Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, hell hath no fury like the deep state scorned. That has become obvious from the over-the-top hysterics directed against Elon Musk as he turns over bureaucratic rocks and shines a light on what has been going on beneath them.

What he has already exposed should infuriate and alarm every American. Millions of taxpayer dollars are covertly used to support a tax on the Democrats' political opponents, millions more to support far-left causes in this and other countries, millions of dollars that were supposed to defend Ukraine and that instead vanished into the pockets of Ukrainian businessmen, millions more to fund the Wuhan lab that unleashed COVID on the world, $15 million spent on condoms for the Taliban, millions more to support illegal aliens entering our country, and still millions more on promoting leftist gender ideology around the world.

America is on the verge of bankruptcy, yet the elites within our government have no conscience at all as they hollow out the earnings of working Americans to fund their pet ideological causes. Instead of hanging their heads in shame, the Democrats actively defend this waste.

Congress never voted to spend money in this manner. Unelected bureaucrats within the sprawling Federal labyrinth did this behind the backs not only of the American people but of their elected Representatives.

They say the most closely guarded State secrets are not those marked ``top secret'' but those considered embarrassing. By exposing this outrageous waste, Mr. Musk has embarrassed the Democrats, which is why they tried to bar him from opening the books for the American people to see. Now that those embarrassing secrets are being revealed, the left has reverted to its tired old habits of personal attacks and character assassination.

The new boss hires an accountant. The accountant says: Joe, let's see the expense account records. Suddenly, it is a threat to democracy and a constitutional crisis. A threat to democracy? That is somewhat ironic from a party that just threw out a year's worth of primary elections when they didn't like the candidate that their own voters selected.

It turned out their voters didn't like their unelected nominee either, and Americans instead elected Donald Trump as President with an overwhelming majority.

To my Democratic colleagues, that is what is called democracy.

The Democrats shout constitutional crisis. Do they not understand, that under our Constitution, executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States? All executive power flows from the President to his subordinates and advisers. That includes Elon Musk, as well as every bureaucrat at USAID.

Under our Constitution, there is no executive power that is independent of the President. The difference is that Elon Musk is carrying out the policies that the people elected this government to pursue and the bureaucrats at USAID are not. That is a big problem in a democracy.

The Democrats tell us that it is undemocratic for the democratically elected President to question how the unelected bureaucracy is executing the laws, laws that the President is elected to uphold. How can a President faithfully execute the laws if he and his deputies cannot see clearly and accurately where the public money is going, verify that it is being spent in accordance with the law, and put a stop to it when it is not?

The true threat to democracy is an entrenched ruling class that operates entirely outside the control of the duly elected representatives of the people. Once that takes root, elections become meaningless because the people's decisions at the ballot box are no longer executed by their government. The Federal bureaucracy increasingly acts independently and often in defiance of the people's choices.

That was the story of the first Trump Presidency. It must not be the story of the second or of any future Presidency because it is the very definition of a tyranny, a government operating outside the control of the people. That is what the Democrats are now advocating.

In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln noted the great task remaining before us. He offered a prayer, really, ``that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth.''

That remains the great question and the great challenge of our generation. It is a destiny that we must fulfill.

Mr. Speaker, I have been very fortunate, as have the people of my congressional district in the Gold Country of California, to have had guiding my office and shaping my decisions for many years now a truly exceptional individual, Rocky Deal.

Rocky is going to retire at the end of this month to take on a long list of pent-up retirement and family projects, and I will miss his assistance and advice greatly.

His 15 years of service leading my congressional office was actually the second chapter of his service to our country. His first chapter was 28 years of distinguished service in the United States Navy.

In those nearly three decades, he rose to the rank of captain, and for 2\1/2\ years commanded what Ronald Reagan called America's flagship, the aircraft carrier USS Constellation. This culminated an eventful career in the Navy and naval aviation, including command of the USS Kalamazoo and command of the legendary Jolly Rogers squadron of F-14 Tomcats off of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

During his command of the Jolly Rogers, the squadron earned the Battle E as the best fighter squadron in the Atlantic fleet. While he commanded the USS Kalamazoo in two Gulf deployments, it was rated the best logistical squadron in the Atlantic.

During his command of the USS Constellation, it won more Battle Es than any other Pacific fleet carrier during the Gulf and Indo-Pacific deployments. He concluded his career in the Navy as chief of staff to the commander of the Pacific Naval Air Forces responsible for 6 aircraft carriers, 2,000 aircraft, and 40,000 sailors.

After retiring from the Navy, Rocky returned to his hometown of Susanville, California, where he took over the family automobile dealership, first established there in 1929.

He served on the board of trustees of Lassen College, where he also taught history, and he served on the board of directors of Lassen Hospital. He also served in a wide range of civic organizations, including Rotary International, Boy Scouts of America, the chamber of commerce, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

I first met Rocky campaigning for Congress in 2008 and was very fortunate to have him join my office the next year as district director and then chief of staff.

I, my staff, my constituents, and especially our country are all extremely fortunate to have had the benefit of his good judgment, calming influence, team-building leadership, and above all, an innate ability to soothe ruffled feathers, an art that is often in very high demand in my office. Despite my best efforts over the years, he has managed to maintain good relations with our local officials, district leaders, and a diverse range of constituents.

John Boehner once told me that a good chief of staff allows a Congressman to be a Congressman, and Rocky has been successful at that throughout this decade and a half.

The progress we have made on forest management in this district that spans the western slope of the Sierra is in large part due to his constant interaction with local and Federal officials and his total devotion to the businesses of our gateway communities around Yosemite.

He cares deeply about the health and safety of the people of these mountain communities, about the struggles of local businesses, the welfare of his fellow veterans, the governance of our great Nation, and the principles of liberty that he has served in the United States Navy and the United States Congress.

He has trained a first-rate team that will carry on as he leaves congressional service to enjoy time with his wife of 51 years, Gail, his three grown children, and his eight grandchildren.

Our entire team will miss him greatly and miss the wisdom as we bid him, as Lincoln put it, an affectionate farewell.

Mr. Speaker, on my behalf and that of a grateful constituency and a grateful Nation, I thank Rocky Deal.

Mr. Chairman, over the last 10 years, we have lost fully one-quarter of our Federal forests to catastrophic fire.

An untended forest is no different from an untended garden. It will grow and grow until it chokes itself to death, and then it will succumb to disease, pestilence, drought, and ultimately catastrophic fire. This is how nature gardens. She doesn't care that it takes a century or more for a forest to regrow. We mortals do.

Excess timber will come out of the forest in only two ways. Either we will carry it out, or nature will burn it out. That is why we created the Forest Service, to do our own gardening and remove excess timber before it can choke off the forest.

Every year, foresters would mark off surplus timber, and we would auction it off to logging companies who paid us to remove it. For a century, we enjoyed healthy, fire-resistant and resilient forests.

However, then we passed bureaucratic laws which have made the active management of our forests all but impossible. A simple forest management plan now takes an average of 5.3 years to complete, and it costs millions of dollars, more than the value of the timber to be harvested. Since these laws were passed, timber harvested from Federal lands in California has fallen 75 percent with a concomitant increase in acreage destroyed by fire.

My friend, Mr. Huffman, is concerned about climate change and carbon dioxide. He should know that a UCLA study revealed that just the 2020 fires in California alone released twice as much carbon dioxide as had been

prevented by 17 years of the restrictions and regulations that California has imposed, costing its consumers and taxpayers billions of dollars.

Now, we were able to get a categorical exclusion from NEPA for forest thinning projects in the Lake Tahoe Basin in 2016. In the 9 years since its enactment, it has reduced the approval process for forest thinning projects at Tahoe from 5 years to less than 4 months. It has reduced the environmental reports from more than 800 pages down to a few dozen.

Timber harvested has increased from roughly 1 million board feet a year to 9 million board feet a year. The treated acreage has tripled, and the Tahoe forests are returning to fire resiliency. This is what saved the city of South Lake Tahoe from the Caldor fire 2 years ago. The town of Grizzly Flats, which was not protected by this law, was wiped out by the same fire.

I have been trying for years to expand these proven reforms to the rest of the National Forest System through the Proven Forest Management Act. That measure is now included in this legislation, and its enactment is long overdue.

This should not be a partisan issue. The choice is between policies that have proven to work and policies that have proven to fail. Let us return to the policies that work before we run out of forests to burn down.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 53, I call up the bill (S. 5) to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to take into custody aliens who have been charged in the United States with theft, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, S. 5 bears the name of Laken Riley, murdered by one of the 8 million illegal aliens that Joe Biden and his Democratic supporters deliberately allowed into our country over these last 4 years.

In Laken's case, the murderer was paroled into this country through a shocking abuse of that power. He was repeatedly arrested for theft and other crimes in sanctuary jurisdictions and each time released back onto our streets. Just months before he murdered Laken, he was arrested for theft, but ICE couldn't take him into custody because of the Biden- Harris administration's policies that shielded such monsters from arrest and deportation.

This measure, first introduced by Representative Mike Collins, would require ICE detention for illegal aliens who are charged with, arrested for, or convicted of any burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting offense.

The Democrats have argued that the mere accusation of committing a crime should not be grounds for detention and that shoplifting is no big deal. They ignore the fact that every illegal alien is currently required to be detained by current law throughout the pendency of their asylum claims.

The Democrats have thumbed their noses at this law for the past 4 years. Their excuse is that they were prioritizing detaining more dangerous offenders. This bill does exactly that, yet they still oppose it.

During his first term, President Trump proved that the President, on his own authority, can secure our borders. President Biden proved that a President who is determined to make a mockery of our immigration laws can willfully open our borders to the most violent criminals, terrorists, gangs, and cartels on this planet and then use the Democrats' sanctuary laws to protect them.

This national nightmare ended at noon on Monday, but what of future Presidents? This bill ensures that what happened to Laken Riley cannot happen again should another Joe Biden disgrace the Presidency.

Our Senate colleagues have added to the Laken Riley Act parts of Sarah's Law, introduced by Representative Randy Feenstra and Senator Joni Ernst, to mandate detention for illegal aliens who commit any offense that involves death or serious bodily injury.

Sarah's Law was named after Sarah Root. On January 31, 2016, as Sarah drove home after celebrating her college graduation, an illegal alien, who was street racing while drunk, slammed into her SUV, snapping Sarah's spine and fracturing her skull. Sarah died 4 days later, on February 4.

Within hours of her death, a judge set the illegal's bond at $50,000 because no detainer was filed despite a desperate request by local police to do so.

The administration defended this dereliction of duty because the illegal alien had not been convicted of a criminal charge and, therefore, was not an ``enforcement priority.''

S. 5 closes this loophole by requiring detention for illegal aliens, like Sarah Root's killer, who are arrested for, charged with, admitted to, or convicted of any crime that resulted in someone's death or serious bodily injury.

In addition, this bill includes elements of Representative Jeff Van Drew's Detain and Deport Illegal Aliens Who Assault Cops Act, which passed the House last year and applies the same mandate for those who assault law enforcement officials.

This bill would also allow States to bring a civil action against derelict Federal officers who refuse to enforce immigration law. This was first introduced by Representatives Dan Bishop and Chip Roy in the SUE for Immigration Enforcement Act. That bill also passed the House twice as part of the Laken Riley Act. That bill was also killed by Senate Democrats last year.

Whether it is sober reflection or perhaps the sobering results of the November election, a handful of Democrats in both the House and the Senate have now come over to support this law. We welcome them. We wish them well in convincing the majority of their party that they need to change course, if not for the good of our country, then at least for the good of themselves. We will take their support any way we can get it.

I have every confidence that President Trump will end this scourge upon our Nation during the next 4 years. This law, and the others that will follow it, will ensure that no future President will be able to unleash upon our country what Joe Biden and his Democratic supporters did.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the so-called bipartisan legislation that the gentleman refers to would have made it impossible for President Trump to have taken the actions he has just taken to secure our border until illegal immigration exceeded 4,000 entries a day. That is why it collapsed in the Senate and it was ultimately disavowed by its own author.

The gentleman is correct to lament the terrible violence in our Nation, especially in our dangerous Democratic cities. So here is a modest proposal: Take the criminals off the streets, like Laken Riley's killer, which is exactly what this bill does.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Yakym).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Feenstra), who is the author of Sarah's Law that is incorporated into this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I remind the gentleman that current law already requires every illegal immigrant to be detained. That law is simply not being enforced. This bill says that if that illegal alien who is supposed to be in custody anyway is arrested for other crimes, then they really have to be taken off the streets.

If this bill had been law, then Laken Riley would be alive today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Greene).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Onder).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins). He is the author of the Laken Riley Act in the House, representing her hometown and her grieving family.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

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

First, in response to my friend, I would say after the last 4 years in which the Democrats brought the full force of the government to intimidate social platforms, to shut down dissenting opinions, and stifle public debate, I would be a little more careful about invoking the Alien and Sedition Acts.

The gentleman offers us gun control as an antidote; we offer criminal control. Get the criminals off the streets, which is exactly what this bill does. I am sure that he must be very upset that Mr. Biden pardoned his son for gun crimes.

Mr. Speaker, to my Democratic colleagues who have joined Republicans to pass this bill into law, I thank them for standing up to the woke left of their party. That is a hard thing to do, especially when it exposes them to their insults and epithets and threats of political retribution. To the others, I ask how many more laws with names attached to them do we need to pass before you take this crisis seriously.

How many American citizens must die at the hands of illegal aliens before we all agree that these tragedies are fully preventable? Must the name of my child or their child be the one attached to an H.R. number or an S. number before Democrats can vote ``yes'' on these commonsense bills?

The fine point of the matter comes down to this: If this bill had been law, Jocelyn Nungaray, Sarah Root, Rachel Moran, Laken Riley, and many, many more such victims would be alive today because their killers would have been taken into custody. Under President Trump, they never would have been allowed into our country in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for adoption of this measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, three moms came before the House Committee on the Judiciary last fall. They had one thing in common. Their daughters had been brutally assaulted and murdered by illegal aliens who had been allowed into this country by the Democratic administration and had not been removed even after committing other offenses, as well.

The statistics tell us how broad this threat has become. Behind the statistics are grieving families, shattered lives, and entirely preventable atrocities. Not one of these murderers would have been here except for the Democrats' deliberate policies.

The Democrats often talk about the war on women, but they couldn't care less about allowing a flood of sexual offenders, domestic violence offenders, and child abusers into our communities, allowing them to stay indefinitely, free from any fear of deportation and protected by the Democrats' sanctuary laws.

When these monsters commit these ghastly acts and grief-stricken moms come here for help, the Democrats put on their best long faces, assure everyone how much they grieve with the families, and then argue to continue precisely the same policies that have produced this nightmare in the first place.

Thank God that in 4 days this tragic chapter in our Nation's history will close. Shortly after noon on Monday, President Trump will issue executive orders to protect the American people once again. It is too late for these grieving families but perhaps just in time for yours or mine.

Yet I worry that if the Democrats are ever returned to power, these policies will resume. We have got to change our laws so that they can't. This measure removes the loopholes in current law that allowed the Democrats to unleash this scourge on our communities and requires that illegal aliens who commit sex offenses or domestic violence not be allowed into this country under any circumstances and must be immediately removed if they do get in, no matter who is President.

Mr. Speaker, the unprovoked and barbaric attack on Israeli civilians on October 7 presented Israel with a fundamental moral obligation to annihilate the forces that had unleashed such depravity.

Ironically, the United Nations was conceived in the aftermath of the Holocaust, precisely to stand behind the civilized nations of the world when the forces of evil threatened.

Tragically, it has become grotesquely perverted. UNRWA's staff actively participated in the attack of October 7, and its ICC has now become a kangaroo court, waging lawfare against Israel's wartime leaders.

The ICC has thus made a mockery of every hope and dream that gave birth to the United Nations and has declared by its own obscene acts to be, itself, a threat to world peace, international order, and the rule of law.

I wholeheartedly support this bill, sanctioning anyone who gives it aid and comfort in pursuing its twisted agenda.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 5, I call up the bill (H.R. 29) to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to take into custody aliens who have been charged in the United States with theft, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 29.

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

Mr. Speaker, the brutal murder of Laken Riley was foreordained the day Joe Biden took office and reversed the successful Trump policies that had finally secured our borders.

Since that day just 4 years ago, more than 7.8 million illegal aliens have been deliberately allowed into our country--a population the size of the State of Washington, our 13th largest State.

Very little is done to vet these millions of illegal migrants. We don't know how many terrorists and violent criminals are among them, and worse, the Democrats don't seem to care.

We know that the number of terrorists we are apprehending has skyrocketed and that violent international crime cartels and violent foreign gangs are now operating freely in our communities, often protected from deportation and detention by the Democrats' sanctuary laws.

One of these criminals has now been convicted of the brutal murder of Laken Riley. How many such monsters have the Democrats deliberately allowed into our country we do not know, but we are slowly, painfully, and tragically finding out victim by victim.

In this case, the murderer was paroled into this country through a shocking abuse of this power by the Biden administration. He was repeatedly arrested for theft and other crimes in sanctuary jurisdictions and each time released back onto our streets.

Just months before Laken Riley's murder, this murderer was arrested for theft, but he was released. ICE did not take him into custody because of a Biden administration policy that shields many criminal aliens from arrest and deportation.

Sadly, this is exactly what those who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 voted for because this is exactly what the Democrats promised to do.

Fortunately, those who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 voted to stop this tragic travesty of our immigration laws because that is what he has promised to do and will begin doing over the Democrats' objections beginning at noon on January 20.

During his first term, President Trump proved that the President on his own authority can secure our borders. President Biden proved that a President determined to undermine and make a mockery of our immigration laws can willfully open those borders to the most violent criminals, terrorists, gangs, and cartels on this planet and use the Democrats' sanctuary laws to protect them.

This national nightmare will end at noon on Inauguration Day, but what of future Presidents?

The Laken Riley Act would require ICE detention for illegal aliens who are charged with, arrested for, or convicted of any burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting offense.

H.R. 29 further requires the Department of Homeland Security to issue a detainer for those illegal aliens and take custody of them effectively and expeditiously. It would also allow States to bring a civil action against derelict Federal officials who refuse to enforce these laws.

Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas, I am looking at you.

This bill passed the Republican House in March of last year, but Senate Democrats stopped it cold. I said at the time that, today, the name on the bill is Laken Riley. Tomorrow, it will be another victim of these policies, another son, daughter, or loved one.

It won't stop until this administration is stopped, and that can only be done by the American people. Thank God, the American people have done exactly that. They have given this Congress and this President the tools and mandate to secure our borders and remove every person who has broken into our country by violating our laws.

Without this law, a future Democratic President could once again release dangerous illegal aliens back onto our streets to prey on our people and destroy innocent lives like Laken Riley's. This bill would stop them.

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

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

I want you to listen to what my friend just said, that we shouldn't be placing illegals in detention simply for being charged with a crime; and, besides, shoplifting is no big deal anyway.

Listen to what he is actually suggesting. Current law requires the detention of every illegal alien who crosses our border. Every one.

The Democrats have studiously ignored this law, and now they are saying ignore this law even if the illegal has now been charged with committing other crimes as well. Let them back onto the streets, as they did with Laken Riley's murderer. If a few innocent teens happen to get raped and murdered along the way, well, too bad.

The Democrats have told us for 4 years that their refusal to enforce our immigration laws is because they are prioritizing more dangerous offenders. That is precisely what this bill does. It prioritizes dangerous offenders, and yet the Democrats are still opposing it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), the author of this measure. Mr. Collins represents Laken Riley's hometown and her grieving family in this House.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), who has done work on our subcommittee on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Van Orden).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Harris).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Madam Speaker, perhaps we should take all the criminals off the streets, starting with those who shouldn't have been in our country in the first place, which is what this bill does.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

Madam Speaker, I remind my friend that the law also requires every illegal alien to be detained until their case is adjudicated, which is what the Democrats have ignored these last 4 years.

This bill simply says if on top of that the illegal is charged with a crime, they need to be detained and taken off the streets.

The murderer of Laken Riley was charged but not convicted. Had he been treated as the detainer law requires, he would have been deported and Laken Riley would be alive today.

I am prepared to close when the gentleman is ready. I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague that the riot at the Capitol 4 years ago was an abomination. I have said so repeatedly whenever the subject arises. There is no excuse for it.

I would also remind the gentleman what Justice Kavanaugh said in the United States v. Texas. That is where the Supreme Court ruled the States

currently don't have standing to sue to enforce these laws. What he actually says was, the ruling was, it would require a change in law: elevating de facto injuries to the status of legally cognizable injuries redressable by a Federal court. That is what Justice Kavanaugh said we needed to do. That is exactly what this bill does, by the book, and yet the Democrats still oppose it.

To my Democratic colleagues, I ask them: How many more laws with names attached to them do we need to pass before they take this crisis seriously?

How many American citizens must die at the hands of illegal aliens before we all agree that these tragedies are all preventable, lest the name of my child or your child be the one attached to an H.R. number before the Democrats can vote ``yes'' on these commonsense bills?

How much more blood must be shed before we can all join in calling for an absolute end to the Democrats' reckless open borders and sanctuary city policies that have threatened our safety, devastated our families, and are in the process of destroying our country?

The American people have now spoken clearly on this issue. Enough is enough.

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

Mr. Speaker, our country is in dire fiscal straits. Years of profligacy under both parties are now crushing our economy under the heaviest debt in our long history. Just paying the interest on that debt now exceeds what we spend on our Nation's entire defense. History warns us that nations that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long.

Now many people find hope in President Trump's creation of an unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Others propose a bipartisan fiscal commission.

However, in our haste to pass the buck, let us all remember that it is Congress alone that holds the purse strings. Try as we may, we cannot escape our responsibility. Congress is the ultimate bipartisan fiscal commission because, in a very real sense, the buck starts here. The Federal Government cannot raise or spend a single dollar unless and until the House says that it can. Ultimately, this responsibility rests with us. It cannot be DOGE'd and it cannot be dodged.

Fortunately, we have the ideal tools in our possession to bring spending in line with revenues if we choose to use them properly: the budget resolution and the accompanying reconciliation act.

Here is how it works. Both Houses agree on a spending ceiling by a simple majority resolution. Reconciliation instructions are then sent to every House committee with the mandate to report out statutory changes to bring spending within these limits. If they fail to act, then the House Budget Committee acts in their place, and a single comprehensive bill goes to the floor for an up-or-down vote. The bill gets expedited consideration in the Senate, and when signed by the President, all the laws necessary to balance the budget are enacted together.

There is one catch. It can only be used to enact the fiscal reforms necessary to implement the budget. It cannot be used for general policymaking beyond these fiscal confines.

The last time this process was used as it was designed and intended was during the Republican majority led by Newt Gingrich in 1995. The result was four balanced budgets in a row that produced one of the greatest waves of prosperity our Nation as has ever seen.

Tragically, in 2017, the Republican majority under Paul Ryan utterly

squandered this authority. Instead of using the reconciliation process to bring mandatory spending to heel, it was abused to achieve pet political projects, first repealing ObamaCare and next for tax cuts.

The first attempt resulted in a mangled mess of incomplete fiscal measures that collapsed in the Senate. The next budget year, the object was tax reform, but since it had to fall within the narrow fiscal parameters of reconciliation, most of the tax cuts could only be temporary and will soon expire. The result was no healthcare reform and only temporary tax relief.

The opportunity cost was to squander our last chance to prevent the fiscal debacle that our country now faces.

Last month, the American people gave Republicans a rare second chance to save our country from insolvency. We must not repeat the mistakes that have brought us here. Republican leaders in the House and Senate are, once again, proposing to use the budget and reconciliation process not as it was designed, to set spending limits and adhere to those limits, but rather to chase a variety of shiny objects including tax reform, energy development, and border security.

These are all vital reforms, and they need to be enacted. Indeed, some aspects of them can be realized as a byproduct of the reconciliation process. However, that process cannot produce comprehensive policy reform. It can produce comprehensive fiscal reform at a moment when our Nation faces its greatest fiscal threat in its history.

I appeal to the Speaker to follow the success of the Gingrich majority. If we repeat the mistakes of the past, then we will lose the future. We are on the threshold of a sovereign debt crisis the likes of which this Nation has never seen and that few nations have ever survived. Let us not throw away this, the last fleeting chance to avert fiscal disaster.

The American people didn't save our country last month. They gave us the tools and the trust to save our country. Let us use the tools that they have given us, and let us be worthy of the trust that they have placed in us.

Mr. Speaker, most of the stories we read every day about outrageous government waste stems from a category of government funding called grants.

From the $3 million grant to study how hamsters fight each other to the $3.7 million in grants given to the Wuhan virology lab that likely unleashed COVID upon the world, these are the very essence of government waste.

Government grants fall into two major varieties: gifts of public money for every cause under the Sun and grants for local projects of every variety.

They are all for good causes. They go to universities, companies, NGOs, civic groups, charities, local governments, State governments, and do-gooders of every kind, all promising some public benefit.

Unfortunately, by their very nature, they are plagued with lax oversight, political favoritism, little followup, and questionable benefits. Indeed, much of the grant money doled out each year disappears into the salaries of various groups and agencies that will then write glowing reports of their work and apply for more grants next year in an ever-expanding litany of waste.

There is never a shortage of highly paid grant application writers eager to make that case.

``Personally, I liked the university,'' says Dan Akroyd's character in ``Ghostbusters.'' ``They gave us money and facilities. We didn't have to produce anything. You have never been out of college. You don't know what it is like out there. I have worked in the private sector. They expect results.''

If the Federal Government needs a particular good or service that it can't produce itself, it should send out a request for a proposal specifying what it needs and then award a contract to the lowest responsible bidder to provide it. Then, the contractor should be held accountable for delivering that good or service.

Another major class of grant recipients are local and State governments. Who can begrudge grants for law enforcement, wastewater treatment, transportation, homeless shelters, or schools? Yet, all of these grant programs beg a fundamental question: If a project exclusively benefits a local community, shouldn't it be paid for exclusively by that local community?

Why should the taxpayers in Pocatello be forced to pay for sidewalks in Poughkeepsie? Robbing St. Petersburg to pay Saint Paul turns our Federal Treasury into a grab bag for local pork projects that destroys the entire concept of New Federalism.

Local decisions and local money should be made and spent locally.

By definition, local grants are lower priority projects that simply can't make the cut when local governments are measuring their own local needs against their own local resources. They only make economic sense if somebody else can be stuck with the tab, and that is what grants do.

Money flows from politically powerless communities to politically powerful ones, often for frivolous projects that don't merit a place in local budgets. Because these Federal grants come with lots of strings attached, they are also inefficiently applied. But who cares since it is all free money?

A very simple test should be applied to this class of grants. If the project exclusively benefits a local community, that local community should pay for it. With that burden also comes the freedom to spend those dollars exactly as they are most needed. Federal resources should be reserved for projects that benefit the entire country. That is the difference between the Federal interstate highway system and a local street.

This is not a small matter. Between 2016 and 2020, Federal grant spending ballooned from $675 billion to $972 billion, and that is exclusive of Medicaid grants to States. That is nearly half of the annual Federal deficit right there.

Weeding them out or reforming them is no easy task because a thriving political ecosystem of wealth and favor supports them. In last year's spending spree, both parties indulged themselves with 8,222 congressional earmarks, a particular subset of grant spending where individual Congressmen handpick their recipients.

Here is a modest proposal for the DOGE boys: Stop the cash bonanza to every self-described deserving cause and influential community with a good grant writer. Budget writers and appropriators should look with extreme skepticism on every grant that awards

money without results or that robs taxpayers in one community to pay for projects in another.

It is time that we protected and reserved the Federal Treasury for the general welfare of the United States, as our Constitution envisioned.

I rise today to recognize Melinda Franca Fleming, a pillar of the Sonora community.

Melinda was born on the Hoopa Indian Reservation in Northern California and grew up in a small town called Waterford. In her early adult life, she worked to balance part-time jobs and family obligations with her college work, earning an associate degree from Columbia College and later graduating Summa Cum Laude from Stanislaus State. Melinda pursued a substitute teaching job prior to earning her teaching credential from the University of the Pacific.

As a full-time teacher, Melinda became quickly involved in her school community where she taught English, reading, journalism,

speech, yearbook, and newspaper. She was such a positive force that she was twice recognized as teacher of the year.

Melinda would later leave teaching to spend more time with her family, which now includes her husband Ken and their three children, nine grandchildren, and great-grandchild.

Melinda soon continued her community service as Executive Director of the Tuolumne County Alliance for Resources and Environment (TuCARE), a non-profit promoting good stewardship of public lands. By hosting educational lands tours with regional leaders and annual conferences on forest health, Melinda has had an incalculable impact not only on local forestry, but on informing long-term policies needed to save our forests, communities, and local economies for posterity. Due to her twenty years of service, TuCARE has been recognized as a non-profit of the year, a testament to her influence and dedication.

Mr. Speaker, Melinda Fleming spent her life serving her community. Whether educating and mentoring our youth or advising senior policymakers, Melinda's passion to better those around her embodies her true character as a model citizen. We are better for her service, and we know that even in retirement she will continue to serve through the shining example that is her legacy.

Mr. Speaker, free market capitalism is the most democratic possible way to organize an economy.

In a free market, consumers vote every day with every dollar they spend on what they want the economy to produce, who will produce it, and what they are willing to pay for it. The prices decided every day in this never-ending plebiscite also convey vast information regarding every product, including the scarcity or abundance of the resources in it, the labor conditions that produced it, and the systems that distributed it.

It is a perfect system that requires only that government protect the freedom for a willing seller and a willing buyer to make an exchange according to their own best judgment. No force is required because both act in their own self-interest.

The price signals of that simple exchange, multiplied infinitely throughout the day, guide the labor and resources of an economy to their highest and best use according to every person's own individual interests, needs, and judgment.

Yet, politicians love to interfere with this perfect mechanism through a variety of tools designed to direct the economy--that is, to replace the judgment of individual consumers and producers in the market with the judgment of politicians.

One of the most insidious and self-destructive ways they do this is by subsidizing the things that they think consumers should buy in order to make those things more attractive. This literally stuffs the economy's ballot box, diverting resources from their highest and best economic use for consumers to the highest and best political use for politicians. Worse, it corrupts the accurate price signals that are essential for consumers to make rational decisions over allocating their own resources and thus directing overall economic output.

Insurance, electric cars, mass transit, sugar, milk, solar panels, airline tickets, housing, tuition, healthcare, film production, green energy--it is hard to find a sector of the economy that isn't rife with subsidies. We also shouldn't forget the infinite subsidies that saturate our tax code.

True, these subsidies make the cost of favored products cheaper--and who can begrudge cheaper healthcare, tuition, or housing?--but that is an illusion. The reality is that sellers will always accept subsidies by raising their prices accordingly. Those receiving the subsidies are somewhat better off, but everyone else is much worse off.

As subsidies artificially inflate prices, more subsidies are required to ameliorate their effect in a continuing spiral. It is no coincidence that the prices in the most heavily subsidized sectors--like healthcare, housing, and tuition--are rising much faster than underlying inflation.

Provide first-time home buyers with a $25,000 subsidy, and sellers accept that windfall by raising their prices on the entire housing stock. Subsidies not only cost hundreds of billions of dollars and inflate the prices of the things being subsidized, but they also misallocate resources and misdirect consumer decisions.

Insurance, for example, is how markets assign a dollar value to risk. It is risky to build a house in a flood zone, and high insurance premiums reflect that reality. Subsidized insurance rates invite people to take risks that high premiums would otherwise warn them against.

Accurate price signals are absolutely essential if consumers are to make rational decisions as they vote every day on what the economy should produce, and they are just as essential if producers are to know what consumer demands they most need to fulfill.

Now, subsidies are so deeply ingrained in the economy that getting rid of all of them seems like a fool's errand. Every subsidy has a constituency, and the bigger the subsidy, the more powerful the constituency. Budget writers grappling with the largest Federal debt in history, and with an economy operating well below its potential, should be looking for every way to reduce, eliminate, or reform subsidies or substitute for them other mechanisms that can serve the same societal aims without doing so much damage.

Here is a modest proposal to Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy: If you want to balance the budget and improve the economy, just say no to subsidies. Not only will such a hunt save hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, but it will also reduce the overall cost of the things being subsidized and reinvigorate the economy by restoring the flow of capital to its most productive use.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and service of El Dorado County Supervisor John Hidahl, who passed away on November 2, 2024, at the age of 73.

John Hidahl was born and raised in California's Central Valley and graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Throughout his successful career, he worked at Aerojet for 31 years and Northrop Grumman for 10 years, where he filled various roles, such as a rocket test engineer, the director of engineering, and the chief systems manager. Coming from a farming family, Supervisor Hidahl was also the Chairman of Hidahl Ranch, where he helped manage the almond and walnut farm.

Outside of his career success, Supervisor Hidahl tirelessly worked to improve the community around him. His motto of service before self is evident in the various areas where he volunteered and served his community. Among his many other roles in the El Dorado Hills community, he served for 33 years on the County Water District, 36 years on the Area Planning Advisory Committee, and 23 years on the Community Council.

Supervisor Hidahl was elected twice to the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors, where he served as the District 1 Supervisor while advocating for a balanced budget, open space preservation, and housing options for seniors. Supervisor Hidahl was also engaged with his community outside of his formal roles, as he also actively supported the boy and girl scouts along with groups that serve the county's homeless population. In his spare time, Supervisor Hidahl enjoyed spending time with his family, traveling, and being outdoors.

Supervisor Hidahl is survived by his wife Eileen, their five daughters, and their 10 grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, Supervisor Hidahl was a devoted public servant who loved his country, his county, and his community. He will be deeply missed by all those who knew him. It is with a heavy heart that I rise today to honor his memory.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and service of The Honorable Nancy Leo, who passed away on July 29, 2024, at the age of 64.

Judge Leo was born and raised in California, where she attended El Camino Real High School. After graduation, Judge Leo attended California State University, Northridge, where she earned a bachelor's degree in marketing in 1981. Afterwards, her love of the law led her to Santa Barbara College of Law to earn her Juris Doctorate before passing the California Bar in 1990.

Judge Leo began her distinguished legal career at the Stanislaus County District Attorney's office. In 1996, she was elected to the Stanislaus County Municipal Court and two years later, she was elevated to the Stanislaus Superior Court, where she primarily presided over criminal cases. Despite the challenging nature of these cases, Judge Leo was known for her thoughtful, kind, and deliberate approach, treating everyone in her courtroom with the utmost respect. Her commitment to justice in Stanislaus County earned her the respect of her colleagues on the bench, court staff, and community justice partners.

Judge Leo's passions extended beyond the courtroom, as she was also an avid music lover, particularly enjoying The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Additionally, she loved baking her famous Christmas cookies

for her friends and family. Throughout her life, Judge Leo developed a love for Hawaii, which she considered a second home. She travelled frequently to visit the island of Oahu, where she married her husband, Douglas Leo.

Judge Leo is survived by her husband, stepdaughters, and beloved grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, Judge Nancy Leo spent her life honorably serving the community in her judicial capacity for over 27 years. It is with a heavy heart that I rise today to honor her memory.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5717.

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

Mr. Chairman, in just 3\1/2\ years, President Biden and his border czar, Kamala Harris, have allowed more than 7.6 million unvetted, illegal aliens into the United States. That is the equivalent of adding an entirely new State almost the size of Arizona, our 14th largest State, with nine congressional districts. Those not engaged in criminal activities are almost entirely destitute and are overwhelming public schools, hospitals, food banks, public housing, and social services.

This began the very first day of this administration, when Biden and Harris rescinded the remain in Mexico policy, ordered construction on the border wall halted, and literally instructed ICE to stop enforcing court-ordered deportations.

Today, ICE remains hog-tied in discharging its duty to remove even criminal illegal aliens from our midst. Before they can do so, they are now required to first develop a full profile of the criminal and to identify mitigating circumstances, such as if the criminal has high blood pressure or is a caregiver.

A former top ICE official told the Judiciary Committee that the Biden-Harris policies have made immigration enforcement more dangerous, more difficult to carry out, and less efficient overall. The flood of illegal mass migration at our southern border has thinned the ranks of ICE officers available to enforce laws within the interior because so many have been siphoned off to process illegals being allowed into our country.

When constituents ask me how this could be happening to their communities, I have to remind them that if they voted for Biden and Harris, this is exactly what they voted for, and if that surprises them, they weren't paying attention.

In 2019, Kamala Harris told the ACLU she would slash funding for immigration detention and close private immigration detention centers. As ABC News has been forced to confess, Harris did, in fact, endorse taxpayer funding to provide transgender surgeries for illegal aliens detained in the United States.

Americans are beginning to realize the severe danger to public safety posed by cities and States that refuse to notify ICE so that dangerous criminals can be turned over to them for deportation once they have served out their sentences, as the law requires. Instead, the woke left releases these criminals back onto our streets and into our communities to prey on new victims.

Instead of ICE being able to take these criminals into custody while they are disarmed and in custody, ICE agents, instead, must track them down and confront them when they are armed and at large. This is the very essence of the sanctuary policies that so many Democrats, including Biden and Harris, have supported and facilitated.

Although current law already prohibits jurisdictions from refusing to cooperate with Federal immigration officials, jurisdictions controlled by leftist officials continue to do so. This bill changes that.

The growing list of Americans victimized by criminal aliens released back onto our streets, in defiance of Federal law, is truly appalling.

According to ICE, Cook County, Illinois, saw law enforcement release 1,070 criminal aliens and immigration violators in fiscal year 2019 despite requests by ICE to notify the agency before they are released from local custody. One of those criminals was a Mexican national who had been arrested for theft. After his release from custody, that illegal alien lured a 3-year-old girl into a McDonald's bathroom and sexually assaulted her. Had Chicago authorities cooperated with Federal officials, that man, a convicted aggravated felon who previously had been deported, could have been in ICE custody and instead removed to Mexico.

In January 2023, a 27-year-old illegal alien from Mexico was allowed to remain in the United States through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program despite his arrest for domestic violence in New Jersey. Local law enforcement ignored an ICE detainer and released him, where he went on to murder his girlfriend and a married couple.

Without this legislation, we should brace ourselves for what is to come. In 2019, Kamala Harris committed to ending ICE detainers. H.R. 5717 would prevent any jurisdiction from ever doing so again.

Specifically, this bill renders sanctuary jurisdictions ineligible to receive certain taxpayer dollars that would bankroll illegal immigration in American communities. By denying certain Federal funding to jurisdictions that prohibit or restrict their cooperation with Federal immigration officials, the bill encourages sanctuary jurisdictions to end their anti-enforcement policies in favor of working with the Department of Homeland Security.

Today, Democrats will present far-fetched hypotheticals about how Republicans want to strip funding from program after program. On the contrary--to continue to receive these

funds, the jurisdiction would simply need to follow existing law. Isn't that what a nation of laws is all about?

It is absurd that a bill like this is even necessary. As we have seen time and time again, far-left jurisdictions would prefer to release dangerous criminal aliens back onto American streets than to deport them once they have served their sentence, as Federal law requires. This bill helps end this dangerous and tragic absurdity.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 8 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaLota), the author of this bill.

Mr. Chair, every grant the Federal Government makes to States and localities comes with conditions that they must fulfill in order to receive those funds. This measure simply says to get Federal funds, you must obey Federal law.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Molinaro).

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington), the chairman of the House Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Chairman, I am ready to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee received chilling testimony from Sheriff Mike Boudreaux of the rural Central Valley county of Tulare, California. What he told us should be an earsplitting alarm for every town and every city in America.

In the sanctuary State of California, the criminal cartels have sunk deep roots throughout the State. In his county alone, a single assassin for the Sinaloa cartel admitted to over 25 murders. The sheriff said:

That he was responsible for a certain area of California

and there were many other assassins assigned by cartels in

California, throughout California, that were responsible for

those areas.

Then he spoke to California's sanctuary State law. He told of a reign of terror committed by an illegal migrant over a 24-hour period in his county: a murder in Visalia, attempted murders an Exeter and Tulare, as well as shootings in Pixley, Sultana, and Visalia and an armed robbery in Exeter.

Here is the fine point of the matter: 2 days before this nightmare unfolded, this monster had been arrested, and ICE had requested a detainer so that they could deport him.

As Sheriff Boudreaux testified again:

Due to California's sanctuary State law, the Sheriff's

Office was legally prohibited from recognizing or honoring

the detainer of this would-be murderer and we were further

prohibited from notifying ICE of his release from jail.

This is the dystopian world the Democrats have created in California with their sanctuary law which was supported at the time by then-State Attorney General Kamala Harris.

As Sheriff Boudreaux told us:

Much of what I speak of in regard to California and the

violence, as well as the human trafficking, it is mirrored in

other States all throughout the United States. The cartel

wants to control these migrant towns and truly lead the same

way that they are in other countries, specifically in Mexico.

He estimated that well over 50 percent of the crimes that he is dealing with in his county are now being committed by illegal immigrants, but since he can't report or confirm these numbers, the official number is zero.

I might add that the NYPD estimates that 75 percent of the crimes that they are now dealing with in Manhattan are committed by illegal migrants.

If it has not come to your neighborhood yet, Mr. Chairman, it soon will if we continue down the path that we are on.

Mr. Chairman, the American people have precious little time to awaken and stop this insanity before it engulfs their towns, neighborhoods, and communities if it hasn't already. In the meantime, measures like this will assure that policies like this never again are allowed to threaten our families.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1455, I call up the bill (H.R. 7909) to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed sex offenses or domestic violence are inadmissible and deportable, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 7909.

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

Mr. Speaker, just last week, the Judiciary Committee heard from moms whose daughters were brutally assaulted and murdered by illegal aliens who have been welcomed into our country by President Biden and Vice President Harris.

The statistics tell us how broad this threat has become, but the individual cases tell us how deep and painful it is. It seems that every few days we learn of little girls and young teens or moms abducted by illegals, raped by illegals, and murdered by illegals, none of whom have any right to be here, and all of whom have been trafficked into our country by this administration's policies. These entirely preventable tragedies will continue as long as these policies continue.

The Democrats often talk about the war on women over abortion or employment policy, but it seems my colleagues couldn't care less about allowing into our country a flood of sexual offenders, domestic violence offenders, and child abusers, and allowing them to stay indefinitely, free from any fear of deportation.

When these monsters commit these ghastly acts and their grief- stricken moms appear before our committee, the Democrats put on their best long faces, assure everyone how much my colleagues on the other side of the aisle grieve with the families, and then argue to continue precisely the same policies that have produced this nightmare in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 7909, the Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act, removes any loopholes in current law and requires that illegal aliens who commit sex offenses or domestic violence are not to be allowed into this country anymore and must be immediately removed from our country when they are found, period.

The Democrats say this is duplicative of existing law. If that is true, why do they oppose it? The Democrats say it is unnecessary. Tell that to the growing number of families who are paying the butcher's bill for these open-border policies.

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