Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

The oath I took is very simple. Madam Speaker, you administered it. It is to support and defend the Constitution.

Now, as you walk back to the office buildings, you will walk by that wall that has when the various States accepted that Constitution. Remember, when a State accepts the Constitution, it agrees to accept every part of the Constitution. It doesn't get to pick and choose.

Pennsylvania was there when it was written. They were so enthusiastic about the Constitution, they approved it in 1787.

My State, Maryland, is a little further down the wall, 1788. They were there when it was written.

The clause that gave the legislature the power over the elections was there when they accepted it. It has been there since. How dare the judicial branch or the executive branch of that State usurp the legislative authority. That is a clear violation of the Constitution.

Now, we heard there is no evidence.

Evidence?

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court unilaterally extended the deadline to receive absentee and mail-in ballots.

Does anybody contest that over here? Does it say the legislature did that?

No, it doesn't. It says the court did it.

That is a violation. That is what the Texas lawsuit was all about. We disadvantage other States when States like Pennsylvania, the executive branch and judicial branch, cheat on the Constitution; and that is what they did here.

But there is more evidence. But wait, there is more. The Democrat secretary of the Commonwealth eroded integrity by dismissing signature authentication on a ballot.

Does anyone here believe the Pennsylvania legislature would have agreed

to create a separate system for mail-in ballots and in-person ballots? That if you mail it in, you don't need a signature? But if you vote in person, you do and it has to be authenticated?

Of course not. The legislature clearly wouldn't have agreed to that. But that didn't stop the usurpation of constitutional authority.

Madam Chair, I vigorously support this objection, and I include in the Record the objection to counting the electoral votes for the State of Arizona additional signers.

Objection to Counting the Electoral Votes for the State of Arizona

Additional Signers

Jeff Duncan SC-3

Matt Gaetz FL-1

Mr. Chair, I just raise concerns with two of the amendments that are in this en bloc amendment.

Amendment No. 5 is one that extends free coverage for pregnancy prevention, and with the amendment, extends to all FDA-approved drugs and methods. Why I find it interesting is that, of course, a couple of years ago, we actually increased the copays on TRICARE for former members.

If a former member has diabetes, they have a $28 copay for insulin. So this is kind of strange because what we are doing is selecting one type of drug and saying there are no copays for this, yet we have thousands, if not tens of thousands, of members who take an important drug like insulin and have to pay a copay. It just doesn't make sense.

With regard to amendment No. 13, amendment No. 13 extends in vitro fertilization coverage which, up until now, has been for members whose problems have been related to their military service. It extends it to all members as well. It is going to greatly increase the number of embryos created.

Although I have no disagreement with extending the coverage, the problem is, the amendment and the statute don't deal with what members are going to do with these embryos. It presents serious life concerns, due to the sheer number of embryos created that will often be discarded, now with government payment involved. Many will subsequently be killed or frozen indefinitely, leaving these early lives in limbo.

There are no limits within the amendment as to how many cycles of IVF may be covered, how many embryos may be created or frozen. Of course, there are no requirements to protect the embryos that have been formed.

It is for that deficiency, it is for creating a permanent statutory entitlement without dealing with what some people object to, which is treating those embryos created in a comprehensive, long-range fashion, for those reasons, I express concerns about amendments No. 5 and No. 13.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table H.R. 3401, with the Senate amendment thereto, and concur in the Senate amendment. This bipartisan bill passed the Senate with 84 votes and could be sent to the President's desk for his signature today.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, here we go again. Obviously, we took a 5- hour break, but now we are back to not making priorities.

The bottom line is, now we are up to $27 million out of this basket of money that the Secretary has to manage a Department that is actually increasing in size and increasing in complexity.

This is a very worthy cause, and there is no question in anyone's mind, I hope, that colon cancer screening, for instance, is essential. Every American who falls within the guidelines should be encouraged to undergo the screening, but we have to set priorities.

If we are going to increase further the funding into that program-- because as we heard from the subcommittee chair, we have already increased the funding--if we are going to increase it further, we have to look somewhere to decrease funding. That is not a magical pot of money that is endless. Literally, it is true that, sooner or later, the Secretary is going to have to take out loans to pay salaries in his Department because we will have drained the entire amount.

Again, since the last vote series, which we had 1 a.m. eastern time-- it is now 9:20 eastern time--since then, we have drained that fund by $27 million. A lot of it transferred for good projects, but that is not the way we should be doing business here.

When families in my district have a priority, they set a new priority. They say this family needs this a lot right now. They look into their budget and ask what they are not going to spend on. That is what we ought to be doing.

If this is so essential, Madam Chair, I would suggest some other program, not a magical pot of money that some people believe has no bottom.

Again, the Secretary has to run an increasingly complex Department. The bottom line is that we have now drained, if all the amendments pass

that we have discussed since 1 a.m., $27 million out of the fund. This is not the way we ought to do business.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, we are showing the American people right now that we live in fantasy land.

The bottom line is, the amendment that I and many of my colleagues voted for last night merely restores this bill to the current state of law. It makes it comply with the Budget Control Act. I didn't vote for the Budget Control Act, but it is the law of the land.

We can pretend it is not. That is the difference between us and the people in my district. They don't have Monopoly money to play with. They can't pretend that the law isn't the law. They can't pretend that they can invent money in their families. They have to follow the laws. They have to follow their budgets. But I guess that is just not true.

This is why Congress has a 9 percent approval rating. The people watching us today, the millions of people watching us--there are maybe several hundred thousand watching us today--are watching promises being made that can't be kept, promises being made that take money out of not this generation but the next generation and the generation following.

Again, this is a worthy cause. But the bottom line is, last year, when the majority was in the minority, every single member in the Appropriations Committee voted against funding this program when it left the committee, every single majority member when they were in the minority.

I get how this game is being played. I get it. We have to restore fiscal discipline, the same fiscal discipline every family in our districts has. If you set a priority and you decide this is necessary to spend on, you find something that is not necessary to spend on.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, parliamentary inquiry.

Is any time remaining on the other side because the gentlewoman moved to reserve her time?

Madam Chair, I am a physician. I have taken care of people for 35 years. I am not sure I should be lectured, Madam Chair, on the proper way to take care of people in this country with regard to their health.

I understand the attraction of maybe bringing a tax bill into this. I am not sure why the proponents can't leave this as a discussion of funding health.

The bottom line is, this is an important subject, no question about it.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, what is disingenuous is trying to make an argument that somehow this bill falls within current statute.

The Budget Control Act is the controlling statutory authority, and this bill is 14 percent above the Budget Control Act.

Now, most people might think a move to restore the congressional action to lawfulness is actually a good thing. In fact, maybe Americans watching who have to live by a budget in their households actually wonder why we can't do it here. They look at a trillion-dollar deficit and they say: Wait a minute. I can't do that in my household. Why does Congress do it to the country?

The gentlewoman from Connecticut, the gentleman from New York, they share something in common with Maryland: We are where Lyme disease is endemic. No question about it, it is a problem.

My problem is not with CDC dealing with Lyme disease. With this amendment, we are now up to $28 million taken from the same source. This pretend bottomless fund that all we have to do is we can draw all we need out of this fund is not the way budgeting works. It is not the way budgeting works in any family. It is not the way budgeting should work here on Capitol Hill.

And, again, I remind my colleagues, people look at how Congress operates in wonder--not awe, wonder. They figure: Why can't Congress run the country like I have to run my household?

It is because we don't choose priorities here. We say this is important, and it is, but we fail to do what all the families in America do when they decide something is more important. They choose something that is less important and forgo spending money on that.

So that is the deficit in this amendment. This amendment is a worthy cause. Lyme disease is a terrible disease, as the gentleman from New York knows. We are not even sure how to diagnose it. Chronic Lyme disease is an enigma to scientists and to medicine. It should be a priority. But coupled with that priority is finding something else that is of lower priority and deciding not to spend as much there and to spend more here.

So that is why, reluctantly, I urge the body, if they pass the other amendments that we have chosen--that is, considered since 1 a.m., the last time we met--this would make $28 million out of that mythical bottomless fund that all these good ideas are funded from.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, the Trump administration followed the

law. I know that for Congress here, we don't really like to follow the law. We think we make it for everybody else, and we don't have to follow it. In fact, the bill we are discussing today doesn't follow the Budget Control Act. It pretends that the law doesn't exist.

Now, the Trump administration did the appropriate thing and said: You know what? The law does exist. The reason why we get into trouble, and why America looks at what Congress does, the profligate spending that we have, the trillion-dollar deficits, and the $22 trillion debt is because in some cases like this, we just don't follow the law. The President says: No, we should return to the law.

If the Congress thinks we ought to spend more, then pass a bill that changes the Budget Control Act. But, Madam Chairwoman, I would suggest that if the President had not followed the law, the complaint would be: The President is not following the law. You are damned if you do. You are damned if you don't.

The President follows the Budget Control Act, submits a budget consistent with that, and then gets blamed by the majority for following the law, not playing make-believe budgets.

Madam Chairwoman, our families can't do make-believe budgets. They have a certain amount of money and they have to stay within that budget. But I guess we are Congress. We are different. We can make believe.

This is why we have a 9 percent approval rating, because Americans look at what we do here in Congress and say: This isn't the real world.

This education is important. There is no question about it, but we have to place priorities. I reluctantly oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

Madam Chairwoman, I won't take 3 minutes. We obviously have a lot of work to do this morning and did a lot of work last night.

Part of the American Dream--and my parents as well came to this country--and it is amazing that the children of immigrants can sit on this floor, but they came to this country because there is a rule of law in this country.

The law right now says, under the Budget Control Act, that we should be spending much less than this bill suggests overall. The Trump administration proposed spending within the law. Now, that law is not a Trump administration law. That law was actually signed by the last President with the majority controlling the Senate. It was a bipartisan agreement, the Budget Control Act.

But again, we pretend that it just doesn't exist. This is part of the problem. Americans look at us and say: Wait a minute. You expect us to live by the law? In fact, you insist that we live by the law, and now talk about imagination, this is really imaginary because we are presenting a proposal here today that spends tens and tens of billions of dollars more than the law says we are authorized to spend. That is astounding.

No wonder we have a 9 percent approval rating. I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, let's get a handle on exactly what this amendment does. This amendment says that we are going to take one of the most controversial areas of research--controversial regarding the ethics of the research--and we are going to say the Federal Government can't determine whether it is ethical.

Madam Chair, we have a construct for this. This construct was developed by Mr. Waxman two decades ago in a piece of statute signed by President Clinton that said that when you submit research for funding to the HHS Department, and it is a topic around which there are ethical questions--and there are ethical questions--that the Secretary can choose to seat a panel, not a sham panel, but a panel that consists of attorneys, ethicists, practicing physicians, theologians, and scientists with substantial accomplishments in biomedical and behavioral research.

That doesn't sound too sham to me. It is a panel that is going to review it because, Madam Chair, without that, the only review this gets with regard to, for instance, an institutional review board is at the institution that stands to gain the funding when the project is funded. It is because of that conflict of interest that the Congress thoughtfully said, in statute, that we ought to have a mechanism to consider the ethics.

Madam Chair, we are going to hear about all kinds of things done with fetal tissue. Yes, they were done decades and decades ago. Those vaccines were done on cell lines that have been around for a long time.

Can there be some research that might benefit from fetal tissue? Sure, there can be. But we should always make the determination of whether it is ethical.

How can we stand in good conscience and say that we are going to take, on the basis of ethics, one of the most controversial areas of research and wall it off and say that the Federal Government can't consider ethics? Oh, my gosh, that is a step way too far.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Chair, are comments supposed to be addressed to the Chair?

Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time remains.

Madam Chair, before I came to Congress, I was a medical scientist. I actually held NIH grants. So, Madam Chair, I find it a little unusual that someone would criticize my opinion on medical science and dismiss it. But we live in a strange world. That is why the American people look at Congress and wonder what is going on.

The fact of the matter is that it is not a Trump administration policy that issues where ethics are involved should go to a committee convened to consider that.

Madam Chair, I have had things go before IRBs, institutional review boards, at institutions. It is a good first step, and the peer-review process at NIH is probably a good second step. But for some issues like fetal tissue research, where we saw fetal tissue marketed--brains, $800 plus tax--we think it is not at all unreasonable that the Federal Government, before spending a dime of taxpayer money--because, remember, the President's policy does nothing about funding it. It just says taxpayer dollars shouldn't be used unless we have considered the ethics.

My gosh, there is nothing wrong with that. The fact of the matter is that Americans don't want their tax dollars spent on things that are unethical, and this is the way that we can determine whether it is ethical.

Again, this has not been set up by the Trump administration. This is Mr. Waxman, who will never be confused with a Republican, and signed by President Clinton.

I will remind the gentleman that this issue has been discussed in committee for a few years. The committee has come down on both sides of it because this is a controversial issue, and controversial issues are best left to the experts just like this ethics committee statute states.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, even though I don't oppose the amendment, I rise in opposition.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for this. This is a real problem that we have. As a physician, I will tell you, we haven't gotten this right yet.

Again, I am an anesthesiologist, and I have been taking care of patients for 30 years, three decades. What we still find is that we have people who prescribe narcotics and opioids.

We know, by the way, Madam Chair, that if someone is given a 10-day supply of opioids for an outpatient operation, there is a 10 percent chance that they will be addicted 1 year afterward.

Yesterday, my son had an outpatient operation, and he got a prescription for 50 opioid pills. I am sitting there thinking, oh my God, is there an alternative?

We were taught for years that if you go to the emergency room and you have a broken bone, you are going to get sent out with a narcotic prescription. Then they did a study that shows that alternating Tylenol with ibuprofen, acetaminophen with ibuprofen, is just as good as the narcotic.

My God, for decades, we have been giving people narcotics, unaware that we were committing a certain number of them to a terrible life.

And I appreciate the gentleman's passion about it, because we had good news in Maryland yesterday, for the first time, the number of deaths from overdoses went down. But the number of overdoses continues to increase.

We got better at preventing the deaths. Now we have to get better at preventing the addiction and treating the addiction.

Madam Chair, this amendment goes a long way toward that.

I reserve the balance of my time

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, it is already the rule. We are wasting our time here today. These are reported.

The hypocrisy of coming to the floor and claiming to be for the children, while opposing the President's supplemental budget that actually will take care of these children.

The Members who are going to vote and who support this opposed the President's funding request to actually take care of the thousands of children who are crossing the border every week. Without that money, you can't take care of these children.

So the proponents of this amendment--again, this is a totally unnecessary amendment because this is already the policy of the administration. This is make-believe. This administration reports the deaths. It is the hypocritical proponents of the amendment who oppose funding to take care of children on the border for purely political purposes.

If they really want to take care of the children on the border, this bill would have included a supplemental appropriation to take care of those children. In fact, that amendment was considered in committee and along party lines rejected. The majority rejected money to take care of the children and now come to the floor and claim to be for the children.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Meadows).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, the bottom line is, let's stop the charades. This is already an administration policy.

I understand the desire to score political points against this President, a president who has come to Congress and said that we need more money because of the flood of children across the border. There were 145,000 people who crossed the border last month, including thousands and thousands of children--he needs money to take care of them--and the majority refuses to bring this bill to the floor. In fact, in a motion to recommit, they voted against it and in committee they voted against it.

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

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I am not sure what this amendment does because it just says that you can't change the Office of Civil Rights in contravention of the statute that set up the Department. There is no change in the Office of Civil Rights.

The bottom line is that the Department of Education enforces civil rights laws. Yes, there was misguided guidance by the last administration that actually decreased discipline in the schools in my district because the teachers in my district and the administrators in my district were scared that they would lose Federal funds if they disciplined students because they had to do paperwork, and there were reports, and the Department of Education was going to come down on them. Discipline suffered.

The bottom line is that the record of this administration on minorities is clear: the lowest unemployment in history for African Americans in the country and the lowest unemployment in history for Hispanics in this country.

The record of this administration in dealing with minorities is clear. It has provided economic opportunity for tens of millions of minorities in this country. The Office of Civil Rights works in the Department of Education, and I oppose the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, we have heard the debate. I don't know if vouchers are brought into this debate.

It is interesting because, with vouchers like the OSP program in the District of Columbia, 97 percent of the students are minorities. That is a voucher program, and 97 percent are minorities supported by the administration. The majority just yesterday rejected an increase in funding to that program that benefits 97 percent that are minorities.

Let's get civil rights straight. If my colleagues support opportunity and education for minorities in this country, that is what the administration is doing.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, read the plain language of the amendment. It decreases an amount, and it increases an amount. That is all it does. It doesn't increase funding for firearm violence.

If the gentleman were so interested in doing more, more research, he could have increased the amount. He didn't increase the amount.

At 1 o'clock in the morning, we are talking about a do-nothing amendment instead of bringing a supplemental bill to the floor that funds the care of children at our border that has been rejected by the majority time and time again.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment, even though I don't oppose the amendment.

Madam Chair, this is a modest request, but it is offset by a reduction in departmental management funds.

Now, there are a number of amendments that do that. Obviously, if we do too many amendments that do that, you will leave nothing for the department to be properly managed. But this is a modest request, so I believe we should support the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise hesitatingly to oppose this amendment. This is not an inconsequential amount of money. This is $3 million, and it is taken out of the Secretary's office.

It is not prioritizing and saying, well, this program is more important than this program, so we are going to shift funds from one program to another. It actually strikes at the core of how the Secretary can manage the department.

I just don't think that is the responsible way to do business. If we think this program is important, that is fine. Find another program that is less important. But let's not just take it from the Secretary's office because the Secretary has to manage a large organization.

And, again, I know we are in Washington, but $3 million is a lot of money to take out of an office, so I rise in opposition to the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, this is a good cause. This is a good idea. But, you know, we have $10 billion in unspent CHIP funds sitting in a fund.

So the question is: Why take this from the Secretary's office? I get it. Some people don't like the Secretary. Some people don't like the administration.

But there is $10 billion sitting there that could be spent on programs like this, unspent CHIP funds.

So I have to oppose this amendment because, again, let's prioritize. This is an important fund. Don't take it out of the Secretary's office.

I get it. You don't like the administration. You don't like the Secretary. Don't take it out of his office.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Chair, are remarks supposed to be directed to the Chair?

Madam Chair, Mr. Cole supports the children. He actually supports funding these programs for the children past this month, something the majority doesn't. Time after time after time, the majority has refused the funding.

Now, Madam Chair, there is no need for this amendment because, in 1 month, we can't take care of any children because the majority has refused, time after time after time, to provide funding to take care of these children. And then, Madam Chair, the majority gets up, Members of the majority get up and claim that they are for the children.

Sure, we need reporting. But before we need reporting, we actually need funding. We should bring--instead of being here at 1:40 debating a two-line amendment that says just decrease and increase, we ought to be actually debating a supplemental bill.

Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Madam Chair, if I can inquire how much time I have remaining.

Madam Chair, I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman).

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, there is no question that suicide prevention is important, no question in anyone's mind. We have an epidemic of it, but we also have an epidemic of substance abuse.

Here is the problem. This amendment takes funds from health surveillance and program support, which supplement activities funded under the headings mental health, substance abuse treatment, and substance abuse prevention.

So there is a problem there, because no question suicide is important, suicide prevention is important, but this amendment is robbing Peter to pay Paul, Madam Chair. This amendment is taking money from substance abuse.

If we are going to set priorities, both should be high priorities. The gentlewoman should have found the money somewhere else, maybe in the $10 billion that is sitting unspent in the CHIP account, instead of taking money from substance abuse.

Madam Chair, that is why I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, the bottom line is this bill already increases this program. With the committee report, page 59, we suggest an increase of $15 million.

The $15 million in this amendment comes out of the Office of the Secretary. Again, I don't know how the Secretary is going to do all the work he has to do to take care of the entire Department if $15 million comes out to supplement a program that is already being supplemented.

Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Madam Chair, there are a lot of important issues we can discuss on the floor. This is one of them, clearly. But we should be discussing a much larger issue, the issue of border security and stopping the flow.

144 pounds of fentanyl seized at the border, that could kill the entire population of the United States. This is the amount we seized.

It is unbelievable that Congress can't act to control the flow of drugs across our southern border, because we are playing politics with our children's lives now.

Madam Chair, we should bring the supplemental bill to the floor as soon as possible. As the gentleman from South Carolina suggested, we are ready to go all night. Let's bring it to the floor. House leadership can bring it to the floor tonight. Let's go ahead.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, the bottom line is this is not the place and this won't do what the offer in support of the amendment says it is going to do, because the fact of the matter is that the DEA is the one that enforced the classification of schedule I. This bill has nothing to do with the DEA.

In fact, the problem with research and the problem with the difficulty in doing research does not lie in HHS. The problem lies in the fact that it is a schedule I drug, and the appropriate way to deal with this is through an authorizing committee, as the gentleman from California suggests, with legislation that would allow more research, as has been suggested.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), who is absolutely right. We do need more research. But the current restriction that is struck, section 509, says that this limitation shall not apply where there is significant medical evidence of therapeutic advantage or that federally sponsored clinical trials are being conducted.

Well, that is what we need. We need federally sponsored clinical trials. The current section 509 does not stop this.

Now, look, I get it. There are people who want the legalization of marijuana. I get it. But as a physician, I will tell you I urge the people who suggest that there are broad applicabilities that are proven medical uses of marijuana to go back to the Journal of the American Medical Association, which did a review last year that indicated that, of the over 50 suggested uses for medical marijuana, only 4 are proven through rigorous scientific trials--4, Madam Chair.

PTSD is not one of them. It is not. Treatment for opioid abuse is not one of them.

In fact, Dr. Nora Volkow, the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who I think knows probably more than anyone in this room about the subject, says that marijuana is an addictive drug that is dangerous, and recent research says that induces psychosis in young people, serious major psychotic conditions.

And we want to remove all the restrictions in the health part of the law?

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Madam Chair, the bottom line is that there is scientific evidence about the danger of marijuana.

It is largely unstudied, and anyone, Madam Chair, who understands how research is conducted here should realize that the roadblock is not in HHS. It is not in the jurisdiction of this bill. It is with the DEA. This does nothing to remove the scheduling with regard to how the DEA views marijuana.

Dr. Volkow, one of the world's experts on addiction, it was brought up that maybe we can treat addiction with marijuana, and she says absolutely not. This drug causes addiction. One-seventh of the people who are addicted to opioids started with marijuana. It is a gateway drug. It is dangerous.

This amendment does nothing to deal with promoting research because the problem is not in HHS. The problem is in DEA.

Madam Chair, I have tried to deal with this problem. I have cosponsored a bill that promotes research with a broader approach, to involve all the Federal agencies that could hinder research in any way. This amendment does nothing to do that. This sends a bad signal.

As the gentleman from Pennsylvania suggested, this isn't about marijuana, it is about every schedule I drug, and there are very dangerous schedule I drugs.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, again, there is no question that everyone knows that we are in a suicide epidemic. We have to do whatever we can, whatever is within our powers--work with our States, work within our local jurisdictions, work with our community agencies--to deal with this horrible epidemic that we are having.

My problem with and my opposition to the amendment is not the fact that we need to pay attention to suicide prevention. It is from where we get the funds.

We take the funds from that, I guess, bottomless piggybank some people think is the Secretary's office. In the short time we have had since the last vote series, we will have taken $20 million from the Secretary's office if all those amendments pass on final vote. Madam Chair, we increased the Secretary's office by 1 percent in the underlying budget, so we increased it less than inflation.

Again, the job of HHS is growing, not shrinking. We increased it only 1 percent. With this amendment, just since the time of the last vote series, we will have decreased the budget by 5 percent in that office.

That is not responsible. That implies that the committee didn't do good work in setting how much the Secretary's office needs to administer a huge government agency, a very important government agency, one that, in fact, runs suicide prevention programs and drug addiction programs.

Madam Chair, we have to set priorities. It is nice to say we have suicide prevention, but let's find the program--we didn't take it from a program. This amendment doesn't take it from a program. This amendment takes it from something that is not a limitless reserve: the Office of the Secretary.

That is why I believe we should oppose this amendment.

Madam Chair, we should expect that Members who want to prioritize programs find other programs that have a lower priority and shift those funds.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I support the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, we are going to need a lot of volunteers, actually, in a month because the majority, time and time and time again, has voted against taking care of these children when money runs out this month. That is a fact. Yes, we will need volunteers. We need volunteers to do more than the mental health, which is very important.

When you talk about toxic stress, wait until a child comes to the border and we can't provide medical services. And we can't provide services because the majority in the House refuses to bring a supplemental appropriation to the floor.

Now, the gentlewoman commented on someone--I don't know, maybe it was me--voting against a bill that has $1.3 billion, that spends tens of billions of dollars above the statutory Budget Control Act numbers, and yet the majority voted in committee this week to provide billions of dollars of funds to take care of children at the border. They leave that inconvenient fact out.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).

The fact of the matter is that the majority, last year, when they were in the minority, voted along party lines to not provide funds to take care of children in the Labor-HHS bill in committee. Every single member voted against it in committee, of the now-majority, then- minority. So I guess what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.

But we did take votes this year on a motion to recommit, on an amendment in committee this week, and a majority of the majority voted to not fund care for the children. That is where we are going to run out of money.

The President, to his credit, has asked and said: Please send money. Please send money to fund the care for these children and to stop the flow of drugs across the border.

Madam Chair, 144 pounds of fentanyl. We have to stop that.

Yes, certainly, it is important to do these screenings, and I thank the gentlewoman for offering the amendment, but we have got to go much further than that.

And again, Madam Chair, it is still early in the morning. We are ready. Bring the supplemental bill to the floor.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, graduate medical education is absolutely a problem; there is no question about it. The demographics are clear in the United States.

We have an aging population that requires more services, and yet we don't have enough graduate medical education to train all the physicians and providers that we need to train.

Here is the problem with the amendment: It goes to one of those bottomless wells, I guess. And not only does it go to a bottomless well in the department that the money is spent in, it goes to a bottomless well in another department.

Again, there is $10 billion in CHIP's funds unspent, could have come from, but, no, the money is taken from the Secretary of Education's departmental management fund.

Now, let's review the budget of the Department of Education, because the budget is increased by 5 percent under the bill passed out by the majority from the House, from the committee.

So get it. The Department of Education increased in size by 5 percent, and the bill itself level-funds the Department--management, not Department, but the management.

So we are already asking the management to basically do 5 percent more work for the same amount of money, and here comes along this amendment, again, no question we need more graduate medical education. Again, it is a question of priorities. If we need graduate medical education, let's find something in HHS that we don't need much of, and let's transfer that money.

But, no, that is not the approach taken here. It is magic. We want magic to happen.

We want the Department of Education to do all the wonderful things that we pay for in this budget, and we want them to do it with level funding, even though the budget goes up 5 percent. And, now, this amendment takes 1 percent--that is significant, 1 percent--because this is not the only amendment that has gone after that pot of money. The bottom line is it creates more mouths to feed.

This doesn't end well because, next year, this now becomes the baseline and the Department--I don't know what they are going to do in conference because, if all these amendments are passed, the Department can't run on that money. They can't. You can't manage it.

Who are we going to fire? Are we going to fire 5 percent of the people, 10 percent of the people expecting to do the same work?

This ain't the way to run anything, much less the Government of the United States.

Madam Chair, I applaud the author of the amendment for the idea, but for heaven's sake, we need fiscal sanity. We have a $22 trillion debt, a $1 trillion deficit. We spend over $100 billion more than the statutory authority in these appropriations bills. We have got to exert fiscal discipline at some point.

Madam Chair, I reluctantly oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, even though I agree with the idea behind the amendment.

Madam Chairwoman, there is no question that the rural areas in this country frequently get shortchanged. I know because I represent a rural area. That is why I was surprised because we just heard a lot of lip service to doing great things for the rural areas, but, in fact, rural health is level funded in this bill before us.

The Department spending is $10 billion higher and nothing, no increase could go to the rural areas. And now, all of a sudden, we are all fans of rural areas. On the other side of the aisle I guess we are all fans of rural areas.

We do need this extra $1 million. Here is the problem. It didn't identify another program to take the money from. It went to the believably bottomless well of department management, the Office of the Secretary, which now is up to $21 million in being raided just since the last vote series.

I don't know. I don't think you need an accounting degree to figure out that that doesn't work. We are asking the Department to do more with much less money. And, again, we do these rural health programs. No question. But I wish that rural health programs had gotten a proportionate increase in the base bill that we are talking about, but they didn't.

Now, I will tell the gentlewoman about one problem that is very rampant in my rural areas and across the country. If most people were asked: Where is the opioid crisis worse, urban or rural areas? We know what they will respond, but the data shows that it is rural areas. They have a worse problem. And, yet, it is now 2:50 in the morning and we still haven't seen the supplemental bill that would help stop the flow of illegal drugs across our southern border.

If we really care for our rural areas, we would ask the leadership to now bring the bill. We can have it here in a half hour. Let's spend all night. Let's protect our rural areas. There was 144 pounds of fentanyl seized. When are we going to be tired about fentanyl crossing our borders and killing our rural citizens?

When are we going to stop proving a political point and dealing with the problem? We have been promised we are going to fast-track this. Madam Chairwoman, the President suggested this amount a month ago. No wonder America has an opinion of Congress of 9 percent, because the President identified a problem a month ago and said: We are going to run out of money to take care of children and to secure our border, and Congress does nothing.

We want to help our rural areas. This is not the way to do it. Let's stop the flow of illegal drugs across our southern borders. Let's stop playing politics with the lives of our youth in rural areas by allowing that flow of drugs across the border.

Madam Chairwoman, bring the supplemental bill to the floor tonight. I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition, even though I support the amendment.

Madam Chair, there is no question that we have shortchanged career and technical education over the last few years because, to be honest, the last administration had a very different attitude about the needs of higher education. Thank goodness this Secretary and this administration have said career and technical education is important.

It is an important part of our economy, and we find that those individuals who have career and technical education in those sectors of the economy that are vibrant do have multiple job offers. They have very lucrative job offers.

On the other hand, some of the individuals who go to a traditional college leave with liberal arts degrees and leave with huge debts and very limited opportunities for employment.

We have to rebalance that. I applaud the gentlewoman from Minnesota for emphasizing the importance because this is long, long overdue.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, the idea is okay. This is all part of the puzzle. The Senior Medicare Patrol is a part of the puzzle.

But, again, my problem with this amendment is not that this program doesn't have some value. It is from where it takes the money. It makes the judgment that the other things in that pot of fraud control-- because that is the pot it comes out of. It doesn't say that this fraud control program is so important that we are going to look into some other part of HHS to take those dollars. It says that the other parts of fraud control are not as important.

Madam Chair, part of this money goes, for instance, to Department of Justice special attorneys who actually have to prosecute the cases. It is nice to find fraud, but if we don't have money to prosecute the cases, then we have a problem.

Again, this is the wishful thinking that we can just create all kinds of programs and that it doesn't make a difference where the money comes from. But it does because this $2 million comes out of some other fraud control somewhere. That is my concern.

I don't know that we have the knowledge to know that this fraud control actually yields more in terms of catching fraud and getting fraud moneys back than other uses of this account.

That is why, again, I applaud the idea. Let's train everybody to look. We know that fraud in Medicare and Medicaid is huge. The American taxpayer deserves to catch all the fraud. I am just not sure this is the best way to spend our fraud dollars. This account has already been plussed-up in the underlying bill, and that is why I reluctantly oppose the amendment.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I don't oppose the amendment, because this is a very important topic. There is no question about it. This is another one of the ways that our country needs improvement. Certainly, the Federal Government is an appropriate place to look for strategies to do that improvement.

Here is the problem: We have to set priorities. If this is a priority--look, we have a trillion-dollar deficit. And this should be a priority. Let's find a program that is not as important, decrease the funding to that program, increase the funding to this program.

Madam Chair, that is not the approach the amendment takes.

We are now up to $22 million, if all the amendments pass that we have discussed since just the last amendment vote--$22 million coming from the Secretary's management account.

You know, this is having your cake and eating it too. This is saying: This is important, but I am not going to make the tough decision of what is less important. Because it is mythical to believe that we are going to cut $22 million out of a growing agency's budget to manage that growing agency and not have an effect.

So, that is why I reluctantly rise to oppose it. Madam Chair, it is about priorities.

They send us to make the tough decisions. The tough decision isn't to say: Here are all the things. Let's go fund them all.

The tough decision is: This is what needs priority. And this does need priority. The tough decision is asking what has less priority, not going to that magical, bottomless well of the Secretary's management funds, because, Madam Chair, we are up to $22 million. And that is just since this vote. I haven't totaled up before the last vote series.

At some point, the Secretary is going to have to start taking out loans.

So, Madam Chair, again, I reluctantly rise to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I join the gentlewoman from California in recognizing the incredible importance of this. I have stated that.

Having your cake and eating it too is not related specifically to this amendment, but the idea that we have been discussing now for 2 hours, that we have all these things that are good--they probably are priorities--but the tough decision is to find where we are going to-- and not pretend that the Secretary's management budget is an endless well. That is just pretending.

Madam Chair, that is why 9 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Congress. Because, in our households, when we make a decision about a priority to spend money on something here, we take it out of somewhere else where we are not going to spend money, and not make- believe stuff.

So, Madam Chair, again: Well intentioned, well needed. We need to set priorities, and then we need to find places to make the cuts to fund those priorities.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, there are a lot of wonderful things we can do, but here is the problem: Since the last vote series, we have actually cut management by $22 million, and now we expect them to do more.

This is wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Literally, this amendment causes the administration to have to spend more.

Look, that could be a priority, but, if we pass all the amendments that we have considered since 1 p.m.--1 a.m.--I am sorry--East Coast time when we had the last vote series, we have cut the Secretary's ability by $22 million to do these things.

So you have got to choose: Do you want this, or do you want to cut the Secretary's budget? This is what priorities are all about.

So, no matter how useful this could be, Madam Chair, I would urge my colleagues, if we pass the amendments that cut tens of millions of dollars from management, then we can't accomplish this.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, again, it is nice to believe that, somehow, if we put this language in, we are going to save money somehow.

This was the promise of the ACA: If we just insure more people, for instance, they won't use the emergency room as much. Remember that?

Back in 2010, they said: Oh, we are using the emergency room a whole lot. All we have to do is pass the ACA and our emergency room usage will go down.

What happened? It went up 20 percent. Healthcare spending actually went up.

Now, look, having insurance is a good thing. No question about it. I am a physician. I get it. But, to say that we are going to save money by doing this--no. This is going to cost money because management has to obtain these figures.

If this was going to save money, this is easy. Let's find someplace to pay for it rather than the Secretary's account if it is this great money saver.

As useful as this could be, again, I would urge my colleagues: If we pass all the amendments, again, just the $22 million in cuts to management since the last vote series, we can't afford this.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, here we go again. I mean, let's play some more pretend.

Look, it's 3:30 in the morning, America is watching. This is why they have a 9 percent favorable rating of us.

The fact of the matter is, this whole budget is pretend. It pretends that our current statute, under the Budget Control Act, isn't at a billions of dollars lower level. So the committee pretended and said, we are going to pretend that the statute is something else, and we are going to spend all this money, including over $500 million more for AIDS. Laudable. It is pretend though.

So what does this amendment do? It just pretends a little more. It pretends that we can take that $5 million because, Madam Chair, this comes from that same fund. This is the Secretary's management fund.

We are up to $27 million we have taken in just 2\1/2\ short hours. This isn't a bottomless well.

I get it. We want to make a point that--and look, congratulations to the President. The President's State of the Union address, standing right on that podium, said that we have to have a struggle and a fight to end HIV/AIDS.

But you don't do it by taking the money from the Secretary's management fund, now up to $27 million in just 2\1/2\ short hours. Find it somewhere else. If this is so important, find it somewhere else. Don't play pretend.

We are not going to fool the American people. When they make a budget decision today, they choose to do something that they think is important. They choose not to do something that they think is less important. That is the way they expect us to act, not play pretend.

We have a $22 trillion debt, a $1 trillion deficit, and we are playing pretend at 3:30 in the morning. No wonder we have a 9 percent favorable rating. No wonder Americans don't trust Congress, because they know we make this stuff up.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, well, we finally have a prioritization here. This amendment actually takes money from one program that it thinks is not as important and puts it in another program it thinks is underfunded. But that is interesting because, look, the Inspector Generals are very important.

God knows the Inspector General over at Justice is doing a very important job right now. He has got to look into what the heck went on over in the senior levels of the Department of Justice that resulted in that Steele dossier, paid for by a campaign, actually ending up causing an investigation during a political campaign. Oh, those Inspector Generals are important. I will agree with on you that.

But this bill already increases the funding of the Inspector General by 4 percent, higher than inflation. The bill already has an increase.

Most people would think that is enough. Most Americans, if they got a 4 percent increase in their paycheck, they would go, wow, this is great. This is more than inflation. We want to do a little more.

But that is not the problem with this. It is where the money comes from. You see, because the money comes from already-reduced funding at the Office of Labor Management Standards.

So what is the Office of Labor Management because, you know, Madam Chair, we have--at 3:45 Eastern Time we probably don't have millions of people watching, but we have Americans watching who might be asking, what is this Office of Labor Management?

This is the one that actually sees that unions are following the rules.

Now, that is actually pretty important now, because there was a major Supreme Court decision called Janus last year that actually said that unions can't force their members to pay dues for political purposes. That is a broad, new responsibility.

So the fact of the matter is that the Supreme Court has basically said there is this broad, new responsibility for the Office of Labor- Management Standards because, Madam Chair, we already have reports of how unions are kind of gaming this and not really complying with the Supreme Court. The committee already cut it.

Madam Chair, I do commend the gentleman, because if he has been here a while--well, he may not have been here for the last couple of hours, but I have said, look, when we fund one program more, we have got to fund another program less. Madam Chair, I congratulate the gentleman for doing it.

I just disagree with what the gentleman wants to fund less, because this is critical, because American workers who don't believe in the politics of what their union is promoting shouldn't be forced to pay for that political advocacy. Janus was clear on that.

It is also clear that unions are trying to get around that, and the enforcement is through the Office of Labor-Management Standards.

We should be increasing this, not decreasing it as it was in the baseline budget, and certainly not decreasing it further, as the gentleman has proposed.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I stand corrected. The gentleman is absolutely right. It is the unions actually forcing nonunion members to pay. And it is equally egregious. It equally is enforced under this, and that is why I oppose it. We should actually be increasing the funds.

Again, I congratulate the gentleman for setting priorities. I just disagree with his priorities.

Madam Chair, I urge the Members to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, there is no arguing that these programs are important, but, again, we have to set priorities.

This doesn't say this program is important, and this other one is less important so we are going to take money from it. In fact, it takes money from CMS management.

Now, that is kind of interesting, because I have a lot of seniors in my district who depend upon Medicare being administered properly.

Thirteen thousand seniors enter Medicare every day, and what this amendment does is cut the funding to HHS that oversees the management of CMS, oversees the management of those 13,000 people entering Medicare every day.

I have no argument with these school health programs. They are important. But if they are important, then we have to choose what is less important.

I wouldn't have chosen, certainly, the management of the Medicare program. I think the seniors in my district would beg to differ that that is a good priority choice.

For that reason, Madam Chair, I reluctantly oppose the amendment because it doesn't set the priorities that need to be set, despite how important they are.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman from Massachusetts for recognizing the importance of these programs.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, again, I am not going to argue about the importance of the clinics, but to somehow suggest that a program that is a complete subsidy program--Madam Chair, all we have to do is just read. This is, again, why the American people just have to read the amendment.

The amendment doesn't say anything about forcing administrative savings. It says we are going to administratively cut. It doesn't suggest how savings are going to be found.

Again, it is important to get that $5 million for this program, but for heaven's sake, the fact of the matter is we have to make priority decisions. I would offer that cutting the administration for Medicare, when we take 13,000 people into the program every day, is not the proper offset for this.

Parliamentary Inquiries

Madam Chair, parliamentary inquiry.

Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chair. Does any time remain on that side?

Madam Chair, parliamentary inquiry. Does any time remain on that side?

Madam Chair, that is what I thought. That is what I thought.

Madam Chair, parliamentary inquiry. So it is inappropriate for someone to speak while I have the floor. Is that correct?

Madam Chair, parliamentary inquiry. That was not a hypothetical question. Someone was speaking while I had the floor.

Madam Chair, I move to adjourn.

Madam Chair, I move that the Committee rise.

Madam Chair, I will repeat my parliamentary inquiry, and I may withdraw the motion. Is it appropriate for someone to speak while someone else has the floor?

Madam Chair, so I assume that answer validates my point.

Madam Chair, I withdraw the motion to rise.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the Speaker to immediately schedule this important bill to save the lives of these babies who are born alive after an abortion attempt. This bill is exceedingly important and should be brought to the floor.

Madam Speaker, it is a shame that the new House majority, instead of fully funding border security, a few minutes ago actually passed H.J. Res. 46, which would reverse the President's emergency declaration that he signed 2 weeks ago that secures our border.

Now, in Maryland, we have a real problem. We are the second most active State for MS-13, which just walks across our border now because we don't have barriers. We have a huge problem, like every State in the Union, with drugs, with opioids that are just walked across our border, which isn't secured. And, Madam Speaker, we have a huge problem with human trafficking.

If this resolution is passed by the Senate, I hope that the President vetoes the resolution, we sustain that veto, and we finally secure our border.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding time.

I thank the two gentlemen from Texas for introducing the topic to the American people. This is something every American should be aware of.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Every American should look at a few pictures about our national debt.

This first picture is a 110-year period going from 1930, before World War II, to 2050, just 30 years away. It shows what our national debt has looked like as a percent of our economy, and it is pretty striking.

For the first 90 years of it, there is one huge peak: World War II, a world at war. At that time, our debt exceeded the size of our gross domestic product, the size of everything produced in the United States. Our debt rose to that amount after World War II.

The Greatest Generation spent the next 30 years paying down our debt and growing our economy, so that we had an affordable debt.

We had a little bit of rise in the 1980s and 1990s, as we defeated communism--again, a war situation.

Then, following 2008 and following the last administration, we have skyrocketing debt once again to the point where, within 5 years, we will approach the debt we had during World War II, fighting the largest war this world has fought.

Then, by 2048, 30 years from now, actually having a debt that is 150 percent of everything we make in this country, that is the level we see with failing economies, some of the economies like Greece, Italy, the ones that have unsustainable debts. We are on a clear path to that.

Now, let's talk about the size of our national debt. This chart goes from 2010. This is just 18 years, starting from 2010 and going to 2028. This is the interest payment on our national debt because, Madam Speaker, like every American knows, if you borrow money, you have to pay interest on it.

The fact of the matter is that right now, our interest, total interest payment, is about $200 billion.

But, Madam Speaker, every American family knows, every senior who has saved for retirement knows that interest rates right now are very low. If you go and get a CD, what are you getting, a 1 percent, 2 percent return. Those interest rates will return to normal.

And as the gentleman from Texas mentioned, we are accruing debt at $1 trillion a year, so that by the time we reach 2028, the interest payment on our debt alone, due to the increased size of our debt and the increased interest rate is going to approach $1 trillion a year.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, Madam Speaker, there are a lot of things that the government funds. Those of you who are interested in the safety of Social Security, of Medicare and Medicaid, of Federal pensions, they know that we are approaching a zero sum game. We can't keep this debt going forever.

In fact, this final chart I am going to show is 10 years, starting now, it shows the percent spending of GDP, so relative to our economy, what our net interest on our debt is; and then other things, like Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, things that we think are important, defense. The yellow line, the defense budget, nondefense, discretionary spending, all these are relatively constant. All of them are going to be crowded out by net interest on the debt.

Madam Speaker, Americans understand, you can't borrow forever. You can't do it on your cars; you can't do it on your houses; you can't do it on your credit cards; and we can't do it here in Congress anymore. This threatens our security, when, in 5 years, we will pay more interest on our national debt than we pay defending this country. We can't do it.

Congress has to get its act together, clean up its act, and get our budget in balance.

Madam Speaker, in the next few days, we are going to be asked to take another step on our journey to securing our border.

The Congress has to take this very seriously because we have tens of thousands of people dying every year from drug overdoses with a lot of those drugs crossing our southern border. Just a few weeks ago we seized hundreds of pounds of fentanyl, a drug that can kill millions of people and, in fact, has taken tens of thousands of lives.

We know our border is unsecured. We have to do whatever we can to give the President and the Department of Homeland Security the ability to protect our southern border.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

Mr. Speaker, my reading of the bill is not furloughed employees. It is anyone affected. It has a very broad definition. Without putting any guardrails on it, one could argue that every American was probably affected in some way. Is that true? Is my reading of the bill that this extends way beyond furloughed employees? It affects any consumer affected. Is that correct?

Mr. Speaker, I object.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding to me, obviously, on the eve of the March for Life.

Madam Speaker, let me follow up with what my cochairman has said. It has been 46 years since Roe v. Wade, a generation and a half. There is no question that there have been incredibly significant scientific advances in that time, advances that make the humanity of the in utero child clear and that we have to revisit.

The fact is that science has now put to shame the idea that life developing within the womb is merely a ``clump of cells.'' Well, I could describe any of us as a clump of cells, too. I mean, I guess, technically, that is what we are. But science now has gone deeper and allows us to show exactly what is happening and when a human being exists.

So let's ask ourselves: Who exactly is human? It is an important question, because if you are human, you are entitled to human rights, and those rights are guaranteed under our Constitution. It is a critically important question: When is someone human?

Now, science has answered that pretty clearly. At the moment of conception, when a sperm cell from a human joins together with an egg cell from a human, a new human life begins. Absolutely unique.

How do we know that? Well, in those 46 years since Roe v. Wade has been promulgated, we actually have Nobel Prizes for DNA describing DNA and genetics. We know that, at that moment, a unique human being has been formed with unique DNA.

My gosh, anybody who watches NCIS knows that. Anybody who opens a high school textbook knows that. When are we going to figure it out? Because, at conception, a new member of the homo sapiens species--that is what it is; let's talk scientific--is verifiable by uniquely human

Mr. Speaker, today the House will pass H.R. 4913, renaming the Salisbury, Maryland Post Office, the ``Sgt. Maj. Wardell B. Turner Post Office Building'' In honor of Sgt. Maj. Wardell Turner who was killed in action in Afghanistan.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation honors the memory of a fellow serviceman, devoted husband, loving father and valorous soldier. It is my sincere hope that the designation of this post office in Sergeant Turner's name will help our community on the Eastern Shore, and our country, celebrate and remember the legacy of service and sacrifice left behind by this true American hero.

Sergeant Turner was a local legend on Maryland's Eastern Shore. He graduated from Bennett High School in Salisbury, Maryland in 1984 where he was a standout fullback and middle linebacker. He helped lead the Bennett High School Clippers to back-to-back undefeated seasons and state titles in 1982 and 1983. His leadership and ability earned him an athletic scholarship from Towson University. He was a four-year letter winner and in 1989, graduated with a bachelor's degree in management. Years later, in 2011, he would earn his master's degree in criminal justice from Central Missouri State University. In 1991 he married his wife, Katherine, whom he met at a New Year's Eve dance on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In 1993, looking for an opportunity to serve, he enlisted in the Army. According to those closest to him, the Army was more than just a career, it was a calling.

His military career took him across the United States and to bases in Germany and South Korea. While in Germany, Wardell Turner was recognized for saving a young woman's life as she attempted to jump off a bridge. He was later deployed to Bosnia in the 1990's and then to Iraq in 2003. He served in military police units beginning in 1993, most recently with the 720th Police Battalion based at Fort Hood, Texas. Earning the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and other Meritorious Service Medals along the way, he steadily climbed the enlisted ranks and was promoted to Sgt. Maj. in 2013.

Sgt. Maj. Turner was assigned to the headquarters of the U.S. Army Garrison at Fort Drum in New York when he was sent to Afghanistan in July of 2014 during Operation Enduring Freedom. There he served as the senior enlisted advisor for the Combined Security Transition Command- Afghanistan in Kabul whose primary mission was the training of Afghan security forces. Sgt. Maj. Turner had planned for this to be his last deployment, hoping to retire in a year or so and spend more time with his family. Those that knew him described him as highly organized and a devoted family man.

Prior to his death, just before Thanksgiving, he had found time to gather and ship Christmas gifts to his family back home. According to his wife, Katherine, despite his being unable to be home for the holidays, these gifts, and the effort he made to make sure they arrived on time, highlighted just how much his family meant to him, and him to them.

Sergeant Turner was killed on November, 24, 2014, when his convoy was hit by an IED while on patrol in Eastern Kabul.

Sergeant Turner's son, Devin Turner, who was also enlisted in the Army and was deployed to Afghanistan at the time, planned to share Thanksgiving with his father. Tragically, he was informed a few days before the holiday that his father had been killed. Specialist Turner escorted his father's casket home. After his father's funeral, Specialist Turner, despite his loss, returned to Afghanistan to finish his tour. According to Devin, his father would have supported his decision to return to duty and didn't believe in leaving your business unfinished.

Sgt. Maj. Turner was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in January of 2015. Members of his family say that they found peace in his sacrifice knowing he died doing what he loved . . . serving his country.

Sgt. Maj. Wardell Turner has left a lasting legacy in our community. In 2016 Towson University created the ``Wardell Turner Scholarship'' to be awarded annually to a defensive back on the football team that is in good academic standing and demonstrates the qualities and attributes exemplified by Mr. Turner. Those enumerated qualities include leadership, selfless service, and commitment.

Last year, friends, family and high school teammates gathered at the Wicomico Presbyterian Church to retire his Bennett High School jersey and to celebrate his life and his military service. During the ceremony, Mayor Jake Day of Salisbury, Maryland proclaimed October 28, 2017, as ``Sgt. Maj, Wardell Turner Day''.

His legacy survives and continues with his five children, Shayla, Quinton, Devin, Wardell II, Xavier, several grandchildren, and his devoted wife, Katherine.

Mr. Speaker, Sgt. Maj. Wardell Turner is a true American hero. His life of courage and service provides an example for us all. It is my pleasure to offer this bill to rename the Salisbury post office the Sgt. Maj. Wardell B. Turner Post Office building. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation that honors one of the Eastern Shore's favorite sons.

The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, was read the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the age 8 to 10 Chesapeake City Little League Girls Softball Team on the tremendous victory they achieved last week. On July 19th, these talented young ladies won the Maryland State Little League Softball Championship, in a 4 to 3 extra inning nail-biter.

I commend this team of talented young athletes for their hard work and good sportsmanship. The Little League pledge states ``I trust in God, I love my country, and will respect its laws. I will play fair and strive to win, but win or lose, I will always do my best.'' The young ladies on this team embody the American work ethic, and their positive attitude made them unstoppable this season.

I wish these young athletes and their coaches the best of luck in the future, and I again congratulate them on their impressive victory as Maryland State Champions.