Thomas Tiffany

Mr. TIFFANY

Mr. TIFFANY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the remarks by the gentleman from Oklahoma because he has been spot-on throughout this whole debate. I rise to oppose the previous question so that the House can consider the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act. Madam Speaker, it is no secret that crime is completely out of control in this country. Annual homicide records have been broken in at least a dozen major cities. Brazen smash-and-grab robberies in broad daylight are a daily occurrence. Killings, severe beatings, armed robberies, carjackings, sexual assaults, arson, and looting have become a common feature on the evening news. The gentleman on the other side of the aisle asked why we are doing a bill like this. Turn on the news and you will see. Crime in America is at historic levels. Yet, rogue prosecutors in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York City, and Milwaukee continue to release predators from custody almost as fast as the police can arrest them. The use of no-cash bail policies, plea bargains, and a complete refusal to put dangerous repeat offenders behind bars has demoralized our police and endangered our communities, and America's most iconic cities resemble a Third World country. Take Milwaukee County. Here is a quote from the district attorney in Milwaukee County. If you want to know why there should be data kept on this and why the American people should know what is going on as a result of prosecutors' actions in cities across America, here is a quote: ``Is there going to be an individual I divert . . . who is going to go out and kill somebody? You bet.'' That district attorney is still there in Milwaukee County. He is the person who gave a low-cash bail to the man who committed the Waukesha Christmas parade killings last year, killing six people, out on low- cash bail, injuring 60. There is a problem in America, and it needs to be dealt with. Americans are sick and tired of the lawlessness, and they are demanding accountability. That is what this is about, accountability. Madam Speaker, each year, jurisdictions across the United States benefit from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which provides funding to States, Tribes, and local governments to support a range of justice-related programs. If we defeat the previous question, we will offer an amendment to the rule, calling for immediate consideration of the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act, offered by my friend from New York City, which will apply a reporting requirement to these grants. It would, among other things, mandate that district attorneys report to Congress how often they follow through on holding criminals charged with violent crimes, like murder, rape, arson, crimes involving illegal guns, and motor vehicle theft, accountable. They would also be required to disclose how often they prosecute the initial charges, how often they secure convictions, whether or not those charged were already on probation or parole, and how many offenders were released without bail.

Mr. TIFFANY. Madam Speaker, the American people need to know if the people they have entrusted to keep their neighborhoods safe are actually using their tax dollars to finance this crime wave. It is time to end the policy of underwriting progressive policies that endanger the lives and livelihoods of decent, hardworking Americans, and that starts with transparency. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to stand with us for safer communities and oppose the previous question.

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

Mr. TIFFANY. Madam Speaker, I live in northern Wisconsin over 1,000 miles away from the southern border. Yet, the impacts of President Biden's open border are being felt right in our backyard. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet with the Sawyer County Sheriff's Office where they shared the local impacts that they are feeling from the Biden administration's open border, especially from illegal drugs. Madam Speaker, 1.5 pounds of meth with a cartel stamp was recovered in Radisson, Wisconsin, a tiny little burg. Madam Speaker, \1/4\ pound of heroin with a cartel stamp was recovered in Sawyer County, and fentanyl drug busts have become a regular occurrence. There they are. Cartel stamps there. In many respects, they are running America at this point. Madam Speaker, I agree with Mayor Adams of New York City and Mayor Bowser right here in Washington, D.C., that every State is now a border State. Just look at those images. This is now all over the country poisoning Americans. These aren't overdoses, they are poisonings. They are deliberate at this point. While you in the mainstream media keep deflecting from the Biden-orchestrated crisis at the southern border, cartels are getting richer, and Americans are losing loved ones. Last year, the U.S. saw a tsunami of overdose deaths, over 100,000 now dying annually. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death of Americans from 18 to 45. In fact, in my home county of Oneida County way up in northern Wisconsin, the sheriff's office noted more people died from fentanyl overdoses than anything else for the first time in the history of the county. Yet, despite the reality of these heartbreaking overdose facts, soft- on-crime States like California are releasing drug traffickers busted with 150,000 fentanyl pills on cashless bail. And to no one's surprise, they aren't showing up in court. I stand before you today to plead for this body to do something, anything, to secure our southern border. President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, and this Democrat-controlled Congress has shattered the peace and quiet of too many American neighborhoods for far too long, leaving countless families who have lost a son or daughter as collateral damage. What President Biden is doing on the border--or more accurately what he isn't doing--is not working. We do not have operational control of our southern border. Look at these images. Look at those images. The only people who have operational control are cartels. It is time to finish the border wall and the failed policy of catch and release and designate the drug cartels as the terrorist organizations that they are. This shouldn't be a political issue. This is a life-or-death situation for many Americans. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for this Special Order, as we continue to view the degradation of society and the horrible images that we continue to see across America.

Mr. TIFFANY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TIFFANY. Madam Speaker, Secretary Mayorkas has now been called a ``liar'' by the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol has said: You are not telling the American people the truth. We have seen it in the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY

Mr. TIFFANY. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. TIFFANY

Mr. TIFFANY. Mr. Speaker, America does not have a gun problem. America has a crime problem. Mr. Speaker, law-abiding Americans do not want more laws chipping away at the Second Amendment. They do not want to see their right to bear arms eliminated on the installment plan. They want prosecutors to prosecute. They want the police to police. They want dangerous criminals off the streets and behind bars.

Mr. TIFFANY

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

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

Mr. TIFFANY

Mr. TIFFANY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership and giving me the opportunity to speak here tonight. Mr. Speaker, while it is not surprising that Congress' budget process is a total and utter failure, the good news is that there are solutions to cut down on excessive spending, balance our budget, and prevent the world's largest economy from self-destructing. The American people know this. When you go back home and talk to the American people, they know what is going on here is wrong. They know that the family checkbook only goes so far. Choices have to be made. They know the American family's checkbook out here in Washington, D.C., should live under the same constraints. The solution is not to propose a budget with the highest sustained levels of spending since World War II, as President Biden has done, or to spend taxpayers' dollars at a faster pace than at any point in history, as Congress has done the past 2 years. The solution is to stop spending like there is no tomorrow and be fiscally responsible. With inflation at a 40-year high, gas prices shattering new records, and home prices surging, as the gentleman from Oklahoma said, I believe every effort must be made to rein in wasteful Washington spending and ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being thrown down the drain. Simply put, instead of spending money as fast as Joe Biden leaves for a Delaware vacation, it is time for fiscal responsibility in Washington. This includes implementing good-government reforms, like balancing our budget for the first time in over 20 years, which this budget by the RSC does. I thank the chairman for including a piece of legislation that I introduced called the Agriculture Civil Rights and Equality Act, ACRE. You might remember last year, Democrats in the American Rescue Plan provided billions in debt relief assistance to some farmers, while excluding others, based entirely on the color of their skin. That is detestable. That is un-American. The ACRE Act will ensure that this never happens again by explicitly barring the USDA from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any person, in whole or in part, based on race. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to finance unfair, unconstitutional racial quota systems. One of the main reasons I ran for this office is the same reason that I ran in 2010. In Wisconsin, we had a $3 billion deficit. We all remember, after the 2008 election, the policies that were put in place in the ensuing 2 years were disastrous for America. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The same thing is a rewind from back in that period of time. I told my constituents we can fix the budget problems we had in Wisconsin. Some people said: Yeah, we hear that all the time. I said: You give us a decade, and we will get it done. We did exactly that. Over the three terms that I sat on the budget writing committee in the State of Wisconsin, if you look at where their budget is now as a result of the little bit of work that I contributed to, along with my colleagues in the State legislature, we fixed those budget problems in Wisconsin. Now there is the largest rainy day fund in the history of Wisconsin. This past budget returned $2 billion to the taxpayers of the State. That is fiscal responsibility. We can do the same here in Washington, D.C., but it is going to require the will to do it. We can do it over the next decade, as the chairman said. We get to balance in 7 years here. This is what the American people are looking for. They want us to be fiscally responsible because it will lead to more opportunity and prosperity here in America and ensure American liberty for the future. Mr. Speaker, I urge both Democrats and Republicans to say ``yes'' to the RSC budget, because it is good for America.

Mr. TIFFANY

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

Mr. TIFFANY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Regrettably, I will not be able to support this bill either. It is another $1.4 billion of mandatory spending--no offsets, no sunset. This is another case of the runaway Biden inflation train gaining speed. The only question at this point to the American people is how spectacular the crack-up is going to be, and the American people know that. When I go out and talk to them, I hear about two things: energy prices and inflation. Well, here we have got another $1.4 billion that are going to be poured into the tinderbox of the train to send it careening down the rails even faster. The only question is how spectacular the crack-up is going to be. Unfortunately, the American people are going to suffer the consequences. The author of this bill just said that she would like to take some species off the endangered species list. There is one that can come off right now--right now--that has recovered. Representative Boebert and I proposed an amendment to de-list the gray wolf. It has recovered. The gray wolf is in the ESA ``Hotel California.'' They can enter, but they never leave. Twenty-five wildlife scientists from the upper Midwest a decade ago said, you need to de-list the wolf. We put together an amendment for this bill, and it was not considered. Terribly unfortunate, because it is time for the Endangered Species Act to either be used properly and de-list a species like the gray wolf that is fully recovered, according to wildlife scientists, or else the ESA itself has to be reformed. Those scientists, when you read their document that they wrote, specifically said, the Endangered Species Act is endangered because it is not being used properly. Also, there is no language in this bill that prohibits funds from going to acquiring new Federal lands. Think about it this way: If you have a neighbor that doesn't repair their roof, it is leaking into their house, and they say we are going to go buy that lot next door. That, in effect, is what this bill will allow the Federal Government to do. We are seeing across America, including in my district, that the Federal Government is not taking care of their lands appropriately. The Federal Government is becoming America's slumlord. This bill has grant programs that even the most extreme environmental groups can apply for. Every time some taxpayer-funded, so-called corporate green group runs an ad, and you are going to see a lot of them here in 2022, claiming the sky is falling, just remember: You may have paid for it, and you may pay twice because you will get hit with inflation as a result of spending that the American people cannot afford. I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to be able to testify on this bill. Unfortunately, I will not be able to support it, and I hope in the future that we can do better.

Mr. TIFFANY. Madam Speaker, I thank the ranking member for saying it quite well. The least we can do here is make sure that with these funds we try to have some oversight and responsibility in terms of how they are going to be spent. I thank the author for including this amendment in the bill. If there is no pay-for, then there must be some measure of accountability for the expenditure of these funds ensuring the Department of the Interior Inspector General's office has the proper resources to monitor this spending. Unfortunately, the bill in its current form has no sunset on the mandatory spending of $1.4 billion, so I thank the gentlewoman for including this in the package.

Mr. TIFFANY

Mr. TIFFANY. Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose the previous question so that the House can consider the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act. Madam Speaker, it is no secret that crime is out of control in this country. Annual homicide records have been broken in at least a dozen major cities. Brazen smash-and-grab robberies in broad daylight are a daily occurrence. Killing, severe beatings, armed robberies, carjackings, sexual assaults, arson, and looting have become a common feature on the evening news. Yet, rogue prosecutors in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York City, and Milwaukee continue to release predators from custody almost as fast as the police can arrest them. The use of no-cash bail policies, plea bargains, and a complete refusal to put dangerous repeat offenders behind bars has demoralized our police and endangered our communities, and America's most iconic cities resemble a Third World country. I will give you an example in my home State. In Milwaukee County, we witnessed back at Christmas a massacre at the Waukesha County Christmas Parade, 6 people dead, 60 injured. How? With a guy that had a rap sheet that had felonies, misdemeanors, statutory rape, resisting arrest, and strangulation, and he was out on $1,000 bail. Here is the worst part, though: That district attorney, John Chisholm in Milwaukee County, here is what he said years ago about his philosophy. ``Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into treatment program, who is going to go out and kill somebody? You bet. Guaranteed. It is guaranteed to happen. It does not invalidate the overall approach.'' That is what we have for district attorneys around the United States. Americans are sick and tired of the lawlessness, and they are demanding accountability. Madam Speaker, each year, jurisdictions across the United States benefit from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which provides funding to States, Tribes, and local governments to support a range of justice-related programs. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule, calling for immediate consideration of the Prosecutors Need to Prosecute Act. It would, among other things, mandate that district attorneys report to Congress on how often they follow through, holding criminals charged with violent crimes, like murder, rape, arson, crimes involving illegal guns, and motor vehicle theft accountable. They would also be required to disclose how often they prosecute the initial charges, how often they secure convictions, whether or not those charged were already on probation or parole, and how many offenders were released without bail. Madam Speaker, the American people need to know if the people they have entrusted to keep their neighborhoods safe are actually using their tax dollars to finance this crime wave.