[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 83 (Wednesday, May 17, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H2419-H2421]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         LEFT'S LITANY OF LIES

  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. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Schweikert for his dogged 
determination to try to shake this institution into not only 
recognizing but, Lord willing, addressing the looming crisis or the 
already existing crisis that we are dealing with. He does so 
eloquently, intelligently, and without fail. Virtually every time I 
feel like I have a Special Order, I am following the gentleman from 
Arizona, who is making his case to the 14 people watching on C-SPAN, 
but, man, those 14 people are loving it.
  My voice is echoing like it often does in this Chamber for Special 
Orders.
  Madam Speaker, I am here tonight because, while I wish it was a full 
Chamber, the fact is something that needs to be addressed that is 
shaping our public discourse is the extent to which my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle and, in particular, in the administration 
are a little fast and loose with the facts. Maybe stated differently, 
the radical left, I will call it, particularly in the administrative 
state, the bureaucrats, the organizations out there that are the engine 
of the left, have entrapped the American people with a laundry list of 
lies.

  As Thomas Jefferson once said: ``When once a republic is corrupted, 
there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by 
removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles.''
  At the root of that corruption is when you are telling a constant 
barrage to the American people of things that simply are not true. It 
matters that we speak the truth. It matters that we deal with facts as 
objectively as possible.
  To quote Jefferson again, to seek ``truth wherever it may lead.'' I 
am wanting to quote Jefferson as a graduate of the University of 
Virginia. Unfortunately, the University of Virginia is not the 
institution that it was founded to be, in terms of seeking truth 
wherever it may lead. I hope it can one day be restored to that 
purpose.
  Take, for example, the World Health Organization, stipulated by the 
radical left as being a trustworthy organization worthy of the United 
States giving well over $100 million in American taxpayer funding every 
year. Yet, the WHO, the World Health Organization, is an organization 
that wants to undermine free speech by calling on WHO members to 
``tackle false, misleading, misinformation, or disinformation,'' which 
we saw in full display during COVID.
  It says gender exists on a ``continuum'' and is ``beyond binary;'' 
declares that disrupting reproductive health services is 
``disempowering and dangerous'' and calls for full access to abortions 
in every country; has guidelines that highlight the importance of 
national programs establishing and providing gender-affirming care.
  The fact is that it is not an objective institution. It did, in fact, 
tell lies and falsehoods.
  In February 2020, Senator Tom Cotton went on FOX News and raised the 
question that it might be possible COVID-19 leaked from a Wuhan lab. 
Remember that it was put out that the Wuhan lab leak is a racist 
conspiracy theory. The New York Times and Washington Post accused 
Senator Cotton of being a conspiracy theorist. PolitiFact labeled the 
idea of a lab leak as a ``debunked conspiracy theory.''
  Facts: The Department of Energy and FBI currently conclude that the 
virus most likely came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, but 
that was literally months of back and forth.
  How about the statement that the COVID vaccine is 100 percent safe? 
More than 11,000 claims of injury from the COVID-19 vaccine have been 
filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. Four have 
already been paid out, and 23 more are eligible. The CDC has an entire 
web page dedicated to myocarditis and pericarditis. Pfizer's own 
website states: ``Myocarditis and pericarditis have occurred in some 
people who have received the vaccine, more commonly in adolescent males 
and adult males under 40 years of age than among females and older 
males.''
  How about this one? Herd immunity means you want everyone to die. Dr. 
Fauci referred to herd immunity as letting it rip in an October 2020 
interview with CNBC.
  The fact of the matter is, people started talking about herd 
immunity, started talking about the recognition of immunity that you 
get from having had the virus. Who knew, except for every living human 
being with eyes who had the ability to discern how viruses actually 
work?
  How about this one? Masks work. You remember running around the floor 
of the House of Representatives under the orders of House leadership. 
You must wear a mask or you are going to be fined. Remember that? Half 
of us were hiding in the back, sneaking in to vote so we could avoid 
the tyrannical whims of the previous Speaker because you were getting 
fined if you didn't wear a mask.
  Well, Rochelle Walensky, on November 21: Masks reduce the chance of 
COVID-19 by 80 percent. Everybody needs to wear a mask.
  Our schools were masked. Our children were masked. They were put in 
the corners with masks. They lost the ability to speak clearly. Our 
younger kids have speech impediments.
  Fact: According to Tom Jefferson, who conducted one of the most 
comprehensive analyses of pandemic masking: ``There is just no evidence 
that [masks] make any difference, full stop.''
  How about gender? Men can compete in women's sports, and it is still 
fair. Lia Thomas, a biological male swimmer for the University of 
Pennsylvania--and let's be very clear: If you have eyes, Lia Thomas is, 
in fact, a dude. That is just a simple, obvious truth. Everybody knows 
it. Literally everybody knows it to be true.
  Lia Thomas won a 2022 NCAA Division I championship in the 500-yard 
freestyle instead of a woman. Thomas soared from a mid-500s ranking 
competing as male to one of the top-ranked swimmers in women's 
competition.
  Transgender women are the same as biological women, we are told. 
Biological males have larger hearts, larger lungs, and a 12 percent 
higher hemoglobin, which helps transport oxygen to the blood. Grown 
biological males have approximately 36 percent greater muscle mass than 
grown females, yet transgender women are the same as biological women.
  We couldn't even get our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to 
fully defend Title IX in the Rules Committee a few weeks ago. Title IX 
was the holy grail. It was the holy grail of equal protection. Now, it 
doesn't fit the narrative because transgender men, Lia Thomas, is 
apparently able to compete against women like Riley Gaines, and that is 
perfectly fine.
  You just ignore your eyes. Don't you understand, they tell you it is 
so. Lia Thomas is a woman now, they say. Oh, really.

                              {time}  2030

  Parents cannot be trusted with their children's education. President 
Biden said it: ``There is no such thing as someone else's child. No 
such thing as someone else's child. Our Nation's children are all our 
children.''
  Let me be perfectly clear. My children are my children. They are no 
one else's children. Be dang careful in trying to claim otherwise.
  Parents who speak up for their children are domestic terrorists. One 
alleged ``terrorist'' cited by the National School Board Association 
was my friend Scott Smith from Loudoun County. He is a domestic 
terrorist, they say.
  How about border crisis lies?
  The southern border is secure, and things are better than you all 
expected, says the President of the United States. Well, since Biden 
took office we have seen 6 million encounters, the release of 
approximately 2 million migrants, and 1.5 million got-aways.
  When title 42 was lifted last week, the President said that it is 
much better than you all expected. We still have 3,000 or 4,000 a day. 
We still have thousands of got-aways. We still have thousands of pounds 
of fentanyl.

[[Page H2420]]

  Oh, by the way, the Texas Department of Public Safety is having to 
stand on the border with razor wire and not doing their job to secure 
the people in Texas because they are making up for an administration 
that lies.
  My State is the one holding the bag. Tell that to the DPS agents, Mr. 
President. Get your happy rear end out of Japan and go to south Texas. 
Better than you all expected.
  The President of the United States doesn't have the courage to go to 
south Texas. That is the simple truth.
  According to the New York Post, migrants are being released in the 
interior with court dates that are as far out as 2035. Yet, the 
President and his mouthpiece at the White House are trying to tell the 
American people, using every channel of communication, that the border 
is secure. It is ``better than you all expected.''
  I would note that, thankfully, States are coming to the aid of Texas, 
who are spending billions of dollars putting our personnel in harm's 
way, undermining our own security to deal with the job that the Federal 
Government is supposed to do.
  By the way, we passed H.R. 2 that would secure the border. We did our 
job as House Republicans. I would say, just as a point for 
consideration, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, and frankly, 
throughout this building, including this side of the aisle: Why would I 
vote for anything at all--debt ceiling, government funding, anything, 
until we pass H.R. 2 and sign it into law?
  Why? Why would I do that?
  I might be able to be convinced, but you better bring me a really 
good bill. If you want me to ignore the need for us to pass H.R. 2, 
sign it into law. I don't care that the Democrats control the Senate. I 
don't care that President Biden doesn't want to sign a bill.
  I care about my country. I care about my State. I care about the kids 
in my county dying from fentanyl. I care about the migrants dying in 
the false name of compassion. I care that the Secretary of Homeland 
Security looked me in the eye in the House Judiciary Committee and lied 
under oath that we had operational control of the border. That 
happened.
  The Secretary of Homeland Security also lied when he said, 
unapologetically, that Border Patrol agents who report to him whipped 
Haitian migrants on the Rio Grande. It is just simply not true. He knew 
it wasn't true. He had a memo given to him that said it wasn't true. He 
has now acknowledged it is an untruth.
  Has he apologized? Has he apologized to the Border Patrol agents? Has 
he apologized to Americans? Has he apologized to Congress?
  Of course not.
  With all due respect to my colleagues in this Chamber, what do we 
ever do about it?
  We haven't impeached him yet, have we, my fellow Republicans?
  We have not impeached him yet. He should be impeached.
  Are we going to limit funding unless specific riders are included?
  Are we going to hold funding for the Homeland Security Department 
unless we pass H.R. 2, forcing them to actually do their job?
  Again, I want to reiterate that the Secretary of Homeland Security 
lied about Haitian migrants being whipped by Border Patrol agents, and 
then blamed it on systemic racism.
  Over the last several weeks, the Biden administration has been 
increasingly on its heels, unable to explain why they do not want to 
take up our very responsible legislation. This is legislation that 
would increase the debt ceiling about a trillion and a half dollars in 
exchange for actual fiscal reforms that would save $5 trillion over 10 
years and $1 trillion in year one.
  It would end the unfair student loan program that would pick winners 
and losers. It would favor someone who took out student loans and 
hasn't paid them off yet over the person who has student loans and paid 
them. It would favor the person who took out student loans and hadn't 
paid them off yet over the plumber who set up a business and never took 
out student loans. It would favor the person who took out student loans 
and hadn't paid them off yet by granting them the same benefit you get 
if you serve your country, put yourself in harm's way, put your life on 
the line, get a GI bill benefit--you are treated the same.
  Oh, you got your degree in gender studies from Brown, and you are 
sitting in your parents' basement on your freaking parents' insurance 
program at 26 years old while you are tweeting out leftist garbage, and 
you get the same benefit as the guy or gal who went overseas, sat in a 
foxhole serving in the United States military.
  Oh, that is all the same. That is all fine. No problem.
  You know what? The President is going to fight us on stopping the 
$550 billion that they have got set aside for student loan bailouts. I 
think that is unacceptable. I think we ought to shove it down their 
throats. I think we ought to go around the country messaging it.
  If the President of the United States wants to play chicken with the 
economy and risk defaulting, it will be on him. It will be the 
President who defaults. The President is the one who will choose 
whether to default.
  Make the President own it. We have done our job. The American people 
are with us.
  They want fiscal reform. They don't think we ought to spend money we 
don't have. They don't think $32 trillion in debt is acceptable. They 
don't think that we ought to pick winners and losers and pay off 
certain student loans versus others. They don't think we ought to 
expand the IRS by $80 billion and hire 75,000 or 80,000 new employees 
at the IRS--they don't.
  They recognize that you are far more likely to be audited if you are 
poor or a minority than if you are not, and they don't think it is a 
good idea to expand the IRS.
  The American people don't want us to take money up to the tune of 
$1.2 trillion, according to Goldman Sachs. To take those dollars, hand 
them off to corporations--90 percent of the subsidies going to billion 
dollar corporations--to elite, White liberals getting money from 
government so they can go around and say how great they are driving 
their Teslas, patting themselves on the back while they get enriched.
  Let me be very clear. They get enriched through government subsidies 
to then make power with wind and solar that can't actually sustain a 
grid. You can't even make this stuff up. We tell lie after lie after 
lie to the American people that somehow it is good to have ``green 
energy'' that literally doesn't work if you don't have gas or nuclear 
backing it up.
  Yet, that is what we are going to do. Republicans passed in the debt 
ceiling bill measures that would reduce the so-called Inflation 
Reduction Act expansion of those subsidies so that we are no longer 
taking money from hardworking Americans, blue-collar workers, people 
out there trying to make it. We are either taking money from them, 
borrowing or printing money, and handing it off to rich, elite, White 
liberals who like to feel good about themselves for their corporate 
cronyism.
  It isn't capitalism. They are literally taking government money and 
getting rich for it. If you are out there working hard and you are 
trying to get by, you are trying to put your kids in a private school 
so they can actually learn that this country is good. You can actually 
learn and talk about God. You can actually recognize--and I am going to 
blow your minds here--that there are men and women. Oh, gosh, censor me 
that there are in fact men and women.
  So if you are out there as a hard-working plumber, you and your 
husband or wife, whoever you are, you have got multiple jobs, you are 
working hard, you are trying to do right for your kids, you are driving 
a 15-year-old car, you are trying to get by, and these radical leftists 
come out and say: Don't worry, we are going to subsidize Teslas.
  And you are like, oh, goody, how much does that cost?

                              {time}  2045

  Oh, that is $95,000.
  Oh, great. I will just go buy a $95,000 car.
  How does that work?
  Well, you plug it in.
  What does that do to my electricity bill?
  It triples it.
  Oh, that is great. I am sure that will be affordable for me.
  What do I do if I need to drive from Austin to Midland?

[[Page H2421]]

  Well, you won a prize. You can go hang out in San Angelo for 2 hours 
while you charge your car.
  Who the hell wants to do that?
  Yet that is what we are going to do.
  I listened to one of my colleagues sitting out on the steps earlier 
today, one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. A whole 
class, like 100 minds full of mush were sitting there just ready to be 
informed by the genius of my colleague on the other side of the aisle 
informing them about how great it was that we were passing all these 
laws that would stop the production of CO2.
  They are all: Oh, my God, thank you. Oh, you are saving the world.
  It is a lie. It is literally a lie, and we all just sit around going 
along for the ride.
  We say: What bills can we get passed?
  I don't know. You tell me.
  We have got kids out there being told by Members of Congress that we 
are saving them because we are somehow limiting what cars their parents 
can drive to actually go achieve the American Dream which they are no 
longer able to achieve because we actually knocked their knees out from 
under them.
  Then we say: Oh, don't worry. The solution for your problem is a 
government program. We are going to just keep giving you more money. We 
are going to pay you not to work. Don't worry. We will subsidize you. 
We will pay for your school.
  Oh, don't talk about choice. We are just going to pay for those 
public schools because how else are you going to indoctrinate the kids 
with the lies?
  That is what is happening.
  Oh, Chip, you are a conspiracy theorist.
  Am I?
  What did we learn during COVID?
  Parents started looking, and they said: Hey, my kid is sitting over 
there, and they are looking at this little class on an iPad or a 
laptop.
  You are like: Wait. Whoa. What are they teaching them? What did they 
say? Wait, that was somehow we are a racist country? Oh, wait, you mean 
oil and gas, well, that is evil?
  I thought our country was built on oil and gas.
  Wait a minute. I thought China has 1,100 coal-fired plants, and they 
are building two a week, and yet we are going to just decimate our 
ability to have a functional grid so we can have brownouts while we 
pretend you can have power on a windless, cloudy day.
  They are out there telling the kids: Don't worry. We will have 
windmills and solar panels everywhere, but not nuclear power.
  But I thought you hated CO2.
  Oh, no. Never mind. Don't talk about that.
  That is literally the kind of garbage we are talking about. They are 
just constant lies.
  If you eliminate every internal combustion engine--every single one 
of them--in America, then you dent CO2 by less than a 
percentage point. Yet that is what my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle are telling Americans, particularly kids: We are doing this 
for you.
  Because if you do it for the children, then everything is fine. If 
you do it for the animals, the children, and the puppies, then 
everything is okay.
  We put legislation together to save $5 trillion over 10 years. My 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going around saying: You 
are cutting the VA benefits.
  We didn't cut anything--literally nothing. We simply put a cap in 
place that limits the total amount of spending to $1.471 trillion. Yes, 
that draconian amount of $1.471 trillion that we were operating on 
literally 5 months ago.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle run down to the floor 
and say: You are cutting cops, and you are cutting veterans.
  They are all lies. It is true. They are all lies.
  The fact is the American people are sick of it. They are. The 
American people right now understand that right now the American Dream 
is increasingly unattainable for them or their children.
  If you are measuring the ability to achieve the American Dream by how 
many government dollars you are taking or what government programs you 
are on or how much money your business is making because you are 
getting grants or subsidies or tax credits from a government that is 
$32 trillion in debt, then even under the best circumstances under our 
plans, or the President's plans, we are still going to be about $50 
trillion in debt in a decade, and we just act like it is not so.
  Seriously, just a note for everyone listening, all 14 of you, to my 
colleagues on this side of the aisle: We have been going around patting 
ourselves on the back because we passed a really strong debt ceiling 
bill that we should be proud of and a really strong border security 
bill, H.R. 2, that we should be really proud of.
  I am proud of both of those bills, but now we have to fight for them.
  Don't blink. Stand together.
  You can't keep doing what we are doing, and you can't go home and 
campaign on irresponsible spending and balancing the budget when you 
won't actually do it.
  My friend from Arizona just walked through all the mandatory spending 
problems. We are not even talking about that yet in what we are doing 
this year. We are just trying to hold the line on discretionary 
spending.
  Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time do I have remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has slightly over 1 
minute remaining.

  Mr. ROY. I am sure I can do something genius with the last minute.
  The fact of the matter is that this country is hanging on by a very 
thin thread, and we all know it. Our job in this body is actually to 
represent the people. It is, in fact, the people's House.
  To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, where are you?
  They are MIA. They are offering no plans to deal with spending and 
offering no plans to deal with the border.
  To my colleagues on this side of the aisle: I am glad we passed a few 
bills, but they don't mean a thing unless we force the President and 
force the Senate to do something with them.
  That gets hard, and it is our job.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________