Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 28 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, May 17, 2024, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to call on Turks and Caicos to treat Louisa County resident Tyler Wenrich fairly and appropriately for his accidental mistake in their country.

Tyler is a paramedic and vice president of operations at Emergency Services Solutions in Powhatan County. On April 23, while traveling with friends in Turks and Caicos, law enforcement discovered two stray bullets in his baggage. Tyler apparently had the two bullets in his luggage when leaving the United States, but they were not discovered by our own TSA.

He is facing up to 12 years in prison despite no demonstrated criminal intent.

My staff and I remain in constant communication with Tyler and his family, providing support and advocating for his release with consequences that fit the unintentional offense.

I call on the Biden administration to join me in demanding his release and issuing a State Department travel advisory, warning travelers to Turks and Caicos of the excessive criminal penalties they may face there for accidental minor offenses.

Tyler's wife, Jeriann, and young son need him in Louisa, and my staff and I will continue to pursue every avenue to help facilitate his safe return.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and honor the extraordinary service of Louisa County School Superintendent Doug Straley.

Mr. Straley has worked tirelessly for many years to improve the lives of students, teachers, and staff in Louisa County Public Schools. For his effort, Mr. Straley was named the 2024 Virginia Superintendent of the Year by the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, recognizing his outstanding leadership of the county schools.

Mr. Straley began his career as a teacher and served as an athletics director, high school principal, and assistant superintendent before assuming his current position as superintendent.

As a lifelong resident of Louisa County, Mr. Straley has proudly dedicated 29 years of service to Louisa County Public Schools. His contributions to the Louisa community are immeasurable, and he is a most worthy recipient of this award.

I thank Mr. Straley for his exceptional achievements in Louisa County. I wish him continued success as he strives to impact students in the county.

I am honored to represent Superintendent Doug Straley and all the incredible public servants of Virginia's Fifth District.

Mr. Speaker, for purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the ranking member on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the veto message on H.J. Res. 98.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of overriding President Biden's veto of H.J. Res. 98. A vote in favor of this resolution will nullify the Biden administration's attempt to redefine what it means to be a joint employer under the National Labor Relations Act.

After receiving bipartisan support from both Chambers, Congress sent H.J. Res. 98 to the President's desk showing our broad disapproval of the new joint employer rule. Now, with President Biden's veto, the message from the administration is clear: Franchise businesses are not welcome partners in the Biden economy.

In fact, the Biden administration wants to return to the harm done during the Obama-Biden administration, when this rule was first in effect and cost the economy more than $30 billion and nearly 400,000 jobs on an annual basis for the 5-year period until President Trump, thankfully, reversed the rule.

It also benefited the Democrats' favorite trial lawyers when lawsuits against franchise businesses increased by 93 percent.

The joint employer rule overturns legal precedent that was in place from 1984 to 2015. It is a direct attack on the thousands of small businesses that make up the healthy and growing franchise sector.

Currently, a business is considered an employer only if they exercise direct and immediate control over an employee's essential terms and conditions of employment. However, the new rule establishes that two or more businesses are in a joint employer relationship if one employer merely exercises indirect control over another company's employees.

Under this standard, something as simple as a franchisor giving a franchisee a company handbook could be interpreted as exercising indirect control.

Changing the definition of who controls a business creates confusion and threatens the independence of so many successful small business owners.

Biden's rule will saddle franchisors with liability for independent franchise owners, over which they do not have control. Inevitably, the result of this rule will be less growth, more lawsuits, and the functional transformation of businessowners into middle managers.

It is already very difficult to operate a small business today in Biden's America. The administration's response to high inflation, low workforce participation, and high interest rates, which are causing so much economic hardship from Bidenomics, is to aggressively pursue an anti-employer, antiworker, pro-union-boss agenda.

We must protect the model that is currently working for businesses and eliminate the threat of this new rule.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of overriding the President's veto of H.J. Res. 98, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is and always will be about labor unions. That is essentially what my friend from the Commonwealth of Virginia just said. However, we need to go back to pro-growth policies when real wages were growing for everyone, when unemployment was at a record low for everyone, and there were millions more Americans working during the Trump administration.

Bidenomics and Bidenflation don't work. This is a recession back into the past here. It is not going to work. We are not responsible for what the Senate does, Mr. Speaker. We are not responsible for what the White House does. The Senate actually agreed with us on this on a bipartisan basis, and the House did this on a bipartisan basis.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. James).

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

Mr. Speaker, I have to hand it to my friend from Virginia. He is resilient, but he has got a tough job trying to defend the economic record of the current administration.

We have got some 4 million people less working than were working when he became President. Everyone knows that under the previous administration, again, we had record-low unemployment and record-high labor participation. Now we have a record-low labor participation rate.

We had unemployment that was at record lows for everyone during the previous administration and real wage growth under the previous administration.

Now we have 40-year high inflation. Inflation was nonexistent before this President got into office. We have 20-year high interest rates which are further crushing the American people. We have got our credit being downgraded because of the reckless, excessive, wasteful, and unprecedented spending which will cause interest rates to go even higher.

Mr. Speaker, you can't fool the American people. You can't tell them it is good when they know that it is bad. They are suffering at the grocery store, they are suffering when they pay the utility bill, they are suffering at the gas pump, they are suffering when they make the mortgage payment or when they make the rent payment, and they are suffering when they are unable to afford to buy a home, especially for young people starting out.

This is all a direct result of bad policy from this President. This is just one more example as he vetoes the will of the American people reflected in a bipartisan manner by both Houses of Congress sending him legislation to overturn this rule, and yet he has vetoed it and has forced us to try to overcome his veto today.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close if the gentleman from Virginia is prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Virginia said it himself. The unions, the Teamsters and the steelworkers, are for this. That is reason enough to oppose this.

We talked about the credit being downgraded. It is unprecedented in the country, twice to have our credit downgraded during this President's time in office.

The previous President had record job growth and a roaring economy until the pandemic hit. Under this President, of course, some of the jobs that were lost in the pandemic have been recovered, but not all of them.

Again, we have a record-low labor participation rate, meaning the percentage of those able-bodied, working-age Americans who are working is at an all-time low. We don't count those individuals who aren't looking for work in the unemployment numbers. They don't count. You have an artificially low so-called unemployment rate because there are record numbers of Americans on Federal assistance, as we have stripped away all the work requirements for cash welfare, for food stamps, and for housing assistance.

While we on this side measure success by how many people we get off of government assistance, the other side measures success by how many people are on government assistance programs as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to try to grow the amount of people who are paid not to work, which further causes economic harm.

We cannot just cut our spending on our way to prosperity. Again, in this country, we have to grow our way by going back to pro-growth policies.

Mr. Speaker, in testimony before our committee on this issue, the president of the International Franchise Association said: The rule would make franchisees merely employers of and/or co-employers with their franchisor. This will significantly diminish the value of the business that they have spent their entire careers building.

We know his statement is true because we have seen this policy play out before. Years ago, when President Obama's NLRB advanced a similar rule, the International Franchise Association conducted a study on its impact, and research showed that the indirect control standard cost the industry, as my friend from Michigan said, as much as $33 billion annually, killed almost 400,000 jobs, and, once again, increased lawsuits against franchise businesses by 93 percent.

The franchise model represents an opportunity to pursue the American Dream. Congress must stand up for the 9 million franchise workers across the country and override President Biden's veto.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the service of former Amherst County Sheriff E.W. Viar, Jr.

Sheriff Viar completed almost 40 years of service in law enforcement, including 8 years as the sheriff of Amherst County. He led many successful public safety initiatives, including expanding the K-9 program, using drone technology, and ensuring that there were school resource officers in every school to protect our students.

Through his diligence and dedication to public service, Sheriff Viar worked tirelessly to create a safe county for all Amherst residents. I thank Sheriff Viar for his extensive career of service in law enforcement, and I wish him the very best in his retirement.

Sheriff Viar is an example of the courage and bravery demonstrated by each member of law enforcement who selflessly works every day to keep our communities safe. I am honored to represent those like Sheriff Viar serving in law enforcement in Virginia's Fifth District, and I thank them for their continued commitment and sacrifice.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize World War II veteran Elmer Cocke of Danville, Virginia, who recently turned 100 years old.

After finishing high school, Elmer joined the U.S. Maritime Service Radio School. He underwent his training in New York and Massachusetts, learned Morse code, and was promoted to warrant officer.

In 1945, he joined the William J. Palmer, a Liberty ship carrying the products of the ``Arsenal of Democracy'' to American forces and Allies around the world.

When sailing across the Mediterranean in 1945, the William J. Palmer struck a mine in the Adriatic Sea.

Elmer jumped into action, helping make way for a lifeboat to detach from the sinking ship.

The entire crew boarded a rescue ship and was taken to Italy with no crewmembers lost. Elmer headed back to New York and again to another Liberty ship going to France to transport hundreds of victorious American soldiers back home.

Elmer was discharged in 1946, and returned to his wife, Hilda, and their Gretna farm.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to recognize the extraordinary veterans of Virginia's Fifth District like Elmer Cocke, a living picture of the courage and patriotism that have kept our Nation free.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Miller for hosting this important initiative tonight.

After ratifying the Constitution in 1789, the Founders had the wisdom to compose and pass the Bill of Rights in 1791 to further protect Americans from a potentially oppressive Federal Government. They believed that we needed to codify into law, in fact, into the highest law of the land, the enumeration of certain rights, God-given rights, for which it was the specific responsibility of the Federal Government to ensure and to protect.

The Bill of Rights did not begin with the right to free speech, to a free press, to assemble, to petition our government, to keep and bear arms, or even the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. No. The first enshrined protected right was the freedom of religion, the free exercise thereof, and the freedom from a government- established religion.

Founders understood that the most important, most precious, and most fundamental right is the right to freely believe or not to believe, to worship or not to worship, and to exercise or practice our faith or not to do so.

Throughout human history and across every corner of the globe, mankind has exercised the God-created yearning to reconcile with his creator. Mankind has wrestled with the purpose of life and the question of the afterlife.

Sadly and unfortunately, those questions cannot be asked freely and those rights cannot be practiced freely in many parts of the world today.

Be that as it may, we are so blessed to live in a country where we still have that freedom today, and it is critical that we endeavor to ensure that unobstructed freedom endures for those who come behind us.

The good news is that those questions about the purpose of life and the reality of an eternal afterlife have been answered in the Bible: God's inspired, inerrant, and infallible written Word.

The Bible is the good news of Jesus Christ, the death and resurrection of the Savior, the Son of God, the Savior of the world.

2,000 years after his sacrificial death on the cross, which is an undisputed historical fact, this son of a carpenter remains the most prominent figure in human history.

How did someone who had no formal education, never traveled more than a few miles from his home, never held any kind of public office, had no material wealth, and was executed at the young age of 33, how did he literally change the world, with billions of followers ever since, including around the world today? This, despite many efforts to prohibit the distribution of the Bible and the free exercise of the Christian faith around the globe and throughout history.

The answer is that He was and is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. That is why his disciples, his inner circle of chosen followers who witnessed his crucifixion, died in testimony of having also witnessed his resurrection. They gave everything to spread the gospel, the good news of their Savior, Jesus Christ, so that others might know the salvation they had experienced.

I am eternally grateful that others shared that faith with me, as when I was a young child of 9 years old, I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. It is my Christian faith that shapes every area of my life. It is my purpose, my joy, my peace, and my confidence in my eternal destination.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Miller, again, for hosting this Special Order recognizing the importance of our faith.

Mr. Speaker, since 2002, the Virginia Governor's Fire Service Awards have recognized outstanding first responders in the Commonwealth.

Chief Monty Coleman of the Forest Volunteer Fire Department received the Virginia Fire Chief of the Year Award. For 35 years, he has served Bedford County, working diligently to meet the needs of their growing response area. I congratulate Chief Coleman on this award and thank him for his dedication.

The city of Lynchburg's fire department was recognized for its Excellence in Virginia Community Risk Reduction after launching Walk- About Wednesday, a project promoting community safety. This successful initiative involved going door to door to inform citizens about emergency preparedness and install critical safety components. I applaud the Lynchburg Fire Department for providing city residents with these important resources.

I also congratulate the Blairs Volunteer Fire and Rescue which received an Outstanding Fire Department Response Award for their quick actions in responding to a large apartment fire last November. With help from Pittsylvania County and Danville, they heroically prevented any life-threatening injuries or deaths.

I am proud of these outstanding individuals, and I am proud to represent all of the brave first responders of Virginia's Fifth District.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friends, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for speaking so effectively on this issue.

We cannot talk enough about the border. In my district, we just did a survey asking my constituents what is the most important issue, what is the number one issue facing the country, and the southern border was the overwhelming response. They realize that is hundreds of miles from them geographically, but it is coming home to them in my very district in Bedford and Campbell Counties, just outside greater Lynchburg. They are otherwise as peaceful and as safe places to live as anyplace in the country. Both of these counties have recently had sexual assaults committed by illegal aliens allowed into this country. Wait, let me check myself: helped into this country, purposely helped into this country by this President and his open-border policies.

It gets worse every day. We have spoken many times, and we need to continue to speak about Laken Riley, the young lady from Mr. Clyde's area of Georgia, brutally murdered by an illegal alien helped into this country by this President's open-border policies.

To what lengths will this administration go to keep the borders open? They are fighting the very State of Texas, which is trying to secure their own border, trying to defend their own citizens, and the administration is literally suing and fighting and challenging them and prohibiting them from securing their border and defending their citizens and trying to keep them safe.

Just in the last couple of days, we had a Lebanese illegal who worked for Hezbollah for 7 years, who thankfully was apprehended. He said that he was coming to go to New York City to make a bomb. How many like that individual might be among the 2 million got-aways? Not the 8 million who come and surrender to Border Patrol to take advantage of the generous Biden policies: the free housing, the free travel, the free healthcare, the free social services, the free education, and all the rest. The Biden administration takes the ones who surrender in with open arms at taxpayer expense, provides them with benefits that American citizens do not receive, makes sure, by the way, that they have their Second Amendment rights in place, as we saw in the State of Illinois just recently.

However, then there are the 2 million who don't want that and actually pay the cartels more to evade apprehension, to evade encounter with Border Patrol because these are the criminals. These are the gang members; these are the traffickers of drugs and children and sex trafficking and the ones with the criminal backgrounds. How many more among that 2 million are like that individual from Lebanon, the Hezbollah member who said he wanted to go to New York to make a bomb?

What is going to happen this Friday? We think it is going to be Friday. We don't have bill text yet. We are going to vote--not myself and my friend from Georgia--but we are going to vote to

fund this government, to give this administration billions of dollars more to continue facilitating this very border invasion that we have talked about for these past 3 years.

We even heard in a meeting of our own Republican Conference this morning that some of our members didn't care when we got the bill text. They didn't care if it was 72 minutes, they said, or 72 hours. They were going to vote for it anyway, irrespective of what the contents might be.

They didn't care what was in it. They didn't care how that estimated $1.2 trillion was going to be spent. They didn't care what the policies were going to be.

They just wanted it passed by Friday, I guess so they could go home, so they could go to their fundraisers. Yet, we are going to fund this government and these policies that we campaigned against.

I don't need 72 hours to vote ``no'' against a bad bill that doesn't reverse the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer policies under which the American people are suffering.

I don't need 72 hours to evaluate that and vote ``no.'' If I was going to vote ``yes'' like some of my colleagues, I might want to actually have 72 hours to know what policies I was owning and that I was responsible for funding before I cast my ``yes'' vote.

The last thing I will say to my good friend from Georgia: Why should we not attach H.R. 2, the border security bill?

If we are going to fund Chuck Schumer's and Joe Biden's spending bill with the policies that we stand against and spending levels that are $60 billion higher this year, why not at least attach border security to it, H.R. 2, and demand that the Democrats choose between shutting down the border or shutting down the government because they don't care about the border invasion?

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Clyde for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here today, again, opposing the status quo of more reckless spending in Washington. This House is supposedly run by Republicans, and yet here we are continuing to pass the Pelosi-Biden-Schumer spending levels and the policies connected to them, predictably with a majority of Democrat votes.

As a matter of fact, this morning I had a Democrat Member tell me in a private conversation that he likes it when we are in charge because nothing changes, but we get the blame for it because we have the majority.

Our national debt continues to skyrocket. We are at nearly $35 trillion. That is a number that is hard to grasp. It is actually more than $100,000 per citizen and that figure just grows by the day.

Bidenflation is further exacerbating the crisis, and the congressional uniparty is perpetuating it on a daily basis. Thankfully, we may be getting some future relief with the just-announced resignation of the minority leader in the Senate, but some of us here in the House came here to actually represent the American people, to do what we said we would do, and we did not mean constantly kicking the can down the road, passing more continuing resolutions that hurt the American people.

Many people in this body are scared of a government shutdown, and I will acknowledge that a government shutdown is not the ideal thing, but it is not the worst thing. The worst thing is keeping in place the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer policies that are destroying the country and bankrupting our kids and our grandkids.

Worse yet, they are keeping in place the border invasion, the very invasion that we campaigned against, the very invasion that is the greatest threat to our country.

That is what is going to happen here today. We are going to fund that border invasion for another week as a bridge to another spending bill that will keep all the policies in place and actually increase them over the Pelosi-Schumer levels from back before we had the majority.

We could have passed a full year stopgap spending bill that would have cut $100 billion. We could have attached it to border security to stand up for the American people. As a bonus, it would eliminate thousands of earmarks for tens of billions of dollars more, but here we are today. True leadership involves making difficult decisions. Cutting spending is difficult. That is why nobody does it here, but when will the debt matter in this Chamber beyond a campaign talking point? I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the winners of this year's Virginia's Fifth District Congressional App Challenge.

Every year, middle and high school students submit their applications to participate in the Congressional App Challenge, a complex competition where students interested in STEM code an application of their preference.

Adrian Park, Sean Fu, and Emmet Lach from Albemarle High School produced an extraordinary app, called Illness IQ, to help individuals detect and diagnose medical symptoms without having to see a doctor.

After tragically losing a close friend to heart disease, Adrian and his classmates were inspired to develop a tool to access critical medical information in a user-friendly app. The app meets a significant need in the healthcare marketplace, using intricate technology, pre- gathered scientific data, and user input to diagnose individual symptoms with a 97 percent success rate.

I commend Adrian, Sean, and Emmet for their hard work in creating this innovative app, and I encourage them to continue excelling in their academic and professional pursuits.

I am honored to represent these outstanding students in the Fifth District of Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the time. I appreciate it.

Mr. Speaker, here we are again where the minority party isn't even using their time to oppose the bill put forward by the majority.

Just 2 weeks ago, the last major piece of legislation that we passed by suspension of the rules, the Democrat minority party voted for it 207-2. It will be interesting tonight to see how many Democrats vote for this and how many Republicans vote for it.

I am against this because of the suspension of the rules, the process that we are using. I am against it because the expansion of the welfare state. I am against it because we are not correcting the fact that illegals can have access to the child tax credit.

I have never done this on the House floor before, but I am going to read what someone else wrote about this bill.

This is from Kevin Roberts with Heritage Foundation. I commend them for what they said: ``Although, the bill claims that its aim is to provide `tax relief' to families with children, it contains very little relief for working families. Instead, nearly 91.5 percent of the `family benefits' in this bill are cash welfare payments to families who pay no Federal income taxes.

. . . the bill provides $30.6 billion in new welfare cash payments. If these new cash welfare benefits were extended over 10 years (which is very likely) the total cost would exceed $140 billion.''

The Ways and Means bill moves toward fulfilling President Biden's aims. The bill embraces the premise and goals of Biden's plan to greatly increase cash welfare payments, predominantly for single parents while weakening the already poorest work requirements.

This bill obviously sets the ground for a future compromise that would fully enact the Biden child allowance program. Overall, this portion of the Ways and Means bill represents an enormous political victory for President Biden.

Under current law, illegal aliens who have children that were born in the U.S., and many do, can claim welfare payments from the additional child tax credit. The Ways and Means bill expands these welfare payments for millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally and for millions more entering in the future. The bill weakens welfare work requirements and continues a longstanding push by Congress to dress up welfare benefits as tax relief.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chair for yielding. I certainly want to associate myself with the remarks that the gentlewoman so passionately and effectively espoused just a few moments ago.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Pregnant Students' Rights Act. It is incredible and revealing when we hear the other side's reaction to this legislation. This legislation simply requires colleges and universities to share information with mothers about the rights and resources available to help carry their babies to term.

Why would anyone--why would even a Democrat--oppose giving mothers information about the rights and resources available to them? It is because they have become the party of abortion. They have become the party of death.

I am old enough to remember when ``safe, legal, and rare'' used to be what many Democrats would say. There were many pro-life Democrats not that long ago. Even our President used to claim to be a pro-life Democrat.

We know that when a woman has support, she is better able to raise a child that will enrich her life beyond how she could ever imagine. Nevertheless, we know that many college-aged women are presented with only the option of abortion if the pregnancy was unplanned.

A mother may face pressure from the pro-death abortion industry, otherwise known as the Democratic Party, forcing her to decide between ending the child's life or reaching her academic and professional goals. We know that this is a false choice that disguises the lasting consequences of abortion both for the mother and for the child.

This legislation does include important data on the negative impacts that abortion has on the mother's mental and physical health. Here is the truth: Abortion is harmful to babies and to mothers.

As the bill explains, women who receive abortions are 34 percent more likely to develop anxiety disorders, 37 percent more likely to develop depression, and 115 percent more likely to develop suicidal behavior. The data proves that the mission of the overall bill to support mothers matters not only for the sake of the child but also for the well-being of the mother.

Mothers in challenging situations deserve our compassion, support, and encouragement. Women who have chosen to have an abortion should know there is compassion, support, and healing available to them, as well.

This very week, thousands of people from around the country are gathering in support of life and ending the heinous practice of abortion.

The fact is, life begins at conception. That is the moment when we are, as the Bible says, knit together in our mother's womb by our creator.

I will vote ``yes'' today on the Pregnant Students' Rights Act and hope this Congress will be bold in finding more ways to defend innocent, precious life in the womb.

Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Roy for yielding time.

Here we go again. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Fourteen months ago, we asked the American people to give us the majority. They entrusted us with the majority, running primarily on fiscal responsibility and securing the border. Thirteen months ago, we roundly condemned the omnibus, the $1.6 trillion Christmas omnibus that was put in place 13 months ago. Yet, we are operating today and now extending the very Biden-Pelosi-Schumer policies that are bankrupting the country, destroying the country, and under which the American people are suffering.

Suffering, you ask. Yes. They are suffering under record 40-year high inflation and 20-year high interest rates. The average American family is paying $1,000 more a month for essentials than they were paying when the President was first elected 3 years ago.

We have a $200 billion monthly deficit, $2.5 trillion a year. As has already been said, we are $34 trillion in national debt. We will be $36 trillion in debt by the time we get to this next election, and we have the majority in one-half of the legislative branch.

When will that begin to account for something? When will that begin to matter for something? When you have the majority in one branch or one House of one branch, shouldn't you get half of what your policy priorities are? Shouldn't you get half of your spending objectives?

Yet, what we seem to do over and over is decide what the Senate will take, what the President will sign, and that is what we send to the other body. That is what we send when we have the majority here in this very House.

When is that going to matter? What are we prepared to do? What are the red lines that we are willing to draw, and what are we not willing to do just to keep government open?

We say that we are getting things done. We say that we are working together. We say that we are showing that we can govern, and yet, we are not even willing to risk a temporary pause in the 15 percent of the nonessential part of the government in order to try to force change here in Washington.

No. We are going to continue the status quo. We did this in May with the failed responsibility act. We did it with the continuing resolution in September. We did it with the continuing resolution in November. We did it with the NDAA. We did it with the FISA extension without reforms. Today, we are going to pass another major piece of legislation, predominantly with Democrat votes, minority votes, when we have the House majority.

This is a loser for the American people. It is a loser for the country. How many times have we said on our side the border is the fight to have. The polls overwhelmingly show that is the number one issue of the American people. They blame the Biden administration. They blame the President for his failed border policies that are facilitating the border invasion. Just yesterday, 14 Democrats from the minority party voted with us to condemn, denounce, and call for an end to the President's open-border policies.

Madam Speaker, we could have utilized that momentum to attach border security to this continuing resolution. We could have then dared the Senate to vote against it and dared the Senate to vote against funding the government and securing the border, and we failed to do even that.

Mr. Speaker, as our colleague, our good friend from Maryland, just noted, this administration claims they don't have the resources or manpower to secure the border because MAGA Republicans, conservative Republicans, haven't given him those resources. Yet, as Texas has tried to stand in the gap and do the job that the Federal Government won't do, they are suing and fighting, literally trying to prevent Texas from securing the border.

Just yesterday, we had 14 Democrats vote with every Republican to condemn, denounce, and call for an end to the President's open-border policies, the President's border invasion. We then had the opportunity to try to attach border security today to the government funding bill, to use the leverage of the government funding to secure the border.

I saw a poll today that shows a majority of registered voters--not Republicans, mind you, but a majority of registered voters--support shutting down the government in order to secure the border. Yet, we voted today to continue to give billions of dollars to Secretary Mayorkas to continue to facilitate the border invasion and, frankly, to give millions of dollars to the U.N., which is literally using the resources we gave them to coach illegals on how to cheat our asylum system.

We must not even consider the Mayorkas-Lankford deal, which is worse than doing nothing. It is worse than doing nothing to give the false sense of border security to give political cover to those who are literally facilitating the border invasion, those who would call it a good border deal to allow 5,000 illegals a day before they start to try to prevent those above 5,000; to put no limits on parole, which would allow Mayorkas to allow anyone else he wants to illegally come into our country; and to give work permits to

those who are here illegally now. That is literally worse than nothing.

The American people deserve nothing less than genuine, true border security, and we ought to have the resolve to deliver that for them.