Floor Statements

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

Madam Speaker, last night's speech should have been the shortest State of the Union Address in history. It is easy for everyone to see the state of the Union is much worse after one year under the Biden Presidency.

This President, in order to keep energy independence, which is a national security issue and an economic security issue, all he had to do was nothing. If he would have just stayed in his basement and we paid him to stay home, the country would be so much better off today with the prices we are paying at the pump, with the security of our Nation.

There is nothing that impacts middle-income, lower-income, fixed- income Americans than what we are paying at the pump. And now we are at risk of it going from $4 a gallon to $7 a gallon because of this President, and he has the travesty to not release American energy in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

This President needs to allow all the drilling to take place in the United States, for us to unleash our resources and bankrupt the Putin regime so he cannot finance the invasion into Ukraine. But, no, what is happening? We are buying some 75,000 gallons of Russian oil a day at the cost of $100 a barrel, enriching Putin's regime to the cost of $75 million per day.

But it is worse than that. What did this President have to do to keep a secure border? All he had to do was nothing. If he had stayed home after January 20, 2021, Americans would still be largely safe at the border because illegal immigration had been eradicated under the previous administration.

But what did he do? He forced the cessation of the border wall, and he does not permit the border agents, the Border Patrol to do their job. Meanwhile, 2.2 million illegal aliens came across our border last year, and have been distributed into the interior of our country, flown at taxpayer expense all over the country in the dark of night from 160 countries.

We don't know what they are doing while they are here, and this President has not just allowed it to happen; he has facilitated it to happen. As a matter of fact, last night he had the gall to say, hey, we want to secure the border, when his policies have done just the opposite and continue to do just the opposite.

Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution says it is the responsibility of the President to protect the States from invasion, and he is doing just the very opposite willfully, purposefully, intentionally. That is why so many of us have signed onto impeachment articles against this President, just because of what he has done on the border. Let's pretend he had done everything else well--use your imagination--in his first year in the White House. Just because of what he is doing to the American people at the border, and he has the gall in the speech last night to lie to the American people and say that he wants to secure the border. It should have been the shortest speech ever because to get up there and lie to the American people about the policies that he is implementing that are harming this country, it is a travesty. Thank you, Chairman Johnson.

Mr. Speaker, today marks 1 year of total Democrat control of the Federal Government--1 year of this Biden administration. In addition to all the other disastrous policies and the crises created by this President, it marks another year with 1 million babies being slaughtered in the womb in our country.

Tomorrow we will, once again, march for life here in Washington, DC, and I will be privileged to join that march. May it be the last time that we do that before the Supreme Court rightly overturns the brutal, vicious, inhumane, dishonest, and inaccurate interpretation of the highest law of the land--the Constitution--giving the right to terminate a pregnancy in the womb.

Sixty-five million babies have been lost since that happened nearly 50 years ago. These are inventors, these are scientists, these are ministers, and these are healthcare providers who are not serving and helping our country here today.

Equality begins in the womb, and freedom begins in the womb, and the science tells us that life begins in the womb. May the Supreme Court overturn Roe, and may we begin to protect all innocent, precious life in the womb.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for yielding.

More than 60 million lives have been lost since the treacherous, devastating, and dishonest Roe v. Wade decision by seven misguided Justices nearly 50 years ago--60 million.

The big lie is that there is a constitutional right to abortion, a constitutional right to take the life of a precious, innocent child in the womb. How have we let this stand for nearly 50 years? How can there not be one lone honest, compassionate voice on the other side, hearing and responding to the unborn cries from the womb?

What kind of a compromise must you make in your soul when there is no longer any honest denial of the science of life? What kind of a compromise must you make to vote for political expediency to satisfy the loudest, most aggressive special interest groups and vote to remove any restrictions on abortion?

How did we get to where one party is 100 percent unanimous in supporting unlimited, taxpayer-funded abortion at any time for any reason?

How did those who previously claimed the pro-life label and support for the Hyde provision at a minimum--back when we didn't have the scientific, visual proof of life--how do they now enthusiastically defend unrestricted abortion?

Yet, we find ourselves today on the precipice of the Supreme Court having the opportunity to finally, at long last, reverse this decision. May these Justices have courage. May they do what is right. May they do what is moral. May they do what is lawful. May they preserve and protect life. May they finally overturn Roe v. Wade.

Madam Speaker, I thank Congressman Lamborn for doing this very important work that we are doing here tonight.

As a born-again Christian, I am proud to let everyone know that the most important thing in my life is my faith. When I ran for Congress a year ago, I identified as a Biblical and constitutional conservative and was told I was too conservative to win. I start each day very early in the morning--I am a 4:30 riser--with 30 minutes in God's Word before I spend my time in prayer from there.

Why did FDR declare it National Bible Week 80 years ago on the eve of the entrance of the U.S. into the greatest existential crisis that it would ever face, World War II?

Because the Bible is the source of all truth, containing God's complete revelation of all that He wanted us to know, everything pertaining to this life and next.

There is a reason why it is the number one, all-time best seller, with far more original manuscript evidence than any publication in human history, despite the efforts by oppressive regimes to try to ban it and stamp it out.

The Bible is God's love letter to us. The Bible is God's guidebook to us on how to live. The Bible is our map on how to get to heaven and how to have eternal life. It contains the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ and His death and resurrection that makes salvation possible.

It is the Bible that tells us that we are created in God's image, male and female, that He knows us in the womb, even before our mother knows we are there, and He has unique plans for each one of us.

It is the Bible that tells us of God's laws and design for morality, for marriage, for the family, the very foundations of our society.

Having been written between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago, the Bible is still the tool that God uses to change lives today. It contains a story of a man named Jesus, born 2,000 years ago, who had no formal education, never traveled more than a few miles from His hometown, never held public office, had no media or social media to help Him get His message out, and was executed at age 33 after 3 short years of public ministry.

He had a small group of disciples, all of whom were martyred for their faith and their personal witness to what they saw Him do, including His resurrection from the dead.

And this Jesus has hundreds of millions of followers around the world today because they were introduced to Him through the Bible, God's Holy Word.

Madam Speaker, the voters of Virginia sent a message 2 weeks ago because they were scared to death of the continuation of these radical Biden policies, the radical policies of Governor Northam in Virginia, scared to death of the continuation of that that was represented by the potential election of Terry McAuliffe. Did the Democrat majority hear that message? No.

When this phony infrastructure bill is implemented, that was passed 2 weeks ago, we will have $30 trillion in debt, which equates to $90,000 per American.

For my friends across the aisle, who are economically illiterate and not good at math, the $30 trillion worth of debt is a 3 with 13 zeros. Please don't tell them what comes after a trillion.

But it is not just the spending of this $2 trillion to $4 trillion. They don't even know what it will cost because we don't have a score.

It is 150 new programs. It is growing the welfare state. It is trying to get more people dependent on the Democrats for their sustenance, separating work from income, massive amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens in our country, and hundreds of billions of dollars for the Green New Deal.

This is the Bernie-AOC budget forcing us into electric vehicles. It will massively increase utility, gas, and fuel prices. It will massively increase inflation, as we continue to have too many dollars facing too few supplies, too few goods, too few services, as a result of their policies.

But they are tone-deaf economically. They want to bankrupt the future of our country with this massive, continued spending. It is bad for America, and everyone should vote ``no.''

Madam Speaker, as my colleagues before me have said, this is not about Mr. Gosar. This is about hypocrisy from the majority and the double standard. Does anyone in this Chamber think we would be here today if the exact situation was reversed? Clearly, we would not be here today.

Madam Speaker, the American people don't care about what we are doing here today. When we get back to our districts next week, no one will ask us, Well, what about the cartoon video? What happened with that? The media cares--as we can see here today--my colleagues across the aisle care because they have an opportunity again here. But what our hardworking constituents care about is the disastrous policies enacted by this administration and the majority; the disastrous policies, none of which are working.

We cannot point to one thing in the country that is going well under these disastrous policies. The border invasion, the rising gas prices, the out-of-control inflation, the reckless spending of our children's future, the failure in Afghanistan, the failure of our standing around the world. There is not one issue--rising crime--nothing they can point to.

So instead, we point to a distraction here today to pretend that this matters to the American people. We have got this faux outrage, as others who have said, because the Rasmussen poll said just this week that on the generic ballot Republicans are up by 13 percent, but the tone-deaf majority is trying to ram through as much of their partisan agenda as they can.

But what they are going to find out is America spoke two weeks ago in the election, and there are many of their constituents, and now former Democrats who spoke two weeks ago as well, and they are saying, what in the world are we doing here on the House floor today? We are stalling before we try to pass a radical build back bankrupt Bernie and AOC's budget bill. And here we are today trying to punish a Member, another ounce of flesh, trying to silence Republican voices on committees.

Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote against this sham bill and resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3992, the more appropriately named profiting off of older job applicants act.

This, like so many other Democrat proposals, is a trial lawyer payout disguised as a win for older workers. Democrats are addicted to inventing problems that fit their slanted narrative of American life. To liberal Democrats, older workers are vulnerable employees who can't cut it in the modern economy, and that could not be further from the truth. In fact, employment for workers ages 65 and older tripled from 1988 to 2018, the last 30 years, while employment for younger workers only grew by a third.

During that same time, the number of workers aged 75 and older nearly quadrupled. Despite what Democrats may have you believe, there are several existing laws already protecting Americans of all ages against discrimination in the workplace.

One of those legal protections which today's bill would amend is the Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967, or the ADEA. It prohibits employment discrimination based on age for job applicants and employees at least 40 years old and up, as it should. Discrimination is wrong. It is immoral, and it must be vigilantly addressed.

But this bill radically expands the definition of discrimination against

older job applicants by authorizing claims against a disparate impact theory; again, what happens, not what is intended by the employers. This needlessly interferes with employers' routine recruitment and hiring practices.

The ADEA already prohibits discrimination against job applicants, but the ADEA does not authorize disparate impact claims by job applicants.

Congress has long recognized that addressing different forms of discrimination require different laws. For example, Congress did not include age in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but passed a separate and distinct law in 1967 prohibiting age discrimination; once again, the

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller).

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

Mr. Speaker, I have been a recruiter for a for-profit corporation. I did that for 15 years where I had the responsibility of recruiting on college campuses and hiring and making those decisions for a company for which I was depended on to find the absolute best workers, and that was not during a time when we had 10 million open jobs in the country and companies so desperate to find quality workers and fill those positions. I did this for a company that was vulnerable to the very consequences that we want to bring in greater capacity here today on this House floor.

Once again, we have got House Democrats trying to solve a nonexistent crisis instead of the many that they have created; massive spending, rising crime, gas prices going through the roof, increased inflation for groceries and other things, surging illegals across the border, firing cops and nurses and first responders because they don't get a vaccine that we are forcing upon them.

Instead of dealing with those, this majority is here focused instead on yet another manufactured problem with yet another leftist solution that has the added benefit from their perspective of paying off their trial lawyer donors.

They miss the point about disparate impact. As an example, a job recruiter goes to a college campus, spends several days recruiting, happens to only have typical younger, college-age workers apply, hires some of those workers, and now their trial lawyer friends would sue them because they didn't hire any older workers when no older workers applied because they used a typical standard practice for hiring entry- level workers. That is a real example.

They don't understand the difference between impact and treatment. We already have laws prohibiting the practice of disparate treatment on age discrimination basis.

This misnamed piece of legislation does nothing to truly protect older job applicants. Again, older job applicants are already protected by the law, and age discrimination is already illegal. Democrats just want to raise the stakes for their lawyer friends, making it easier to sue and the penalties more severe perhaps so that they can then donate more to Democrat campaigns.

Democrats don't want to acknowledge that sound economic policy, if they could recognize it, is what is good for older Americans; low taxes, less regulation. That benefits older American job applicants just like everybody else, not more regulation, penalization of employees, and unnecessary victimization.

It has already been said, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these are the facts. Don't let the facts get involved with bad legislation. I know, don't interfere. But the facts show, and I would like my colleagues across the aisle to explain the problem with the facts, that the number of workers age 75 and older in the workforce has quadrupled in the last 30 years, rising from 461,000 in 1988 to 1.8 million in 2018.

But, again, this legislation is about trial lawyers, not older Americans, and this bill would serve as yet another burden on small business owners.

In the age of online job postings and digital recruiting, this legislation would make employers vulnerable for any form of recruiting that brings in younger applicants. Online job boards, social media, even the simple act of posting a position online could be challenged under this bill simply because younger applicants tend to apply through those processes and search for jobs through those mechanisms.

The unintended--or, I suspect, the truly intended--consequence of this bill would be countless class action lawsuits against employers who are already struggling under Democrat efforts to cripple our economy.

Democrats have spent 2 years closing businesses with lockdowns, firing employees with their vaccine mandates, and paying more people to stay home. Here's another way: Let them benefit from a trial lawyer who sues on their behalf under this bill. Heck, even Members of this very body are staying home rather than attending committee hearings or voting in this Chamber. And now that America is trying to reopen in spite of them, Democrats want to have their trial lawyer friends sue more business employers and job creators.

What we do on this floor has consequences that reach into every corner of this great Nation; a sad and dangerous reality under this majority this year. But Democrats are relentless in their determination to pass legislation with a compassionate title--it sounds good--for a manufactured crisis and a policy that hurts small businesses and kills jobs. It is what they do.

As I said before, the Democrat majority has unveiled contempt for employers, businesses, and job creators, and they continue to perpetuate this ``us against them'' mind set between employees and employers or employers and job applicants. They truly believe that employers are hostile to and exploitive of their employees, and they need more regulation, again, when we have 10 million job openings and employers desperate to fill those positions so they can stay open.

The socialist America that the left clearly wants is not the America that our constituents and millions of Americans know and love; as the results in Virginia and New Jersey clearly showed last night, bipartisan results, because there are not that many Republicans in Virginia or New Jersey to deliver those results.

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

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

Discrimination is wrong, and it has been illegal in the United States for decades, as it should be.

Older workers are faring well in the workforce without the help from us in Congress, and they don't need a trial lawyer payoff--disguised as a win for older workers--that will threaten routine hiring practices, limit job opportunities, and create a tsunami of parasitic litigation.

We should ensure that our legislation does not have unintended consequences that are negative and harmful, but H.R. 3992 fails miserably in this regard when it comes to protecting older workers and ensuring job opportunities for current and future workers.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 3992, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately this amendment is a day late and a dollar short. It requires the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to study the extent of discrimination against job applicants based on age and make recommendations of best practices to prevent discrimination. This study could possibly yield useful information, but it is information we should have obtained before we vote on H.R. 3992.

Further, the amendment tacitly acknowledges that we need more information before we vote on this bill. This is classic ready, fire, aim.

The Committee on Education and Labor rushed to mark up H.R. 3992 only a month after it was introduced without holding a single hearing on the bill, a measure which is sorely lacking the examination that it deserves.

However, the information we do have more than suggests that this bill is unnecessary. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act already prohibits discrimination against job applicants because of age. Moreover, older workers have done well in the job market in recent decades. Again, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for workers age 65 and older, employment tripled from 1988 to 2018, while employment among younger workers only grew by about a third.

This amendment, which requires a study after the underlying bill has already been signed into law, does nothing to address the problems in the bill.

H.R. 3992 will threaten routine recruitment and hiring practices, such as participating in college job fairs and posting to online job boards, at a time when nearly 8 million Americans are unemployed and employers are struggling to find workers to fill the more than 10 million available jobs.

I oppose this amendment, which is a day late and a dollar short, and I strongly oppose the underlying bill.

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

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

Madam Speaker, last night was a great night for America. As Virginians across the Commonwealth, in bipartisan fashion, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, rejected the radical, woke, socialist education policies of this Biden administration and this complicit Democrat majority in this Congress.

Most of our schools will be better off being governed by the first seven ticked-off parents in line at the next school board meeting than the woke leftist, progressive, liberal members of the typical American school board.

The Federal Government should not be involved in education. There is no constitutional basis for the Federal Government to be involved in education to begin with. I love our friend, Thomas Massie, our colleague from Kentucky's bill that says--of which I am a cosponsor-- the Department of Education shall cease to exist on December 31 of 2022. How much better our schools, our children, our parents, and families would be if that were the case.

We are seeing the silver lining from the past 2 years with the China virus as the exposure has been there. What is being taught in the schools? The strong disinfectant of sunlight, letting parents see what their children are being taught as they supervise them learning from home.

And, thankfully, thousands and thousands of parents showing up at school board meetings to make their voices heard because they don't want critical race theory and its ideology taught in our schools. It is amazing how the Democrat majority and their allies, their friends in the media say: That doesn't exist.

It may be true that there isn't a class taught in a typical American high school that is called critical race theory, taught an hour a day every day for 5 days a week. Of course, that is not true. That is not typical. However, all throughout our country, critical race ideology, this theory that tries to define who we are as Americans: it tries to define Americans based on race; it tries to explain why we became a Nation; it tries to explain why the American Revolution was fought; it tries to identify who are victims and who are oppressors.

That ideology is absolutely included in training for teachers all across this country. In fact, in just the last 2 weeks we have learned that in two of Virginia's largest blue counties, Fairfax County and Loudoun County, teachers are being trained with critical race ideology to have that permeate all of their teaching through all of their classes. It is the lens through which they are taught to present the material to their students.

In Fairfax County, as a matter of fact, it was shown with a recent article by the Washington Times, spent $5.5 million dollars in the past year purchasing CRT-related curriculum and materials for their school system. $2.5 million of which was for--guess whose son in-law's company--the attorney general, Merrick Garland.

So you have parents rising up saying this is not what we want taught in our schools. Not to mention, these radical transgender policies that infringe upon the rights of the 99.9 percent of students who just want to use the bathroom of their choice with people of their own biological gender.

In Loudoun County, a county that has become notorious around the country because of this, we have a county where they have a male student who goes into the women's restroom and commits sexual assault. It was not exposed as it should have been and dealt with as it should have been. He transferred to another school where another assault takes place.

After that occurs, the parent of the first student victim shows up at a school board meeting, understandably upset, surprisingly restrained from how upset a parent must be. What did we do? We arrest the parent at the school board meeting.

After both of those assaults took place, that very school board passes their official transgender policy allowing male students who want to identify as female students to access those restrooms.

In addition, throughout the country, we are making children, who now we want to vaccinate, they are almost no risk from the China virus, but we are making these children wear masks all day long despite there being almost no evidence that it makes any measurable difference for anyone to wear a mask. To do that to children all day long in a school is nothing short of child abuse.

For this and many other reasons, Virginians across the Commonwealth rose up and said no to that and elected a Governor, a Lieutenant Governor, an attorney general, and a new Virginia House of Delegates that will say no to the radical views of the majority Democrat Party today in Virginia, that is aligned with the radical views on education and otherwise, here in this Chamber and in this town and in this administration.

When I ran for office 2 years ago, I identified immigration, our fiscal situation and our spending, and education as the three most critical issues, the greatest threats to the future of our country. Our children are our most precious resource and they are truly our future. Our children's education is the one thing where those who hold all the levers of power here in Washington and--at least until January--in my home State of Virginia, they tell us: You must pay for it with compulsory taxes, but you have no say in that product that you are purchasing. In fact, the losing--thank God--the losing gubernatorial candidate in Virginia

who was resoundingly rejected, who tried to nationalize the election by bringing in all the heavy-hitters, the former President, the current President, the current Vice President, the losing candidate said: Parents, you got no say. It is none of your business. Give us your money. We will teach your kids. We will decide what they learn. We will decide the policies. If you show up to the school board systems, what we will do is identify you as a domestic terrorist and we will sic the FBI and the attorney general on you. Americans and Virginians said no. They also said no in New Jersey. And they are going to say no throughout this country next year.

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

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

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

Person Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 2119.

The other side of the aisle claims that this would help families, but instead, it would devastate them. The bill would coerce faith-based providers, as the gentlewoman from North Carolina has already said, to violate their deeply held beliefs or stop their work altogether.

This bill would redefine the definition of sex, and it inserts gender identity language into U.S. Code. Isn't that the objective of this administration, this majority, to force our faith-based providers out of business and to redefine sex and to change the identification of gender?

My colleagues on the other side claim they want to protect the family, but instead, they have chosen to attack the very bedrock of our country--the moral principles and the traditional family that hold our families and communities together.

In fact, nearly everything that plagues our society can be attributed to a failure to follow God's laws for morality and His rules for and definition of marriage and family.

The very name of this bill is steeped in irony--the Family Violence Prevention and Services Improvement Act--as it would truly inflict more violence on unborn babies' lives and force taxpayers to fund the murder of unborn life; again, consistent with the goals and objectives of this administration and this Democrat majority.

This would be a bad bill without its attack on the unborn. This would be a bad bill without its dangerous sexual orientation and gender identity provisions, or SOGI. This is a bad bill because it spends over a billion dollars more in expansive and intrusive government. Violence is already illegal. We Republicans are against it in all forms. This is a matter for local and State law enforcement.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill, and I will be doing so.

Person Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member from North Carolina for yielding.

Person Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act, or should I call it the pump for nursing persons act? I can't keep up with the rules of this House.

At a time, Person Speaker, when we have 10 million job openings, why does the Democrat majority have such contempt and disdain for struggling businesses, job creators, and employers?

With businesses already suffering from endless regulations and the resulting costs passed on to consumers, not to mention being saddled with the vaccine mandates, endless COVID restrictions, why are Democrats relentlessly consumed with making things worse?

The fact is, Democrats are economically illiterate. They don't understand that the government doesn't have any money, they can only take it from taxpayers, and businesses don't truly pay taxes or pay for regulations. They have two choices: Close or pass on those costs to consumers.

Democrats believe that employers are abusing and exploiting their workers, and Democrats are working every day to punish them, with the result being more lost jobs, greater supply shortages, and higher inflation as we see around our country today.

We all believe in an equal workplace for men and women, but I oppose legislation that falsely victimizes employees and is truly just another payout for trial lawyers, otherwise known as Democrat donors. They are seeking to exploit these excessive new penalties on businesses.

The fact is employers want happy and productive employees. They are working hard to attract and retain those workers. And they are already making these accommodations without the heavy hand of the Federal Government.

I encourage my colleagues across the aisle to visit a business or talk to an employer.

This regulation was written by trial lawyers, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I will be doing the same.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

There are so many crises in this country right now. While many of us recognize that this President was a hard left radical, probably most of us underestimated the speed and the effectiveness with which he could ruin just about every situation, every issue in our country.

It is hard, therefore, to identify what is the greatest threat to the country right now, what is the greatest crisis that faces our country right now--with no hope on the horizon, by the way, for any of them to get better under this administration; whether it is the vaccine mandates, things we couldn't imagine just a year or two ago.

When this President ran for office, he said he wouldn't issue a vaccine mandate if he would win, and now we see today where people are being laid off. Those who were heroes over the last year and a half are now zeros and are getting fired from their jobs. Those who kept us safe on a daily basis, the first responders, the healthcare workers, our military. So is it the vaccine mandates?

Is it the out-of-control reckless, irresponsible, unprecedented spending that we see? I mean, we already have 28, $29 trillion worth of debt, which is some 80 to $90,000 per American and yet, we find ourselves today with the majority party trying to determine how they can come together for another 5, $6 trillion, whatever the amount might be. Is it the spending?

Is it our education system? Whether it is the product that we are not getting with how much we spend on education, the Federal mandates, the intrusion into local and State education. Whether it is the teaching of CRT or that sort of philosophy where there is transgender policy. Whether it is masks and vaccines on children, which as others have submitted--and I would agree--is child abuse with no demonstrated medical justification for masks on children or vaccines for young adults who are at almost no risk from COVID.

Are those the greatest issues?

Is it foreign policy? We have got China saber-rattling, shooting off missiles. We have the debacle in Afghanistan. North Korea, Iran, and Russia certainly have no reason to fear us under this President.

Is it the 30 percent rise in violent crime while our police are at threat of their funding being reduced or they are being undermined and harassed? They are told to stand down in the face of looting and violence in their cities.

Is it massive inflation? The hidden tax on every American, where their savings, their hard-earned resources, are being depleted by too many dollars chasing too few goods?

Is it the breakdown of the supply chain and what that is going to mean in the coming months ahead?

Is it our declaring war on American energy, forcing us to again depend on foreign provision from hostile nations for our energy; the jobs that are lost in that? The higher gas prices?

But I submit to your point, Congressman Gohmert, immigration, illegal immigration, and the invasion, the absolute invasion at our southern border may be the biggest crisis.

As you know well, the Constitution says in Article IV, Section 4: It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to protect the States from invasion, and that is clearly not happening.

And I submit, as we talk about this issue, never in the history of our country has our own President intentionally done more to harm the Nation than what this President has done with the invasion at our southern border.

Will the gentleman yield?

This is the greatest country in the world, as you know, Congressman Gohmert. There is a reason why people from all over the world want to come to the United States. Never in the history of the world has a nation been more welcoming to immigrants, to people from all corners of the globe who are seeking a better life, seeking freedom. No nation in the history of the world has given more opportunity to people of all backgrounds, all ethnicities, all nationalities who come here legally seeking to join us, to strengthen us as a nation, to make us a stronger nation, a more perfect Union, people from all religions, all faiths, all races, all ethnicities seeking desperately to come to the United States of America, a country that is under assault for who it is as a nation by those on the left, by

those on the other side of the aisle who condemn this country and want to change and transform this country into that from which these people are fleeing.

I had a reporter say to me once, well, there is not an easy fix here to the immigration situation. And I said, well, it may not be easy, but it is simple: All we have to do is go back to the policies that were working a year ago that had largely defeated illegal immigration at our southern border.

We know that walls work. I have had the privilege of going to the border three times, twice to Arizona and once to Texas, in my first nearly 10 months here serving in this Congress, something that apparently our President has never done, and our Vice President has certainly never done during her time as the ``border czar.''

But as I went and saw firsthand for the first time in my life--I had driven past the border previously just from a car and I could see the meager fence that was there before the previous President, but I had never actually gotten out and visited and walked and talked with the people who live there, the people who are subjected to this illegal invasion, these folks, some of which are very dangerous, but all of which are coming very desperately for different reasons, coming on their property, vandalizing, invading, threatening, and in some cases, harming.

I met with a rancher family who had a family member killed by an illegal alien. But meeting with ranchers, law enforcement officials, border patrol, those on the frontlines living with and then also working as best as they can under this administration--frankly, against this administration--to try to do what they can to deal with the border crisis.

Walls do work. The enforcement that we had in place a year ago was working, ending catch and release, establishing MPP--the remain in Mexico policy--turning folks away through Title 42 policies. We were on the way to fixing our illegal immigration situation.

But this administration with complicit help and support from this Democrat majority in this Congress is not just neglecting our southern border, not just failing to fix our broken illegal immigration situation, but they are part and parcel complicit and intentional in facilitating this invasion, and as you know all too well, as you have already touched on, hiding it from the American people as they do it.

Madam Speaker, once again, I'll say how privileged we are to be among the some 5 percent of the world's population that gets to live here, in spite of all the things that we are battling through and we are struggling through as a Nation, the crises we are facing, the tyranny of this current regime that is leading us.

Our first President, who I believe was our greatest President, I believe divinely inspired, appointed by God to be that first President for the United States, who would not be king, refused to be king. And instead, we find ourselves today with one who seemingly would be king, if he could; or thinks that he is king, it seems, by actions.

In a free country, which we still are, to some degree----

To some degree, it is not the government's role to protect us from ourselves. We choose, in a free society, to endure or be exposed to some risks for our precious

freedoms. We are a Nation of the people, by the people, for the people. A Nation whose founding documents proclaim our God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit--not the government provided--but the pursuit of happiness.

And here we find ourselves today, something we could almost not have imagined even a year or two ago, where our most precious, most basic of freedoms, have been under threat, under assault, or worse, stripping away from us in the name of a pandemic, in the name of an emergency.

The American people should make no mistake, that COVID policy needs to be viewed through a long-term lens. There is no such thing as a one- time exception. What we will endure or accept or submit to today becomes the pattern, the model for the future.

And, again, our most basic freedoms we have seen are freedom of movement, where we can go; our freedom of assembly, who we can be with; our freedom to work and to provide for ourselves and our family, to open our business, to frequent a business, to worship. And then the most basic of freedoms of all--our freedom of our person. That we now have a President, again, who a year ago, because he would not have gotten elected otherwise, said he would not enforce a vaccine mandate, later said he did not have the authority to enforce a vaccine mandate. And you know better than I, constitutionally, has no authority to enforce this vaccine mandate.

Setting aside whether or not it is helpful or justified medically, just speaking legally and constitutionally, the Federal Government has no authority to do this. Certainly, the executive does not have the authority to act like a king and do this. And certainly, he does not have the authority to compel businesses to do that which he does not have the authority to do.

And yet, we see a total disregard. This was a President that ran as the uniter in chief, and instead, he is the divider in chief, separating and dividing people based on vaccine status. Demanding that people disclose their most basic of personal information, whether or not they have received a vaccine, and then under threat of penalty of their job and worse, not be able to, again, go where they want to go and do what they want to do, if they don't comply with the heavy hand of the Federal Government.

And in this terrible, terrible spending package, which is not just the trillions of dollars, but it is what is in it, one of many, many terrible things in it that the American people need to know about it is making the penalty for a business that doesn't comply with this vaccine mandate up to $700,000 dollars per occurrence.

And to your point, what a shame, what a travesty that our own government is lying to us about COVID and about the vaccine. Here, we know that medicine and science is supposed to be challenged. It is supposed to be debated. It is supposed to be learned from. We don't want the same medicine from yesteryear. We want the very best from today, that we don't just hold on to what was before. We get a medical diagnose that is troubling, we get a second opinion; we consult with more than one person. We learn. We establish the evidence.

But as you know, this government, this Federal Government, this executive administration, with their complicit allies in the media and in Big Tech, shuts down any dissent--to your point--on the stated narrative, the approved narrative, no matter how many times over the doctor in chief, the celebrity doctor in chief is proved wrong or contradictory--whether it is on gain of function or whatever it might be--any dissent is shut down on the risks of the vaccine. And there are risks.

And some people understandably make the decision that for them, because of their health, because of their youth, because of their exposure, or because they have natural immunity because they have already had COVID, or the religious reasons or whatever it might be, they decide they don't want to have the vaccine. And this government and their complicit allies that we have already mentioned, are lying to us that there are risks to the vaccine.

They obviously have been lying to us about the efficacy of the vaccine, because as you made the great point, we are going to force the unvaccinated to get the vaccine that doesn't protect the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. They are lying to us about the efficacy of masks.

As you know, what we are forced to wear in this Chamber when we are not speaking at the lectern, pretending that a cloth mask makes a difference. There is medical documentation for that, which there is very little conclusive evidence to that effect, as you know.

Yes, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, this administration, this executive branch of government, as you said, is weaponizing its agencies, its departments, its resources against the American people.

On the COVID vaccine mandate that you were mentioning, what greater weapon can we use than to strip folks of their ability to earn a living? But it is part and parcel with this government, this administration, this Presidential regime which believes that the greatest threat to America is Americans, conservatives, patriots, those who vote the wrong way, as they see it, those who might have supported the previous President, those who show up to school board meetings, those who don't get a vaccine that they say you have to receive.

They are weaponizing the IRS. Here in this budget that they want to approve, the trillions of dollars, they want to hire some 85,000 more IRS agents so they can be more effective in their assault on the American people.

Here we are turning the Federal Government against parents who show up at school board meetings to express their concern for their children or what is being taught in their schools, which they have to pay for, by the way, that they have to fund.

You see that this administration looks with contempt upon the American people, with contempt upon our law enforcement and first responders, with contempt upon our military. They have told our military that the greatest threat to the country, in addition to climate, is white supremacy in the military, racism in the military. We see the CRT forced upon our military, while we have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs saying he wants to understand what white rage is.

I would like for him to understand what China is doing, what is going on in Afghanistan, what is up with North Korea, what is up with Iran, what is up with Afghanistan. Instead, they are focused on weaponizing the Federal Government and all of its resources against our very citizens.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Gohmert for allowing me to participate with him.

The final thing that I will add is we certainly have agreement and recognition, as I think most Americans do, that we have surrendered control of K-12 through college of our education system to the hard left radicals, and it is refreshing to see parents engaged and parents standing up and saying that this is not what they are paying for and this is not what they are going to stand for.

That is the silver lining of the pandemic, as more parents became aware of it.

I will make one more reference to my final words here on the spending package that is being debated by the majority as they are trying to come to an agreement to bring it to the floor for a vote.

It would take it a step further, as my friend knows, it would take it to not only free community college, which is a step toward free college and probably eliminating faith-based institutions that wouldn't be eligible for the free college, by the way--the marketplace

would probably eliminate them as families chose the free public education--but it would take it to the preschool and the childcare that is now proposed to be free. Faith-based institutions would not be eligible for the free childcare, daycare, and preschool. That is an assault on the choice that families make.

Then the requirement in this bill would be that daycare workers and preschool workers would have to have a college education, and that is an assault on those home-based daycare and preschool facilities because this administration and their allies in academia are determined to get control of our children now from age 2 or 3 in preschool and beyond at your provided taxpayer expense.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to be with him.