[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 46 (Friday, March 10, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H1264-H1269]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HOW YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE BEING SPENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we were given the President's budget,
which outlines the President's so-called priorities.
Well, his priorities were pretty clear: Continue to expand government
at the expense of the American people. Expand government, a government
that is at odds with the freedom, well-being, and prosperity of the
American people every single day.
The simple truth is, as my friends in the House Freedom Caucus and a
large number of my other colleagues in the Republican Conference have
been articulating, we need to shrink Washington so that we can grow
America.
We cannot sustain and grow out of the $32 trillion of debt and the
$20 trillion of debt that the Congressional Budget Office just outlined
that we are going to add over the next decade. We will not, as a
country, survive through that if we do not get economic growth to the
3, 3\1/2\, and 4 percent levels that we saw under President Reagan,
President Clinton, and in previous years. You are not going to get
economic growth if you don't get the Federal Government off the backs
of the American people and stop empowering them to target Americans, to
undermine American freedoms.
Biden's budget would increase taxes and implement price controls to
the tune of $3 trillion. That is the President's plan.
What does the media do?
They run around and go: Oh, he is reducing the deficit. He is
reducing the debt.
Yet, by his own measures, he would be increasing the debt another $17
trillion over the next decade.
The American people look to this body and this town with utter
amazement at how stupid we could possibly be. If you set out and tried
to be more incompetent and more stupid than the people that have been
running this town for as long as I can remember, I am not sure how you
can do it.
Seriously. That would be a great exercise. Could anybody, if you put
together 435 people here, 100 people on the other side, Presidents and
bureaucrats, swapped out over the last, say, three decades, could it be
any worse?
William F. Buckley said he would rather be governed by the first 435
people out of the phone book than the 435 people we send here. Is he
wrong?
Seriously, it would be a great inquiry for us to consider.
We are $32 trillion in debt. Our borders are wide open. We have got
American citizens unable to carry out their livelihoods, men and women
in uniform who are being denied promotions and the ability to do their
job in the Defense Department. We have got kids shut out from their
schools, forced into the corners wearing masks, mental health issues,
and they are set back generations in terms of their academic
capability.
That is the best we have got? That is the best we can do?
We reject that. We believe in America. We believe in Americans. We do
not believe that investing in Washington, investing in the Federal
bureaucracy is good for the American people. We believe the opposite.
The President wants to tax and regulate $3 trillion to save
increasing the debt $3 trillion over the next decade, down to $17
trillion. Whoo, boy, that will do it.
We propose an immediate savings of $3 trillion right now by cutting
back
[[Page H1265]]
the woke weaponized Federal bureaucracy that is undermining the freedom
of the American people so that we can make them more free and
prosperous so that they can grow this economy so we can shrink the
deficit, reduce debt, and reclaim the inheritance of being an American
for our kids and grandkids.
Think about what Biden's budget would do. It would spend a total of
$6.8 trillion next year, $500 billion more than this year, $2 billion
for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to increase
regulation of the firearms industry. I have got thousands of Texans
that I represent who are facing being made a felon because a bureaucrat
at ATF decided what precisely a pistol brace might mean for how their
gun is regulated.
{time} 1100
Think about that. Just some guy some, some gal sitting in central
Texas bought a weapon under the law, and now a bureaucrat says you have
got to do this, register this, or you are a felon.
Now, I think the Court will strike that down as unconstitutional, but
why would this body, why would any Republican fund the bureaucracy that
is going to make a felon out of the law-abiding citizen back home?
To my Republican colleagues: Don't do that.
How about $3.9 billion for the Department of Homeland Security's
climate resilience programs? Think about that. $3.9 billion for the
Department of Homeland Security, which, by the way, refuses to secure
the homeland, allows 72,000 Americans to die from fentanyl poisoning,
allows cartels to get empowered and slaughter Americans in the streets
of Matamoros in northern Mexico without a peep from this
administration. Nothing. Let's give that department $3.9 billion for
climate resilience programs. Does anybody wonder why the American
people look at us and say what in the hell are you doing?
$2 billion increase for the EPA to target American energy. Now, I
want to remind people, I want to remind all the kids out there watching
this thinking, oh, my God, but the world is going to end, we are going
die, climate change, we are going to get extinguished. Oh, really? Oh,
really?
Why is it that my Democratic colleagues who believe that the
production of CO2 is going to be the end to humanity and the
Earth as we know it will not remotely consider nuclear power, which
produces not an ounce of CO2, but they won't consider it?
Why? Because it is a religion. It is climate fetishism. It is about
government control. It is about being able to target the oil and gas
industry to undermine the well-being of the American people by
empowering bureaucrats so they can feel good about themselves while
China continues to pump out more CO2 than any other country,
ratcheting it up week by week. There are 1,100 coal-fired plants in
China. They build two a week while we sit around and play tiddlywinks
with solar panels and windmills, leaving our grid in Texas unreliable,
now almost 50 percent wind and solar. We have to think, wait, what
happens on a windless, cloudy day? I don't know. How do you want to
power up your schools or your hospitals or your homes or your
businesses? Could it be that you have to rely on coal or gas or nuclear
power? Of course, you do. Yet, my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle--not here, of course; of course, with all due respect neither are
my colleagues on this side of the aisle with the exception of the
Speaker. This is just how we do things in Washington. This is debate.
A $2 billion funding increase for the Internal Revenue Service is in
the President's budget. Now, I want every American to understand that.
They just passed a bill last summer supposedly called the Inflation
Reduction Act that gives the IRS another $80 billion to expand. So that
is what the American people want: More IRS agents to go target more
Americans to raise at most by the CBO's own estimate 100 or $200
billion over 10 years? So you're going to spend $80 billion to go
target American citizens to bring in more money. By the way, the IRS
targets poor people and minorities three to five times more than other
Americans. So you're going to go hire more bureaucrats, you got $80
billion, and what does Biden do? Oh, that is not enough. $2 billion
more for the IRS. Genius.
$100 million to the Department of Education in grant funding for
communities to promote racial and socioeconomic diversity in their
schools.
$62 million for the DOJ to exploit the FACE Act to target pro-life
Americans. I could go on and on about the amount of money given to
agency after agency, bureaucrat after bureaucrat to target the American
people. The FBI targeted my now-friend Scott Smith in Loudoun County,
whose daughter was assaulted in a school. He dared to go to the school
board. He got challenged by law enforcement, and the DOJ was going to
be putting him on a list as a domestic terrorist because the National
School Boards Association was colluding with the White House to do so.
Is that what we want to fund: a Department of Justice that would put a
dad on a list as a domestic terrorist because he went to his school
board to try to defend his daughter who was assaulted in a bathroom?
That is what this administration wants to prioritize: Funding a woke,
weaponized bureaucracy that is undermining freedom. They want to fund
the FBI that went after Mark Houck in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for
daring to defend his son when they were outside of an abortion clinic
and somebody was challenging his son when they were exercising their
First Amendment rights, and he defended him without anything
significant happening. They were not prosecuted by State law. The feds
went in, had a SWAT team at 7 in the morning on a Sunday--the whole
family--went into their house threatening Mark Houck.
Is that what we want to fund?
Is that what we want to use the power of government for?
How about the $16,000--I know it is just $16,000; I realize that is
chicken feed in this establishment--in State Department funding for a
pro-prostitution LGBTQ group in Colombia. Is that how we want our tax
dollars spent? That is just $16,000. It doesn't mean anything, does it?
It does.
$1.9 million in Department of Education funding for an Illinois
nonprofit that trains teachers to center equity in the classroom. We
need our kids to know math, how to read, science, how to lead the
world, how to beat China, and we got $1.9 million to center equity,
whatever that hell that means.
$2 million for the State Department's Race, Ethnicity, and Social
Inclusion Unit. As if the State Department is out doing wonderful
things in the first place these days.
How about $158 million in economic law enforcement and military
support for Mexico? Pause. Yes, you just heard that correctly. We, the
taxpayers, are giving $158 million to Mexico for economic law
enforcement and military support while we are getting flooded at our
border, cartels are absolutely running amuck and owning the state of
Mexico as a narco-terror state, running fentanyl into America, and
killing Americans in Mexico. Congratulations, American people, you
bought with $158 million a narco-terrorist state that is undermining
our freedom and liberty killing Americans, endangering migrants, and
endangering Texas. Congratulations, Americans.
$34 million for the Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security,
Alejandro Mayorkas. $34 million for Alejandro Mayorkas to screw up
America. Congratulations to the American people on how your tax dollars
are being spent.
$1.7 billion, for the ATF that I described earlier that will make
owners of the 10 to 40 million pistol braces in the United States
felons. $6.3 billion for Anthony Fauci's NIAID, which was weaponized to
completely lock down the United States and force vaccines on millions
of Americans, massively increasing the profit of pharmaceutical
companies--Pfizer and Moderna--making like $100 billion under
government mandates for vaccines--government mandates for vaccines with
liability protection for the companies for a vaccine that even the
morons in the departments over at CDC, NIH, FDA are now at least
acknowledging don't really do much for transmission; but, oh, yes,
let's give them $6.3 billion.
$128 million for the office of the CDC Director who actively mislead
Americans about COVID vaccine efficacy while CDC and Big Tech colluded
to suppress vaccine information, which we know to be true. We saw
testimony yesterday.
[[Page H1266]]
Our own colleague, Thomas Massie, had his own social media posts
being edited and targeted in a disinformation campaign because anyone
who dared question the wisdom of Anthony Fauci, anyone who dared
question the government mandate that you stick a needle in your arm
because they say so because they politicized a virus and a vaccine, you
are going to be set aside. There was going to be disinformation on
social media, Twitter, in collusion with all of those guys. They were
shutting down free speech.
We should be horrified that the United States of America with a First
Amendment to the Constitution, which is supposed to protect free
speech, but not for Thomas Massie as a Member of Congress--yes, for
him, too--but for every American, every American regardless of the
``truth'' of what you are saying, the government doesn't decide what
the truth is. That is the whole point of free speech.
Yet, we are funding the very tyrants in the executive branch shutting
down free speech, mandating vaccines, using the power of government to
go after people and shut down their livelihoods, undermine freedom,
undermine economic activity, and put us $32 trillion in debt so our
kids and grandkids are going to inherit a bankrupt, tyrannical America.
We should change that. We should reject that. The great news is
Americans across this country are rejecting it. They are saying no.
They do want to live free. They don't want a government that is
shutting down their ability to live free or their kids and their
grandkids. They do want to send their kids to schools that teach them
that America is great and good and teach them the tools they need to
succeed in life, rather than teach them that they should be ashamed of
their country or be a victim.
The American people under COVID woke up. More parents are
homeschooling their kids. More parents are looking for private school.
More States are adopting school choice. More businesses are rejecting
the vaccine mandates. More individuals are saying no to those mandates.
God bless the young man who is in the United States Navy who rejected
the vaccine mandate, and because of our bill that we finally jammed
through in December as Republicans isn't being kicked out of the
military, but he is still being harassed, he is still being denied the
commanding officer job he always wanted. He is still being denied the
ability to advance. They are going after him to pay the $75,000 of
previous student loans. That must end.
$122 million for the World Health Organization, which pushed
lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and colluded with the Chinese Communist
Party to cover up its role in COVID's origin, and now with this
administration wants to control our healthcare and control how we are
going to deal with vaccines in the future. Why would any Republican
vote to fund the World Health Organization today? Why? We should not.
We should reject that. We are Americans. We decide how we are going to
live.
$234 million for the EPA's clean water program so-called under waters
of the United States, WOTUS, that put a 78-year-old veteran in jail for
violating the waters of the United States by digging ditches on his
land.
{time} 1115
That is your government at work, ladies and gentlemen, $456 million
for EPA ``clean air programs.''
Everybody wants clean air. I don't know anybody who doesn't want
clean air. I don't know any State regulators who don't want clean air.
What we don't want is that to be used as an excuse to carry out the
new methane tax, drive up gas prices via the ethanol mandate, and
destroy reliable coal and natural gas power plants via regulation,
which is precisely what it is going to do.
Yet, we are all going to just sit by as Republicans and go, well,
shrug. I guess that is just what we do. We have to increase government.
All these kids are running around going, ``Well, we have climate
change. What are we going to do?'' How about we embrace clean-burning
American natural gas, develop more nuclear power, and recognize that
China and India are the ones that are vastly growing and producing
CO2 by developing more coal-fired plants while we sit around
and play games, as I said earlier, with wind and solar, leaving us with
unreliable grids and living on unicorn energy policies.
Mr. Speaker, $108 million in woke EPA environmental justice funding
that will funnel through EPA's new Office of Environmental Justice and
External Civil Rights, $108 million of your taxpayer money for
environmental justice when we are $32 trillion in debt, you literally
can't make up how stupid we are. Literally, you just can't. It is,
like, no, no, no.
I mean, imagine the Founding Fathers going: Wait a minute. Hold on.
In 2023, we are going to be $32 trillion in debt. We are not going to
actually secure our borders as a sovereign Nation, allowing them to be
wide open. We are going to submit to the authority of international
organizations to tell us what to do and fund those international
organizations to tell us what to do. We are going to fund massive
bureaucracies to create things like the so-called environmental justice
department with $108 million when we are spending a trillion and a half
dollars more every year than we take in.
I mean, that is just, like, the tip of the iceberg. How stupid can a
people be? The American people aren't stupid. That is why they look at
Congress with utter disdain.
We are stupid unless we change, and that is my request of my
colleagues on this side of the aisle, that we demand change.
When there is a debt ceiling fight this summer, when the President
wants to play chicken and Russian roulette with the debt ceiling
increase to borrow more money to raise our credit card limit, we should
demand change. We should demand actual change. We should demand
immediate change.
When we say return spending for the bureaucratic state to pre-COVID
2019 levels, and when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and
the President say you can't do that, you remind them about the $122
million for the World Health Organization or the $108 million for the
``environmental justice programs,'' or the $15 million for the United
Nations bodies that develop the Paris Agreement--just that alone.
How about $7 million of Department of the Interior funding for the
monarch butterfly, $20 million in earmarks dedicated to sidewalks--$20
million dedicated in Federal funding for sidewalks.
Boy, there is a real Federal nexus there, huh? Article I, section 8,
thou shalt fund sidewalks. It is asinine.
Yet, that is what we do. It is like breathing for Members of
Congress. Just keep funding crap because, well, I don't know. I have a
dinner to go to, and I can't bother to peel back the appropriations
bills or the big omnibus bill that is sent over by a bunch of Senators
who are running to their steak dinners and can't even bother to do the
appropriations bills in the first place.
This includes 18 Republicans, by the way, who voted for a $1.7
trillion omnibus spending bill, which I will constantly remind all 18
of them and all Americans of those 18 who voted for a massive $1.7
trillion omnibus spending bill that denied us the ability to secure the
border and expanded the size and scope of the Federal Government.
It is not just a singular, one-party problem, ladies and gentlemen.
This body needs a little religion, actual religion, and a little bit of
fiscal sanity religion.
We can change that. We can shrink Washington massively. Right now, in
year one, we can shrink Washington so that we can get it out of the way
and grow our country back to prosperity.
That is step one in reclaiming our American birthright: shrink
Washington, grow America.
We can save more than $3 trillion over the next decade if we cut the
funding of the bureaucracy back to pre-COVID levels and cap future
growth; rescind $91 billion of unobligated COVID money just sitting
over there right now waiting for a bureaucrat to find something to
spend it on; and end the unfair, unlawful $400 billion student loan
bailout that the President promised that is going to be deficit
spending this year.
Just boom, $400 billion of 2023 deficit spending. For what? Paying
off the loan of some kid who went to college, got a sociology degree,
and is hanging out in his parents' basement, tweeting and sitting on
Instagram, and trying to find a job. Oh, no. We have to pay off
[[Page H1267]]
that kid's loan, but the plumber who didn't take out that loan to go to
some liberal arts college filled with a bunch of White elite liberals
patting themselves on the back for how compassionate they are for Brown
people--that is what they do. Let's pay off their loans, but let's make
the plumber eat it. That is crazy, absolutely crazy.
We reward irresponsibility instead of actually telling the
hardworking American who does it all the right way that they are the
one who gets rewarded.
Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to increase the debt
to borrow to fund a $400 billion student loan bailout for rich,
liberal, White elitists, for the most part, as a statistical matter,
while we are leaving out hardworking Americans who didn't take out
those loans like my wife, the daughter of a single mom who took two
jobs, worked hard, and sent her to a State university, who worked to
pay off her loans.
She is still paying them. Mr. Speaker, 20 years since we graduated
from law school, my wife is still paying off the remaining vestiges of
her law school student loans after paying her way and getting loans to
go to Texas A&M and the University of Texas School of Law, doing the
right thing, driving a 2000 Corolla with no options for, like, a
decade.
That is what you do if you are responsible. That is how you are
supposed to live. We can save that money right now and do more good for
the American people than funding and paying off these student loans.
We can reclaim the $80 billion of Internal Revenue Service money that
is sitting in a pot over there right now. We can reform welfare
programs to get people back to work, protecting Social Security
retirement and Medicare benefits in the process.
We can grow America by expanding liberty and promoting economic
growth, forcing policy changes to make the government do its job, curb
regulatory power by enacting the REIN IN Act to make Congress decide if
the regulations by bureaucrats should be enacted if they have a major
economic impact.
These are all things we can do right now and save up to $3 trillion
over 10 years as a first step to shrinking Washington and growing
America. That is our plan. The President's plan is to expand Washington
and undermine America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Roy for his leadership
once again and in particular on this all-important issue of the fiscal
and economic stability of our country. More than that, not just the
financial part of it, which we cannot overstate--we can't overstate the
harm done to our country from a spending standpoint with $32 trillion
in national debt on the backs of our children and our grandchildren,
$100,000 per citizen, but in addition to that, how that debt and how
that spending has accumulated for the purpose of literally harming the
American people.
We can't overstate how our own government has become weaponized
against its own citizens, trying to control every aspect of our lives,
trying to control decisions like whether or not we can have or use a
gas stove; whether or not we can choose what kind of car we want to
drive; whether or not we can heat or cool our homes the way that we
want to; whether or not we can exercise our God-given, constitutionally
protected Second Amendment rights; whether or not we can make decisions
for ourselves on whether or not we can operate our business, earn a
living, educate our children the way that we want to without the heavy
hand of government coming in.
We have $32 trillion in national debt, $100,000 per citizen. What is
this President's response with the budget proposal that he rolled out
yesterday? To increase spending about 56 percent beyond where it was
pre-COVID.
From $4.4 trillion in spending, this President wants to increase it
by $2\1/2\ trillion to $6.9 trillion. That $6.9 trillion--for just 1
year, mind you--is about $20,000 per American citizen.
How many Americans today would vote to borrow and spend--we have to
put ``borrow'' in front of all of it--to borrow and spend $20,000 on
their personal credit card to do things that are not only not helpful
to them but much of which is harmful to them on top of the $100,000 in
national debt that we have per citizen today?
Thank God for Republicans who are going to come into the gap and
stand on the wall to defend the American people and finally bring some
fiscal stability to our country, cut the spending, and deal a blow
against the woke weaponized government that is assaulting and harming
the American people.
We are going to do that with the opportunity we have as we face the
debt ceiling limit. We are going to utilize this opportunity of our
newfound congressional House rules that are going to allow us to put
reforms in place for not just this year and next year but for the
future to put us on a path to fiscal responsibility.
I thank Congressman Roy from Texas for showing leadership, once
again, on the most important, fundamental issues for our country.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his
leadership. We joined together with our colleagues at the House Freedom
Caucus this morning to announce what we believe is, I would say, the
bare minimum, if you will, sort of the baseline for resetting the table
on how we deal with spending and, importantly, empowering the American
people by shrinking Washington and growing America because we trust the
people to do it, not government.
This is an age-old debate, but this is something where leviathan,
this great beast, this thing we call the Federal Government, is growing
and expanding in power in ways that concern every American.
{time} 1130
Just yesterday, in the House Judiciary Committee, there were
conversations about the power of the Federal Government being used to
chill speech, to target American citizens, to shut down their First
Amendment rights.
Now think about it. Is there anything more concerning than the power
of the government being used to chill the fundamental rights given to
us by our Creator, as reflected in the Bill of Rights, than what we are
seeing right now?
The FTC is going after, right now, targeting, they want to know--
wait--who is involved with all of this. They are actually targeting
journalists, targeting private citizens.
Is that what the power of the government is supposed to be used for,
I would ask the gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Clearly not. And the loss of trust and
confidence to the degree that it has been lost in the last 2 years in
our Federal Government, in our election system, in our government
agencies, in even our department of injustice, I would call it, is just
so damaging to the future of our country.
How do we get that back? How do we restore it?
We start by not funding it, not funding those agencies, those
bureaucracies that are perpetuating such harm on the American people.
The gentleman made the point earlier today so well, that we talk
about going back to pre-COVID spending at $4.4 trillion. At that point,
that was record spending in the history of the country. That was
leading us to some, at that point, maybe $25 trillion in national debt,
an untold amount that we haven't had since World War II, that was pre-
COVID. That was out of hand. That was out of control.
It is just this President who has taken it to a new level; $10
trillion in new spending in the first 2 years of an administration has
never happened before in the history of the country. But it is not just
the dollars, which if this was good spending, meaning things that we
thought were justified, if you will, or positive things, we don't have
the money, we can't afford it, we are bankrupt.
But worse than that, we are spending money, literally, to make our
military weaker. We are spending money, literally, to keep our border
open to the Mexican crime cartels. We are spending money, literally, to
harm our kids in schools. We are spending money, literally, to try to
ruin the country.
If you were setting out 2 years ago to try to ruin the country, what
would you do differently than what this administration has done, while
borrowing the money to do it?
Mr. ROY. I asked earlier, if you set out over the last 2 or 3
decades, to do
[[Page H1268]]
a worse job than the leadership of this country, in this Chamber, the
Senate, the bureaucracy, and the White House, could you imagine doing a
worse job than over the last 3 decades?
I mean, in truth, the amount of debt that has been accumulated,
right--in 2003, when I was a baby staffer for a Senator on the other
side of this building, the national debt was about $6 trillion.
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. We couldn't imagine it at that time.
Mr. ROY. Right. It is now $26 trillion more than that, and the
President is patting himself on the back for saying, well, we are not
going to increase the debt by $20 trillion; we are only going to
increase it by $17 trillion over the next decade by taxing and
regulating the American people into oblivion.
I would just ask the gentleman a last question here, and then we are
going to--in a couple of minutes I want to yield to my friend from West
Virginia.
Would it surprise the gentleman that we are spending $158 million in
economic, law enforcement, and military support for Mexico--so, again,
the American people, you and I, we are funding to the tune of $158
million, Mexico's law enforcement and military, while it is becoming a
narco-terrorist state; cartels are literally killing American citizens
in Mexico; infiltrating our country, causing 72,000 dead Americans from
fentanyl poisoning? This is the thing the American people don't
understand. Does the gentleman agree?
Mr. GOOD of Virginia. We are borrowing an additional $150 million to
send it to Mexico that is controlled by the crime cartels, so that they
can utilize that funding to invade our southern border, with the
individuals we are allowing to pass through their country trafficking
drugs, human trafficking, sex trafficking, who knows what, hundreds of
thousands every month. Yet, we are going to borrow $150 million to send
it to them to help them do it.
Mr. ROY. That is correct. If the gentleman doesn't mind, I am going
to end here with a few minutes on the border and then yield to the
gentleman from West Virginia. I thank my friend from Virginia for
coming down.
On that point, what we are funding, 4\1/2\ million encounters of
illegal aliens at the southern border since the beginning of the Biden
administration, with 7,000, 8,000 migrants crossing a day, there are
1.3 million got-aways, and nearly 1.7 million illegal aliens released
into the United States. That means we have released more into our
communities than the population of at least 11 individual States.
Under this administration, there have been surges of known or
suspected terrorists at the southwest border. There were zero in fiscal
year 2019, 3 in fiscal year 2020, 15 in fiscal year 2021, 98 in fiscal
year 2022, and 53 so far after 1 quarter in fiscal year 2023, these are
individuals that are affiliated with known or suspected terrorists at
the southwest border.
Last summer, 53 migrants died in a tractor trailer in San Antonio,
which I represent, cooked in the Texas heat; and that is somehow
compassion?
Mr. Speaker, 880 migrants have died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border
in fiscal year 2022, and that does not count the thousands that have
died across south Texas and other places and ranches; doesn't count the
little girls sitting in stash houses, as we speak, getting sold into
the sex trafficking trade, as Mayorkas and Biden fiddle, while our
Nation's borders are burning.
Just last week, four Americans traveling to Mexico, one of them a
mother of six, they were attacked by cartels in broad daylight. Two are
dead. Two are getting care; and we give $158 million to Mexico for law
enforcement and military.
This is why, today, I am re-introducing my legislation to designate
these drug cartels as the terrorist organization that they are, so that
any individual associated with them, that provides material support to
a designated FTO would be sanctioned and could be pursued, lawfully.
Materials include, but are not limited to providing weapons, safe
houses, lethal substances. Representatives and members of a designated
FTO would be subject to removal. Financial institutions could be
targeted. But the main point is to make clear that these dangerous
cartels are the equivalent of ISIS and al-Qaida, right off our border,
killing Americans, killing Mexicans, turning Mexico into narco-
terrorist states; giving China an avenue to get to the United States to
pump fentanyl into our communities, and this administration is doing
nothing.
This Congress must not continue to fund a government that is at war
with the American people, funding a woke weaponized Federal Government
that is undermining our freedom, undermining our prosperity,
undermining our liberty.
It is our duty, as Republicans and all Members of Congress, to use
the power of the purse to defund the executive branch that is
tyrannically at odds with the well-being of the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr.
Mooney), my good friend. I appreciate his great service to our country,
and I look forward to hearing from him.
Returning to the Gold Standard
Mr. MOONEY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passion of my good friend
from Texas, and many of the points he is making need to be heard and
understood. Even if it is uncomfortable, the truth has to be told.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about legislation I am promoting to
return the United States to the gold standard. As was discussed
earlier, our Nation is facing an inflation crisis not seen in over 40
years.
Inflation is a regressive tax hurting lower-income Americans more
than anyone else. West Virginians have seen the value of their savings
erode before their very eyes as a result of the reckless tax-and-
spending spree of President Joe Biden and the Washington Democrats and
an overzealous Federal Reserve.
Thanks to Democrats, your 401(k) is now more like a 301(k), and it
will go even lower if they stay in power.
Today, our national debt is over $32 trillion, which is borrowed, not
only from Americans, but also from foreign adversaries.
We know who is responsible for the current debt crisis, but the
question has to be asked: What in our country's history allowed us to
get to this point?
The answer can actually be traced back to 1971, when President
Richard Nixon took the United States off the gold standard. Rather than
tackle the root causes of economic challenges, Nixon severed the
dollar's convertibility to gold once and for all. President Nixon said
at the time that that would actually combat inflation.
Art Laffer, a well-known and respected economist, accurately warned
that taking the United States off of the gold standard would actually
only exacerbate these problems. What followed was a period of severe
inflation, rivaled only by what we are seeing today.
Domestic production became more expensive and corporate profits
declined, so companies were encouraged to shift production abroad,
overseas where labor costs were cheaper.
Today, our number one economic rival is China, which continues to
attract American companies, due to the cheapness of production there.
Now, the gold standard, as we know it, is not actually using the gold
as currency but, rather, tying the dollar bill directly to the value of
that gold. Under the gold standard, any American would be able to trade
their dollars for a fixed amount of gold.
By linking the dollar to the value of gold, the money supply could
only be increased if the supply of gold increases. This connection
protects the purchasing power of your hard-earned tax dollar.
The gold standard would protect against Washington's irresponsible
spending habits and the creation of money out of thin air. Prices would
be shaped by economics, rather than instincts and wishes of Federal
bureaucrats. With the gold standard, no longer would our economy be at
the mercy of the Federal Reserve and reckless Washington spenders.
Through government mismanagement and economic manipulation, is it any
surprise that many Americans are looking for alternatives to the U.S.
dollar in cryptocurrencies?
Americans are losing confidence in our currency. It is long past time
for Congress to begin considering a return to the gold standard. That
is why I will be introducing legislation to do exactly that, as I have
in previous Congresses.
Under my proposal, the Secretary of the Treasury would define the
U.S. dollar in terms of a fixed weight of gold
[[Page H1269]]
based on the market price, while allowing dollar bills to be exchanged
for gold at that rate.
Had the United States been on the gold standard, or some other fixed
standard, we would not be in the inflation crisis we are in today.
I hope to work with the new Republican majority to make sure this
issue gets the attention it deserves.
Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators
Mr. MOONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address my bill, the
Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act.
Earlier this year, the House resoundingly passed my bipartisan
Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act. Rural small
businesses face unique challenges that big city businesses do not.
Nearly 20 percent of the United States population lives in rural areas
and yet, businesses in rural areas raised under 2 percent of total
capital over the last 3 years.
West Virginia, which I am so proud to represent, is a very rural
State, where no city has a population greater than 50,000 people, so my
legislation simply requires the Security and Exchange Commission, SEC,
Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation to identify
and report to Congress those challenges rural small businesses face
when trying to access our capital markets. This will make it easier for
Congress to then act to address these problems.
My bill would make it easier for Congress to do our jobs and make
sure rural small businesses like in West Virginia, are not left behind.
I hope the Senate takes up this commonsense measure promptly.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from West Virginia and
appreciate his strong passion in representing the great people of West
Virginia. He is a good friend, and I am glad that he could join us here
today.
Earlier, I was talking about the need for this country to reclaim
economic growth in order to dig ourselves out of the hole that this
absurd institution and lack of leadership from Washington, D.C., has
created for the American people in the form of $32 trillion of debt and
ridiculously stagnant economic growth.
After decades of being able to achieve growth in the 3 and 4 percent
range, we are now sitting in the doldrums of 1-percent-type economic
growth. That might even be rather robust in the era of Joe Biden.
I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop) to expand
upon this important point.
{time} 1145
Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr.
Roy, for yielding.
The President's budget recommendation came over a month late
yesterday, and there was one detail I read in The New York Times, so it
must be true, although that is the only place I have had a chance to
see it yet, and what immediately popped into my mind when I read this
detail, is that Karine Jean-Pierre said last week--I can remember her
saying it--that the President's economic plan is working for the
American people. That popped back into my head, because the detail
disclosed by The New York Times is that the administration predicts
economic growth in this fiscal year not 3\1/2\ percent, not 4 percent
certainly, not 2\1/2\ percent, not 1\1/2\ percent, but six-tenths of a
percent.
You have to start talking about economic growth and what the
economists call basis points, because it is so small. So if the
economic plan of the Biden administration is working for the American
people, that means 60 basis points of economic growth anticipated in
the year.
And guess what the Biden administration says about that? We should do
nothing different. We should keep doing the same thing that is
producing six-tenths of a percent of economic growth, except one other
thing: We should pile the burden of a lot more taxes on the economy,
because apparently that is going to--because what do we need? Thirty
basis points of economic growth? Republicans believe we need to change.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend from North Carolina.
Mr. Speaker, I would inquire as to how much time we have remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 8 minutes
remaining.
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I don't know if I will use every bit of that. I
appreciate the point that the gentleman from North Carolina just made,
because it is critically important and it merits at least one final
repetition, that this great country racked up the level of debt that we
currently have today relative to the size of its economy in 1946. But
why was that? To rid the world of fascism, to confront our enemies, to
defeat those enemies, and to protect this great country.
Then we embarked for 50 years and grew ourselves to the point to be
able to balance the budget by 2000, with strong economic growth. It
took that much time.
Here we sit today in 2023 with $32 trillion of debt, sitting, at the
President's own admission, at 60 basis points of economic growth this
year. He wants his grand solution to be, oh, we will just rack up $17
trillion more debt in the next decade, because I am going to save $3
trillion by taxing the American people and regulating the American
people.
It doesn't work. This is President Biden's actual form of voodoo
economics. He is going to level this country, layer mountains more debt
on our kids and grandkids, all while funding the very things that are
undermining our ability to have economic growth, prosperity, and
freedom.
As I noted before, the millions of dollars going to the EPA to turn
an American citizen into a felon and put him into jail because he had a
pond on his ranch, the millions of dollars in the name of clean air
that are going to methane regulations to drive the price of gas and the
price of energy up for the average American.
Every single American should demand of his or her Representative in
this body that we stand up to a tyrannical executive branch
overstepping its bounds, undermining our freedom, and undermining
economic growth.
Every Member of this body should look to cut spending this year of
the Federal bureaucracy, return it to pre-COVID levels as a baseline,
save $3 trillion by getting government out of the way, restore economic
growth and hope and opportunity for our kids and grandkids, stop
funding the very things that are undermining our well-being, secure our
country, secure our border, have a sparingly used but lethal, nonwoke
military that will kill people and destroy things when they need to,
and restore the greatness of this country by shrinking Washington and
growing America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks
to the Chair and not to a perceived viewing audience.
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