Declaring the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of the privileges of the House and offer the resolution I previously noticed.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Oklahoma says that my colleagues and I who don't support Kevin McCarthy would plunge the House and the country into chaos. Chaos is Speaker McCarthy. Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word.

The one thing that the White House, House Democrats, and many of us on the conservative side of the Republican caucus would argue is that the thing we have in common, Kevin McCarthy said something to all of us at one point or another that he didn't really mean and never intended to live up to.

I don't think voting against Kevin McCarthy is chaos. I think $33 trillion in debt is chaos. I think that facing a $2.2 trillion annual deficit is chaos. I think that not passing single-subject spending bills is chaos. I think the fact that we have been governed in this country since the mid-1990s by continuing resolution and omnibus is chaos. The way to liberate ourselves from that is a series of reforms to this body that I would hope would outlast Speaker McCarthy's time here, would outlast my time here, and would outlast either of our majorities.

Mr. Speaker, these are reforms that I have heard some of the most conservative Members of this body fight for and some of the reforms that we have been battling for that I have even heard those in the Democratic Caucus say would be worthy and helpful to the House--like open amendments and understanding what the budget is.

We have been out of compliance with budget laws for most of my life and most of many of your lives. By the way, if we did those things, if we had single-subject bills, if we had an understanding on the top line, if we had open amendments, if we had trust and honesty and understanding, there would be times when my conservative colleagues and I would lose. There might be a few times when we would win. There would be times when we would form partnerships that might otherwise not be really predictable in the American body politic, but the American people would see us legislating.

These last few days, we have suspended the momentum that we had established the week earlier when we were bringing bills to the floor, voting on them, and staying late at night working hard. That is what the American people expect. It is something Speaker McCarthy hasn't delivered. That is why I moved to vacate the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the opening line of my colleague's speech was that Speaker McCarthy always overperforms expectations, but after tweeting ``bring it'' and after engaging in profane-laced tirades at House Conference, he just lost a motion to table. I wouldn't necessarily consider that overperforming expectations.

Time and again, I have heard my colleagues say: Well, he deserves it because he went through a tough Speaker contest. Let me let everyone know, he prevailed in that Speaker contest because he made an agreement to fulfill certain commitments to make this an open and honest process, and he has failed to meet those commitments. That is why we are here.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the problem with my friend from Ohio's argument is that many of the bills he referenced as having passed are not law. We are on a fast track to an omnibus bill, and it is difficult to champion oversight when House Republicans haven't even sent a subpoena to Hunter Biden. It is hard to make the argument that oversight is the reason to continue when it sort of looks like failure theater.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing selfish about wanting a Speaker of the House who tells the truth. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing sober, wise, or cautious about the path we are on. We are on a path to financial ruin if this House does not take a different posture, a different procedure, and yield toward different outcomes and a better future. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to my remaining time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I think I have caught the signal, too. The signal is for $33 trillion in debt, facing $2.2 trillion annual deficits. Our fellow Americans may be watching and wondering, how does that happen? How does the greatest country in the world have a process so broken that it would be laughed out of the rooms in the halls of the State legislatures where many of us come from?

Here is how it works. The law says we are supposed to have the very single-subject spending bills that my colleague referenced in the summer; that we are supposed to have that and move it. But there is a dirty little secret in this town, and that is, if you delay, if you hold the bills, if you make multiple contradictory promises--as Speaker McCarthy has done--and you back everybody up against shutdown politics, well, nobody wants to shut the government down. No one cheers for a shutdown and, of course, when people are backed up against shutdown politics, the decision calculus changes.

So year after year, decade after decade, we break the law, and we do the same thing. We pass a continuing resolution, then we pass another continuing resolution, and then it is either another continuing resolution or an omnibus bill or a series of minibuses that lump these disparate things together.

The American people want all of us to take votes on single-subject matters. They don't want to see these things all mushed together and logrolled. It was concerning to me to hear of a secret deal on Ukraine funding that would have logrolled more money with Ukraine with our southern border.

Now, how offensive is that to our Customs and Border Patrol, to our ICE, to the people that are suffering as a consequence of our border that some of my colleagues are only willing to stand up and fight for our border if they can send billions to Ukraine to fund their border, too?

Well, I have had enough of that, and that is why I brought this motion to vacate.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with everything that the majority leader said in those remarks, except one thing. It is astonishing to hear any colleague give Speaker McCarthy credit for moving on to the single-subject appropriations bills.

As you heard my colleague Mr. Biggs say, that was never the plan from Speaker McCarthy. The week before we moved on to those single-subject appropriations bills, the plan was another CR. He pitched a CR. They tried to get us to vote for a CR, and a brave few said we are done governing by continuing resolution. We are here to eulogize the era of the continuing resolution. We will not do it. We will not pass it.

These bills can go. The spending may rise and fall as the years pass, but the notion that we are going to lump in the Department of Education and the Department of Labor with our military and our troops and our Border Patrol is fundamentally unserious, and I would suggest chaotic.

We cannot do that. It was only because we forced that to happen. By the way, if we continue with Speaker McCarthy, the appropriations process will go right back to what he wanted it to go back to--just a sideshow, just a puppet show, just something to keep the hamsters on the hamster wheel as they continue to back people up against a calendar, centralize power with the lobbyists and special interests that move all kinds of money through the leadership. That is how they get their way, and that is why the American people have been getting screwed decade after decade. I am not going to tolerate it anymore without a fight.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am here to solve problems, too, but we have decade after decade of history showing us that you don't solve any problems with continuing resolutions and omnibus bills. That creates more problems, more debt, more inflation, more pain for American families.

So the way to solve problems is to break the fever dream of governing by continuing resolution and omnibus bills and instead return to the very single-subject spending bills that we will only get if my resolution passes to vacate Speaker McCarthy.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is lovely to hear from the principal architect of Mr. McCarthy's debt limit deal, but here is the reality: The only Republicans in America who believe that the debt limit deal was conservative are in this Chamber right now because all over America, Republicans think that when you negotiated that debt limit deal, they took your lunch money.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I will just say that if this House of Representatives has exceeded all expectations, then we definitely need higher expectations.

While it is heartwarming and kind that the Speaker calls people on their birthday and visits their district and congratulates them on their children, please know this isn't a critique of the individual. It is a critique of the job. The job hasn't been done. We have had multiple contradictory promises.

It is quite something, for those of you keeping track at home, the last three speakers you have heard opposing my resolution all voted for the debt deal. So if you believe that the debt limit deal that Speaker McCarthy brought into law was a good thing, maybe you agree with their perspective.

I think the debt limit deal was a terrible deal, and it really was the original sin of the McCarthy speakership, and it is one of the reasons I seek to vacate the Chair now.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague says we have passed the strongest border bills in history. Well, guess what? Look at the border right now.

We didn't use sufficient leverage in the debt limit or in any other thing to actually get results on the border.

The border is a disaster; really something I don't think you are going to be campaigning on that you fixed the border.

Second, the gentleman said he streamlined regulations. What the gentleman from Louisiana doesn't tell you is that all of the regulatory reform he was just bragging about is waivable by the stroke of a pen of someone in the Biden White House.

Do you really think you have anything for that? It is a total joke.

Finally, the Welfare-to-Work that the gentleman from Louisiana said we have, the welfare programs that they said they streamlined with their Welfare-to-Work stuff, they are actually going to grow. While they did work requirements, they blew out those programs of expanded eligibility.

I am really glad my colleagues didn't put work requirements on Medicaid. It probably would have resulted in Medicaid expansion.

When it comes to how those raise money, I take no lecture on asking patriotic Americans to weigh in and contribute to this fight from those who would grovel and bend knee for the lobbyists and special interests who own our leadership, who have--oh, boo all you want--who have hollowed out this town and have borrowed against the future of our future generations.

I will be happy to fund my political operation through the work of hardworking Americans, $10, $20, and $30 at a time. My colleagues can keep showing up at the lobbyists' fundraisers and see how that goes for you.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, to be clear, I tried to get one of the three podiums on the Republican side, and my colleagues wouldn't let me have them, so they sent me over here.

Mr. Speaker, you know what, I will make this argument at any desk in this building, from the well, from the Chair. I will make it on every street corner in this country that Washington must change.

We have to break the cycle. We have to break the fever. I would hope, truly, that the reforms that we are fighting for are reforms that would last and be embraced and that would democratize power in this institution beyond the privileged few who back us up against shutdown politics and Christmases and deadlines in order to achieve their objectives.

Mr. Speaker, high inflation is on the verge of bankrupting American families. Our economy is breaking in half. A typical American family can't afford to buy a House in 99 percent of U.S. counties. Inflation is stealing more than $700 a month from working Americans; nearly $9,000 a year.

Kevin McCarthy is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and he has failed to take a stand where it matters; so if he won't, I will. I make no apologies for defending the right of every hardworking American to afford a decent life for themselves and their families, and we have a greater opportunity to do that and to build coalitions under new leadership.

We have to rip off the Band-Aid. We have to get back on a better course.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know how this vote is going to go. Usually when a vote comes to this floor, it is pretty pre-determined. This one, I am not so sure.

I am sure that we have made the right argument: that this place deserves single-subject spending bills; that we should have 72 hours to read a bill; that something that spends more than $100 million shouldn't be put on the suspension agenda such that we can't amend it; and there shouldn't be secret side deals made on a continuing resolution to lump Ukraine in with border security.

That is not right for Ukraine or border security because it fails to give either of those issues the dignity that they would require.

We can return that dignity to this House. We can get back on a better path. We can have single-subject appropriation bills. We can set a budget, a budget top line. We haven't had a budget in this place since I was in high school.

Let's get a budget. Let's get our act together. Let's get on with it. Let's vacate the Chair, and let's get a better Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, like so many others, I deeply regret that we are here in what was a totally avoidable situation.

I must take you back to January, however, which for many of us was about not repeating the failures of the past and letting Republican voters across the country down once again, when in the past for many years, when Republicans have had majorities in this Chamber, we have passed our major spending bills predominantly with Democratic votes; something the other side of the House has never and would never do with majority control.

Back in January, I expressed my concern that the previous 2 years during my first term here in this House, we had not used every tool at our disposal to fight against the harmful, radical Democrat agenda that is destroying the country, bankrupting the country, and under which the American people are suffering.

Most in here wouldn't know that I helped persuade my five colleagues who comprised the remaining resistance in the wee morning hours of January 7 to switch our votes to ``present'' to let Mr. McCarthy become Speaker.

I went to him on this very floor to tell him that he was finally going to become Speaker on the next vote. In that moment, it was clear to me that I or we could have asked for anything in exchange for switching our votes to ``present,'' but I and we asked for nothing.

The very next week, I requested and had a meeting with Speaker McCarthy to tell him he had my full support and that I wanted him to be successful because the country needed him to be successful.

In the ensuing months, I helped him narrowly pass the Parents Bill of Rights and the Limit, Save, Grow bill--I think both of those by just one or two votes--helping persuade some of my most conservative colleagues to come along despite some of the concerns they had with those bills.

We remained united as a Conference through the Limit, Save, Grow vote as we passed a bill that was cutting spending to pre-COVID levels for nondefense discretionary spending or just over $100 billion, historic spending cuts, as the Speaker had committed to do in January. It also included a host of other conservative fiscal reforms.

Unfortunately, however, that unity and that commitment to significant year-one cuts and spending reforms were discarded in the failed responsibility act, as I call it, which passed overwhelmingly, once again, with a majority of Democrat votes, validating the concern many of us had in January.

Many of us had begged the Speaker, pleaded with the Speaker repeatedly, to utilize the debt ceiling to leverage spending cuts and reforms.

Instead, he negotiated an unlimited increase to the debt ceiling through January of `25, as much as we can come together and gleefully spend through January of `25, with no significant wins for the American people in that FRA or failed responsibility act.

The Speaker then said that we would use appropriations to bring the fight and finally reduce our spending.

He said the levels of the FRA were the ceiling and not the floor, and recommitted multiple times to go back to the $1.471 trillion that was the Limit, Save, Grow levels, radically, historically saving $100 billion and lowering the deficit this year under Republican majority from $2.2 trillion to $2.1 trillion. That is what we were asking the Republican House to do, to go to $2.1 trillion.

Meanwhile, the Speaker had committed to bring a balanced budget vote to this floor, something that still has not happened despite the work that has been done in our Budget Committee to mark it up and have it ready to come to the floor.

He also promised that we would bring all 12 appropriations bills well before the September 30 fiscal deadline. We did not.

We simply, as Republicans, needed the Speaker to cast the vision, request the support of the entire Conference, all of whom voted for the Limit, Save, Grow levels, except for four who wanted to go even further, to lead us in joining him, sticking with him, supporting him, and sending the most conservative spending bills with the most conservative cuts possible to the Senate as the best starting position for negotiations with the Senate. Many of us begged and pleaded with the Speaker to do that over the past 5 months.

When the Speaker failed to lead us to pass our spending bills, bringing only 1 of 12 to the floor before the August district work period, Members began to negotiate amongst themselves without the Speaker to find compromise.

I was among those who reluctantly agreed last month to split the difference between failed responsibilities, $1.526, and the Limit, Save, Grow, $1.471. I reluctantly agreed to do that, to go to $1.526, in order to pass our bills on to the Senate.

We then essentially forced the Speaker with the pressure of the shutdown threat of the calendar to bring those four bills to the floor last week, all of which I voted for, despite some of them not cutting to the levels we agreed to and other concerns I had with the bills.

I reluctantly voted for a 30-day conditional CR, continuing resolution, because it cut an additional $10 billion in the month of October, going back to the pre-COVID $1.471 levels for defense, nondefense discretionary, 30 percent, and it had border security. I voted for that.

However, when that vote failed, the Speaker, this past Friday in the Republican Conference meeting, made it abundantly clear that he was willing to do anything to avoid the temporary discomfort and the pressure of a pause in the 15 percent of the nonessential Federal Government operations, which would guarantee that we would lose to the Senate Democrats and the White House. If you are not willing to say no, then you are guaranteed to lose.

That was confirmed with the passage of the unconditional 45-day CR this past Saturday, once again with 209 Democrat votes. The Republican bill, 209-1 Democrats; 51-0 on the Senate side.

The Speaker fought through 15 votes in January to become Speaker but was only willing to fight through one failed CR before surrendering to the Democrats on Saturday. We need a Speaker who will fight for something, anything,

besides just staying or becoming Speaker.

If there was ever a time to fight with $33 trillion in national debt, a $2 trillion deficit this year, 40-year high inflation, 20-year high interest rates, a downgraded credit rating, and for the first time in modern history and despite all the help of the media blaming Republicans in the House, the polls showing that the public was blaming Biden and the Democrats for an imminent shutdown. If not fight now, when would we fight? Now is and was the time.

With the Democrats driving the fiscal bus off the cliff at 100 miles an hour, we cannot simply be content to be the party that slows it down to 95 just so we can sit in the front seat and wear the captain's hat.

Our current debt and our spending trajectory is unsustainable. We need a Speaker, ideally somebody who doesn't want to be Speaker and hasn't pursued that at all costs for his entire adult life, who will meet the moment and do everything possible to fight for the country.

A red line was crossed for me, I regret, on Saturday, and so it is with regret that I must vote against the motion to table, as I did, and vote to vacate the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious time. My mind immediately goes to the young deputy from Cochise County who 2 nights ago, while trying to apprehend a runaway vehicle smuggling humans across the border, suffered major injuries. He was transported to Pima County where he is in a Tucson hospital fighting for his life.

I am talking about a border that remains wide open where drugs come through. The Tucson sector has the most got-aways known and unknown of any sector along the border. There are terrorists coming in, people conducting criminal conduct coming in, criminal gang members, human smugglers, and sex traffickers. They are coming across our border to the tune of hundreds of thousands every month.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues and their position, but I would suggest something: I don't think you can just skip to last weekend and say, oh, my goodness, a CR came out last weekend on Saturday. I think we need to go back to January.

I will say this. This body came together on the Republican side and we passed a good border security piece of legislation, H.R. 2. That is good.

Last week we passed the DHS bill and the DOD bills which had funding for our CBP, ICE, military leaders, and military men and women. Why were we successful in doing that? What happened to motivate us to get there?

Well, for one thing, we didn't bother to pass the 12 appropriations bills as required under the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. We didn't do it. Do you know how many times that has not been done?

That has not been done 25 years in a row.

Do you know how many CRs this body has passed in that same period of time?

It is 130.

Do you know what that gets you?

A $2 trillion-plus structural deficit like we had in fiscal year 2023.

Do you know what that leads you to?

A $33 trillion national debt, which is where we sit today. It leads you to somewhere north of $700 billion in interest payments.

Do you know why that happened?

Because this body is entrenched in a suboptimal path and refuses to leave it. It refuses to leave that path. You cannot change if you are unwilling to change. We had every opportunity to change. We were promised change.

We were promised we were going to go ahead, and we were going to get those 12 bills done. If we got those 12 bills done--do you know why you do 12 bills?

Because it allows you to reduce spending and get rid of wasteful duplicative programs. It allows you to set an agenda to restore fiscal sanity. We chose to not do it again. We were promised we would do it. That is why at the end some people said: We will vote present. We will go ahead. We are going to put our trust in Mr. McCarthy to become the Speaker. That didn't happen. I suspected that would be the case. That was my struggle. That was my struggle last November and December. I iterated it to this body, our Conference anyway.

When we got to the debt ceiling, again, that seemed to spring upon everybody like a surprise. When that happened, I was in there for some of those

negotiations on where that number would be, and I was astonished how that $1.5 trillion number was negotiated. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

However, I will tell you this: To his credit, the Speaker told us one thing that I believe to be true. He said that is basically the ante in a poker game. You can sit down at the table.

I told my colleagues who supported that: That $1.5 trillion in 8 months that you are willing to raise the debt ceiling, that is the opening marker.

Indeed, it was. Now, projections are many trillion dollars above that.

Yes, I think it is time to make a change. I am not the only one, and thus, it is somber. But what have we failed to accomplish? Why didn't we get this stuff done?

When we are campaigning, we are talking about an extension of the debt ceiling to January 2025.

We are talking about additional Ukraine funding. Maybe that is good in your districts. Maybe it is not. That money is not offset. We are not paying for it. We haven't designated how we are going to pay for that--the same with the disaster package.

The IRS remains 80 percent increased. I could go down the list, but I will just tell you why this happens. When you don't do your 12 budget bills and you rely ultimately on a CR--and I will get to the calendar in a second--what happens is, you cannot leverage this administration to actually enforce the border laws that you need to have enforced.

This is a lawless Biden regime. They will not enforce border laws. We can pass them until we are blue in the face, but until you leverage the budget and the spending, you will not see enforcement by this administration.

Now, take a look at the calendar that we were just provided last week. We are supposed to finish our 12 bills by November 3. By November 17 is when we are supposed to see that the conference committees have come together, both sides, and we have resolved this. I don't believe that that is going to happen.

It wasn't going to happen before. You were betting on the come again. At some point, I would urge you to stop betting on the come and bet on the reality. That is why I can't support the Speaker any longer, and I will be voting for the motion to vacate.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to table at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I share one thing in common with my friend from Virginia. This is a very sad day and certainly a day I never expected to have to live through.

I think, broadly speaking, as I look across this floor, you can divide Members into three groups. I am very happy to be in the first group, the overwhelming majority of my party who supports the Speaker that we elected.

We are proud of the leadership he has shown. We are proud of the manner in which he has been willing to work with everybody in our Conference, and I believe in this Chamber.

There is a second group, a small group. Honestly, they are willing to plunge this body into chaos and this country into uncertainty for reasons that only they really understand. I certainly don't.

Then there are friends on the other side--I mean friends, honestly, with great sincerity--I have a lot of friends over there, and I recognize that my friends on the other side have a very complex set of partisan, personal, and political calculations to make.

I certainly wouldn't presume to give them any advice about that, but I would say think long and hard before you plunge us into chaos because that is where we are headed if we vacate the speakership.

I personally think there are really three reasons why we have come to this point, and that is because at each three of these critical minutes, the Speaker did the right thing.

First, there was a Speaker vote. He got 85 percent of the vote in our Conference; 90 percent of the vote from Republicans on this floor.

Yet, we had a small group that decided no, they would dictate what they want. He didn't let that happen. He fought. Now, he fought for himself, but he fought for 90 percent of us too that wanted him to be the Speaker, and I appreciate that.

Then, of course, we had the debt ceiling deal. Nobody here thought he could pass a bill. Nobody in America thought he could pass a bill.

He did what Speakers are supposed to do. He passed the bill. Then he sat down and negotiated with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic President and came back with a good deal, a deal that will limit spending. He did the right thing.

Finally, last Saturday on this floor, we were on the verge of a government shutdown, a government shutdown that the vast majority of Members in this Chamber did not want, a substantial majority on my side and an overwhelming majority on the Democrat side.

He put his political neck on the line, knowing this day was coming, to do the right thing--the right thing for the country without a doubt. My friends and I agree on that, whether or not we agree on the Speaker. He did the right thing. He did the right thing for this institution. He showed it could function in a time of crisis. Finally, he did the right thing for our party. He made sure that we could continue to negotiate and achieve some of the very objectives my friend from Virginia laid out, and achieve them in divided government, which calls for some degree of give-and-take.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of this Speaker. I am very proud to stand behind him. Tomorrow morning, whether I win or lose, I am going to be pretty proud of the people I fought with and I am going to be extraordinarily proud of the person I fought for, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), my good friend and fellow member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gimenez), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Hinson), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), our distinguished majority leader and my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Mike Garcia), my very good friend and fellow member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Stefanik), my very good friend, and our distinguished Conference leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves), my very good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining for each side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Armstrong), my great friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Oklahoma for yielding.

When we go back to January, as many people have, we knew that it was going to be a narrow majority. We also knew that it wasn't going to be easy. How many of us came here because we thought this job was going to be easy? How many of us thought the task ahead of us to address the problems of this country was going to be easy?

One thing we did know is that if we were going to finally start confronting problems that had been ignored for years and years and years, we had to change the way this place worked, and one thing Speaker McCarthy embraced from day one is to start making those kinds of changes to this institution, opening up the process, allowing Members to be more engaged, having amendments come to the floor, single-subject bills, doing appropriations bills.

Yes, making that happen overnight is not something that happens automatically, but it started to happen, and we are now seeing the fruits of it. Just last week, we had four different appropriations bills on this House floor, four different ones. Now, those bills took weeks and weeks to finally get to the floor, going through an open committee process, hundreds of amendments, each one of them where Republicans and Democrats could bring their ideas.

We debated those bills on the floor, some until after midnight where Members could actually participate in the process. This has been a broken process for a long time, but it is a process where we, if we are going to confront the problems that families are facing, we need to resolve our differences inside this House Chamber before we can then go and fight for those families who are struggling. Every single day

across America families are struggling with real problems that we are going to have to get back to solving.

Those problems are real for them. It is inflation. It is the economy. It is high energy costs. It is an open southern border that doesn't just affect the border States. It is affecting every State--Republican districts, Democrat districts. Everybody knows it, and it can be ignored by the White House, but this House is the only body that started to take action with H.R. 2 and then with the border bill last week. Plus, with the action we took last week, over 70 percent of government funding passed out of the House, however everybody voted, Republican or Democrat.

This House passed funding for over 70 percent of the Federal Government's operation, and it is sitting over in the Senate where they passed zero, and we are going to beat each other up and talk about our internal processes and we need to get our internal processes working better, but so does that other body over there and so does the White House.

Everybody in this town needs to be engaged in addressing these problems, but if we don't start here and if we don't focus these next 45 days--because that is what we have got in front of us, we have got two bills this week, we have got two more appropriations bills next week, and if we are going to be confronting those, we have got to stay focused on our mission.

What the other side does, let's continue to put pressure on them, but we also need to put pressure on ourselves to do our job. Speaker McCarthy has been leading at the top of the level to make sure that we have the tools to do our jobs in a different way than the House has done it before.

This House is going to have to continue to make those changes, but the American people sent us here to confront those problems. We are finally starting to. This isn't the time to slow that process down. We need to keep doing our work. We need to keep fighting for those families who are struggling, but so does the Senate and so does the White House, as well.

Let's keep doing this work that we were sent here to do.