[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 190 (Wednesday, November 15, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H5883-H5888]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       OUR REPUBLIC IS IN TROUBLE

  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, I thank my friend from Wisconsin for making 
those really important points.
  I think the commentary by one of the Republican candidates for 
President, the former Governor of South Carolina, was a mistake.
  As another candidate, the Governor of Florida, pointed out, anonymous 
individuals were key to the founding of the United States. The authors 
of the Federalist Papers and many of our key founding members wrote 
anonymously to put out ideas into the public domain.
  To have the government think that they should step in to censor free 
speech because they think it might be something that is expedient to 
achieve other aims, aims which I share, about trying to ensure that we 
don't have vitriol being shared in the domain in social media and 
making sure that we do not pollute the minds of our young, we can 
achieve focusing on protecting our young and protecting the world 
against the scourge of these electronic devices and social media 
without trampling the very free speech that helped found this country.
  It is a mistake to do that. It is a mistake to empower governments 
over the mind of man, as Founder Thomas Jefferson pointed out in saying 
that he would swear eternal hostility against every form of tyranny 
over the mind of man.
  The fact of the matter is the Republic is in trouble. This country is 
in trouble, and the time for excuses is over. No more excuses. No more 
excuses from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but, most 
importantly of all, no more excuses from my colleagues on this side of 
the aisle.
  We have had a tumultuous year of sorts, but in the eyes of the 
American people who have been watching from afar, they have been 
wondering when this body, the people's House, will stand up in defense 
of the people who sent them here.
  When are we going to do what we said we would do?
  When are we going to stand athwart and stop the reckless spending 
that is bankrupting a country that can no longer issue debt without 
having Moody's downgrade our rating and without having a Treasury 
auction that is a borderline failure just last week because the people 
around the world no longer believe in American debt?
  That is because we are now spending so much money and have so much 
debt. We have more debt than we have ever had in the history of 
mankind. We have more debt than we had at the end of World War II after 
we exercised wars in two theaters to free this world of tyranny.
  If we have to exercise our defense against foreign enemies today and 
ratchet up more spending to defend not just our country but to defend 
the very freedoms under which we operate, we don't have the resources 
to do it.
  We don't have the supply chains to do it because we are sitting 
around here twiddling and talking about setting up offices of equity. 
That is what we are doing.
  My colleagues on this side of the aisle utterly refuse to actually do 
what they say they are going to do. They are going to campaign against 
critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion and campaign 
against Mayorkas and campaign against open borders.
  What do they do? They come into this Chamber and vote down amendment 
after amendment to cut spending and stop funding the very bureaucrats 
who are undermining the freedom of this country.
  We have an administration that is at war with the people of the 
United States, nothing less. The current administration is undermining 
the prosperity of the American people, and they are doing it on a daily 
basis.

  The current administration, the Biden administration, is undermining 
our ability to defend ourselves under the Second Amendment. They are 
undermining our ability to carry out our free speech rights and First 
Amendment rights. They are undermining our ability to live free from 
crime and free from dangerous cartels and dangerous gangs flooding 
across the southern border of the United States.
  Every single day, another Texan dies from fentanyl poisoning. Every 
single day, another Texan dies. Last week, two Hispanic Texans died 
tragically in a car accident when we had an illegal immigrant moving 
people across our border into Texas. We had somebody who was human 
smuggling and who was speeding kill these two American citizens.
  When is this going to stop? When are my Republican colleagues going 
to put up or shut up?
  We have bills impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas. They go down. We have 
bills trying to cut spending, and we have games being played by 
appropriators. Right here, sitting in the Rules Committee the night 
before last, I had appropriators looking at me and talking about the 
side deals that were cut to keep spending money to set up funds in 
slush funds. That is the way this town operates--slush funds, backroom 
deals, and continuing to spend money we don't have.
  I am sick and tired of it. I didn't come here for second place. I 
didn't come here for more excuses. I didn't come here to have the 
Speaker of the House assume the position and, in 17 days, pass a 
continuing resolution off the floor of this House through suspension of 
the rules with $400 billion, including an extension of the farm bill 
that doesn't do anything about the Chinese Communist Party's ownership 
of our lands. It doesn't do anything to protect small ag and protect 
small ranchers from Big Ag and all the big corporate ventures getting 
rich based on the policies from this body.

                              {time}  1245

  When is it going to be enough?
  Is $34 trillion of debt not enough? Is $2 trillion in deficits not 
enough?
  When is another American dying from fentanyl or from cartels or 
terrorists coming across our southern border not enough?
  Are babies being put in ovens in Israel not enough?
  We had the Senate yesterday who chose expansion of the Internal 
Revenue Service over standing with Israel, and what are my Republican 
colleagues doing? They are all too happy to have this vote go down 
today and get on their airplanes and go home for turkey at 
Thanksgiving.
  Why aren't we putting another bill on the floor of the House right 
now and sending it over to the Senate to shove it down their throats, 
and say we, as Republicans, stand for cutting spending; we, as 
Republicans, stand with Israel; we, as Republicans, stand for securing 
the border of the United States?
  No. Let's just go back and raise some money. We can do more 
fundraisers, so we can then try to get elected so we can come back here 
and offer more excuses for why we don't get the job done.
  Do you know what the excuse will be next year? Oh, we won the House 
and we won the Senate, if we can even do that, but we don't have 60 in 
the Senate ship. We can't do what we want to do because we don't have 
60 votes in the Senate.
  I have heard nothing but excuses for the 20 years that I have either 
been a staffer in this town, back in Texas watching it closely, or now 
back as a Member. I have heard nothing but excuses. I have heard 
nothing but empty promises.
  The time for those excuses is over. Today, we took down a rule, yes, 
because it was a closed rule. We had a closed rule which means you 
can't amend it. The Rules Committee put forward a bill for Iran to go 
``freeze'' the $6 billion sitting in Qatar through a closed rule. We 
were not allowed to amend it. Such is the way things operate in the 
people's House if we don't police it every single day.
  We changed things in January. We have been opening the place up, but 
that was a reversion right back to the mean. You can't amend it, little 
boy. You are just a backbencher.
  You know what? Yes, we will. We will force amendments because we had 
a better approach than a simple freezing of the $6 billion.

[[Page H5884]]

  Do you know what we wanted to do? We wanted to tell Iran no more. We 
are going to force the administration to stop issuing waivers to 
sanctions against Iran so we can stop the enrichment of Iran at the 
expense of Israel and at the expense of our own national security.
  Just yesterday another $10 billion of waivers for Iran to sell 
electricity to Iraq. We are enriching Iran to be at war with us. We are 
enriching Iran to fund the killing of Jews in Israel. Yet, Republicans 
just whistle by, saying, let's just introduce a little bill. Let's just 
do $6 billion of freezing these assets in Qatar.
  Why don't you stop the actual blood money? Why don't you actually 
stand up and stop Iran from making billions of dollars giving oil to 
China?
  We talk a big game about Ukraine. We wear little blue and yellow pins 
and say look at us. Look at how compassionate we are to help people. 
What the hell are we actually doing?
  Blank checks go to Ukraine to go into the pockets of oligarchs, 
massive corruption, all getting documented by the day.
  We send a bill over to the Senate; Democrats kill it because they 
would rather side with the IRS than Israel. We can't even move a bill 
to hip check the Iranians who want to kill us and exterminate the Jews 
in Israel.
  They don't hide behind it. They don't shy away from it. They openly 
say it, and here we are.
  I am in an empty Chamber because everybody wants to go home and have 
their turkey and we haven't done anything.
  Literally, the House Republican majority, what we have accomplished 
this year is the following: We have increased the debt of the United 
States $4 to $6 trillion. We don't actually know the amount because we 
set a date to January of 2025 with skyrocketing interest rates, so it 
is going to be a $4 to $6 trillion increase in your debt. Check.
  What else have we done?
  We passed two continuing resolutions of the Nancy Pelosi spending 
bills and priorities, something to the tune of probably about $6 or 
$700 billion worth of spending when you add the farm bill into it.
  That is what we have done. That is what the Republican majority has 
done.
  When are we going to act like a Republican majority and start 
fighting?
  When are we going to do anything to truly cut spending instead of 
playing games?
  Yes, we passed seven appropriations bills. Yes, we have adopted some 
cuts, and I am proud of those cuts. Yes, we have adopted some strong 
policies in the NDAA and passing H.R. 2, the border security bill, but 
all of that is a tree falling in the forest if we are unwilling to lock 
arms and fight.
  It does you no good to get all your ammunition ready and get all 
prettied up and get in the boats and when you get to the beaches at 
Normandy, say, sorry. I don't think we can climb the cliffs because now 
is not the right time.
  When is the right time?
  Nobody is just going to stand up one day and say, guess what, boys? 
It is June 6. It is time to get up and fight.
  Right now all I am hearing is excuses. All I am hearing are reasons 
why we can't do what we campaigned on doing.
  I have heard that we can't have a shutdown. Okay. Then just take your 
voting card, walk over to the other side of the aisle, and say, thank 
you, sir, may I have another? That is what we are doing.
  There is going to be a moment where we are going to say, we are 
sorry. You don't get to use taxpayer dollars and, more importantly, 
borrowed money to continue to stick it to the American people every day 
with open borders, dangerous communities, skyrocketing interest rates, 
skyrocketing inflation, an inability to educate your children without 
them being indoctrinated, an inability to have a job without being told 
you have to get a vaccine, an inability to have your business open 
during a pandemic because a bunch of tyrants shut your livelihood down 
and now we do nothing about it, an inability to have a national defense 
that isn't woke and focused on, you know, diversity, equity, inclusion, 
and transgender surgeries and abortion tourism rather than actually 
killing people and blowing things up, which is what the military is 
supposed to be trained to do.

  What in the hell are we doing in this Chamber?
  We talk about these leaders of the law that are put up on the walls 
around the Chamber, including Moses, and we are walking away from Moses 
and the people of Israel by not standing up and defending Israel by 
ensuring that we force the Senate to do their job.
  I would have shoved down the throats of the United States Senate a 
funding bill that included Israel and dared Chuck Schumer to shut the 
government down and go home and eat turkey. Instead, we walk away with 
another continuing resolution, Mr. Speaker. We will fight in January.
  It is enough. Enough of continuing to do the same old, which is all 
we are doing. We give tours over at Arlington National Cemetery. When 
you fly into Washington, D.C.--as one of my friends, the Governor of 
Florida, Governor DeSantis, likes to point out as a man who wore the 
uniform, as a man who served his country, when he flies into Washington 
Reagan, DCA, and you fly along the Potomac and you look to your left, 
he says in stories: You see the monuments. You see the Washington 
Monument. You see the Lincoln Memorial. You see the Jefferson Memorial. 
You see this Capitol Building sitting up on the hill as a symbol for 
freedom, and what a Republic looks like for the world to understand and 
see.
  Then on your right, when you are flying down that river, you see a 
whole bunch of other monuments. They are a lot smaller, and they are 
little stones of marble that are cut out to represent all of those who 
died so that we could be here, who died so that we could live free, who 
died so we could stand under that flag, and we are pissing it away. We 
are giving it away.
  All that they fought for, all of those freedoms, we are giving it 
away. Why?
  Because we are too cowardly to stand up and do our job. Are you 
freaking kidding me?
  Oh, we can't have a shutdown heading into Thanksgiving. What will 
they say or do?
  How about we stand up and fight and go to the American people and 
tell them that we believe we should be doing what they sent us here to 
do--limiting spending, securing the border of the United States, 
standing with Israel, but paying for this stuff as we go so our kids 
and our grandkids don't inherit a bankrupted country and have to wonder 
what freedom used to look like while they are speaking Mandarin, but 
that is what we are going to get.
  We went through an entire month of drama about a Speaker, and we just 
did the same damn thing we have been doing. The people I represent are 
sick and tired of it. People ask why I get so animated on the floor. It 
is because somebody has to stand up for the people whose voices want to 
be heard in this town.
  If I see another bill, another measure, another amendment, another 
office focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, focused on all of these 
nonsensical programs that we can't even afford, much less if they are 
good for the United States of America, rather than figuring out how to 
have bullets and planes and boats to stand up and defend this country 
and defend freedom, rather than standing up and securing our border and 
giving the Border Patrol what they need, rather than making them show 
up to the border every day outmanned, outgunned, and with a mission to 
usher people into the United States falsely under the name of 
compassion, using false interpretations of the law, expansive uses of 
asylum and parole, to allow terrorists and criminals to come into the 
United States and endanger the American people-- The police officer in 
Austin, Texas, that I went to the vigil for on Sunday night, he was 
killed by somebody on the terrorist watch list.
  What in the hell is wrong with this country?
  Are we not sovereign? Do we not believe that we should secure this 
country for the people of the United States?
  If this body were serious, we wouldn't leave town without ensuring 
that we are secure. We would not leave town without forcing Chuck 
Schumer and Joe Biden to the table because Republicans control this 
Chamber or, at least, they say they are Republicans.
  For the life of me, I do not understand how you can go to the trouble 
of

[[Page H5885]]

campaigning, raising money, going to events, talking to people, coming 
to this town, as a Member of a party who allegedly stands for 
something, allegedly stands for reducing spending, allegedly stands for 
eliminating debt, securing the border, strong military, ending the 
wokeness that is killing and corrupting our schools and our kids, and 
then do nothing about it.
  Mr. Speaker, I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing, 
one thing, that I can go campaign on and say we did.
  Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor 
and come explain to me one material, meaningful, significant thing the 
Republican majority has done besides saying, oh, it is not as bad as 
the Democrats.
  That reminds me of the line from ``Patton,'' when he said: You won't 
have to say, well, I was shoveling crap in Louisiana. That is what we 
are doing. No offense to my friends from Louisiana. My mom grew up in 
Louisiana.
  I don't understand how we can watch a world building up to take us 
out--China, Iran, places all around the world--who want to undermine 
the United States of America and we are doing nothing about it.
  We are not moving manufacturing capacity to the Western Hemisphere 
and to our own country.
  We are not eliminating the debt problem that is crippling our ability 
to finance our own existence, finance freedom, and ensure that the 
dollar remains the currency of the world.
  We are doing nothing to secure our own border and establish our own 
sovereignty and defend ourselves from dangerous fentanyl pouring into 
our communities.
  We are doing nothing to ensure that our kids are educated to believe 
in this country, believe in freedom, believe in Western civilization, 
believe in God.
  We have walked away from every single principle that made this 
country great, all in the name of being politically correct and woke. 
It is a damn shame for all of the people who have stood up and fought 
to make this country great--to defend its principles, defend our 
freedom, to defend limited government, to defend the principles in the 
Constitution, to defend the bill of rights.
  What good are they if we are going to throw them all away? We are 
doing it on a daily basis.
  Just today, we were going to be told it was sufficient to freeze $6 
billion for Iran, give a press statement, and say, look at us, when 
that would do nothing to stop what Iran is actually doing every single 
day to fund Hamas, to fund Hezbollah, to undermine Israel's security 
and, therefore, undermine our security, all with open public pledges to 
want to take us out.
  You think that these protests around this country on college campuses 
or on the streets of New York are an accident?
  Are you not looking around? Are your eyes not open?
  We are going to crumble under our own weight in the very name of the 
liberties that we say we want to protect. We are not protecting them. 
We are going to crumble under them because we are going to be blind to 
the enemies coming across our border.

                              {time}  1300

  It is happening in real time, and we know it. We are having to force 
every bit of information we can get out of the administration, but 
there are known terrorists, known terrorist sympathizers who are coming 
across our border. They are looking at us and laughing. They are seeing 
our border, and they know they can exploit it.
  We are worried about FISA? I had some of my colleagues preaching 
about the need for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to go stop 
our foreign enemies. Okay, I will spot you. I think we need to make 
sure we have the tools so long as they are protecting American civil 
liberties. However, you are worried about FISA when our border is wide 
open?
  You can waltz across the Rio Grande, look at the Border Patrol and 
say, hi, I am here, and get released into the United States, and we 
don't do anything about it. That is not a sovereign nation. That is not 
a free nation. You are not free if you are not secure. You are not free 
if your border is open and exposed to terrorists. You are not free if 
you are spending money you don't have to indebt your children and 
grandchildren to a future where you are no longer able to fund freedom.
  How are we going to fund the national defense with a dollar that is 
not worth anything?
  Has anybody seen the absolute devastation in countries with 
skyrocketing inflation that goes off the charts? Zimbabwe or other 
countries that have had this over the years. That is where we are 
headed.
  We are not free if we are not sovereign. We are not free without 
secure borders. We are not free if our military is not strong and not 
woke. We are not free if we are not able to exercise our First 
Amendment rights without being censored, which is happening every 
single day.
  How are you free if you lost your job because you didn't want to take 
an experimental vaccine that had zero to precious little testing, 
depending on who you listen to? Now with massive amounts of evidence 
demonstrating vaccine-oriented injuries, somehow you weren't free to be 
able to go exercise your rights as a human to go carry out your 
livelihood so you could take care of your family.
  You are not free. That is not a free country.
  What have we done? How many hearings have we had about COVID tyranny? 
A couple? We kind of brushed it aside. What have we done? Have we done 
anything to hold Anthony Fauci accountable? Have we done anything at 
all to uncover how a country like this could shut down the largest 
economy in the history of the world, shut down people's abilities to 
live their lives, force people to take vaccines, force people to walk 
around with masks on their face or get fined on the very floor of the 
House of Representatives? Have we done any kind of expose for the 
American people about how that should never happen again? No.
  The American people didn't send us here for this. They didn't. They 
didn't send us here to keep doing the same thing. Nobody runs for 
Congress to keep doing the same thing that they think is wrong. People 
wonder, they say, Chip, you are criticizing Congress, you must not like 
Congress very much.
  Congress polls at like 17 percent, so I feel like if I am against 
Congress, I am with 83 percent of the American people, and I am right.
  Every time I go back to Texas, and I am starting to think, gosh, man, 
are you crazy? You are up here, you are beating your head against the 
wall; you are talking to people, and they go, Chip, you are crazy. We 
can't get that done. We can't force the Senate to do that. You are 
living in a--no, we have got to win the Presidency. We have got to win 
more seats in the House. We have got to do better in the Senate.
  I have been hearing that my whole life, and we have never done 
anything, whether we had 56 Members in the Senate or 47; whether we had 
a majority with 260 or whether we have got our thin majority now; 
whether we had someone in the White House or not.
  With all due respect to former President Trump, they sure as hell 
didn't get border security done when we had the White House and the 
House and the Senate. Nothing. Talked a big game about building a wall 
and having Mexico pay for it. Ain't no wall, and Mexico didn't pay for 
it, and we didn't pass any border security.
  We had Goodlatte 1 and Goodlatte 2. Nobody in America knows what the 
hell those are. What they know is, our border is wide open.
  This year we actually passed an excellent border security bill. 
Everyone in Washington wants us to walk away from that and do 
something, Chip, you can't get that done in the Senate. You will never 
get Joe Biden to sign that. Well, with that self-fulfilling prophecy, 
you are correct. With that self-fulfilling prophecy, you are right.
  If, instead, you look at Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and say, you are 
not going to get a damned thing at all until we secure the border of 
the United States properly and we stop letting people flood into the 
United States and endanger us--because, I don't know, gee, let me 
think, that is our job.
  When we swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the 
United States, that includes the laws that say that we must secure the 
border. I don't know a single Hispanic

[[Page H5886]]

Texan, a single Brown person in Texas that I talk to who is down there 
saying, oh, please, more open borders. Oh, please, more fentanyl. Oh, 
please, more cartels.
  We have got to actually do something about it. When we come back from 
Thanksgiving, I am hearing lots of promises about what we will do. 
Well, let me just lay down a marker and lay down a gauntlet here, we 
better damn well do it. It is time. It is time to use the full power of 
the majority of the House of Representatives to ensure that the 
President of the United States and the Senate Democrat majority 
understands that the era of excuses is over and that we are going to 
reclaim the mantle for Americans of having a secure and sovereign 
nation with a secure border, with a strong military, and stop 
bankrupting the future for our kids and grandkids because that is 
actually our duty under the Constitution.

  Instead of promising things we can't deliver, instead of creating 
programs that undermine American effectiveness and American prosperity, 
instead of continuing to bow down to world authorities to take away our 
sovereignty at the United Nations or the World Health Organization, 
instead of empowering our enemies like Iran and China, we have a duty, 
a responsibility under the Constitution, and standing before that flag 
to actually defend the United States of America.
  That is what I want to hear that we are going to be doing when we 
return on Tuesday, November 28. It happens to be my mom's birthday. 
Happy birthday, Mom. We are going to fight for a free America when we 
come back from Thanksgiving. That is what I want to hear. That is what 
I want this Republican majority to stand up and do.
  I want to see 220 Republicans standing on the steps of this building 
pledging to lay it all on the line. I am tired of speeches. Don't give 
me your crap about putting Christmas wreaths walking around Arlington 
National Cemetery or in the national cemeteries across America, don't 
give me your speeches on Veterans Day, your speeches on Memorial Day. 
Why don't we put everything we have got, all of our political lives, on 
the line and say we are going to stand up for this country?
  Who cares if you lose your election? Why does it matter if you are 
here if you don't do something? We don't have anything to risk. Mean 
tweets? Who cares? Put it all on the line. Fight for the country and 
maybe, just maybe, the American people will look at that and reward you 
for it; but who cares?
  We came here to do what is right. No one believes spending money we 
don't have and indebting our kids and grandkids is right. Nobody.
  Nobody believes, no rational person, no sane person believes that an 
open border with terrorists and cartel members and fentanyl pouring 
across it is right.
  Nobody believes that Hamas going across a border into Israel and 
putting a baby in an oven while people are raping that baby's mother is 
right.
  Nobody can possibly believe that, and I want to be perfectly clear 
about this: If you do, you have no business being in the United States 
of America protesting against us standing up in defense against that.
  Moral clarity matters. Moral clarity in the face of evil matters. I 
am sympathetic to wanting to stand up against Putin and the evils and 
the horrors against the people of Ukraine. I just want a mission to 
know how it is going to be accomplished and how the money is being 
used. And I am very sympathetic to what happened on October 7 to our 
friends in Israel. We should help them. I was fine with helping Ukraine 
until I started learning about all the corruption and the improper use 
of the money.
  However, we have got to pay for it. We have got to actually have 
sacrifice. You can't write blank checks because then there is no moral 
authority behind the blank check. If you are the world's ATM, all you 
are doing is perpetuating the very violence and the wars without 
sacrifice. That is the whole point.
  When I think back about that police officer last week, he was alive 
on Friday, and on Saturday he was not. His family--his wife, his 
stepkids--they now don't have their husband, their father. He went into 
a house to go protect two people. His partner got shot, sent to the 
hospital. He was fighting for his life all week.
  Later that day, a police officer, a woman, committed suicide in the 
same department in Austin, Texas.
  Later that night or the next morning a recently retired police 
officer in that same department died in a tragic car accident.
  In a matter of 48 hours, the Austin Police Department lost two of 
their own, one of their recent own, and one was in the hospital 
fighting for his life. It was a rough 48 hours.
  These are strong men and women. They are resilient. They will stay on 
watch, but it makes me think about what are they doing? They are 
putting their lives on the line, standing on that thin blue line to 
protect us in the face of disparaging remarks about how they are evil, 
about how they are biased, defunding by the Austin City Council of $150 
million which, by the way, is a part of the mental health issues, a 
part of the danger that some of these guys face, a part of the danger 
that we send these guys into dangerous situations, into a house, and 
they are questioning can they shoot, can they act.
  We are doing that to them. We are. The leaders of this country are 
doing that to them. They go out, they defend us. They get in a car. 
They walk and they put their bodies in front of gangs, between gangs 
and us. They fight drug lords. They stand up against the most violent 
and insidious evil, and we are back here questioning their plays. We 
are Monday-morning quarterbacking everything they do, so of course they 
have got issues, of course it is more dangerous for them.
  What are we doing about it? What? What are we doing about it? That 
cop still has to get in the car today. The cop still has to walk the 
street today. What are we doing to defend them, to protect them?
  What are we doing for our men and women in uniform who are wondering 
what they are doing when they have to sit in sessions about social 
engineering and wokeness training? They are doing it. I have exposed 
it, put it out on social media, all of the different classes, all of 
the stuff they have to go through.
  All they want to do is get trained on how to jump out of helicopters 
and shoot guns and fly planes and drive boats and figure out how to 
defend the United States of America which, by the way, is its mission.
  You want to know why recruiting levels are in the toilet? It is 
because we are turning it into a social engineering experiment.
  When we set out in January to change the House of Representatives, we 
set out to make this place get back to what we would call regular 
order. We have had some successes and some monumental failures in doing 
that. We have had a brief spell where we had something sort of close to 
resembling open amendments on the floor. We have had some increases in 
some of the structured rules. That means amendments that we kind of 
approve certain ones, not others. We go to the Rules Committee, we have 
a debate about it and sort of get some debate. We have had seven 
appropriations bills pass off the floor. We have had another, I don't 
know, three or four get debated fully. We will see if we can get all 12 
done.

  However, we are still miles away from the deliberative engagement 
about ideas and about how we are going to carry the country forward 
that the Founders envisioned. We are miles away from being able to have 
a process by which people can believe that the House of Representatives 
is actually representing them. The election certificate for every 
Member of Congress is just as good as the Speaker or any chairman or 
any member of the Appropriations Committee or Rules Committee, but for 
too long that is not how this place has operated. It hasn't, and we saw 
that unfold this week.
  The continuing resolution that was brought forward yesterday 
suspended the rules, so there was no real debate, there were no 
amendments. It was brought to the floor. It had a vote, and it was 
kicked off the floor and sent to the Senate by suspension of the rules. 
A total of 209 Democrats voted for it, 2 Democrats voted against it. A 
total 127 Republicans voted for it, 93 Republicans voted against it.

                              {time}  1315

  For my constituents back home, you might look at that math and say 
that

[[Page H5887]]

it doesn't sound like a very good bill. You would be correct. You would 
be right.
  It is a bill that continues the Pelosi funding levels that I would 
point out last year. Then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy called this bill ``a 
slap in the face.''
  All of my Republican colleagues who were in this Chamber today, 
except for two, voted against it, calling it what it was: a bloated 
omnibus spending bill passed right before Christmas.
  What we did on October 1 was continue that for 45 days and spend an 
additional $16 billion for disaster FEMA funding--unpaid for.
  What we did yesterday, which the Senate will presumably take up and 
pass, is continue it for another 60ish days until January 19 and 
another 75ish days until early February.
  Again, we are talking about $500 billion or $600 billion that we 
passed with these continuing resolutions, funding government at levels 
that Nancy Pelosi set and policies Nancy Pelosi put in place.
  This bill yesterday, House Progressive Caucus Chair Jayapal called 
maintaining the spending levels ``a very big win.'' I guess that would 
be, from a Democrat's standpoint.
  Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, Congresswoman Tlaib, and Congresswoman 
Omar all voted for this bill. Mr. Speaker, 93 Republicans voted against 
this bill.
  Another point about this omnibus spending bill that we are 
continuing, do you know how it was passed last December? The floor 
staff probably remembers. It was passed with 226 of the House of 
Representatives not even here. Mr. Speaker, 226 of the House of 
Representatives voted by proxy last December to pass $1.7 trillion of 
disastrous funding to continue to advance the bureaucracy that is at 
war with the American people, and we Republicans are voting to continue 
it.
  That is what a continuing resolution is. We are voting to perpetuate 
what I would say was an unconstitutional bill.
  Litigation is currently underway in Texas v. Department of Justice. I 
filed an amicus brief in that, saying it was unconstitutional.
  You are supposed to have a quorum. How can you have a quorum if 226, 
a majority of the body, are literally not even here? That is the whole 
definition of quorum.
  We have what I believe, regardless of what the court ultimately says 
because the court doesn't like to stick its nose in the business of the 
House--it should in this case because it is plain, black letter I would 
say English, but it is really Latin, what a quorum is.
  It is, nevertheless, unconstitutional. You didn't have 226 people; 
226 weren't even here. They voted by proxy.
  You have an omnibus spending bill that is, in my opinion, 
unconstitutional that we have been operating under since last December. 
Now, we are perpetuating an unconstitutional bill by voting for a 
continuing resolution of unconstitutional funding to fund the 
government at war with the American people at levels that are indebting 
our kids and grandkids.
  Congratu-friggin-lations. Well done, us. We will see what happens. 
That litigation is currently underway. I think it is going to go before 
a district judge sometime here in December.
  My friends here on the floor and in the Parliamentarian's Office, we 
might have a fun December if the court makes a decision that that 
omnibus bill is unconstitutional. We will see what happens then.
  Nobody is under the delusion that it isn't a difficult environment in 
this current day and age in Washington to get things done. Nobody here 
is saying that we need to get everything we want. Nobody is here saying 
that we need to change this town overnight or in a day.
  I know what I am saying, which is we are never going to change this 
town meaningfully if we don't stand up and fight to change it. It is 
just not possible. You have to take risks.
  You can't just sit back while Moody's downgrades the U.S. Federal 
debt outlook to negative and a Treasury auction goes south and just 
shrug your shoulders and say, sorry, too hard to do. We don't want to 
have a shutdown over Thanksgiving; they might say mean things about us. 
Oh, no. Mean things.
  They say, Chip, you don't understand. The truth is, what that means 
is that, by November 30, our troops won't get paid.
  I am sensitive to that. There are, of course, solutions and 
alternatives to that. You can offer legislation to fund the troops. 
Does Chuck Schumer not want to fund the troops? You can offer 
legislation to fund Border Patrol. Does Chuck Schumer not want to fund 
Border Patrol? Call his bluff, and if he won't do it, let the American 
people decide.
  No, Chip. We don't have the media. Ronald Reagan didn't have the 
media either. You can't sit back and watch your country burn, complain 
about it burning, and then come here and provide the fuel for the fire. 
That is what we are doing.
  The national debt hit $33 trillion. It is now approaching $34 
trillion. It has grown by $2.2 trillion since President Biden signed 
the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
  We come up with these cute names. The Fiscal Responsibility Act--who 
can oppose that? $2.2 trillion later, I am not sure exactly what was 
responsible about the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
  We head into Thanksgiving. Every, I think, Wednesday before 
Thanksgiving, The Wall Street Journal, in their editorial section, 
reprints an editorial that was written decades ago, probably in the 
fifties. I think it is called something like ``The Desolate 
Wilderness.'' It talks about the early American settlers, the Pilgrims, 
if you will, coming to the United States and going into the desolate 
wilderness.
  They knew the dangers. Some dangers that they didn't know about, they 
learned about. Obviously, the history you know is replete with knowing 
and dealing with disease and the difficulty of traversing the Atlantic 
in the boats coming here, dealing with the engagement with the natives 
here in North America.

  We have for too long now been shunning the bravery and courage of 
those founding settlers who came to this country and gave us the chance 
to have this, the greatest hope the world has ever known, the freest 
and greatest country and one for which I will never apologize.
  We are now an apologetic generation, not a prosperous and genius one. 
Perhaps we should get back to being genius and engaging in prosperity 
and advancing the world rather than retreating in a mist of apology. 
All of those people came here courageously to settle that desolate 
wilderness, and all of those who died and bled did so to preserve and 
protect the values and freedoms that this country not just represents 
but embodies.
  The soul of our country is not blood. The soul of this country is 
freedom. If the freedom that this country represents is no longer able 
to be lived, then the country is dead.
  My goal in this brief spell on this planet--and it is brief--is to 
try to give some honor and glory to the God who created this Earth and 
gave me life, and to stand up for the freedom of my children to do the 
same.
  Living free is more important than a constitution or a country. 
Living free is why we set up this country. If we can't unite, at least 
as Republicans, to defend freedom for our kids and our grandkids, then 
the country is, indeed, not going to survive.
  If instead we go into Thanksgiving and head into Christmas thankful 
for the world that God gave us, uplifted by the knowledge that Jesus 
Christ died on the cross so that we could have eternal life, uplifted 
by what we can accomplish when we come together and live in prosperity 
and live in freedom, then we can again be the shining city on the hill 
and be the greatest country in the history of the Earth. We can drag 
this world forward and defend freedom for ourselves and establish 
stability and prosperity for not just us but around the world because 
everyone knows what we stand for.
  We have to reclaim the banner that the world looks to to know what 
the rule of law means, to know what living under freedom means. That is 
our calling. That is why we are here.
  We are not here for second place. We are not here for apologies. We 
are not here for excuses. We owe it to the poorest among us who look to 
this body to secure the blessings of liberty as the Constitution 
outlined.
  The Constitution doesn't promise you an outcome. It doesn't promise 
you

[[Page H5888]]

a certain way of life. It doesn't promise you prosperity. It gives you 
the freedoms and the structures or the honors, I should say, the 
freedoms and the structures in place so that you can prosper and live 
free--nothing more, nothing less. When we promise more, we are giving 
people less.
  Let us head into the holiday season thankful that we still live in 
the greatest country in the history of the world but resolved to 
protect it, save it, advance it under the principles that made it 
great, not under the false accusations for which we should somehow 
crawl into the corner and apologize rather than recognizing that 
through the turmoil, through the mistakes, through the sins, we have 
thrived and stood tall to pursue righteousness as a country.
  I am, indeed, thankful as a cancer survivor, as a father, as a 
husband. I am thankful to live in the greatest district in the greatest 
State in the greatest country in the history of the world. I am proud 
of it. I am unapologetic for it.
  I am unapologetic for our Nation's founding. I am unapologetic for 
our Nation's advancements. I am unapologetic for the prosperity it has 
produced. I am unapologetic for the blood that we have shed around the 
world, not for tyranny, not for world domination, but for freedom. I 
will never apologize for that.

                              {time}  1330

  I will hold my colleagues on both sides of the aisle accountable--
including myself--for what we promise to do when we take the oath, when 
we campaign, when we come here, when we give speeches, because it is 
our duty to protect this country for our kids and our grandkids.
  We are called in 2 Timothy to finish the race. I am going to leave it 
all on the field, I can tell you that, for my kids. Every time my son 
or my daughter calls me and says, Daddy, when are you coming home--we 
have been here for 10 straight weeks. We were here for 10 out of 12 
weeks before the August break. It has been a long run. It has been a 
run that, as I just articulated, has not produced all the things that I 
would like to produce, but it has produced an observation for the 
American people that we are not going to be deterred in continuing to 
fight for what is right and to change this institution to restore it to 
the people's House.
  I am not going to fly home, look at my kids and say, well, I tried. I 
am going fly back home, and I am going to tell my kids, we are just 
beginning. We are just starting. When I am away from you, just like our 
men and women in uniform are away from their kids when they are serving 
overseas, fathers who went away throughout World War II--my father 
didn't know his father until my father was 3 years old. My grandfather 
was in the Pacific. All my colleagues say, oh, I have got to get home. 
I have got to get home for the fundraiser. I have got to get home for 
the football game. We have a job to do. And when I go home and I look 
at my kids, I am going to tell them that the reason I come here is for 
them, and they know that.
  My friend Pat Fallon, who was thinking about not running for 
reelection--a Congressman from Texas in the district where my parents 
used to live, they now live in my district--Pat wasn't going to run for 
reelection. He was going to go back and run for State senate so he 
could be closer to his family and be in the State of Texas.
  His son, according to Pat, convinced him not to do that. Pat's father 
was very proud of him for running for Congress before his father passed 
away a couple years ago. His son said, Dad, you are up there trying to 
do something bigger, and when you are away from here, we miss you, but 
we know why you are doing it.
  To all of our families, to all of our wives, to all of our husbands, 
to all of our children, to all the staff who have been here for 10 
straight weeks, I thank you. I mean that. As a former staffer I know it 
is not easy, especially if you're having to recite a lot of names. 
Thank you for your work.
  To the parents of staff like Lynne Dayer, Jordan's mom, hi, the staff 
is always here. They are always working hard. They always serve us 
respectfully, regardless of what our views are, and I appreciate it. I 
appreciate my staff who work night and day tirelessly trying to defend 
this country just as much as we do.
  It is an honor to serve in this House, but we owe the courtesy to the 
people that we represent to honor them by fighting for them.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________