Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), as he always does, making such a strong case for the need for this body to do the hard work that we are supposed to do and actually using not just taxpayer money but borrowed money remotely effectively.

He has made the case for a long time about how mandatory spending, the spending that we had promised to people through Medicare, Social Security, and other programs, is blowing the lid off of our budget and the need for us to get right and that there are ways that we can solve the problem. There are ways that we can take dramatic steps to lower the costs of healthcare, which the gentleman from Arizona talks about regularly, about the need for us to do to drive down the costs of healthcare so that we can actually contain this beast that is consuming our expenditures and causing us to have to borrow so much money, weaken ourselves against China, and so forth.

So, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his consistency on this matter. Would that our body or even our own Conference be so consistent in having an interest in having that conversation.

I would note again for my constituents, for those people across the country, all of you that are watching this on C-Span, that I am speaking to an empty Chamber.

This is what we do. This is debate on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. We come down, and we had five votes earlier today--I think four. One got wiped off. We have four votes on two amendments.

Amendments, right? They are amendments that are offered in the Rules Committee, where the powers that be decide what we get to debate on the floor of the House.

I am a Member of the United States Congress with an election certificate for the some 700,000-odd people in central Texas that I represent, yet I have never had the opportunity to offer an amendment on the floor of the House of Representatives.

This is not the people's House. This is a House of a handful of hand- selected individuals on both sides of the aisle who sit in a back room and decide what we get to debate about and what we get to discuss and what we get to vote on. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle know this, yet this is what we continue to do.

I gave a speech a little while back in December about the United States House of free stuff because that is what we are. Neither party has ever met a bill that they are not willing to vote for because it sounds good, right?

It doesn't matter how much it costs. It doesn't matter what it means in terms of debt, as my colleague from Arizona was just talking about in terms of debt. It just doesn't matter because we are the United States House of free stuff.

You got a bill that sounds good? You got a problem that you want to solve? Come to Congress. We will write you a bill. We will print you some money because there is no consequence to printing the money.

In what world is that a way to govern? The world is supposedly looking at us being this august institution, the people's House, and here I sit alone. My colleagues have headed off to the airport to fly home. We will come back on Monday. We will punch through a no doubt really important list of predetermined items decided by some Rules Committee people dropped on the floor and say: Take it or leave it. Vote yes or no.

Boy, that is inspirational, looking at how a bill becomes a law. Schoolhouse Rock laughs at us because there is no debate. There is no amendment. Both sides just come down here and vote to spend more money we don't have in order to buy your votes.

Well, our message to the American people is, are you for sale? Are the American people for sale by listening to every Member of this body go home and tell you all of the stuff they are bringing back home for you with borrowed money?

Well, we have a decision to make about how we are going to spend the people's money in the next 14 days.

Do we have a debate this week? Do we have a debate this week about the continuing resolution? No. That is the bill that is continuing to fund government that expires on February 18.

Did my Democratic colleagues, did the Speaker, come down and offer an appropriations package or bill and say: Hey, let's have a debate and a discussion about how we should spend the people's money and borrow more money in order to carry out the functions and our obligations. No, we haven't had that debate.

We voted on a garbage piece of legislation today that will do nothing to check China while we are sending our athletes over to bow down to the Chinese and allow them to take center stage on the world's stage. China. Never mind all the slave camps. Never mind what they are doing around the world. Never mind the espionage. Never mind the cyberattacks. Never mind what they are doing in working with Iran, working with our enemies.

Ignore all of that. Ignore the slave labor. Ignore the persecution. Ignore what they did to doctors trying to tell the truth about what happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Ignore the virus born in China. Ignore all of that.

Just send our athletes over there, and then pass a bill on the floor of this House that has literally no chance of checking China, holding them to account, ensuring that they no longer continue to carry out the atrocities that they are carrying out and continue to attack the United States of America on a daily basis.

No, no, no, you just pass a bill, and you go give some speeches about: Oh, we are focusing on China. Oh, but rally around the TV tonight and watch our athletes hanging out over in China.

And then have the Speaker of the House say: Oh, don't speak out. Don't say anything. Something bad might happen to you.

Where is the spine or backbone of the woman from Texas sending the message to the coach of the Miracle on Ice hockey team that said beat those commie bastards? We don't have any of that here.

In 14 days, the funding of government expires, and what will we do? We will come down here on the floor with some forced, last-minute CR, and then each side will go out and give their talking points about how the other side's priorities are wrong, and you are going to borrow more money as we have now surpassed $30 trillion.

More important than that, when Members of this body or the United States Senate vote for a continuing resolution--I want every American to listen to me. When they vote for a continuing resolution to fund government, they are voting to fund the enforcement of vaccine mandates that are causing our men and women in uniform to be forced out of service, to be discharged. They are enforcing laws against our men and women who are serving so valiantly on the front lines in healthcare, nurses and doctors that are getting forced out of service, forced out of the ability to care for people after a lifetime of work, doctors in the

Defense Department daring to say they want to have informed consent getting fired, getting fired for daring to question a politicized vaccine, if you can even call it a vaccine. It is a shot for a politicized virus.

And we all know it is a sham, just like all the mask mandates, sitting here on the floor of the House Chamber, are a sham, just like all the mask mandates on our kids in schools are a sham.

They are forcing our kids into the corners and forcing kids out of their schools and causing mental health issues and causing health issues and causing suicide rates to go up, all of which was entirely predictable.

And this body cowers in fear, running around here. If you dare walk down the hallway not wearing a mask, people say: Get away. Get away.

What kind of a country are we? Putting our children in the corner in masks when there is zero science to back up that it in any way, shape, or form is good for them or their families or the teachers that are allegedly teaching them.

God bless the woman at Prince George County, Virginia, who yesterday took the school board to task for their duplicitous lies about masks, blaming the Governor. And now you got a new Governor. Now you have got a new Governor who has changed the law. And what is that school board doing? Finding every reason in the world to force those kids to be masked because that is what this is about. It is about power and force.

Well, the American people have had it. Parents across this country have had it. They have had it with school boards that are forcing critical race theory on their kids. They have had it with school boards that are forcing their kids to be masked. They have had it with the inability to get healthcare and the inability to get treatments when they know full well there are treatments that will help people, and we refuse to allow them to exist.

We have the FDA shutting down monoclonal antibody treatments in Texas and in other parts around the country when there is no basis to do so when you have the omicron burning through with very reduced lethality, with very little indication that it would impact our children. You have study after study demonstrating that the risk for our children of dying from the virus is so statistically insignificant relative to the need for a so-called vaccine and/or the dangers posed by a vaccine in kids.

Then everybody throws back and says, oh, Chip, we have had vaccine mandates forever. Hold on a second. We have never had a Federal vaccine mandate like this administration is cramming down the throats of the American people.

Show it to me. We haven't had a vaccine that was adopted across the country even by local governments and school boards that didn't have exceptions or didn't have a significant amount of time, science, evidence, and studies behind it. That is the truth.

My dad had polio. He got polio in 1949 before the Salk vaccine 5, 6 years later.

Go study how that vaccine got rolled out. It didn't get rolled out crammed down by the Federal Government in less than a year. People figured out to adopt it, take time, roll it out. And by the way, we rolled out this vaccine exponentially faster than the polio vaccine.

And all those people would come and say, Oh, Chip Roy would cause polio to come back. These are all lies. They are all said to create and intimidate and cause fear. I am not going to play the, Oh, I am going to tell you absolutely I love the vaccine, go get vaccinated. I just don't want a mandates' game because that is all my side wants to do because they don't want to take this issue head-on.

This is about power, and this is about limiting freedom. This is about undermining the ability of the American people to make choices for themselves. And it is causing harm. It is killing people by taking away our ability to focus on therapies and treatments because we have gotten so focused on a vaccine and cramming that vaccine down the American people. And it is political. And we should be ashamed of ourselves. And we shouldn't fund it.

We should not fund a government enforcing vaccines on the American people. We shouldn't force them on our doctors. We shouldn't force them on our nurses. We shouldn't force them on our students. We shouldn't force them on our brave men and women in uniform. We shouldn't force them on Border Patrol--all of whom, having these forced mandates, are causing some of them to lose their job, lifetime public servants; people that have served their country honorably for years.

We are standing here in the House Chamber, and I am looking up at the 13 stripes, the 50 stars, in a country that says, ``the land of the free.'' And yet, this government, through the power of government, is forcing people to get vaccinated against their will when we know it is absolutely true that natural immunity is real, that natural immunity, if you had the virus, is every bit as strong or stronger than vaccine immunity. So you are forcing an individual to take a shot, even if they have natural immunity, or lose their job, in America.

I, for one, will not abide that, and I am going to take every step I can in the next 14 days to make everybody up here in Washington understand, if you vote to fund this government without stopping the vaccine mandates, you are voting for those vaccine mandates being applied to doctors, healthcare workers, our men and women in uniform, Federal contractors, Border Patrol--all of those people that are serving publicly and trying to serve their country.

I see the gentleman from California here.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. That means a lot coming from him and his great service here in this body, as well as his experience in the private sector, working in the healthcare industry, a great expertise that I don't have. My expertise is mostly on the other end of that as a cancer survivor and watching my dad deal with polio and those other issues.

But I find it astonishing, whether you are talking about people getting fired from their job--or using a slightly

different example--if you look at the vaccine mandates that are being applied at our Nation's capital in the seat of liberty, here in the United States of America, if you are in the District of Columbia and you go to a restaurant and you show them that you took a test that afternoon and are negative for COVID but you are not vaccinated, you can't go in. But if you are vaccinated and you are positive for COVID, you can go in.

In what universe does that make sense? But that is what we are doing. We are turning logic and common sense on its head. And we are doing so because--I agree with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, by the way--we politicize the virus, and we politicize our response to it.

Our friends in Japan, they put out their public policy as: There is a vaccine. We think it is good. We think you ought to consider taking it or strongly encourage you to take it. There are some risks that we are studying. We are not going to mandate it.

And their vaccination rates are higher than ours. Now maybe they are a more compliant society. There are all sorts of reasons behind it; we are bigger. But it tells you something. Why is that not our position as a country. Right? Encouraging people.

My dad is 79 years old and a polio survivor. I wanted him to get the vaccine; I wanted him to get the boost. He is particularly vulnerable. My mom. But it ought to be up to us. We ought to be able to decide for our families. I assume the gentleman agrees.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California. I am just going to wind down here and say this is our time to lead. It does not matter who is the majority in this body. This is the people's House, and this is the people's House whether the Democrats are in charge or the Republicans are in charge.

And we have a question before the body, and the Senate will have a question before that body: Will you continue to fund the enforcement of mandates and vaccines in a way that is causing the best among us, of our public servants, in our military, in our hospitals to lose their jobs with no basis in science for continuing to do so?

If this is the land of the free, then let us stand up. Let's stand up for freedom and let us reject these mandates.

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

Madam Speaker, I would agree with my friend from Pennsylvania. I appreciate him having this time on the floor, and I appreciate my colleagues for coming down.

The State of Texas is on the front lines under siege, the communities that I represent, dealing with the scourge of open borders, the dangers that are provided by cartels, and the illegal elements that come across the border on a daily basis--and this body does nothing about it.

This week we are going to entertain legislation that will do nothing to combat China. Nothing to stop China from continuing to run rampant around the world, violating human rights, undermining our national security. We are going to put together a nonsense bill that is a Green New Deal agenda, a pacify and appease China bill. We should be saying what the woman from Texas said to the coach of the Miracle on Ice hockey team: Beat those Commie bastards.

That is what we ought to be saying. That is what we ought to be doing. But no, no, no, here we sit doing nothing. But you know what we are doing, we are sleeping while our border is wide open. But worse than that, the Biden administration and Secretary Mayorkas are taking purposeful steps to open our border, disregard the law, and to fail to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Our country is in danger and Americans are dying.

Americans are dying specifically because of the actions of the Secretary of Homeland Security. That is what is actually occurring. We have fence rusting in fields in Texas. We have contracts that aren't being paid. In fact, we are paying people not to work--not to build the fences.

We are not using migrant protection protocols. We are not using Title 42. We are releasing people into the United States against Federal law. We are not doing anything to actually secure the border and, therefore, the Secretary of Homeland Security should be impeached for it.

I will make one final point. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, stood at a podium and laughed about our commentary about the borders being open and our streets being unsafe. She lied. She lied about Border Patrol agents whipping migrants. It was purposeful and it was done to divide our Nation by race, the same kind of division that has the President of the United States choosing the race and the sex of the Supreme Court justice. This is the same man who blocked Janice Rogers Brown, blocked a Black woman Supreme Court justice. He blocked an Hispanic Miguel Estrada because he was Hispanic and because he is not the right kind of Hispanic.

That is the truth. That is the truth of a President and an administration that wants to divide our county by race, they want to lie about our Border Patrol agents, and they don't want to do a dang thing about it.

Madam Speaker, I am glad the gentleman from Pennsylvania asked the question. It stands nowhere. They are not giving us any report. They said it would be a couple weeks away. I can tell you why. Because the report will demonstrate there was no whipping. It was a lie.

They owe an apology to those Border Patrol agents who are being abused on the front lines, having guns fired at them, dealing with COVID. No apology.

Amen. Amen.

Madam Speaker, no. And the President should apologize for that and the President should apologize to every parent of a dead American kid who takes Xanax and dies with it laced with fentanyl because we have open borders--and the Secretary knows it.

Madam Speaker, the Border Patrol was saying: What are we doing? We are doing nothing. That is what the Border Patrol is saying. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wouldn't know that because they never have hearings inviting the people on the front lines to talk, and actually hold the Secretary accountable.

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleagues who have been down here on the floor of the House of Representatives for the most part of the last hour talking about the importance of defending life, those infamous--or famous or important words, I should say, in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Nothing can be more important than this body focusing on defending life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and my colleagues' focus on life, as we sit here now 49 years removed from a Supreme Court decision taking out of the hands of the people and putting it into the hands of unelected judges' decisions, about the beginning of life, when life begins, the important reality of a people defending life.

What is controversial about defending life?

It is a question for this body.

What is controversial about defending life when we talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and when we talk about living on this Earth while God gives us the precious time we have here?

What are we going to do with that time?

Are we going to live free?

Are we going to be able to pursue happiness?

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: one might wonder here now 1 year into the current administration, the Biden administration, whether the average American would say that he or she is free to pursue happiness.

Are we free?

Are we free to pursue happiness when, in fact, just a few miles away--and, frankly, a few thousand feet--from this Chamber where we are right now, restaurants are being chastised and pursued by the Government of the District of Columbia representing this area that forms our Nation's Capitol because those restaurants may not believe that it is in their interest or the interest of the people whom they serve to be checking papers and to be checking so-called vaccine passports or vaccine passes?

One restaurant in particular over on H Street--which was one of the early restaurants on H Street as it was revitalizing--has been fined, berated, and harassed by the Government of the District of Columbia for wanting its doors to be open and not wanting to harass its patrons. They want them to use their own free will to make a decision about what is in their interest. They don't want to live in a republic where you are forced to show papers to walk about and to engage in society, to freely move about and engage in commerce.

The very heart of the kinds of ideas that the Founders meant and what Jefferson meant when he penned pursuit of happiness is that we not allow a government through tyrannical policies to interfere with our pursuit of happiness: our ability to go have a business, our ability to go out and take care of our family, our ability to move about and to engage in commerce, our ability to create wealth and opportunity for our children and our grandchildren, to be able to get healthcare, and to be able to be secure in our possessions, secure in our belongings, and secure in our own homes.

I would ask this question: Is the United States more secure than it was 1 year ago?

Is the United States stronger economically than it was 1 year ago?

Is the United States stronger on the world stage?

Are we safer from our enemies than we were 1 year ago?

Is our border secure?

Are we able to afford energy and have reliable energy to heat our homes, fuel our cars, provide jobs, and keep us warm in the winter and cool in the summer?

Are we able to do that better more than 1 year ago?

The answer very clearly to all of those questions is a resounding ``no.''

Do you think it is an accident that I just spent 2 hours in a hearing in the Judiciary Committee bemoaning the United States Senate for holding the line on the filibuster which Democrats and this President wanted to throw over the wall in the name of voting rights because nobody can oppose something called voting rights?

They put up those words, they call it the Voting Rights Act, and they name it after people we serve with in the Chamber to provide maximum guilt if you dare stand up and say, Mr. Speaker, that the people in the States ought to be able to decide how to ensure that the elections of the people who represent them are secure; that you dare to have a voter ID favored by 80 percent of the American people.

But yet let's go back to what I just said: I have to have an ID just to walk in and buy a hamburger in the Nation's Capitol, but I cannot have an ID to vote. No. No. No. That is Jim Crow 2.0 I am told by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

I actually had colleagues on the committee today walking through the horrors of the poll tax--the jelly bean counting and all of the obstructions put into place for voting in the 1950s and 1960s that the Voting Rights Act nobly pursued to correct--and then tried to compare that to voter identification.

They tried to compare that to wanting to make sure that mail-in ballots aren't abused by anybody in any party, even though, by the way, those bastions of crazy conservatism, Jimmy Carter and James Baker, came out in a report over a decade ago that The New York Times quoted saying precisely that mail-in ballots are the area where you have the most fraud.

Now, all of us want to have integrity and belief in our elections. But our Democratic colleagues want to use that issue to divide us, as President Biden literally admitted yesterday. In his 1-hour marathon wandering, meandering press conference, he literally said that he could not say whether the elections will be legitimate this fall unless-- unless--we embrace the legislation that he says must get passed and that we must set aside the traditions of the Senate to jam it through. And all of it, very clearly, is to set the stage for a lack of faith and belief in the elections that are coming this November.

Again I ask: Is America stronger or weaker?

Is it richer or poorer? More secure or less safe?

We know the answer, and that is why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wish not to talk about those issues. We don't want to have a debate about crime on the floor.

Do any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to come down to the floor right now and have a debate about crime in the United States?

Do they?

Do you think a 50 percent increase in crime in Austin, a 50 percent increase in crime in San Antonio, a 19-year-old woman shot in a Burger King in New York City, a 24-year-old student murdered walking the streets of Los Angeles, train robberies in 21st century America with litter all over the tracks in Los Angeles, is an accident?

Or could it be that radical leftists who are funded to take over the district attorneys' offices in cities across America and radical city councils like the Austin City Council and leftists in this Chamber believe that letting criminals out on the streets and believe in not prosecuting people is going to make our country safer?

It is empirically and obviously untrue.

The American people see it. And I promise you, Mr. Speaker, take this bet: We will not have a debate on the floor of this body about crime while I am here this year. It will not happen. My Democratic colleagues would not dare have a debate about crime because they would get absolutely decimated.

They sure as heck do not want to have a debate about the border.

Do you want to talk about 2 million apprehensions?

Do you want to talk about 1 million people released?

Do you want to talk about dead Texans?

Do you want to talk about fentanyl pouring into our communities, 100,000 dead Americans, opioid poisonings of our youth, and kids taking Xanax and dying because cartels are flooding into our country while China drives them right up through Mexico?

Not a person in this Chamber on the other side of the aisle wants to come to the floor and have an adult debate about why our country is much less secure and much more endangered at the hands of the cartels and of people making money trafficking in human beings and undermining our security and safety in the United States of America.

I promise you, Mr. Speaker, Joe Biden and the Nancy Pelosi Democrats have no interest in having a debate about the border because it is an embarrassment and it is a travesty.

Ranches are getting overrun, people are dying, bullets are being fired across at our own Border Patrol, the National Guard is having to fire at cars coming across the border, livestock is getting out, bodies are stacking up in body trailers in Brooks County, Texas, and cartels are making hundreds of millions of dollars on a daily basis driving fentanyl into our kids' communities and schools.

No, no, no. We do not want to have a debate about the state of our border.

Do we want to have a debate about the state of healthcare mandates?

No. No. This body has no debate but embraces rules. We must wear masks, they say. For a year and a half we have

been excoriated--even fined--if you don't wear a mask the floor of the House of Representatives--masks which are very clearly proven--fabric masks--to have no real discernible benefit over the last year and a half of the mandates that say you must wear a face covering.

They said: Well, are we going to mandate N95s?

Are we going to have to wear N95s on the floor?

Do they want to talk about the negative effects in the study that wearing N95s for a prolonged period of time, what that does for people's health and well-being, breathing carbon dioxide, minimizing your cognitive ability if you wear N95s for a long time?

Some people might joke: Would it make any difference on the floor of the House if you minimized the cognitive ability of the Members of the House? You could argue that it may not make any difference whatsoever. I am looking in the mirror myself.

We do not want to have a debate on the floor of the House on anything, by the way, much less the reality of what has been happening with respect to this virus and our response to it; and what Anthony Fauci engaged in with respect to the reality of the truth of funding gain-of-function research knowing full well the dangers, working to cover that up and hide from the American people how this virus came about; not wanting to pursue the truth on that, not wanting to pursue the truth or conduct studies on natural immunity.

We have study after study after study coming out right now. I could pull out on my phone and pull up study after study now finally demonstrating and showing how natural immunity is more powerful than vaccinations, and people don't want to be able to have that honest conversation.

An adult leadership would have done like the Nation of Japan saying: We believe that vaccines are effective for a large group of people. We believe that there are some risks. You are adults. We won't mandate. You decide.

We can't do that in the supposed land of the free? We sit up here and we stare at that American flag and we talk about the Senate being the greatest deliberative body. They don't really debate. This being the people's House, the people's Chamber, when was the last time the Speaker heard a robust debate on the floor of the House with multiple Members?

When was the last time we offered an amendment on the floor of the House in open debate that wasn't predetermined by all of the Rules Committee overlords who govern our lives? Democrat and Republican, I do want to say.

Mr. Speaker, it has been 6 years since we have had an amendment offered on the floor of the House in open debate. Do you want to know why we can't do anything in this Chamber? Because we don't ever debate. We don't ever actually have a discussion, throw things out there and then vote. Maybe, just maybe, we come to some bipartisan agreement.

I am happy to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Dean Phillips and I worked on the PPP Flexibility Act. Abigail Spanberger and I have introduced legislation called the TRUST Act to deal with stock trading believing that might help improve people's faith and confidence in this body. I have introduced numerous bills and passed numerous bills with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. That is not what this is about.

It is about a broken body refusing to actually debate, refusing to actually engage, refusing to offer amendments. Both sides do it. That needs to end.

The last point that I will make on that point, if you want this body to function again, you have to stop spending money we don't have. If you keep writing blank checks, how on Earth is there a check against the wisdom of the policy? You just keep writing a check to keep doing the same thing or to do something different. You can't run a business that way. You can't run a home that way. You can't run a church that way. You can't run a legitimate school that way. But no, no, we just keep writing checks to fund the expansion of government, to fund the creation of programs no matter who is in power.

Over the last year, we have seen what that causes when it is then left in the hands of an administration that literally does not care about the rule of law.

To be very clear, this administration is ignoring the rule of law, ignoring their oath, ignoring their duty to enforce the laws of the United States, ignoring their duty to secure the border, ignoring their duty to stand up in defense of the men and women in blue, to follow the laws around the United States, ignoring their oath to stand up and defend the United States against our foreign enemies; hold the line against Russia; push back on Russia; sanction them; hold the line on Nord Stream 2; stand alongside Ukraine; push back on China; stop appeasing them.

Don't leave $85 billion sitting there in the hands of terrorists when we walk away and abandon our duty and leave those men and women in the field, and then have 13 dead marines to show for it.

That is the legacy of the first year of this administration. But will President Biden, when he strolls to that podium on March 1 for his so- called State of the Union, and we are all spread out, and all wearing masks, and doing whatever the heck we are going to do--not actually doing the people's business--will he address any of those issues?

Will he talk about border security? Will he talk about how we are weaker around the world? Will he talk about the crime on the streets of Los Angeles, New York, Austin, San Antonio, and Chicago?

Will he talk about the businesses getting crippled by mask mandates and health mandates?

Will he talk about the children who are now having mental health issues, the people who are sick; the diseases that weren't dealt with, all to push a vaccine mandate that goes contrary to the pursuit of happiness and our right as Americans to live free?

Will he talk about any of those things? Will he talk about the fact that the United States of America is sitting on one of the world's largest reservoirs of energy and, yet, we are wondering even in Texas whether you can have the lights on because we built no nuclear power plants.

We slowed down our production of clean burning natural gas, all chasing unicorn energy policies of wind and solar as if they can possibly, possibly power the world at the level that is needed for the proper amount of human flourishing while 3 billion people around this planet do not have access to abundant energy and power.

Will the President of the United States come down here and talk about that or will he get up there and just talk about: Well, we are going to be net zero in our carbon production by 2035, or 2050, or make up some totally arbitrary number without regard at all to what that does to the price of energy and the availability and abundance of energy.

All of this has real-life consequences for Americans. People die. Houses get cold. People can't get access to energy. They can't afford energy. They lose jobs. You have stagnation and then you have the brilliance of this administration and the brilliance of those in the media starting to talk about energy and food price control because, of course, that is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will resort to.

They will sit there and bemoan markets when they don't let the markets work. Healthcare markets never work. We haven't had a healthcare market in decades. It is an absolute lie; and I am looking at you Big Healthcare. I am looking at you Big Pharma. I am looking at you hospitals. I am looking at you Big Insurance. You made out like bandits after ObamaCare. You minted money. And probably three-quarters of the people in this Chamber fattened their wallets and their portfolios riding the back of all of that Big Healthcare enrichment, all at the expense of poor Americans around this country trying to get access to a doctor without having to call some bureaucrat in the government, the VA, or an insurance company, or however it may be, but it sure as heck isn't their doctor.

We don't have health freedom in this country. We have mandated Big Healthcare, Big Government, Big Insurance, bureaucracy. And everybody knows it. Everybody knows it because you all had to deal with it. You have

had to call somebody. You had to call some kid sitting in Omaha in some phone bank telling you which doctor you can go to 2,000 miles away. That is the truth, and we all know it. We sit in here, we roll in here and we say: Let's spend more money and create a government program. Let's spend more money we don't have.

Not one person in this body will come down here and truly debate any of these truths when you are $30 trillion in debt; when you are funding the very FBI going after parents for daring to stand up and defend their children in a school board meeting; when you are funding the Department of Homeland Security that is literally lying to the American people saying our border is secure while hundreds of thousands of people come across.

You want to know what happened in that synagogue? Because we don't have a dang clue who is coming to the United States, and this administration doesn't care. They don't care. They don't care what list they are on. They don't care whether they pose a danger to the United States of America. They don't care at all who is coming into this country. And they sure as heck don't care what is happening to the people of Texas, Arizona, or, frankly, everybody around this country who is having to bear the cost, who is having to bear the burden of what wide-open borders means to the United States of America.

Complain about Mayorkas? We should impeach him for failing to faithfully execute the laws of the United States of America, endangering Americans in the process, ignoring the laws of the United States. And that is what is happening. That is what is happening.

America is poorer, sicker, and less safe a year into the Biden administration, and that is the truth. Our enemies know it. That is why Russia is going after Ukraine. That is why China is rattling on a daily basis. That is why Russia, China, and Iran are talking about joint exercises. That is why the cartels are emboldened. That is why there are people marching through Mexico from all over the world coming to our southern border. That is why there are people on the streets breaking into businesses, assaulting people on the streets and killing them, raping them. It is happening every single day in the United States of America with reckless abandon while Democrats in district attorney's offices, Democrats in the House of Representatives, Democrats in this administration do nothing about it and do not care that the American people are left holding the bag.

Then they want to talk about taking away our Second Amendment rights and our ability to defend ourselves. Well, that crap ain't going to happen because we are going to defend ourselves in the land of the free. We are going to stand up and defend our communities and defend our families. We are going to stand up in defense of the Constitution and limited government and freedom to be able to protect our families and protect our States when this administration is letting this country burn.

It dares to do an hour-long press conference, lecturing the people for wanting to make sure their elections are secure, for daring to say that we should have voter identification when that same administration is ordering vaccine mandates that are causing healthcare workers to lose their jobs; causing healthcare workers in long-term health facilities to be unable to carry out their jobs.

And then there is the talk about, oh, the burden on hospitals. Well, you just caused 20 percent of nurses to have to leave because you were mandating they take a jab for something that is a year old that Pfizer is making billions of dollars on. Then we won't even have a hearing about why on Earth we are having this virus in the first place, because of what Anthony Fauci knew and what NIH was up to and what China was up to.

We won't have a hearing about natural immunity. We won't have a hearing about the dangers and levels of dangers of the vaccines, what they may be. Again, my polio-stricken father who is 79 has been vaccinated. I refuse to say whether I have been vaccinated. I think it is a principle for Americans that they shouldn't have to say.

My point is, there are people for whom the vaccine makes sense. There are people for whom the vaccine does not make sense. Mandating a jab in a 5-year-old is irresponsible and it is dangerous. We should have that conversation instead of blindly walking around preaching what other people should stick in their dang arm.

But that is what we do in the people's House. I am sitting here in an empty Chamber--with the Speaker, respectfully--and that is it. They are all jet-fumed out, leaving town. Oh, we shut down earlier. Let's get out of here. Or they are out at some fundraiser or something.

Let's have a debate on these issues. Let's seek the truth. I don't know all of the truth on all of those issues. I don't know the specific risks. I have read a lot about what is going on with the vaccines, positive and negative. But it is becoming very, very clear that it doesn't do squat to stop the spread. So you are left basically saying: Well, it is better for you so that you don't die in the hospital.

Well, let's look at the data on that. But why don't we just present the information and let the American people decide? Japan's vaccine rate is a lot higher than ours and ours has mandates. All they did was say: We think it is good. There are some risks. You decide. We can't do that in America?

We can't just go down to the border and say: You know what, it is better for migrants, better for Texans and all Americans, bad for cartels, bad for China, if we secure our border. That is the truth. Talk to the migrants getting abused. Talk to the people in south Texas. Go to Laredo and Webb County. Sit down with the Brown people in Laredo who will say: We are pretty ticked off with this administration about how they are handling the border.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle might be up for a rude awakening pretty soon about their expectations of what voters are voting for them and what voters are not because there are a lot of people in this country that are sick and tired of the elite in this town, immersed in the swamp, promoting Big Healthcare, promoting Big Tech, promoting Big Government, minimizing the rights and the abilities of Americans to live their lives the way they see fit.

That is our calling as we head to 2026, our 250th birthday of the United States of America, which comes up in 4-and-a-half years. Will we be able to say that we live in the land of the free? Will we be able to say that we are pursuing happiness; that we are the country of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

We will only be able to do that if we stand up and secure our Nation's sovereignty, defend our streets, protect our families, stand up to enemies around the world, and limit this body to the job that it was given in the Constitution: limit our spending to the dollars that we have and responsibly lead this country and represent the people so that this country can, in fact, be great in our agreements and our disagreements in a Federalist Republic where we are able to live free.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding.

A year ago in January I spoke on this floor in defense of the rule of law and my view that it was incumbent upon Congress to count the electors sent to us from their respective States.

In doing so, I reminded the Chamber that we are deeply divided.

Now we are a Nation perilously divided further. And a divided Nation must return to first principles. Those first principles include separation of powers; and in so doing, the judicious use of the congressional subpoena power as requiring, per the United States Supreme Court, ``a valid legislative purpose.''

That power is not, per the court, limitless, it is not, per the court, a power to expose for the sake of exposure, it is not, per the court, a power to punish, as such would be ``indefensible.''

The January 6th Committee was born in politics. After all, we have standing committees like Judiciary, which have had precisely zero hearings about the 500 Americans who have been charged, arrested, and are jailed regarding January 6.

And then the natural pursuit of any conspiracy associated with such crimes--no, the select committee continually moves the goalpost far from a core legislative purpose. Indeed, one target seeking to claim privilege was told to take specific tests to claim that privilege, then did so, and then was told, sorry, this was not sufficient en route to contempt.

Now we have the targeting of our friend, Mark Meadows. Congressman Meadows sought accommodation. While, yes, it is between branches, the question in privilege regarding the former President continues to be litigated for good reason.

The gentlewoman from Wyoming outlined text messages from some of us imploring action by the President. The text messages from which she read were, in fact, turned over by Mr. Meadows. He produced more than 1,100 documents totaling 9,000 pages and over 2,300 text messages.

Mr. Meadows offered to appear before the committee to address the agreed-upon nonprivileged documents.

Madam Speaker, Mr. Meadows agrees to continue to work through questions of privilege. But again, here we are facing a vote to hold Mr. Meadows in contempt.

Anger over January 6 and the events leading to it is not reason for a committee formed from that anger and in partisanship to exercise unlimited power to command attendance of production while moving the goalpost. This itself is an assault on liberty and our republic.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Arizona for being willing to stand on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, when unfortunately so many of my colleagues are not, this evening to talk about the danger facing our country. And the gentleman outlines, I believe if I am correct, that we will be facing $112 trillion of debt come 2050, if we do not change course. If we do not take the steps necessary to make changes with respect to our healthcare spending and make wise policy choices--like any family, any budget that you have to maintain, if you are running a business, nonprofit, a university, virtually everybody in the world, or at least everybody in the country--except this body right here--that has to maintain and balance a budget and make determinations and make tough choices.

If the gentleman would indulge me for a minute or two, for a couple more minutes on the floor. When was the last time the gentleman recalls we have had the ability to amend a piece of legislation on the floor of this body? Truly amend it?

Does the gentleman remember?

I yield to the gentleman.

Would it surprise the gentleman that it was May of 2016, the last time that an amendment was offered on the floor of this body in open debate?

Now, to be clear, that is an assessment of leadership in both parties. But how on earth can we actually solve the problems, I would ask the Speaker, if we don't come down and sit at this table, stop looking up at the C-SPAN cameras and just sit around this table and start with a budget--like any family or any business--and say, Here is how much money we have. Here is how we can responsibly spend for the betterment of the people. Have disagreements about what those priorities are and make choices.

When was the last time that we have done that? It is a rhetorical question, but I know one data point is that May of 2016 was the last time that any Member of this body was able to walk on to this floor and offer an amendment that wasn't precooked up in the Committee on Rules previously and already set up by the leadership structure of either party.

Would the gentleman agree that that is no way for the people's House to operate?

I yield to the gentleman.

Well, the gentleman is completely correct, and there is no debate about that. You want to have a conversation about solving the Medicare crisis driving $112 trillion, then you have to have a conversation about solving the healthcare crisis. And to solve the healthcare crisis, you need to actually be willing, both sides of the aisle, to take on the army of lobbyists representing the insurance companies, the hospitals, pharmaceutical companies--all minting money right now, by the way, literally minting money--and you have got to be willing to have a conversation about that to actually figure out how we can transform our healthcare system to be patient-centered, doctor- centered, and not have to go to an insurance bureaucrat or a government bureaucrat to figure out what your healthcare looks like and then get competition, transparency, and drive down prices. Because if you drive down prices, we can actually solve the Medicare crisis.

Well, I would agree with the gentleman. And to your point, you asked me a question about how many times we have had a real substantive debate. The closest I can remember was I made this point about amendments on the floor of the House. And the gentleman from Maryland, the leader, said in an agreement, Yeah, I wish we had more debate on the floor. And I would say to the leader, let's do it. Right? Let's start.

Let's drop a bill on the floor, instead of a 2000-page monstrosity that costs X-trillions of dollars that was passed by the Committee on Rules, was brought to the floor, that we then offer an MTR, and then we go and give press conferences about why we can't support it. That is no way to actually do the work of the people.

The NDAA bill last week, let's put a bill here on the table and then let's offer amendments. Right? We had a whole fight about, draft our daughters, about vaccine mandates, all these things. Well just start with the NDAA and then offer some amendments. Let the votes work. Let the people speak.

I am, I am.

It's shrinking.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman. I appreciate your steadfast commitment to try and speak the truth and come down to the floor and speak to the American people, and unfortunately all too often, an empty Chamber.

I appreciate that my colleagues, many of whom were able to get a flight and go home--and God bless them--but we have problems to solve. And we ought to be here debating in this Chamber rather than posturing.

Mr. Speaker, I would note that previously my colleagues were eulogizing and remembering Senator Bob Dole. As we all know, he was a World War II veteran who was injured in combat; a man of great distinction who served in public life pretty much since his service in World War II. And he is a reminder, as we all know, of losing that generation. There are precious few remaining.

Both of my grandfathers have passed who served in World War II. We lost Senator Dole this week. I was on a flight to Austin, Texas, earlier this week, on Monday, with an honor flight, with eight veterans of World War II who came up for Pearl Harbor Day on December 7. None of those eight had been present at Pearl. Two of them were over 100 years old. One of the men, I sat next to him on the plane flying up to D.C., had served and been in combat in Iwo Jima. There is only a few of these folks left.

And what I want to spend a minute focusing on, as we are heading out, and I know we will be back next week for a day, but we are getting close to winding down and heading home for Christmas. I want to remember what that generation did.

Joe Crute and Jim Swartz remember vividly the merciless,

frigid cold they survived during the Battle of the Bulge:

ice, wind, snow, frozen ground, frostbite, amputations,

pneumonia, Americans dying from hypothermia in a land far

away from their homes.

Approximately 1 million Allied forces endured the

inhospitable conditions during the fight that lasted from

December 16, 1944, until January 25, 1945, a span which, of

course, surrounded Christmas.

This was the Germans making their last major offensive

strike on the Western Front during World War II. Almost

90,000 of them ended up wounded, missing, captured, or dead

from battle injuries.

Seventy-seven years later--this was written 2 years ago--

when recalling the bitter conditions of the Battle of the

Bulge, Swartz stared at his large hands, rubbing them

together as if to warm them. I have something to show for it,

he said when sharing his experiences. I have the results of

that cold. My hands are almost to the place where they are

useless from the frostbite.

You couldn't drink the water from the lakes due to the fact

of dead animals and dead bodies in the water, so we had to

purify that. Some of the boys couldn't get to the water. Some

of them, the water was frozen in their canteens. So what did

they do? They ate the snow to keep their body liquefied.

We attempted to make shelter in the ground, but to no

avail. You tried to dig little holes in the ground to sleep.

The ground was so hard you couldn't dig a hole. So what you

did is you got pine branches off of the pine trees, laid them

down on the ground and laid there and covered yourself up

with half of your pup tent. That is how you tried to keep

warm.

One day, a fellow soldier was mortally wounded. He was a

little bit bigger than I was, Crute said. He was shot in the

back. I ran and got his mackinaw off. It fit him perfect, but

when I put it on it was an overcoat. It felt good. I pitied

the poor guy, but it was so cold.

At that time in 1944, there is the famous exchange that happened when the German commander wrote our commander, General McAuliffe, basically saying battalions are ready to annihilate the United States troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this 2 hours term. General McAuliffe replied, famously, ``nuts,'' and they fought on. They battled on.

Many of the soldiers spent Christmas 1944 celebrating the best they could. The American soldiers were within Bastogne. Christmas services were held by the Army chaplain. Some in the country went and visited with others. One story:

We were out in the outskirts of Bastogne and we found this

farmhouse. Inside was a man and a woman and a little boy and

a little girl. The wife, she gave us some soup and some black

bread. We stayed there all night in this farmhouse. The war

was going on fiercely outside, and for some reason the

farmhouse never got hit.

We were there Christmas Eve. We sang Christmas songs that night with this Belgian family. We sang Jingle Bells and Silent Night. The words were different, but the music was the same.

The thing that strikes me as we think about that generation and think about what they did in World War II in response to Pearl Harbor, signing up and enlisting and going out into the Pacific and going into Europe to stand up against tyranny around the globe

and defend our country, but also others around the world, for an idea and for something bigger than they.

They signed up without a question. Churchill famously observed that once we were bombed by the Japanese on that December day in 1941 that caused then-President Roosevelt to come into this room and give that famous speech about that day that will live in infamy--Churchill observed that the war would be won.

The sleeping giant had been awakened because the world knew who we were. The world knew what America stood for. It knew that that sleeping giant had been awakened. Nothing could be assumed. It took a massive ramp-up, massive sacrifice, rationing, women enlisting, Rosie the Riveter, men enlisting, going across, 400,000 dead, represented on those stars at that memorial here on The Mall.

The world knew what we would do. The question I would ask my colleagues today: Does the world know what we would do today? Does the world know who we are? Does the world know what we will do as we watch China on the rise, Russia rattling against Ukraine, Iran rattling about nuclear capability in an unstable Middle East, threatening our friend and ally Israel?

The cartels in violence and unrest on our southern border--does the world know whether we have the resolve to stand up in defense of the rule of law and in defense of freedom and against tyranny around the globe but with the resolve necessary to win it?

When President Reagan stood athwart the Soviet Union and talked about peace through strength and told Mr. Gorbachev to tear down these walls, the world knew our resolve. Do they today? Can we accomplish the objectives of defending this country and standing up in the world when we refuse to do the basic job of managing our own affairs and our own country responsibly?

We amassed a mountain of debt in World War II: 125 percent of GDP by 1946 coming out of the Depression. We got back and got busy growing our economy. We grew out of it and got that down. We are sitting here today in relative peacetime with $30 trillion in debt, barreling toward $112 trillion in debt as my colleague just articulately illustrated on the floor of the House to an empty Chamber, minus myself and the Speaker. We are doing nothing about it. Nothing. Literally.

Just last night, there was wailing and gnashing of teeth among my colleagues because we dared force votes on 30 suspension votes. Oh, no, we might miss a Christmas dinner or a Christmas party. Oh, no, we might not catch our flight home early enough.

Madam Speaker, $2.7 billion was authorized last night in suspension votes, all bills that often just sound good in the headlines. Three of us voted against a bill that would provide $500 million over 5 years to support research and funding for therapies for ALS. I was one of those three ``no'' votes.

Do you think I want to go back and talk to people and families that are afflicted by ALS? Where are the rest of my colleagues in explaining where that $500 million is going to come from? When we are faced with a conflict like our forefathers were facing, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, when Hitler was on the march, and we resolved to fight, we could because our economy was strong enough, and we were disciplined enough to try to do the right thing. Are we able to do that today when we are not even disciplined enough to sit here and figure out how to manage the budget and the spending of the United States so we don't drive our country into complete and total bankruptcy and destroy it for our kids and our grandkids?

Literally, everybody, both sides of the aisle, say, well, it is just some votes. Some people today were giving me trouble because one of those suspension votes might be used as a political weapon by one of my Democratic opponents or one of our Democratic colleagues because they managed to pass some bill with a 375-40 bipartisan vote.

Oh, no, don't give somebody a political weapon so they can go run an ad. Nowhere was there concern about another $2 billion or $3 billion just passed through on suspension bills that we hardly debated.

When we talk about and venerate men like Bob Dole and men serving in World War II, and we look at our grandfathers and our great- grandfathers who sat there in the frigid cold or stormed Iwo Jima or stormed the cliffs at Normandy, can we fight those fights tomorrow? Are we capable of it? Do we have the resources to do it, much less the resolve, if we can't even resolve in this body to preserve and protect the actual foundation of this country to be economically and financially firm and stable?

If we don't resolve, the 435 Members of this body, to do the hard work, as my colleague from Arizona was pointing out, of making tough decisions about Medicare and Social Security and mandatory spending, but also the discretionary spending that I talked about last night, but also the National Defense Authorization Act that we just threw $25 billion at the Defense Department with no real reforms or changes to how they spend money, how are we ever going to save this Republic?

I said last week in a speech that this is the United States House of free stuff because that is what it has become. It has become an entity that doles out money to whatever cause because it sounds good and feels good.

There was $500 million for ALS research. God bless them. I am glad that research is going to occur. But someone has to sit on the floor of the House, and say: Where are we going to get the money? Not just print it.

I can't go next door to my neighbor and knock on the door, and say: Hey, it is time for you to give me your check. What check? Well, the check for ALS. Well, what do you mean? Well, it is a good cause. The check for cancer, I am a cancer survivor. The check for polio, my dad is a polio survivor--whatever it might be.

Not one of us in this Chamber has the right to knock on our neighbor's door, and say: Give me a check to go give to another thing. You wouldn't do that. But through the power of this body as a whole we print money, borrow money, and then dole it out for political benefit and nothing more. It is cowardly. It is embarrassing. It is destroying the Republic.

Thread by thread, the flag is getting tattered because we refuse to do the hard work, as my friend from Arizona said, of making tough decisions to ensure that we can sustain this Republic.

We will come back in next week and the debt ceiling will get raised. That is as true as the Sun coming up in the east. Not a thing will be done to right the ship of the massive amount of debt piling up around the ears of our kids and our grandkids. Nothing will be done next week to solve that problem.

Republicans will blame Democrats using a crazy procedural ploy in the Senate, passing a bill to blow up the filibuster to allow the debt ceiling on a supposed one-time basis to be raised with a 51-vote threshold so that they can go back to the American people, and say: I didn't vote to raise the debt ceiling, but you did.

Don't let them hide. They did. They concocted the scheme. They voted to make sure that that happened, and the debt ceiling will be raised. Not a thing will change about how we carry out our work. Nothing will be done to make this country fiscally sound again.

Madam Speaker, may I ask how much time I have left.

Madam Speaker, let me take a minute to thank the staff, the floor staff. We come down here and speak into late hours. We have votes like last night that go until 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. because some of us forced some votes. I appreciate all of your hard work. As a former staffer, I know it is not easy.

The American people are a great people. The American people want this body, the Senate, and their leadership in Washington to actually represent them again. I am going to keep giving this speech over and over again, and I am going to keep calling for this body to do the hard work of representation. We don't govern; we represent.

Those men who sat in the freezing cold--frostbite, amputations, pneumonia, death, and picking up jackets off of their fallen compatriot to stay warm to defeat Hitler's Germany--

those men who responded to Pearl Harbor 80 years ago this week, and President Washington overlooking this Chamber here in that portrait crossing the Delaware Christmas Eve night 1776, what will we do to honor their memories?

What will we do to carry forward this Republic for which they fought, died, bled, and lost limbs? Senator Dole carrying a pen in his crippled hand, what will we do to honor that sacrifice?

That is our calling as we embark on the second half of this Congress. I don't accept that just because my party is not in control of this Chamber for the next year that we can't find a way to actually do the hard work of representation.

My ask of the Speaker, the leader, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and my colleagues on this side of the aisle: restore regular order on this floor. Bring bills to the floor and allow us to vote, debate, amend, and do the work the American people expect us to do.

It is the least that we can do to honor the memory of those World War II veterans whom we are losing by the day, all of those who have sacrificed to defend this country, and all of those who sat there on that Christmas Eve day in Bastogne singing Christmas carols hoping to get back to this great country.

Let's fight to save that great country.

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

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

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

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

Madam Speaker, I object.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

There is a lot of noise in this town right now about government shutdowns, and the fact is, the issue isn't about shutdowns. It is about whether or not Members of this body will continue to use money we don't have to fund mandates, indoctrination, and the use of force against our citizens:

$73.5 billion for the Department of Education that subsidizes the indoctrination of our children with critical race theory and woke gender ideologies;

$10 billion for an FBI that was just used by the Attorney General of the United States to target parents;

$50 billion for a Department of Homeland Security that leaves our borders wide open, empowering cartels because Secretary Mayorkas fails to execute the laws of the United States;

$6 billion for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases run by Dr. Fauci.

Need I say more?

$592 million for OSHA, which has imposed an unconstitutional vaccine mandate on 84 million Americans.

I offered an amendment to strip any funding from this bill that would fund Federal vaccine mandates, and it wasn't even able to see the light of day.

This is about a Congress that is supposed to use the power of the purse, our Article I authority, rather than hiding behind the judges in Article III, to check the executive branch. We have a moral obligation to give voice and representation to the people who elected us whose liberty and livelihoods are being attacked.

My friend who battles MS is looking at being terminated from the university she teaches at because of the unlawful Federal contractor mandate.

The medical hero in Texas who is 9 months pregnant is facing termination under the unlawful CMS mandate.

Military personnel, including the 13-year Army veteran in my district who is concerned about myocarditis, are facing being discharged from service to our country.

These are our neighbors, our relatives, our friends--maybe not for some of you who go home to double-masked, vaccine passport cities. But

these are real Americans that this government wants to go after.

I urge my colleagues to stop empowering executive branch tyranny over Americans, and I urge my Republican colleagues to not just vote ``no'' and give a speech, but go stand with Mike Lee. Go stand with others in the Senate trying to defend these Americans. We should not fund tyranny over American citizens.

Madam Speaker, I object.

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

Madam Speaker, I am fascinated to learn that I serve in the United States House of free stuff because that is what I have been hearing nonstop this entire week.

There is an unlimited supply of money and resources apparently, an unlimited supply of dollars that we can continue to print while devastating our economy, devastating the American dollar, and transforming our society by encouraging Americans to believe that there is a free lunch. And there ain't no free lunch.

My wife is the product of a single mom growing up in Texas. Her mom worked multiple jobs to send her to college. She worked hard to be able to go to college. She left with 70-something thousand dollars of student loans

despite going to two top public universities in the State of Texas.

She is not asking for her loans to get repaid because she went there with a free will. She went there and made a choice. She could have chosen a different path. She chose to take the debt. I did the same thing when I went to law school at the University of Texas. I might not have chosen to go to law school if the loans hadn't been available, and that might be fine.

What is the fundamental problem? Why has the cost of education skyrocketed in my lifetime at an inflation rate multiple times over virtually every other product and service in this country except for healthcare? Why is it up something like 3,000 percent?

Is it perhaps because we are subsidizing the holy heck out of it? Just thinking perhaps that there might be a correlation to the availability--massive, widespread availability--of subsidized student loans, the massive subsidization of K-12 education and higher ed. Do we think there might be a correlation to why the costs have skyrocketed so much?

But no, no, no, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle now walk in here and say, oh, you know, we are not the party of big spenders; we have got a chart here with $1.7 trillion on it with another chart saying, ``Cancel Student Debt.''

Who is paying for that? Does anybody in this body give a rat's rear end about who is paying for anything at all? No. Oh, no, then they will come out here and say $3 trillion of tax cuts. They don't care about economic growth and opportunity. But fine.

Why don't we actually have a conversation about spending and taxes? No, no, we don't do that. We just spend money we don't have. That is what we did today in the continuing resolution to keep this government running. Oh, my gosh, panic ensues if you dare question whether or not the government must be funded Saturday at 12:01 in the morning. What will the American people do? How will they function if the United States House of free stuff isn't doling out free stuff?

No one is in this Chamber, of course. Just reminding the American people how this place doesn't work. We are now on 5\1/2\ straight years of no amendments being offered on the floor of this august Chamber.

I would like to remind the American people every once in a while that what they saw about how a bill becomes a law is a complete fraud. See, there is a handful of people who get into a room and they decide what you are going to vote on.

The Speaker knows it is true, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle know it is true. And my colleagues on this side of the aisle know it is true because they did it when they were in the majority just as much as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle did it when they were in the majority.

We get a massive bill dropped on our desk, and we say take it or leave it. Go offer an amendment in rules, they say. Never taken. Never accepted. Always prechosen, always pregamed out.

This is deliberation and debate? This is the constitutional order? What value is there for an election certificate if you can't use it? You come to the floor and want to offer an amendment in good faith to try to make a piece of legislation better, and you can't do it.

We have 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 people max who decide everything that goes on in this Chamber in all of their infinite wisdom. Then we come down and look at the board, and it is party-line votes, and then it is walk out on the steps and go give a speech and go to the press and go on Twitter and go on Facebook and go talk about why you are voting no or yes. That is what we are relegated to in the United States House of free stuff.

But today, we just voted to extend the funding of government with a continuing resolution, which is going to barrel us toward a trillion- dollar deficit this year, give or take. Who knows? Does it matter? Does anybody know what the difference is between a trillion dollars or $1.2 trillion? Does anybody know the difference between $29 trillion in debt or $30 trillion in debt? Nobody knows or cares in this Chamber. Literally not a lick. We don't talk about it.

Then each side comes down on the floor and offers more spending for whatever their priority is, defense, nondefense, mandatory spending, nonmandatory spending.

If the unbelievably terrible circumstance occurred Friday night at midnight of this government daring to pause, do the American people know that about 82 percent of it is on autopilot with mandatory spending? I mean, does that matter? When you walk out and a gaggle of reporters come up with bated breath, oh, no, there might be a government shutdown. It always gets paid back. Eighty-two percent of it keeps running.

There is never a serious debate about what is actually happening here in the United States of America. We never actually sit down like family or a small business, roll our sleeves up, and decide how to spend money. Do you imagine if we actually had to adhere to a budget like any business or American family, and we actually had to sit down, Madam Speaker, at that table and not leave this Chamber until we said our budget is $3 trillion or $4 trillion, whatever it is, here is our income; here is what we can spend; that is all we can do; let's figure out our priorities. Well, we disagree. You know, do you want to fund NEA? Do you want to fund the Department of Education, XYZ? Do you want to fund the military? Do you want to fund specific B-52 bombers? Do you want to fund healthcare? Do you want to fund border security?

Make a choice. We never make a choice, ever--both parties, by the way, both leaders. We never make a choice. All we do is preen and posture and come down here with massive bills that have some of our priorities, depending on who is in the majority. That is it. Again, we are relegated to being the United States House of free stuff.

You have to call it free stuff because we are just printing the money to do the stuff. We are down here talking about, oh, we have to cancel the student debt. Well, man, wouldn't that be lovely? Who cares about the people who have already worked hard their whole lives to pay off their student loans, whether they be Black, Brown, White, male, female. Who cares?

They have worked their whole life. They paid off their student loans. They did what they were supposed to do, or they are in the middle of paying off their student loans. Oh, no, let's just go down here. One of my colleagues just said $50,000, President Biden. Did they just pick that number out of the air? $50,000 of free stuff, here you go.

Somebody else chose not to go to college. Somebody else started a business, worked hard, borrowed money to run a business. Guess what? That money also had interest, to my colleague from Michigan who was down here talking about, oh, the pain of interest. As if it is not as old as time, as if it is not Biblical to say: Hey, I don't have the money to do something. I would like to have the money to do something. How might I get the money to do something? I don't know. One, get a job and earn the money, save the money. Two, ask for it from somebody who loves you. Three, borrow it.

Okay, now what do you do with that? Go do something with it. Make a choice. Start a business. Start a lemonade stand. Go to college if you want. But, oh, no, let's just go pay off $1.7 trillion of debt. It doesn't matter if you went to school and got a degree in sociology or gender studies and you are floating around and trying to figure out what you are going to do with your life. Oh, no, let's pay off that $140,000.

There ain't no free lunch. But we live in this fiction that we can just keep printing money, and the horrors of printing the money is not just that we have $30 trillion in debt; it is not just that we have rampant inflation; it is not just that we are undermining our dollar; it is not just that we are handing over power to China and every other country around the world to kick our rear ends; it is that we are funding a government to do things to us to interfere with us.

We are funding an FBI to target parents for daring to question the wisdom of school boards around this country. People say: Oh, that is not true. You must be embellishing.

It is not true? We just had hearings with the Attorney General of the United States. We just saw memoranda making it very clear that the FBI is targeting parents. We are funding that.

For all Americans out there watching this, all 12 of you, we are funding

that. We are borrowing dollars, spending money we don't have, and we are taking those dollars, and we are funding an FBI to target parents.

We are taking away dollars from police departments, and Federal dollars are going in and funding programs allegedly to take the place of police and then wondering why department stores are getting looted.

Then you have the White House press secretary today literally at the podium saying that is the fault of the pandemic, all the looting. We are not talking about somebody breaking into a grocery store to buy a loaf of bread. We are talking about people swarming a department store and taking Gucci bags.

Oh, no, let's not enforce the law. Let's not enforce the rule of law. Let's blame it on the pandemic. Let's blame Border Patrol for whipping migrants, which was demonstrably and totally and clearly false.

There is no shame coming from the Press Secretary's Office of the White House. No lie that won't easily slip out about what is actually going on, like Border Patrol agents whipping migrants. No apology. All of those Border Patrol agents down there on the front lines dealing with COVID, dealing with being outmanned and outgunned, dealing with cartels, no apology.

Here we sit in the United States House of free stuff funding the Department of Homeland Security not to secure the homeland; funding the Department of Education not to educate our kids, other than to indoctrinate them to hate our country and to believe they are racist for the color of their skin; $700 billion for a Department of Defense to now run climate training and to focus on chief diversity officers in the Department of Defense rather than focusing on, I don't know, blowing stuff up and killing people, which is what the Department of Defense, formerly known as the Department of War, is actually supposed to do; $11 billion for an Internal Revenue Service that took a record $4 trillion from Americans last fiscal year; $9 billion for an EPA that is destroying American energy through regulation, pushing a radical climate agenda. None of which, by the way, is actually going to drive down CO2 production, which we have been doing with clean- burning American natural gas over the last decade.

Today, we pass this continuing resolution in the United States House of free stuff to rack up another trillion dollars of debt, continuing to fund agencies to carry out their tyrannical activities, in particular to carry out vaccine mandates on the American people that are getting slapped down one by one by courts across this country because, of course, the President of the United States doesn't have the authority or the power to mandate that an American citizen go into a doctor's office and get a needle jabbed in their arm. He doesn't have that power.

The United States House of free stuff here allegedly representing the people is supposed to actually care enough about representing those people to stand here as a board holding the line against an authoritarian President of the United States, against a President carrying out executive overreach. That is what we see happening. He is being slapped down left and right by the courts.

Now, I don't believe in wearing a partisan hat when we are talking about standing up for the Constitution, standing up for the Article I branch of the Federal Government. I introduced legislation when the previous President, a Republican, President Trump, was in office called the Article I Act to take away powers from the President with respect to emergency powers being used. I did so, frankly, in the wake of the use of dollars for border fencing and wall construction, which I supported, which was important, which was a response to an emergency and, by the way, was working. But it was important for us to start laying out a foundation for protecting Article I, the United States Congress.

Today we pass a continuing resolution that we sent over to the United States Senate, and we never had a vote in this body about the vaccine mandates that are being slapped down in courts across this country for being unlawful, unconstitutional, tyrannical overreach by the executive branch of the United States.

Never in our history have we had Federal mandates applying across the country to the American citizens that they must be vaccinated. They have been local decisions, local schools, local counties in States and specific responses to highly communicable diseases that they knew might be communicable and be pulled back by a vaccine, and after many years of study with massive numbers of exemptions and protections for individual liberty and choice. That is the history of how we have handled it in a federalist 50-State republic, not a decision by a President or, frankly, probably more likely the President's advisers, that the American people must be vaccinated, that a small business or a business of any size must vaccinate their employees.

People act like, well, it is no big deal. I ought to direct my remarks here to my Republican colleagues, my Republican colleagues who today were perfectly happy to vote no on this CR. Yes, I will go home, and I will give a speech: I voted no on this CR. I voted no because this continuing resolution had these terrible provisions in it. And, yes, this continuing resolution had vaccine mandate funding, funding the Department of Labor and funding OSHA and funding the Department of Defense to carry out these mandates. I voted no, don't you know.

So what? Who cares if you voted no? You vote no, and you give a speech, pat yourself on the back. Good for you. Did you do anything, go stand with any of the Senators who had a chance to actually do something with this, with the Senators over there right now having a debate and trying to force a vote on an amendment to prevent the tyrannical application of vaccine mandates?

Did my colleagues say let's go round up and go over and stand alongside Mike Lee, or did they hide behind the Article III judiciary? Did they hide behind the courts and say, well, let's let the courts sort it out. No, that is exactly what they did. Secure the blessings of liberty in the Constitution indeed by the supposed primary branch of government.

And these have real consequences for real Americans, real lives. Hospitals in Massachusetts are already limiting elective procedures due to critical staffing shortages. Do we care? Are we concerned about that?

The New York Governor issued an executive order that postponed elective surgeries in order to deal with the staffing shortages. Do we care? Are we concerned?

The largest children's hospital in Wisconsin is struggling to treat victims of the BLM extremist, who rammed his car through the Waukesha Christmas parade. Do we care?

A dear friend of mind suffering from multiple sclerosis, teaching at the university, she is being told she may not be able to continue teaching because she believes, in consultation with her doctor, that it is in her best interest not to be vaccinated at this time. She should have the right and the ability to choose to do that for her and her family and her interest without coercion from an overextended Federal Government under an unlawful and unconstitutional mandate by the President of the United States.

And this body, the Congress of the United States, should do its Article I job and stand up in defense of her and every other American who is facing losing their job at Thanksgiving and Christmas, or being discharged from the military of the United States that they proudly served because they believe in their interest, in their own personal safety, their own health interest, that they should be the one to choose, not a faraway President.

We structured this government specifically not to do this. We structured this government with Federalism and separation of powers specifically to avoid having a king. That man on the painting over on this wall, in this House Chamber, the first President of the United States, turned down being a king, turned down the monarchy, turned down a third term because the Founders knew why that mattered. The Founders knew why separating powers and limiting powers mattered because they saw and foresaw exactly what we are seeing today in this country and across the world. Where, in Austria and Germany and Australia and places around the world, we see mandates forcing people to be in their homes and

not go out and not engage in society because they are not vaccinated. It is absurd.

This country is built on a bedrock of liberty and protecting liberty and securing the blessings of liberty, and this President is stepping on it. And the United States Congress, Members of both parties, are MIA, missing in action, unwilling to stand up in defense of liberty while patting themselves on the back for voting ``no'' on a continuing resolution and then kicking it over to the Senate for one man to stand on the floor of the United States Senate, Senator Mike Lee, daring to say we should have a vote on an amendment, an amendment that says we shouldn't have this vaccine mandate. God bless Mike Lee for doing that. I hope he holds to his guns.

And no, I am not going to freak out or panic if Saturday at 12:05 in the morning rolls around and, Oh, no, we haven't gotten that funding done. That funding, by the way, that is racking up, as I said before, another trillion dollars of debt. The United States House of free stuff.

A father called me up in tears because his 13-year Army veteran son is likely going to be discharged because he believes, based on his conversation with his doctors, that it is not in his interest to get the vaccination. Millions of Americans who know they have natural immunity, who have been ignored, who have been absolutely ignored because the leaders of our national health organizations and agencies aren't actually focusing on natural immunity. We haven't had a study on natural immunity of any consequence out of our leaders. We have got to rely on Israel and the U.K. and other places, and private entities. But all of these millions of Americans who have natural immunity are being told, Sorry, you must still go get a needle stuck in your arm in order to have a job.

In what world is this the land of the free? It is not. And in what world are the people in this Chamber who are supposed to represent the people of the United States, how are they doing their job in the Article I branch of our Federal Government if they are not standing up for these people?

Those people who are going about their lives, making decisions in our interests--and by the way, as if this matters to me a whole lot--that even the experts, so-called, heading up our national health agencies and organizations, acknowledge that if you are vaccinated you still spread the daggone virus. It literally makes no sense.

We are killing people. We are restraining and restricting therapeutics that can actually help people. We belittle people who are working in consultation with doctors to find ways to solve the problem if they happen to get the virus--whether they have been vaccinated or not, by the way. And we are mandating people to get the vaccination, irrespective of whether they had the virus and have natural immunity.

For months, I have been hearing about, Oh, they laugh off natural immunity. And now suddenly, you start to hear--bow down to the altar of all things--Dr. Fauci, that he suddenly said, Oh, yeah, natural immunity, that is kind of a real thing. No kidding.

What world do you live in? The world of Washingtonian magazine and propping your feet up with sunglasses and getting cool pictures and throwing baseballs out at games?

I had a young woman who is 9 months pregnant. Remember all the frontline workers everybody was celebrating a year ago? She is one of them; she is a nurse. I saw all these people standing up at games, people in this Chamber going around praising the frontline workers. Well, good, we should have been praising the frontline workers who are out there, in an unknown virus, showing up and helping those who were sick. But suddenly now, if you are one of those frontline workers, and for your own health and well-being, you decide you don't believe you should be vaccinated, you might have natural immunity, maybe you have got an underlying condition and you choose not to. Then this young lady, a Texan, who is 9 months pregnant, is losing her job in direct response to the President's unlawful and unconstitutional mandates.

Let's talk about those mandates for a minute.

The OSHA mandate. When the President goes in and tells businesses across this country, You must get your employees vaccinated or go through OSHA rulings and fines. This body just voted to increase the OSHA fines, something like 700 percent or 900 percent. We just did that when we passed the so-called BBB bill that is going to destroy America with a whole bunch of more free stuff, $2 trillion of unpaid nonsense.

Oh, no, don't worry. It's paid for. CBO said so. Garbage. Absolute, pure garbage. Of course, it is not paid for. It was games. The American people know all this. It is how this body works. Nobody here is serious about actually operating within the bounds of normalcy, like you would in a business or in your home, because they don't care. There is no consequence. There is literally no consequence to spending money we don't have, to printing money. But that is what we do.

So we just voted to increase fines by OSHA. Now with those fines OSHA can go target businesses.

Well, what happened? Now, that has been consolidated. U.S. District judge for the Eastern District of Missouri granted a preliminary injunction on November 29 for 10 States who brought forth a November 10 lawsuit by State AGs.

On December 1, in a similar ruling, Louisiana Western District U.S. Judge Terry Doughty issued a nationwide injunction to the CMS mandate, a separate mandate, a CMS mandate--sorry, I mixed these up.

The OSHA mandate, a panel of judges with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order staying enforcement and implementation of the OSHA mandate.

Now, back to the CMS mandate. Matt Schelp, the U.S. District judge for the Eastern District of Missouri, granted a preliminary injunction for 10 States. And on December 1, in a similar ruling, there is a nationwide injunction on the CMS mandates. So these are the mandates that are shutting down hospitals and nurses and doctors from carrying out their job.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't care. And I know they don't care because they just passed a continuing resolution continuing to fund the mandates of a tyrannical executive branch without holding him accountable.

I promise you if that were a Republican President they would be outraged at these mandates. My colleagues on this side of the aisle think voting ``no'' and walking out to go to dinner is perfectly fine because that is what is going on here. They are not over in the Senate backing up Mike Lee or here talking.

Federal workers mandate, Federal contractors mandate--on November 30, U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove of the Eastern District of Kentucky issued a preliminary injunction halting the government's enforcement of the Federal contractor vaccine mandate, which, by the way, is mandating universities, which is causing my friend with MS to possibly or probably lose her teaching job.

Veterans, Active Duty military, frontline health workers, university teachers, professors, visiting professors, people across this country in private business--hopefully, the courts will strike this down. Since when is it the job of the Article I Congress to punt to the courts, and say, Well, I hope you do it.

Do we care about the power of the purse?

Do we care if bureaucrats are targeting American citizens, saying, You must get a needle in your arm?

There is no science indicating in any way, shape, or form that those mandates are solving any problem at all, but rather causing problems. Over 80 percent of Americans over the age of 12 years old have gotten one shot of the vaccine; 99 percent or something close to it are people over 65.

We are not even a year into the broad rollout of the vaccines. This blows way past the polio epidemic. My dad had polio. I am well-versed in the impacts of the polio epidemic. It didn't roll out nearly this fast. It was targeted at kids, not people over 65.

Any mandates were left to school districts, and it took them awhile to get there. This was a vaccine that had been worked on for years with a significant amount of knowledge. It was a different kind of virus, by the way, not a coronavirus.

A 21-year-old nursing assistant in Crawfordsville, Indiana, worked 60-hour weeks throughout the pandemic; she is facing termination. Do we care? Does the Indiana delegation care? Either side of the aisle? I would like to know.

Is the Indiana delegation over alongside Mike Lee fighting to prevent the funding of the government bureaucrats that are going to enforce that mandate on Becca Pitts?

Jen Peters, a 39-year-old San Diego maternity nurse was forced to resign from her position after not getting vaccinated.

I recently met with heart surgeons that fly around the country saving lives doing heart surgeries. They come in and they do that. They do pro bono work. They do a lot of volunteer work. They fly all over the world. They have been providers for, roughly, three decades, and if the CMS mandates stay in place, they are no longer going to be able to save lives, they will have to shut down. Are we fine with that? Is that okay?

Dozens of my constituents in the military have contacted me about this vaccine mandate. I represent thousands--like many of us do--but I represent San Antonio, a heavy population of veterans and Active Duty military. People call me in tears because it was their dream to serve their country and wear the uniform of the United States, and they are being told they must get the jab, or they will be discharged.

I am not talking about the ability of a commander of a submarine going out for a 9-month tour, and saying, Okay. Sorry. I am going to make sure everybody in the submarine is vaccinated. Okay. Do you have to discharge the guy or gal? Or you can say, You know what, we are going to relocate you and leave you able to serve. But while this virus is going around, we are going to require the commander of the submarine to be able to make that decision. Okay. That is a reasonable outcome.

Discharging under current law dishonorably, by the way, members of the United States military for not wanting to get the vaccine, for whatever reason they believe is in their interest, with young men in particular having concerns about the myocarditis and the heart issues, and we are going to say, Sorry, too bad, you get discharged.

This body just funded the DOD, and the government is forcing those people to be discharged, instead of continuing to carry out their service to this country, and this body should be ashamed of it.

A lot of people in this town seem to have forgotten that the American people are not our subjects. They are our fellow citizens, and we owe them the duty of representing them. They are our neighbors, our relatives, our friends. The people are sovereign in this country, not the President.

George Washington turned that down, the Founders rejected that structure, and yet this body, which was supposed to be a check against an overbearing executive acting as a monarch refuses to check the executive.

The CDC estimates that there have been 146 million infections, suggesting that nearly half of the United States has natural immunity.

The first U.S. omicron patient was fully vaccinated and had mild symptoms. One study found the protective effect of the vaccine dwindles alarmingly at 3 months after the second shot, hence, the boosters. People are now saying that maybe we made a mistake, having the first two shots of the vaccine happen right next to each other reduced the effectiveness. Well, lo and behold, hard to believe when you are rushing and reacting to a virus that you might make an error.

Financial institutions today are putting out reports saying their concern isn't about the omicron variant but rather governments' reaction to it. Of course, it is. One of the first doctors who discovered the variant in South Africa said, ``Most of the patients are seeing very, very mild symptoms. We have been able to treat these patients conservatively at home.''

On the 626th day into 15 days to slow the spread, we have had enough. The American people have had enough of being lied to and told what to do by a tyrannical Federal Government and so-called experts that we cannot and should not trust.

This continuing resolution that we passed today was considered under a closed rule. As I said earlier, no chance for amending it. I offered an amendment upstairs--rejected. We don't want to have a debate on vaccine mandates. Why would we want to do that?

My colleagues, I assume, would not like to take a vote on a vaccine mandate funding repeal. Otherwise, why not have the vote? Why not have the debate? The more and more that we turn over the decisionmaking to a small group of people in this body and a small group of people in the Senate and a couple of people at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the more and more this Republic is getting ripped apart thread by thread. It is happening no matter who is in the White House and no matter who is in charge of this body.

If we do not restore debate on the floor of this body and in the Senate--the greatest deliberative body in the world. Come on.

When was the last time you saw any great debate or deliberation in that body or this one, Madam Speaker?

You don't. We all know it. Nobody cares because all we are going to do is drop another 2,000-page bill, somebody is going to offer a motion to recommit. Boy, that will light things on fire. Oh, the previous question. Oh, man, the bars around town are talking about you.

Did you see that previous question?

Did you see that MTR?

When are we going to represent the people again?

When is this institution going to actually stand up and do the hard part of representation?

We don't govern. We use that term a lot. We don't govern. We represent. That is what we are supposed to do in a republic.

Next week we are going to turn to the National Defense Authorization Act, and if the Senate doesn't make any additional modifications, we are going to have another version of the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, sent over to this Chamber for us to vote on again. In that legislation there are a number of problematic provisions. There is no accountability for the failed exit from Afghanistan, the 13 marines who died, the failed drone strike that led to the killing of 10 people including seven children. No accountability.

There is no accountability for the $85 billion of assets left behind in Afghanistan that were just being used in a parade by our enemies, by the Taliban. No accountability.

Madam Speaker, you have legislation that requires the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress their plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and praises the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Well, praise the Lord. Our Department of Defense is focused on the really important stuff as China is doubling and tripling and quadrupling their navy, ramping up their military prowess, and shooting missiles around the Earth at low orbit hitting their targets. Yes. Let's focus on diversity. Yes. That will get them.

That NDAA requires the DOD to hire and train gender advisers. Boy, that will send the Chinese packing.

Yes, the National Defense Authorization Act will for the first time in the history of this country require women--girls--18 years and older to register for Selective Service, to register to be eligible for the draft.

My daughter is 10 years old. The infinite wisdom of this body is going to require that my daughter be forced to register for the draft. If we want to have a debate about ending the draft, I am happy to do it. Let's offer the bill, let's have a debate and decide if we need to draft. I think most people in this body would probably vote the draft down. But that is not what we are going to do because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and, frankly, the retreat by my colleagues on my side of the aisle from such touchy issues, they want to make a statement. They want to make a statement about so-called equity, and they want to use my daughter to make that statement. They want to make your daughter, America, part of that statement.

If you are one of the thousands of people across this country who have been reaching out to my office enraged because this body with no debate, no amendment, and no vote on the substance is going to adopt the National

Defense Authorization Act that for the first time in history will require your daughter, your sister, your mom, and your wife to register for the draft. Well, don't worry, I am going to keep fighting it.

I am not going to retreat, and I am not going to run away from some pollster coming in saying, Well, I don't know. I am not sure how people feel about it.

I know how people feel about it. I know how they feel about it in my district. I know how they feel about it in my kids' school, in my communities. I know the people who have stop me in the airport saying thank you for standing up for some sort of common sense about how we should actually function as a society.

Speaking of the United States House of free stuff, we spent $36 million for a study to determine whether single-sex units performed better or worse than mixed-sex units.

What do you think they found?

Madam Speaker, you will be blown away by this piece of information. The single-sex male units performed better. Oh, we don't want to have that talk. My colleagues don't want to have that debate. But I am going to keep having that debate.

Whatever they do at the NDAA, if the Senate doesn't have the backbone, if my Republican colleagues in the United States Senate won't stand up for my daughter--our daughters--I will keep calling them out, every single one of them. I will call on every one of my colleagues in this body, and I sure as heck will not ever vote for a single one of them for any office if they are going to make my daughter eligible for the draft.

This is not the way we should do things.

Have a debate, offer data, have amendments, have the courage to have straight up-or-down votes on subjects rather than mega bills cooked up in back rooms so people can go preen and posture in front of cameras outside on the steps.

No matter who is in charge of this body, restore this body, and don't continue to operate as the United States House of free stuff doling out dollar after dollar and printing money to create programs that we can't even afford and to fundamentally alter and transform this society into one that is expected from government rather than serving themselves, their fellow man, and their communities.

We are destroying the core of this great country by empowering government and doing so knowing full well we don't have the dollars or the resources to do it; knowing full well that we are ripping out the soul of people by taking away the value of work; and destroying family units; destroying the public education system, by turning them into political corruption entities. The veil having been lifted now after COVID has exposed so much of that corruption, and what we just saw in Loudoun County, Virginia, what we just saw unfold in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The American people are seeing the corruption that flows from the dollars that flow from this town without any responsibility. Again, that is not a partisan statement. Both sides are equally guilty of walking into this Chamber and writing checks they can't cash. And if we don't stop it, this country will not survive. This country will not make it. We will not keep the Republic if we keep spending money we don't have. If we keep turning over power to a small group of individuals in this Chamber, the other Chamber, the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue and, oh, by the way, the courts to make decisions rather than the people's Representatives.

It is time, Madam Speaker, for this body to function again. And it is time for us to do it without regard to who is in the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House. We have a duty in Article I to use the power of the purse responsibly, to stand up for the people, to defend the people, and to stop the encroachment in their lives by unelected bureaucrats or a President using power that has now already in three different courts been found to be unconstitutionally and unlawfully executed against the people while they are lose their jobs, lose their livelihoods, destroy their lives because they want to make a decision that they believe is in the interest of them and their families.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have a choice to make this week. We have a choice to make whether we are going to fund the United States Government and to fund the executive branch when that executive branch is carrying out often unlawful, unconstitutional, but certainly, unhelpful and foolish mandates that are crushing small businesses and causing people to lose their jobs, forcing our members of the military to lose their ability to serve, forcing members of the Border Patrol, DEA, and hospitals across this country to lose workers because of these mandates.

Why would anybody in this Chamber vote to fund a government that is going to mandate that people have to lose their jobs through these unlawful orders?

And the second thing we have got to decide is whether we are going to vote for a National Defense Authorization Act that, for the first time in history, will add women, 18-year-old girls, to the draft, without so much as a debate in this Chamber.

I think we have an easy call, but we have got to make that call this week and decide what we are going to do.

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

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

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

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