Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, these are children being thrown to the wolves, and it is not President Trump who is doing it. It could end, and I hope we can work together to solve this problem. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. I think we ought to obey America's laws on immigration across the board. If you look at the asylum laws, there is a process to seek asylum. In fact, every year, people are granted that asylum if they prove their case. That is where the law comes into play, which is being ignored right here. What President Trump did when there was a surge in 2019, he confronted it, as a leader should do. He talked to people on the ground. He talked to our Border Patrol agents, who are the ones who have to deal with this crisis on a daily basis. In fact, 40 percent of our Border Patrol agents tonight at midnight, like Thursday night at midnight last week, when I was with those Border Patrol agents, 40 percent of them were pulled off of guarding our border, where their primary mission is to stop drug cartels from smuggling fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin into our country, which they are doing now at much higher levels, killing Americans all across the country. Forty percent of them pulled away because they are going to be changing diapers in the Donna detention facility tonight because that is what they are being tasked to do by the Biden administration. That is not their job. It is not why they signed up. Their morale is incredibly low. Well over roughly 90 percent of people who say they are coming here to seek asylum, those cases are rejected by the courts. Rejected. In fact, it is kind of hard to make an asylum claim here when the parents of many of these kids you are seeing here paid thousands of dollars to the drug cartels to smuggle their kids and themselves into the United States. It is hard to claim economic asylum, which is the case many of them plead, when you paid $4,000 to try to come here illegally when there is a legal process to come here, not just the normal legal process where you can wait to come into America legally, where we let a million people into our country every year, the most generous nation in the world, America. But when they go around that system, that is where it overwhelms our system. That is what is going on right now. President Trump confronted it, not by saying no one can come in, but by saying you have to follow our laws if you want to come here. If you want to seek asylum, you have to request it like everyone else. They allowed them to even come through South and Central American countries but stay in Mexico. Mexico agreed with this, and there was an orderly system. You got to hear your claim in a very expedient way. Today, they are given a piece of paper when they come across the border illegally, saying: Come show up maybe 5 years from now. Good luck with that. Then, they are given a free plane ticket, without an ID, to just be sent off to some other State. I saw manila envelopes, and once you got below the ``I do not speak English,'' Dallas was on one, Philadelphia was on one, New Jersey was on one. I don't know what is going to happen to them when they land in New Jersey if they can't speak English. What school system are they going to be placed in? Who is then going to be responsible for this breakdown at our southern border, which was created by President Biden, which he could fix today? I have urged President Biden to go down to the border and see this for himself, to see how inhumane he is treating kids, in violation of his own CDC guidelines, which Dr. Fauci verified yesterday. If you read the child abuse and neglect laws of the State of Texas where this facility is, this is a violation of the child abuse and negligent laws at the President Biden-run facility. Again, President Trump went and negotiated with Mexico, went and negotiated with those Northern Triangle countries to resolve the surge. This could be resolved as well, and you don't need to reinvent the wheel because there was a method for how to resolve it legally, using the legal system that America has. Sure, I would agree it needs reforms, not an amnesty reform, where you send a magnet not only across South and Central America but around the world that America's borders are open, because that is the message today. As the gentleman knows, there are at least six people on the terrorist watch list who have come across America's southern border. I am not talking about from South and Central American countries, but from Middle Eastern countries, from Eastern European countries. Those are just the ones we know of that we have caught, and the Biden administration won't share that data with the media. The Biden administration wouldn't even let the press into this facility, which is a national disgrace. I could imagine what the press would have said if the Trump administration was housing kids in a 33-person facility. There are over 400 crammed into a 33-person cell in the middle of a pandemic. Again, Dr. Fauci said this violates every protocol there is when we are trying to get our economy reopened. Other countries have to control COVID, too, but in America, we are trying to control it. Here is where the double standard and hypocrisy are driving people nuts. If any American citizen ran their business in America like this, they would be shut down by the Federal Government today. Yet, people can come here illegally, and the Biden administration is running this facility in violation of those very same guidances. Do you know what happened to them? They are given a free airplane ticket, put on an airplane, possibly with COVID, and sent into some interior State of America. We don't even know where they are going. The Biden administration won't share that. We have asked for a meeting, by the way. Our leadership team, Leader McCarthy and I, have asked for a meeting with President Biden to talk about this crisis, and he refuses to meet with us about it. Just ignoring a problem will not make it go away. If we are going to find a solution to this--again, I listed a number of bills, including some that are bipartisan, that would start solving this problem. President Biden doesn't even want to go. He put Vice President Harris in charge of this mess, and she won't even go down to the border, maybe because she doesn't want to be associated with President Biden's debacle. She was put in charge of it. She is the Vice President of the United States. She has a responsibility to go down there. She should have gone there weeks ago, but she still hasn't been. Maybe if they saw that, if they looked into the eyes of these young kids--one of the first girls we ran into might have been 10 years old, a girl in one of these cells, and she was crying. We asked her: Why are you crying? And she said: I don't want to be here. She is an orphan. The gentleman talked about orphans. All of these kids, there are no parents with them. They don't want to be here. Many were crying because they are jammed into these cells for 20 hours a day, at least 15 percent with COVID, 6 inches apart, not 6 feet apart. That is what the Biden administration is doing right now. President Trump fixed this problem. Again, if President Biden just doesn't like President Trump, call it his own name. We don't care. The template, if he doesn't want to do what actually worked, then do something else that works. But just doing this, it is not only a national disgrace, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Walensky said it is a violation of the CDC protocols that every American taxpayer has to follow. And they don't. Exempting themselves from a problem, but making everybody else comply with it, is no way to instill confidence in the American people. I hope the President goes down there. I hope the President resolves this issue. He should meet with us. He said he wanted to unify the country. He said he wanted to work with everybody. It is time he starts following through on those promises.

Mr. SCALISE. As we talk about asylum, let's be clear, America has laws on how someone can seek asylum. I haven't seen anybody suggest that those laws are just repealed, and you just take somebody's word that if they say they want to come to America to seek asylum, to come in today and jump ahead of everyone else.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for next week. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I haven't read the Constitution of Venezuela, but I know in the Constitution of the United States, it actually gives the Senate the advise-and-consent role, the responsibility, as it relates to Supreme Court picks. Obviously, that has been kept. The borking incident was probably the most embarrassing, egregious abuse that started this back-and-forth, where individual Supreme Court picks became more personally scrutinized. That process has been abused in cases like Bork. Even the Kavanaugh hearing got out of control, where disgraceful false allegations were made. But in the end, the Senate's advise-and-consent role is part of the United States Constitution. I don't know if the gentleman is suggesting that that should be changed. I don't see it. Even with a Democratic majority right now, I wouldn't suggest changing that process that is in our Constitution.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding back. This is the bill. It is not even a page and a half, but the real change in law by the Member of House Democratic leadership Chairman Nadler, says, ``A Chief Justice of the United States and 12 Associate Justices, any eight of whom shall constitute a quorum.'' So in essence, a hostile takeover of the United States Supreme Court, not going through the traditional process that has been in place for over 100 years. And I think the gentleman knows, if you go back historically, the President in power when the Senate was led by a different party--I can't recall a case in generations where if in the election year there was a vacancy in the Supreme Court it was filled. And everybody in the country knew that that was an issue in the election of 2016. In fact, it was probably one of the deciding issues that helped elect President Trump, was that there was that vacancy and the public wanted to be engaged in the direction of the country, as well as the direction of the court. It was absolutely a heavily debated item in the 2016 Presidential election and President Trump won that election. But, again, I have never heard anybody suggesting changing the Constitution to take away the Senate's advise and consent role. But we do see here a bill that was filed just this week by a leader in the Democratic Party to have a hostile takeover of the Supreme Court, similar to what has been done in socialist countries. And I think it is important to point to who has proposed those kinds of changes in the past, and what it has led to. And I know President Biden himself is on the record many times criticizing heavily the idea of packing the Supreme Court. Now, that was before he was President. Now that it would be him that would be able to appoint these extra judges, I don't know if his position has changed. But it is a dangerous precedent. It is the kind of precedent that exists in Soviet-style nations. I sure hope it is not here. But Mr. Nadler did just say yesterday when asked about Speaker Pelosi's position, he said, ``Speaker Pelosi and others will come along.'' So I was just wondering if that was something that the gentleman was planning on bringing to the floor that would be a divisive issue as opposed to things that we could work together on, like infrastructure, that would be unifying. And obviously, there is a lot of talk about infrastructure. This is something that there is tremendous interest in on both sides of the aisle. I know Chairman DeFazio, as well as Ranking Member Sam Graves, have had a lot of conversations about things that we could agree on. And I would hope that would be the approach that we take, unlike the bill that over 90 percent of which had nothing to do with the COVID-- the $1.9 trillion spending bill, which was hyper-partisan. Madam Speaker, I hope we approach this in a bipartisan way. Because as I said, there are clearly Members on both sides that want to agree on an infrastructure bill and have lots of areas of agreement if we are talking about infrastructure. And by infrastructure, I think most Americans--if you asked them what they thought was infrastructure, they would say roads, bridges, ports, waterways, and broadband. Once you get into social policy and Green New Deal-type policies or tax hikes that would make America the highest rate above Communist China in terms of tax policy--the National Association of Manufacturers said that the kind of proposal that is being floated in the partisan approach would kill over 1 million American jobs. So I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland talking about jobs. Why would we want to approach this in such a partisan way that we would threaten millions of jobs, that we would make America uncompetitive again, and Communist China would have a lower tax rate than America? Hopefully, we do the bipartisan approach and not a partisan approach. And I yield to the gentleman to enlighten us on what direction is being approached right now.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I know, just yesterday, one of the Members of the House Democrat leadership team, Chairman Nadler, introduced a bill to pack the Supreme Court. This is a proposal that we have seen in other countries. Unfortunately, it is in mostly socialist countries. If you look at some of the examples, in 2004, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez packed his court, and the result was totalitarian dominance for his socialist regime. Congressman Gimenez, who himself fled Cuba, fled a communist regime, said just recently on court-packing: Packing the courts is a tactic used by brutal dictatorships to consolidate the socialist power, which resulted in tens of thousands of court rulings in its favor, basically destroying the country. I wanted to ask the gentleman, is that court-packing bill a bill that the majority is going to be bringing to the floor or even marking up in committee? I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that on behalf of the entire Louisiana delegation and on behalf of all of my colleagues, we welcome Julia Letlow to Congress. It has been quite a journey, and it is not a journey that she walks alone. This has been Julia and Luke Letlow's journey for over a year, and we all still grieve for the loss of Luke, who tragically died just days before he would have been sworn into Congress. But Julia never backed down, never looked back. She moved forward, and she said we are going to continue this journey with her beautiful family. Madam Speaker, up in the balcony, we have her 3-year-old son, Jeremiah, and her 1-year-old daughter, Jacqueline. We welcome them, as well as both Julia's and Luke's families, who are in the balcony. There are so many great attributes that Julia is going to bring to this Congress. She graduated from the University of Louisiana Monroe. She has been in higher education her entire life and truly dedicated her life to serving others. She will be serving on the Education and Labor Committee, as well as on the Agriculture Committee, two important committees that enrich this country, as well as her district. She has a great record of service. We are so excited to have her in our delegation. We are especially proud that Julia becomes, today, the first Republican woman ever elected to Congress from Louisiana. Madam Speaker, let me welcome our newest Member of Congress, Julia Letlow.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Drew Brees, his legacy as a New Orleans Saint in the National Football League, and his dedication to the people of the City of New Orleans. Drew's retirement comes after completing twenty seasons in the NFL, fifteen of which were played as the starting quarterback of my hometown team, the New Orleans Saints. In fact, he chose to retire on March 14, 2021, the fifteen-year anniversary of his signing with the Saints. Since 2005, Drew has taken the field dressed in black and gold and sparked the greatest era yet for the Saints franchise. For the last fifteen years, Brees has led one of the most explosive offensive teams in NFL history, marching the Saints to seven NFC South titles and winning the franchise's first-ever Super Bowl in 2010. You can take a guess who the MVP was for Super Bowl XLIV. I could go on and on about how Drew Brees is one of the best football players of all time. How he is the NFL all-time leader in career passing yards, passes completed, passes completed per game, and total offensive yards. Or that he has the most seasons with 5,000+ passing yards, has been selected for 13 Pro Bowls, or that he has showcased his accuracy by holding the all-time single season record for his passing completion percentage at 74.4 percent. These achievements are unparalleled. In addition to Drew's accomplishments on the field, I also want to recognize and honor the positive impact Drew Brees has made on New Orleans and the entire State of Louisiana. Drew came to New Orleans during one of our darkest times. Hurricane Katrina had taken over 1,800 lives and flooded the vibrant, historic crown jewel of the South. The iconic Louisiana Superdome, home to the Saints and regularly filled with cheering fans on Sundays, was filled with many of those same people who were now evacuees, some of whom had lost everything they owned. The Saints are more than just a football team in New Orleans. After Katrina, the Saints gave us hope. The Saints are as much a part of the soul of New Orleans as our world-famous cuisine and the jazz music and brass bands that fill the French Quarter. Drew Brees changed our New Orleans Saints forever, bringing historic success to the franchise and giving the city hope, with something to finally celebrate through the grueling struggles of rebuilding. As the Saints organization put it, Drew came to us at our lowest point, and brought us to its highest. A known leader in the locker room, Drew is also a leader off the field. Winner of the NFL's Walter Payton Man of the Year award, Drew and his wife Brittany founded the Brees Dream Foundation, which has contributed more than $45 million globally to cancer patients and families in need. In the last year, the Brees family personally committed $5 million to Louisiana to assist with COVID-19 relief efforts. To close, I'd like to read Brees' own inspirational words from his retirement letter, addressed openly to the city and to the famed Who Oat Nation. ``From the moment I stepped foot into the city of New Orleans, I could feel your spirit. You told me that if I loved New Orleans, you would love me back. No truer words have ever been spoken. ``Drew, I wholeheartedly agree, and your place in the history of the city will live forever. Jennifer and I wish you, Brittany, and your beautiful young kids all the best as you now begin the next chapter of your Hall of Fame life.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this amnesty bill. And if you look at what is happening at our southern border right now, America is facing a serious crisis. Our southern border is being overrun, the facilities, the detention centers that are set up to hold people who are coming across, are being overwhelmed. In fact, if you listen to what the border agents are telling us, it is total mayhem, to quote one of the border agents. Many facilities are not at 100 percent or 200 percent or 300 percent capacity, but even worse than that. There are kids who aren't getting enough food, who aren't being able to shower more than once a week. This is going on in American detention facilities today, and President Biden refuses to acknowledge the problem. Part of dealing with the problem is to first admit there is a problem, and President Biden doesn't even want to acknowledge it. And then on the heels of this border crisis that is going on right now, there is a bill on the House floor to create amnesty, to create a bigger magnet, saying, come to the southern border. The Homeland Security Secretary has been pressed repeatedly the last few days to tell people to stop coming across the border illegally, and he won't do it. He says, Well, they will come right now. As if there is a time to break the law. Let's get back to legal immigration, a system that actually works for America. But when you have a crisis at the border, the last thing you should do is make it worse. That is what this bill does. We should be having an honest conversation about how to make our legal system of immigration work; not how to ignite a crisis at the border and make it worse. We know how bad it is over there. In fact, because of the encouragement to cross the border illegally, there are caravans of young kids coming across, and reports that up to a third of all the women coming across are being sexually assaulted on the journey. Stop this humanitarian crisis. Reject this bill.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate the update on the schedule. Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman, we have been getting a number of concerns expressed from Members on our side--and I would imagine on the gentleman's side as well--about the erratic floor schedule, the changes that have occurred. This week, we were supposed to be here Tuesday to Friday. It was changed to Monday to Thursday. Next week, initially, the calendar showed that it was a week for Members to be in their districts. Madam Speaker, we all have challenges in our districts. There are small businesses that are struggling to stay afloat. Many Members are working with their local school boards to try to encourage schools to reopen. And all the other challenges that people have, whether it is trying to get water or spread distribution of the vaccine, as they set those meetings in their districts, when the floor schedule changes here, it disrupts their ability to properly represent their districts. I know the schedule is laid out for the year for a reason, so that Members can manage both the schedule here--and we all represent 750,000 people, roughly, back home--and the ability to properly meet with and represent constituents who aren't even allowed to come to this Capitol to meet with us, so we want to go meet with them back home. It is hard to do that when the schedule continues to change. If the gentleman would address the concerns that have been raised, rightfully so, about those erratic changes, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I hope the gentleman is not suggesting that it would take a 100 percent vaccination rate. I know with the rest of the country, when States make decisions to reopen, when CDC issues guidance, I have never seen any guidance that said 100 percent vaccination is the standard for bringing something back.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland. I appreciate the acknowledgment about the concerns and the disruptions of schedules as Members try to meet the needs of their constituents back home, as well as doing the work up here. Clearly, getting our work done is the first and most important priority to addressing those needs. Hopefully, as we look toward our return after we come back in April, the appropriations process will begin. We would surely like to see us get back to a more regular order for doing appropriations bills, where we can have bills go through committee, go through a markup process, with bipartisan input, which we haven't seen, but, ultimately, be able to bring those bills to the floor with a typical, traditional amendment process. Madam Speaker, I know the gentleman is well aware of this. Historically, when appropriations bills come to the floor, there are many amendments. Sometimes, it is a completely wide-open amendment process, which we would surely encourage. I know many of those years when we were in the majority and bills would come to the floor that were appropriations, a Member literally could write their amendment on a piece of paper and turn it in and that amendment would be debated and voted on, on the House floor. Sometimes, you would see over 100 amendments on a single appropriations bill, which are all important and should be debated, so we would go to 2- minute votes. The question I would have is, now that we have seen--from reports I have seen, and maybe you have too--that roughly 75 percent of all Members in this House have had a vaccination for COVID-19, there is a strong desire to get back to a regular floor schedule here on the floor, where we are conducting our business and have the ability to interact with each other as colleagues. It is a much different experience than when people have to trickle in, trickle out, limiting the number of people, the ability to debate things, 45-minute votes for every bill. If you have 100 amendments on a bill, this House can't function at 45 minutes per vote. To get back to a 15-minute, 5-minute, and 2-minute voting schedule--again, CDC guidance just came out this week, saying if someone is vaccinated, they don't even have to have a mask to be around other people. The Senate doesn't require masks on their floor. There is no reason why we would have to have a mask to have this conversation. The President of the United States doesn't wear a mask when he is giving speeches, or his Press Secretary when she is meeting with the press. Can we get back to a regular floor operating schedule where we can meet as colleagues in person? If somebody doesn't want to be around others, maybe a voting station can be set up. But for anybody else who wants to interact following CDC guidance, recognizing the vaccination rate, and getting back to the ability to have a voting schedule that allows us to conduct business the way we are going to need to when we start taking up those appropriations bills, I would ask the gentleman if he has a plan for that, if he could lay that out. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the majority leader of the House, for the purpose of inquiring as to the schedule for next week.

Mr. SCALISE. If maybe a requirement of a test once a week when we come in or something like that would help get us to a better place where we can have in-person, on the floor, and in-committee processes and meetings--the testing capability is now there in the Attending Physician's office. If it needs to be widened more, I know there are other rooms that are doing some of the testing--then that would be a suggestion, I think, worth us discussing if it helps us get back to a more functioning Congress, especially a more functioning House on the floor and in committee. Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, it is worth doing. Again, that is why you had a number of Republican Senators go to the White House to offer that olive branch. They were turned down, and that is unfortunate. On this bill, clearly it wasn't just Republicans who voted against it. It was a bipartisan vote in opposition. I hope that is not the model. And that was the point. Thirteen of 14 bills have come to the floor under a rule so far; didn't even go through committee. Let's get back to that collegiality. Let's get back to bringing bills to committee, having the committees actually work in person so Members can have the ability to have those conversations and come and find common ground, which has happened in the past, and it surely can happen again now. I hope we can get to that point soon. I yield to the gentleman to add anything else.

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

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I would yield because I would suggest that if we are at 75 percent now, you also have Members who have antibodies, who may have had COVID months ago and who have even taken the test that shows they have antibodies. Whether they have taken the vaccine or not, the antibodies can fight off COVID. But at 75 percent, is there a number higher than that that the gentleman is setting as a standard? I would hope it wouldn't be 100, but I would also hope we could have a conversation together to work through what that standard should be so we can get to a place where we have a normal operating process both in the House and in committees. The committee work being done virtually is a true disservice to the ability for us to collegially work on issues. Many of our committees deal with not the high-profile issues that are the battleground issues where we are on our own sides, but in many cases it is where one sees the kind of collegiality where Congress can come together and work, and that isn't happening either. I would hope we could come up with a standard that is not 100 percent. If we are at 75, then it has got to be somewhere at a different place to get back to a House floor functioning schedule, as well as a committee structure. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, when you look at the bill that passed yesterday, the only bipartisan vote was against the bill. Every Republican--in fact, a Democrat voted against it as well. You had two Democrats who voted against it originally when it came through the House the first time. But the bottom line is, it was the majority party and President Biden who chose to go it alone, who chose to have a closed process where Republicans were shut out. There were many efforts, including a number of Senators going to the White House to meet with the President, who offered ideas, and every one of those ideas was thrown in the trash can. That is not a unity message. That is not trying to work with people from all parties and all walks of life to come up with the best ideas. It was a go-it-alone socialist agenda, very little focused on COVID; $1.9 trillion, over 90 percent of which wasn't dedicated to healthcare. You want to talk about schools. There was not a single dime in that bill that requires schools to reopen. You look at the money for schools, and hundreds of billions of dollars, by the way, are already out there that aren't spent, hundreds of billions that we all worked on together. When President Trump said he wanted to work with Republicans and Democrats, he actually followed through on that promise, as the gentleman noted, and every CARES Act bill was a very bipartisan bill. That was an effort made on both sides to work together and they were targeted. It was targeted on helping families who were struggling or helping small businesses who were struggling; on getting money into the search for a vaccine. Operation Warp Speed should be something we all celebrate, where President Trump said he wants to put all the focus at FDA on not only finding a vaccine, but prefunding the manufacturing of the vaccinations even before FDA approves them so we don't have to wait an extra few months that we don't have. That is why we are at a point where we can have 100 million vaccinations. We tried to double that number in this bill. That amendment was voted down. But on schools, my colleague, Ashley Hinson, had a bill to say, let's say if the schools are going to get new money--which they already have enough money to fortify their schools to reopen safely. Many took us up on that and are open in the classroom today. Some have chosen not to, but not for a lack of money. Let's be very clear about that. In fact, 95 percent of the money for schools in the bill that was passed yesterday can't even be spent this year; 95 percent of it. Then you have hundreds of billions of dollars still unspent that can be used to reopen schools who want to get back in the classroom, that money is already there. That money did not require--that need did not get met yesterday. That need was already met by Congress. Some chose to do it. Some have chosen not to reopen, even though not only is the money there to reopen, but the science is there. The science lays out not only how to safely reopen, but it points out the devastating damage being done to children in this country by not reopening. So when the gentleman talks about polls and, well, the polling says this bill is really popular. Hey, do you want a check for $3,500? I am sure a lot of people would say yes, until they realize that $350 billion of this money goes to bail out failed States. And a State like California, who has a $10-plus-billion surplus, is going to get over $40 billion. So I am sure if we asked a poll question to people across this country: Do you think it is right to borrow $1.9 trillion from our children? Because somebody is going to have to pay for this. This money didn't fall out of the sky. Is it right to borrow $1.9 trillion from our children to give California $41 billion when they currently have a $10 billion surplus? I think we would get a different answer than the 70 percent saying yes. If you said, in this bill, which we tried to correct, every felon in prison today in America will get a $1,400 check from the taxpayers. That is in the bill. They tried to take it out in the Senate when they allowed them on the floor to bring an amendment. Not a single amendment was allowed on this House floor to fix those kinds of disparities. Every Democrat in the Senate voted ``no.'' They said continue to give $1,400 checks to prisoners, felons in prison, when we are already paying for their food, for their lodging, for their healthcare. Now they are going to get a $1,400 check from the taxpayers of this country, borrowed from our children. Do most Americans know that? I hope they do because when we then ask them the question later: Now that you know what is really in the bill, what do you think about it? When you recognize some of the other ideas that were brought forward, not only to reopen schools, but to target the money, to focus on helping small businesses, those were the things that we wanted to do, trying to put some guardrails and limitations in place, like the previous CARES Act bills did, which is why they were all bipartisan. But when you look at these expenditures, and then you recognize that there is no money requiring schools to reopen. But our border is wide open right now and if someone comes over legally, they will get a check. That is a concern to a lot of people. So, yes, look at the bill. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it did go through committee. It did have markups and hearings. And, in fact, it yielded a great benefit to every American. Every income group benefited from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And, as the gentleman knows, the income group level that benefited the most by us cutting taxes were the lowest income, because we rebuilt our middle class because of that bill. We made America competitive because of that bill. And in this bill that passed yesterday, with a bipartisan vote against it, there was tucked away language that prohibits States from cutting taxes. Explain what that has to do with COVID. If you are a State, every State will get money from that bill. Again, California gets over $40 billion, even though they have a $10 billion surplus. But if a State tries to cut taxes, they actually get penalized in the bill. People are aghast when they hear that. It just came out yesterday. What does that have to do with COVID? Why wasn't this a targeted relief bill? It was because one side wanted to close the process out and just go it alone and push a socialist agenda that has nothing to do, or little to do, with COVID relief. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I appreciate that. Again, hopefully, this is a discussion that we can all have, not just the majority making this decision, but the majority working with the minority. We have an active group of Members who are medical doctors, the Doctors Caucus, who have a lot of good suggestions. I think they are going to try to meet with the House Attending Physician. Hopefully, that can spur some additional ideas about how we can do this, and then have us work together to achieve that. Finally, on the House committee schedule especially, we have taken up 14 different rules bills this Congress so far, bills that have actually come to the floor under a rule. Unfortunately, only one of those bills actually went to committee. Meaning, 13 of the 14 bills never even went to committee to have the debate in the openness and the transparency that this Congress deserves. I think that millions of people across the country would expect that we would be having--as we are shaping policy, that it is not just a one-sided approach. That if a socialist agenda is being pushed by one side, then can't the other side at least have that discussion in a committee process and offer amendments? The amendment process is critically important, and that has been lost too often--even the $1.9 trillion spending bill that over 90 percent of which had nothing to do with health needs and not a dime of which was dedicated to safely reopening schools, which is a huge cry amongst millions of parents across the country. Madam Speaker, not only on one side, but, frankly, nobody on the majority side was even allowed to offer an amendment. A $1.9 trillion spending bill, probably the largest bill that has come through Congress in the history of our country, and not a single amendment, Democrat or Republican, was allowed in the House on that bill to be brought forward. We were able to bring some amendments in committee. Every one of them was voted down or removed. Not one Democrat that I saw was even allowed to bring an amendment up in committee on a $1.9 trillion bill. That is a major concern. It is a concern that denies the people's House from being able to express the will of the people when we have ideas and suggestions maybe, for example, as we wanted to in the House to say: Should a felon who is in a prison be able to get a $1,400 check? We weren't even able to bring that amendment up for debate. Can we at least require that schools reopen? If hundreds of billions of new dollars are going to go to schools, shouldn't the requirement be that they use that following the CDC guidance and following the science that is widespread that says the schools should be open and that long-term damage is being done to kids by not being in the classroom? Millions and millions of kids--maybe over 60 percent of the children in America--are not getting daily in-the-classroom learning. Unions are more concerned, saying: You can go to spring break if you are a union member, but just don't post pictures because we don't want anybody to see it--when they should be in the classroom teaching our kids. That debate never got to happen here on the House floor and, frankly, in most of the committees. Because these bills aren't going through committee. And that one bill went through committee with the order clearly given not to allow a single amendment. Not a single amendment in the House was added to a $1.9 trillion spending bill. I am sure some people might think that was the perfect bill, that there was not a single change. But sometimes the smallest bill has a change made that makes it a better bill, but not that bill. That kind of closed process is not who we should be as a House. Madam Speaker, 13 out of 14 bills didn't even go through committee, and the one that did--the $1.9 trillion bill--not a single amendment by a Republican or Democrat in the House was allowed to be added. I hope that is not the standard. It is surely not reflective of what this House should be doing. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE. I appreciate the gentleman's offer to work. Obviously, when one looks at the way the Senate operates, they have said that to speak, especially, you don't need to wear a mask. I don't see the science that would say that the gentleman and I have to wear masks to have this conversation. Again, I would direct my friend to when the President is giving a speech, he is not wearing a mask. If there are other people around, then they might be wearing a mask; but when they speak, they take off their mask. Just look at those protocols as well and just try to inject some of those commonsense measures to try to get back to doing our job. One final point, I hope, again, we would all want everyone who has the interest in getting the vaccine to have access to the vaccine. But if one Member out of 435 felt they didn't want to have the vaccine, then I would hope that wouldn't be enough to prohibit the rest of us from carrying out more normal functions on the House floor and in committee. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Missouri for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this massive non-COVID spending bill. If you look over the last year during this pandemic, Congress has come together many times in a bipartisan way to specifically help families who are struggling, to help small businesses who are hanging on by a thread, and to try to put more money into finding a vaccine. Mr. Speaker, we were successful in those initiatives--in fact, so successful that we now have three proven vaccines that are out there working because of President Trump's Operation Warp Speed. We were able to help millions of small businesses stay afloat. There are still more struggling. In many cases, in States that are mismanaging this, you are seeing a disparate impact. Mr. Speaker, instead of working with Republicans and Democrats, President Biden tried this go-it-alone approach, to allow Speaker Pelosi to write a bill behind closed doors and bring the bill forward, not allowing a single Democrat to file an amendment on a $1.9 trillion spending bill in the House. When you look at what is in the bill--and many people reference polling, as if we should vote based on a poll that doesn't show the full story--we are starting to get the full story. Mr. Speaker, ask people: Do you think, with hundreds of billions of dollars still out there unspent from previous bills, we should borrow $1.9 trillion from our children to do things like send $1,400 checks to people in Federal prison? Mr. Speaker, yes, that is in this bill. Pick your prisoner of choice. The Boston Marathon bomber gets a $1,400 check in this bill, and we are borrowing that money from our children. Has that been asked by a pollster? I would argue no. There was an amendment to strip that out. Every Democrat who had the opportunity voted to continue sending those checks to felons. No wonder, last week, 97 Democrats voted to allow felons to vote in elections. Luckily, that amendment barely failed. Mr. Speaker, look at what is in this bill. Is there any money in this bill, by the way, to specifically open our schools? Unfortunately, the answer to that is no. We had an amendment to require that if you are going to give hundreds of billions of new money to schools, shouldn't it at least be used to open those schools? The science said to open schools. The union bosses say no. Mr. Speaker, look at what is in this bill and what is not in this bill. This should be a targeted relief bill. Instead, this is an attempt by Speaker Pelosi to further promote her socialist agenda. Mr. Speaker, 95 percent of the money in this bill for these schools can't even be spent this year, so this bill actually keeps schools closed longer. Think about that juxtaposition. President Biden has created a crisis at America's border. President Biden said America's border is open, but in this bill, he keeps schools closed. How does that make any sense? Again, Mr. Speaker, you go through this bill, and they actually inserted language in this bill by dark of night, and I am sure it has never been polled. But in this bill, it bans States from cutting taxes, if anyone can explain to me how that has anything to do with COVID. You look at a State like New York that is losing hundreds of thousands of people from gross mismanagement by their Governor and because of high taxes to States like Florida, which have no income tax. If the State of New York in this bill tries to fix the problems they have created with high taxes by trying to bring their State in line, they actually get penalized in this bill for cutting taxes. This has nothing to do with COVID. We should work together on something that helps families get through this, helps gets more vaccines in arms, and helps open up our schools. Mr. Speaker, this is a failed socialist approach. I urge rejection.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to extend my personal congratulations and best wishes to Mr. Gregory J. Washington, a New Orleans native, on the occasion of his retirement this year. Greg began his forty-year career in the energy sector as a ``roughneck'' in the fields of south Louisiana during his high school summer breaks. For those of us who know Greg, it seems obvious that he would find success in the industry that offered him his first job. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in 1978, Greg started with Texaco as a ``landman'' in New Orleans and went on to become the State Mineral Board Representative from 1986 to 1990. Greg was later promoted to be Texaco's Senior Public and Government Affairs Representative for Louisiana and was eventually asked to transfer to Washington, D.C., for what he thought would be a short-term assignment. After many years with the Texaco and Chevron Washington offices, Greg has decided to hang up his hard hat for good and enter retirement. Throughout his career, Greg has shown his strong Louisiana work ethic and his ``come early, stay late'' attitude. He has always been eager to share his love of Louisiana and our culture with everyone he meets. He has continued to approach his work with an enthusiastic and positive outlook. As a result, he is well known and well liked, and his decision to retire certainly leaves a void that will be hard to fill. I know all his friends and colleagues will miss him dearly. Greg and Cassandra, his lovely wife of 40 years, are looking forward to spending more time together in their well-earned retirement. I expect that this will surely include more time in his hometown of New Orleans. I wish Greg and Cassandra all the best.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of New Orleans restauranteur Barbara Anselmo Chifici who passed away on January 23, 2021. She is survived by her seven children, twelve grandchildren, and two brothers. Barbara reached national recognition throughout her successful career in the culinary industry. For almost 40 years, she owned Deanie's Seafood restaurants, which she operated with her late husband Frank Chifici. Known for their overflowing fried seafood platters, Deanie's restaurants became a New Orleans staple and were featured on numerous local and national news programs. Barbara was also well-known for giving back to her community. From creating a crawfish and music festival that benefited local charities and serving as president of a local philanthropic organization to her numerous positions in the St. Mary Magdalen Mothers' Club and the Archbishop Rummel High School Parents' Club, Barbara played an invaluable role in our community. She will be deeply missed and her impact in Louisiana will be felt for many years. I offer my sincerest condolences to her family, and I know her legacy will undoubtedly live on in our community.