Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, Metal Detectors stopped me. Had I been present, I would have voted ``NAY'' on rollcall No. 455.

Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress

Bacon (Stauber)

Bilirakis (Fleischmann)

Bowman (Tlaib)

Brown (MD) (Trone)

Buchanan (Bucshon)

Carter (TX) (Weber (TX))

Cawthorn (Nehls)

Chu (Beyer)

Conway (LaMalfa)

Curtis (Moore (UT))

DeFazio (Pallone)

Demings (Dean)

Deutch

(Wasserman Schultz)

Diaz-Balart

(Reschenthaler)

Dunn (Cammack)

Fletcher (Pallone)

Gimenez (Malliotakis)

Gonzalez, Vicente (Garcia (TX))

Gosar (Weber (TX))

Herrera Beutler (Valadao)

Jacobs (CA) (Garamendi)

Jacobs (NY) (Sempolinski)

Jayapal (Cicilline)

Johnson (TX) (Stevens)

Khanna (Garcia (TX))

Kirkpatrick (Pallone)

LaHood (Wenstrup)

Lawson (FL) (Evans)

Maloney, Sean (Jeffries)

Mast (Waltz)

Mfume (Evans)

Murphy (FL) (Peters)

Newman (Beyer)

Ocasio-Cortez (Neguse)

Palazzo (Fleischmann)

Pfluger (Ellzey)

Porter (Neguse)

Rice (NY) (Morelle)

Rice (SC) (Meijer)

Ryan (OH) (Dean)

Salazar (Waltz)

Sherman (Garamendi)

Soto

(Wasserman Schultz)

Speier (Garcia (TX))

Steel (Obernolte)

Steube

(Reschenthaler)

Swalwell (Gomez)

Titus (Pallone)

Torres (NY) (Correa)

Upton (Meijer)

Vargas (Garamendi)

Wagner (Barr)

Wilson (FL) (Cicilline)

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this terrible bill because this terrible bill will increase the cost of energy on every hardworking American in the United States.

This bill actually calls for a doubling of the excise tax on oil and on gas, doubling of the royalties on oil and on gas.

I was in my district yesterday with Americans for Prosperity at the True Cost of Washington event where they actually brought down the price of gasoline to $2.38, the price it was before Joe Biden took office. I had families in my district crying because they could finally put gas in their cars and food on their dinner table in that day.

The Democrats come here today, and they want to lecture us about putting people over politics?

That is a joke, and it is a lie.

These tax increases on oil and gas will only hurt poor families all across America. I don't care if you are in Seattle, Washington; I don't care if you are in Miami, Florida; you could be in Chicago, Illinois; New York City; or San Francisco, California; those tax increases hurt the very poor among us, and the Democrats are cool with it.

Mr. Speaker, vote ``no'' on this bill.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill) for yielding.

Energy prices are up over 35 percent. Groceries have surged more than 11.9 percent. The consumer price index is up 9.1 percent. The producer price index is up close to 12 percent.

None of this was happening before the American Rescue Plan was passed by Congressional Democrats and signed into law by Joe Biden. Before that time period, our inflation rate was holding steady between 2 and 3 percent.

What happened? What happened was the Congressional Democrats and the President of the United States, Joe Biden, unleashed a labor shortage on the United States. People did not have to go to work in order to continue to buy goods. So what happens when you take people out of the workforce is that they have money to spend, but there is not enough supply in the economy because enough people are not working to provide the products for enough goods. So if there are not enough goods, but everybody has money, prices go up. It happens every single time.

This is very simple. Even Lawrence Summers, who was an economic adviser to Bill Clinton, said that the American Rescue Plan was going to unleash a massive inflation in the United States. House Republicans said if you pass that bill, it is going to unleash a massive inflation the United States.

So the American people need to know and understand that it is the policies of Congressional Democrats and Joe Biden that have unleashed the worst inflation most Americans have ever seen in their lives.

Mr. Speaker, the measure in front of us today just makes no sense. This measure is actually going to make inflation worse. Why? Because you are going to put a third mandate on the Federal Reserve--a Federal Reserve that has done a poor job of actually managing price stability.

The same price stability that hurts poor Americans whether you are Black, whether you are Hispanic, or whether you are White. The same price stability that hurts middle-income Americans whether you are Black, whether you are Hispanic, or whether you are White.

The only group of Americans who might even escape the sting of inflation in the United States are rich Americans who happen to be Black, rich Americans who happen to be Hispanic, and rich Americans who happen to be White.

The common denominator with massive inflation is that if you are poor, regardless of your race, you are being crippled. To have the majority party say today that they are going to add a third mandate onto the Federal Reserve is ludicrous. That does not address the systemic disparities that exist with respect to wealth in America between Black families and White families.

We all know the history. We understand why there are Black families who do not have the same size of net worth as White families on an average basis. What you do not do is saddle our economy with more regulation and more silly policies, which will actually make our economy more efficient.

How are Black families in the future going to actually increase their net worth if being able to apply for loans is more expensive? How do Black families actually increase their wages if our economy is saddled with more inflation? It does not help Black people going forward, it actually hurts them, and it hurts everybody along the way.

We should be getting the Federal Reserve back to one mandate--of sound money. That would actually help matters for poor Americans, regardless of their race. That is a bill myself and my colleague from Arkansas (Mr. Hill) have sponsored to get the Federal Reserve back into the right place.

If you want to seriously have a conversation about systemic inequities, if you want to have a conversation about the difference in net worth between Black Americans and White Americans, what you cannot do is shut off the economy, which would actually hurt Black families from growing their wealth into the future.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Missouri for giving me such latitude.

$55 billion that we don't have, folks. 42 billion, goes into this new--the reauthorization of the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Another $13 billion going to target business owners who have less than 200 employees.

I know that there are restaurant owners and small business owners in the United States who are looking for relief every single day. They are trying to find a way to make ends meet.

How do I know this? Because in the beginning of my career, a lot of what I did was analyze the very business owners who are struggling in today's economy. And in today's economy, they are struggling for a myriad of reasons.

Number one, our energy prices. When the price of oil shoots up so drastically, it impacts transportation; it impacts how they get the material that they sell in their stores every single day.

Wage inflation, which is completely out of control in the United States. When wages go up, the costs of doing business goes up, no matter what any politician on Capitol Hill says.

So throwing more money at this situation, especially money that has never been appropriated; money that is going to come out of thin air, is not going to make matters better for small business owners; it is going to make them worse.

The ranking member on the Small Business Committee, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Luetkemeyer), has a bill, the ENTREE Act, that reauthorizes funds that have already been appropriated to be used to help small business owners who were caught in this lurch; money that they could use. It is paid for.

It will not put more dollars in circulation, which is one of the key issues we are having in our economy with respect to the inflation that is stifling small business. It is stifling working families. It is stifling seniors who are on fixed incomes.

But it is more than just money coming from Capitol Hill. It is the economic policy coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

When you have massive amounts of regulations that small business owners must comply with, two things occur: They spend more time devoted to compliance, or they go out of business. Or, I am sorry, there is a third; or they sell to a larger business.

We want small business owners to thrive in the United States. We need them to thrive in the United States. But it is not just money, folks. It is the rules that we force them to comply with.

And the last part--I started with energy; I am going to end with energy.

When energy costs go up in the United States, when they go up recklessly and willfully because of terrible economic and energy policy from the President of the United States, the lifeblood of our economy, which is small business, are the ones who feel it the most. They are the ones who are affected. They are the ones who struggle with it. They are the ones that can't get the materials they need. They are the ones whose workers are struggling to figure out how to get to work because gas is now $4.20 a gallon versus $2.20 a gallon.

We have to take a serious look about what we are doing from a complete economic perspective here on Capitol Hill.

And it is not just about new money. New money sounds good. Everybody likes getting new money. But new money rarely is the thing that fixes the problem. What really fixes the problem are sound policies that address our entire business economy, so that everybody can thrive.

What really makes sense is having a sound and sensible energy policy--where you have cheap and affordable, whether it is renewable, or whether it is fossil fuels--that people can rely on. That is the lifeblood of every economy.

And if we could ever get that stuff right, we might have enough sense on Capitol Hill to actually handle our spending problems.

If we can't get basic economics right, it is no wonder that Capitol Hill always spends far more than it possibly takes in.

We have a measure to actually help small business owners right now. It is called the ENTREE Act. Small business owners will get the help that they need. It will work. It will actually help us stop being reckless with money we don't have, which we, frankly, are borrowing from the revenues that small business owners have to pay in the future that they haven't even earned yet.

Don't pass this bill. It is not necessary. It is only more of the same. It is more of the problem. It is more inflation. It is the destruction of more purchasing power of the American people.

We must say ``no'' today. We need to reverse course in the United States.

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I missed two of yesterday's votes. Had I been present, I would have voted yea on rollcall No. 65.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to extend my sincerest congratulations in honor of Rochelle Berman, affectionately known by her family as ``Bubbi,'' who recently celebrated her 90th birthday. Born on November 3, 1931 to Jacob and Rose Sattler, Rochelle was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin alongside her brother, Robert ``Bobby'' Sattler, a World War II veteran. Rochelle graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1953 and became a teacher for the 3rd and 4th grades.

In 1956, Rochelle met her future husband Alexander (Al) Berman. After a first date to Disneyland, Rochelle and Alexander were later married on July 14, 1957. Rochelle and Al had 3 children together: James (Jimmy), Janet, and Gary. Rochelle is the matriarch of the Berman family: grandmother to 11 and great-grandmother (or ``Bibi'') to 3. Jimmy and his late wife Marla had three kids together: Allison, Leigh, and David. Jimmy went on to marry Jayne and welcomed Lauren and Lexi into the family. Janet built a family with Jay Miller and together they have three children: Tova, Ezra, and Miriam; two sons-in-law: Shmuelli and Zevy; and three grandchildren:

Rafi, Dani, and Eli. Gary married Jennifer and together they had Mia, Josie, and Elliot. Rochelle's family continues to grow, with Ezra's recent engagement to Ariella. And of course, we can't forget Rochelle's love of dogs and her furry family members, past and present: Buddy, Oscar, Sunny, B.J., Cooper, Bailey, Becker, and Hercules.

Splitting time between Marco Island, Florida, in my district, and Mequon, Wisconsin, Rochelle has lived a life filled with love, friends, and family. Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives to join me in honoring an outstanding citizen, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and cherished friend, Ms. Rochelle Berman, for the inspiring life that she leads. We extend our best wishes to her as she, her family, and friends celebrate her 90th birthday.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, which would name a post office in New York after Indiana Hunt-Martin.

Mrs. Hunt-Martin was born in Uvalda, Georgia, during a time when opportunities for Black Americans were very limited. Her family moved to western New York, where she was one of two Black students at Niagara Falls High School.

In 1944, Mrs. Hunt-Martin joined the only all-African-American Women's Army Corps, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, known as the Six Triple Eight.

She was then chosen to serve overseas in England, where she worked with fellow soldiers under harsh and challenging workspace conditions.

In only 3 months, they cleared a 2-year backlog of mail destined for nearly 7 million members of the United States military and others serving in the European theater. This was certainly an important contribution to

the war effort, which the Six Triple Eight recognized with the motto: ``No mail, low morale.''

In 1946, Mrs. Hunt-Martin returned to the United States and received an honorable discharge. She then worked at the United States Department of Labor for 41 years. During this service, she met her husband and had a daughter, Janice Martin.

After her service to the Nation, Mrs. Hunt-Martin became an active member of several veterans organizations and mentored young Black women who served in the military.

Sadly, on September 21, 2020, Indiana Hunt-Martin passed away.

I encourage my colleagues to support this bill to honor Indiana Hunt- Martin's exemplary life of service.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today alongside my good friend, Congressman Burgess Owens, from the great State of Utah in celebration of Black History Month.

I, like Mr. Owens, stand on the shoulders of Black Americans who came before us despite hurdles and glass ceilings, but still rose to the Halls of Congress, or to the highest echelon of our American history.

You see, there are so many pioneers who came before us, some of us who are still contemporary pioneers, Mr. Speaker. People like Majority Whip Clyburn of South Carolina, Senator Tim Scott, the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Thurgood Marshall, Frederick Douglass, Madam C.J. Walker, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Ben Carson. I could go on and on.

You see, I stand here today as the first Black person elected as a Representative of Florida's 19th Congressional District. I am the third-ever Black Republican ever elected in the great State of Florida.

During Black History Month, we pay homage to all of those who came before us and those who continue to empower the lives throughout the Black community in America. You see, Black history is American history, and even though today we might have a lot of issues about the plight of Black people in our great country, it is without question that the advances, many of which have come in America, have been through the hands, the intellect, the ingenuity, the innovation of Black Americans who have contributed to the great fabric of our country.

It really makes the contributions of Black Americans more than just for the Black community. It makes it for all of America. It is what helps the red, white, and blue that we all revere, actually be meaningful because of all of the different stains and pains, blood that was shed throughout the pathway of Black Americans to still be able to add and to still be counted for great contributions to our Nation.

In 2022, Mr. Owens and I stand here today as free men, both reaching the American Dream and dedicated to ensuring that future generations of Black Americans can achieve the same success that we have, and to add to that, to achieve even more success that we could even dream was possible even in 2022.

Regardless of what anybody says, America is not a racist Nation. I mean, look around. While we may have so many differences, and we might not always agree on a lot of things when it comes to politics or economics, obviously, sports, religion, et cetera, we all stand here together, all colors, all creeds, and all convictions here in the people's House, proving that we are a nation that has achieved life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all people in this great Nation.

The last comment I will make, Mr. Speaker, is that, obviously, the month of February is when we celebrate Black History Month, but we are at a time in America where Black history in our schools should not just be confined to the month of February. We are at a time in the United States where all of the contributions of Black Americans and all of the pain that has been felt by Black Americans should be taught and conveyed throughout all of our halls of academia, whether you are talking about middle schools, high schools, or even higher education.

This month is exceptionally special to me because I do understand that the sacrifices that my mother and my family made for me throughout the years and all of the things that they believed that I could possibly achieve have culminated in me standing here on this floor even making these comments about the rich history of Black Americans to the United States.

So it is with great humility, and it is with great appreciation for all of those who have come before me and, Mr. Speaker, to all the Black Americans who served with me today, that I just want to wish everybody a wonderful Black History Month, and also for everybody to reflect on how much we have gained here as a people in these United States.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important as we have this debate, frankly, on a bill that was dropped last night with provisions that have gone through this Chamber before which, frankly, have gone nowhere in the Senate, it is important to understand for the context of this discussion that I actually represent a preclearance county. I have lived in one for 20 years. It is Collier County, Florida.

You see, Collier County was subject to preclearance in 1965 under the Voting Rights Act. But since I have lived there the last 20 years, there has been no evidence whatsoever that Collier County should even continue to be subject to preclearance. So much so that the Supreme Court agreed and actually decided that it was no longer needed to do preclearance in the United States because the evidence did not suggest it. But what this bill seeks to do is unleash preclearance across the entire United States with no evidence for it being needed, the evidence that did exist in 1965.

Mr. Speaker, I represent such a county today, and something tells me that in 1965, I wouldn't have represented that county then at that time. I do today. The evidence is clear. There is no reason to unleash preclearance on the United States, no need at all. The other provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act still exists today and will continue to exist. But the preclearance provision is no longer needed.

So what is this really about? This is really about making sure that politicians have direct control over how elections are going to be administered in the several States which, by the way, is a violation of the United States Constitution. Voting laws are supposed to be enacted by State legislatures, not here in Congress. That is the way the Constitution is written.

So I think this is a bad bill. We should not be doing this, let alone funding, doing public financing of Federal elections. Why would we ever want to do anything like that? We have more than enough money in our elections. We seem to spend billions of dollars every cycle doing this stuff. We want more? We want to take it from the taxpayer? It is outrageous. Vote ``no'' on this measure.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my firm opposition to the Protecting Our Democracy Act, otherwise known as PODA.

I don't have much time to get into a bunch of the provisions, but there are many troubling provisions that the American people should be fully aware of.

First, PODA empowers the GSA to provide highly sensitive information intended only for the President-elect to the nonvictor if the GSA administrator doesn't certify election results within 5 days. This would result in an explicit conflict of interest, and there is no reason for this political-based decision. It just simply doesn't make any sense, Madam Speaker.

Secondarily, PODA directly targets President Trump--and I know our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say it doesn't expressly go after President Trump, but it does--over his refusal not to disclose his tax records by requiring a Presidential candidate to submit their income tax returns for the prior 10 years within 15 days of their nomination.

Now, Madam Speaker, the whole purpose of looking at tax returns, quite frankly, is to see if you are in violation of tax law. There is a certain thing called a tax lien, and so if the IRS wants to yield a tax lien against an individual, that is clear proof to the American people that there is an issue with a nominee for the highest office in the land not abiding by tax law in the United States.

This is completely politically motivated, specifically against President Trump.

Last but not least, Madam Speaker, PODA massively expands FEC's jurisdiction, thereby continuing the Democrats' ongoing trend of heavy- handed Federal involvement and intrusion into State rights.

I have heard on this floor, being down here for a few minutes, about the desire for Congress to want to be able to have more leverage to hold the executive accountable. One thing Congress should be doing is stop actually yielding so much rulemaking and regulatory authority to the alphabet soup of agencies and Congress actually doing that work here, as opposed to creating a bill which is obviously targeted with one President in mind and trying to create a new rubric here in Congress.

Secondarily, and I think if we can look at some of the metrics associated with where the United States is right now versus where the United States was at the same time 4 years ago, it is without question what a successful administration looks like, one that actually always followed the law, was in constant standing with the law, as opposed to an administration who issues mandates that are unconstitutional that the Federal courts, as we speak, are undermining every single day.

This is a bad bill. I urge Members to vote ``no'' on this bill.

Madam Speaker, if you want to hold the executive accountable, if we want to increase Congress' role in parity with the executive there are far more things that we should be doing instead of this bill. We should be voting ``no.''

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I missed yesterday's vote. Had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 402.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague from the Lone Star State, Dr. Babin.

Mr. Speaker, I have been on this floor already a couple times this week talking about the 4.3 trillion or the 3.5 trillion--or maybe what they are saying on CNN now--maybe $2 trillion. Who knows how many trillions of dollars is in this bill. But I am here today to speak against a provision that I find to be just as disastrous as some of the others, including the one that will allow the IRS into the bank accounts of every American.

It is a provision in this bill that allows for mass amnesty through budget reconciliation. Something, by the way, that the Senate Parliamentarian has already said is out of order but it is still in the House provision. It is important that the American people understand this.

How disastrous of a policy is that? It is because those are the things that the Vice President of the United States said she was looking for. She was looking for root causes. Well, here is the number one root cause. When this body decides to green-light in a package that there will be mass amnesty in a spending bill, that tells the drug cartels, it tells the coyotes, it tells anybody who has been waiting south of our border to emigrate into the United States illegally to come on down, because they are the next contestant.

When you do something like that, you are giving a signal to the entire world that we do not take our own border seriously. There has been a fight in this Chamber to complete border wall construction for 30 years but what people need to understand is that the number one entity that has been asking for a border wall is Border Patrol themselves.

You see, the American people will never build walls in their house with wide open gaps. That is just silly. But in Congress, we think that is okay. That is why Congress has not taken their responsibility serious enough to complete the border wall, so Border Patrol has every tool at their disposal to secure our southern border.

Immigration is critical to any nation, let alone a nation like ours. We need legal immigration in our country, but it must be legal. It cannot be out of control. And what is in this budget reconciliation bill would allow for the most reckless and the most wide open and the most insecure border our country has ever seen. And that is actually something that our Congress needs to not do.

We need to stand up for our border agents and the American people. We need to secure our southern border and take that provision out of this bill, amongst others.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, it is important that we are here this evening because the President of the United States and the majority party has never actually talked about what is in this bill. They would like to throw out their catch phrase build back better, they like to talk about how they are helping the children and helping our economy transform, but what they never talk about is what they are actually going to do.

What the American people don't know, Madam Speaker, is that in this bill is a $1.3 billion provision to give newspapers $12,500 per employee for local newspapers all across the United States. I don't know about you, but I don't know how that helps anybody build back better when we are giving tax dollars to newspapers.

In this bill, it gives $42 billion in tax credits to the rich to buy electric cars. The reason why they are tax credits for the rich is because working families, middle-class families don't have the disposable income to buy electric cars; only the wealthy buy them. But that is in this bill.

The administration wants to give the IRS access to your checking accounts. This is outrageous. This completely eliminates due process. It makes every American guilty until proven innocent. And the White House wants this provision in the bill because they can't tax the American people enough to pay for all their radical spending, so they have to go find every piece of change in the couch cushions.

The only time in American history we unleashed the IRS on checking accounts and on bank accounts was when

we allowed for currency transaction reports to track drug cartels and businesses breaking the law from laundering money in the United States because of drugs and terrorism. That is when we unleashed currency transaction reports on transactions in the United States. It has never been done in any other time, but Joe Biden wants to do it to every American. And make no mistake, America, it is to every American.

In this bill it raises taxes radically in our corporate sector, makes us the highest corporate tax income country in the world, higher than China. You know, China, the country that is our economic rival. And it raises those taxes. It makes us less competitive. But that is supposed to help us build back better?

And let's talk about spending because in this very bill, one of the key proponents that Joe Biden and the Democrats want is to expand and continue the child tax credit, which pays $300 per child. But what they will never tell you is there is no provision in the bill to actually track based upon Social Security numbers to make sure that even if you are going to give a benefit--which, by the way, we should not give-- that anybody in the United States can get it. And I stress anybody in the United States because by the end of this year there will be easily 2.3 to 2.5 million people who have crossed our borders illegally.

This bill is a catastrophe. This bill spends far more money than we possibly have. It will create more--and I stress ``more''--inflation in our society, which is already crippling poor people. It is already crippling working families. It is not going to help our country.

You know, back in February when we told the administration do not extend Federal unemployment benefits because it was going to pay people to stay home, Joe Biden said, no, it won't, everything is going to be A-okay.

Well, look at our economy today. Everything is not okay. Everything is screwed. And if we listen to Joe Biden, somebody, frankly, who has never been right, somebody who has never had a job one day in his life about what it is going to take to actually allow our economy to thrive and prosper, our country is going to see its last great days.

Madam Speaker, the reason why you guys can't get the votes is because even Democrats in your own party realize how destructive this will be to the small business owners in their districts, how destructive this will be to the economic vitality of the people in their districts. You can't get the votes. It is time to stand down. This bill is a disaster.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the lives of Coach Guy Thomas and Coach Mark McGarity, two beloved track and field coaches of the Southwest Florida community who both passed away on July 13 of this year.

Coach Guy Thomas tragically passed away after being hospitalized in critical condition after contracting COVID-19. A track and field coach at Dunbar High School, Mr. Thomas dedicated his life to training and mentoring our young athletes on the field. A highly respected coach, Mr. Thomas led his team to numerous Lee County Athletic Conference wins and coached multiple State champions.

Retired Coach Mark McGarity also lost his life to a battle with cancer. Mr. McGarity served the Collier County community as a coach and teacher for 38 years, and for 15 years served as the cross country and track coach at Lely High School.

I am proud that the State of Florida has access to such esteemed and beloved educators that allow our youth to flourish, both in the classroom and on the field.

As the Representative for Florida's 19th Congressional District, it is my honor to stand here today celebrating the lives of two Americans who dedicated themselves to bettering our youth and serving as role models to the Southwest Florida community.