Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Golden) as cosponsor of H.R. 3464.

Mr. Speaker, today we congratulate the 2025 Service Academy Appointees from the 21st Congressional District of Texas.

The following individuals have accepted Academy Appointments:

Alexa Kim Bowers, Smithson Valley High School, Bulverde,

Texas, United States Air Force Academy. John Michael Burris,

Father Joseph T. O'Callaghan Homeschool, Fort Sam Houston,

Texas, United States Military Academy. Madeline Reed Coats,

Moe and Gene Johnson High School, Buda, Texas, United States

Military Academy. Hannah Ryleigh Dufresne, Boerne High

School, Comfort, Texas, United States Military Academy. Aiden

Angelo Embestro, St. Andrews

Episcopal Upper School, Austin, Texas, United States Naval

Academy. Annabelle G. Evans, Cole High School, San Antonio,

Texas, United States Military Academy. Ryan Palmer Farhoudi,

Tivy High School, Kerrville, Texas, United States Air Force

Academy. Lauren Taylor Andrion Fuentespina, Claudia Taylor

Johnson High School, San Antonio, Texas, United States

Military Academy. Christian Ray Gonzales, Claudia Taylor

Johnson High School, San Antonio, Texas, United States

Military Academy. Olivia Grace Hanson, Regents School of

Austin, Austin, Texas, United States Military Academy. Noah

Craig Hernandez, Boerne Champion High School, Boerne, Texas,

United States Naval Academy. Preston Michael Longhurst,

MacArthur High School, San Antonio, Texas, United States

Merchant Marine Academy. Lillian Page Marrou, Fredericksburg

High School, Fredericksburg, Texas, United States Air Force

Academy. Madison Faith Mendez, Great Hearts Northern Oaks/

Texas A&M, San Antonio, Texas, United States Military

Academy. Storm St. John Pena, Davenport High School, New

Braunfels, Texas, United States Air Force Academy. Emelia

Marie Storey, Canyon High School, New Braunfels, Texas,

United States Air Force Academy. Caden James Spradling,

Smithson Valley High School, New Braunfels, Texas, United

States Air Force Academy. Reagan Nicole Turmin, Pieper High

School, San Antonio, Texas, United States Merchant Marine

Academy. Kaden James Vincent, Canyon High School, New

Braunfels, Texas, United States Air Force Academy.

These outstanding students have much to contribute to their chosen Academy and to our country. We appreciate their talents and their patriotism.

I hope my colleagues in the House of Representatives will join me in congratulating these truly heroic young men and young women.

Mr. Speaker, as we celebrate National Police Week this week and ALS Awareness Month in May, I take time to recognize Monica Martinez.

I know that her niece, Annie Martinez, is here in the Chamber, and Annie is a staffer here on Capitol Hill. Annie is from New Braunfels.

Monica served faithfully with the Comal County Sheriff's Office for nearly a quarter of a century. I have become very close with the great public servants of Comal County in the sheriff's office and the police department. They are great people.

Tragically, in 2023, Monica's career was cut short after she was diagnosed with Bulbar Onset ALS.

She is a cornerstone of her community and a beacon of inspiration for the entire family.

We are indebted to her service to Comal County, and we honor her as she faces this next challenge against this terrible disease.

As a cancer survivor, I wish her well, and we will be praying for her constantly.

I thank Monica for her steadfast commitment to Texas. She is in the thoughts and prayers of me, the people of Comal County, and her family.

May God bless Monica.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 405 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

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

Last night, the Rules Committee met and produced a rule providing for consideration of three pieces of legislation--H.R. 2240, H.R. 2243, and H.R. 2255--which will all be considered under a closed rule, each with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary or their respective designees. Additionally, the rule provides each with a motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans are here in Washington this week to continue to work on behalf of the American people. This is, in fact, Police Week, but we have been busy this year, this Congress delivering for the American people.

In this Congress so far, we have passed legislation to secure our elections, H.R. 222, the SAVE Act; hold rogue activist judges accountable, H.R. 1526; bring transparency to institutes of higher education, H.R. 1048; make changes to our border with the Laken Riley Act and the HALT Fentanyl Act; and to repeal the Biden-era harmful environmental regulations by passing what we call Congressional Review Acts to undo the damage of the Biden administration.

As Republicans continue to work on behalf of the American people and finalize the reconciliation products we are working on currently, we are also here to recognize National Police Week and the thousands of law enforcement officers who wake up every day to step on that thin blue line to defend and protect us.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation which designated May 15 as Peace Officer Memorial Day, and the week in which that date falls as Police Week.

Yesterday, my staff and I got the opportunity to welcome police officers from New Braunfels, Texas, and hear about the challenges they face every day. I talk to the men and women in blue virtually every day in the district that I represent, as I know many of my colleagues do.

My grandfather was the chief of police of a small west Texas town called Sweetwater. I was blessed to work in the United States Attorney's office and the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Texas, working every day with law enforcement. What they do matters for the peace and security of our country. Our Republic depends on having security on our streets.

There are thousands of stories that I can share about the daily heroism of law enforcement officers across the country, hundreds I could share even in the district I represent.

On February 16, 2024, Austin Police Department officers Dalton Schroeder and Jason Wright responded to 4-year-old William Martinez Romero, who was choking. The officers quickly jumped into action. Body cam footage shows Officer Schroeder run to his cruiser to grab an antichoking device he bought with his own money to be prepared for situations just like this, while Officer Wright started supporting William with back blows. They saved his life that day.

We must also remember that Police Week honors fallen peace officers, including one officer who died in the line of duty, Austin Police Department Senior Officer Jorge Pastore died in action November 11, 2023, responding to a domestic violence call in South Austin. Hostages were held inside a home, and when officers attempted to enter, gunfire started to go off. The SWAT team was called in to help distract the suspect, one being Officer Pastore, who was trying to rescue the victims.

I know I speak for many of my colleagues when I say we couldn't be more excited to welcome tens of thousands of law enforcement officers from around the country to D.C. this week.

Let's be clear: House Republicans and President Trump are mobilized to restore order and sanity in the United States, something that had been lacking for years.

I remember the days, as I know my colleagues do, in 2020 when there were fires and destruction rampant across the country, as our cities were being burned to the ground and law enforcement was being targeted. It was unacceptable.

There are Members of this body, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who were encouraging it. They were undermining our law enforcement officers, making it more difficult for them to carry out their jobs, who were challenging them. It was important that we stood by them, and it is important now that the President and Republicans are standing by our law enforcement officers.

Americans suffered due to the amplification of that extreme rhetoric against law enforcement. The homicide rates stayed significantly higher through 2022 after massively skyrocketing in the wake of 2020.

The rule before us today is another step in helping law enforcement officers across the Nation which, after 4 years of a Biden-run Department of Justice targeting police departments, should be a welcome relief to our men and women in blue.

This week we will consider three pieces of legislation to support our brothers and sisters in law enforcement. H.R. 2255, the Federal Law Enforcement Officer Service Weapon Purchase Act of 2025, which would allow Federal law enforcement officers the opportunity to purchase the service weapons they used before obtaining a new one; H.R. 2243, the LEOSA Reform Act, which amends the Gun-Free School Zones Act to provide an exemption for law enforcement officers certified under the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act to carry a concealed firearm in a gun- free school zone; and H.R. 2240, Improving Law Enforcement Officer Safety and Wellness Through Data Act, which would require the Attorney General to submit a report to Congress that includes data on attacks on law enforcement.

These bills are widely supported by law enforcement groups. The Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, Major Cities Chiefs Association, Major County Sheriffs of America, National Association of Police Organizations, National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition, and Sergeants Benevolent Association of the NYPD sent a letter on March 25, 2025, to the House Judiciary Committee urging support of these bills and advancement to the House floor.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so concerned about crime in the country that the parting shot of Joe Biden on January 19 was to commute the sentences of 2,500 Federal defendants he claimed were ``convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.''

Let's look at that. We have a situation where he reduced the sentence of a Buffalo man, Lairon Graham, 67. In 2023, he was convicted of organizing and heading a drug conspiracy to sell fentanyl, crack cocaine, and heroin. When police raided his home, they found fentanyl, crack, and cash. He also possessed a firearm. In addition to heading up the drug gang, Graham was also convicted of sex trafficking by force or coercion from 2013 to 2021.

Of course, this is on top of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wanting to defend a Maryland man for being sent overseas after the guy was clearly moving people illegally, beating his girlfriend and wife, violating our laws, and here illegally. That is who they want to defend.

There are numerous other examples. Jaron Ruth, another Buffalo native, pleaded guilty in 2019 to selling drugs over a period of 3 years and possessing firearms. He had been charged with shooting a man in the chest during a burglary of the victim's home.

These are the kind of folks that Joe Biden was commuting as he exited stage left. We had another situation where he commuted the sentence of a gentleman who left prison after Biden commuted his sentence in the killing of two FBI agents. Is that who my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think they ought to be defending?

Can they answer the question of commuting the sentences of these violent criminals and putting them out on the streets, just as they voted against every measure we put forward to defend our borders and to stop the death and destruction of American citizens like Laken Riley or like Jocelyn Nungaray or those who have died at the hands of dangerous criminal cartels and gangs in our country?

What President Trump is doing is restoring the rule of law. What Republicans are doing is standing up in defense of law enforcement because we stand up in defense of the rule of law.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Fine).

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

What I would notice, Mr. Speaker, is that the gentleman complained about not having the amendment considered, but he offered the amendment about 1 hour before the Rules Committee met. So spare me the concern about whether or not we are considering amendments when we don't have the time to look at the amendment.

I would also note that when we are talking about these kinds of people, I went through a list of folks whom President Biden had commuted.

Here is another one. A Lubbock man, granted clemency by Biden, was arrested. The sheriff was absolutely angry about the former administration's decisions. The sheriff said that he felt angry after he found out a convicted criminal was being released back on the Lubbock streets early, that a convicted criminal is now back in law enforcement custody after violating his supervised release.

These are the kinds of folks whom we are putting back out on the streets, and we are having to arrest again the very people that President Biden put back out.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. McGuire).

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

Mr. Speaker, I would note that as we are considering this Police Week and we are talking about the safety and security of our streets, I would just note that two of our most dangerous States as measured by violent crime and property crime rates are the States of New Mexico and Colorado, which also happen to have Democrats controlling all levels of power.

I would note that last summer, the good people of Aurora, Colorado, were dealing with Tren de Aragua, who were engaging in violent activities in apartment complexes and demonstrating the violence that has led to the death of Americans, and the trafficking of dangerous narcotics and fentanyl. They literally took over their homes. I met with and talked to Cindy Romero from Aurora about what happened to her in her home and that my Democratic colleagues weren't even acknowledging that it was happening. They were just ignoring it.

Then Tren de Aragua moved to San Antonio and other places across the country. I want to give a shout-out to the Texas Department of Public Safety and all the great local law enforcement in Hays County, Texas. That is because just literally last week they converged together with the FBI to go identify and stop 47 individuals. Probably 14 of whom were a part of Tren de Aragua from all over the country. They had come into Austin to coordinate. They had drugs, narcotics, and children in a home near where I live in Dripping Springs, Texas.

Thanks to law enforcement we now have removed at least four of those individuals and are prosecuting others because we now have a law enforcement community who knows that the President of the United States is backing them, and a Republican House and a Republican Senate are backing them.

Local law enforcement are being backed instead of having leftist judges who are dismissing the crimes and putting dangerous criminals on the streets. When Joe Biden commutes sentences and puts dangerous criminals on the streets, the American people know who is actually standing up for law enforcement.

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

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

If we talk about standing up in defense of police, how can my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say with a straight face that that is what they want to do when we had one Democrat from New York who said: I am not in favor of more police; I am actually in favor of defunding the police. We had another Congresswoman from New York who said: Defunding police means defunding police. I can go back, and the Record is replete with examples of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle calling for defunding the police. In fact, one of my colleagues from Texas was literally serving on the Austin City Council when they cut $150 million out of the Austin Police Department's budget, leaving their academy decimated, leaving them unable to field 911 calls, leaving violent crimes skyrocketing in the city of Austin, because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were patently clear about their desire to defund the police and

side with violent mobs in the summer of 2020, when our cities were burning across the country.

Yes, we are standing up for the men and women in blue. Yes, we will defend them, but, no, we are not going to blindly support grants that are being used by NGOs to undermine the very police they are saying they are trying to support. For example, one grant to an NGO that was promoting prostitution and open borders, this is the kind of stuff that the American people sent us here to stop. This is the kind of stuff that they are proud of the President for using DOGE to identify and stop.

Yes, we are trying to defund those particularly bad grant programs, while we try to make sure that our local jurisdictions can fund police properly and have judges that will actually put bad guys in jail instead of letting them on the streets and a President that won't commute the sentences of 2,500 people, dozens or hundreds of whom were violent criminals and are now back out on the streets.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

May I inquire how much time is remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of my Republican colleagues for bringing forward legislation in support of our law enforcement community.

I am proud of the fact that, in fact, this President is trying to focus resources where it will best provide security and safety on our streets and back our law enforcement community to actually target criminals, not fund ridiculous grants, not fund NGOs that are undermining our security, the very NGOs that are perpetuating the open borders; that are putting gangs in our communities, like TDA and MS-13, that lead directly to the death of Americans, death of Americans like Jocelyn Nungaray, like Laken Riley, like Rachel Morin, like Kayla Hamilton; Americans that are no longer with us because of the policies of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, because of wide-open borders, and because of tolerance of violent criminals, because of a Democrat President who has let violent criminals out on the street and commuted their sentences; because of radical leftist judges promoted by those that fund my colleagues on the other side of the aisle; like George Soros who have funded DAs that are letting criminals out on the streets in cities like San Antonio and Austin that I represent; like my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that have defunded the police time and time again and have defended that position.

For example, one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said that the defund the police movement is one of reimagining the current police system to build an entity that does not violate us, while relocating funds to invest in community services.

Another colleague said that the defund movement isn't new. Folks are just finally listening.

Defund the police, said a Democrat colleague.

Defunding the police isn't radical. It is real, said a former Democrat colleague and, as I said before, a colleague that literally voted on the Austin City Council to strip $150 million out of the police budget, leaving the Austin Police stranded, unable to do their job and the people of Austin unable to get the services that they deserve and pay taxes for, while their streets are made more violent and while criminals are allowed to roam free under the very aforementioned Soros DAs that refused to prosecute the criminals.

Everybody in America knows what is going on. Everybody in America gets the joke. They saw their cities burning in the summer of 2020. They saw the reality of what happens when you allow these radical Democratic policies to take root, and they want it to end.

They want common sense back. They want a President who will enforce the law and an FBI that will target criminals instead of the American people. They don't want to have a Federal Government that is weaponized against them. They don't want them to be targeted.

They want violent criminals off the streets. They want violent gangs off the streets. They want our borders to be secure. They want TDA out. They want MS-13 out. They want fentanyl off their streets.

The only way you can do that is to actually back up the people trying to enforce the law and actually stand with them in the enforcement of the law, not turn around and let all the criminals back out on the streets. Yet, that is what my colleagues perpetually want to do.

The fact of the matter is, the American people understand that this President, this Republican House, this Republican Senate, and Republican jurisdictions across the country stand for law enforcement. They stand for order. That is what they want. That is what they sent us here for.

We put together some bills this week that are focused on wishes of the people, the men and women in blue, like my grandfather, who served as chief of police in Sweetwater, Texas, and the many law enforcement I was proud to serve with and alongside in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas and in the United States Attorney's Office. We work with them on a regular basis.

When you talk to them, they cannot do their jobs if the radical leftist policies of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are allowed to continue to be perpetuated. You can't combat crime if you put the criminals back on the streets. You can't combat crime if you import criminals from dangerous prisons. You can't combat crime if your law enforcement agencies are targeting American citizens for political retribution rather than taking dangerous, violent criminals off the streets.

I rise in support of these bills. I rise in support of the rule. The legislation that we put forward will provide the value for our men and women in uniform that they have asked for. They have asked for the ability to keep the weapons that they had in service.

Why does that matter? I will tell you why it matters. My grandfather that I mentioned before died in 1949 of cancer. When my dad, a 7-year- old, had polio and my grandmother was a single mom in west Texas raising him and did all the tough things, didn't ask for any handouts, took two jobs, helped my dad go on to be the first to go to college--my dad is 82 years old. He is still alive. He is 82 and still manages to walk, barely.

My dad talks about his dad as a cop, and he pulls out his old .38, the .38 revolver that my grandfather had in service. That means something to the people who serve. It means something for them to be able to carry that with them and take it with them. It is no small thing.

Some of my colleagues dismiss it as not being important. I can tell you it is important to the people who are out there serving because they devote their lives to this cause.

When I take that .38 out of the safe and show it to my son, he is holding the .38 that his great-grandfather held and carried with him when he was policing the streets. I think that is a good thing.

The material previously referred to by Ms. Leger Fernandez is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 405 Offered by Ms. Leger Fernandez of New

Mexico

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec 3. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the

House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the

concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 33) directing the

Architect of the Capitol to install at a permanent location

on the western front of the United States Capitol an

honorific plaque listing the names of all of the officers of

the United States Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police

Department of the District of Columbia, and other Federal,

State, and local law enforcement agencies and protective

entities who responded to the violence that occurred at the

United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. All points of order

against consideration of the concurrent resolution are

waived. The concurrent resolution shall be considered as

read. All points of order against provisions in the

concurrent resolution are waived. The previous question shall

be considered as ordered on the concurrent resolution to

adoption without intervening motion except one hour of debate

equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking

minority member of the Committee on House Administration or

their respective designees.

Sec 4. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of H. Con. Res. 33.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) as cosponsor of H.R. 3321.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Magaziner has been an excellent partner in this effort, and it is now long overdue.

I am glad he mentioned my friend, Abigail Spanberger. Both of us went to the University of Virginia. That is part of the reason why we conspired together on this bill, when we were talking about how ridiculous it was that, on both sides of the aisle, there were blatant abuses of this trust that the American people put in the people who represent them not to violate that trust by trading securities for- profit on the very issues they are supposed to be voting on objectively to benefit the United States of America. Yet, that is precisely what has happened.

Mr. Speaker, this is now the fourth Congress in a row that I have introduced the TRUST in Congress Act, now with Mr. Magaziner, and I think it is long overdue.

In the 119th Congress, we have 12 Republican cosponsors and 60 Democratic cosponsors. I say to my Republican colleagues: Get with the program because 12 is not enough. We need to get everybody on board here.

I am glad the Speaker has said that he would support it. I am glad the President of the United States, President Trump, has said that he would sign it. Yet, we have to be realistic about what we are talking about.

We vote every day on massive issues. We vote about healthcare policies involving pharmaceutical companies that make billions of dollars, massive insurance companies, and massive hospital corporations. We vote on intellectual property issues in the Committee on the Judiciary. We vote on antitrust issues. We vote on all manners of issues, including Defense Department policies, that involve hundreds of billions of dollars in the capital markets. Yet, Members are voting on that while trading stocks on a daily basis.

Capitol Trades reports that 113 Members of Congress made 9,261 trades in 2024 involving 706 million shares or other assets. We had a Democrat who made 4,000 trades for a 20 percent return. We had a Republican who made almost 2,000 trades for a 23 percent return; a Democrat, 575 trades, a 22 percent return.

I could keep going down the list.

We had Members of Congress in 2024: a Republican with a 149 percent return; a Democrat with a 142 percent return; a Democrat with a 124 percent return; a Republican with a 111 percent return; a Democrat with a 105 percent return.

I could keep going down. There is a lot of Americans who would like to have returns along those lines. In fact, there are now funds out there that follow and trade along with the congressional Members of Congress to see what they are trading. That is ridiculous.

You should come to Congress. You should take your assets and move them into widely held index funds. It should be able to be done on a tax basis. Come in here. Clean the decks. Go represent your constituents. It is long past due. Let's move the bill. Let's get it to the floor. Mr. Speaker, bring it to a vote, and let's put trust back in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his steadfast devotion to highlighting for the American people the state of our fiscal health, which is not good, and the extent to which we are complicit in it.

I would just point out that this thing that the gentleman from Arizona is talking about is so central to everything we are trying to deal with right here, right now, in Congress, and if we don't fix that, then we will have failed.

I want to be clear to my Republican colleagues: If we do not fix this scheme, this scam--the gentleman didn't misspeak. It is a scam. If we don't fix that, we will have failed.

Let me ask the gentleman a couple of questions.

Prior to the existence of Medicaid, there was no Federal subsidy at all. This scheme couldn't have possibly existed in this way.

So Medicaid was created, and Medicaid was created to ostensibly provide an avenue to healthcare for the poor and vulnerable, right, as a broad statement. Is that true?

It was supposed to then be a shared arrangement between the States and the Federal Government, correct?

Now, fast-forward, and the current vulnerable population-- what we call the vulnerable population--the indigent, the poor, those who need it, single moms, people who are sick, the frail--that population, even under today's law, gets a Federal--we will call it a match; it is really a formula--a match of 50 to 70 percent, depending on the jurisdiction. Is that correct?

Let's fast-forward. What we are really talking about--for everybody at home watching C-SPAN, all 14 of you--we have a situation where ObamaCare expanded the Medicaid population, and it expanded it massively to a population that is much bigger and much more able- bodied, i.e., healthier.

Now, you would think is that good or bad? I have my problems with it facially, but even if you were going to do it, would you then say, as it does, that that population, the healthier, able-bodied population, should get a 90 percent match from the Federal Government? Because that is what is happening. They get a 90 percent rate for that expanded population, then layer on top of that, and this is what you are now dealing with.

The gentleman's chart that The Wall Street Journal did, where you have the provider taxes, you have this high rate that they are able to collect, and they are juicing it using the provider taxes. They get this 90 percent Federal dollars, and then they are openly--California, for example, has stated they are gaming the system to get Federal dollars to use that to subsidize illegal aliens and people who are not the vulnerable population and, frankly, put it in their general budget. That is what the gentleman is talking about. That is the current state of affairs.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to take away any of his thunder.

Mr. Speaker, the question I have for the gentleman: When I graduated from law school at the University of Texas in 2003, the national debt was somewhere in the $6 trillion range, $6.5 trillion dollars. When I came to Congress, when I was campaigning to come to Congress, it was just over $20 trillion. That was 2018. Today, we are pushing $37 trillion. Is that roughly correct?

Correct.

Now, I bring that up because nobody at home understands that. You are doing a good job trying to put it in context.

You are trying to explain it about the amount of money we are borrowing per family or taxpayer per second. Yet, to put it in stark terms, what

we are talking about with the debt and the deficits, what it really means is the inability to afford a house for the average American, right, because the impact that flows from it is, as you alluded to, higher interest rates, an inability for the Fed and for Congress to continue to borrow and print money because of what you are describing worldwide. The ability to have people to buy, our debt goes down.

The cost of debt is going to go up, the interests are going up, inflation is going up, and the average American family is going to take it on the chin. That is what we are talking about.

The reason I bring that up is because our colleagues, as you point out, run around here saying: I need more money for the program. I need more money for--fill in the blank. I need more money for Medicaid. I need more money for SALT. Why? It is because they feel like they have a political interest in doing so.

I am sure the gentleman had, like I did yesterday, the farm bureau coming into your office and needing help. Guess what? I understand why they need help. It is because we, the Federal Government, have messed up their lives quite vociferously.

We distort, and so they want help. I get it. Yet, what do I do? Do I vote for food stamps?

I am a cancer survivor--you know that--and I have cancer groups coming in and asking for money. I look at them, and I say: Well, can you go find some way to pay for it?

A lot of my colleagues don't want to do that.

I will close with this. President Reagan had a great quote on ``The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,'' a late-night show in the 1970s, before he was President, in which he said:

Every program that a politician brings forward should have to come with a tax increase attached to it.

Why is that? Was President Reagan pro tax increases? I know the gentleman from Arizona knows that not to be true. President Reagan believed in tax cuts and more money in the pockets of Americans to create wealth and to create economic growth.

Yet, why he said that was because we promise things that we can't deliver. We promise things that we deliver that are fake because we are doling out money and printing money to pay for programs. Then, on the other side of the ledger, we never want to say: We need a tax increase to pay for it because we rightly understand that tax increases constrain the economy. In other words, in short, we put ourselves in the box we have created.

Correct.

Correct.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Would the gentleman yield on that?

One of the things that I have been saying in this building for the last several months is this debate about what we call, I think somewhat wrongly and incorrectly, ``mandatory spending,'' because it is not mandatory. We have just chosen to put it on autopilot. It is automatic spending. It is not mandatory.

I have been saying in this building repeatedly that the math has to math. The math has to add up.

Would the gentleman agree that that is the fundamental and core problem in this town when we are talking about the state of affairs?

For example, we in this process have taken Medicare off of the table politically. The President has asked us to take Medicare off of the table. We have taken Social Security off of the table because, by law--

--we are not allowed to touch Social Security in the reconciliation process, and then interest is off of the table because you have to pay it. You can't just magically not pay the interest. That adds up to what? It is about 47 percent of the total fricking budget. It is half the budget.

Correct.

I have done it before.

Right.

Right.

Yes.

If the gentleman is asking a rhetorical question and the gentleman does not have his--

Yes.

I will yield back.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert). We have engaged in a colloquy on his time. I am going to start my 30 minutes. He, of course, is welcome to stick around a little bit if he wants.

I am going to just jump off from where he started, or I am going to start from where he left off, and that is to talk about what we are debating on the floor right now, which is the reconciliation bills that we are debating in the House and in the Senate as we speak.

For the average viewer out there, you don't understand what we are talking about. Let me put it in basic terms. The reconciliation process is a part of the Budget Control Act, which basically gives us the ability to reconcile current policies with what we are dealing with, with respect to our spending, debt, and deficits. We have to make that all add up, and we are supposed to do that in a way that would yield deficit neutrality or deficit reduction. That is the general purpose of why we have reconciliation.

Reconciliation, though, because there is a 60-vote threshold in the Senate and that means that certain policies that the majority wants to get in place in the House and the Senate if they control both Chambers, often hit resistance by the minority party in the Senate, that then reconciliation is used to end-run what we call the filibuster--even though it is really just a 60-vote threshold, end-run that in order to get policy even though we are supposedly not doing policy on reconciliation.

That is how stupid your Congress is, America. That is how you are developing policy: through a bunch of arcane procedures, some of which are great and designed to have cooling effects, and some of which are really stupid.

Yet, what we are doing is trying to find every which way possible to avoid accountability and responsibility, and that is, as I have been putting it around here to reporters and getting reported out, to do basic math because that is, in fact, our obligation, is to do basic math.

Unfortunately, a whole bunch of my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle and a whole bunch of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle refuse to do basic math. They want to say that, through magic fairy dust and through money trees, they can just wish away the reality that we are going to have a certain amount of inflows and a certain amount of outflows every year. Do you want to know why we are $37 trillion in debt, or soon to be? That is why.

Now, we are having a big debate, America, on what we should do in this so-called reconciliation process. We are going to have tax policy in there that is going to affect our tax revenues to the government but, more importantly, affect the tax bill you receive.

Let me stipulate for the record that when I am attacked a lot in the coming weeks for saying, allegedly, I want to have taxes go up, I am emphatically for cutting taxes. I would like to zero out the tax code, eliminate the income tax, and get rid of the IRS. I would like to do all of those things, and I have legislation to do it.

I will vote for tax cuts, but I refuse to ignore math. If you are going to do a certain amount of tax cuts, which will create a certain amount of economic growth, yes, you still have to model how much revenue will come into the Treasury versus how much you are spending because my Republican colleagues love to spend.

They campaign on tax cuts. They deliver on most of the tax cuts. They campaigned on balancing the budget and cutting spending, and never do it, ever, in the history of ever, with the possible exception of the late 1990s when the Gingrich Republicans, combined with Clinton and, by the way, a dot-com economic explosion, to deliver us a balanced budget. They did it through welfare reform and through some spending constraint. That is the only time in modern history when we have done it.

Here is the problem. This chart shows you what we are dealing with. A whole lot of people are saying: Well, Chip, you and all of these fiscal hawks, these fiscal conservatives, you guys want to do all of these massive cuts, and we can't do it. It is crazy what you want to do.

Let me be clear what we are talking about. We are currently running close to $2 trillion deficits. If we do all of the crazy stuff we are trying to do, we will be running what? Close to $2 trillion deficits. That is the truth. That is what the models show. That is what we know.

Look here. These are the projections of the way things will be if we do nothing.

The blue line, we do nothing this year. We let the tax cuts expire, taxes go up--let me repeat, I am against that--taxes go up, revenues are projected to do what they do, and we will have the amount of debt over the next 10 years we see here growing from almost $30-something trillion all the way up to $50 trillion.

What do these other lines represent? The orange lines are the House bill. The red lines are the Senate bill. We just did a thing where we combined the House and the Senate bill into one budget. We are now negotiating that, and this is all yet to be determined.

Why am I saying all this? No one wants to read all of this. Nobody is going to pay attention to a chart. All of my staff and everybody says, ``Don't use charts on the floor. Just go down and say things that will get clipped and sent around.'' Let me try to say something that will get clipped and sent around.

Even if the House Republicans are successful in working with the President and the Senate to achieve the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending restraint over the 10-year budget window, which is a mere $150 billion to $200 billion a year, even if we are successful, we are going to massively increase the debt in the United States all the way to pushing well over $50 trillion by the end of this budget window. That is it. If we fail, then debt will go up a little higher.

We have an obligation to do better. Everything we are fighting for right now in the House is for crumbs. I haven't decided whether I will vote for it or not vote for it. Why? Because I am one vote. Out of 220 Republicans, I am one vote, and I have to figure out how we build a majority and how the Senate builds a majority and then work with the White House to get a bill signed. I recognize that.

There is a limit that I can accept. I just want the whole world to tell me, should I vote for a bill if we are successful at fighting for what we are fighting for on Medicaid reforms, on unwinding the student loans, on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, on finding savings and fees on illegal aliens here so that we can pay for continued enforcement of the law at the border? If

we are successful for all of those things in terms of revenues and expenses, I am still going to burden my kids and grandkids with over $50 trillion in debt.

What does that mean? It means more interest. It means likely higher inflation because, at some point, we can't afford this. That is the fundamental question.

Now, I have a bunch of my colleagues, to the point of the gentleman from Arizona, running around saying that we can't touch Medicaid. Why can't we? Medicaid was expanded under ObamaCare, which we all opposed, and the Medicaid expansion was a big reason why we opposed it. Why can we now not demand reforms to the broken pieces of ObamaCare that expanded Medicaid such that we are giving 90 percent Federal match to the able-bodied, the people who are not the most vulnerable, compared to the vulnerable population who only get 50 to 60 to 70 percent? Why would we do that? Why would we give more to Medicaid recipients than Medicare recipients, which we often do?

Why would we continue to allow States like California and other States to game the system, to get Federal dollars sent back in a money- laundering scheme, as has been reported widely by The Wall Street Journal and others? They are openly and knowingly doing it. Why wouldn't we fix that?

Why wouldn't we apply eligibility rules and work requirements, combined with lowering that abusive Federal match rate subsidizing blue States to game the system when they are using Federal borrowed money to prop up their weak State budget? Why wouldn't we fix that?

I don't have a single constituent I know who thinks we ought to continue doing that. Even more so, my colleagues are running around giving in to these arguments that we are somehow cutting Medicaid. That is a lie.

We could have a debate about whether we should actually reduce Medicaid and give more money in other places or free up the States to provide better service or empower Americans to go get the doctor of their choice and be able to afford healthcare without having an employer- or government-provided, insurance-run bureaucratic system enriching insurance bureaucrats and pharma and hospitals because that is what we have.

We don't have free healthcare anywhere in this country. The freest country in the world, and we do not have the freedom to go to the doctor of our choice. We don't. The average family in this country is paying $25,000 a year to go to insurance bureaucrats to tell them what handful of doctors they can go to, what lousy deductible they get, what ridiculous copay they have.

I have a constituent who died from cancer last year who couldn't go to MD Anderson because she was covered under ObamaCare. Think about that, covered under ObamaCare, sick with cancer, can't go to the best cancer hospital in the world 2 hours from her house. That is your healthcare system, and we won't touch Medicaid.

Our budget contemplates Medicaid going up 25 percent. I am not going to say whether that is good or bad, but can we at least just have the backbone as the Republican Party to not allow our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the media to say that we are cutting Medicaid when we are increasing Medicaid spending? I mean, it is mind- boggling that we allow that narrative to set in on a program that is broken, that has a trillion dollars of improper payments, that is rife with abuse.

What are we here for? I mean, that would be my question for my Republican colleagues. Why did you run for office? Because I don't recall Republicans running on a big platform of: The government is the solution to all your problems. I don't remember growing up as a child of the eighties listening to Ronald Reagan or, frankly, listening to President Trump's speeches saying, man, we really love government bureaucracy and all the great things it does for the people.

Nobody runs on that. Not a single Republican has run on increasing deficits. Every single Republican has run on balancing the budget. Yet, every year, we vote for more spending. Every year, we vote for more debt. Every year, we increase deficits and add to the debt, every single year.

I want to get right to the chase here because, for the last 2 months, some of us have been willing to walk out and say that we will not vote for the tax cut extensions if we don't get spending restrained. I am getting lots of Republicans around town who like to stir the pot and go and say, ``You are going to vote for a tax increase, are you, Chip? Oh, we are going to hit you hard. We will come after you for voting for tax increases,'' but they won't say a thing about voting for the inflation tax increase on every American family while they run to the hills on spending restrained because they won't do it. That is the truth.

I didn't come to this town for more of the same. The men and women who walked into a wall of bullets at Normandy didn't do it so we could have $50 trillion of debt and destroy our own country from within. That is what is happening.

This country is weaker because the very individuals entrusted to defend her, defend the Constitution, and be responsible stewards of the Treasury have failed them and continue to fail them.

Let me be very clear about the budget we are talking about right now. We see what happens to the debt under our budgets. They go way up, but I am not accounting for the other things. What are those other things? This budget, the House budget, assumes that we are able to figure out how to hold what we call discretionary spending flat.

I don't know if the Speaker, who is the only other person in the Chamber with me, believes that we will hold discretionary spending flat, but history would say we wouldn't. Our budget assumes that we hold discretionary spending flat. That is Defense, DOJ, DHS, all the spending on all the various programs in Commerce, and go down the list.

What else? I read a story yesterday that because of tariff policy--by the way, I support the President using tariff policy to isolate China, restructure our worldwide trade that is being abused by friend and foe, but I just read a story yesterday that they are planning on how to bail out farmers from tariffs.

Remember, 7 years ago, we had to spend $25 billion to $30 billion, $35 billion to bail out farmers for tariffs. This last December, we spent, I don't know, $30 billion or something in a supplemental bailing out farmers. What happens when we need more money for California wildfires, or what happens when there is a hurricane that hits Florida or, apparently, North Carolina or Tennessee? Is that $5 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion, $50 billion? You see, Congress doesn't have the ability to say no to spending.

Let's bring it all back. Should I vote for a reconciliation package that will almost certainly guarantee $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion of deficit spending because I am getting certain crumbs in cuts in certain committees, and the only reason that I have gotten said crumbs was because we threatened to stop the extension of the tax cuts in order to force the question on spending?

Look, I want to absolutely applaud the great work of a whole lot of committee chairs and my Republican colleagues for the work that they have done to identify spending restraint and savings. Education, they found a bunch of savings. I can go through committee by committee. Last night, we added a lot of fees to pay for border security and stuff in the Judiciary Committee. There are other things we could do.

The math is still going to have to be math. We are going to spend about another $300 billion in this bill for defense and border security. That is another $300 billion. We are going to find savings of allegedly $1.5 trillion over 10 years, so that is $150 billion a year. What that means is we are already in the hole.

By 2035, the United States will be spending more on interest per year than all Federal programs, aside from Social Security. Right now, Federal debt is so large that 40 percent of all personal income taxes go to paying interest on the Federal debt. Think about that. We have over a trillion dollars a year in interest.

Spending drives inflation. In 2024, the typical American family needed an extra $17,000 a year to maintain the same standard of living as January 2021.

We have increased spending, our budget, our Federal budget, from

roughly $3.6 trillion or so in 2015 to almost $7 trillion now. That is an 80 percent increase.

Does anybody alive think that we can sustain this? Do any of my colleagues, Republican or Democrat, think that we can sustain this? Does anybody alive right now in the Chamber, if they are in the complex and haven't hopped on a plane to fly home because we had our final vote on a Thursday morning and we are going to come back on a Monday night in our usual way of doing things in the swamp, not doing what we should do, does anybody believe that this is going to save the fiscal health of America?

Like I said, I haven't decided if I am going to vote for it or against it. That depends on a lot of variables--the Inflation Reduction Act to actually repeal the ridiculous subsidizing, enriching the Chinese and enriching billion-dollar corporations, and undermining our energy security.

Do we have the resources necessary to secure the border and the fees to pay for it? Are we putting in the provisions that we ought to be putting in there to guarantee that we are going to have the President be able to carry out his campaign promises to remove aliens?

Are we going to have transformational reform to Medicaid so we eliminate the ridiculous 90-percent subsidy of the able-bodied while we are giving a much lower rate of 50 to 70 percent to the vulnerable population?

Are we going to continue to allow the provider taxes and the gaming of the system, the money laundering that is allowing money to go to California to be gamed and to be doled out to illegal aliens and put in their general budget as they openly brag, or are we going to fix that?

Are we going to fix the debacle that is the higher education system? Are we going to restrain their ability to abuse Federal grants, student loan subsidies, or are we going to continue to subsidize Harvard, Yale, Cal Berkeley, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Virginia, both my alma maters? I don't care. I would cut them off and take away their money.

Are we going to continue to do as I heard, which is to create additional taxes on cars, or are we going to fix it?

Literally, in order to pay for the Coast Guard and air traffic control, I heard that the T&I Committee, they were poised to put a vehicle tax on every vehicle in America. Limited government, constitutional Republicans were going to tax your car. We fought and said that is a bad idea. So they got rid of the tax, the $50 tax or $20 tax, whatever it was, on internal combustion engine cars.

By the way, we are subsidizing EVs and hybrids and so forth in order to get the internal combustion engine off the street, but now we are going to tax the EVs that we are subsidizing, unless we repeal the Inflation Reduction Act.

These are the tangled webs that we weave in a government in which politicians promise to give away free stuff. As I have said before, we are not the United States House of free stuff. You can't just print money and give it to people and say, oh, we will take care of your problems. Yet, that is what we do.

Our best case scenario if we pass this reconciliation package is still $50 trillion in debt in 10 years. That is literally the best case scenario. I think it is much worse, especially if our interest is going up and we refinance our debt at higher rates, which seems likely, but here we are just nibbling around the edges begging for crumbs. Please, oh, please, please give me $150 billion a year in savings on a $7 trillion annual budget, up almost twice in a decade, bloated and expanded under COVID, bloated and expanded under both Democrat and Republican regimes.

We have had an extraordinary first 100 days. The President has turned this ship around. We are securing borders. Apprehensions are down 94 percent. We are resetting our position on the world stage, diplomatically, economically. We are rebuilding our military, which was being decimated by the previous administration, unwinding DEI, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government, firing bureaucrats, identifying all the things that ought to be cut, and that is a good thing.

In Congress, my colleagues are doing some good things. We have passed some good bills that are hitting a wall in the Senate: the SAVE Act, the injunctions bill, a bunch of CRAs to undo the damage of the Biden administration. We passed five this week to undo the damage of the EV mandates.

We have got to stay on offense, and we can and we are doing a lot of great things, but this reconciliation bill, at a bare minimum, can do no harm, and literally that is what we are begging for, when we are trying to fight for $1.5 trillion in spending reductions, not even cuts. I want to be clear. I will remind everybody about Medicaid. Medicaid, there it is. It is going up 25 percent in our budget, for better or worse. I can make arguments, but it is going up.

Can we at least speak the truth that it is going up? We are begging for crumbs to get $1.5 trillion in reductions over 10 years. We are going to spend $86 trillion over the next 10 years. We are just trying to save $1.5 trillion of that massive increase for crumbs to have $50 trillion of debt at the end of that rainbow.

I hope we will come together. I hope we will unite to deliver a product that is worthy of support. I have not decided whether I will be able to support it. We will find out whether it has what is needed.

Honoring the Life of Diana Denman

Mr. Speaker, I do want to take one second before I yield to my friend from California to honor a dear friend of mine who passed away a couple weeks ago, Diana Denman.

Often called the godmother of the Texas Republican Party, she passed away on April 17 at the age of 91.

I don't do a lot of the floor speeches on individuals because I feel like if I do them for one or two and I don't do them for everybody that I represent that gets tough. Obviously, veterans, police officers, there are things that rise to the occasion.

Diana was a legendary mentor not just to me but to many of my friends, many of the people that work for me, many of my staff. She played a major role in the political evolution in Texas where Texas went from a historic southern Democrat State to a bastion of conservative Republican politics and a warrior for freedom across the globe.

I was proud to have her support, but more importantly, I was proud to have her friendship. She worked closely with some of my dear friends in politics and former bosses like Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Rick Perry, both of whom are dear friends of mine.

She led a storied life. She rode her horse into the lobby of The Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. She acted in Hollywood where she would go on to meet future President Reagan when she was in Hollywood in that Golden Age. She held many positions in the Reagan administration in the 1980s, and she stood strong against the Soviet Union and Soviet aggression around the globe. She was truly one of the last cold warriors, and I mean that in all of the right and good ways.

As a child of the 1980s, I consider myself a proud cold warrior and believe very much that we need to stand against aggression in the same way President Reagan stood against that aggression and stood for freedom and as a beacon of hope around the world. I think we can learn from that era, as I learned from Diana, about doing things with peace through strength.

I will miss Diana, and she will be remembered for her fierce patriotism and her strong convictions. She was feisty. She was committed. She loved her country. I thank her for her steadfast commitment to the conservative movement, to the United States, to defending our country, and in service of the Lord almighty.

I will keep to fighting to live free, and I will remember Diana through those actions. I will miss her dearly, as will many of my staff who counted her as a mentor.

When I think of the people who have devoted their life to the cause and they come and they go and they pass, I am reminded that we are here for these fleeting moments, what will be our legacy? What will be the legacy of this generation? Are we going to put this country back on a sustainable path? Are we going to actually honor our constitutional commitment to having limited government in which people can live free? Are we going to constrain the appetite for unchecked spending and the racking up of debt and the deficits and the interests that are killing

our economy, our country, and, frankly, the futures of our own children, or are we going to choose the harder path?

As President Reagan said in 1964, it was a time for choosing. Frankly, we didn't actually heed his call. We chose poorly. We chose the path of a massive, bureaucratic tyrannical State. We have empowered government; we haven't reduced it. We have increased spending; we haven't reduced it. We should actually honor that time for choosing, and in the memory of my good friend who served with President Reagan let's reignite that call for a time for choosing, to choose that path, to choose the path of the Constitution of limited government, of freedom, of responsible spending, and turning over this country to our children better than we inherited.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 354 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.

Last night, the Committee on Rules met and produced a rule providing for consideration of five pieces of legislation.

H.J. Res. 60 and H.J. Res. 78 are both considered under a closed rule, each with 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources or their respective designees and provides each a motion to recommit.

Additionally, H.J. Res. 87, H.J. Res. 88, and H.J. Res. 89 are all considered under a closed rule, each with 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees and provides each a motion to recommit.

Finally, the rule tolls the date counts regarding resolution of inquiry until September 30, 2025.

Mr. Speaker, before I get into the substance of this, I will start by saying on the Committee on Rules we tend to get to know each other pretty well in significant late-night engagement in debate. The ranking member of the Committee on Rules, Mr. McGovern from Massachusetts, has had an unfortunate loss that words cannot possibly convey as a dad what he and his wife are going through with the loss of his daughter, Molly.

I say from this side of the aisle, I know speaking for the entire Committee on Rules irrespective of party affiliation, how much Jim, his wife, and his son are in our prayers after losing their daughter and sister, Molly, to cancer.

As a cancer survivor, I have seen firsthand the horrors of the disease. I told my Committee on Rules colleagues last night in committee, in my time in treatment at MD Anderson, going through chemo seemed trivial to me compared to watching the parents at MD Anderson who were watching their children go through treatment.

Molly went to Heaven last week while visiting a friend in Italy, and I think I speak for everybody in this body when we offer our deepest condolences to Jim and to his entire family and to our colleagues who were so close with and knew Molly, who, by the way, from memory I believe worked for Jamie Raskin as an intern, and had her own engagements in public service.

When I heard of her passing, I did a little googling about her life, her love for sports and Boston sports, her love of her dad, and how proud she was of her dad.

While, just on occasion, Jim and I might have disagreed here on the House floor--it has been known to happen--we are all united in offering our condolences and prayers for Jim's family, and God bless Molly and his entire family.

Mr. Speaker, on the legislation that is before us, I know that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are, no doubt, about to launch into how we have had an ineffective first 100 days and Congress is not doing anything.

Let me put in perspective for the American people what we are focusing on.

We are focusing on undoing the damage of the last 4 years of the Biden administration. The President is doing that on a daily basis in the White House today, and then we in Congress are using the powers that we have before us in an obvious narrow majority and in a narrow majority in the Senate, where you have to get things through the Senate with 60 votes. We

are using the tools in front of us to try to limit and minimize the damage caused by the previous administration and, frankly, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle today.

Notably, we are talking about in this situation what we have done so far. We have passed legislation to secure our elections through H.R. 22, the SAVE Act, to guarantee that only American citizens vote in American elections; to hold rogue judges accountable for issuing nationwide injunctions and trying to change the process.

Mr. Speaker, that is not partisan. Justice Elena Kagan talked about the need for injunction relief. The Democratic Solicitor General under the previous administration talked about the need for injunction reform. We offered legislation that would change and reform injunctions. We passed that before Easter so that a single judge won't be legislating and making national policy by granting temporary restraining orders and injunctions.

We made changes on border policy with the Laken Riley Act, which is extremely important; and legislation to combat the flow of fentanyl.

Importantly, what we have been trying to do is undo the damage on the border.

Mr. Speaker, keep in mind what has happened now under the first 100 days. In just 100 days, southwest border apprehensions have decreased by 94 percent year over year.

Mr. Speaker, consider that for a second. They decreased by 94 percent. What changed? Have we passed a massive law? Have we enacted the law that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said last year was necessary, this bipartisan bill which, by the way, would have codified all the bad policies under the Biden administration?

No. The only thing that changed was a White House willing to enforce the law. That is literally it, and now there is a 94 percent reduction in apprehensions at the border.

Keep in mind that we are now at apprehension levels of somewhere around 100 to 200 a day, 3,000 to 6,000 a month. We had 6,000, 8,000, 10,000 apprehensions per day under the Biden administration.

The President has restored common sense by ending DEI in the military and working to keep men from competing in women's sports, affirming that there are two genders. These are common sense. I wouldn't think we would have to spend time on the floor of the House of Representatives doing those things or having the President do it by executive order, but here we are.

The President has unlocked America's energy potential, or at least taken a giant step to doing so, by reopening 625 million acres for drilling, withdrawing from the disastrous Paris climate agreement, and approving new LNG projects.

Mr. Speaker, here before us today, we have what we call CRAs, under the Congressional Review Act. The purpose of these is to undo burdensome Biden regulations. This is our ability and our prerogative to hold the Biden administration accountable, and that doesn't stop just because the Democrats lost an election and we have a Republican in the White House. We have a duty to undo some of that damage.

Under these bills, we would repeal California's advanced clean trucks waiver, which currently would allow the State to mandate the sale of zero-emission trucks. It would allow the State to mandate the sale of zero-emission trucks.

These bills would repeal the California advanced clean cars waiver allowing the State to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035; put an end to California's implementation of its most recent nitrogen oxide engine emission standards, which create burdensome and unworkable standards for heavy-duty, on-road engines; nullify a rule by the National Park Service that would infringe on the employment of a recreational area, contravening the agency's own mandate when it was created; and, finally, one that would end an Endangered Species Act designation by the Fish and Wildlife Service that would threaten water resources and other conservation efforts.

Mr. Speaker, these things matter to the average American. My colleagues are going to say that this is small ball, and it doesn't matter.

Every one of these regulations add up to interference with the enjoyment of life by the American people, drive up the price of the goods and services for the average hardworking American family, make vehicles more expensive, make our lives more costly. Then people wonder why they are suffering from inflation and suffering from the inability to afford to live in the modern world.

This Congress is taking steps to undo that damage, working with the White House to restore the ability of the average American family to live and afford the basic necessities of life, including vehicles and the right to be able to choose the vehicle of their choice in an open market.

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleagues are going to say that we are infringing on California. Let's remember that California gets treated specially and uniquely and that that then has a domino effect through the rest of the country. That is unique to California based on past precedent involving Los Angeles smog and other things where that is causing a direct impact on other States across the country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I miss getting that admonition. It was a pretty regular occurrence in my various floor speeches.

With respect to the resolutions of inquiry, let me put out there that it is my strong preference, as I have said multiple times on the floor of the House, that we come up with a system that allows the body to work its will and that we allow individuals to be able to move forward in good faith to get information and ask questions of the executive branch, no matter who is in power.

I introduced the ARTICLE ONE Act to try to restrict Presidential power under the Trump administration the first time and had trouble getting it moved during the Biden administration. I am not really even pointing fingers. I am acknowledging the politics. I had some Democratic colleagues and friends of mine that would say: I like that idea, but I don't know if right now is the time. Okay, but let's have the conversation.

Let's take ROIs, what we call resolutions of inquiry, a tool in which we can specifically go ask for specific information. We have engaged in that effort. I certainly have. For over 600 days in the 116th and 117th Congresses, ROIs, these resolutions of inquiry, were blocked from coming to the floor by the Democratic majority. That is, of course, the ``you did it, so we will do it'' argument--not particularly satisfying if you want to have an open body.

I think the question would be: What do my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to have? What should the rule be? If we want resolutions of inquiry to just be allowed in perpetuity, then maybe we need to come up with a way to try to guarantee that and do that, but that is not what happens. We have turned them off. Both sides have turned them off.

I would also add, for example, for the filibuster rule in the Senate, are we going to abide by the 60-vote threshold in the Senate as a Congress? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle tried to change the filibuster rule for judges and succeeded, and now, we have a 51- vote threshold for judges.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle tried to change the rule for legislation, and but for Kyrsten Sinema and but for Joe Manchin, they would have done so. Then, the Senate would have been operating by a 51-vote threshold for legislation.

Maybe that is good or bad, but maybe we should decide the rules we want to operate under and then apply them to both sides. Right now, we are operating under a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

I think that is something maybe we ought to put to a vote right here in this body, in the House, and say: Do we believe that the United States Senate should operate under a 60-vote threshold? Because if you go watch the Twitter feed of Kyrsten Sinema, she is pretty explicit about what she is watching and the hypocrisy of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the Senate who now suddenly have newfound love and respect for the 60-vote threshold.

My point being, if we are going to change the body institutionally, then let's have a real conversation about changing the body institutionally.

Closed rules, I get it. In the majority, we are sitting here, and we have more closed rules. Do we want open rules? Then what will happen when the Democrats are in charge? Do you want resolutions of inquiry? What do we do to bind the hands of a future House on those points if not us agreeing to respect each other's ability to do that?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller), my friend.

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

Mr. Speaker, a couple quick points on the resolutions of inquiry. I won't waste a whole lot more time on it.

The fact is, one, we have extended this through September 30 only at our request to limit it because we want to be able to get through reconciliation.

Two, my colleagues want to blame COVID. Committees were still in full operation. The fact of the matter is my colleagues didn't want to answer questions that we were asking about the border because they were unanswerable. The border was wide open. Americans were getting killed. Americans like Jocelyn Nungaray, Americans like Laken Riley, Americans like Rachel Morin, and Americans like Kayla Hamilton. I can keep going down the list of dead Americans at the hands of the foolish, incompetent, and dangerous policies of the Biden administration that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle did not want to answer. That is the simple truth. When we wanted to get data about the border, they didn't want to answer it. It wasn't because of COVID.

Mr. Speaker, I note with respect to California that California's mandates effectively take away America's ability to buy new gas cars. As I mentioned earlier, California gets some special treatment. It is the only State allowed to seek waivers for its own vehicle policies due to a provision in the Clean Air Act crafted to allow California to address Los Angeles area smog, and so they have an outside impact on our ability to get affordable vehicles, including, by the way, hybrid vehicles which would be unnecessarily impacted by where California wants to go and which we want to try to solve.

Mr. Speaker, I also note that California, as KTLA reported in a January 30 article, continues to lose more people than come into other States because of the tragic and unfortunate policies of the State of California.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I will note that neither the GAO nor the Senate Parliamentarian get a vote. It is sort of a shocking news revelation I recognize, but they don't get a vote. We do. The Senate does. We can decide what we think ought to apply.

Number two, if my colleagues want to talk about the high price of vehicles, how about the extent to which the average EV costs $14,000 more than the average nonluxury vehicle.

According to the latest data from Kelley Blue Book, the average transaction price for electric vehicles is $55,273, 3.7 percent higher than last year. For context, the median household income for the gentlewoman's district is $62,000.

The fact of the matter is, EVs are expensive. EVs are driving up the price of vehicles. The mandate is taking the power out of the hands of the American people to decide, including, by the way, hybrid vehicles which allow individuals to have more efficient vehicles while being able to travel long distances, as I know the gentlewoman has constituents who need to do so in New Mexico as we need to do in west Texas and throughout the State of Texas.

Additionally, the trucks that are required under California's unrealistic mandates cost two to three times more than a new, safer, and more reliable diesel truck. The fact is, we are driving up the price of goods and services. We are making it more expensive for the American people to live. We are making it almost impossible for people to fix their vehicles and be able to afford their vehicles with every new thing we add to it to make it more complex in the name of safety or the environment.

The fact is, we can't be blind to those realities. That is exactly what is happening. That is why the American people are suffering from the inability to afford to live in this country.

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

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

I am always amazed when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle ignore the fact that these EVs require power. Somehow they get charged from the magic fairy dust of the magic energy tree? I mean, what are we talking about here?

How do you power up an electric vehicle? It is done by burning coal, burning gas, or the nuclear plants that we are not actually permitting or building in the United States, while China builds two coal-fired plants virtually every week. We are building none. Well, good for us.

The vast majority of the world is producing power with coal and natural gas, and it is growing exponentially. Meanwhile, we are crushing our grid, the reliability of American power, making it more expensive for the average American and doing really nothing about worldwide CO2 production. That is the truth. China and India are pumping it out.

Meanwhile, my colleagues love to ignore the slave labor in China to produce the batteries that they drive around in their EVs while they pat themselves on the back and go to cocktail parties talking about how fantastic it is that they drive their EVs and how enlightened they are.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record three articles: `` `Like slave and master': DRC miners toil for 30p an hour to fuel electric cars'' in the Guardian; ``EV makers' use of Chinese suppliers raises concerns about forced labor''; ``U.S. says Chinese lithium-ion batteries are made with child labour as trade war spills into EVs.''

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to parade around EV mandates like they are somehow going to magically create power out of thin air, ignoring the fact we are empowering China, ignoring the fact we are empowering Chinese child laborers while we destroy the cost of living for the average American family, take away choice, take away the ability of an American citizen to be able to go out into the market and buy a hybrid vehicle or another vehicle that they can use to travel long distances, do their job, whether they are a plumber, an electrician, or carrying goods and services in a truck, and then they wonder why the cost of goods and services go up. Then they want to blame tariffs when we are 90 days in, and we had massive and rampant inflation under the Biden administration as a direct consequence of the regulatory policies and the failed policies of the previous administration.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would note that with respect to wind energy, yes, Texas is one of the leaders in wind energy. I worked for Governor Perry when the Governor was embracing wind power, and the fact of the matter is, as it has become a larger percentage of the grid, the reliability of Texas' grid has suffered, and now the consequences of having embraced wind as a significant portion of the grid are now coming to roost.

We are now having to deal with what happens when these need to be shelved. Where do they go? They fill landfills. How much oil and gas goes into the production of said windmills? How do you get the power from the wind farms in west Texas to the various facilities where we are making power? How reliable is it during ice storms or during the heat of the summer? When you have a cloudy, windless day, how are you getting power? Who is making the parts for the solar panels? What happens to the solar panels in the environment when you are finished with the solar farm?

All of these questions get brushed aside in a quest to say that we can have magical ``green, clean energy,'' when we have clean-burning natural gas in Texas and throughout this country that is producing a significant amount of economic benefit and power for our country and has done more to drive down CO2 production and for clean air than virtually any other innovation we have had over the last century.

Yet, we are impeding the ability to have more reliable power by virtue of mandates. That is the whole point of the problem with the Inflation Reduction Act. That is the whole point of the problem with the rules and the rulemaking done by the Biden administration that we are trying to reverse under these CRAs, so that we can make things more affordable for the American people. That is it. We are trying to help the average Texan, the average New Mexican, the average American be able to afford to live, trying to be able to figure out how to get power, get a vehicle that they can afford to be able to carry out their job. That is it.

On the issue of healthcare, the issue was raised, as is often the case by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, to try to scare the American people that somehow raising questions about the inefficiency, the ineffectiveness, the waste, the fraud of a government healthcare solution, that somehow that is taking away benefits.

When you have a trillion dollars of improper payments, when you have the State of California openly and publicly stating that they are gaming the Medicaid system and the provider tax and the Federal match rate to provide funds to illegal aliens and for their general budget to game the system at what best can be called money laundering, as was editorialized in The Wall Street Journal last week. When that is what is happening, when you have people on Medicaid who are getting a higher subsidy than people on Medicare, who have paid into it their entire lives, into the tax on Medicare; when you have people who are able- bodied who are getting a higher subsidy than the vulnerable population for whom Medicaid was originally created, then someone explain to me why we don't have a duty to fix that.

That is what we are putting forward, to try to deliver healthcare that would actually have a doctor and a patient relationship rather than a corporate overlord or government bureaucrat telling you what your healthcare is. That is the system that has been created. That is the system that we are living with now under expanded ObamaCare. That is what that is, expanded ObamaCare. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want to talk about that. They want to talk about the expansion of that population into the able-bodied who could be and should be working at a higher rate of return by the Federal Government than is going to the vulnerable population, while California games the system to give money to illegal aliens. That is expressly and openly being acknowledged by California leadership.

They don't want to have those conversations. They don't want to talk about how you manage that problem, how you get more people to be able to have affordable care instead of what they currently have, which is a broken system that insurance companies run, forcing individuals onto an exchange so they can get like my constituent who passed away last year from cancer, who wanted to go to M.D. Anderson and could not go because she was on an

ObamaCare plan and couldn't go to the best cancer hospital in the world because she was covered under ObamaCare.

The failure of our healthcare system cannot be overstated. Both parties need to step to the table to get government out of the way and to allow doctors and patients to be able to go get healthcare from a provider of their choice--not some insurance bureaucrat or government bureaucrat--in order to deliver outcomes that the American people want us to deliver.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, number one, Congress has an important role to play in repealing the Biden-Harris administration's EV mandates and other rules that are damaging the lives of the American people.

When the administration transmits an action to the House and the Senate for review under the CRA, then it is Members of Congress, not the GAO and not the Parliamentarian, who decide whether and how we proceed under the CRA.

The fact here is California mandates, which is what we are dealing with here in several of these Congressional Review Act actions, effectively take away Americans' ability to buy new gas cars, a hybrid vehicle, or the vehicle of their choice. It raises their vehicle and transportation costs.

The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the former Speaker of the House, came down and described that somehow we are not factoring in the price of clean air. With the vehicles that we are producing today, the fact is we have the cleanest air we have ever had.

There is no problem with having EVs. It is the mandates that are the problem. It is mandating the American people must convert that is the problem. In fact, worldwide, the extent to which coal-fired plants in China, coal-fired plants in India, and other countries around the world are producing CO2 and other particulate matter that is bad for the air is rising.

Why would we undermine our own economic well-being to pursue a negligible impact on the overall global emissions, while driving up the price of goods and services for the average American family? They have to live for today. They have to pay their bills today.

All the subsidies in the world aren't making those things economically viable for them. Whether you are talking about wind farms or EVs without the mandates, what is clear is the American people aren't buying these things because they are still not able to function and carry out their livelihoods effectively under the mandates.

Higher costs and fewer choices for consumers hit low-income and disadvantaged communities the hardest. There is a reason why, when I drive around Austin, Texas, I see it is the rich folk driving around in their Teslas. It is the rich folk who are getting their EV tax credits. I see it. They are not in east Austin. They are out in the rich parts of Austin.

Mr. Speaker, do you think that is an accident? Do you think the hardworking plumber I represent in San Marcos, Texas, in New Braunfels, Texas, or any other part of Texas is going to go out and get a battery- powered truck to drive across 10 counties to carry out his job or his livelihood? As I said before, the average EV costs $14,000 more than the average nonluxury vehicle.

Mandates disrupt the free market. We have talked about the impact these mandates can have on the reliability of our power grid.

Is the Nation's grid even up to the mandates we talk about? No, it is not because then there will be more mandates on what the grid has to look like. Suddenly, we are Spain. Suddenly, we are wondering why the grids are failing.

Importantly, California's move empowers China, which dominates the EV market and uses slave labor and coal-powered plants to produce EV batteries. That is just the truth.

Mr. Speaker, 77 percent of the world's electric vehicle batteries are manufactured in China. China owns 80 percent of the industrial cobalt mines in the Congo and controls 15 of 19 of the primary cobalt mines in the Congo. These mines are operated by trafficked child slaves. Since when do we not care about that?

The idea that California can do this unilaterally is preposterous. They are the only State allowed to seek waivers under a unique policy. They should not be able to determine policy for the State of Texas or any other place.

Mr. Speaker, I support this rule, and I urge my colleagues to support this rule.

The material previously referred to by Ms. Leger Fernandez is as follows:

An Amendmentto H. Res. 354 Offered by Ms. Leger Fernandez of New Mexico

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 6. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution, the

House shall proceed to the consideration in the House of the

bill (H.R. 2753) to amend the Congressional Budget Act of

1974 to provide for a point of order against reconciliation

measures that cut benefits for Medicaid or the Supplemental

Nutrition Assistance Program, and for other purposes. All

points of order against consideration of the bill are waived.

The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order

against provisions in the bill are waived. The previous

question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and on

any amendment thereto, to final passage without intervening

motion except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and

controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the

Committee on Rules or their respective designees; and (2) one

motion to recommit.

Sec. 7. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of H.R. 2753.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his strong work and commitment to election integrity and to working with us on this bill, in particular, the SAVE Act. He has done an extraordinary job, and I am proud to work with him and work with the rest of my colleagues on it.

I am also proud to work with my friend, Cleta Mitchell, who had a significant hand in what we are doing here. I am quite certain that she is pretty well aware of protecting the right of females to be able to vote, along with my friends Stephanie Bice, Mary Miller, Laurel Lee, Lauren Boebert, and Kat Cammack, all of whom came down to the floor in full support of this legislation because they know the truth.

They know the truth that the American people know, which is that, as much as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to bring up the DMV, the American people know that the DMV is very good at giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens because we know it to be true. We know that there are people who have been indicted for voting illegally. We know that there are voter rolls with massive numbers of people who are illegally present in the United States. We know that the previous administration let in millions of people into the United States, wrongfully and illegally under parole and asylum, blatantly abusing the law to put people in the United States that have no basis for being here, many of whom carried out dangerous acts against American people, killed American citizens, but importantly, have been registering to vote. That is what has been happening.

What we understand is, the American people have spoken very clearly that they believe only American citizens should vote in American elections. There is nothing controversial about that. There is nothing controversial about saying that you should be able to ensure that only citizens vote.

Let's be very clear: Federal law has currently been interpreted to prohibit States from being able to check citizenship. That is the truth. That is why the State of Arizona, for example, has two systems-- one for State and local, one for Federal.

The good people of Arizona have two systems in place: They check for citizenship for State and local elections, and they are unable to check for citizenship in Federal elections. The point of this bill is to ensure that we guarantee only citizens vote by allowing those States to be able to check, by having systems, Federal systems be open to the States to be able to check, and to require proof of citizenship when you register.

There is nothing complex about that. There is nothing more sacred under the Constitution than ensuring that the people are able to have the voice in the election of the people that represent them in Washington and throughout the country.

Mr. Speaker, once that is undermined, then people lose faith in the very institutions upon which this is built. This legislation is designed to restore that faith, to save our elections, and to save election integrity.

I am proud to have worked on this bill with my friend, the chairman, and with my colleagues on this side of the aisle. I would note that five of my Democratic colleagues joined us last summer to vote for this bill, hardly a partisan exercise to say that we should protect the elections of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, to restore confidence and faith in our elections, and to take a step forward in ensuring the people know that citizens will be in control of this Republic as the Founders intended.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas for yielding. I appreciate the able job that he has done in ushering through a responsible budget on the House side of the Capitol. Unfortunately, we are here debating an irresponsible budget sent over to us from the Senate.

First, before my colleagues on the other side of the aisle applaud me for my opposition to the Senate bill, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to acknowledge any program that they don't think they can just continue to shovel money out from, despite the fact it has terrible outcomes.

Medicaid is debilitating the vulnerable, not helping them. We are shoveling money out to the able-bodied on the back of expansion of ObamaCare. We are crippling the very program they say they want to uphold while we allow money laundering to California, which they brag about openly, to give money to those who are here illegally and to destroy the program with an FMAP rate that is higher than the vulnerable, giving out more money than we even give to Medicare.

To my friends on this side of the aisle: When are we going to get serious about spending?

The House budget actually does a job of trying to get to budget neutrality, balancing tax policy and spending policy. The Senate sent over a joke, and we are going to capitulate to the Senate, knowing full well that the Senate instructions carry the day.

We are going to be sitting there in a reconciliation debate where we are going to end up on the short end of the stick. Worse, the American people are going to end up on the short end of the stick because it absolutely increases deficits. No one can deny it.

Anyone who wants to get in a room and come debate me with a whiteboard, show me the math. At some point, if you are in Congress, pass a math test because the Senate bill doesn't add up. It will destroy this country with more deficits and the inflation tax that is crippling the average American family.

Mr. Speaker, I will not vote for the Senate bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for yielding.

My friend was talking about rigging the rules. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are all too happy to have district judges rig the rules to stop the President of the United States from being able to defend our country.

Just last week, within close proximity to my house in Dripping Springs, Texas, 47 individuals who are affiliated with the gang Tren de Aragua were found by ICE. Right down the road in suburban Austin, Texas, 47 people, including 9 children, were found in what was a stash house, moving narcotics through it.

This is the same gang that killed Jocelyn Nungaray last summer. This is the same gang that was torturing and driving fear into the hearts of the people in Aurora, Colorado, in the apartment complexes that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle refuse to acknowledge. These are all the same people who are being allowed to vote, the same people that we were elected in November to remove from the country.

The President of the United States as Commander in Chief in defending the United States and as the Chief Executive is carrying out the laws to remove dangerous individuals from the United States of America. Then, an activist district judge in the District of Columbia decided that, in his view, he had to step in. He had to step in to try to assert his jurisdiction where it did not belong to try to stop the President of the United States from removing dangerous gang members who are killing Americans.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the United States Supreme Court said: Stop. You don't get to do that, Mr. District Judge in D.C. If you are going to do this, you have to do this in Texas.

Mr. Speaker, that was the whole point.

Just today, we had another ruling out of the Supreme Court slapping down yet another activist judge.

What are we doing, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) asks. What are we doing as Republicans? We are putting forward language today that would stop rogue district judges from carrying out nationwide injunctions and temporary restraining orders and who are trying to effectively legislate from the bench.

Mr. Speaker, we are not alone in that position. The Biden administration's solicitor general in 2024 told the Supreme Court: ``A court of equity may grant relief only to the parties before it.''

In 2022, that same solicitor general asked the Supreme Court to address nationwide injunctions.

In 2022, Justice Elena Kagan spoke out against the ability of a single judge to stop implementation of a policy across the country.

Lo and behold, we are advancing bipartisan work to address a bipartisan problem that Democrats have very clearly identified. The only difference now is that Donald Trump is in the White House instead of Joe Biden.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for yielding additional time.

Mr. Speaker, again, Republicans have brought forward a rule containing a bill that addresses a problem that Democrats have identified as a problem, to say that the parties before the court are the only ones to whom it should apply and allows for a mechanism to achieve nationwide injunctions through a three-judge panel.

Mr. Speaker, we are also bringing to the floor a bill that will say that only American citizens should vote in American elections. The controversy--oh, my gosh--the bloodletting, that we might say in the United States House of Representatives that only American citizens should be able to vote in American elections. Yet, that is what we are doing.

Republicans are responding to an American people who are tired of the previous administration that was allowing illegals to come into our country, kill our citizens, vote in our elections, and undermine our country. We are addressing their concerns, and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want to address it.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of the rule, and I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Virginia (Mr. Griffith) for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I would note for the American people that the Republican majority is bringing before the body two important measures this week.

The first measure is to ensure the integrity of our elections, to ensure that only American citizens can vote in American elections, a fairly commonsense principle, which enjoys 80 percent-plus approval among the American people, that would ensure in a straightforward way that noncitizens may not vote in our elections. It is that simple.

The second measure we are bringing forward is a piece of legislation that we are actively debating right now in a committee that I am co- chairing, the Committee on the Judiciary, and I will go back to that committee forthwith, in which we are having witnesses before the Committee on the Judiciary discussing the extent to which we have judges that are taking unilateral action under what are called temporary restraining orders, or injunctions, to thwart the efforts of the administration's actions as a direct result of the election in November to carry out the agenda for which the President was elected.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bipartisan problem that has been something

where you have judges that will act unilaterally as a single-district judge, and the question is: What do we do about it?

We have had Democrats who have said that we should change it. We have had Republicans who have said that we should change it. We are trying to change it. We are trying to say that a judge can take action on the parties before them, but nothing more, and then have that go up through another procedure, and then allow an appellate panel or a three-judge panel or the Supreme Court to fast track it, so if they decide there should be an injunction, there can be.

Mr. Speaker, let me put it in plain speak for the American people. We are putting measures on the floor to ensure that only American citizens vote in American elections and to ensure that judges don't make the policy for America but the elected leaders do, whether it is the executive branch, President, or the Members of Congress, and that there be a process to ensure that the Constitution, the laws of the land, are being protected.

That is what the majority in this body is putting forward. We can listen all day long about what we are hearing today regarding proxy voting. The American people who I know and represent and talk to expect us to show up. Right now, across this country, Americans are showing up to work. They are going in, and they are doing their plumbing work. There are electricians showing up to work. There are builders who are standing out in the sun. They are picking crops. They are working hard.

They don't get to take a pass. They don't get to not show up. Yet, we were elected to represent the 750,000-odd Americans each. We were elected under the Constitution of the United States, and we are supposed to show up in Congress; that is what it means. We are supposed to be here. It is why the institution exists. It is why this floor exists.

Mr. Speaker, there have been countless reasons why there would be cause for us to want to allow Members to have some sort of flexibility, such as people who are sick, or our friend, Steve Scalise, who was shot. He was shot, and he didn't ask for any special dispensation. He fought cancer, is still fighting cancer, and as majority leader is standing here on this floor every day doing the job.

New dads. I am a dad. My daughter and my son ask me to show up to things. I missed my son's 4-H presentation last week. I missed my daughter's 4-H event this last week. I have missed countless family engagements.

My wife carries the burden of making sure that our family can function back home in Texas, but I signed up for the job. That is what I did. I signed up for the job.

When Members let this happen, it will not just happen for mothers or fathers. It will be for everybody, and then we will have proxy voting where you will have pressures brought to bear that will fundamentally change this institution.

No, we should not allow this to occur. No, we shouldn't have a discharge petition brought to the floor, which does violence to the Constitution, does violence to the body, and does it with no ability to amend it. The way the rule is drafted, there would be no amendments and no ability to debate it.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from Virginia (Mr. Griffith) for yielding additional time.

Mr. Speaker, what we are doing on the floor today is right and proper under our rules. It is to say that we should have a full-throated debate on something that would fundamentally change the people's House, nothing more, nothing less. We should do that.

This is something that has been debatable. It was debated by the Founders. It was debated by them and rejected. It was debated and rejected in the Articles of Confederation. It was debated and rejected in the Constitution. We are now staring at the result of having set aside tradition and precedent by embracing proxy voting during COVID. It is trying to be expanded beyond that. We should not do that.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the New Braunfels Noon Lions Club on their 100 dedicated years of service to the New Braunfels community. Originally chartered as the Lions Club of New Braunfels on April 10, 1925, and later known as the New Braunfels Noon Lions Club, this organization has been an integral part of the community for 100 years, embodying the spirit of service and leadership.

Lions Clubs International is the world's largest service club organization, with more than 1.35 million members in over 220 nations and geographic areas, united by the motto ``We Serve;'' the Lions focus on five core pillars of service. Preventing blindness and improving quality of life for those who are blind or visually impaired, ensuring access to food for all in the community, reducing the prevalence of diabetes and enhancing the lives of those afflicted, supporting programs that assist children with cancer, and protecting and restoring the environment to promote community well-being.

Recently, the Noon Lions volunteered at elementary schools in Comal County to provide free vision screenings for thousands of elementary school children. In the coming months, the Lions will travel to Belize and partner with the Belize City Lions Club to provide vision screening, meals to those in need, and support for the city. I know the Lions will be a beacon of light and hope and they will represent Texas well during their trip abroad.

Over the past century, the New Braunfels Noon Lions Club has exemplified the Lions' mission by making a profound impact in the local community through service, leadership, and philanthropy. They have made a lasting impact on the community by contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to local causes, funding its charitable work through dedicated volunteer efforts at various fundraising activities throughout the community, and fostering a spirit of patriotism and community pride. I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the New Braunfels Noon Lions. Here's to 100 more.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

So here we are again. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who constantly always talk about the need to support a CR to ``keep the lights on'' now find themselves in the curious position of not wanting to have the lights on because they don't like what is happening. So they don't want the lights to be on because you have got people in the executive branch who have taken seriously the election mandate that was given to the President of the United States to end the absurdity of nonstop wasteful spending and the ridiculousness of expenditures like $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.

That is the kind of stuff that makes the American people's heads explode. There are hundreds of these examples. I can sit here and list them. The fact is this stuff is getting exposed in real time. The American people are seeing it, and now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to run from it.

That is why they don't like this bill. That is why they want to have a shutdown. After all of these years of decrying the possibility of a shutdown, you are seeing all over the news today talk about the possibility of a Schumer shutdown. What you are talking about there are news article after news article such as The Hill, February 11, ``Democrats step up talk about using shutdown as leverage against Donald Trump'': ``A Democratic Senator who requested anonymity . . . said . . . the March 14 deadline may be the best `leverage' they have,'' and The Guardian, February 15, ``Democrats in Congress see potential shutdown as leverage to counter Trump.''

I can insert into the Record dozens of these stories because the fact of the matter is the gig is up. It is much like how the American people were able to see the absolute and rampant corruption of our education system during COVID. When everything was shut down, they were watching their kids and they saw these screens, and they said what on Earth are they being taught? Suddenly the American people saw the reality of our broken education system. They saw the fraud that was perpetrated by Anthony Fauci on the American people in shutting down their way of life.

Now, you have got Democrats who are being exposed for having continuously funded this largess and this bureaucracy that is completely indefensible. The American people are tired of having their tax dollars taken and dollars being borrowed by an endless stream of borrowing by this Congress. Now, you have got a Congress that is willing to work with the President to stop it, to stand up and say this is enough.

What are we putting in place? We are putting in place, oh, the horror, a spending freeze. Oh, can you believe that the Federal Government might need to tighten its belt and have a spending freeze? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to bring out these parades of horribles, that somehow this is a massive number of cuts because only in Washington is that a cut. You have got a spending freeze and holding basically spending in check for 2024. We have a bill that, by the way, pulls out earmarks, which are often replete with special wish lists. By the way, that is both sides of the aisle. We have got a bill here that is going to hold spending in check to allow us to do our job for the fiscal year '26 appropriations cycle between now and September.

By the way, it was Republicans who passed 5 appropriations bills off of the House floor last year and 12 appropriations bills out of committee last year. The previous year it was Republicans who passed 7 appropriations bills off the floor and all 12 out of committee. The Democrat-led Senate passed zero.

Do you want to know why we are where we are right now? It is because our Democratic colleagues in the Senate passed zero appropriations bills, not one.

So we came in here, and now Republicans have control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, and now we are trying to get things moving in the right direction, and our Democratic colleagues don't want to have any part of it. We are putting forward a commonsense measure. I understand why some of my conservative flank fiscal conservatives have concerns about a CR. I don't love CRs, but when you can have a CR that extends spending at 2024 levels for the next 6 months and empowers the President to be able to continue to do what they are doing, shining the light on spending restraint, shining the light on waste so that we can do our job and implement that--and, by the way, I will say that to both sides of the aisle. Both sides of the aisle need to take in that information and implement it when we do appropriations this year. We will move spending down, eliminate the waste. We will try to do something about the fact that in 2019 our entire budget was $4.5 trillion, and today it is $7 trillion.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have no answer to that besides, oh, magic tax cuts. You could literally confiscate the wealth of the wealthiest 1 percent of America and not dent what we have got in terms of $36 trillion in debt. You would kill jobs and destroy the economy in the process.

That is the only answer my colleagues have to $7 trillion in spending.

The fact of the matter is, this CR is responsible. It is fiscally appropriate. It will leave the lights on so the President and DOGE and Elon and Russ Vought of OMB can do their job, and I hope that my colleagues on this side of the aisle will support the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sudden religion my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have found on spending restraint and the need to cut spending. I look forward to all the proposals that my colleagues will put forward on reducing significant amounts of spending and waste, fraud, and abuse. I will look for that press conference they will no doubt have some time this week.

I would also note that when we talk about continuing resolutions, what my colleague just failed to mention was the fact that literally every single Democrat voted for the CR that we just had in December, like literally every single Democrat except for one who I think maybe took a ``present'' vote.

The fact of the matter is it has nothing to do with that. The fact of the matter is for those of us who do not like CRs as a general principle, the fact is because Democrats literally wouldn't pass an appropriations bill out of the Senate, we are left doing the cleanup work of trying to figure out how to move forward while we have an administration that isn't at war with its own people when the previous administration was blatantly disregarding the well-being of the American people to have wide-open borders letting fentanyl and letting all manners of evil come into our country leading to the death and destruction of the people that I represent, people like Jocelyn Nungaray who lost her life to the hands of the Tren de Aragua because Joe Biden decided it was more important to let millions of people into this country in violation of our laws endangering the people.

That is why our bill has additional funding for ICE to make sure that we have got the beds to undo the damage that the Biden regime has carried out on the American people. Those are the actual facts. The fact of the matter is, no, you don't want to have a CR to continue the funding under Joe Biden because Joe Biden was at war with the American people.

Now, we have a present administration that is trying to do the job that they sent him there to do: secure the border of the United States; hold back spending; eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; get this economy going again; get the regulations out of the way of the American people; and do the job they want us to do.