Matt Gaetz

Mr. GAETZ

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Chair, this amendment ensures that none of the funds appropriated in this act will be used to administer the Paris climate accord. The Paris climate accord is the unilateral surrender of the American economy, not for the sake of any environmental improvement; it merely uses the veneer of climate change to execute a permission structure for some of the dirtiest countries in the world, for some of the greatest polluters to be able to benefit at the expense of the United States. The Paris climate accord represents a circumstance where we were dead money at the table, putting up cash in exchange for economic development in faraway lands that would not benefit our people. This was a globalist enterprise. It was America last, and U.S. taxpayers should not be funding the Paris climate accord. That is the amendment. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Chair, it is neither moral nor smart to drive our Nation deeper into debt, to jeopardize the future of this country so that we can engage in a globalist virtue signal. If this global agreement were real and benefiting our country, I think you would find more people that were open-minded about a desire to ensure that we have an environment that is good for all of the inhabitants of the planet Earth, but, unfortunately, that is not what the Paris accord did. The Paris accord required the United States to put up the cash, and then it gave the exemptions to China and India and the worst polluters on the planet Earth. This isn't a question of whether or not we support the environment, this is a question about whether or not under the veneer of environmentalism we are going to kill American jobs, kill American manufacturing, make our country less competitive, drive down our GDP while China and India play us like fools. We are better than that. The underlying bill does great work to ensure that our resources are directed to America's interests, not to the interests of these global institutions. Mr. Chair, I would encourage adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ

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

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Chairman, the American people need to observe what is happening on this floor. My colleague from Arizona is simply saying that in the $886 billion we are sending across the river to the Pentagon, we at least don't want that to fund U.S. troops, boots on the ground, in Ukraine, and there seems to be no guardrail that some in this body would not accept so as to stop our country from inadvertently stumbling into world war III. Mr. Chair, I have amendments coming to stop security assistance, but this is the humblest of amendments seemingly to comport with what this body in a bipartisan way has expressed. We do not want American servicemembers dying in Ukraine. That risks escalation and that risks accident. It always starts with just a few security advisers. That is how we got entangled in the Syrian civil war. We ought to be disentangling ourselves from Ukraine and embracing the good amendment from my colleague from Arizona.

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

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, this Congress has authorized $115 billion to Ukraine. My amendment would ensure that this Defense appropriations bill sends no more. Madam Chair, $115 billion is an astonishing amount of money, especially when you consider that our Nation sits atop a $33 trillion debt and we are facing $2 trillion in annual deficits. It is not as if the $115 billion has brought this conflict any closer to an end. In fact, the massacres and the killings and the death continue. The next statement is so obvious I can't believe I have to say it out loud. It does not make the United States of America stronger to borrow money from China to give it to Ukraine. I hear a lot of the war hawks in this Congress stand up and say, well, we have to send a message to China by fighting for however long it takes at whatever cost in Ukraine. The message we are sending to China is that they are engaged in a leverage buyout of Russia and increasingly of our own country. We have problems here in America with our own borders. Americans are watching as foreign flags are being erected in the middle of the Rio Grande River while our Nation is being invaded by tens of thousands of people every month. Yet, we go spend all this money on the border of another country. I do not fear broken Russian tanks rolling through Europe. I fear Russia's nuclear weapons and the risk that we could be sleepwalking into a nuclear conflict that could end life as we know it on the planet, all for what? To live out some neoconservative dream in Ukraine? Give me a break. Right now, a lot of this funding that we have sent for Ukraine has been inflationary. Fuel and food, these are the markets that have been affected globally because of this crisis and because of the money we are spending to extend the conflict. At the beginning of this Congress, Speaker McCarthy said there is not going to be a blank check to Ukraine, but when we bring witnesses before us to ask them whether or not we are complying with our own laws regarding end-use monitoring of materiel, they cannot say we are even following our own laws. Enough is enough. I am putting my countrymen first. I don't think we should send another nickel to Ukraine. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, indeed, this is a respectful policy dispute that we have over this matter, and I am grateful that we are taking up the Defense appropriations bill as a single subject bill to work through these things, and let the votes fall where they may, but it seems the full sum of the argument against my amendment is: Putin bad, which I concede. As a matter of fact, Vladimir Putin has sanctioned me personally, so I don't have to be sold on that argument. He is a bad guy. The question is whether after $115 billion, it is the $300 million in this bill that is going to really kick the door in. There has been no argument that that is the case, because of course that would not comport with logic and reason. When my colleagues say we cannot abandon the EU, that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to my fellow Americans who often feel like they are the ones who have been abandoned as we send $115 billion to Ukraine and ignore what is going on on our own border. Madam Chair, we also ignore what is going on with a lot of our first responders. In our country, there are police and firemen who do not know if their pension fund will be strong enough to support their benefits throughout their life. We do very little on that front, but we have underwritten the full pension of every civil servant and government employee in Ukraine. Abandon them? I just don't think we should bankroll them, and that is why I would encourage the adoption of my amendment. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, the argument my colleague made is, well, we have always sent this $300 million. That may be true, but we used to send that $300 million when we weren't sending $100 billion in supplementals on top of that, so I don't think that argument really holds water. When my colleague says: Well, we can do both. We can secure Ukraine's border and we can secure our border; my argument would be: Can we at least secure our own border first? How about that? How about prioritizing our own people first before we start going and engaging in misadventures throughout Europe. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, the United States of America is not the world's piggy bank, and we are not the world's policeman. I applaud all of the enthusiasm in Ukraine. I am rooting for them, but enthusiasm in this country is waning to continue to support all of that effort abroad. We want to secure our border. We want to see enthusiasm with our Border Patrol. We do not support continued inflationary, escalatory, dangerous spending in this war on Ukraine. Madam Chair, I appreciate the House's indulgence for considering my amendment. I would encourage its adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, this is an amendment to prohibit the transfer of cluster munitions pursuant to this legislation. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Jacobs), a member of the Armed Services Committee, someone who has led this Congress to try to stop the transfer of cluster munitions.

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

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, I would observe that we cannot have a goal of creating parity with the Ukrainian military and the Russian military. If that is the case, why not send nuclear weapons? These cluster bombs are indiscriminate. They have killed tens of thousands of people. You just heard my colleague say that when this is all done we will be right back here on the floor appropriating money to demine the cluster munitions that we are now sending, which seems ludicrous to me. Madam Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), the distinguished ranking member, for her thoughts on the matter.

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

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Chair, I appreciate the bipartisan support for this amendment. I thank Mr. Massie of Kentucky and Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts on the Rules Committee for having made this amendment in order. I look forward to us working together to ensure that we have humane policies when it comes to our munitions. Just to respond to the argument that there is somehow a Taiwan nexus here, I have studied the war games and the plans around Taiwan pretty extensively, and I have seen no scenario in which we believe that the appropriate utilization of munitions in Taiwan is going to require cluster munitions. It is largely going to be torpedoes, sea mining. We are still demining the cluster munitions in Laos. We can make a wiser choice now and one certainly that doesn't put any of our allies in jeopardy. Madam Chair, I encourage adoption of this bipartisan amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Speaker, the gentleman is right, you are your record, and our record in this country right now is $33 trillion in debt, facing $2 trillion annual deficits. We are in so much debt, we are driving up deficits so fast, we are devaluing American money so rapidly that in America today, you can't even bribe Democratic Senators with cash alone. You need to bring gold bars to get the job done just so that the bribes hold value. My friends, I am extremely in favor of this rule because this rule moves us onto single-subject spending bills, and this is the only way to liberate this House and this country from the scourge of governing by continuing resolution and omnibus legislation. It is an insult to our governing authority to have the Senate lash Ukraine funding to the reauthorization of the FAA, and, by the way, every other thing in government. The American people know that in our State legislatures throughout this land there is a maturity and a seriousness to set a top line, balanced budget number and then appropriate to each of the agencies in government independently. The fact that we don't do that is not a bug of the system. It is a feature of the system. The one thing I agree with my Democratic colleagues on is for the last 8 months, this House has been poorly led. We own that, and we have to do something about it. My Democratic colleagues will have an opportunity to do something about that, too, and we will see if they bail out our failed Speaker.

Mr. GAETZ

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Speaker, I am not voting for a continuing resolution. I am not voting to continue the failure and the waste and the corruption and the election interference, and in some cases, the efforts that could lead this country into world war III. I oppose the CR authored by my friend and colleague from Florida, Byron Donalds. The Donalds CR continues the Ukraine policy negotiated by Speaker Pelosi and Mitch McConnell in the omnibus that conservatives were against. The Donalds CR is a permission slip for Jack Smith to continue his election interference as they are trying to gag the former President of the United States and the leading contender for the Republican nomination. The Donalds CR abandons the principle that it is only a review of single-subject spending bills that will save this country and allow us to tweeze through these programs and force these agencies to stand up and defend their budget. I say to my friends that we are approaching the days where we are facing a $2 trillion annual deficits atop a $33 trillion debt. This is unsustainable. To just continue things with some facial 8 percent cut over 30 days that will lead to no programmatic reform is an insult to the principles we fought for in January.

Mr. GAETZ

Mr. GAETZ. Madam Speaker, on this very floor in January, the whole world witnessed a historic contest for House Speaker. I rise today to serve notice: Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate, total compliance or remove you pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair. We have had no vote on term limits or on balanced budgets, as the agreement demanded and required. There has been no full release of the January 6 tapes, as you promised. There has been insufficient accountability for the Biden crime family. Instead of cutting spending to raise the debt limit, you relied on budgetary gimmicks and rescissions so that you ultimately ended up serving as the valet to underwrite Biden's debt and expand his spending agenda. Mr. Speaker, you boasted in January that we would use the power of the subpoena and the power of the purse, but here we are 8 months later, and we haven't even sent the first subpoena to Hunter Biden. That is how you know that the rushed and somewhat rattled performance you just saw from the Speaker isn't real. At this point during Democrat control over the House of Representatives, they had already brought in Don Jr. three times, and we haven't even sent the first subpoena to Hunter Biden. Power of the subpoena. Power of the purse. The only thing the 118th Congress is known for at this point is electing Kevin McCarthy Speaker and underwriting Biden's debt. Unfortunately, there is only one of those things we can remediate at this time. Power of the purse. Our leadership right now is asking us to vote for a continuing resolution. A vote for a continuing resolution is a vote to continue the Green New Deal and inflationary spending. In the most troubling of fashions, a vote for a continuing resolution is a vote to continue the election interference of Jack Smith. Mr. Speaker, we told you how to use the power of the purse: individual, single-subject spending bills that would allow us to have specific review, programmatic analysis, and that would allow us to zero out the salaries of the bureaucrats who have broken bad, targeted President Trump, or cut sweetheart deals for Hunter Biden. September 30 is rapidly approaching, and you have not put us in a position to succeed. There is no way to pass all the individual appropriations bills now, and it is not like we didn't know when September 30 was going to show up on the calendar. I must be better, you must be better, and this House must be better, for it is the last best hope for tens of millions of Republicans. We demand real oversight against this weaponized government. Just look at the bribery. If tens of millions of dollars flowing from foreign corrupt people into the bank accounts of the Biden family wasn't enough for actual impeachment, why were we even looking? Joe Biden deserves impeachment for converting the Vice-Presidency into an ATM machine for virtually his entire family. We all see it. We all know it. Moments ago, Speaker McCarthy endorsed an impeachment inquiry. This is a baby step following weeks of pressure from House conservatives to do more. We must move faster. Now, I will concede that the votes I have called for will likely fail--term limits, balanced budgets, maybe even impeachment. I am prepared for that eventuality. At least if we take votes, the American people get to see who is fighting for them and who is willing to tolerate more corruption and business as usual. Mr. Speaker, dust off our written January agreement. You have a copy. Reflect on the spirit of that agreement and build on the start that we had moments ago and begin to comply: No continuing resolutions; individual spending bills or bust. Votes on balanced budgets and term limits. Subpoenas for Hunter Biden and the members of the Biden family who have been grifting off this country and the impeachment for Joe Biden that he so richly deserves. Do these things or face a motion to vacate the chair. Let me alert the country, a motion to vacate might not pass at first, but it might before the 15th vote. If Democrats bail out McCarthy, as they may do, then I will lead the resistance to this uniparty and the Biden-McCarthy-Jeffries government that they are attempting to build. I know that Washington isn't a town where people are known for keeping their word. Well, Speaker McCarthy, I am here to hold you to yours.

Mr. GAETZ

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Mr. Lannie Corbin, the City Manager for the City of Niceville, Okaloosa County, Florida. On July 31, 2023, Mr. Corbin will be retiring after more than 52 years of service to the City of Niceville. A native of Northwest Florida, Mr. Corbin began his civic service as City Clerk in August 1971. He was then appointed City Manager/City Clerk in 1972, a position he has held since. Mr. Corbin is the longest-serving city manager in the history of the State of Florida. During his tenure, Mr. Corbin has been instrumental in improving the quality of life in Niceville and the surrounding area. One of his many great accomplishments includes negotiating with local landowners to cede a portion of their land to the city, enabling the city to more than double its size. This led to Nicevilles population growing from 4,300 residents in 1972 to over 16,000 today. Lannie Corbin helped bring increased-quality-of-life projects to Niceville, such as the Turkey Creek Nature Trail, Lions Park, the Niceville Senior Center, the Twin Oaks Multi-use Sports Complex, the Children's and Spray Parks, and multiple city parks, such as Meigs and Rocky Runway Commons. He also brought a new complex to the city to house its administrative offices, the police headquarters, community center, and the Children's Park. One of his greatest achievements was the establishment of Niceville's first public library. This led him to champion the first-ever cooperative effort in Okaloosa County by forming the Okaloosa County Library Cooperative, uniting 6 cities with the county, enabling them to increase the resources available to all the residents of our county. I, along with all of Northwest Florida, thank Niceville City Manager Corbin for his dedication to public service and commitment to improving the quality of life in the city for all its residents and visitors. His lifelong service exemplifies the very best of Northwest Florida. On behalf of the United States House of Representatives, I am privileged to recognize City Manager Lannie Corbin on the occasion of his retirement. I thank him for his service and offer my best wishes to him and to his family.

Mr. GAETZ

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I brought a war powers resolution to the floor this Congress to get U.S. troops out of Syria, arguing that the United States, being excessively entangled in a great power competition in Syria wasn't making life better for Syrians, it wasn't playing out to our benefit in the sphere of great power competition, and that it left U.S. servicemembers and contractors as sitting ducks. Following that vote, which I lost overwhelmingly in a bipartisan fashion, sadly, there were casualties; there was the death of an American, because we have now become the neighborhood crime watch of certain areas in Syria where there are oil rigs. That is what it is all about. I now come to the floor with this resolution to repeal a 2004 emergency vis-a-vis Syria. Now, it is supposed to be voted on by Congress every 6 months thereafter, but we have been derelict in our duty in doing so. I am glad that today we are bringing forward a number of these emergency resolutions that have been dormant slush funds, spending untold sums of money with no transparency as to how much is going into the Syrian emergency. How about this rule for how the House thinks about emergencies: Nothing is allowed to be an emergency for 20 years. If it were really an emergency, there probably would have been some cataclysmic event of Biblical proportion before the 20 years. If it is still an emergency 20 years later, it is a chronic condition, and the United States cannot be the world's policeman and we cannot be the world's piggy bank. Now, if the principal argument against my resolution is that my resolution is soft on Assad, well, the logic that undergirds that is that somehow the 2004 resolution was this great anti-Assad tool that we must have, that we must maintain, to beat Assad. Look around, Mr. Speaker. Assad has never been stronger. So if this 2004 resolution was Assad kryptonite, it has been the worst Assad kryptonite you can ever imagine. It has malfunctioned. I think we ought to repeal this emergency. We have sought transparency to see how much money has been going pursuant to it. We don't know the answer to that question. To the extent that there are sanctions that we still want to maintain, whether there are the other national emergencies that exist targeted at terrorism generally, at Russia, at Iran, we have the Magnitsky Act and there are all kinds of other authorities for the President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of the Department of Commerce, even the DOD weighs in, and the State Department, regarding sanctions regimes. This is not a vote to lift sanctions and then hope for the best with some pretty gnarly Syrians. In fact, it is us standing up to do our job, and that is what we should do in repealing this 2004 resolution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would point out, Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman that if he is looking for a more effective way to insult the President of Israel, he need look no further than the remarks of some of his own colleagues in the recent days, which I would deem far more insulting than this policy debate about how to have an effective sanctions regime. No one here is arguing for sanctions relief vis-a-vis these individuals. What we are saying is that the National Emergencies Act is a very ineffective, inefficient way to administer a sanctions regime. We do have specific authorities with the Magnitsky Act, with the National Emergencies Act vis-a-vis counterterrorism. Treasury has these authorities. State has these authorities. Most importantly, Congress has the authority to impose sanctions. If you believe that there are people who should be the subject of sanctions by the United States Government, we are the board of directors of the most powerful country on the planet Earth. We can introduce those bills, vote for them, and we can fulfill our constitutional authority. What I am asking the Congress to do is to repeal a 2004 emergency vis-a-vis Syria when Syria doesn't look anything like it did in 2004. Mr. Speaker, if you vote to allow this national emergency to continue, what you are doing is gaslighting unaccountable spending by the Biden administration because they never have to make the requisite report regarding the outlays on these matters. The money just moves around, and we never quite see the efficacy of it. We are all strong supporters of Israel on this side of the aisle, certainly, and I would observe that U.S. policy in Syria has not particularly helped Israel. As a matter of fact, when you had terrorist groups setting up camps in Syria, directed at Israel, you know what the Israelis did? They took them out. They blew them up. That sent a message to Iran, the balance of power was restored, and it did not involve the United States of America becoming the block captain of Syria or anywhere else in the Middle East. If we want to do that, it should be through a war powers resolution with Congress affirmatively voting to do it, not just having rolling national emergencies. When the law contemplates a requisite obligation for us to vote to reauthorize these things, we never do it. We don't do our job, then the money goes out the door, and we don't see a safer Israel, a safer Middle East, or a safer Syria. All we see is an empowered Assad. If this is the great tool we had against Assad, we had better be thinking of some different ones, because it hasn't exactly worked out as the proponents of this national emergency would seemingly indicate. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GAETZ

Mr. GAETZ. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GAETZ. Will the Chair--will the Chair encourage Members to address the Chair and rather than one another?

Mr. GAETZ. Very well. I seek recognition.

Mr. GAETZ

Mr. GAETZ. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.