[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 197 (Thursday, November 30, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H6032-H6037]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE AMERICAN DREAM

  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.


                             General Leave

  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material on the topic of this Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, we are sitting here on the precipice of 
entering December, a month in which those of us who profess the 
Christian faith and belief in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, 
celebrate his birth into this world to give the world, and each and 
every one of us in it, hope for eternal life and eternal salvation.
  We are immeasurably blessed to live in a country where we can carry 
out our faith and exercise our beliefs.
  It is critically important that we just came out of the weekend of 
Thanksgiving. At Thanksgiving, of course, we are thankful to live in a 
country in which we have In God We Trust emblazoned over the dais on 
which the Speaker sits in front of the American flag.
  The Wall Street Journal eloquently prints every Wednesday before 
Thanksgiving ``The Desolate Wilderness'' editorial that has run in that 
paper for--I don't know--probably some 60 years.
  It eloquently lays out all of the hardships that faced those 
Europeans who came to the North American Continent, and what it was 
like, and what they experienced going out into the desolate wilderness, 
and what that meant for mankind throughout the world.
  I am always struck at how often we, as Americans in this generation 
and in this day and age, are too often either actually apologetic or 
forced to be apologetic or taught to be apologetic for being American, 
for our existence as Americans because of both actual and, frankly, 
perceived or taught past wrongs.
  I started this talking about my Christian faith. My colleagues and 
constituents and people across this country who share that faith know 
that we are taught in Romans that we all fall short of the glory of God 
for we are all sinners.

  That is inherently true. It is true in the United States. It is true 
in Great Britain. It is true in Russia and China and throughout the 
world. We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God.
  The thing that is unique about this country is that we have set up a 
system that is designed to protect us against the worst impulses of man 
in terms of the centralization of power in the hands of a few to be 
used tyrannically against the many.
  That is the great gift that we have inherited from our forefathers 
who bled, died, and fought so that we could live here and live free, so 
that we could exercise our conscience, so that we could live according 
to the dictates of our conscience.
  That is why I am thankful. That is what I was thankful for over 
Thanksgiving because that is what it is supposed to be about.
  It is not just about the football game. It is not just about the 
turkey. It is not just about Friendsgiving or whatever people talk 
about these days.
  It is a specific holiday about our thankfulness as Americans and why 
that is so critically important to the ethos of being an American 
because you aren't an American simply because of DNA or blood.
  You are an American because of the idea that is embodied in this 
Chamber, in the people's House. It is for that reason that I came to 
the House floor on the Thursday before we adjourned for Thanksgiving 
week, after this body had passed by a suspension of the rules--that is, 
without the normal debate process, without the regular order that was 
such a central part of the debates last year in this body--we passed 
through suspension of the rules some $400 billion to $500 billion of 
additional spending up and through late January and early February of 
2024.
  I found that then, and I continue to find it to be repulsive, that 
that is how we would conduct business, that that is how we would carry 
out the business of the people's House.
  I made clear then that I thought that it was destructive and that it 
was carrying on the continued policies of the previous regime passed 
last December over the loud objections of my colleagues on this side of 
the aisle to pass a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill chock full of 
leftist priorities that are destroying the American Dream--nothing 
short of that.
  A Wall Street Journal poll from this month found that only 36 percent 
of voters said the American Dream still holds true.
  The American Dream is dying because Americans' government is failing 
them. It is actively working against them, and our people feel it.
  Our country, our society, our culture, our people, the people we 
represent, are in deep despair. $11,400. According to ``CBS News,'' the 
typical American household must spend an additional $11,434 annually 
just to maintain the same standard of living they enjoyed in January of 
2021.
  That is a problem. The average American family in this country is 
hurting. I watched the Democrat White House press secretary walk up to 
the microphone and just dismiss it and just pretend that the average 
American family is totally fine and can walk right out and go buy their 
Thanksgiving dinner, and there is no harm, no foul. They are all good. 
The Biden administration policies and the Democrat policies, they are 
having no negative effect. Ignore these numbers. Ignore the cost of 
goods and buying food. Ignore the cost of housing. Ignore the cost of 
car ownership. That is what this administration wants the American 
people to do.
  Our constituents are literally being priced out of the American Dream 
of owning a home. My staff, making decent money relative to some people 
in the world, come to me and say, I don't know how to buy a house. I 
don't know how I can possibly ever buy a house, certainly not in the 
Nation's Capitol.
  Housing prices have nearly doubled since 2010. In the second quarter 
of 2023, the median home price was $416,100. In 2010, it was $219,500.
  In May of 2023, median mortgage payments hit an all-time high of 
$2,165 a month. According to The Wall Street Journal, the buyer of a 
typical home faces a monthly principal and interest payment of nearly 
$2,200, more than double the level of early 2021. Goldman Sachs' 
Housing Affordability Index hit a new record low in August.
  That is just homes. What about cars, kind of the second biggest 
expense? Americans can't even afford to purchase a car because of the 
efforts of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and this 
administration to ban the internal combustion engine in pursuit of 
unicorn energy policies that are going to do nothing to actually reduce 
CO2, and they are driving the American people into 
bankruptcy with an inability to afford an automobile to go about their 
lives and their jobs.
  A new car costs $50,000, nearly double the cost just 10 years ago. 
Electric vehicles are piling up on the lots of dealers across this 
country because the American people know they can't work for them. They 
can't afford them. They can't stop to charge like the Secretary of 
Energy did when she showed up and made a pregnant woman and her family 
get out of the way for a photo op while she charged her EV driving 
across the country.
  That is the truth. The truth of this administration and my Democratic 
colleagues is they are perfectly content, as they have admitted to me 
in the Rules Committee and on this floor, to drive the American family 
into bankruptcy so they can pursue climate change reform.

[[Page H6033]]

  That is absolutely a dereliction of duty on the part of the 
leadership of this country. When we have 250 coal-fired plants in this 
country and China has 1,100, and they are building two a week and we 
are building none, and we think we are going to dent CO2 by 
forcing American families into expensive electric vehicles, the 
batteries for which are produced by our enemies in China with elements 
that are mined by child labor across the world, that is what this 
Democratic Party stands for.
  They are bankrupting American families, empowering our enemies, 
undermining our national security, and exploiting child labor, all in 
pursuit of things cooked up by radical leftists and universities, all 
enriching, by the way, through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act 
massive billion-dollar corporations with subsidies from taxpayers. That 
is the truth.
  We are destroying the American Dream through the policies 
specifically chosen by my Democratic colleagues in the White House, in 
this body, and in the Senate.
  This administration's EPA has issued a rule to make two-thirds of new 
vehicles electric by 2032. That is in a mere 8 years.
  This body didn't vote on that. The administration could do it by 
fiat. That is not how this is supposed to work.
  That was my point in the opening of this speech. This country is 
designed to protect against power resting in the hands of a few being 
exploited against the many.
  There are 330 million people in this country whose lives are getting 
decimated and destroyed while this administration tyrannically uses its 
power in the bureaucratic and executive branch to level the American 
Dream.

                              {time}  1745

  The average EV costs $16,000 more than an internal combustion engine 
equivalent.
  When I asked my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the 
Rules Committee: Well, do you think that is worth it? They say yes. 
They say yes.
  They want every American family to have to cough up another $16,000 
for an imperceptible, ineffective, alleged reduction in CO2 
production. Meanwhile, we haven't done anything to produce nuclear 
power, which is actually reliable.
  The American people fully recognize that their lives have been 
upended. They are not 100 percent sure why, although I think they are 
starting to figure it out as they watch the President of the United 
States dawdling along, completely unaware of what is going on, while 
the bureaucrats in the administration are cooking up all these schemes 
to use their bureaucratic powers to undermine the American Dream and 
drive up the price of cars; drive up the price of oil; vehicles; drive 
up the goods and services; drive up the price of houses; spend money we 
don't have; rising interest rates.
  The Federal Government spent $2 trillion more than it took in in 
fiscal year 2023. We spent a total of $4.4 trillion in 2019. In 2023, 
we spent over $6 trillion. Our national debt is somewhere around 
$33.865 trillion, and we are doing nothing about it.
  Earlier this week, my friend Jodey Arrington, the chairman of the 
Budget Committee had a hearing on debt commissions. It is important and 
it is good that we have those hearings and figure out what we are going 
to do on a bipartisan basis. However, I have to be very honest, if we 
cannot in this body figure out how to limit even just the discretionary 
spending being used to fund bureaucrats and laws and regulations that 
are undermining our freedom--driving up the price of cars; driving up 
the price of houses; funding a Department of Justice to go target a guy 
like Scott Smith, a dad in Loudon County; funding an EPA to go shut 
down people's livelihoods; arrest a guy on his ranch for building a 
pond; funding a DOJ to go after some of my colleagues--if we can't 
reduce that spending as Republicans, then how in God's green earth are 
we going to sit down and stare an elderly American in the face and tell 
them that we are going to do something with their Social Security 
benefits or Medicare benefits.
  We are not. I have to be honest, we have been profoundly unserious in 
this body, on both sides of the aisle, about spending and about the 
abuse of power that we fund with taxpayer dollars and borrowed dollars 
to fund a bureaucracy that is at war with the American people and at 
war with the American Dream. That is the truth.
  In my Thursday speech just prior to adjourning for the Thanksgiving 
recess, I noted fairly explicitly and pointedly that we had not 
produced a significant win for the American people in this Chamber this 
Congress.
  I asked the question: What have we done? And all of my colleagues 
that are sitting around the complex, I asked then and I ask now: Come 
to the floor and come tell me what we have been able to do through this 
body, the Senate, and the White House. What have we been able to do in 
the last year to make the lives of the American people better, to make 
them more free, to secure their border, to make their country more 
secure, or to make their military more focused on its mission rather 
than social engineering?
  I know what we have done here on the Republican side. We have passed 
a lot of good stuff through the hard work of my colleagues unifying 
around passing a strong National Defense Authorization bill that undoes 
the abortion tourism, the transgender surgery, the DEI, the critical 
race theory that is destroying the mission and the soul and the culture 
of the United States military, driving down recruiting and making us 
less safe and secure.
  We passed the strongest border security bill we have ever passed. We 
did that here united as Republicans. We passed seven appropriations 
bills. We are on the precipice of passing more appropriations bills to 
take the power out of the hands of a few and return it to the body.
  We have done a number of great things fighting here as Republicans, 
but they don't mean a thing if we are not willing to sit down at the 
negotiation table and look at our Democratic colleagues in the Senate 
and look at the President of the United States and tell him: This is 
how it is going to be done or you are not going to get your funding. 
This is how it is going to be done or don't even think about another 
dollar for Ukraine.
  That is my message to my Republican colleagues who, frankly, are 
getting a little too wound up at that question I asked: What have we 
done?
  The simplest solution to your frustration about that question being 
asked is to have an answer.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), 
my friend, and wonder if he might agree.
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I do agree. Whether it is in your personal 
life, your business life, your family life--anything at all--your 
family, the people, your colleagues around you, the people that you 
work around demand some deliverable. Deliverable might be showing up on 
time with a good attitude, but at least you delivered something.
  I remember that speech from my good friend, the gentleman from Texas, 
because I watched it. He started out and he said: What the hell is 
wrong with this country?
  Well, nothing is wrong with this country. The problem is with this 
place.
  There are a lot of good people on this side of the aisle, and maybe 
we haven't produced a deliverable, but I would also say this: There has 
been no help, no help at all from the other side of the building, the 
other side of the aisle or down the street at the White House; no help 
at all.
  I have car manufacturers now coming to see me and they are saying: 
Well, we are forced to build these electric cars; nobody wants them. 
Then when they don't have anything else to buy, they buy them. And then 
they don't work, so they bring them back in and they trade them in for 
something else, and then they sit there and we can't sell them. 
Congressman, what are you going to do for me?

  My goodness, Joe Biden is the President.
  The regulators, every single day another rule, another regulation, 
they just keep coming and coming.
  Members of Congress, I don't know that we are irrelevant, but if we 
are not willing to stop funding these agencies that keep on prevailing 
against the American people, well that is what we are going to be.
  The Founders made each body to jealously guard its own power. Instead 
of jealously guarding our power, we

[[Page H6034]]

have given it to bureaucrats; nameless, faceless people that have an 
agenda that pass rules with the force of law. These rules that spend 
all this money make your Thanksgiving dinner more expensive.
  My mom went out to get a turkey for our family. My mom makes a turkey 
for our family and we all get together. She called her son up to say 
that the turkey costs $70.
  Mr. Speaker, from lettuce to lumber, people can't afford in America 
just to live their lives. They can't afford their bills; they can't 
afford groceries; they can't afford gas in their car; they can't afford 
their credit card payments while they try and just live the life that 
they have lived.
  As the slide or the poster over there shows, their bills have gone up 
that much. They are paying, between the government and the increased 
cost, an extra month of their pay; every year an extra month for things 
that they didn't have to just 3 years ago.
  This body is the only one that has the power of the purse. This is 
the only body that can control the spending that is driving up every 
single cost, every single cost. It starts here.
  If we don't have the courage--we can have the conviction--people vote 
for their Member saying: Well, this guy said when he goes to 
Washington, he is going to fight the swamp. He is going to fight the 
bureaucracy. He is going to fight the spending. However, when the bill 
shows up on the floor and we see the amendment up there, oh, my 
goodness, every single time you get 100 votes, 150 votes.
  Mr. Speaker, it takes 217 to pass these amendments to cut spending. 
If you said you are going to cut spending at home, then your 
opportunity happens right here on the floor. If you are not going to do 
it here, if you are not going to vote that way, don't go home to your 
constituents and say, I am sorry you can't afford lettuce and a holiday 
turkey. I am sorry you can't afford your bills: your car payment, your 
home payment, your insurance payment, your heating bill. I am sorry you 
can't afford it--because I didn't do anything to help you. Your 
opportunity, the leverage, the moment is here. It is now.
  We have been working on spending bills for months, and the reason 
that we can't pass them here is because we are spending too much.
  Oh, by the way, that is a fight among this side of the aisle that 
actually some of us want to do something to save our constituents from 
this overbearing weight of the Federal Government and the regulatory 
agencies--and I have to say this to my good friend from Texas--with no 
help whatsoever from the other side of the aisle. No help.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Pennsylvania is 100 percent 
correct. This was a point that I made in the remarks I made right 
before Thanksgiving, which is what are we going to say that we have 
accomplished, other than to say that we are less bad than Democrats.
  That is my question here for my Republican colleagues. When we are 
getting zero help from our Democrat colleagues, who are intent on 
spending money we don't have to fund bureaucrats; to undermine our 
freedom; our way of life; our ability to afford our lives; our ability 
to have jobs; our ability to have a secure border; our ability to have 
secure streets; our ability to have education that is controlled by 
parents and not by leftist bureaucrats; our ability to have a military 
that can defend our country rather than being woke and socially 
engineered, we get zero help from our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle.
  Which means what? It means that this Republican majority has to unite 
and ensure that we are going to force Senate Democrats and the 
President to come to the table using the leverage that we have for the 
things that they want.
  The Senate majority leader has professed a desire that we continue to 
fund a proxy war in Ukraine. It is very well documented. The President 
of the United States, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle in this Chamber, want us to 
continue to fund a proxy war in Ukraine.
  Now, we can have that debate on the floor of the House. We can debate 
the merits of it. We can debate how much it should be lethal aid versus 
not. We can debate how to make it more transparent; debate how to make 
it more focused, or whether to do it at all, but a fundamental and core 
question that ought to be asked: Why would we ever debate giving 
another dollar to Ukraine when our borders are wide open, Americans are 
being killed and endangered by cartels and fentanyl and violence and 
terrorists and gang members that come across our border, and this 
administration refuses to do a thing about it?
  Why, to my friend from Pennsylvania, would we even utter the word 
Ukraine on the floor of the House ever again until we have H.R. 2, the 
strong border security bill that we passed, signed into law by the 
President of the United States, metrics guaranteeing and demonstrating 
that we do not have continued flow and automatic entry and releases 
into the United States?
  Why would we do that?
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, there is no reason that we should do it. 
There is not a person in this Chamber on that side of the aisle or this 
side of the aisle that agrees with Vladimir Putin, the Russian 
Federation, the invasion of Ukraine, the atrocities that have been 
committed there. There is not one person that agrees with it.

  At the same time, our country is under assault, our country is being 
invaded, and our country can't afford its bills.
  Before we have the audacity, the temerity to demand, under force of 
law, that our citizens get up in the morning, go to work, and pay their 
taxes to pay for the pensions and the salaries of government workers in 
Ukraine--my goodness, are we tone deaf to the fact that the people in 
this country, the people in the gentleman from Texas' communities, and 
the people that I represent, can't afford to pay their bills? They 
can't afford to pay their bills.
  None of us agree with what is happening overseas in regard to 
Ukraine, but we have a duty. We were not elected by Ukrainian citizens. 
We were elected by United States citizens, American citizens that are 
paying their taxes under penalty of law.
  They will be thrown in jail if they don't pay their taxes. It is the 
height of insult and injury to tell them you have to pay your taxes and 
you can't afford a holiday meal, but you can rest assured that that 
money is going to go over to Ukraine to pay for their salaries and 
their pensions.
  The American people are sick of it. They sent us here to do something 
about it, and every time we have an opportunity, every single time we 
have an opportunity, we need to seize that opportunity.
  Quite honestly, it just comes down to this, Mr. Roy, when the Senate 
demands this, when the President demands it, the Speaker of House, this 
Republican majority, respectfully, just says no.

                              {time}  1800

  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I agree with my friend from Pennsylvania.
  While he is still on the floor, I will close with a couple of 
questions.
  I assume that the gentleman from Pennsylvania, my friend, when he ran 
for Congress, and when he has run every term since, he ran under a 
promise to fight to reduce and cut Federal spending. I assume that is 
correct.
  Mr. PERRY. That is correct.
  Mr. ROY. To my friend from Pennsylvania, do you think that it is a 
fulfillment of your promise and pledge to work here to try to cut 
spending to pass continuing resolutions that fund government at the 
preceding year's astronomically high spending levels, particularly that 
of Nancy Pelosi's $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill? Does my friend 
think that gets it done?
  Mr. PERRY. Of course not. My constituents, my bosses, just like your 
bosses, were vehemently opposed to that last December's cram-down of 
all this money to all kinds of things, omnibus spending, everything in 
there. They didn't want it, and as a signal to what we would do if we 
governed, Republicans, every single one, voted against it.
  Now, 9 or 10 months later, we are supposed to act like, well, we 
didn't get our work done so we are just going to continue that, but 
don't worry about it. Forget about what happened 9 or 10 months ago.
  The American people have not forgotten. Do you know how I know they

[[Page H6035]]

have not forgotten? Because I was at the grocery store on Monday before 
I came here, and a woman came up to me with her grocery cart. She 
recognized me and said: Don't the people that you work with grocery 
shop? Don't they know how much this costs?
  She knows, and she demands that we do better and that I be 
accountable and not vote for things I voted against 9 months ago and 
just act like they are okay. They are not okay 9 months later.
  Mr. ROY. That woman, your constituent, recognizes the impact from the 
policies of this current administration and, frankly, I must say, the 
policies that are perpetuated by this body, including some on both 
sides of the aisle that have resulted in families having to spend 
$11,400 more just to break even to where they were at the beginning of 
this administration.
  The question is, what are we going to do about it? I mean, I think 
that is the fundamental question. Did your constituents send you here 
to file bills, to file amendments, to simply vote, and then say: Oh, 
isn't it so great that we voted and passed something out of committee? 
Do your constituents know when we pass something out of committee, as a 
general matter? Do they know how many bills you have filed? Do they 
know whether or not you got some amendment inserted in whatever unless 
you tell them? Or are they looking for results? Do they want the border 
to actually be secure? Do they want spending to actually go down so 
there is less inflation and they can afford to live?
  Do they want us to have a military that is focused rather than woke? 
Do they want us to deliver results, or do they just want us to sit up 
here and pound our chest about how we got certain bills introduced and 
I got some vote on some measure on the floor of the House?
  Mr. PERRY. I imagine my district is just like yours.
  I visited a local construction company with 400 hardworking 
Americans. Men and women come in. They have steel-toed boots on, jeans, 
jackets with stains on them. They come in out of the cold. They don't 
have time to worry about what amendment or bill you got passed through 
the House but there was no signature.
  Here is what they worry about, to my friend from Texas, and I think 
your bosses feel the same way: We sent you to Washington to make our 
lives better. My prices are going up. My selections are going down, and 
my choices are going down. The government is imposing itself on me 
about whether I want to install a gas stove in my home or whether I 
want to speak out about my political views and not end up on some list, 
or if I want to go deer hunting today and worry that I got the wrong 
ammunition or that my gun isn't configured so that the Federal 
Government doesn't come arrest me.
  They say: We are counting on you to do this, so don't come home and 
talk to us about amendments and bills and ``I had a meeting with,'' 
because it doesn't affect my life. All the things that are happening to 
me every day from this administration are affecting my life. I am sick 
of it, and I am sending you down there to stop it.
  Mr. ROY. I assume your constituents, like mine, totally understand 
that we don't have both Chambers and the White House. They know that we 
can't move all the mountains. Nevertheless, they want us not to just 
shrug and give up and send a bill over to the Senate and say, ``Sorry, 
we don't have the Senate. Blame Chuck Schumer,'' and then go campaign.
  Even when we had the majority in the House, had a majority in the 
Senate, and had the White House, how many times did you hear the 
excuse: ``Oh, I am sorry, Congressman Perry. We don't have 60 votes in 
the Senate.'' Did you ever hear that one?
  Mr. PERRY. There is always some excuse. When we have the House or the 
Senate, or we have both and the Presidency, there is always some excuse 
for why it can't be done.
  I will tell you this. There is no excuse for the radical march of the 
left creeping into everybody's life, into every decision that you make, 
into everything you do. It just keeps happening.
  Our bosses are not down here in Washington, D.C. They don't 
understand committee rules and the process here on the floor. What they 
understand is that they are getting up in the morning when it is dark 
outside, packing their lunch, and kissing their kids good-bye before 
they get on the schoolbus, and they don't know why this is happening to 
them, but they sure know it is happening.
  They think about the extra costs every single week when they are 
trying to manage their budget. They are like: ``We are making more 
money, but we still can't afford to live the way we did. We can't 
afford our food. We can't afford, heaven forbid, if the car breaks 
down.'' No, they don't understand why.

  What they demand, to the good gentleman from Texas, is results, is 
some product. They don't care about why it can't be done. They are not 
asking for everything to change overnight. They know we didn't get here 
overnight, but they want something, some win, to show them some light 
at the end of this tunnel, but there isn't any. I haven't seen one yet.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the good gentleman from Pennsylvania. 
He is a good friend, and I am honored to serve with him. I agree with 
him.
  I will say that our constituents don't send us to Washington to 
campaign. They don't send us to Washington to run around trying to 
figure out how we are going to score some political victory and set up 
votes so we can run against our colleagues.
  Our constituents recognize that our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle are continuing to leave them behind and ignore them in 
pursuit of fantasy energy policies, woke ideology, and radical leftist 
views of open borders that empower our enemies and endanger Americans. 
They fully get that.
  They expect us to stand up and fight for them. They expect us to do 
the right thing and then let the voters decide.
  I would submit that it is a critical juncture in this country, that 
we are facing existential threats, that it is critical that the 200 and 
however many Republicans we have right now unite together and go over 
to the Senate to tell the Senate that we have to solve problems for the 
American people, secure borders, strengthen our military, reduce 
spending, get inflation down, make the American people believe that the 
American Dream exists again.
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, before I go, I will say that the gentleman 
from Texas is right. We have to unite so that we can be effective 
against these forces of evil that are destroying the American Dream. It 
is not uniting for the sake of uniting. It is uniting around a purpose.
  Our bosses are very forgiving. They are very gracious. They 
understand if you fight the good fight and you lose. What they will not 
accept, what they cannot accept, and what they should not accept is not 
fighting at all or surrendering before the fight even begins.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. I know my colleague is about 
to leave. I know that he appreciates and we share our faith in the good 
Lord and our faith in Jesus Christ. He will appreciate the words of 
Paul in 2 Timothy: I have fought the good fight. I have finished my 
course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the 
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award 
to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved 
him appearing.
  That is obviously a spiritual reference and speaking in spiritual 
terms, but they are the kind of words that I think my friend agrees 
with me should be inspiring us as Members of this body, regardless of 
party, that we advance, that we move forward, that we defend this 
country.
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, that is our job. Our job is to defend this 
Constitution. My constituents, my bosses, know I carry one with me 
every day.
  It is a piece of paper, Mr. Speaker. It cannot defend itself. It 
relies on the integrity, fortitude, courage, and conviction of good 
people willing to come here to serve and fight on its behalf, like the 
good gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania. When I 
started this speech, I talked about The Wall Street Journal poll from 
this month finding that only 36 percent of voters said the American 
Dream still holds true and that our country, our society, is in deep 
despair and needs help. I talked about the $11,400, according to CBS, 
that the typical American

[[Page H6036]]

household must spend additionally every year just to maintain the same 
standard of living that they enjoyed in January 2021.
  The fact of the matter is, the American people are suffering. We in 
this body know it, yet we are doing nothing about it. All we are doing 
is making it worse by spending more money we don't have, indebting our 
children and grandchildren.
  We are now $34 trillion in debt, and all I get from my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle is lip service about taxes when we have 
been bringing in revenue to the Treasury at the top level we have ever 
done in the history of this country, 19.2 percent. We have plenty of 
revenue. What we refuse to do is deal with our spending problem, 
promises that we have made but cannot honestly deliver on without 
printing money.
  I talked about the extent to which the average American family can no 
longer afford a car. A new car costs $50,000, nearly double what it 
cost 10 years ago. Why? Because of absurd regulations and mandates 
coming out of this administration unilaterally, through bureaucrats, 
backed up by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle passing 
legislation to mandate EVs that are piling up on the lots of 
dealerships that people can't afford and that don't allow them to do 
their job. Debt is piling up. Interest rates are going up. Houses are 
unaffordable.
  With healthcare, Americans are expected to spend $6,500 for a family 
policy and $1,400 for an individual. They are expecting 2024 premiums 
to increase 8 percent for group rates. Healthcare is completely 
unaffordable for the average American.
  All this is happening as Big Healthcare gets richer, and the Federal 
Government continues to flood more money into the market. Big Insurance 
revenue is $1.25 trillion. The CBO estimates Federal subsidies to 
health insurance for Americans under 65 will reach $1 trillion.
  Nobody in America knows what these numbers mean. What they mean is 
you can't afford healthcare, can't go to the doctor, and can't choose 
the doctor of your choice.
  We are enriching bureaucrats and healthcare companies. We are 
enriching bureaucrats, pharma, hospitals, and Big Insurance. We are 
doing it through crony capitalism that was inflated under ObamaCare.
  I have a constituent who came up to me last week who is on ObamaCare 
and can't go to MD Anderson for the cancer that is killing her, yet my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle pat themselves on the back 
for coverage.
  I would like to know if any of my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle want to call up my constituent and congratulate her for having 
coverage she can't use. She can't use it to go get healthcare while we 
enrich the insurance companies at levels they were never enriched 
before, while we devastate them. She literally can't go get the care 
she needs under the coverage of ObamaCare, while healthcare companies 
are rolling in money.
  I can't go back to MD Anderson, if my cancer comes back, on the plan 
that I would have under ObamaCare as a Member of Congress. That is the 
truth.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle pretend that it is not 
devastating the American family that we are driving up the cost of 
healthcare, making it impossible to get the doctor of your choice, 
making it impossible for people to live and enjoy the American Dream.
  On the southern border in Texas, my constituents text and call me 
every single day--every day. I have constituents and friends in south 
Texas calling me about the devastation being wrought in south Texas.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't care. They don't 
care about the little girls getting sold into the sex trafficking 
trade, the almost 1,000 migrants who died along the Rio Grande and 
southern border last year. They don't care about the fentanyl pouring 
into Texas that is killing my constituents. Last year, I had six kids 
die in the school district I live in from fentanyl poisoning. It is 
pouring into our communities through wide open borders, and everybody 
knows it.
  Mayorkas goes down to the border and won't even apologize to the 
Border Patrol agents he accused of whipping people, which didn't 
happen.

                              {time}  1815

  Mr. Speaker, there have been 6.6 million illegal aliens since January 
21 and 1.7 million known got-aways. That is bigger than the entire 
population of San Antonio, Texas, which I represent and is the seventh 
largest city. We don't know who they are.
  I had members of the Texas legislature showing me videos of people 
they saw over Thanksgiving weekend in south Texas, single adult males 
running away from Border Patrol. If you are running away from Border 
Patrol in 2023, I assure you it is because you are up to no good.
  The entire world knows that if you come here and you go up to Border 
Patrol and you say the word asylum, you are going to get released into 
the United States.
  Texas is under siege. We spent $12.5 billion of our own money to do 
the job the Federal Government refuses to do, while my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle, Secretary Mayorkas, President Biden, 
Senate Democrats, and Chuck Schumer ignore the crisis and pretend that 
sending more money down to process more people will make a damn 
difference. It won't.
  Texas would be well within its rights to tell this Federal Government 
to go straight to hell. Stop sending any tax receipts and do what we 
need to do to secure Texas. Frankly, Governor Abbott should do that. 
Shut off the flow across the border because this Federal Government 
refuses to do it.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't care. The fact of 
the matter is, this current Democrat administration and my Democratic 
colleagues are all too fine while the American family suffers, losing 
the American Dream. They have $11,000 of additional costs every year 
under this administration. Kids die in their schools from fentanyl. 
People pour into communities in Texas and Arizona and throughout the 
country. They are piling up in New York, so bad that they had to cut a 
deal to move them onto military installations and Federal properties.
  All of our streets are unsafe because DAs refuse to enforce the 
laws--funded by George Soros--DAs in Texas and throughout this country. 
Literally, the DA in San Antonio, it was just reported, has dismissed 
more than 6,000 criminal cases in the first 3 months of 2023. That is a 
50 percent rise in dismissed cases.
  One of these dismissed cases led career criminal Michael Kirkland to 
be free to shoot at police officers and motorists in San Antonio while 
evading arrest, leading to an officer being injured this past August. 
Those are the policies of this Democrat regime and of Democrats across 
this country.
  Violent crime is surging, borders are open, fentanyl is pouring into 
our schools, inflation is up, interest rates are up, and life 
expectancy is down.
  The fact of the matter is, Republicans have a duty to check this 
administration and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. It is 
why I demand and implore my Republican colleagues that we answer the 
question: What have we done?
  I can assure you my Democratic colleagues--the answer to what they 
have done is destroy the Republic by passing legislation that bankrupts 
the American family, pursuing unicorn energy policies, forcing EVs to 
pile up on dealership lots, driving families into bankruptcy, and now 
they are unable to afford houses.
  Democrats are actively doing that. Republicans basically say, well, 
we got elected, we are at least stopping that. We are at least stopping 
the passage of really bad bills, like the so-called Inflation Reduction 
Act or the American Rescue Plan. These bills all spend money we don't 
have. It is driving us into debt, funding and enriching White, elitist 
liberals in their big, supposedly, green corporations.
  Every time Republicans run for office we make a lot of promises about 
things like cutting spending, shrinking bureaucracy, or securing the 
border. That is what you do when you run for office, you make a lot of 
promises. You make a lot of pledges.
  We don't have the luxury of grading ourselves on our intentions. The 
road to hell is paved with good intentions. The American people, the 
history books, and the good Lord are going to

[[Page H6037]]

judge based on the actions we take and the results we deliver and 
whether or not we deliver for the American people.
  To deliver for the American people, Republicans must force the Senate 
Democratic leadership, Majority Leader Schumer, and President Biden, to 
understand a handful of very key truths. Under no circumstances should 
we give another dollar to Ukraine. No bills should come to the House 
floor until H.R. 2 is signed by the President and the flow stops across 
our southern border.
  That ought to be the very clear message that is sent to the President 
and Majority Leader Schumer. If my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle and the Senate want to choose to refuse to secure the border, 
then they can call up Mr. Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine and 
explain why.
  They can explain that it is more important to keep open borders in 
America and undermine our sovereignty and our security and our well-
being. They can call up Israel and explain to Israel that they refuse 
to actually fund support for Israel because they are more interested in 
funding Internal Revenue Service bureaucrats to go after the American 
people.
  That is what our Democratic colleagues in the Senate have chosen to 
do, and they know it. They know it. We pass a bipartisan bill that 
chooses to move dollars that were allocated to expand the IRS to go 
after the American people, take those dollars and give it to our 
friends from Israel. Our Democratic colleagues in the Senate, on a 
party-line vote, voted no.
  They refused to fund our friends in Israel because they were more 
committed to the leftist makeover of this country. They are more 
committed to open borders than they are to securing the communities of 
the American people and allowing us to have a full and open debate 
about Ukraine and how we can proceed to fund our government.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people are sick of excuses. They want us to 
do our job. I understand the difficulty of dealing with a razor-thin 
majority with colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have no 
interest in doing the things that we want to do to secure the United 
States, secure our border, reduce spending, reduce inflation, focus the 
military on what it needs to be focused on, and to do our job under the 
Constitution in our limited powers. I understand the difficulty of 
that.

  We have done a great job and we have been united as a Republican 
Party to send good bills over to the Senate. Now we should hold the 
Senate accountable to doing the work of the American people to follow 
up on what we have already done. To send a border security bill, H.R. 
2, that would do the job of securing the border. Sending a National 
Defense Authorization bill that would restore our military to its 
mission rather than social engineering.
  There are seven appropriations bills, and others that are ready to go 
if our Democratic colleagues on the other side of the Capitol in the 
Senate will sit down with us to actually reduce spending year over year 
from 2023 to 2024. We can constrain spending. We can constrain 
inflation. We can constrain the bureaucrats that are interfering with 
the lives of the American people and undermining their freedom and 
their ability to produce and prosper according to their God-given 
talents.
  Voters are watching what we are doing. They are watching whether we 
are going to stand up and actually do our job, and whether or not we 
are going to deliver for them rather than engaging in lip service. I 
think we need to do our job.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________