Floor Statements

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment expands upon the base tax.

The base tax says that none of these funds may be used to establish a central bank digital currency. A central bank digital currency shouldn't be established. Establishing could mean that it has already been created and waiting in the wings just in case we need it.

For ``Star Wars'' fans, imagine if we let the empire build the Death Star, as long as they promise not to turn it on. Let's not do that.

Let's not build this thing in the first place. We shouldn't design it or develop it. It shouldn't exist. That is the point of this amendment. Stop wasting your time on something that the American people don't want and Congress hasn't authorized. I think the base tax sort of gets at that, but I wanted to expand upon that to be clear. We don't even want it to exist.

Why is this important?

On March 9 of 2022, the Biden administration released an executive order outlining the administration's approach to the risks stemming from digital assets and blockchain technology. This included a directive to explore a United States central bank digital currency.

On March 1, 2023, the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Lang gave a speech focusing on the administration's efforts thus far to design and develop a central bank digital currency: `` . . . a CBDC would involve both a new form of central bank money and, potentially, a new set of payment rails. Both real time payment systems and CBDCs present opportunities to build a more efficient, competitive, and inclusive U.S. payment system.''

She announced the creation of the Treasury-led CBDC Working Group to complement the Fed's work on the U.S. CBDC.

These are excerpts from her speech.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has made substantial steps toward developing a central bank digital currency, as well. They have done numerous research on projects on the design, but the San Francisco Fed is actually recruiting and hiring for a senior crypto architect of a central bank digital currency to develop a U.S. central bank digital currency.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is clear. The authority for creating money rests with this body, and we clearly aren't authorizing that.

In testimony the chairman of the Federal Reserve has made it clear that they couldn't actually establish it without congressional authorization.

We want them to stop building it.

What is a central bank digital currency?

It is a corruption of the concept of money from its proper use as a store of value and a means of exchange into a tool for coercion and control.

The version that is being studied is the same version that the Chinese Communist Party is implementing in China, which is a centrally managed, centrally controlled database.

Now, I am not saying the United States would automatically do the same things China is doing with it, but it would have the same features where the central government actually sees every single transaction. There is no intermediary. In fact, the central government becomes the intermediary between the person and their own property. It would have a claim on it, but their claim would rest with the Federal Government.

We do not need that kind of money in the United States. We don't want that kind of money in the United States. It is Orwellian, and it is dystopian. Every dystopian future has some version of corrupted money where the money itself is used as a tool for coercion and control.

In fact, the Book of Revelation, what I consider Scripture, talks about this, and in our time we are seeing the technology that could do it. In over 100 countries this kind of design and development work is underway. The United States should not partake in it. It is always depicted as evil, and we should have no part in it.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment. To be very clear, not only do we not want it established, we do not want it to exist.

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

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's argument is not against the language of this text. The gentleman's argument is about studying something or researching it, and the clear language does not prohibit research or study. It does prevent designing or developing it. We don't want them to create it.

Research all you like, Mr. Chairman, understand how evil it is. I assure the gentleman I am actually an expert on this field, and I am on the authorizing committee. We have as a committee passed language that prohibits the use of a central bank digital currency by the United States of America.

So the appropriation is aligning with the work of our authorizing committee. This is not legislating or it wouldn't have been made in order. It is a simple prohibition of the use of funds to do certain activities.

We don't want them to create this. They can research, they can come and say: We have studied this, and we think there are some really interesting ideas, and here is a proposal for something that might exist someday.

Mr. Chairman, we simply don't want them to create it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

The working group I think is within the purview of study and research. We just want to make sure that they don't cross the line into designing and developing, and it looks like they are starting to do that. We don't want them to create something and say: See, it already exists.

We didn't appropriate money for them to do that. We didn't tell them to create it. We just want to be more clear on what we want you to do. By all means, research.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, we rightly recognize one of the chief rivals to the United States is China. Really, more specifically, the Chinese Communist Party that has a grip on power over the people of China, and one of the key tools for their power is their currency.

The amendment I am offering today would limit the Treasury's ability to go along with an organization we helped to create, the International Monetary Fund. The International Monetary Fund is supposed to support financial stability in the world. Part of the way they do that is with something called special drawing rights.

This is a basket of currencies that they extend to others, and they added the Chinese RMB. In 2016, they officially joined the IMF's elite basket of currencies, which determines the value of the IMF's Special Drawing Rights.

Special Drawing Rights are not only a reserve asset in central banks around the world, they also serve as a unit of account for the IMF.

The IMF's decision was something of a coup for Beijing as the RMB now sits in this exclusive club with only the dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, and the yen.

I believe the IMF's elevation of the RMB was premature at the time. China lacked rule of law, as it still does today. Nevertheless, the IMF thought validating Beijing anyway would somehow encourage their government to pursue reform and work within the international community.

None of this has come to pass, of course. China went on to assault Hong Kong's democracy. They have increased state control of their economy. They threaten Taiwan actively. They act as a lifeline to Putin's regime in Russia, and they are actively carrying out a genocide against Uyghurs in their own country.

Rather than look at these facts, the IMF chose last year to not only have the RMB in the Special Drawing Rights basket but to increase its weight from 10.92 percent to 12.28 percent, making it the third-most prominent currency in the basket behind the dollar and the euro.

Even leaving aside China's aggression at home and abroad, the IMF undertook this move despite China's lack of an independent central bank and a free-floating currency, as well as China's nontransparent policies for their exchange rate management.

I want to highlight this point. The CCP controls China's currency management and monetary policy, and the value and interest rates of the Special Drawing Rights are influenced by that now.

In turn, the Special Drawing Rights interest rate helps determine the borrowing costs for IMF member countries, and that rate should be based on transparent economic governance, not black box deliberations of the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr. Chairman, enough is enough. My amendment would prohibit the Treasury Secretary from supporting an increase in the RMB's weight in the Special Drawing Rights currency basket.

A similar initiative, the Chinese Currency Accountability Act, passed the Financial Services Committee unanimously in February. This amendment aligns our appropriations with our authorizing committee.

While I remain baffled as to why Treasury would have allowed the RMB to enter the Special Drawing Rights currency basket in the first place and certainly to increase its weight, we must prevent this bad situation from getting worse, and that is what this amendment does.

I urge all of our colleagues to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to receive the update that the administration doesn't anticipate changing it, but let's be clear.

That doesn't prohibit them having flexibility. They can actively work to decrease the weight of the RMB. They simply can't work to increase it. Since they say that is their stated policy goal, I think it provides them exactly what they need.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense amendment. It checks the power and growth of the influence of the Chinese Communist Party and their currency, the RMB. It should not grow in its influence. That is what this amendment could help accomplish.

I urge all our colleagues to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, this amendment will decrease funding for the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS by $505 million and move it to the spending reduction account.

AIDS is a horrific disease. We have lots of horrific diseases in our country, but we don't have programs for everybody that gets a disease. We don't have programs specifically for people that get cancer, for example.

We have programs for AIDS because when AIDS was first spreading, people didn't understand it. They thought it would spread like a contagion, that you could get it just because you lived in the same housing development as someone else. Now that we properly understand AIDS, we don't have the same kind of denial of access to housing for people.

We do have need-based housing, and there are people with AIDS who have needs, and some of them currently are even being housed under this program.

The reality is they would still have access to housing if they are qualified for need-based assistance just like every other American. It doesn't eliminate the safety net but eliminates the special, favored treatment.

Why is that important? Well, look. We have to cut something. Ronald Reagan famously recognized that the closest thing to eternal life we will see on this Earth is a government program. There is always a new program, but there is never a time to get rid of an old program.

This program just continues on without real authorization. It just keeps getting appropriated. It is time. It is time to take it away.

It is time to curb our spending. This HUD program spends almost $3 billion more than it used to spend in discretionary spending.

We are going to have to turn something off. We have over $33 trillion in debt, and in the next 18 months, we are supposed to add another $3 trillion. Are we supposed to take spending seriously once we get to $50 trillion? At some point, people recognize that if something can't continue, it will eventually stop.

It is not compassionate to bankrupt America. We put these programs out there, and we say they are so compassionate, but they are not because they are leading our country toward a crash site. This is going to end in financial ruin.

This is the same kind of point we tried to make when they said, let's close the economy and print money. We are spending more money than anyone will even lend us. The Federal Reserve became the lender of last resort,

and their balance sheet grew by $5 trillion.

We knew that was going to cause inflation. That is why I created the Sound Money Caucus in July of 2020. They said it wouldn't cause inflation. We said it would. They said it wouldn't hit consumers. We said it would.

They finally acknowledged, well, maybe it will be transitory. That is the phase we are in. How transitory is it?

All this goes back to policy decisions. You might be able to print money, but you can't guarantee that it will keep buying the same amount of stuff. We do have to turn something off. I think this is a tragic situation when anyone has a disease, but we need to turn this program off.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, the amendment doesn't stop people who have genuine needs as defined by our current needs-based program from receiving assistance.

It maintains the same level of compassion it has for all Americans. It doesn't treat them with any special distinction. In fact, it restores equality instead of denying it.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, our colleague just makes the point. If Chicago needs a program, Chicago could operate a program. If the State of Illinois needs a program, Illinois could operate a program. If the State of New York needs a program, the State could operate a program. The Federal Government does not need to operate this program.

It disproportionately goes to high-density populations in urban areas. It doesn't affect rural America. Frankly, it federalizes a problem that is much more localized.

It is time to let something finally expire and say this need has largely been met. The health conditions are much more survivable than they were when this program was launched.

I urge my colleagues to take this opportunity to finally trim something that is no longer needed. It restores equality in our social safety net rather than continuing to distort it. Please support my amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would reduce the salary of Victoria Nuland to $1. She is currently the Acting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

Presidents have come and gone. Victoria Nuland remains at the State Department. She last served in four administrations as a pillar of the State Department. Normally, such a long period of service would be marked with gratitude, so why propose to effectively remove her?

President Eisenhower cautioned us about people like Victoria Nuland who would put their own interest at odds with America's interests.

We have come to call them endless wars or an ``America Last'' foreign policy, but Eisenhower called it the ``military-industrial complex.''

She is exhibit A on how America could actually get in fewer wars if we cleaned house at the State Department and had a more focused foreign policy.

Officially, the State Department is supposed to promote America's interests. If anyone at the State Department has represented the neoconservative consensus that has left America less free, less safe, and more burdened by debt over this last generation, it is Secretary Nuland.

She hangs the American people out to dry while escalating tensions and pushing through regime change everywhere she can find an opportunity.

From 2003 to 2005, Nuland served as the principal deputy foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. She championed the Iraq war and created the case for regime change and nation-building, though the official threat was weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism.

From 2005 to 2008, during President Bush's second term, Nuland served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO where she concentrated on strengthening allied support for NATO intervention in Iraq, dramatically expanding the scope of NATO.

In 2011, Nuland became the State Department's spokesperson under Hillary Clinton. Yet again, she cheered for another regime change, this time in Libya. Her campaign led to toppling the government, the murder of Muammar Gaddafi and an enormous and ongoing refugee crisis, frankly one that continues out of Iraq, as well.

Similar to the effects in Iraq, this intervention turned a once- stable Libya into a failed terrorist state.

What was Nuland and the uniparty's response?

Well, in the words of Hillary Clinton, ``We came. We saw. He died.'' They left out the part about chaos and instability.

Rather than a solution to create and promote peace, they have promoted chaos and disorder. Immediately after, her newest narrative to justify, a regime change in Syria began. We still have U.S. troops in Syria, though that is a more effective way to fight ISIS than the way we fought for nation-building in Iraq.

In 2013, Nuland was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. While she couldn't get brigades of armor deployed to Syria like she did in Iraq, she swiftly started destabilizing things in Ukraine. She used this position to meddle in Ukraine's elections, manage violent protests on the ground, facilitate a coup, and in addition, she began to campaign for NATO expansion.

In 2017, Nuland played an active role in spreading actual disinformation via the Steele dossier, whose claims had no factual basis.

Nuland has never been held responsible for any of these actions. Instead she has been elevated as the face of Washington's uniparty foreign policy agenda. Wherever she goes, war follows.

Sadly, those wars have been in conflict with America's national security interest. She spent her time in the Biden administration as an avid supporter for regime change in Russia. In addition, she has been vocal about her desire to transform NATO into an offensive treaty that projects power around the world.

Her actions have yielded disastrous results for the American people, and it is far beyond time that she is held accountable. This amendment is a great place to start.

I urge my colleagues to support it, and I urge the Biden administration to part ways with Secretary Nuland.

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

Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague's comments.

Frankly, I hope that is the message that is received. If you came to serve the United States Government to advance your own interests instead of the Nation's, I hope you choose not to go into the Foreign Service.

That is exactly the message I want to send to Victoria Nuland and everyone else in the State Department.

Frankly, I hope we go far beyond this and eliminate whole sections and floors of the current staff there. This amendment is a start, not a finish line.

Mr. Chair, I urge all of my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, the amendment I have offered would prevent the Department of Defense from purchasing data that would otherwise require a warrant, court order, or subpoena. The amendment would also end unauthorized surveillance practices.

The government is currently circumventing the Fourth Amendment by purchasing location data, internet browsing data, and other sensitive information. The so-called data broker loophole is a severe threat to the right to privacy in the United States.

Freedom surrendered is rarely reclaimed, but we must defend our Fourth Amendment.

Government surveillance programs are routinely misused and targeted at Americans. The FBI, in fact, admits it conducted 278,000 improper searches of American citizens in 2020 alone. If the government can buy its way around the Fourth Amendment, there will be few meaningful limits on government surveillance.

We need to pass this amendment. It at least stops the Department of Defense from doing that inside the United States of America.

Mr. Chair, I reserve balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the support of my colleagues to get this amendment to this point and, frankly, the commitment to the work ahead. It is important for our national security, but the whole premise of the Department of Defense is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The way we go about that has to preserve the way of life that our Constitution establishes, that the Bill of Rights guarantees that our protections will exist, and we have a lot of work to do to restore the protections of our Fourth Amendment.

This amendment is an important first step, and I ask all of our colleagues to unite and make it a fully bipartisan level of support.

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

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, my amendment simply requires a mission statement from the National Command Authority.

We used to insist on a mission and an exit strategy before we committed to wars. Make no mistake, this is a proxy war in Ukraine. Russians have unjustly invaded their neighbor, and Ukrainians are rightly defending their country.

The first thing the administration did was offer President Zelenskyy a ride. He said, in a very inspiring response: I don't need a ride. I need ammunition.

Who couldn't be inspired by that?

Before we spent $113 billion, we should have expected a mission. We still don't have a defined mission. Whether it is in public or in a classified setting is fine with this amendment, but it should be required. We should have done it up front, we should have done it subsequently, but we should at least do it now.

Before we spend this other $300 million that is in this National Defense Authorization Act, we should require what every E-5 and above is able to draft. It is the least we can expect out of our National Command Authority.

When we commit to something, the Nation should commit to it, not just our military and not just our checkbook, an open checkbook. Without a mission, we can't hold anyone accountable for failure, and we can't properly claim mission accomplished. We must have a mission.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment requires a mission. We have asked nicely, we have asked persistently, and they have given us no response, so there has to be consequences.

We figure $300 million out of $113 billion is a small price. It is enough to get their attention, hopefully. Who knows?

They can't account for billions of dollars at the Pentagon. Instead of holding them accountable for it, even firing anybody, we are giving them even more money.

Now, I couldn't be more pro-military. I enlisted in the Army. I got the chance to go to our Nation's military academy. I came back as an Army infantry officer, served in the Ranger regiment. I love this country with a soldier's passion.

We have got to put our country first. If we are going to spend money, we should at least demand a mission, and $300 million is small change.

In fact, before this bill could even make it through the Senate, before appropriations could even come up, they could draft a mission. They could draft a mission today, and they probably have it. The trouble is, they have three or four versions of the mission.

The mission to make sure this war doesn't spread to a NATO ally would be a just cause, but it is not clear that is what they are trying to do. They are not pursuing any kind of peace negotiation.

The mission to require no Russians in Ukraine could be a just cause, but that is very different than a mission that says no Russians in Ukraine including Crimea. Each of those are radically different resource allocations.

I want to know, if we are going to give resources, what mission are you asking me to fund?

Here is the really radical one. Victoria Nuland from the State Department says that our mission is regime change in Russia, including war crimes tribunals for Vladimir Putin. Now, if that is our mission, we don't have resources for that fight. That would require us to be in the fight. That is fundamentally a declaration of war. That is an unlimited war of regime change, a war of aggression by the United States because we have not been attacked.

Now, make no mistake, we are using a proxy. But isn't a proxy meant to facilitate a broader war with Russia? Unless we demand that mission, how do we hold them accountable for not growing it and expanding it? We must demand a mission.

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

Mr. Chair, the gentleman from South Carolina talks about war criminal Putin. That makes me think he supports regime change in Russia, because that is what it would take to prosecute Vladimir Putin for war crimes.

Now, I am not saying that he is not a war criminal. I am not saying anything he has done is just. It is not. The question is: Is that really the mission that we are trying to fund?

The sequence is ready, aim, fire for a reason. It is not ready, fire, aim. It is not too late to pull back and do the rational thing here and commit to a mission so that we can be accountable, and we can hold this administration accountable, our military commanders accountable, and, frankly, our weak State Department accountable for actually accomplishing a mission.

Hopefully, they succeed, and we can say: Well done. Mission accomplished. But they don't want to be accountable for the mission. That is why they worked so hard to oppose this rational standard that was always the cause. Post-Vietnam, we learned we commit to a mission, and we commit to an exit strategy. We abandon it at our peril. We are less free, less safe, and more burdened by debt because of it. We have to demand a mission.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, the amendment I have introduced, amendment No. 40, simply requires that the Department of Defense study and report the health conditions arising in members of the Armed Forces after administration of the COVID-19 vaccine.

We have important voids in the data collected afterwards. We moved development of this vaccine at warp speed, and the Department of Defense mandated that members get the vaccine, so we have a great ability to study these members.

They have very consistent health checkups. They have very consistent requirements for predeployment, postdeployment, during deployment. There are lots of ways to capture data in the military population, and, frankly, it is overwhelmingly young, fit, healthy people that make up our military, so the study could be very important.

It would be important to understand any long-term effects or healthcare needs in the vaccinated population, and we could learn from that process to develop future considerations, whether it is risk assessments as we mandate vaccines, or how to combat future health emergencies more effectively.

The Biden administration forced our men and women in uniform to take this vaccine without really knowing the full effects which would have been great to know in advance. But given the pandemic, they made a decision that the risk was too great. Lots of us disagreed with that risk assessment. That is all past.

At this point, we simply want to study how did it turn out? What were the effects? What have been the results? That is all the study does.

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

Mr. Chair, I am inquiring as to whether the gentlewoman is actually opposed to my amendment. For her to qualify as an opponent of my amendment she would have to speak in opposition to the amendment; what it does.

My amendment does nothing about abortion. It simply requires a study of COVID-19.

Mr. Chair, I must say that I consider the opposition to this amendment, which no one raised an objection to the actual amendment that I am offering, dilatory. I think it could be objected to by the Chair and gaveled down, and we could just call the question, unless they are actually opposed to the amendment.

They are debating something that my amendment doesn't do. It simply requires a study on the results of COVID-19. It doesn't say what the outcome has to be. It just says to study it, to come back to us and tell us: How did it turn out for the people who got vaccinated? Do they have any other health problems? Do they have better health? What is the outcome as a result of these folks being vaccinated?

I just want a study of the vaccinated population. It is a very simple amendment. We are considering hundreds of amendments, so if the other side is simply looking for a way to filibuster and delay, I would appreciate them not doing it on this amendment and staying to the rules of the House. If they have an objection, then state it, but they object to something else and are using the time inappropriately in my consideration.

I ask for the consideration of the Chair.

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

Mr. Chair, I haven't heard an objection to this amendment. I hope we can agree to move forward and conduct the study. We just want to know what the health effects were on the vaccinated population in the military so that next time we can make a better risk assessment and hopefully get it right.

We will learn a lot from the military population that can surely help the rest of the country because they have much more consistent access to healthcare, much more consistent required checkups. I think the dataset can be very good. I hope we can get this study done.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this good amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, this amendment requires the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress a report on allied contributions to defense spending.

The 1985 NDAA established an annual report from the Department of Defense on allied contributions to our common defense with the initial focus on NATO. Of course, the Cold War was going on then, but that continued until 2004. The DOD stopped producing this report as the Pentagon's priorities shifted to the global war on terror.

Nevertheless, the report is an important one. NATO allies have an obligation to provide their own defense. We don't want there to be some misunderstanding that NATO membership has somehow bought war insurance and that America will either fight or fund your war. We will help you fight and win a war under article 5 and only then if Congress authorizes combat.

We might authorize spending, we might authorize combat, but Congress is the body that declares our wars. We can do that better when we know whether our allies are promoting their own defense. If they are shortchanging their own defense, we might feel differently about the vulnerability.

Weakness invites aggression. Unfortunately, many of our allies have invited that aggression. As Donald Trump cautioned Germany, as an example, you shouldn't be doing business with Russia. Look how it turned out. Now, this isn't simply the fault of Germany underfunding their defense or becoming totally dependent upon Russia. Russia took advantage of it, but Germany was naive enough to fall victim to it. It hasn't hurt Germany as directly as it has hurt Ukraine, but it all works together.

Ukraine is not a NATO ally, but they are an ally. They are clearly paying a high cost for their own defense. Could we have worked differently and prevented this combat?

Let us look at other areas around the world. As we look at our allies, whether it is Israel as an ally, Taiwan as an ally, our NATO allies, or others around the world, I think it is important that this report gets produced and we understand it.

I think it is also important that, if appropriate, we share it in public so that our adversaries know that we have

a very strong collective defense and a strong commitment. If we don't hold people accountable for it, we will inherently be weak, because their intelligence service will know. It motivates our allies to do the right thing.

Since 2006, the majority of our NATO allies have consistently failed to meet their 2 percent GDP defense commitment. Even as a war is taking place in their own backyard, the United States remains the largest contributor to the war in Ukraine.

The U.S. should not continue to subsidize the defense of NATO member countries who choose not to invest in themselves.

Good data makes for good legislation, and this report would supply Congress with valuable information that is needed to make sound policy decisions that put America first.

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

Mr. Chair, the gentleman didn't raise an objection to understanding how much they are contributing. He implies he already knows. The world doesn't know, and I certainly don't get access to all of that information.

I do know they are paying for their own defense, and some of them quite a lot. I do know that they have helped in the war in Ukraine, and they have certainly taken on a heavy burden with refugees. All of that is different in different places around the world.

Our allies stating how much they contribute certainly helps us make policy. I hope all my colleagues will see through this as an attempt to avoid accountability for our allies. We shouldn't underappreciate them, but we shouldn't cover for them either. We should hold them accountable, and the American people should know they are stepping up, they are doing really well.

You can state it in percentage of GDP. That is the obligation, 2 percent of their GDP, and yet the biggest countries with the biggest resources with very little debt, I might add, aren't paying their defense.

In our case, we are borrowing from China to defend our country and, frankly, to defend lots of them and people that aren't even part of our NATO alliance.

It is important that we pass this and we study it. Whether this amendment passes or not, we need to know it, and we need to hold them accountable for their failure to honor their obligations.

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

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Mr. Chair, my amendment strikes section 217 which authorizes funds to NATO for the joint fund established for the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic Initiative with the acronym DIANA.

NATO has suffered from major mission creep and bureaucratic bloat while separate entities like DIANA are tied closely to the innovation fund that was to launch in NATO in 2022.

There are 22 allies listed as participants, and the United States isn't one of them. Meanwhile, there are numerous countries that are participating in this fund; Germany, Turkiye, Italy, Spain, et cetera, who already do not meet their 2 percent GDP commitment to fund their own defense.

Why would we expect them to contribute fully to DIANA when they won't contribute the basic amount to their own defense, which is NATO's purpose, to defend. It is a defensive alliance.

We have colleagues who support a new strategic purpose for NATO. It doesn't need a new strategic purpose. It isn't even accomplishing its own purpose to focus on its own defense.

You have countries like Germany who have literally no debt. There is very little debt in their country. Meanwhile, the United States is borrowing money to fund things like this.

We could fund it for our own country, but I don't know that we need to fund it on behalf of NATO. This program adds one more financial burden to the United States within NATO while European countries take a free ride off our efforts.

There is no focus from the United States Government to make these countries pay for the commitments they made as part of being members of the NATO alliance.

Since 2006, they have all avoided their basic financial responsibility. There is no reason to expand the financial obligations within NATO until they follow through and honor their commitments.

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

Mr. Chair, I agree that we should be working collaboratively with our NATO allies. In fact, we do.

I was fortunate to get to serve in Germany at a time when the Cold War was at its height. I saw the wall fall while I was there, and I got to see people rushing to our side. They were not asking for more government. They were asking for more freedom.

Germany is reunified, things we never thought we would see, but they are also spending their money on all sorts of things except their own defense. Now, they spend something. They are helpful. I don't want to underappreciate the good things they do, but we shouldn't continue funding initiatives together unless they honor their commitment.

In fact, only 7 countries out of these 23 countries are paying 2 percent of their GDP. If we don't hold them accountable, why are they going to step up? They are not. Meanwhile, we are bankrupting our own country, making us weaker, less free, less safe, more burdened by debt, and we are not holding our allies accountable for paying their fair share.

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

Mr. Chair, this is an important signal to send to all our allies. We are, indeed, your allies, but we are not going to fund or fight your wars. You are not buying insurance for America to carry the load. We are a participant. We would love a collaborative relationship. The idea that they are doing something better in DIANA is encouraging, but they are not honoring the fundamental nature of the agreement, and that is a problem. We have to hold them accountable for doing just that. I don't understand why my colleagues object to doing that.

I understand people are passionate about the DIANA program, and that is why I hope they are passionate about it. You have something maybe they care about. I don't know. We have got to send the message that you can't just underinvest in your own defense and count on America to bail you out.

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

Mr. Chair, it is precisely the time to lean in and have your allies' back. If our allies won't do that now, when will they do it? There is a war on their borders, and they will not invest at the levels they have committed to as part of the treaty.

If they won't do it now, when will they? How do we not hold them accountable for this?

We have no defined mission, we have no accountability, no defined strategy. We just have an open checkbook. How in the world does this encourage a stronger alliance? It doesn't.

I ask my colleagues to please support this amendment. Please hold our NATO allies accountable for doing what they said they would do.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise to offer amendment No. 51 as the designee for Mr. Roy.

Mr. Chair, this amendment expresses a sense of Congress. This doesn't even have teeth on it. It just asks nicely, please, NATO allies, would you contribute the amount that you said you would, please? It is a kind ask. It is a sense of Congress that you should do what you said you would do.

NATO countries who choose not to invest in their own defense, specifically meeting the 2014 Wales Summit Defense Spending Benchmark, better known as the 2 percent GDP commitment, should be held accountable for that. That is all it is saying, you should actually do what you said you would do.

In 2006, NATO defense ministers agreed to annually commit a minimum of 2 percent of their Nation's GDP on their own defense. According to NATO, this spending threshold ``serves as an indicator of a country's political will to contribute to NATO's common defense. . . . ''

In 2014, the NATO alliance adopted the ``defense investment pledge.'' At that time, only 3 of NATO's 28 NATO member countries were meeting their 2 percent defense spending commitment. At that time, the NATO alliance issued the statement: We agree to reverse the trend of declining defense budgets, to make the most effective use of our funds, and to further a more balanced sharing of costs and responsibilities. Our overall security and defense depend both on how much we spend and how we spend it.

They recognized the problem, and they committed to change course back in 2014. The Senate ratified this pledge in 2014 with a ``yes'' vote 97-2.

In 2022, NATO's annual report showed that only 7 of now 30 NATO member countries meet the 2 percent GDP defense spending level. Numerous NATO member countries use the United States security umbrella to evade their financial commitments to their own defense.

There is a war raging on their borders, and they are still not stepping up. If not now, when? This amendment that I am offering now on behalf of Mr. Roy that I have cosponsored doesn't cut anything. It just says, it is a sense of Congress that you should do what you said you would do. It is a sense of what the Senate said 97-2 when they ratified it that, yeah, we agree with this pledge.

The United States is doing it. Why in the world shouldn't our own countrymen expect the members of their alliance to do what they said they would do as a part of the alliance?

Failing to do this makes our alliance weaker, it makes our alliance less secure, and it sets a horrible standard for any future ally.

Mr. Chair, I urge support for this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I would just point out that Ukraine is not a member of NATO. I know some of my colleagues want to make them that, maybe so that we could already go to war with a country that would inherently involve Article V, or they would be admitted today because they are in a state of war today. However, they are not, so we aren't having NATO allies in bunkers right now hunkered down and having allies call them out.

The surest way to wind up there is to continue to under-invest in our defense, and that is exactly what more than 75 percent of our NATO allies are doing. They said they would invest in their defense and they are not doing it.

Do they have no shame? They expect us to carry the load? Are we going to fight and fund their wars?

I mean, we did help a lot in World War I. We helped a lot in World War II. There were a lot of people that fought and died, not just Americans, to get there. But America is a great ally, and

we are simply asking that they too become great allies. That is all this amendment does. It doesn't cut funding. It doesn't bail on them.

It simply says, we expect you to do what you said you would do. We are just calling it out. You are not doing it. Please do it.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment doesn't deal with Ukraine, it deals with NATO. It doesn't say anything bad. It denounces people that don't do what they said.

I denounce people that don't keep their word. Shame on you. You said you would do something, and you didn't do it. You should be held accountable for that. That is all we are saying.

Seventy-five percent of NATO countries, the biggest, strongest, biggest economies, they are the ones that are underinvesting. There are some heroes out there like Poland or Estonia that are spending more than their share of their GDP. But the biggest, wealthiest countries in Europe are underinvesting, and it is time to hold them accountable.

I urge our colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 3564.

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

H.R. 3564, the Middle Class Borrower Protection Act, will undo a bad policy implemented at the worst time. Americans are struggling to afford housing. I am talking about the loan level price adjustments that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, FHFA, put into effect on May 1 of this year. This policy essentially implemented a cross-subsidy to individuals with lower down payments and lower credit scores.

Loan level pricing adjustments are up-front fees which adjust the final interest rate charged on mortgage loans based on different risk characteristics associated with individual loans. The most notable characteristics would be the mortgage's underlying loan-to-value ratio and the buyer's credit score.

While such fees may be necessary for Fannie and Freddie Mac, collectively known as the GSEs, to raise capital and adequately hedge against credit risk, the adjustments announced by FHFA would disproportionately hurt individuals with credit scores of 680 or greater.

To put that into perspective, the average credit score is around 710, and nearly 19 out of 20 Americans have credit scores above 680. The other thing is credit scores alone aren't a proxy for wealth or income. Therefore, most Americans would likely be hurt by these fees.

However, those with a credit score below 680 will benefit from lower rates than the prior LLPA assessments. This fee change violates the fundamental principle of risk-based pricing: Lower-risk borrowers should pay lower prices than higher-risk borrowers for access to the same credit.

Despite the FHFA's opaque approach to assessing LLPAs, the result of their new policies speak for themselves. The Middle Class Borrower Protection Act would reinstate the old LLPA prices that were in effect prior to May 1, while also directing the Government Accounting Office to complete an independent study of the processes and data used by FHFA to change the prices, including the impact of those changes on the safety and soundness of the GSEs, which, I will add, have been in conservatorship under the Federal Government for 15 years. Then GAO would report to Congress within 1 year of the study.

FHFA would be prohibited from changing the LLPAs until 90 days after the report, after which it would be required to: one, follow the basic agency notice-and-comment procedure for making any new changes to the LLPA fee; and two, ensure that future fee adjustments be made based on the actual risk posed by the mortgage.

FHFA would also be prohibited from imposing any new fee on borrowers based on their debt-to-income ratio, which was an idea they considered implementing effective August 1.

Finally, I will acknowledge that over the past weekend, the Congressional Budget Office scored this bill, and they assessed a cost of $1.8 billion for implementing this bill. I believe the fact that CBO says this bill costs a single penny is absurd and exposes a glaring flaw within our legislative process.

Perhaps CBO has a rebuttal, but that would require them to show their work, which they have not. This is why I have long advocated for another bill of mine, the CBO Show Your Work Act.

This past week exemplified just why we need transparent processes when legislating. The reality is these fees aren't even going directly to the Treasury. While the GSEs are in conservatorship, the money is supposed to go to the balance sheet of Freddie and Fannie so that they can accumulate capital.

As this rule is announced, the explicit purpose was to grow capital on the balance sheets of Fannie and Freddie. These were taken over by the Federal Government in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. They have remained in the conservatorship of the Federal Government. The revenue isn't coming in directly to the Treasury, it is meant to actually free the GSEs from control of the Federal Government.

These revenues were not imposed by Congress, so there really isn't a need

for us to replace the revenue that the administration imposed with a really misguided rule. There was no revenue coming in on April 30. On May 1, they implement this policy change, and somehow, we are supposed to come up with the revenue to offset it.

Now, I argued against doing that. I asked the Rules Committee to ignore the misguided advice of the Congressional Budget Office and to not implement a pay-for because it is not our--we didn't cause this expense to occur. Frankly, it is not even a real expense. It is essentially a tax imposed by the administration.

Because of the rules, we offered a manager's amendment which was ultimately incorporated into this bill. We add 1 year to a 10-basis point fee that is assessed on every Fannie and Freddie loan, regardless of your credit, just as a cover. That rule has been in place since the bill passed in 1992. It was set to expire in 2032. Now it will expire in 2033.

I hope between now and then we can change that, and we can also liberate Fannie and Freddie from their ongoing conservatorship which, I will note, has lasted longer than Britney Spears' conservatorship. The only way that it would cost the Federal Government money is if the conservator is actually raking money out of it and funding their own operation, which is not what is supposed to happen. It is supposed to stay with Fannie and Freddie, so it shouldn't be costing the Federal Government a dime to implement the Middle Class Borrower Protection Act.

Nevertheless, Fannie and Freddie will benefit from one extra year of money being collected under this manager's amendment that was adopted and incorporated in the bill.

Let me return and focus on the bill at hand, the Middle Class Borrowers Protection Act. Let's think about this: A Federal agency acting under its own purview and not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act implemented a politically motivated cross-subsidy through a clear money grab on unsuspecting credit-worthy borrowers. This wasn't a decision by Congress. This was simply the FHFA using its position as conservator of the GSEs to increase the government's baseline.

Now Congress is trying to undo the changes and re-implement a policy that was in place just 8 weeks ago.

However, Congress, as I said, had to pay for this fake shortfall. Like we see time and again, only in Washington, D.C., would math like this make sense.

It is imperative for this body to protect the cornerstone of the American Dream by promoting housing affordability, and H.R. 3564 does just that.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman points out things that just aren't so. The idea that a loan that has less equity in it isn't riskier than a loan with more equity in it is completely false.

Every business school in the country will teach it, but most people don't need to go to business school to understand that a loan with a lot of equity in it is at much less risk of default. It is rational to price risk, and that is what the market should be doing. Plus, people who have low income and have high credit scores are punished by this foolish policy. This simply will undo it.

The last thing I will say is, right now, there is money that is being taken away from consumers in the marketplace--$1.8 billion over the next 2 years. Once this bill passes, that stops getting taken away. The 10-basis point pay-for that is in this bill is still in effect right now.

In fact, it is scheduled to go out in 2032. In the near term, nothing changes in this bill. It is in 2033 that the pay-for comes in, again, only with the false accounting at the Congressional Budget Office would that even be necessary.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry), the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Missouri is accurate. This does cost money. It costs the 19 out of 20 Americans with 680 credit scores or better who choose to get a Fannie or Freddie mortgage, it costs them money. It takes it out of their hard-earned dollars and transfers it to the GSEs.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice).

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the ranking member for recognizing that low-income people do have high credit scores. That is why it is unjust to implement this rule and charge them a higher fee than maybe wealthy people who have low credit scores.

This is an interesting observation. The ranking member on the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, Mr. Cleaver, just pointed out that it would be dangerous to require the FHFA to use the Administrative Procedure Act, i.e., to give notice and get comment, before they implement policies that impose costs on the American public. In July 2020, Ms. Waters and the majority at the time sent a letter to Director Calabria--at the time the Director of FHFA--saying: ``Moreover, we urge you to use your powers under title 5 U.S.C. 551- 559, the Administrative Procedure Act, to engage meaningfully with all stakeholders.''

It seems they are not opposed to FHFA using the Administrative Procedure Act. In fact, they asked them to do it, so I wonder why it is selectively.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko).

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).

Mr. Chair, I have no additional speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, the American people should be angry. They should be upset because the Biden administration did impose a socialist redistribution scheme. The most egregious and obvious part is that they withdrew as we uncovered this and exposed what they were trying to do.

On August 1, their plan was to say that if you have a lot of income and very little debt, then you should pay more, even more than this scheme that took effect on May 1, and you should subsidize the people that have little income and more debt. Now, to be sure, they still would qualify for a mortgage, or they wouldn't get the loan, but that is patently obvious redistribution of wealth.

The component that took effect on May 1 isn't really a redistribution of wealth per se, but it does hit the average credit score of 710. Everyone with a credit score of 680 or above, 19 out of 20 Americans is being hit by a higher fee since May 1 for their mortgages.

It is a redistribution of credit scores, and that is even worse than an idea of redistribution of wealth, in a sense. Because you have responsible people who live within their means, might live just a little bit above paycheck to paycheck, save, scrape together, build up a downpayment, have a mortgage in place, and they are going to pay more now since May 1.

We have to fix this injustice. That is what this bill does. It is time to just move forward in a commonsense way.

First, you study the problem before you implement it. This bill requires the GAO to complete the study, and then it requires FHFA to look at the study, to take 90 days of notice before they implement something else. The part that it bans after the study is over is the real redistribution of wealth, the debt-to-income scheme.

Mr. Chair, I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense Middle Class Borrower Protection Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, while there has been broad discussion about the fundamental unfairness associated with the Biden administration's new tax on creditworthy borrowers, Congress' oversight role also extends to the process and impact these changes will have on home buyers and the housing market.

Members on both sides share policy concerns regarding this new tax, and it is equally imperative that we promote transparency to the American people on this flawed effort.

The GAO study does just that as the amendment Mrs. Boebert proposed would simply make the GAO study public. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and in no area is this more relevant than the opaque process with which the FHFA has enacted these and other changes.

This amendment would add to the GAO study included in H.R. 3564 which will play a critical factor toward furthering both Congress' and the public's understanding of this issue that impacts millions of home buyers.

Americans deserve a thorough accounting of the process and deserve to know the significant impact of FHFA'S actions. An agency that virtually controls U.S. housing markets should not operate without appropriate congressional oversight.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to restore fairness, transparency, and accountability to this process and policy that impacts millions of Americans. Amidst economic uncertainty and a housing affordability crisis, the American people deserve nothing less.

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

Mr. Chair, I urge all of our colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to this amendment, although I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chair, this is a commonsense amendment to the GAO study, and I applaud the gentlewoman from Nevada for including this comprehensive view on the impact of housing affordability.

It furthers the work of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, and I think it is an important addition.

Mr. Chair, I encourage all of our colleagues to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I urge all of our colleagues to support the amendment. I support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition, and I am opposed to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment introduced by Ms. Pettersen which would make it impossible to repeal the Federal Housing Finance Agency's damaging price increases on creditworthy home buyers. In fact, it will undo the entire point of the bill.

The legislation before us, the Middle Class Borrower Protection Act, would repeal these increases and would require the Government Accountability Office to assess the FHFA's fee structure. That is the point of the GAO's study.

It would also require that any future loan-level fees implemented by the agency adopt a risk-based price framework.

Ms. Pettersen's amendment would set up a sham test so that FHFA would have to keep those unfair fees in place even at the expense of the majority of middle-class borrowers.

So while the gentlewoman's amendment is designed to sound fair, the reality is that it would actually have the opposite effect of what it advertises. Instead of lowering fees for middle-income families, it would doom many of them to higher fees. In other words, a vote for Ms. Pettersen's amendment is a vote against the Middle Class Borrower Protection Act.

I also find it interesting that our friends on the other side of the aisle would support an amendment that essentially says: Don't do this if it makes fees go up, which is exactly what our bill does. It stops the fees from going up or staying up, as the case is on part of the plan that they implemented.

We should be united in saying that deliberately making mortgages more expensive for creditworthy borrowers is a foolish policy. The sting of inflation and higher interest rates are already hurting middle-income families, and this adjustment by FHFA is not fair.

While I cannot support this amendment, I am glad to see the recognition that we need to protect middle-income families looking to purchase a home from unfair pricing. It makes it harder for some borrowers to afford because they pay more just because they have high credit scores.

Ms. Pettersen's amendment would, unfortunately, lock in that unfair system.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. I urge all of our colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, Joe Biden's border crisis has become a nationwide crime scene. Cartels not only control the illegal drug market, they control our border. They are poisoning our country and exploiting every migrant who crosses our southern border. This sad crisis must end.

In my district, we had the tragic story of Lizzy Murphy who died from fentanyl poisoning at the age of 21. As in many cases, Lizzy was poisoned by just one pill, a Xanax laced with deadly fentanyl.

Though overdoses are also on the rise, many of these fatalities occur from just one lethal dose of fentanyl.

Just this week, we recognized National Fentanyl Awareness Day. The CDC has reported that two-thirds of drug-related deaths involve fentanyl. Drug fatalities are now the leading cause of death for 18- to 45-year-olds.

Today, the House will vote to pass H.R. 2. Next, Joe Biden and Senate Democrats must change course from their deadly policies. They must pass this bill, sign it into law, and implement it.

We need to secure our border, stop the cartels, and keep our communities safe. That is why I am supporting H.R. 2.

However, this legislation should have gone a little further to stop the evil work of cartels. As an amendment, I offered the Lizzy Murphy Act to stop the cartels, a bill that I have previously introduced. This bill designates certain cartels as special transnational criminal organizations and implements sanctions on them and anyone who provides material support to cartels.

We must recognize that cartels are enemies of our country and treat them that way. To disrupt their trafficking operations, we must detain or turn away all who enter our country illegally.

By forcing the Biden administration to resume construction of the wall, increase Border Patrol agents, protect unaccompanied children who are at risk of trafficking, and end their foolish catch-and-release practices, the Secure the Border Act of 2023 will begin to fix this crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the talented and diligent students in our Eighth District who participated in our annual Congressional Art Competition.

This year, we received 230 submissions from eight schools. The artwork from these dedicated students is on display at the Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum until April 30, and it is available online, as well.

One standout student received the grand prize victory for her art submission. I congratulate Paige Harris, who was our grand prize winner of the 2023 Eighth District Congressional Art Competition.

Paige is an 11th-grader and attends Badin High School, and her Urban Renewal work will be placed on display in the United States Capitol for the next year. Last week, I had the honor to meet Paige and her fellow art competition participants, and her family, as well.

We celebrate their hard work, their skills, and their creativity. I thank them all for their participation.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Madam Chair, this amendment requires any public school receiving Federal funds under Title I and Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to hold an open enrollment period both for students living inside and outside the school district.

Parents have a right to decide where their child goes to school, and this amendment grants parents this important right to choose the best education for their child, no matter the ZIP Code.

It is important to note this applies only to Federal funds. Some might argue, well, local schools have different tax jurisdictions. This is only for the Federal funds.

School choice is critical to not only the parent, but also to the student who deserves a safe, high-quality education, not indoctrination.

We must provide families with freedom to choose. It is the parents' duty to make the best choice for their children, and choice is the ultimate enforcement mechanism for this Parents Bill of Rights Act.

My amendment also requires that these schools post an announcement on their website with details about the open enrollment period to ensure parents have all the information needed to make an informed decision, such as an application deadline, the approval rate of applications, and how long the enrollment period will be valid. Again, this gives parents the power and ability to make the most informed decision.

Under this amendment, schools must give every student that applies via the open enrollment process, ``a full and fair consideration,'' an important detail to ensure that every student receives the opportunity to succeed.

Open enrollment and the increase in educational freedom is imperative to the success of our youth. It is a parental right and it is in the best interests of every student to be granted this opportunity.

This amendment provides every single parent with the power to choose.

Madam Chair, I urge support for my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I enlisted in the United States Army after high school and arrived in West Germany in the spring of 1989. The Cold War was at fever pitch, and at the Brandenburg Gate, President Reagan famously said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.''

On 9 November 1989, the East German people finally tore down their own wall; not Gorbachev, not America, not the West, but the people trapped on the other side of that wall.

I was there that Thanksgiving in the heart of Berlin when I met with people experiencing their first hours of freedom. One man asked me, ``Is it like this everywhere?'' I thought he meant like Berlin, a big city. I am from western Ohio and a small town. He corrected me. He said, No, the stores are open at night, and there is fresh milk and everyone can go in?

He had been told a lie that we were poorer in the West than they were, that only the elites could buy things, like the Communist Party officials.

He was not alone. The wall had separated their Communists from our freedom and free markets. The flood of people was to the land of opportunity, not to the failed ideas of Marx and Lenin.

The United States of America is worth saving. To do that, we must defend freedom and defeat socialism.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am here with a very heavy heart to honor Master Sergeant Joseph Kapacziewski, a member of the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.

Army Rangers are some of the most elite soldiers in the world, and Master Sergeant Kapacziewski, nicknamed Kap, was no exception.

In April 2010, while serving in eastern Afghanistan, his team of Army Rangers was locked in combat with a group of armed insurgents. When one of his comrades was hit, Kap sprinted through the fire to provide aid. With the help of a fellow Ranger, they dragged the wounded soldier to safety, actions which earned Kap an Army Commendation Medal with valor.

Kap's actions would be remarkable under any conditions, but considering his experiences from a few years earlier, they were inconceivable.

A native of Connecticut, Kap enlisted in the United States Army following his senior year of high school in September 2001, just days before the 9/11 attacks. In 2002, he was deployed to Afghanistan, and the following year, he parachuted into Iraq for the initial invasion.

With only 2 days left in his fifth deployment to Iraq in 2005, Kap's convoy was ambushed by heavy fire. A grenade exploded inches away from Kap after falling through the hatch of his vehicle. Shrapnel ripped through his body, shattering his right leg and severing an artery in his right arm.

Severely wounded, Kap collected himself, directed his vehicle to cover, and alerted the rest of the convoy to the attack. It wasn't until then that he allowed his wounds to be treated. Kap was evacuated to Walter Reed Hospital, and while his arm recovered, his leg did not.

Despite numerous surgeries, his leg was barely functional. Ultimately, there was only one choice--to amputate it. With the pain gone, Kap was fitted with a prosthetic, and he completed hundreds of hours of physical therapy. He had one sole objective during his difficult and lengthy recovery: He wanted to return to combat with his unit.

Everyone thought it would be impossible for Kap to achieve that goal. No one under his circumstances had ever returned to combat, and they agreed Kap had completed his service to our Nation. Kap didn't care. He completed the 12-mile ruck march test, parachuted with a combat load, and not only regained his squad leader title but was promoted to platoon sergeant.

Kap became the first Ranger in United States Army history to return to combat action with a prosthetic limb. He was awarded the Bronze Star with valor and a Purple Heart, among numerous other decorations. Kap was deployed to combat 11 times to fight the global war on terrorism, five of which were while he had a prosthetic leg.

He wrote a book about it called ``Back in the Fight.''

There is more to any of our soldiers or warriors than what they do in uniform. I have had multiple friends reach out to me who talked about the impact that Kap had on them as a leader and as a friend, whether it was riding motorcycles together or just hanging out after a tough day at work, in training, or any other way. He never lost sight of how he came to be where he was.

Unfortunately, Kap's life ended far too soon last week at the age of 40 due to a significant enemy our veterans face right here at home: suicide.

Our Nation has a moral obligation to not only prepare and equip the servicemembers we send into harm's way but to support and care for them when their duty is done. Yet, we have drastically failed countless numbers of our veterans who have sacrificed everything, including their lives, to protect us.

President Lincoln's promise to care for the men and women who have ``borne the battle'' is one of the most important functions of our government, and we must do better.

Kap's wife, Kimberly, and his sons, Wyatt and Cody, as well as the rest of his family and friends, are in my prayers through this difficult time.

Kap will always be remembered by many for his warrior spirit and his extraordinary story of resiliency that made him an inspiration and a military legend.

Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of lyrics to a song one of my friends, Darryl Worley, sings called ``The 22.''

Let me share a few of the lyrics:

You can't unsee what I saw

You can't get back what I lost

I've lost a wife

Five brothers

My kids and the man I was

I thought that I left the front lines

But the fight for my life rages on

We've lost 21 soldiers in only a day

And that's the unthinkable truth

So I'll lay down my gun

And I'll soldier on, and I will not be 22

I'll lay down my gun

I'll soldier on, and I will not be 22.

At the end of his journey, the Apostle Paul said: I fought the good fight; I have kept the faith; and I have finished the race.

I pray that everyone would live a full and natural life, fight that battle, and never surrender to it.

I thank you, Kap.

Mr. Speaker, I proposed H.R. 8331 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to temporarily suspend required minimum distribution rules for certain retirement plans and accounts.

I would like to briefly discuss these. These distributions are generally minimum amounts that retirement plan account owners must withdraw annually or else they pay a penalty. The amount to be distributed is calculated based on the account balance as of December 31 of the previous year.

Since the market was nearly at an all-time high at the end of 2021, and it has dropped more than 20 percent, the distributions from 2022 are disproportionately high. While this administration pushes more terrible inflationary policies that hurt our market, it is our retirees who are suffering the consequences most from this downturn.

I have introduced this bill to waive the required minimum distributions for 2022, much like this body did in 2020 in the CARES Act when the government shut down our economy.

My office has received countless phone calls, not just from my constituents, but from American retirees all over the country who are demanding that Congress address this issue. I hope we can get something done by the end of the year.

Madam Speaker, this bill will not reduce inflation. It will pull us deeper into the current recession and take America further in the wrong direction. It is simply more government and less freedom.

In the past year, inflation has exceeded 13 percent, and real wages have effectively fallen by 4.5 percent. The Federal Reserve and Big Government combined to fuel inflation, and now people are being crushed by these high prices. You cannot spend your way out of inflation.

But that is exactly what this bill tries to do with $745 billion in new spending. It raises taxes in a recession. And it gives more than six times the agency's current annual budget for the IRS. It is going to more than double audits on families.

Instead of addressing the 32 percent increase in energy prices by increasing domestic production, this bill spends billions on Green New Deal pet projects like a $27 billion EPA-run Climate Bank and a $250- billion federally run Department of Energy loan program.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues, please oppose this bill.