Chip Roy

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. You are quite right.

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), my colleague and friend, for his steadfast dedication to ensuring the American people are informed, at least the 72 people that were watching C-SPAN while you were extemporaneously educating them.

Mr. ROY. The gentleman is correct. I think that is one of the things I want to stress. I came down here not to talk about spending. However, on the heels of our friend from Arizona, I want to make the point and then pivot to what I think is important to talk about. I am sure the gentleman will agree. In the context, it matters, right? What we fund matters. We are funding the Department of Homeland Security and for them to utterly fail to secure the homeland and endanger our own people and empower migrants to be able to actually flood in and get dumped into the United States, including the individual who was paroled into the United States and killed Laken Riley, including individuals who were dumped into the United States and shot those two police officers in New York just last week, including the individual who killed a woman named Lizbeth Medina in my own State--killed her, and her mom found her in the bathtub when she was supposed to be cheerleading on the streets. I can give example after example. We are funding that. We are funding the DHS that does that. We are funding the FBI that has been politicized against the former President, against our own people, like Scott Smith and Mark Houck and other people around the country. We are politicizing the FBI and the Department of Justice that is using the FACE Act to put a 75-year-old woman in jail for 2 years for praying at an abortion facility. You are paying for that, ladies and gentlemen. You, the American taxpayer, are paying for that, and guess what? With all due respect to my Republican colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans are funding it. They are funding it, and they come down and they say: Well, we have a duty to do that. Our Democratic colleagues will say: We must do all these things. You are politicizing this. You are making it this way. My Republican colleagues will say: Well, Chip, of course, we would like to do that. Of course, we would like to fix it, but you don't understand. You can't do math. We have a razor-thin majority. We can't possibly get it done. By the way, when did they ever talk about the razor-thin majority in the Senate, which exists?

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Also not on there are significant other mandatory things. For example, we have veteran spending. We just voted on MILCON-VA. We have veteran spending based on burn pits and stuff that is about a $500 million or $600 million mandatory account. We have what we do with food stamps on the farm bill and other things that we categorize as mandatory but are a little bit more discretionary. My point is--and I don't want to take the gentleman's time; I will yield back--that you are putting up there stuff that we pretty much have to pay. Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. ROY. Would the gentleman agree that the fundamental obstacle to achieving what the gentleman just outlined is that it has a lot of complexities in it?

Mr. ROY. Will the gentlemen yield for one quick question?

Mr. ROY. Do our revenues for this year, FY24, cover what is on that chart?

Mr. ROY. Interest is effectively on autopilot.

Mr. ROY. Will the gentleman yield? Just making the Parliamentarian happy.

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, my main point for the average user is that the revenues we bring in from general taxes, corporate taxes, FICA taxes, the chart that the gentleman was just showing, does not cover even all of what the gentleman just put forward, much less the remainder of the government, the remainder of the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI.

Mr. ROY. I don't want to take up the gentleman's time, although I have time on the back end, and we are happy to bleed them together, but I would just add to the gentleman's point. We have to address the drivers that the gentleman comes down and talks about every week for the most part and comes down with regularity that get to the heart of those numbers. We look at it like some monolithic amount that we can't address when, in fact, if you drive the price of healthcare down through the innovations the gentleman talks about, through cures, competition, and the things that we know we could do, you could massively reduce that Medicare burden, reduce interest, and deal with a lot of the expenses. Then, as we grow our economy, we get ourselves into a good place. Does the gentleman agree?

Mr. ROY. You don't want to default. Now, you put defense over here as discretionary, although there are some issues in there in terms of some social spending. Call that discretionary. You have got Medicare, which is effectively mandatory. What you don't have on that chart is that obviously Medicare is growing and exploding, correct?

Mr. ROY. Right, and it is going up in perpetuity.

Mr. ROY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, for everybody watching at home, Social Security is predominantly on autopilot, mandatory accounts.

Mr. ROY. Correct.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas, the chairman, for yielding, and I thank the ranking member and his staff and the entire staff of the Foreign Affairs Committee for their diligent work on this, for working all last week, for working through the weekend, and for the conversations. On this one, it is important to note that I do believe that there is significant bipartisan agreement that we need to take action and stand with one voice in this country, the United States of America, to send a strong signal to not just the International Criminal Court but to the international community generally. We cannot stand by and allow the court to do what it is doing. Let's remember why we are here. We are here because the International Criminal Court is seeking to issue warrants on the Prime Minister of Israel. It merits letting that just sit out there and marinate for a second that that is what we are dealing with. The Prime Minister of Israel is engaged in defending his country after the horrific October 7 attacks, which we have talked about in great detail on this floor--the assaults, the rapes, the beheadings of babies, the killing of innocent civilians. Israel is responding to what occurred and what happened to our Jewish brothers and sisters and others in Israel on October 7, and it is taking the attack to Hamas. We recognize the difficulty of Hamas being fully intertwined with the civilians in Gaza. Israel is taking steps to send text messages, drop 15 million or more leaflets, leave voice messages, give 2 weeks' advance notice, do what they can to try to make sure that there are protections for civilians, keeping the overall civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio below historic norms by most accounts, including third- party observation. Looking at Rafah, the international community is saying you can't go into Rafah. You go into Rafah and find 50-plus tunnels--now, I think it is 75 or more tunnels--that we know were being used to carry out attacks on Israel. Israel is under assault right now, with missiles being fired with regularity by Hamas into Israel. This is Israel. This is not some random entity. This is Israel, our close ally, and you have a body, to which we have no sovereignty, for this country, that is being given to the International Criminal Court because we are not a party to it. We are not undermining our sovereignty. We are not going to do that as America. That is what this stands for. That is what this says. This says that we should not be allowing the International Criminal Court to not just go after the Israeli Prime Minister but the door that that opens to go after our own servicemembers, to go after our own generals, to go after America's interests. What happens here is going to be coming at us and our country. That is why it is important to speak with one voice, with authority, with force. We have been working in good faith, and again, I want to compliment the ranking member and Democratic staff. Again, we were working through the weekend. I do believe there were amendments that we could have agreed to. There were changes that we could have agreed to that would have had bipartisan support here. I understand that the White House did not agree to that, and I think that is a shame. I think the White House made the wrong call, plain and simple. I think the White House got this wrong, and I just hope that we will be here today united as a body, putting aside partisan differences, and that we will move this bill forward and send it to the Senate, where the Senate can work its will. If the Senate wants to modify it and send it back to the House and try to address any of the concerns that have been raised by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle or this side of the aisle, great, the Senate can do that. They can send it back to us, and we can send a product to the President. We need to address this, and we need to address it quickly. If we allow this to fester, then we undermine our own national security, and importantly, at this moment in time, we give credence and power to an international body to which we are not a party, to which Israel is not a party, and that is being used to flex political muscle by targeting the Prime Minister for defending his own country. That we cannot stand for. Mr. Speaker, I hope that my colleagues support H.R. 8282.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, anybody who is watching the world events unfolding today is well aware that our dear friends in Israel are under attack, but they are not just under attack by Hamas. They are, in fact, under attack from the anti-Western civilization radical progressives across the globe and, in particular, at the International Criminal Court. In all ways, with respect to this attack on Israel, on Western civilization, on our own values, on the abuse of an international organization with no real legitimacy, the international court, the United States should have Israel's back. Let's look back for a second at October 7. Let's look at what Israel is dealing with in addition to a long history of being under attack, of facing foes in the Middle East, of having to live in constant fear of attack, of having to live under the technology provided in a mutual relationship between the United States and Israel, the Iron Dome, with David's Sling, and with all the technology to shoot missiles down. How many Americans would like to be sitting in Manhattan, D.C., Austin, Dallas, San Francisco, or any other part of this country, knowing that the only reason they are safely sitting there is that the missiles that are constantly being fired at them are being taken down by technology? I don't think that would sit too well with most Americans. I don't think most Americans would sit back if rockets were being fired into our Nation from Juarez into El Paso. I don't think we would just sit back and say that is great, fine, keep firing missiles, and we will just put up a shield and shoot them down. I think we would do something about it, and I think it would be pretty violent. I think we would be right to do so. Look at October 7 for our friends in Israel. Let's start with the fact that 22 American citizens were killed. Let's add to it that 1,000 Israelis or more were killed and almost 3,000 injured. Mr. Speaker, 4,500 rockets were fired from Gaza by Hamas into Israel, and 1,300 targets were struck. Not since the Holocaust has this large of a number of Jews been killed in a single day. That is the truth. Hamas beheaded at least 40 babies. Let that sink in for a minute. Hamas beheaded at least 40 Israeli babies. Hamas terrorists not only raped and murdered Israeli women, but they forced husbands, families, and friends to watch. That happened. We have documentary evidence. We know this occurred. A compilation of those atrocities captured on video shows gunmen shooting the dead bodies of civilians in cars, militants in the process of beheading a body with a hoe, burnt corpses thrown in a dumpster. An eyewitness on October 7 said: ``To be afraid for your kids' life and your wife, it is a whole new level of fearing.'' A survivor of the attacks in Israel on October 7 said: ``I just waited pretty much that they will come and murder me, my wife, and my kids inside our house. I thought maybe if the terrorists enter my house, I will go out so they will kill me and they will leave my family aside.'' Another one: ``It was the worst horrific war scenes that you see only in movies around us.'' Another: The gunfire ``was nonstop,'' and we were ``waiting and waiting, and it is continuing, and you hear only the weapons of Hamas,'' and realize ``no one is here to save us.'' ``As a woman who was there, I can say that the fear is endless. It can't be described in words. To be a woman in captivity is to be in constant fear, but the men there also undergo abuse,'' said one woman who was abducted during the October 7 attack. There remain today over 100 hostages being held. So now steps in the International Criminal Court, the ICC. When President Trump came into office, he rightfully recognized the threat of the International Criminal Court. The international court was created under the guise of investigating and prosecuting the world's most serious crimes, but it actually represents a significant threat to our Nation's sovereignty. In 2020, when President Trump came into office, he issued an executive order punishing by way of sanctions anyone at the ICC who goes after the United States, United States servicemembers, or our allies, such as Israel. What did President Biden do in all of his infinite wisdom? He revoked those sanctions as soon as he got in office, effectively giving the ICC a free pass to target United States citizens and our allies, such as Israel. They made an escalatory and unprecedented step just recently threatening to issue illegitimate arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli officials for alleged war crimes in Gaza. The application marks the first time ICC has sought to prosecute a major United States ally or the leader of a democratic country. What you are seeing happen is an unprecedented assault on Western civilization on Israel and, by extension, on our sovereignty as Americans. I view this court as an illegitimate court. It has no authority over America. Technically, we are a signatory to the court because President Clinton signed on, but he did not submit it to the Senate for any kind of ratification, so it has no legal force in America. Do you think that the ICC will target Americans? You bet they will. If we don't act right now to quash what is occurring with the ICC targeting the Prime Minister of Israel--think about that. An international court with no real legal authority in the United States is targeting the Prime Minister of Israel for responding with military force to the attacks--rockets, murders, rapes, beheadings--levied against the citizens he represents as the Prime Minister, levied against them directly from Hamas. By the way, Israel is a nation that has taken the unprecedented step in history to give warnings to citizens, civilians in Gaza, up to 2 weeks' advance notice. In one case, it dropped 15 million leaflets across Gaza to warn them that they needed to clear out because Israel was going to take out Hamas facilities, leaving text messages and voicemails, taking every step possible to warn civilians to move away from Hamas targets. This is going to be studied for years to come what Israel has been doing to keep the civilian to combatant casualty as low as it is. We believe it is somewhere between 1 and 2. That is, frankly, well below the norms and the standards the United Nations talks about, well below some of the historic norms even for the United States. This must be stopped because when they are going after the Prime Minister of Israel they are going to go after us. Put that aside. We can't stand by and allow an international tribunal to be targeting our ally and friend Israel for simply defending itself against attack. This is why I was proud to join with Representative Mast from Florida and Representative Stefanik from New York to introduce the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act to impose sanctions on the ICC officials who seek to go after U.S. citizens or our allies. It is modeled very similarly to the Trump executive order. It is also mirrored in legislation offered by Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas over in the United States Senate. As I have stated, the ICC, the International Criminal Court, is an illegitimate court. It represents a threat to the United States and our sovereignty. Frankly, we should be more aggressive than what we have put in this legislation. We are seeking to move quickly in a world in which the current administration is at war with Israel while they are trying to contend that they are allies. In 2021, President Biden reportedly ignored a request for a phone call with the Israeli Foreign Minister. Earlier this month, President Biden threatened to cut off Israel's military aid while they are fighting a war against Hamas. Now, he is actively criticizing Israel's military strategy on the world stage. In a Politico article it was stated: ``Top officials are publicly calling Israel's strategy in Gaza self-defeating and likely to open the door to Hamas' return--a level of criticism of the Middle East ally not seen since the war began in October.'' The Biden administration betrayed Israel, and frankly, our own well- being as a nation at the United Nations earlier this year when America abstained from a vote--abstained from a vote--when the United Nations was calling and demanding for an immediate cease-fire, which would have been a one-sided cease-fire, hamstringing Israel in its defense against Hamas. The United Nations lowered its flag to mourn the recent death of the ``Butcher of Tehran,'' the President of Iran. The United States Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, stood for the moment of silence in honor of the former president of Iran. This is what this administration is doing. They are taking steps directly to undermine Israel. We have never seen this kind of unprecedented undermining of one of, if not our closest, ally at a time when they most need our support. I am not one to believe in blind support. I have, in fact, voted against funding here because I thought the funding was foolish and misguided because it included funding that would go to Hamas. We voted for, I think, about 15 or $16 billion of aid to Israel, something I generally supported, but it included $9 billion in humanitarian aid which we knew based on history, common sense, and experience would go to Hamas, and, in fact, it has. We should not blindly support anybody. We should not just write blank checks. We should not pat ourselves on the back for support. When you have got an International Criminal Court that has no legal force in the United States, when you have got an International Criminal Court threatening to go after the Prime Minister of our very close, if not closest, ally for defending itself when it is having rockets fired at itself from enemies that beheaded 40 of their own babies, I am sorry, that criminal court needs to be forcefully condemned by the United States. At the same time this is all going on--and I hope we will bring forward this legislation forthwith. It is a good bill. It has, I think, 60 cosponsors and growing with a cross-section ideologically of the Conference. I hope we will bring this bill forward when we get back from Memorial Day recess. I want to compliment the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, for his work in trying to move this bill forward. I want to compliment the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, for his work in trying to get this moved forward and working with a broad cross-section of us to get legislation to condemn the International Criminal Court, pass sanctions, force them to understand that if they are going to act against our ally, if they are going to take an unprecedented step of issuing warrants against the Prime Minister for alleged war crimes, that we will sanction them and that they will have no welcome mat in the United States. By sanctioning, we mean that all of the actors involved will not be welcome here. Their families will not be welcome here. Their visas would be revoked. Other penalties and measures, including any funds that potentially flow from the United States to get to the International Criminal Court, which are not supposed to occur but often do through these various NGOs, that we would take all the steps we can to undermine an International Criminal Court that has no basis. While that is going on remember this: At every stage of the war from October 7, the regime of Egyptian President el-Sisi has undermined Israel's war effort in a bid to prevent the Jewish state from defeating Hamas. Now, the financial interests of the el-Sisi family appeared to have been advanced significantly through cooperation with Hamas' efforts to build tunnels across the border with Egypt. Now, how do we know that? Well, in the last 10 days or so, going back to May 11, Israel revealed that during early stages of the IDF's, the Israeli Defense Forces' operation in Rafah--now pause for a second. The world geniuses, all of the elites in the world body said, no, Israel can't go into Rafah. They were adamant about it. These are war crimes. You can't go into Rafah. There are civilians there. Well, Israel has been going into Rafah. They need to root out the battalions there. They need to kill more Hamas. They need to destroy Hamas, leveling it to the ground, minimize civilian casualties and find every way they can to restore peace and well-being by destroying their enemy. We would want nothing less as Americans, I assure you. Israel revealed that during the early stages of their operation in Rafah, IDF forces discovered more than 50 underground tunnels that traversed the international border between Egypt and Gaza. This story is not getting nearly the attention that it deserves. What is it that the international bodies, what is it that the Palestinians in Gaza, the folks associated with Hamas and those that are enemies of Israel, what is it that they didn't want us to know? The scope of the cross-border tunnel project indicates that Egyptian authorities were not merely aware of Hamas' operation, they were supporting it. They were partners. They were making money. By the way, there are all sorts of existing international agreements dating back to 1979 between Egypt and Israel. How much American money is flowing to Egypt? How much American money is flowing to the very countries, the very entities that are attacking Israel? Yet, here they didn't want people to go into Rafah. They didn't want Israel to go in. Why? Because they knew that the game was going to be given up, that there was a concerted, coordinated effort throughout the Middle East region to find ways to dismantle, disrupt, attack, and destroy Israel. That is the truth. This President is effectively supporting it. He is pulling back on the resources given to Israel, undermining the diplomacy, calling for one-sided cease-fires, funding Iran, lifting sanctions on Iran, allowing billions of dollars of their oil money to flow to China, which is enriching Iran and empowering China and undermining our national security, undermining our ally, Israel. That is all occurring right now, all while the International Criminal Court is targeting the Prime Minister of Israel. Now, this is nothing new. Egypt has tried to undermine Israel's military operations in Gaza every step of the way. Egypt has blocked the exit of Gazans from the war zone. Egypt has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza while accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Egypt has threatened to abrogate its peace treaty with Israel and tied the future of peace to Israel's bowing to pressure not to operate in Rafah. Egypt has undermined hostage talks and waged political warfare against Israel at the United Nations and other international arenas. There is nothing new here, except we now know right in front of us the new information about Egypt reveals what we have known about the region's attack and assault on Israel. There are 50 tunnels, and they keep counting them. Bodies of hostages have been found in the tunnels. It has been clear that there has been the movement of weaponry through the tunnels. This is just more of the same from an administration that is endangering America on the world stage, undermining the safety and security of the American people, a disastrous, radical, progressive Democratic regime in the White House. Basically, all that regime is is propping up a President and using him as a puppet to carry out their radical leftist agenda. There has been no accountability for the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. There has been no justice for the 13 servicemembers who died there. There has been no accountability for the billions in military equipment left behind. This administration has created the worst border crisis in the history of our Nation and endangered our citizens. Authorities in this country apprehended an illegal alien just this week with a van they called a rape dungeon on wheels. They found children's toys inside with condoms and ropes. This is your country. This is happening in your backyard. There are little girls getting sold into the sex trafficking trade as we speak. An illegal alien from Nicaragua is accused of restraining and blindfolding a 12-year-old girl while attempting to sexually assault her. The alien illegally crossed the Texas border in October of 2021 and was released--released. Mr. Speaker, 80 known or suspected terrorists have been encountered at the southwest border just in fiscal year `24--more than all of those encountered in FY `17 to `21 combined. Meanwhile, we have sent $175 billion for a proxy war in Ukraine. We have no clear strategy and no defined objective, no oversight on spending. This administration is endangering the citizens it is supposed to be taking care of under the Constitution and defending our borders and securing us against enemies foreign and domestic. That is the truth. There is no defense. If organizations like the ICC, the International Criminal Court, if organizations like the United Nations, if organizations like the World Health Organization, and the rest of them actually cared about human rights, they would be going after the real war criminals. They don't care about Hamas' crimes. Yeah, the ICC says they are issuing warrants for Hamas, but they are trying to constrain Israel from going out and attacking and destroying Hamas. What they care about is attacking and tearing down everything that is great and good about Western civilization that has done more for more people around this world than any other civilization in history. Whether the President knows it is going on or not, that is what the Biden administration's actions have all been driving towards these past 3 years. They are destroying our sovereignty and weakening us on the outside while pushing chaos, economic ruin, and moral disintegration domestically. I hope my colleagues will support the ICC sanctions bill. It is important. I hope we will all support it. I have to address one other thing because while I think we will have unity among Republicans in pushing back on this International Criminal Court that is undermining our sovereignty and targeting our friend and ally Israel, and while I hope that we will be able to speak with one voice when we get back on that subject, there is another thing that is going on consistently here in this town. Mr. Speaker, 18 months ago some of us set out to change the institution. We set out to change the rules and open up the process to be able to have more amendments, have more voice for the entirety of the majority in the decisionmaking of the leadership. For a while that resulted in some changes. Last year, we were able to get Republican and broad support for what we called the Limit, Save, Grow Act in order to put forward a vision for limiting the increase in debt while expanding fiscal responsibility. It was good legislation. We passed the strongest border security bill that we have ever passed. It had no amnesty in it. It had legitimate border security measures that have been rejected by Democrats, but would, by any objective measure, secure the border of the United States and almost assuredly would have meant that the killer who was paroled into the United States by the Biden administration would not have been able to be paroled and would not have been able to kill Laken Riley. We passed that bill. We passed that bill as Republicans, uniting to do that. We passed seven appropriations bills. We processed about 1,100 amendments. We were able to move the ball forward in order to unite, in order to get this train back on track to see if we could do the appropriations process the right way. There are many people in this body, particularly among my Republican colleagues, who want to hide behind rules and hide behind votes on rules, taking down rules, to say that we are not actually carrying out regular order. Now, what does that mean for the average citizen out there? There are people in this town who want to have every excuse possible for blowing the budget of the United States, racking up debt, leaving the border wide open, sending more money overseas for endless wars, and then coming to us and crying about how, somehow, we don't get it. We don't get it. We are supposed to all work as a team and agree to all the rules. Does it matter what is in the rule? What good is unity if your unity is for a terrible and stupid and destructive purpose? What good is unity if unity is going to rack up more debt and destroy our budget and destroy our children's futures and empower bureaucrats, empower tyrants, take away liberty, leave borders open, allow people to die, empower China, and send money to Ukraine? What good are promises to say that you are going to secure the border of the United States before you deal with Ukraine and then do nothing of the sort? What good are rules that carry out that as a result? When you hear a Republican decrying the fact that some of us want to say no and stand athwart history, yelling stop, to quote William F. Buckley, ask them what they have done. Ask them what they have done to limit spending, cut spending, secure the border. Ask them if they have done anything they said they would do. Ask them. Ask them to prove it. Ask them to show their votes, because nothing is going to change in this town as long as people bow down to the power brokers who tell you how it is. I will again state on the floor of this Chamber, I answer to God, the Constitution, and the 750,000 people who sent me here. I answer to no committee chairman. I answer to no Speaker. I answer to no colleague. I answer to those Texans I represent and following the law. My election certificate is every bit as valuable as anybody else's here. If they don't like it and want to go home and explain why they saddle up with Democrats for more Democrat support and majority Democrat support and they want to try to explain their votes, go ahead. Explain the kill switches on cars that you voted for. Explain the Republicans who voted against defunding UNRWA last September 3 weeks before Israel was attacked by people funded by UNRWA. Explain that. The American people sent us here to change this place. I had a colleague just a minute ago in a meeting who was just saying: Been here 14 years and we have done none of the things that we set out to do. Amen. We have an obligation as Members of this body to actually do the things we said we would do. I believe that the efforts that we set out to do 18 months ago resulted in positive change, and I am not going to let go of those things. We did manage to hold nondefense spending flat. Defense spending that went up was paid for out of the hide of the IRS expansion and out of COVID money. We passed the best border security bill we could. We set the terms of the fight with the Limit, Save, Grow bill, for the defense spending bill. We put caps in place, which have already been busted. We started to push this place in the right direction and that is the direction we ought to go back to. Over the next 5 or 6 months, the American people are going to have choices to make. I believe that they ought to return a Republican majority of the House and give us a Republican majority in the Senate, and I think they ought to put Donald Trump in the White House. None of that will matter if Republicans aren't willing to come here and do what we said we would do and put every ounce of your election certificate on the line to do what you said you would do. We didn't come here to sit around for 2 years talking about how we get re- elected. We came here to save the country. I hope that is what we will focus on doing. I hope most Americans will sit and watch my friend from Arizona's detailed explanations of where this country is headed if we do not seek, not just fiscal responsibility in the broadest sense, but, as he will no doubt say in a few minutes, smart ways that we go about doing what we can do to save this country with its mountains of debt piling up for a variety of reasons, all of which are things we can deal with if we just had the courage to do it instead of looking at each other talking about the next election. Once we get elected, we should do something with it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I notice it must be campaign season. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trotting out the age-old push-granny-off-the-cliff campaign talking points. It never fails. If my colleagues want to have a conversation about how to save Social Security, the trustees just put a report out this week or last week pointing out that it is going to be underwater by 2033. The minority wants to ignore that reality. Instead of figuring out how we are actually going to deal with the problem, Democrats trot out the same old story about taxes. By any objective measure, by any analysis by left, right, center, Libertarian, conservative, or liberal, you can tax literally the entirety of the top 1 percent of earners, but it can't possibly balance the budget. Literally, the math doesn't work. We can throw all this around in election-year rhetoric, but the truth is our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not just watching Social Security go bankrupt, but they are bankrupt in ideas on what to do about it. The fact is you have to actually constrain spending, discretionary spending, deal with the issues we ought to deal with on mandatory spending, and recognize the fact that we are $34.5 trillion in debt. We are racking up $1 trillion every 3 months. We are now going to crack $1.1 trillion of interest this year alone--$1.1 trillion of interest, which is far more than our entire defense budget. The fact is our retirees are going to have a problem in 2033. In fact, this trustee's report pointed out that they will be getting 79 cents on the dollar in 2033. We can have a conversation about what you want to do about taxes, but my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are all too happy to regulate and crush the entire American economy to death and drive up inflation, making all those Social Security recipients have less value in their Social Security dollars. That is the truth. The average American can't afford to live, whether they are earning money in the prime of their earning potential, in their earning years, or whether they are a retiree because the dollar value is decreasing because we are printing money because, frankly, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have no interest in actually being fiscally responsible--I am an equal opportunity basher of fiscal responsibility--nor do my colleagues on this side of the aisle, to be honest. It is a repeating problem that never ends, but it is my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, my radical progressive Democratic colleagues--and there is no other way to characterize them--who want to use scare tactics in a campaign year rather than addressing any of the actual fiscal issues that affect our Nation. The fact is that Democrats are destroying the American Dream, killing the ability of the average American family to prosper. Hardworking American families right now are struggling to pay bills, struggling to be able to buy a car. Why? Because we have regulated them to death. Why? Because, chasing climate fantasy, we are killing the ability of an American to go buy a car with an internal combustion engine. We are piling up EVs on the lots of dealerships around the country. We are now embracing, because the Biden administration unilaterally embraced, a tailpipe rule that will mandate EV production, two-thirds of the fleet being produced by 2030. My colleagues are crushing the American Dream before our very eyes. That is what has happened. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act, mandating massive subsidies of so-called green programs, is actually subsidizing China and the massive corporations that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle decry. Democrats want to increase the corporate tax rate, which will punish hardworking Americans who are trying to create wealth relative to corporations around the world, but my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't want to undo the massive corporate subsidies they gave to Green New Deal recipients. That is the truth, and it is destroying the average American's ability to live. Let's be very clear. Right now, Americans are hurting because of Democratic policies. Right now, Americans can't buy a car, can't go out and afford groceries, can't pay their power bills. Why? Because of my radical progressive Democratic colleagues and their policies regulating our entire economy to death and destroying the average American family. Let's not talk about the price of homes, the price of real estate. All these things are things that are increasingly highly and heavily regulated. That is problem number one. Let's talk about what our radical progressive Democratic colleagues are doing to destroy the rule of law. The rule of law is the single greatest thing that attracts people to come to the United States, the single greatest thing that attracts capital to create wealth and to create opportunity. It is the single greatest thing that has distinguished the United States of America and Western civilization from the rest of the world for now centuries, particularly since the founding of this Nation. The fact is, the rule of law is being destroyed by my radical, progressive Democratic colleagues, it is purposefully being destroyed. This week, we have bills on the floor, and we are talking a lot about our police, our law enforcement officers, but it is not about a week. Weeks are stupid. We come down here and we do all these things. We do ribbons and we do all these things that say, Oh, we are going to have a week. The fact is every week is police week. Every week our cops are in danger. Every week our cops are being undermined by radical progressives in cities around this country, endangering the people in communities while endangering the law enforcement who are supposed to protect them every single week--not just this one--every week. Last year, November 2023, in Austin--a city which defunded our police by $150 million, driving down the number of cops. We are now at least 350, if not 500, below the level that we were supposed to be at, the level we were at before COVID because we don't have the ability to recruit law enforcement after decimating the budget. That was the radical city council, led by radical, progressive Democrats in Austin, which are reflected and mirrored by the radical, progressive Democrats sitting right here in this Chamber like Cori Bush who said we should defund the police, like the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Nadler, who signed a letter along with our colleague, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, saying we should defund the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York. They signed that letter. I asked the ranking member in the Rules Committee last night: How is that working out? How safe does New York feel? How safe is the subway system in New York City? Because right now I think there is a whole hell of a lot of people in New York and around this country who are looking at New York and they are saying: What happened? There is a whole hell of a lot of people who are looking at the Nation's Capital saying: How can I come see my Representatives and come to the Nation's Capital and feel like I am going to be safe? Last year in Austin, where the radical, progressive Democrats on the city council defunded the police, we saw the unfortunate tragic shooting of police officer Jorge Pastore, who is a hero, who was shot and killed in the line of duty last November. In San Antonio, we had three San Antonio police officers who were shot during a standoff with an armed career criminal who had absconded after getting bond and was wanted on multiple charges. Why? Because the radical, progressive Democrat DAs and the radical, progressive Democrat judges all funded by Soros, all-purposeful, all in a network around this country, they let these guys out and then they shot cops. 378 officers were shot in the line of duty in 2023, 138 peace officers died in the line of duty in 2023, 48 by gunfire, 10 by vehicular assault, 7 from a heart attack. There were 150 ambush-style attacks against police in 2023, which claimed the lives of 20 officers. This year, 58 police officers have died in the line of duty. They are under attack every single day and my radical, progressive Democrat colleagues don't care because they are totally fine defunding them. They want to come to the floor of this body and say it is not true, when there are mountains of evidence saying it is. In fact, 113 of my colleagues voted against the resolution which decried the defunding of cops just last year. In Austin, crime is skyrocketing. Seventy-three homicides in 2023 up from 71 in 2022. The highest level since going back some 40-odd years, all as a result of defunding the police to the tune of $150 million. The fallout, as I said, 350 vacancies. The Austin Police Department stopped responding to nonthreatening 911 calls in the fall of 2021. Let's think about that. Austin's crime has increased, and overdoses are skyrocketing, in part, due to the lawlessness of our wide-open borders. You see, the rule of law doesn't matter to my radical, progressive Democratic colleagues. The rule of law is being undermined, the safety and security of the people that I represent is being undermined, and it is being made worse. The fact is, now, we have a fentanyl crisis all across this country and, particularly, in places like Austin, Texas, where just 2 weeks ago, we had--I don't even know the exact number--but there were 75 reported cases of individuals overdosing in a matter of a 72-hour stretch, killing at least nine people. I can't remember the number of people they had to resuscitate by Narcan. It is the largest fentanyl poisoning in Austin for over a decade, and it is happening because this stuff is pouring across our southern border, which brings me to a point: the rule of law. The rule of law, being undermined by our radical Democratic colleagues, who are undermining cops, defunding cops, the same radical, progressive Democratic colleagues who are leaving our border wide open and exposed, blatantly disregarding the law, undermining the rule of law, the very rule of law that attracts immigrants to come to our country and we have police officers killed by illegal aliens. In March 2024, an illegal alien from Mexico was charged with crashing his car that killed a 27-year-old Washington State Trooper. New York police officers were assaulted by a mob of illegal aliens. Five illegal aliens savagely assaulted two officers. The suspects were back on the streets without bail. I think they have been recently given some very minor sentences. Let's never forget DUI fatalities as a result of those who are here illegally, including in Kerr County, which I represent in Texas, where you had a drunk, illegal alien crashing into members of the Thin Blue Line Motorcycle Club, made up of Active-Duty servicemembers, law enforcement officers, and retired officers, killing retired Officer Joseph Paglia of Chicago, United States Army Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Wayne Harbour of Houston, and retired U.S. Army Officer Michael White of Chicago. Right here in our Nation's Capital, it has become a region of lawlessness and disorder. Crime in D.C. is up 30 percent. Violent crime up 37 percent from 2022 to 2023. We had one of our own Members of Congress who was carjacked just 10 blocks from here, another Member of Congress who was assaulted. We have had staff members, such as the staff member of Senator Rand Paul who was stabbed. We had a teenage gunman just a few weeks ago spraying AR-15 rounds and then pretty much was just let go. This is the state of things in our Nation's Capital. It is the state of things in New York City. It is the state of things across our country. It is a return to lawlessness. If you don't have the rule of law, what do you have? When you let violent criminals out of jail, what do you think is going to happen? By the way, there are people on my side of the aisle who are guilty of that. In the false name of compassion, we are letting people out on the streets who are endangering our own people. The rule of law matters and you can't have the rule of law if cops can't enforce the rule of law and then be abandoned by the very people that are supposed to support them, and that is what is happening. You can't have the rule of law if the borders are wide open. If you are ignoring the law, parole--which is supposed to be on a case-by-case basis--to pump thousands of people into our country, including, by the way, the individual who killed Laken Riley. He was unlawfully paroled into the United States by this administration. But guess what? There wasn't any consequence, except for Laken Riley, who is no longer with us. That is what happened. That is the truth. It is lawlessness. Ignoring the rule of law, endangering the American people, and now you have the rank lawlessness of a sham trial against the former President in New York. A bootstrap charge that relies on an unreliable witness being presided over by a biased judge. That is the truth, and anybody with eyes knows it. It is not the rule of law; it is the use of the law for political purposes and gain. It is, as some refer to it, ``lawfare'' against the former President of the United States. I don't care what you think of President Trump, President Biden, anybody else, when you weaponize our system of justice for political purposes, you are nothing more than a third-rate banana republic. That is precisely what is happening in the State of New York right now by a lawless judge, a biased judge--who, frankly, should be investigated himself--who is targeting the former President for political purposes. It is clearly obvious. No citizen, no citizen would be treated to the same attack as what is happening right now to former President Trump. I am not afraid to call out Members on both sides of the aisle. I am not afraid to call about President Biden. I am not afraid to call out former President Trump. I am not paid to be a loyalist. I am not paid to be biased. I am not paid to wear a red shirt versus a blue shirt. I am paid to represent 750,000 Texans, to follow the Constitution, to honor my duty to the Lord, and to do my job. That is what I am paid to do. But to watch the former President of the United States being hauled into court day after day with a sham trial, and you cannot describe it as anything but a sham trial. The DA's office previously determined that its theory of criminal liability under New York law would not hold up. That is the truth. So they bootstrapped it into a felony because, frankly, it would have been time-barred if they hadn't done that. You have got to have the felony charge proving that Trump was concealing another crime. That is why they are now trying to pull in a Federal campaign charge, but the campaign laws in question are Federal and when New York's penal code speaks of concealing another crime, it must refer to a crime under New York law, but they are trying to bootstrap it into Federal law. That is the truth. It is hard to see how the government could meet the burden of proof. According to my good friend, Andy McCarthy, a former Federal prosecutor, he wrote that: `` . . . not unless there is as-yet- undisclosed evidence that Trump actually paused to consider the possibility that these payments were in-kind campaign expenditures, believed they might well be, yet went through with them anyway.'' All bootstrapped Federal law into State crime charges. Neither the Justice Department nor the Federal Election Commission bureaucrats, whose expertise lies in the operation of the relevant laws, alleged wrongdoing by Trump. Yet here we are. By the way, the whole theory hinges on Michael Cohen, who is widely viewed to have committed perjury in multiple locations, including before this very body in the House Oversight Committee as Chairman Comer has laid out for the public to see. By the way, a convicted felon he is. By the way, disbarred he is, previously pleading guilty to perjury, financial crimes, and campaign finance violations. The Southern District of New York decided it was best not to give him a cooperation agreement because they would have to rely on his testimony. Yet here we are. We have got this case proceeding with Bragg doing it for political purposes all in front of a biased judge. Judge Merchan refused Trump's legal team's request that he recuse himself over bias because his daughter, Lauren, worked as a Democratic political consultant. One of our own colleagues, Mr. Goldman--formerly a lawyer for Schiff, Representative Schiff, during Trump's first impeachment--is her client, and has also been working to prep Cohen for testimony this week. By the way, the daughter of the judge has worked for prominent Democrats--Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Congressman Adam Schiff, and has made multiple contributions to Democratic campaigns. Meanwhile, Bragg continues. This whole sham of a trial undermines the rule of law and the faith of the American people in it. You do not have to love the political target, in this case, former President Trump to recognize the extraordinary damage that this is doing to the rule of law and our institutions. By the way, the purposeful damage that is attempting to be done is to President Trump himself. That is the purpose. Not allowing this kangaroo court in New York to undermine his ability to continue to campaign to try to garner the votes necessary to win in November, come in here and clean up the mess that is being created by the lawless Biden administration. The Biden administration is engaging in lawless behavior on a daily basis, whether it is student loans, ignoring the courts, wide-open borders, fentanyl pouring into our communities, perpetuating this undermining of cops, that is all happening in real time. It is hard to keep up with the rampant level of lawlessness coming out of the current administration and the abject failure of my radical, progressive Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle to do a thing about it. I might note, as an equal opportunity basher of all Members of Congress, that nor has the Republican side of the aisle really done much to check the current President. Wide-open borders? Funded. FBI lawlessness, political witch hunts, weaponized against the people and the former President? $200 million new headquarters. If you fund it, you own it. I can tell you that this lawlessness is demonstrably undermining the faith of the American people in the institution of Congress and of our institutions upon which our entire society rests. Right now, people do not believe that our political system is working. They do not have faith in elections. They do not have faith that our borders are being protected. They do not have faith that our police are being supported, that our streets are safe. They do not have faith in a system of justice that will target a former President for political purposes and a Department of Justice that will be weaponized against the people. A woman just yesterday or two days ago was sentenced to 57 months in jail, almost 5 years, because she protested at an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. By the way, a progressive activist. A progressive activist in jail for 57 months. It is extraordinary. What are we doing about it? We are Congress. It is right here in D.C. Does anybody care about this woman's life? Maybe it is a misdemeanor. Maybe she should pay a fine. I don't know, maybe a misdemeanor like 30 days in jail if she did something that was blocking people's access or something--I don't know--but 5 years in jail under a FACE Act, Federal prosecution? That is extraordinary. Does anybody care about what is happening to the weaponization of government against the people? Again, do you believe that your Nation is sovereign and secure when our borders are wide open and terrorists and criminals come in? The answer is no. The county attorney of Kinney County, Texas, was just testifying this week in the Budget Committee, and he said in 2021 they had about 150 prosecutions. Last year, they had 6,700. My Democratic colleagues shrug that off like it is no big deal. They shrug off the $13 billion that Texas has to pay to deal with the wide- open borders. They shrug off the death of Laken Riley like it is just some happenstance because the President is violently disregarding our laws and pumping people into the United States in violation of parole laws. Our cops are being targeted. They are not being prosecuted. Soros DAs are letting criminals out on the street. We are funding the lawlessness, letting people out on the streets. All of that is continuing while a judge goes after a former President of the United States, while a radical DA in New York, another Soros DA, is going after the former President for clearly political purposes with a sham trial. All of that is happening. Why would the American people believe in the institutions of this country? You would think we would be doing something to try to restore that. Here we are. There is one thing we can do. One thing we should do to restore some semblance of confidence in our system this year. House Republicans must pass the SAVE Act. House Republicans have the opportunity to make clear what 87 percent of Americans believe, that only citizens of the United States should vote in elections; and in this case in the SAVE Act, if they vote in Federal elections, they must be a citizen. They must produce documentary evidence of being a citizen of the United States to vote in a Federal election. There is vast bipartisan support across this country--87 percent of Americans--to ensure that you can believe in our system of elections, that only citizens will be voting. Just last week, my radical, progressive Democratic colleagues unanimously opposed the bill to exclude non-United States citizens from the Census used to allocate congressional seats. Also last week, in a very clearly Freudian slip, President Biden described the millions of illegal aliens he has allowed into the United States as ``voters.'' Washington, D.C., fairly notoriously, just had a training program in April, training people to be able to make it possible for illegal aliens in D.C. to vote. Now, they will all say, Chip, it is already unlawful for people to vote in Federal elections if they are not a citizen. Do you believe it? Do you believe that the jurisdictions across this country, including the Nation's Capital, including San Francisco, Oakland, and multiple places around this country that have embraced allowing illegal aliens to vote in local and State elections, do you believe that they are being checked to ensure that they are not voting in Federal elections? Let me tell you this: Current law, in all of our infinite wisdom as Congress--because we get so many things right here--current law put forward by the Congress restricts the ability of States, restricts the ability of States to check to make sure that you are a citizen. True. True story. The brilliance of your United States Congress, they say by law you must be a citizen to vote, but then they say: You, State, can't check to make sure that the voter is a citizen. Arizona has two systems for voting: State-based. Why? Because they passed a law saying only citizens can vote. They have a system to check. State elections, State races, local races, they are required to check for citizenship for that. For Federal elections, they don't. Now, how messed up is that? The Constitution gives authority to the Congress to be able to ensure the integrity of our elections. Yes, the States can set the time, place, and manner of how the elections are carried out, but Congress has the power to step in to ensure that our elections are carried out appropriately. We have a simple bill, the SAVE Act. It has 50-odd cosponsors in the House and growing. My colleague, Senator Mike Lee, in the Senate introduced it over there. It has multiple cosponsors and growing. This bill is simple--every single Republican should support it, and if they don't support it, they should answer why--should voters in the United States who are voting in Federal elections be citizens of the United States? 87 percent of Americans say yes. Anybody sensible says yes. Should anyone who is going to vote in those Federal elections in Congress, Senate, and for the Presidency, have to demonstrate that they are, in fact, citizens, by presenting a passport, by presenting a voter ID, a real ID from a State-issued driver's license, combined with a birth certificate, other forms that we lay out, like anything else you have to do. If you want to fly in this country, all the things that you have to do to prove you are who you say you are. To my radical, progressive Democratic colleagues who protest, saying this is crazy, it is already a requirement that you be a citizen to vote. Then what are you afraid of? What are you worried about? I will tell you what they are worried about. They are worried about making sure it is true. They worry about the fact that the vast majority of my radical, progressive Democratic colleagues would be perfectly fine getting rid of that law requiring citizenship to vote. We need to call the question. We have a piece of legislation that is supported by vast numbers of election law experts and groups, supported by the Speaker of the House, supported by 50-odd Republicans and growing. This bill needs to be brought forward. It needs to be brought to the House Admin Committee. It needs to be brought to the Rules Committee and to the floor of the House. It needs to be voted out by my Republican colleagues or they need to explain why. It is a simple question. If you want people to believe in their country, if you want them to believe in the rule of law, if you want them to believe in their system of government, if you want them to believe in the elections of their Representatives and of the President of the United States, so that we can avoid what happened in 2016 when my radical, progressive Democratic colleagues questioned the election of President Trump over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and did so vocally and loudly and repeatedly questioning. Again, in 2020, questions about the election; all the way right up and through January. If you want to get rid of those problems, then make sure our elections are believable. Make sure that you know who is voting and, importantly, make sure that only citizens of the United States of America are voting in Federal elections. This is not a hard question. You either believe it or you don't. To my Republican colleagues who want to hide behind federalism, don't. The Constitution of the United States is clear: Both in terms of our ability to deal with the election of Members of Congress and the President, as well as issues like naturalization, our power in this area is clear. Our ability to make sure that we can do it without unduly burdening the ability of a citizen to vote is clear. Get busy fixing it if you have got a concern, but don't hide because there is going to be nowhere to hide. The future of our country depends on the faith the people of the United States have in our institutions. We should support our police. We should support the rule of law. We should put criminals behind bars. We should have a sovereign nation and a secure border. We should know who is here. We should remove illegal aliens. We should secure the border of the United States. We should make sure that only citizens vote in our elections. We should end the dangerous flow of fentanyl into our communities. We should stop countenancing the sham trials and the politicization of our judiciary system against the former President of the United States or the politicization of the Department of Justice against the American people. If you want to restore the greatness of this country, if you want to create prosperity, if you want to be able to believe in a country, if you want to be able to restore the American Dream and pass it down to our kids and grandkids, the birthright of being an American, it all begins and ends with the rule of law. The rule of law is why people have come to our country to achieve greatness. They don't come here for free lunches, not historically. Maybe more recently. As the great economist Milton Friedman said, he is all for open borders if you get rid of the social welfare state. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a social welfare state. We need to limit the flow of people coming into the country and taking advantage of the social welfare state. We need to restore sovereignty. We need to make sure that criminals and terrorists aren't coming here. We need to secure the border, end the flow of fentanyl, make sure only citizens vote, support our law enforcement, keep criminals in jail, and keep the American people safe. If you do that, there is a small chance that if combined with any kind of ounce of fiscal restraint by this body--I will not hold my breath on that one right now--we might be able to save this country for our kids and grandkids. I want to be very clear, in particular to my Republican colleagues, if you think you are going to hide behind election season, if you think you are going to hide behind talking about what rules go down, what don't go down, if you think you are going to hide behind the Presidential election and the first 100 days of an agenda, if you think you are going to be able to hide behind that to avoid answering to the American people on what we said we would do--cutting spending, balancing the budget, securing the border of the United States, ensuring our military is strong, has the tools to carry out its job with a clear mission and care when they get home, but is sparingly used and not in endless wars, if you want to make sure that you can go to the doctor of your choice, get the healthcare of your choosing and not an insurance bureaucrat, if you want to make sure you can have a car that you can afford and electricity in your home, and if you want to be able to be free from the bureaucracy of a Federal Government strangling the American family, if you want to be able to send your kid to the school of your choice and be able to make sure that they are being taught that America is great and that God is real and that we can do great things, if you want those things, then you have to actually fight for them. You can't just pass empty bills with empty titles because that is all we do in this damn place every day. We did it today. We passed multiple bills that won't do a damn thing, all with fancy titles that make it hard for people to vote against whatever that additional spending or additional bureaucracy is. That is what we did. We did it today. We will do it tomorrow. We will then try to campaign on those empty, nonsense bills. Why don't we do something that matters? Why don't we actually do one thing we said we would do? Yes, I said it again to my Republican colleagues who excoriate me because of a speech I gave before Thanksgiving saying: Name one thing. Well, we passed the TikTok bill on a bipartisan basis. We will require China to divest TikTok. I support that, all right. We have this great SAVE Act we are moving. I hope we can actually pass it off the floor. We haven't done that yet. When are we going to step up to the plate and do the things we said we would do? Have we cut spending? No. Did we honor the caps to even hold spending? No. Have we secured the border? No. Have we reined in what I might refer to as endless wars and endless conflict for the last 25 years? We have had a perpetual war, funding other people's wars. No. Have we restored energy freedom? No. Have we restored healthcare freedom, go to the doctor of your choice? No. When are we going to do one of those things? That is why we are here. That is why the voters sent us here. We should get busy doing the things that we said we would do, and it all begins and ends with restoring the rule of law in this country: Stand by cops, bad guys in jail, sovereign Nation, stop letting people coming in, stop letting fentanyl come in, require that only citizens vote, and pass the SAVE Act to ensure that we can believe in our elections and that only citizens are voting in them. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Missouri for yielding, and I rise in support of this legislation. San Antonio, which I am proud to represent, has about 1.7 million people. It is the seventh-largest city in the country and is the second-largest market without a direct flight to Reagan National Airport. It has about 82,000 Active Duty and about 100,000 veterans in the community. It is arguably the center of cybersecurity. This is something that the delegation has been working on for a long time, and this is an important development. For the reasons that I have just articulated, I give a great deal of thanks to the chairman for his hard work in getting this done and to Senator Cruz and his leadership over in the Senate to get these additional five slots which, by the way, will provide opportunities for other cities that are in the same situation. This, frankly, won't actually have a significant impact because there are already people flying from San Antonio to Reagan. They are just having to hop to do it. This will provide direct access. I am grateful for their support, and I will support the bill.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the one-hundred fortieth anniversary of the Doss School in Gillespie County, Texas. It is the longest continually running school in the State and is located northwest of Fredericksburg. Alumni, faculty, and students of the Doss School will gather to celebrate this milestone on May 18, 2024. Its motto is ``The small school with a big heart.'' School board president Cecil Crenwelge had this to say about the occasion, ``The history behind Doss School is truly remarkable. As we celebrate the incredible history of the school and its many alumni, we also have an eye to the future that is very bright.'' The original building for Doss School was officially designated a Texas Historic Landmark in 1985. The first classes at Doss School began in 1884. Mr. Tom Nixon donated land for the construction of a school building. Upon completion, students at Squaw Creek and Onion Creek schools merged with Doss and shared the new building. The school further expanded with a new building in 1927. I would like to thank the Friends of Doss School for preserving local history and this community treasure. I wish the students and faculty of Doss School well in the upcoming school year.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, as usual, I appreciate my friend from Arizona, who is, if nothing else, dogged in his determination and consistent in making clear to the American people the problem that we face on our overall spending, including mandatory. Specifically mandatory, as we refer to it, this broad basket of things that we have committed to do that is consuming our budget ever more every single year. It is an important point and one that we don't discuss enough as a body on what we should do about it. The gentleman's point is precisely correct about the nature of the problem, the seriousness of the problem. When we are sitting here right now and we are roughly--I am going to use ballpark numbers--bringing in $4 trillion of revenue, but we are spending about $6 trillion, pushing $7 trillion--he is right--it depends on what we are talking about in terms of the accounting. Basically, what you are saying is, you are printing money to fund effectively all of our discretionary budget and then some. What I mean by that is, you are printing money to fund defense, the operation of the government, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, all the things that you touch and feel and see because the $4 trillion is going to fund Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, veterans benefits that are mandatory, plus interest. There you are. You have used up all of your revenue. The problem is, nobody in this town wants to do anything about it. My Democratic colleagues will hide behind ``you must increase taxes.'' My Republican colleagues will do nothing to actually limit spending in any meaningful way. They will just talk about ultimately needing to deal with mandatory spending one day and not do anything to deal with the spending issues now. Where I depart from my friend from Arizona, respectfully, who is no longer on the floor--maybe not depart. Where I want to be more clear is the questions when we have debates on the floor of the House about spending items in what we call discretionary. That is the stuff that we can touch, the accounts, the Department of Defense, some of these issues. My issue with that is less about mounting debt, although it is a part of it. It is that you are funding the demise of our prosperity. You are funding the bureaucrats who are at war with us. You are funding that which is undermining our ability to create economic growth and live freely to get out from under that financial morass. In other words, you are not really going to address the debt problem by saving $5 billion on some small item, but what you are going to do is you are going to stop the interference with the American people. Let me give you some examples. If you are a hardworking American out there and have a family of four, and you are a plumber in San Marcos, Texas, which I represent part of, you are just trying to go about doing your job. You need a pickup truck. You need to put all of your stuff in it. You need to be able to drive around. We are making that pickup truck impossible to afford. We are making it literally impossible to afford. We are putting all of these requirements and demands on the vehicles. We are going to make it where you have to have electric vehicles, with the tailpipe rules and mandates. They are piling up on lots. They are getting more expensive. If you want to go get your windshield replaced, it is like $1,500 now. It used to be $200 or $300. Why? We have all sorts of mandates and requirements and gadgets in the windshield. Now, they are going to mandate vehicles that have automatic braking. Every time you do that, you make this stuff more expensive. The market should bear that out. The market should sort that out. If you want a vehicle that has automatic braking, great. Pay for it. The vast majority of Americans will say: No, I can't afford that. I just want a simple car. We are killing the ability of the average family to afford life. It matters. This is the problem. In the House of Representatives, what we have become is the house of perpetuating corporate cronyism and the enrichment of a handful of folks at the expense of hardworking American families. Then, I will have some of my colleagues who will throw out these random statements like: We should read the philosophers and conservatives of the past who were the traditionalists and rational in what they believed about limited government, not the radical populists of today. I think that misses the entire point. It is not populist to believe we should stop spending money we don't have, driving up inflation, driving down the value of the dollar, and putting a tax on the hardworking American family. It is not populist to say that we shouldn't regulate our entire lives out of existence with expensive vehicles and all sorts of demands on what you can and can't do, which makes things more expensive, or all of the green climate agenda that is empowering China, undermining our ability to have affordable energy. That is not populism. It is not populism to say that maybe, just maybe, if you are going to send $95 billion overseas to fund war, maybe you should have to pay for that. That is not populist. It is rational. You can question the war. You could say that we should be focusing on America first, securing our borders first. Maybe you could say that is populist. I think it is rational. It is sovereignty. The Founders, and importantly the conservative thought leaders of the 20th century, like Russell Kirk, believe that you actually do have to have institutions, but you believe in sovereignty and the rule of law. You believe that there are supposed to be limits, limits to what you do in feeding your appetite. What are our limits? I am sitting here in an empty Chamber, but to my friend who is serving as the Speaker at the moment, what are our limits? What limits are we placing on this place? To my friends who voted for continuing wars around the world, $95 billion, who paid for it? Your grandkids, your kids, you. You paid for it by printing money. We did not pay for it. We printed money to give it away--the same thing with the first $113 billion for Ukraine, the same thing for virtually everything we are doing. I have had some supporters, particularly ones of financial means, who have called and said: Chip, why did you abandon the people of Ukraine? We must stop Putin. I said: Great. Are you interested in having a 70 percent marginal tax rate next year to pay for it? There were crickets on the other end of the phone. We have lost perspective on what we are supposed to do here responsibly in this Chamber. That is the truth. While we sit here and move a few bills across the floor, and while we just passed a massive, unpaid-for foreign aid package that funds both sides of the war in Israel--it gives $9 billion used by Hamas, used to have Palestinian refugees moving to the United States, funding both sides of that conflict, while we fund Ukraine, where we have no clear mission, no evidence that we can produce enough ammo fast enough to be able to help them when they are getting out-shelled no matter what and they are running out of men, even if you accept that all of that might result in some improvement, we are funding all of that. We just voted on all of that. We just voted on an anti-Semitism resolution, which codifies thought-speech, so we can pat ourselves on the back and say: Look at what we did. Look what we did. People feel good about it, but you didn't do a damn thing. In fact, you made things worse because you just empowered the Federal Government to go after thought-speech. We do all of that. Right after, what did we do? We passed a massive omnibus spending bill, $1.7 trillion in two omnibus packages. We funded $200 billion for a new FBI headquarters, an FBI that is out of control. We do all of these things, and what is happening in the meantime? What is happening right now? What is happening right now is that our borders are wide open. The people in Texas are still feeling it every single day. We are dealing with the reality of roughly 1,000 to 1,600 people a day being paroled into the United States. Nobody out there in the real world knows what that means. It means that there is a provision in the law supposedly there for a case-by- case basis to help a few people. The Biden administration is blatantly, unlawfully, illegally using that provision to expand it and dump literally 1,000 to 1,600 people a day. We believe 400,000 over the last year, according to the reports that we have, were dumped into the United States under what is called parole. Guess what? How did Laken Riley's killer get into the United States? Parole. There have been dozens of examples of individuals who were paroled into the United States under the Biden administration's policies who have gone on to kill, assault, and harm and undermine the security of Americans. Think about that. That is what is happening right now, allegedly, on our watch. The fact is, we could have done something about it. A year ago this Saturday, Republicans passed what we call H.R. 2, which is the bill number for border security. It was a strong bill that would have closed the ability of the Biden administration to abuse parole. It would have closed their ability to abuse asylum. It would have ended the abuse of the unaccompanied alien children, using them as essentially a hall pass to get into the United States. It would have fundamentally ended the Biden administration's abuse of law to dump people into the United States to the tune of something like 4\1/2\ million people who have been released into the United States under the Biden administration. We did that. Republicans did that, and we did that after conservatives worked hard and worked with the Speaker to force this body of Republicans to walk away from the amnesty-driven, Chamber of Commerce-driven failure of the last two decades and pass a strong border security measure. That bill is sitting over in the Senate, where Senate Democrats refuse to move it while they hide behind a sham piece of legislation, which would not secure the border of the United States, so they can try to blame Republicans in an election year. What Republicans have failed to do is use the leverage of the power of the purse to force our Democratic colleagues in the Senate and the Biden administration to come to the table and deal with the border crisis, despite the rhetoric of our own leadership saying that we would do that. We have fully funded the government at debt-increasing levels, busting the caps that were put into law. We are funding the government that is abusing our borders and dumping people into the United States unlawfully, paying off student loans unlawfully to the tune of $700 billion to $1.4 trillion. Meanwhile, we are racking up $34\1/2\ trillion in debt, barreling toward $35 trillion, with a trillion dollars every 3 months, with more interest than we pay for national defense, almost a trillion dollars in interest, barreling toward $2 trillion to $3 trillion of interest. Meanwhile, the number of retirees is growing, demands on Medicare are growing, and costs--the prices--of healthcare are going up. That is all happening right now in real time. What are we doing about it? This is a question that I want to ask my Republican colleagues: If the American people look at our Democratic colleagues and say: Man, that is insanity. We can't do that. That is crazy stuff. They want to have all sorts of woke policies and DEI. They want to let criminals out. They want wide-open borders. They want to keep spending gobs of money. They want to undermine our Western civilization, our way of life. Man, that is crazy. I don't want that. They say: Well, we have to turn to Republicans. Let's vote for Republicans. Let's say that happens. Let's say we are fortunate enough for that to happen with large enough numbers that we win the majority of the House, the majority of the Senate, and the White House, what are we going to do? I will bet you a significant amount that you will hear excuses out of this Chamber by Republicans in January, with a newly minted majority here, in the Senate, and in the White House, saying the following: Chip, we don't have 60 votes in the Senate. What you want can't be done. Chip, we have divisions in our own Conference, our own Republican majority. We can't pass everything you want to pass and then get it to the Senate and send it to the President. We are going to have to send over this compromise. It has been happening for decades. The reason our borders are wide open--it didn't just materialize one day that Joe Biden just woke up and decided to open them up. It has been decades in the making with support from Republicans because they were too much in the pocket of the Chamber of Commerce. They were sitting down in the Rio Grande with a ``No Trespassing'' sign, and then over here with a sign saying: ``Help Wanted.'' Wink, wink, come on in. We don't care about the border. That was happening. I know because I saw it. I saw it as a Texan. I saw it as an American. I saw it as a staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee, as a chief of staff for Ted Cruz. I saw the amnesty bills. I saw the desire to have cheap labor at the expense of sovereignty. Let's talk for a minute about that cheap labor. I keep hearing from all of my colleagues--on both sides of the aisle, frankly--how important it is for us to continue to have a flow of people across our border, legal or illegal, because, quote, we need the workers. Have you looked at what is happening to jobs? The jobs for Americans, American-born workers, post-COVID is flat or down. The actual engagement in the workforce is flat or down. Yes, there is growth from migrants to try to catch up on the number, but what we are doing is we are paying people not to work. We are paying kids to sit in their room, basement, whatever, playing Fortnite, kids in their twenties. We have low workforce participation from American citizens and workers while we try to then bring people in who, by the way, then use the social welfare state, who then have massive demands on the education system. How do I know that? I live in Texas. I see the schools. I see the rolls. Tomorrow in the Budget Committee we are going to have a hearing on the cost and the impact of illegal immigration. Kinney County, Texas, just a little bit southwest of San Antonio, which I represent, we will have a witness here tomorrow from Kinney County walking us through roughly these numbers: The crime that they were dealing with in 2021, pre-Biden, was about 140 something crimes a year that they had to deal with. They are now at 15,000. Now, that is a lot of criminal trespass that Operation Lone Star and the State Department of Public Safety are trying to work to manage, but that is what they are dealing with. That is what they are dealing with in their court systems. I can sit here and walk you through--we will have a hearing tomorrow; I won't do it here--the impact on the schools, the hospitals, all of the social services. Anybody who does a legitimate analysis of all of those costs compared to the taxes, sales taxes, which so many of my colleagues hang their hat on and say this is causing economic activity and they are paying taxes. Yes, there is some of that, but we have created the welfare state which Milton Friedman famously said: I am all for open borders if you get rid of the welfare state. Now, that was pre-9/11. Let's say you have security, you vet everybody, you know who is coming here, do they want to harm us, or they are just hardworking people, they want to achieve the American Dream? If you have a zero welfare state, I would say: Come on. I don't care where you are from, I don't care what you look like, come on. If you are coming to America and you are making your way and you are going to work hard, then you are going to follow our values and our principles, regardless of your background, regardless of your religion, because you are going to believe in the rule of law, you are going to believe in economic prosperity, you are going to believe in free enterprise and capitalism, you are most likely going to believe in God and everything that made this country great because you are coming here seeking the American Dream. However, we are turning the American Dream upside-down. We are destroying that which migrants come to this country to achieve when they come here, they believe in this country, believe in the rule of law because that is what the American Dream is built around, and we are completely destroying it. That is the truth. It is happening right now while we sit here and fiddle while America burns. I am going to say it over and over and over again until at least my Republican colleagues, who try to pretend to give a crap about the border, actually do something about it. How many campaign ads, how many speeches are going to be given by my Republican colleagues between now and November about what they will do to secure the border? What are they doing right now? Shrugging. Sorry; can't do anything. It is Biden. What are we going to do? How many more Americans are going to die while we shrug? Well, thank God the Founders didn't shrug. Thank God the men at Lexington and Concord didn't just shrug and say: Oh, well, I guess there is a tyrant. Thank God the boys at Normandy didn't shrug, and say: Why the hell are we across the ocean and we have to go take out this crazy guy Hitler? Thank God they didn't. Thank God the boys at the Alamo didn't shrug. We are shrugging it off, though. We are pretending it is not happening. Is anybody paying attention to what is happening in London? Am I going to say it here on the floor of the House and get the scorn of people when I say: You have got a massive Muslim takeover of the United Kingdom going on right before our eyes? They would say: Well, Chip, what is wrong with that? Well, I have got some pretty strong concerns about Sharia law and whether that will be forced upon the American people. In this case the people of the United Kingdom. I have got pretty strong concerns about people who want to see Israel's destruction, who were happy about October 7, who were elected in the United Kingdom. Some might say that we have seen that here in the United States. What are we going to do about that? We have 51\1/2\ million people who are foreign born in the United States. They have about 20 to 25 million kids. That puts it at well over 20-some percent of our population. It is the highest such number in the history of our country. People say: Well, isn't that great? Is it? Are we teaching people about Western civilization? Are we teaching people about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the rule of law? Are we teaching them Western values? Are we teaching them God exists? Are we teaching them the importance of freedom or are we teaching an entire generation--or two or three--to run around complaining about what is wrong and why the entire world is against them because of their skin color, their sex, their supposed gender identity, whatever the hell category we create to make people have an excuse for not just stepping up and achieving the American Dream? That is what we are doing. Our borders are wide open. People go: Well, I know it is bad. It is bad, Chip, but what do we do about it? Stop it. Like actually stop it. We literally just gave away every ounce of leverage we had. Why? To fund Ukraine. Unpaid for, with no clear mission. We said: Who cares about America's borders? Sorry, Chip, we couldn't get it done. I have got to go back to the people of Texas, and say: Well, sorry, we will get `em next time. Look, nobody I know--Conservative, moderate, Democrat--nobody comes here expecting to get everything they want. It is a body of Representatives. It is the worst form of government except for all the others. I get it, but I am sick and tired of watching this play play out the same way every single time. The American people get screwed and get left holding the bag. That is the truth. Every single hardworking family across this country right now who can't afford groceries, can't afford electricity, can't afford to buy a car, can't send their kid to a school that they can believe will teach them the right thing, teach them God exists, teach them their country is great, even just teach them that there is man and woman. No, none of that. We are funding this radical climate agenda that is destroying our ability to have energy right now. You are not going to have an internal combustion engine in 10 years because these radical nuts are killing your ability to do it. Republicans are sitting back and shrugging, patting ourselves on the back for increasing mining for rare earth minerals in Minnesota or around this country rather than fully opening up American oil and gas, building American nuclear power. It is absurd. It is ridiculous. The average American right now is wondering whether or not they can actually achieve the American Dream. I want to know whether my colleagues in this Chamber, Democrat or Republican, would come to the microphone and give a rip-roaring speech right now about why every American should believe they are going to be able to achieve the American Dream, because I will tell you right now, unless we lead, unless we take this moment to reverse the direction we are headed, change trajectory, massively shift the direction of our country, then our kids and our grandkids will not be able to achieve the American Dream. They won't. Well, Chip, how does that sell? What I am selling is a duty to fight. What I am selling is a duty to go fight to make sure those American kids and grandkids can achieve the American Dream. Fight for sovereignty, fight for citizenship, introduce legislation to demand that citizens only vote, to stand up and fight for the opportunity to go carry out your life because you can afford to do it because you have gotten rid of all the regulations that are constraining the hardworking American. Go get rid of the corporate cronyism enriching the insurance companies, enriching all the big corporations across this country, hospitals and pharma, and strip it away. Get rid of the middlemen and empower doctors and patients and get all that crap out of the way so people can actually go get healthcare. Do that. Cut the government bureaucracy. Get rid of the bureaucrats. Get rid of DEI. Get rid of critical race theory. Go to war with the bureaucrats, metaphorically, to stop destroying the American Dream. Don't just sit here and come here and give speeches about some basketball team that won the national championship, then go home and say: Look at me, I gave a speech about the basketball championship. Who cares? Their parents can't afford to live. We have a duty in the people's House to do something. The iceberg is right in front us. My friend, Mr. Schweikert, just explained it. We are massively upside-down. We are bleeding out of every pore of our body in terms of money and debt. Our borders are wide open. We are increasingly unchurched. Our schools are indoctrinating our kids. Our universities are indoctrination camps. They are essentially daycares for elitists, and we just forgave their debts, their student loans. Every hardworking American out there deserves a Representative who represents them. Democrat or Republican, Conservative, moderate, Liberal, why are you here? What is the point? Why get elected? Why get an election certificate? The point is, stand up in defense of the rule of law and the Constitution. If you say you believe in limited government, limit it. If you say you believe in cutting spending, cut it. If you say you believe in securing the border, secure it. If you say you believe in peace through strength, then stop sending our military and our money into endless conflict and instead build a strong military here, sparingly used, make sure our men and women have the care they need when they get home, and send a message around the world that when we use force, it will be used quickly and massively. This is what the people I represent want. They don't want any more of these feel-good bills because some organization declares ``a week.'' It happens all the time. Teacher week, got to do a teacher bill; cop week, got to do a cop bill. None of that is going to make this country freer or stronger or more secure. We took an oath to the Constitution. I don't want any more excuses about well, Chip, this only offends the Commerce Clause a little bit. This one is better than that other version. Stop doing it. Go the other direction. Stop selling watered-down Democrat-light, and go inspire the American people with something better so that the kids of this generation can get their lives out of these phones and get their lives out of the despair of wondering whether they are going to be able to have the American Dream and give them hope that if they go out and they work and work hard and they save money, they are going to be able to buy a house, have a family, they are going to get healthcare because they worked hard and they were able to do it. That is why migrants come here. Stop paying people not to work. Stop the endless nonsense and drivel that comes out of this body in the name of doing something and, instead, stand up and fight for the American people. Don't give lip service on June 6 because it is the 80th anniversary of what those boys did when they walked into a wall of bullets. Stand up and do a fraction of what they did by having the nerve to vote ``no'' on something, even though somebody might tweet something mean about it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I would note that today we have seen around the country an extraordinary display of anti-Semitic activity on college campuses throughout the country: Columbia University, USC, and even in Austin, Texas, at the University of Texas near where I live and a city that I represent in part. We saw today protesters replacing the American flag with the Palestinian flag in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We are seeing all sorts of derogatory actions and statements being directed to our Jewish brothers and sisters in this country, and it should not be tolerated. It should be called out. It is unacceptable. It is not speech. It is not speech when you are engaging in the kind of conduct that we are talking about where a young Jewish man was being denied entry into a building and being asked whether he was Zionist. This is not speech. This is action with these encampments when you take over a university, State-owned or private, in particular the University of Texas, a State university. When you take over at USC, you deny the ability of parents and students who have worked to graduate. You are blocking access. This is not speech. Let me be perfectly clear. University of Texas President Jay Hartzell and the leadership of that university are doing the exact right thing by clearing out the people in the encampments taking over the university. President Ben Sasse at the University of Florida is doing the exact right thing by saying that the University of Florida is not a daycare, that these are adults, and they know full well what they are doing and that they will get the consequences of their actions. That is leadership. The University of Texas has allowed free speech multiple times in respect to people who are protesting the conflict, protesting Israel, and supporters of the Palestinians. I think there have been 13 or 14 events at the University of Texas that have been officially sanctioned and other free speech. Here is the thing. Yet again today, here on the floor of the House of Representatives, we had another show vote to make people feel good about themselves by passing a bill that says anti-Semitism in the title. That is what happened. It was put on the floor by Republican leadership, and it was put on the floor by Republican leadership despite knowing that it was pulled from going through committee. We didn't have a chance to amend it. We didn't have a chance to discuss it and debate it. We didn't have a hearing on it. It was jammed through to take advantage of this political moment while all of these horrific things are going on around the country. Republican leadership wanted to score political points, so they moved through legislation without the kind of deliberation and debate that is supposed to be carried out by the people in this Chamber. As a result, today, a significant number of my Republican colleagues, including myself, voted no. As a result, we will be accused of--I don't know--being for anti-Semitic behavior, being accused by our friends and allies of not wanting to support Israel, supporting our Jewish-American colleagues and friends, constituents, and fellow Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that is what will happen. It will happen because we dared to stand up and say we don't believe in thought police. We don't believe that a bill should be brought to the floor of the United States House of Representatives, having not gone through committee, that has a reference to an international organization's definition literally in the statute, and then taking that international organization's definition and then literally in the statute representing and referencing the examples of anti-Semitic behavior. I find the vast majority of the things that are listed in that to be horrific activity, and most likely, if not certainly, they are anti- Semitic, at least in most contexts. Some of them are problematic. In totality, they certainly raise First Amendment concerns. They certainly raise concerns about something that I have opposed, to the best of my knowledge and ability, having read through the piece of legislation at every turn and every vote, to oppose the whole notion of hate speech, hate crimes, thought police, thought crimes, and putting the government into your head and your motivations when you are engaged in criminal behavior. Criminal behavior is criminal behavior. Violating people's civil rights is violating people's civil rights. When we want to insert the government into what you are thinking and what motivates you, Madam Speaker, then you are empowering that which should never be empowered: the ability of the government to police thought, to police speech, and to police your views, not the views that carry out, then the actions. The actions are the problem. Police the actions. Yet, that is what we did, and I am damned proud of my colleagues, particularly on this side of the aisle, who stood up and said no because it was a hard vote. Madam Speaker, do you know what I have to spend my time doing tonight, tomorrow, and this week? I will be explaining to my Jewish constituents, supporters, and friends that I stand with them unequivocally. They will say: What do you mean unequivocally? You voted against the bill that is titled anti-Semitism. I will say it is because the slippery slope of tyranny that has led to the death, that has led to the harassment, and that has led to the abject discrimination and oppression of people around this world--those roads lead through the empowerment of government bureaucrats at the expense of liberty. Liberty stops at the door of harming somebody-- taking their stuff, blocking roads, and doing the kinds of things that actually directly impact and harm people--not what you think. That is what we do. We do things for political motivations. The Republican leadership knew it, and they put it on the floor anyway. I am sick of it. I am sick of my Republican colleagues who want to go out and campaign for power to maintain power to then come in here and do the very things we said that we oppose. There is a bill in the House Judiciary Committee right now. That bill will say that the Department of Justice can go into a State and prosecute a cop killer if the local jurisdiction effectively refuses to do that. That sounds good, doesn't it, Madam Speaker, if you are pro-cop and pro-police and have a George Soros prosecutor sitting in Austin, Texas, or New York City who is refusing to do their job, do their duty, and follow their conscience to go prosecute a dangerous individual who killed a cop? You say, well, Chip, of course, we should bring in the Department of Justice and take care of that horrific result. Here is the problem: There is no end. The bill is based on commerce. The gun transports in commerce. The defendant traveled in commerce. Why does that matter? Let me ask you a question, Madam Speaker. The bill before the Judiciary Committee says that if something is involved in commerce, then the Federal Government and the Department of Justice, whether it is led by a Republican or Merrick Garland, can come in, based on whatever rationale they want, and say they are going to prosecute this crime committed against a cop. Why not against a nurse? Why not against a doctor? Why not a firefighter? Why not a teacher? Why not a member of the clergy? It won't end. Our Founders didn't set up a Federal police. Our Constitution does not contemplate a Federal police. Our Federal Government is not supposed to police us in our homes and in our communities. It is egregious that there are cops who have been murdered and DAs who refuse to do their duty to prosecute their killers, but I will be damned if I am going to empower a government to extend beyond its constitutional limits using the same bastardized use of the Commerce Clause that we have decried for decades because it has expanded a government that is now tyrannically using its power to go after the American people, go after former politicians, including the former President, that is spending money we don't have, that is using that power to regulate us to death on virtually every bill that virtually every Republican on this side of the aisle who claims to be a limited government conservative votes for. Why? It is because they don't want the Fraternal Order of Police or other law enforcement organizations to come after them. Last night, I didn't even have an amendment circulated yet. I simply begged the question: Why are we putting forward a bill that expands the power of the Department of Justice under the Commerce Clause, no matter how meritorious our goal is in ensuring cop killers go to jail? Why are we doing that? Aren't we limited government conservatives who don't believe in the expansive use of the Commerce Clause to expand the power of the Federal Government because it is used for thousands of other things that we don't like? I hadn't even gotten the ink dry on the concept of an amendment when someone in the body had already notified police organizations and said: Go after him. Do you know what, Madam Speaker? Go ahead. I work for 750,000 Texans. I respond to them, God, and the Constitution of the United States. I do not work for anybody in this Chamber. I do not work for any organization. I don't work for any donor. I work for the people, and I work for a people who are sick and damn tired of this institution run by a bunch of people who campaign saying one thing and get here and do another. Madam Speaker, $34.5 trillion of debt, $1 trillion every 3 months--we already spend more on interest than on defense. We are about to crack $1 trillion of interest. They say we will hit $2 trillion to $3 trillion of interest by 2030. Our borders are wide open. We have kids dying. In Austin, Texas, four more people the other night died from fentanyl poisoning. A bunch of others had to be resuscitated with Narcan. The people of Texas are continuing to deal with thousands of people pouring across the border. It is not in the headlines right now because universities are in the headlines, but everybody in Texas who is reeling from inflation, who can't afford a car, who can't afford their home, who can't afford the interest on their mortgage, who can't afford to buy groceries, who is dealing with crime on their streets, and who is dealing with open borders want some sort of sanity coming out of this institution. What do we do? What are Republicans doing in all their infinite wisdom? We fund more of it. We fund the Department of Homeland Security again. We give the FBI a brand-new $200 million headquarters. Madam Speaker, you can't even make this stuff up. We give more power to the intelligence community to spy on Americans. We don't even protect Americans with warrants. Madam Speaker, you can't even make it up. Over the last 16 months, there has been a battle that represents the larger war brewing within the Republican Party. That is because, unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have gone far down the rabbit hole of radical progressive policies that absolutely destroy our country every single day. They are littering our country with regulations, littering our country with all sorts of crime, littering our country with open borders, and engaging in endless wars. All the stuff that is happening is because our Democratic colleagues are, frankly, undermining the American Dream, undermining Western civilization, and undermining everything we hold dear. I want to tell you, Madam Speaker, there is a battle going on for the soul of the party and the country within the Republican Party. I want to tell you, Madam Speaker, I am not in the majority. I am not. You say, Chip, you are in the majority of the House, and you have a razor-thin majority. No, I am not. I am not in the majority. I am in the minority, a minority of Republicans who try to wake up here and change this place rather than just campaign on it. That is the truth. Right now, President Biden is considering bringing refugees from Gaza into the United States. I don't know what the background checks will be. I don't know what we will do to ensure that these are individuals who are not affiliated with terrorist organizations. The number is something like three-quarters of the people of Gaza support what Hamas is doing in attacking Israel. Large numbers of civilians were involved in the attacks on Israel. The bill we just voted on last week, the foreign aid package of $95 billion, is it paid for? No. Does it fund Ukraine with no clear mission? Yes. Everybody here who voted for it said: Don't worry. That will be the last. We just need that money, and when President Trump gets elected, it will be over. The ink was not even dry, and they were already talking about a new Ukraine package for the fall, more Ukraine money. Do you think that will be paid for? No. The money for Israel, $17 billion, is that paid for? No. Was there another $9 billion that is going to be used for the nongovernmental organizations, the NGOs, and filter that money to Hamas? Yes. Was there $5 billion in there that will go to refugee assistance? Yes. Will that refugee assistance fund moving some of these folks from Gaza to America to be your neighbor, Madam Speaker? Yes. That is what we voted on. That is what we voted for. Thankfully, a majority of Republicans voted against it, but our illustrious Republican leadership brought it to the floor anyway. Why? We are told that we had no choice. There is no choice. That is always the excuse. Meanwhile, here, in addition to the refugees who may be dumped in here from Gaza, in 2023, last year, in an 8-month stretch, about 200,000 migrants flew into the United States via the President's parole program. Eighty percent of those folks went to Florida, thousands went to Texas, and thousands were flown around our country. The American people have no idea how bad the border situation really is. Our Democratic colleagues are practically giddy at what they are getting out of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, which is nada in terms of opposition. It is nothing, zero opposition to what our Democratic colleagues are trying to perpetrate on the American people by way of a President ignoring the law, racking up, I am told by independent outside organizations making determinations of the cost, about $800 billion to $1.4 trillion in student loan forgiveness. Madam Speaker, you can't even make this up. What do we do? We pay for it. We keep paying for it. We are paying for the administration of it. We didn't put any blocks in place through the omnibus appropriations bill. We didn't get a single change to open borders. We didn't get a single change to the student loan repayments or forgiveness. We didn't get a single change to the continuation of endless wars. We got negligible change on the FISA spying program. Right now, we have a backlog of several million people waiting for court proceedings as late as 2035 or 2037. I was talking to some friends of mine the other night, who are a little bit more on the other side of the aisle, and they were saying: Republicans have issues with immigrants. I said: Well, let me ask you a question: How many people do you think are in the United States who are foreign born? I told them the answer: About 51\1/2\ million. How many are legally coming every year? It depends on the year, but somewhere between 800,000, a million, 1.1 million. It depends on the year. It is almost a million. No other country is even close, by the way. We are anti-immigrant because we think maybe we ought to pause for a second, maybe take stock of the state of our country? We can't pay for Medicare. We can't pay for Social Security without printing money. Hell, we can't pay for anything pretty much without printing money. Here is the thing I would say to all of my Republican colleagues: Enjoy it when I come down here to the floor and I file a bill to raise taxes on whoever I decide needs to have their taxes raised on and have my colleagues explain how the majority is voting for more spending for endless wars and endless conflict and $95 billion for Ukraine and overseas conflict and not paying for it. I will tell you what, I will give you the ability to pay for it. Do my colleagues want to go out and sell tax increases to all of their donor friends? Go ahead. Go ahead to my Republican colleagues because Republicans have been taking a free ride on the idea of trickle down now for 25 years. Now, I believe in low broad tax rates creating the maximum economic growth and opportunity and driving up revenues to the Treasury without constraining the productivity of the American people. I believe that. However, I don't believe in listening to people complain to me that we are somehow obstructing the great Ronald Reagan's view of what we need to do through peace through strength to go help other people around the world, like Ukraine. We are now $175 billion in. They already know they want another $60 billion, $100 billion. Hell, I saw a news account of $500 billion. Who is going to pay for that? Some people around town have had the temerity to tell me: Chip, that is not that much money. Why are you gagging on an add? It is just $60 billion. It is just $175 billion. The real problem is Medicare. Let me ask anybody who wants to jump in here. Oh, that is right, there are no more colleagues here. Do you think that if you can't vote against a gay senior center in Massachusetts as an earmark that you are somehow going to go out and sell Medicare reform? No, you are not. You are selling a lie. You are selling a fiction that, oh, trust me, one day, when we get the full power in the House, the Senate--never mind that we won't have 60 votes in the Senate, we will give that excuse next year--then, trust me, Chip, we will do something like set a percentage of GDP that we can tolerate as our overall spend level, and we will constrain, and we will fix this, and we will fix the doughnut hole, and we will fix all of these things nobody in America knows about, and we will pass some bills. We will pat ourselves on the back, and we will pass another 10-year budget that has all of its cuts in the tenth year. Then, when it comes to the tax cut time, we are going to be for those tax cuts. Again, I want to be very clear. I am for low taxes on the American people. Let me even go farther. If we are going to keep printing money, why do we have taxes at all? I have asked that question in the Budget Committee. Nobody can answer it. If we are literally not going to actually adhere to a budget, balance the budget, constrain spending and do the responsible thing, which we never do, why on Earth would we not just get rid of taxes? If you are going to spend almost twice as much as you take in--which we are getting dangerously close to--if you take in $4 trillion and you are spending $3 trillion more than that--I don't know what the numbers are--why not just print the $7 trillion? It was a genuine question. Oh, Chip, well, that would be irresponsible. Why? We all know why. It is because we are living a fiction. We are living like this is something that isn't going to blow up on us. It is. For all my colleagues who said: Oh, Chip, 1980s, Ronald Reagan, he stood up and he said: ``Tear down this wall.'' ``Peace through strength.'' Built the military. Do you know what our debt-to-GDP ratio was then? About 35 percent. Do you know what it is today? About 120 percent, depending on which numbers you look at. It is insane. It is like, oh, well, we will send this because Ukraine will stop Putin. Well, let's put aside whether that is even true or not. When are you going to pay for it? You are not. Then, today, it is like we are going to go put forward a bill so we can feel good about ourselves so we can go out to our Jewish friends and say: Look, we passed an anti-Semitism bill. Pat me on the back. I am anti-anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, you completely destroy any notion of a principle that we should be against thought police. Last year, we set out to change this place. I think we successfully did it for a while. We got seven appropriations bills passed out of the House Chamber. We had votes on about 1,100 amendments. We passed the strongest National Defense Authorization Act we have ever passed. We passed the strongest border security package in H.R. 2 we have ever passed. We finally put to bed notions that, to do that, you had to advance amnesty. We were able to, over the course of the last year and a half, move all of the spending debate to the point where nondefense spending was held flat and the defense spending that went up was paid for by taking money out of the IRS expansion and COVID funds. We were having serious conversations across the ideological spectrum, getting votes on bills, having regular order, going to committee, voting on amendments, and this place was briefly working again. Right now, I have never seen it worse, with bills being cooked up in back rooms, being jammed through without going to committee, without amendment, many of which have miserable policies in them. We spent $1.7 trillion in omnibus spending with all sorts of earmarks, all sorts of funding for FBI headquarters, continuation of broken and open borders, continuation of endless wars. We have busted the caps. Less than a year after passing the caps, we have busted the caps. We then fund $95 billion of additional foreign aid after passing a reauthorization to FISA. I will note: Conservatives jumped in there, and I think we forced it down to a 2-year reauthorization of FISA, so we will get another bite at that apple in 2 years. You are welcome. They are crumbs of freedom and liberty. I am telling you, if you want to save this country, you need to make sure that we have a Republican Conference that is going to do what they said they were going to do. You need to make sure that the minority of us who are coming to the floor to fight for you are no longer in the minority. We have a little bit of time. I said good-bye this last weekend to my 89-year-old grandmother. She passed away Sunday morning. I know she is up there with Jesus, no doubt getting a laugh at some of my antics down here. She was a wonderful woman, went to church every Sunday. She lived right. She, her generation, all who came before her, they didn't fight as she did. She served for 35 years in the Air Force as a civilian at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Neither she, nor any of the other people who wore the uniform, nor any of the 400,000 tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery, nor any of the tombstones that are sitting over in Normandy when we go over there and we celebrate D-Day on June 6, on the 80th anniversary--none of those people gave the last full measure of devotion or are willing to risk the last full measure of devotion to mortgage this country away vote by vote, dollar by dollar, year by year. We have a duty right now to take our country back because the radical, progressive Democrats and leftists who want to destroy it and who are going around city by city and university by university, they are not the majority. They don't represent a fraction of the people in this country who want to go about their job, honor God, take care of their family, work hard, earn a living, take care of their kids, start a business, achieve the American Dream. I am here to tell you: I am not going anywhere. We are going to take this country back because they don't get to have it. We have to stand up as a party and do what we said we would do, or we will be in the ash bin of history. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROY

Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.