Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague, Congresswoman Foxx, for yielding. We disagree from time to time, and this is one of those.

I do agree that it shouldn't be seen as a partisan issue. The Democrats may see this as precedent-setting in a way that Republicans who support it don't. The precedent here isn't that every victim of fraud, and there are many when it comes to pensions, is going to somehow be made whole. Otherwise, you would create an incentive for people to commit fraud. One person takes the fall, and everyone else gets bailed out. That is not what this is.

When I listen to my colleague, Congressman Bob Good from Virginia, I might feel the same way if I didn't understand the facts of this situation. What this really amounts to is pension holders who were effectively the victims of civil asset forfeiture, which is an unjust and, in my opinion, unconstitutional practice that, sadly, is still tolerated.

This wasn't an underfunded pension. They weren't victims of fraud. Their pension was funded, and the government seized the assets. They seized what they said was the property of Delphi, a company in bankruptcy, but the reality is this is property of the pension holders. This is their retirement savings that was seized 13 years ago.

Thankfully, when Vice President Joe Biden said there is nothing we can do, in the intervening years, we found a way. I want to say thanks to Congressman Kildee from Michigan. I want to say thanks to my colleague, Mike Turner.

I was on Air Force One with him as we were flying from Andrews Air Force base to Dayton, Ohio. Congressman Turner took the lead, shared the message. We continued to work with President Trump at the time. He got it. He took action, and I think that this is one of the things where we have seen continuity.

I wish it would become a trend and that President Biden would carry many more policies with continuation. I think we would see great results because we are going to see great results out of this.

It sets the right precedent. I hope the precedent it sets is this government stops civil asset forfeiture altogether. It was unjust to do that to these pension holders, and I am glad that justice is finally going to come as a result of this bill.

Madam Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues, even those who thought they were opposed to it, once you understand what is really going on here, to get on board and support this just bill.

Mr. Speaker, during deployments and war, the military incinerated waste in large burn pits. Many contained hazardous materials that emitted toxic fumes. Our veterans have long suffered from the practice, but the VA has not been able to adequately recognize the effects and provide care for those who suffer from such exposures.

To be clear, this is not a benefit. It is a moral obligation to care for these veterans.

It is not a great bill. Congress has already squandered two decades trying to do the right thing here. When BP spilled oil and contaminated the Gulf, their responsibility for cleanup was not optional. Why should America's government have less responsibility for the harm caused to our veterans?

It is free to join our military, but for some, service costs everything. Others return with wounds that are seen and unseen. We must recognize the cost of war, and the bill for our veterans harmed by toxic burn pits is long overdue. Please pass this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues that have done a lot of work on this NDAA. Frankly, it is a huge bill. We are deliberating on a lot of amendments, and frankly, we are not deliberating on a whole bunch more that I wish we could debate.

I do want to rise in support of amendment No. 35 offered by Representative Jacobs which is included in this en bloc package. This amendment would require the Department of Defense to report which agencies have purchased or used American location data, phone records, internet browsing data, and so on. Our amendment does not reveal any classified information.

Purchasing sensitive data about Americans from data brokers and other sellers allows the Federal Government to potentially circumvent Fourth Amendment warrant requirements.

So who is purchasing it is of interest. If it is recruiting command, to find how to microtarget people the way that probably many of our campaigns do, that is something different than what a lot of people fear that it is, that it is part of a surveillance program, and frankly, warrantless data collection on American citizens.

Media reports from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and others have documented the Department of Defense's purchasing of our sensitive data. Military intelligence and law enforcement agencies have the greatest power to abuse this warrantless access to our sensitive personal and private data.

This transparency measure is a first step toward addressing the erosion of the Fourth Amendment, and I am proud to have cosponsored this amendment with Representative Jacobs.

I encourage all of my colleagues to protect our Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this bill. The Fed is not meant to be a political weapon. With inflation above 8 percent and the economy on the verge of a recession, this is one of the most inopportune times in our Nation's history to suggest that we turn the Fed into a political pawn.

Our Nation is suffering from too much government. Inflation is a policy choice, and this delivers more government to an agency that is supposed to be insulated from it.

We know the recipe. We need more freedom, less government, and sound money. This thing distracts the Federal Reserve.

Inflation doesn't care about your race. The price of groceries, the price of healthcare, education, rent, it doesn't care about your race or your gender. We have to stop the politicization of our government agencies as Democrats--really the radical left--stays committed to this long march through our Nation's institutions to try to push an agenda at odds with the American public. If this bill does anything, it highlights that disconnect.

Mr. Speaker, I urge every one of our colleagues to oppose this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think there could be a more serious matter before this body. Everyone in the country, frankly, everyone in the world knows we can't continue to see what is happening in our cities, in our schools, in vulnerable communities, we can't continue to see those things happening.

Sadly, Democrats have a preconceived play for every tragedy. A famous Democrat even coined the phrase, never let an emergency go to waste, never let a crisis go to waste.

It is a crisis for sure. But the crisis isn't the fact that America has guns or that individual American citizens have guns. We have always had guns.

What is different is the level of despair in our communities. We see it surging not just in mass shootings but in the rise of violent crimes, in the surge in suicides, in fatal overdoses. The leading cause of death for 18- to 45-year-olds is now fatal drug overdoses.

A lot of people will point to the mass shooters as they are ready to lose their lives. They have even coined a phrase, suicide by cop. They know how it is going to end when they go in doing it.

So what is driving this? Is it the gun? It is an inanimate object.

The solution, the Democrats say--it is a longstanding wish list. They have had a dream for a long time to repeal the Second Amendment. Frankly, they don't want to campaign on that.

Our colleague, Mr. Mondaire Jones from New York, when we were moving some of these bills through Judiciary Committee said, ``You will not stop us from passing gun control. If the filibuster obstructs us, we will abolish it. If the Supreme Court objects, we will expand. We will not rest until we have taken weapons of war out of our communities.'' Frankly, Justin Trudeau agrees, but he is the Prime Minister of Canada. Canada doesn't have a Second Amendment.

Just today, I was walking through the Capitol from the Senate side to the House side, and a reporter stopped me, and she pointed out inaccurately that the Second Amendment grants us the right to keep and bear arms.

No, ma'am, the Second Amendment does not grant us anything. In fact, the Bill of Rights grants us nothing. The Second Amendment is a limitation on the ability of government to infringe on our preexisting rights. Just as the Declaration recognized we were endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This is an extension of the right to life. And, hopefully, tomorrow we will see the Supreme Court defend life. You can't defend freedom without defending life. In the modern era one of the key instruments to defending life for adults is the right to keep and bear arms.

People have referred to some weapons as weapons of war. No, they are not the same weapons as weapons of war. Those were outlawed in the 1930s under the National Firearms Act. They have been outlawed for a long time. A semiautomatic rifle or a semiautomatic pistol is not a weapon of war, though sometimes they are used in that mode in combat. They are very effective in war, but our Founding Fathers didn't vest the defense of this Nation originally in a standing Army. In fact, they said we don't want a standing Army.

One of the limitations on this body is we have to fund the defense budget every cycle. We can't have it operate in perpetuity without reauthorizing it every time. We had a standing Navy, but we didn't have a standing Army.

Let's read the text of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment says: ``A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.'' Famous words.

People want to pretend that somehow the Second Amendment granted the State the ability to keep and bear arms. Only if you are in the military. Only if you are in the militia. That is the same right to keep and bear arms the North Korean Army has. What a fallacy. I can't believe some of our countrymen fall for that, but some of them do. And that is why my colleagues repeat it. They know, though, but they say the lie anyway.

Well, what are we going to do about it? Well, we are certainly not going to surrender our freedoms because we know freedom surrendered is rarely reclaimed. We aim to keep our Second Amendment.

Just as Ben Franklin--recognized walking out of the Constitutional Convention--was asked: What have you wrought, sir? A Republic if you can keep it. The people, and we aim to keep it as the people's Representatives.

Who defends freedom in Congress? The Freedom Caucus. I am proud to be here with my colleagues taking this time tonight to defend this important freedom.

But I think people are right to say, So what are we going to actually do about it?

If you listen to the debate you might know that there are a lot of shooters that turn into active shooters, mass murderers, doers of evil deeds that people will say after the fact, well, you know, everybody kind of knew Johnny or whoever was crazy. You know, we kind of saw this coming. Maybe we could have stopped him. If only there was a red flag law.

So people in America might not realize that in every single State and in the District of Columbia it is already possible to stop such a person. The law is known as the Baker Act. It is possible to have a person, even involuntarily, against their will, adjudicated mentally incompetent. That law preserves due process. The person has a right to confront his or her accusers. That law locks up the right thing. You can't deprive a person--under the Fifth Amendment and the 14th, you cannot deprive a person of life, liberty, or property without due process.

Red flag laws reverse that. Not only do they get rid of the due process, it is essentially civil asset forfeiture. First, you seize the guns and you get to due process later. It seizes the wrong things. It locks up the guns.

The person is the dangerous thing. So you take the guns away from the person. The person, if they really are mentally dangerous, they can get access to guns in other ways, perhaps illegally, as a substantial portion of shooters do. Perhaps they could drive a car through a parade route. They could use a blade. They could use all kinds of ways to harm others, and frankly, they could also harm themselves, turning into one of the tragic suicides that occur every day in our country.

So, no, I think the Baker Act ought to be the thing that people focus on. Those are overwhelmingly State laws. And we have to focus on understanding why those laws aren't used.

My colleagues know of these laws, particularly the ones on the Judiciary Committee, but they don't bring them up. They pretend as if the only way to stop this is with the red flag laws. And you know, while I know the Democrats have had a longstanding desire to go after the Second Amendment, I will admit it is especially discouraging when Republicans break ranks on this core issue.

I was disappointed to see 10 of our House colleagues vote for some measure of gun control in the House. Five of them aren't running again, and five of them may find that they are not running again at some point. In the Senate there are already 10 that are openly supportive of this outline, framework of a deal. We haven't seen text, but we do know it encourages red flag laws, which ought to be ruled unconstitutional, as all civil asset forfeiture ought to be ruled unconstitutional.

When you look at civil asset forfeiture, it is disproportionately used in minority and disadvantaged communities.

Why? How? Because they don't have the money to get the assets back. The government seizes it. It spins due process on its head, and you have to go to court to prove the property is yours or that you are able to own it safely.

And when you talk about a gun, while guns aren't always cheap, lawyers are more expensive. So most people will simply buy another gun, rather than go back and fight the unjust action in courts. It is so ripe for abuse. It is horrible to see anyone who has sworn an oath to support and defend our Constitution support such measures. I hope people will pull back and rethink it; not rethink solving the problem.

Let's look at the Baker Act, and let's look at mental health. Let's look at these acts of despair that are wrecking our communities and individual lives, and let's stop falling for the fallacies that somehow gun control is going to end the actions of these doers of evil deeds.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for hosting this special order.

Madam Speaker, from the debate and from the whole premise of this red flag law proposal, you would think that there was no such way to deal with this problem in America. It has been pointed out that 19 States have red flag laws already, but there are 50 States that already have a way to have someone adjudicated minimally dangerous.

Every single State, the premise that we can identify somebody who might pose a risk to themselves or others is the whole premise why red flag laws might work. But that is the same premise that allows Baker Acts to work in every single State and Washington, D.C.

The difference is that the person charged, the person accused of being this mentally incompetent, mentally dangerous person, has the right to confront their accuser. And that is what they are trying to undo. It already exists in law. Everyone knows that we cannot accept our children being murdered. We can't accept our communities being destroyed and gutted, not just by violence, by increasing violence, by increasing acts of despair; not just shootings, but suicides--and the number one cause of death for 18- to 45-year-olds--fatal overdoses.

There is something going on wrong. It is not the guns, it is the culture and the evildoer. When do we stop blaming the evildoer, the doer of evil deeds? And if you could identify who that doer of evil deeds might be, wouldn't you want to take them away from the weapons instead of taking the weapons away from them?

If you don't take the person away, they can get other guns. They might even get a car and drive through a parade.

Let's keep our communities safe. Let's keep our kids safe. Let's focus on the real problem and not just run the same play over and over again. The Democrats have a preconceived solution to every emergency, and it is shameful to watch this exploitation of violence to achieve a Democrat-longstanding objective to undermine our Second Amendment.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding, and I thank everyone who has had a hand in taking time to create this bill, to create this Congressional Gold Medal, to recognize the limited number of World War II Army Rangers that we have still alive with us today, and, frankly, to honor the service of each and every one of them.

The heroism and legacy of the Army Rangers go back to the Revolutionary War. Since we have fought, we have recognized the Ranger tactics and Ranger units that inspired the creation of the Rangers in World War II. So it is an incredible honor to have gotten the chance to complete the school and to serve in the 75th Ranger Regiment.

After the Civil War, more than half a century passed without formal Ranger units in America. Mr. Hill just highlighted the history of how that was created, but from their very first engagements in North Africa, it was clear the difference that they could make on the battlefield.

The 3rd and 4th Ranger Battalions were trained in Africa by Darby. It is hard to think that such a young man who lost his life, gave his life in battle for our country, created such a legacy that has continued today. They began a tradition of wearing the scroll at

that time, and it has officially been adopted by today's Ranger battalions.

The Second and Fifth Ranger Battalions participated in the D-day landings on Omaha Beach, Normandy, at Pointe du Hoc, and that is where the motto formally was coined: ``Rangers Lead the Way.''

They conducted missions, to include scaling cliffs there, overlooking Omaha Beach. They destroyed German gun emplacements, and they trained fires on the beachhead.

The 6th Ranger Battalion operated in the Philippines. Our colleague already highlighted their famed largest rescue of more than 500 POWs in that battle.

The 75th Ranger Regiment owes its heritage to the China-Burma-India theater as Task Force Galahad on October 3, 1943. It was during the campaigns in the China-Burma-India theater that the regiment became known as Merrill's Marauders after its commander, Major General Frank Merrill.

Madam Speaker, the Ranger battalions were deactivated at the end of World War II, and we know of all their achievements since then. But it is fitting that we take this Gold Medal as an opportunity to honor the service of our World War II Army Rangers.

Madam Speaker, I have requested this time to address part of the State of the Union that was not addressed last night. In fact, we saw that the President was so bold as to say that the border is secure and tout the fact that they have caught 2 million people at the border, as if that is success. That is what was said.

What wasn't said is what has been going on at the border for a long time and has been made worse by the policies that Joe Biden and his administration have put in place. Frankly, by the United States laws that he and his administration have ignored, and that Secretary Mayorkas enables every day that he leads the Department of Homeland Security down the wrong path for our country.

So, we are here to talk about, stop the cartels. We are introducing a bill called the Stop the Cartels Act. We spend so much time on the sympathetic cause of immigration and we conflate border security with immigration.

We can have an incredibly secure border regardless of our immigration policy, and border security is, in fact, national security. The cartels pose a serious threat to the United States of America. The products that they push in our communities have killed over 100,000 people.

This past year, the leading cause of death for 18 to 45 year olds is fatal overdoses. The drugs are bad, but now they are poisoned with fentanyl, and we are not taking the threat seriously. So the first portion of the Stop the Cartels Act will focus on gathering intelligence.

As we look at the country of Mexico, our southern neighbor, it controls the whole land portion of our southern border. That border is controlled by the cartels. I had Brandon Judd, the president of the Customs and Border Patrol Union, at a hearing that we had to have offsite because Speaker Pelosi won't have the hearing on the topic in any of our hearing rooms. She won't let the committees of jurisdiction deal with it, so Republicans are forced to go offsite to talk about this important topic.

When I asked him: Who controls the border? You or the cartels? Do the cartels control the border more than you?

He said: You are not putting words in my mouth. That is the exact point. The cartels control the border. We don't control the border.

I said: Why don't you control the border?

He said: Because of policies.

Do you need more resources?

That is a different topic. What we need is good policy. We had policies

that were working to control the border, and now we have policies that are not working.

The Border Patrol controls it. We are not even on defense, we are not even on the field, and we are not even in the stadium because the policies of this administration changed so that it gave complete control of our southern border to the cartels.

Now, we could talk about all the corruption and the problems that the cartels are causing for Mexico. That is a problem that Mexico has to deal with, and we should be able to help them once we prioritize intelligence collection on the cartels on par with the other threats to our country, on par with China, with Russia, with Iran, with North Korea, with al-Qaida, with ISIS, and with the known credible threats to our country.

The cartels should have the same level of intelligence priority as those other hostile or potentially hostile countries. And the cartels are clearly hostile. They do a lot of business here--billions and billions of dollars.

So we have highlighted this map. These are the areas that we already know which cartels control. You have the states of Mexico listed, but you also have color coded which cartels control that. We would like to have the granular detail of what is the org chart, who leads the cartels. I am not saying we don't have that, but we do not have it at the right priority. And then when we do have the intelligence--just as we have seen, the intelligence community got Ukraine incredibly right. The problem wasn't that we didn't have good intelligence with respect to Russia, the problem was the administration didn't do the right thing with the intelligence. But let's first get the right intelligence on the cartels.

So the next thing is we have cities, States, and counties that are completely ignoring the United States law. It is a Federal policy to decide who is a citizen and who is not a citizen. And when we go to enforce our laws as to who is here legally versus who is here illegally, that is clearly Federal jurisdiction.

We have cities, States, counties, and other communities that are ignoring these laws--sanctuary cities. And those sanctuary cities are saying: Not only would this be a great place to base your illicit activity, cartels, we will protect you by being a sanctuary. Please come locate your illicit activity here. Bring your drugs, bring your guns, bring your labor trafficking, your sex trafficking, your human trafficking, and bring your money laundering business and every form of corruption into our communities. That is what these first two maps show.

But let me show you next what the impact on our communities is, Madam Speaker.

This young lady to my right is Lizzie Murphy. She died at 21 years old. Drugs are bad, but now they are poisoned with fentanyl. Seeing that it is not a good idea to take it without a prescription or a specific use--a lot of people refer to it as a safe party drug--it is a bad decision. But it is not supposed to kill you. But when it is laced with fentanyl, that is what is happening to our young people. That is how fentanyl killed over 60,000 Americans last year. Not all of it is in the heroin. Not all of it is in the really hard stuff. Some of it is in the stuff that people never suspect is going to kill them. They take one pill, and they are dead.

That is what happened to my friends, Mark and Kristi Murphy when their little girl took one Xanax. Their daughter--she is sitting here hugging her sister, close friends, best friends--doesn't have her sister anymore.

This is wrecking our communities, and we have got communities inviting this in by being sanctuary cities.

We have got a President of the United States who is not just doing nothing, he is doing worse than nothing. He is making it worse by empowering the cartels. They exploit people, and they cause harm to our communities.

To highlight the ways this is happening and the ways to solve it, I have asked some of my colleagues to join me in this Special Order.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).

Madam Speaker, look, if we look over on the far right, how does a young lady lose her sister? How does a young lady, 21 years old, in Ohio wind up dead from fentanyl poisoning, poison in the drugs?

They know drugs are bad, but they are not supposed to kill them. They are in Ohio. Ohio is not--I mean, we do have a border. It is on Lake Erie with Canada. That is not the border that is causing our young people to die. That is not the one that is causing the leading cause of death for 18- to 45-year-olds to be fatal overdoses.

It is all the way down here on the southern border. And it is not officially the Mexican Government. It is the cartels. And we refuse to collect the intelligence at the right level.

At our southern border, we have a joint task force. We don't have a joint interagency task force. We have that out in the Pacific Ocean. We have that in the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean. But we don't have a joint interagency task force.

The place probably that it makes the absolute most sense to have an interagency task force is at the southern border. We have Customs and Border Protection. We have people that are focused on smuggling of people, smuggling of drugs, of guns. We have people that are focused on counterfeit property.

We are focused on levying taxes at the border, inspecting fruit at the border, and everything else. But we don't have an interagency task force that uses the power of our military to conduct surveillance, that uses the power of our Director of National Intelligence and all the resources that we have to know everything about the cartels, not some benign name like Sinaloa, but, specifically, who leads that.

We know who leads Russia. We know it is Vladimir Putin. They are a nation-state.

But we have these transnational criminal organizations that go unnamed. Again, they are involved in the activities not because they care so much about the activity itself. They want the money.

We don't have an organized way to collect all the intelligence on the money. What yachts are they buying? What properties do they own? How do they move this heavily cash business into other goods and services?

They move everything that can store value possible all over the world to try to clean up this money. We don't have the kind of pressure that was just brought to bear on Vladimir Putin going against the cartels.

Vladimir Putin we finally recognized as evil as he invaded Ukraine. But when he was doing the menacing, threatening activity, when we had at least gone so far as to collect the intelligence, we didn't take the actions that could have stopped him.

Here, we can't even go so far as to collect the right level of intelligence. Intelligence is the first thing.

The next slide I have deals with the sanctuary cities. We are going to defund the sanctuary cities. They can't keep getting funded. They have to conform to U.S. law.

We just had a Supreme Court ruling that said if you want to get paid for providing Medicare and Medicaid services, you have to make your employees conform. We can do that to American citizens, and we can't do that to deal with the cartels.

Now, it is a different topic, I will grant you, but it is the same thing, the strings attached to the money. We

have to put the strings attached to the money to say, if you want the money that is collected here in the city, you have to reflect the laws of the United States of America, and you can't offer sanctuary to these cartels that are killing our young people.

There is more to the bill, but let me highlight in another way the consequences of not stopping the cartels.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Budd).

Madam Speaker, this is a gravely serious matter. I highlighted a young lady, Lizzie Murphy; her sister, Catherine; her mom and dad, Mark and Kristi Murphy, who lost their daughter, their best friend, their sister.

Communities like this are losing young people all over our country. I kind of wish I could say that it was only happening where the sanctuary cities are pictured. I kind of wish I could say it was only right next to the border that we have the problem.

But our whole country is experiencing the problem because we won't secure the border. This administration won't secure the border. They won't listen to the men and women whose duty it is to secure the border.

I went down there a week after Joe Biden was inaugurated and they said: We told him. We will see what happens. They said they are going to do these things, and we told them this is what is going to happen.

Now, when we go to the border, when they come and talk to us up here, the exact same things they knew were going to happen are happening.

We stopped sanctuary cities. We put strings attached to the grants. But the other thing is we have this Flores settlement. Congress has not provided clarity on the Flores settlement, so we provide funding so that we can hold people as long as they need to be held till their cases are adjudicated on the Mexican side of the border.

We put pressure on the Government of Mexico to cooperate with us in this, and we put pressure on the Government of Mexico to resume their cooperation on intelligence-gathering.

Just yesterday, ahead of the State of the Union, I have my county sheriffs--Butler County Sheriff Jones was here in Washington, D.C. Why? Not because he is a border sheriff in the strict geographical sense, but because he is a border sheriff there in Ohio.

Let me close, Madam Speaker, by just highlighting that what happened to this family could happen to anybody. I appreciate the time to speak tonight.

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

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

I rise in support of S. 321, the ``Six Triple Eight'' Congressional Gold Medal Act.

Mr. Speaker, with our world so interconnected today, we can sometimes forget how big the role of mail played in our daily lives before electronic technology came about. This especially rings true for those who left home to defend our Nation in times of war.

As stated by the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum: ``For members of the Armed Forces, the importance of mail during World War II was second only to food. The emotional power of letters was heightened by the fear of loss and the need for communication during times of separation.''

The importance of morale-boosting letters was well-known back home in the United States, and many answered the call to send letters to the U.S. military fighting in the Great War. However, getting these letters to the Americans on the front lines was an arduous task.

By February 1945, warehouses in Birmingham, England, had a backlog of millions of pieces of mail. This is where the Six Triple Eight Central Postal Directory Battalion forever changed history.

Going back a bit, on July 1, 1943, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law legislation that established the Women's Army Corps, better known as WACs. Early on, this corps consisted of only White women, and even when African-American women were admitted into the WACs, the recruitment was limited to only 10 percent.

Additionally, those who did enlist served in segregated units; they participated in segregated training; and

they lived in segregated areas. Despite the overt racism and segregation, a total of 6,520 brave African-American women served in the Women's Army Corps.

In November 1944, despite slow recruitment of volunteers, a battalion of 817--and later, 824--enlisted personnel and 31 officers, all African-American women drawn from the WAC, the Army Service Forces, and the Army Air Forces, was created and eventually designated as the Six Triple Eight Central Postal Directory Battalion.

Upon arriving in Birmingham, the unit got right to work creating effective processes and filing systems to track servicemembers and organize ``undeliverable'' mail. They were so efficient that they cleared a 6-month to a year backlog in only 3 months.

Spurred on by their motto, ``No mail, low morale,'' these brave women cleared an average 65,000 pieces of mail per shift, ensuring that our servicemembers had the ability to hear from loved ones back at home and to sustain the high morale that was needed.

Since World War II, the Six Triple Eight has received the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Women's Army Corps Service Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal for their service. Today, we should add the Congressional Gold Medal to this distinguished list.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Representative Gwen Moore from Wisconsin, the author of H.R. 1012, for her work to bring recognition to these brave women. I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I believe we are in a period of dueling reserves, trying to accommodate colleagues who are en route. But I would elaborate. As a prior enlisted servicemember, never serving in a field of combat, just getting a letter from home when you were away on a deployment, or even from the very moment you went to basic training, in those days, you didn't have cell phones, text messages, emails, instant messages, web chat rooms and all these things, so your lifeline was the postal service.

Frankly, I owe to the mail service that delivered letters to me while I was a cadet at West Point a big part of the courtship that led to me marrying my wife. We dated the whole time we were there. We looked forward to letters. We did have pay phones back then, so you would wait in line for the pay phone that augmented the letters.

It is heroic what these women did, as we think about other things that have changed, thankfully, the period of time where it was looked upon with skepticism that women could serve in our military, or African Americans, men or women, in any other way could serve. The idea that they were segregated in every way through this whole period of history is, I think, shocking to people today.

But this was really a key piece of our history in allowing this transition. So I think it is fitting that they are recognized with the Congressional Gold Medal, and I encourage, once again, all of our colleagues to support this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would just conclude by saying yes, I am prepared to close, and I urge all of my colleagues to support S. 321. I yield back the balance of my time.

Would the gentleman consider yielding to Mr. LaTurner?

I do.

The Speaker pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman reclaims his time and is recognized.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. LaTurner).

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and thank Sharon Hughes for her 20 years of service to the Eighth District of Ohio.

Sharon was born in Marion, Ohio, and attended Bowling Green State University. She worked for Congressman John Boehner from 2002 to 2016, and she has been a dedicated staff member in my office since 2016. She served as a caseworker and office manager, and also directed the military academy nomination process with excellence, and the Congressional Art Competition with excellence as well.

Outside of her congressional work, she also served in several leadership roles for the Butler Philharmonic Orchestra.

During her 20 years of service to the Eighth District of Ohio, Sharon has made a difference in the lives of countless constituents, including assisting in

securing Federal benefits; solving tax return problems; and acquiring service records, passports, and military service-connected disability compensation.

I thank Sharon so much for everything that she has done for Ohio's Eighth District. May she enjoy her well-earned retirement.

Madam Speaker, it is not compassionate to bankrupt America. That is exactly what this plan does. It equips this country with more debt to pay for the past debt with no plan to pay for the future debt. The only thing is more debt. It is a debt bomb, and it is something that this body has an obligation to stop.

This country is on auto pilot for a crash site, and the only plan is to keep riding on auto pilot right into the crash site. The whole point of the debt ceiling is to force this body to do its duty and to come up with a plan to not default.

The only question isn't whether we default tomorrow, which we shouldn't, of course we should pay our debts, but we shouldn't default in the future either. And unless we come up with a different course of action, this is going to ride all the way to the crash site.

I will oppose this, and I encourage all of my colleagues to do the same, and we should continue to oppose it until there is a plan to avert the crisis in the crash that is coming.

Don't bankrupt America.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman and the ranking member, the Speaker, and the minority leader. It is nice to have this committee to focus on such an important topic and to do it in a bipartisan way. I am sure we will have our differences of opinion, but I hope we find some common ground.

Frankly, one of the bills I have worked on for a long time is the People CARE Act. It would create a bipartisan commission for Republicans, for Democrats, and it would reform all 90-plus means- tested programs. We spend about a trillion dollars a year, and for reference, we spend about $750 billion on defense, so far more just on poverty assistance. Many of those programs aren't as effective as they could be.

It wouldn't cut any funding. It wouldn't even necessarily cut any programs, but the commission could redesign them to do things like end benefit cliffs. That is really important, because as people start to recover and as they start to get back into the economy and participate in the workforce--when they get a raise, when they get a promotion, sometimes when they get a job--they get put on a cold turkey program, they lose their benefits and it creates a lot of fear, and frankly, turns a safety net into a snare.

One of the things right now that is driving the challenges for the safety net is wages are going up. Now, that doesn't mean inflation is a good thing, by any means. Inflation is really hitting wage-earners really hard and retirees even harder, but it is changing how far a housing voucher will go, for example, or whether somebody gets a raise. They might not have updated the benefit program from the Federal safety net to recognize that and now they are facing a cliff.

We need to address the drivers of this inflation, and that goes to the destruction of the value of our money. The massive spending that we do, often in the name of compassion, is growing the wealth gap, this is fiscal and monetary policy. When we have big deficits, it grows inequality in the name of helping people.

There are so many more issues that I hope we get to, but it is an honor to serve with my colleagues and I look forward to hearing their ideas and growing from the experience.

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