bureaucratic state to pre-COVID 
2019 levels, and when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and 
the President say you can't do that, you remind them about the $122 
million for the World Health Organization or the $108 million for the 
``environmental justice programs,'' or the $15 million for the United 
Nations bodies that develop the Paris Agreement--just that alone.
  How about $7 million of Department of the Interior funding for the 
monarch butterfly, $20 million in earmarks dedicated to sidewalks--$20 
million dedicated in Federal funding for sidewalks.
  Boy, there is a real Federal nexus there, huh? Article I, section 8, 
thou shalt fund sidewalks. It is asinine.
  Yet, that is what we do. It is like breathing for Members of 
Congress. Just keep funding crap because, well, I don't know. I have a 
dinner to go to, and I can't bother to peel back the appropriations 
bills or the big omnibus bill that is sent over by a bunch of Senators 
who are running to their steak dinners and can't even bother to do the 
appropriations bills in the first place.
  This includes 18 Republicans, by the way, who voted for a $1.7 
trillion omnibus spending bill, which I will constantly remind all 18 
of them and all Americans of those 18 who voted for a massive $1.7 
trillion omnibus spending bill that denied us the ability to secure the 
border and expanded the size and scope of the Federal Government.
  It is not just a singular, one-party problem, ladies and gentlemen. 
This body needs a little religion, actual religion, and a little bit of 
fiscal sanity religion.
  We can change that. We can shrink Washington massively. Right now, in 
year one, we can shrink Washington so that we can get it out of the way 
and grow our country back to prosperity.
  That is step one in reclaiming our American birthright: shrink 
Washington, grow America.
  We can save more than $3 trillion over the next decade if we cut the 
funding of the bureaucracy back to pre-COVID levels and cap future 
growth; rescind $91 billion of unobligated COVID money just sitting 
over there right now waiting for a bureaucrat to find something to 
spend it on; and end the unfair, unlawful $400 billion student loan 
bailout that the President promised that is going to be deficit 
spending this year.
  Just boom, $400 billion of 2023 deficit spending. For what? Paying 
off the loan of some kid who went to college, got a sociology degree, 
and is hanging out in his parents' basement, tweeting and sitting on 
Instagram, and trying to find a job. Oh, no. We have to pay off

[[Page H1267]]

that kid's loan, but the plumber who didn't take out that loan to go to 
some liberal arts college filled with a bunch of White elite liberals 
patting themselves on the back for how compassionate they are for Brown 
people--that is what they do. Let's pay off their loans, but let's make 
the plumber eat it. That is crazy, absolutely crazy.
  We reward irresponsibility instead of actually telling the 
hardworking American who does it all the right way that they are the 
one who gets rewarded.
  Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to increase the debt 
to borrow to fund a $400 billion student loan bailout for rich, 
liberal, White elitists, for the most part, as a statistical matter, 
while we are leaving out hardworking Americans who didn't take out 
those loans like my wife, the daughter of a single mom who took two 
jobs, worked hard, and sent her to a State university, who worked to 
pay off her loans.

  She is still paying them. Mr. Speaker, 20 years since we graduated 
from law school, my wife is still paying off the remaining vestiges of 
her law school student loans after paying her way and getting loans to 
go to Texas A&M and the University of Texas School of Law, doing the 
right thing, driving a 2000 Corolla with no options for, like, a 
decade.
  That is what you do if you are responsible. That is how you are 
supposed to live. We can save that money right now and do more good for 
the American people than funding and paying off these student loans.
  We can reclaim the $80 billion of Internal Revenue Service money that 
is sitting in a pot over there right now. We can reform welfare 
programs to get people back to work, protecting Social Security 
retirement and Medicare benefits in the process.
  We can grow America by expanding liberty and promoting economic 
growth, forcing policy changes to make the government do its job, curb 
regulatory power by enacting the REIN IN Act to make Congress decide if 
the regulations by bureaucrats should be enacted if they have a major 
economic impact.
  These are all things we can do right now and save up to $3 trillion 
over 10 years as a first step to shrinking Washington and growing 
America. That is our plan. The President's plan is to expand Washington 
and undermine America.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Roy for his leadership 
once again and in particular on this all-important issue of the fiscal 
and economic stability of our country. More than that, not just the 
financial part of it, which we cannot overstate--we can't overstate the 
harm done to our country from a spending standpoint with $32 trillion 
in national debt on the backs of our children and our grandchildren, 
$100,000 per citizen, but in addition to that, how that debt and how 
that spending has accumulated for the purpose of literally harming the 
American people.
  We can't overstate how our own government has become weaponized 
against its own citizens, trying to control every aspect of our lives, 
trying to control decisions like whether or not we can have or use a 
gas stove; whether or not we can choose what kind of car we want to 
drive; whether or not we can heat or cool our homes the way that we 
want to; whether or not we can exercise our God-given, constitutionally 
protected Second Amendment rights; whether or not we can make decisions 
for ourselves on whether or not we can operate our business, earn a 
living, educate our children the way that we want to without the heavy 
hand of government coming in.
  We have $32 trillion in national debt, $100,000 per citizen. What is 
this President's response with the budget proposal that he rolled out 
yesterday? To increase spending about 56 percent beyond where it was 
pre-COVID.
  From $4.4 trillion in spending, this President wants to increase it 
by $2\1/2\ trillion to $6.9 trillion. That $6.9 trillion--for just 1 
year, mind you--is about $20,000 per American citizen.
  How many Americans today would vote to borrow and spend--we have to 
put ``borrow'' in front of all of it--to borrow and spend $20,000 on 
their personal credit card to do things that are not only not helpful 
to them but much of which is harmful to them on top of the $100,000 in 
national debt that we have per citizen today?
  Thank God for Republicans who are going to come into the gap and 
stand on the wall to defend the American people and finally bring some 
fiscal stability to our country, cut the spending, and deal a blow 
against the woke weaponized government that is assaulting and harming 
the American people.
  We are going to do that with the opportunity we have as we face the 
debt ceiling limit. We are going to utilize this opportunity of our 
newfound congressional House rules that are going to allow us to put 
reforms in place for not just this year and next year but for the 
future to put us on a path to fiscal responsibility.
  I thank Congressman Roy from Texas for showing leadership, once 
again, on the most important, fundamental issues for our country.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his 
leadership. We joined together with our colleagues at the House Freedom 
Caucus this morning to announce what we believe is, I would say, the 
bare minimum, if you will, sort of the baseline for resetting the table 
on how we deal with spending and, importantly, empowering the American 
people by shrinking Washington and growing America because we trust the 
people to do it, not government.
  This is an age-old debate, but this is something where leviathan, 
this great beast, this thing we call the Federal Government, is growing 
and expanding in power in ways that concern every American.

                              {time}  1130

  Just yesterday, in the House Judiciary Committee, there were 
conversations about the power of the Federal Government being used to 
chill speech, to target American citizens, to shut down their First 
Amendment rights.
  Now think about it. Is there anything more concerning than the power 
of the government being used to chill the fundamental rights given to 
us by our Creator, as reflected in the Bill of Rights, than what we are 
seeing right now?
  The FTC is going after, right now, targeting, they want to know--
wait--who is involved with all of this. They are actually targeting 
journalists, targeting private citizens.
  Is that what the power of the government is supposed to be used for, 
I would ask the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Clearly not. And the loss of trust and 
confidence to the degree that it has been lost in the last 2 years in 
our Federal Government, in our election system, in our government 
agencies, in even our department of injustice, I would call it, is just 
so damaging to the future of our country.
  How do we get that back? How do we restore it?
  We start by not funding it, not funding those agencies, those 
bureaucracies that are perpetuating such harm on the American people.
  The gentleman made the point earlier today so well, that we talk 
about going back to pre-COVID spending at $4.4 trillion. At that point, 
that was record spending in the history of the country. That was 
leading us to some, at that point, maybe $25 trillion in national debt, 
an untold amount that we haven't had since World War II, that was pre-
COVID. That was out of hand. That was out of control.
  It is just this President who has taken it to a new level; $10 
trillion in new spending in the first 2 years of an administration has 
never happened before in the history of the country. But it is not just 
the dollars, which if this was good spending, meaning things that we 
thought were justified, if you will, or positive things, we don't have 
the money, we can't afford it, we are bankrupt.
  But worse than that, we are spending money, literally, to make our 
military weaker. We are spending money, literally, to keep our border 
open to the Mexican crime cartels. We are spending money, literally, to 
harm our kids in schools. We are spending money, literally, to try to 
ruin the country.
  If you were setting out 2 years ago to try to ruin the country, what 
would you do differently than what this administration has done, while 
borrowing the money to do it?
  Mr. ROY. I asked earlier, if you set out over the last 2 or 3 
decades, to do

[[Page H1268]]

a worse job than the leadership of this country, in this Chamber, the 
Senate, the bureaucracy, and the White House, could you imagine doing a 
worse job than over the last 3 decades?
  I mean, in truth, the amount of debt that has been accumulated, 
right--in 2003, when I was a baby staffer for a Senator on the other 
side of this building, the national debt was about $6 trillion.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. We couldn't imagine it at that time.
  Mr. ROY. Right. It is now $26 trillion more than that, and the 
President is patting himself on the back for saying, well, we are not 
going to increase the debt by $20 trillion; we are only going to 
increase it by $17 trillion over the next decade by taxing and 
regulating the American people into oblivion.
  I would just ask the gentleman a last question here, and then we are 
going to--in a couple of minutes I want to yield to my friend from West 
Virginia.
  Would it surprise the gentleman that we are spending $158 million in 
economic, law enforcement, and military support for Mexico--so, again, 
the American people, you and I, we are funding to the tune of $158 
million, Mexico's law enforcement and military, while it is becoming a 
narco-terrorist state; cartels are literally killing American citizens 
in Mexico; infiltrating our country, causing 72,000 dead Americans from 
fentanyl poisoning? This is the thing the American people don't 
understand. Does the gentleman agree?
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. We are borrowing an additional $150 million to 
send it to Mexico that is controlled by the crime cartels, so that they 
can utilize that funding to invade our southern border, with the 
individuals we are allowing to pass through their country trafficking 
drugs, human trafficking, sex trafficking, who knows what, hundreds of 
thousands every month. Yet, we are going to borrow $150 million to send 
it to them to help them do it.
  Mr. ROY. That is correct. If the gentleman doesn't mind, I am going 
to end here with a few minutes on the border and then yield to the 
gentleman from West Virginia. I thank my friend from Virginia for 
coming down.
  On that point, what we are funding, 4\1/2\ million encounters of 
illegal aliens at the southern border since the beginning of the Biden 
administration, with 7,000, 8,000 migrants crossing a day, there are 
1.3 million got-aways, and nearly 1.7 million illegal aliens released 
into the United States. That means we have released more into our 
communities than the population of at least 11 individual States.
  Under this administration, there have been surges of known or 
suspected terrorists at the southwest border. There were zero in fiscal 
year 2019, 3 in fiscal year 2020, 15 in fiscal year 2021, 98 in fiscal 
year 2022, and 53 so far after 1 quarter in fiscal year 2023, these are 
individuals that are affiliated with known or suspected terrorists at 
the southwest border.
  Last summer, 53 migrants died in a tractor trailer in San Antonio, 
which I represent, cooked in the Texas heat; and that is somehow 
compassion?
  Mr. Speaker, 880 migrants have died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border 
in fiscal year 2022, and that does not count the thousands that have 
died across south Texas and other places and ranches; doesn't count the 
little girls sitting in stash houses, as we speak, getting sold into 
the sex trafficking trade, as Mayorkas and Biden fiddle, while our 
Nation's borders are burning.

  Just last week, four Americans traveling to Mexico, one of them a 
mother of six, they were attacked by cartels in broad daylight. Two are 
dead. Two are getting care; and we give $158 million to Mexico for law 
enforcement and military.
  This is why, today, I am re-introducing my legislation to designate 
these drug cartels as the terrorist organization that they are, so that 
any individual associated with them, that provides material support to 
a designated FTO would be sanctioned and could be pursued, lawfully.
  Materials include, but are not limited to providing weapons, safe 
houses, lethal substances. Representatives and members of a designated 
FTO would be subject to removal. Financial institutions could be 
targeted. But the main point is to make clear that these dangerous 
cartels are the equivalent of ISIS and al-Qaida, right off our border, 
killing Americans, killing Mexicans, turning Mexico into narco-
terrorist states; giving China an avenue to get to the United States to 
pump fentanyl into our communities, and this administration is doing 
nothing.
  This Congress must not continue to fund a government that is at war 
with the American people, funding a woke weaponized Federal Government 
that is undermining our freedom, undermining our prosperity, 
undermining our liberty.
  It is our duty, as Republicans and all Members of Congress, to use 
the power of the purse to defund the executive branch that is 
tyrannically at odds with the well-being of the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. 
Mooney), my good friend. I appreciate his great service to our country, 
and I look forward to hearing from him.


                     Returning to the Gold Standard

  Mr. MOONEY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passion of my good friend 
from Texas, and many of the points he is making need to be heard and 
understood. Even if it is uncomfortable, the truth has to be told.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about legislation I am promoting to 
return the United States to the gold standard. As was discussed 
earlier, our Nation is facing an inflation crisis not seen in over 40 
years.
  Inflation is a regressive tax hurting lower-income Americans more 
than anyone else. West Virginians have seen the value of their savings 
erode before their very eyes as a result of the reckless tax-and-
spending spree of President Joe Biden and the Washington Democrats and 
an overzealous Federal Reserve.
  Thanks to Democrats, your 401(k) is now more like a 301(k), and it 
will go even lower if they stay in power.
  Today, our national debt is over $32 trillion, which is borrowed, not 
only from Americans, but also from foreign adversaries.
  We know who is responsible for the current debt crisis, but the 
question has to be asked: What in our country's history allowed us to 
get to this point?
  The answer can actually be traced back to 1971, when President 
Richard Nixon took the United States off the gold standard. Rather than 
tackle the root causes of economic challenges, Nixon severed the 
dollar's convertibility to gold once and for all. President Nixon said 
at the time that that would actually combat inflation.
  Art Laffer, a well-known and respected economist, accurately warned 
that taking the United States off of the gold standard would actually 
only exacerbate these problems. What followed was a period of severe 
inflation, rivaled only by what we are seeing today.
  Domestic production became more expensive and corporate profits 
declined, so companies were encouraged to shift production abroad, 
overseas where labor costs were cheaper.
  Today, our number one economic rival is China, which continues to 
attract American companies, due to the cheapness of production there.
  Now, the gold standard, as we know it, is not actually using the gold 
as currency but, rather, tying the dollar bill directly to the value of 
that gold. Under the gold standard, any American would be able to trade 
their dollars for a fixed amount of gold.
  By linking the dollar to the value of gold, the money supply could 
only be increased if the supply of gold increases. This connection 
protects the purchasing power of your hard-earned tax dollar.
  The gold standard would protect against Washington's irresponsible 
spending habits and the creation of money out of thin air. Prices would 
be shaped by economics, rather than instincts and wishes of Federal 
bureaucrats. With the gold standard, no longer would our economy be at 
the mercy of the Federal Reserve and reckless Washington spenders.
  Through government mismanagement and economic manipulation, is it any 
surprise that many Americans are looking for alternatives to the U.S. 
dollar in cryptocurrencies?
  Americans are losing confidence in our currency. It is long past time 
for Congress to begin considering a return to the gold standard. That 
is why I will be introducing legislation to do exactly that, as I have 
in previous Congresses.
  Under my proposal, the Secretary of the Treasury would define the 
U.S. dollar in terms of a fixed weight of gold

[[Page H1269]]

based on the market price, while allowing dollar bills to be exchanged 
for gold at that rate.
  Had the United States been on the gold standard, or some other fixed 
standard, we would not be in the inflation crisis we are in today.
  I hope to work with the new Republican majority to make sure this 
issue gets the attention it deserves.


           Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators

  Mr. MOONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address my bill, the 
Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act.
  Earlier this year, the House resoundingly passed my bipartisan 
Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act. Rural small 
businesses face unique challenges that big city businesses do not. 
Nearly 20 percent of the United States population lives in rural areas 
and yet, businesses in rural areas raised under 2 percent of total 
capital over the last 3 years.

  West Virginia, which I am so proud to represent, is a very rural 
State, where no city has a population greater than 50,000 people, so my 
legislation simply requires the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, 
Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation to identify 
and report to Congress those challenges rural small businesses face 
when trying to access our capital markets. This will make it easier for 
Congress to then act to address these problems.
  My bill would make it easier for Congress to do our jobs and make 
sure rural small businesses like in West Virginia, are not left behind. 
I hope the Senate takes up this commonsense measure promptly.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from West Virginia and 
appreciate his strong passion in representing the great people of West 
Virginia. He is a good friend, and I am glad that he could join us here 
today.
  Earlier, I was talking about the need for this country to reclaim 
economic growth in order to dig ourselves out of the hole that this 
absurd institution and lack of leadership from Washington, D.C., has 
created for the American people in the form of $32 trillion of debt and 
ridiculously stagnant economic growth.
  After decades of being able to achieve growth in the 3 and 4 percent 
range, we are now sitting in the doldrums of 1-percent-type economic 
growth. That might even be rather robust in the era of Joe Biden.
  I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop) to expand 
upon this important point.

                              {time}  1145

  Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. 
Roy, for yielding.
  The President's budget recommendation came over a month late 
yesterday, and there was one detail I read in The New York Times, so it 
must be true, although that is the only place I have had a chance to 
see it yet, and what immediately popped into my mind when I read this 
detail, is that Karine Jean-Pierre said last week--I can remember her 
saying it--that the President's economic plan is working for the 
American people. That popped back into my head, because the detail 
disclosed by The New York Times is that the administration predicts 
economic growth in this fiscal year not 3\1/2\ percent, not 4 percent 
certainly, not 2\1/2\ percent, not 1\1/2\ percent, but six-tenths of a 
percent.
  You have to start talking about economic growth and what the 
economists call basis points, because it is so small. So if the 
economic plan of the Biden administration is working for the American 
people, that means 60 basis points of economic growth anticipated in 
the year.
  And guess what the Biden administration says about that? We should do 
nothing different. We should keep doing the same thing that is 
producing six-tenths of a percent of economic growth, except one other 
thing: We should pile the burden of a lot more taxes on the economy, 
because apparently that is going to--because what do we need? Thirty 
basis points of economic growth? Republicans believe we need to change.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from North Carolina.
  Mr. Speaker, I would inquire as to how much time we have remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 8 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if I will use every bit of that. I 
appreciate the point that the gentleman from North Carolina just made, 
because it is critically important and it merits at least one final 
repetition, that this great country racked up the level of debt that we 
currently have today relative to the size of its economy in 1946. But 
why was that? To rid the world of fascism, to confront our enemies, to 
defeat those enemies, and to protect this great country.
  Then we embarked for 50 years and grew ourselves to the point to be 
able to balance the budget by 2000, with strong economic growth. It 
took that much time.
  Here we sit today in 2023 with $32 trillion of debt, sitting, at the 
President's own admission, at 60 basis points of economic growth this 
year. He wants his grand solution to be, oh, we will just rack up $17 
trillion more debt in the next decade, because I am going to save $3 
trillion by taxing the American people and regulating the American 
people.
  It doesn't work. This is President Biden's actual form of voodoo 
economics. He is going to level this country, layer mountains more debt 
on our kids and grandkids, all while funding the very things that are 
undermining our ability to have economic growth, prosperity, and 
freedom.
  As I noted before, the millions of dollars going to the EPA to turn 
an American citizen into a felon and put him into jail because he had a 
pond on his ranch, the millions of dollars in the name of clean air 
that are going to methane regulations to drive the price of gas and the 
price of energy up for the average American.
  Every single American should demand of his or her Representative in 
this body that we stand up to a tyrannical executive branch 
overstepping its bounds, undermining our freedom, and undermining 
economic growth.
  Every Member of this body should look to cut spending this year of 
the Federal bureaucracy, return it to pre-COVID levels as a baseline, 
save $3 trillion by getting government out of the way, restore economic 
growth and hope and opportunity for our kids and grandkids, stop 
funding the very things that are undermining our well-being, secure our 
country, secure our border, have a sparingly used but lethal, nonwoke 
military that will kill people and destroy things when they need to, 
and restore the greatness of this country by shrinking Washington and 
growing America.
  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.

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