Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my deep appreciation to the people of Virginia's Fifth District for the privilege of representing them these past 4 years. Being their Congressman has been the greatest honor of my professional life. When I…
Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my deep appreciation to the people of Virginia's Fifth District for the privilege of representing them these past 4 years. Being their Congressman has been the greatest honor of my professional life. When I answered the call 5 years ago to run for Congress, I identified as a Biblical and a constitutional conservative.
I wanted the voters and my future constituents to know how I would make decisions, how I would represent them, and how I would vote on their behalf in Washington.
I wanted them to know that my values and principles come from my Christian faith and my Biblical world view. I wanted them to know that my guiding political philosophy comes from the Constitution and its stated limits on Federal power.
My allegiance as a Congressman has been to my creator, my Savior, the institution, the promises I made to my constituents, and to doing what I know is right regardless of the cost.
My main priorities have been to cut spending, to shrink the Federal Government, to fight for America first border and immigration policies, and to protect our constitutional freedoms.
As my time serving in this body on behalf of the citizens of Virginia's Fifth District comes to a close, I leave with no regrets because I have done as I told them I would do when I asked them to trust me with their vote and their support.
My ultimate desire, however, has been to please the Lord, to be more concerned about offending Him by what I don't say than I am about offending others by what I do say.
I didn't run for Congress promising to bring the money back home, to deliver the earmarks or the pork projects. I didn't run promising to work across the aisle, to compromise, or to find common ground, or to get things done. In fact, most of what we do here in Washington is bad, certainly unconstitutional, unjustified, and often downright harmful, not to mention we don't have the money, so the less we do, the better.
In fact, we should be proud of the accusation that over the past 2 years this Congress has done less than most Congresses.
As Republicans, what should we have done more of that Biden and Schumer would agree to do?
When I first ran for Congress in 2020, I presumed I would have the opportunity to serve with President Trump, help him build on the successes of his first term, and help him enact his second term agenda.
Unfortunately, that has not been the case, and like most Republicans, my efforts have been by extreme necessity directed at fighting the Democratic agenda which has caused so much pain and suffering for the American people these past 4 years.
That is because when Democrats seize power, they wield it without apology, and they ram through the radical agenda as they did in the first 2 years of the Biden administration with a narrow House majority and far less than 60 votes in the Senate.
It is always about the money in Washington, and Democrats spent it lavishly and recklessly in 2021 and 2022 on their trillions for their ill-conceived and harmful COVID response, their inflation increase act, their phony infrastructure bill, and their radical climate agenda, all the while infusing every policy, department, and agency with their extreme pro-abortion, pro-transgender, pro-DEI, pro-CRT, and climate objectives.
Democrats are willing to lose elections to push and pull the Nation to the left, understanding that Republicans don't have the same political courage or willingness to risk their own elective futures to undo the harm, overturn the policies, or defund the programs.
Thankfully, however, the American people responded to the extreme Democratic agenda by entrusting Republicans with the House majority 2 years ago in the 2022 midterms. Unfortunately, this Republican House majority has been squandered by a lack of courage, a lack of principle, and a lack of steely resolve by Republican leadership and too many Republican Members these past 2 years.
Again, it is all about the money, and House Republicans could have blocked, stopped, and defunded anything and everything that we wanted to these past 2 years. We could have just turned off the spigot and refused to give them the money. Instead, we have funded and perpetuated the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer policies and spending levels that we inherited and campaigned against that are bankrupting and destroying the country.
The Constitution entrusts the House to manage the Nation's finances, the Nation's debt, the Nation's credit, and our ability to borrow money if and when necessary and to make the payments on that debt.
However, our national debt has grown by some $5 trillion in the 2 years that Republicans have controlled the purse strings. We are failing miserably. Every dollar we vote on is borrowed. Every dollar borrowed and spent steals from Americans through higher taxes, more inflation, and/or a greater debt burden for our kids and our grandkids.
Over the past 2 years, House Republicans have given more money to Mayorkas for the border invasion. As a matter of fact, back in the spring, we gave him $3 billion more to bring more illegals in quicker.
We have given more money to Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray to abuse their power and weaponize Federal law enforcement against their political opponents.
House Republicans have continued funding Democrats' radical climate extremism, their pro-abortion agenda, their pro-LGBTQ policies, and their racist DEI-CRT agenda.
Why has our party leadership been more afraid to do nothing than to do something bad? As the medical folks like to say: First, do no harm.
However, with predominantly Democratic votes, typically 90 to even 100 percent of Democratic votes in a Chamber with a Republican majority, our report card shows that, since electing our current Speaker 14 months ago, we have failed to cut $1 of spending and have instead continued a $200 billion monthly deficit.
We have passed four CRs, or continuing resolutions, and two minibuses maintaining Democratic policies and spending levels from the Biden- Pelosi-Schumer regime when they had full control.
We reduced our majority by kicking out George Santos, who had a solid conservative voting record and had not been convicted of any crime.
We passed an NDAA maintaining abortion funding, LGBTQ policies, climate priorities, DEI policies, and CRT training. We reauthorized FISA twice without a warrant amendment prohibiting illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of U.S. citizens without their knowledge, due process, or probable cause.
We have borrowed and funded tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine and even Hamas. We borrowed and funded thousands of earmarks for tens of billions of dollars more to provide Members with political cover back home for the bad votes they take here.
We passed a tax bill that gave more benefits to illegal aliens. We failed to use any leverage that we had with the House majority to secure our borders.
Just last month, we increased mandatory or, really, automatic spending by $200 billion more.
All of this has been done over the past 14 months with significantly more Democratic than Republican votes when we have the House majority.
What if we had instead shocked the American people and summoned the courage and the resolve to just say,
``Heck no, not on our watch,'' and walked away and refused to fund the very destruction of the country, destruction that we campaigned against.
What if we had told Biden and Schumer: You aren't getting the money unless you cut some spending and reverse some of these harmful, dangerous policies.
Instead, we are today contemplating borrowing $115 billion more for a disaster supplemental--that is what we are calling it, anyway--on top of other inevitable year-end lameduck spending increases.
Setting aside the lack of constitutional justification for the Federal Government being in the disaster relief or insurance business anyway, and why we would force middle America to fund relief for the coastal elites in these high-cost areas, setting aside the constitutionality or lack thereof of doing that, why would we even think about borrowing and giving $1 more to the Biden administration in the remaining weeks of their regime? Why would we give the politicized and weaponized FEMA any more money before the end of this year?
On November 5, the American people, thankfully, rejected the radical Democratic policies under which they have suffered these past 4 years. It wasn't a question of a Democratic Presidential candidate or the messaging or voter turnout. The fact is, Americans don't want the extreme Democratic agenda. They have had enough. The only alternative was the Republicans.
Thankfully, at least for us politically, Democrats still don't grasp that, but we must not squander this reprieve and this tremendous opportunity that we were given by the American people on November 5. Americans desperately need our help. They desperately need us to rise to the occasion and to meet the moment.
It can't be business as usual or how it has been for the past few decades. The American people are counting on us. They must count on us. There is no plan B. It is on this body.
We are in the position that Democrats were in 4 years ago. After the 2020 election, they were in control of the White House with a narrow House and Senate majority. We are in the same position.
Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, we have talked a lot today, and we heard a lot of talk today about unity in our party, but unity for what purpose? Is it just to have the majority, so we can be in the majority, so we can stay in the majority? Is that the purpose?
Unity is impossible without a unifying mission. What is ours? The Democrats are clearly united in their agenda, the direction they want to take the country, and they will risk anything and everything to advance that.
Why do we want the majority? Why do we want to have power? For what purpose? What are our nonnegotiables to keep that power? What, if anything, are we not willing to give up or surrender in the name of obtaining or retaining power?
I have often told the Republican Conference that we will never change Washington or save our country until it becomes more important for us to leave here having made a difference than it is to see how long we can stay. For far too many, the primary goal is to be here and to stay here as long as we can, even to die here of natural causes, it seems, and everything else is subordinate to that objective.
We cannot be unified if we are willing to fund the very things we claim to oppose because some in our party believe it will help them get elected. Our party cannot be the goal or the objective unto itself, and our purpose cannot simply be to win elections to have the majority.
What are our sacred principles, values, and convictions that cannot and must not be surrendered in order to obtain or retain power? Mr. Speaker, are there any? For what, if anything, are we willing to risk losing power to fight for? Is there any issue that transcends politics and elections for us? What is our foundation upon which everything else rests?
Many people across the country will express their knowledge of the First Amendment, which as my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy), has stated, the Founders should have stopped with ``Congress shall make no law.'' Just stop right there. Again, less is more.
Whenever you ask somebody what the First Amendment protects or what the first right protected in the Constitution is, they will invariably say freedom of speech. I have almost never had anyone answer that question any differently when you ask them what the First Amendment protects or what the first right protected in the Constitution is. They will say freedom of speech. Of course, that is incorrect.
The first right specifically protected in the Constitution, the first one enumerated in the Bill of Rights intended to protect the people from an oppressive Federal Government, is the freedom of religion. The Founders knew that the most basic, most fundamental, and most precious of rights is the freedom to worship or not to worship and the freedom to practice or not to practice our faith as we choose.
You cannot separate America from our founding Judeo-Christian principles and a recognition of our supernatural creator, by whom and for whom we have our existence, our lives, our breath, and our very being. It is He, as our founding Declaration expresses, who has endowed us with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
How can a party continue to call itself conservative if it no longer fights for absolute truth and natural law flowing from our creator?
How can a party call itself conservative if it no longer protects innocent, precious life in the womb or looks the other way at the number one cause of death in this country, abortion, and funds it in policy, as some just voted to do today with the latest NDAA?
How can a party call itself conservative if it no longer fights for Biblical morality, the traditional family, or the definition of marriage?
In fact, I have said many times that almost everything that plagues our society and our country is a failure to follow God's design for morality, marriage, and the family.
How can a party call itself conservative if it no longer fights for a commonsense, scientific definition of sex and gender and funds the LGBTQ agenda, as we have been doing for the past 4 years?
How can a party call itself conservative if it no longer fights for the true equality of all and, instead, tolerates DEI and CRT, racist policies that we are funding?
How can a party call itself conservative if it no longer fights for individual freedom, personal responsibility, and self-reliance, or if it no longer places a premium on work or believes that people have a responsibility to provide for themselves, but instead, the party funds government dependence and generational poverty?
How can a party call itself conservative if it no longer fights for limited government, reduced spending, or fiscal responsibility and instead borrows and funds massive deficits?
I often speak in my district about the little-known and little- regarded Ninth and 10th Amendments to the Constitution. When you ask a group what the Ninth and 10th Amendments are, almost no one knows what those amendments are.
The Ninth Amendment says: ``The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.''
What that means is we have every right that the Constitution doesn't prohibit to us. We retain all the others. Just because the Founders listed some rights doesn't mean we don't keep every other right.
The 10th Amendment says: ``The powers not delegated to the United States,'' or the Federal Government, ``by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people.''
What the Founders were saying, of course, is the Federal Government had limited power, and everything else was supposed to be left to the people or the States.
Almost everything we do in this body is unconstitutional and violates the Ninth and the 10th Amendments. We have strayed so far from these constitutional limits, as so many Republicans have embraced expanded Federal power, the growth of government, more spending, and diminished freedom for the individual.
We consistently reduce the rights or freedoms of the people. We regularly
seize from the States and the people the power that should be left to them.
Again, it is all about the money. It is all about the purse strings that are entrusted specifically to this body.
We are in danger of fulfilling the famous quote attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler. He said this a couple of hundred years ago:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
It can only exist until the voters discover that they can
vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that
moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates
promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with
the result that a democracy always collapses over loose
fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
``The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage.''
May we determine not to accelerate that on our watch, not to let this happen on our watch. May we determine to leave those who come behind us a better America than we found it. May we determine to leave Congress having truly made a difference.
Mr. Speaker, once again, I thank the citizens of Virginia's Fifth District for the privilege of representing them in Congress, and I yield back the balance of my time.
