| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
Protecting American Manufacturing
00:15:16
|
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|
unidentified
|
You know perspicacity to see to telescope into the future to know the best way this can be done. | |
| I don't like tariffs, but it seems to be the only way to incent manufact you know people like John Deere, Harley Davidson et al. who've taken their manufacturing facilities and moved them overseas and created a rust belt in the United States and get them to move not all it's not saying we're not going to never do business with China or Mexico or Vietnam or India, | ||
| But to move some of these manufacturing facilities back into the United States so we can establish good, You know, a good living wage for middle-class workers and get this country back. | ||
| Watch the rest of this on the Free C-SPAN NOW video app, as we take you now to Capitol Hill, where the House is gabbling in live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, Madam Secretary, I am directed by the President of the United States to deliver to the House OF Representatives messages in writing. | ||
| The chair would announce that the chair's earlier announcement regarding roll call number 61 was mistaken. | ||
| The correct tally was 221 voting aye, 202 voting no, and one answering present. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Illinois seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on House Administration be discharged from further consideration of HRES 190 and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the resolution. | ||
| House Resolution 190. | ||
| Resolution electing members to the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library and the Joint Committee on Printing. | ||
| Is there objection to the consideration of the resolution? | ||
| The resolution is agreed to and the motion to consider is laid on the table. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what purpose? | |
| I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today it adjourn to meet on Monday next when it shall convene at noon for morning hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| Air will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Indiana seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| Our nation's economy's greatest strength has been its ability to continue to innovate and compete both with ourselves and with our counterparts. | ||
| However, over the last four years, the American economy has been suffocated under the enormity of regulatory burdens implemented under the Biden administration. | ||
| To be clear, the Biden administration costed taxpayers $1.8 trillion through unilateral rulemaking and executive orders. | ||
| This brazen abuse of executive power stymied commerce, our free markets, and directly affected our ability to innovate and remain competitive in the international economy. | ||
| The effects of this aggressive regulatory regime was clear. | ||
| Gas prices rose to the highest levels in history, and inflation reached the highest levels in decades. | ||
| Due to this, nearly a third of Americans were forced to choose between paying their energy bills or their groceries. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, America is and will continue to be a beacon for free enterprise, innovation, and competition. | ||
| So I applaud President Trump for his pledge to roll back 10 regulations for any one implemented and look forward to seeing America enter a golden era of prosperity. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from North Carolina rise? | ||
| Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to this House for one minute for advisors. | ||
| Without objection. | ||
| The gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I'm excited to take a moment to celebrate Apostle Norbert Simmons. | ||
| He founded Deeper Life Church Ministries, which recently marked an incredible 41 years of service. | ||
| Hailing from Mount Olive, North Carolina, Apostle Simmons graduated from Carver High School, where he served as chaplain for the National Alumni Association. | ||
| He's done a fantastic job growing his church from just nine to 2,000 members. | ||
| Apostle Simmons truly has inspired so many in the community, and I had the privilege of presenting him with the Order of the Longleaf Pine on behalf of the governor. | ||
| It's essential to acknowledge that he didn't do it alone. | ||
| His loving wife, Gwen, along with their family and church, supported him every step of the way. | ||
| We're all so grateful for everything Apostle Simmons and his family have contributed to Eastern North Carolina and our state. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what? | |
| Oregon? | ||
| What purpose does the gentleman from Guam seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the rich and vibrant heritage of the Chamorro people as we recognize March as a National Chamorro Heritage and Cultural Month. | |
| The Chamorro people have long exemplified the spirit of Inaphomalek, the Chamorro philosophy of interdependence and cooperation as the very foundation of their culture. | ||
| Throughout history, they have shown remarkable resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity, embodying the true spirit of strength and unity. | ||
| Let us acknowledge the significant contributions of the Chamorro people in the tapestry of our nation's culture and history. | ||
| Our traditions, language, and customs are a testament to our unwavering commitment to preserving our heritage and identity. | ||
| In closing, I say, Biba, Ms. Chamorro. | ||
| May this month serve as a reminder to all of us to embrace and celebrate the remarkable Chamorro heritage and culture. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Does the gentlewoman from Oregon seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I rise today because Oregonians can't afford to buy a home. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today because the rent is too damn high. | ||
| And Mr. Speaker, I rise today because the game is rigged. | ||
| I hear from everyone I talk to, from my constituents to my kids, to how hard it is to find affordable housing. | ||
| Oregon ranks 45th in the nation in housing affordability, and it's getting worse. | ||
| Our population has grown faster than our housing supply, driving costs up for buyers and renters. | ||
| I refuse to leave Oregon families hanging. | ||
| That's why I'm fighting on the Financial Services Committee to make a difference. | ||
| I'm fighting to make it easier to buy or rent a home, and I'm fighting to build more houses and increase our supply. | ||
| And I'll always fight to lower costs and make life just a little bit easier for Oregonians. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Families continue to suffer from the disastrous decisions of Biden Harris, which led to outrageous energy prices. | ||
| Republicans passed bills this week to correct regulations of Biden and lower costs, including reversing the rule on energy standards, which over-regulates standards for consumer products and commercial equipment, led by Congressman Andrew Clyde. | ||
| Reversing the rule on national emissions standards, which imposes limits on tire manufacturers, led by Congressman Morgan Griffith. | ||
| This legislation supports tire manufacturers such as Michelin and Bridgestone in South Carolina, which now is the leading state manufacturer and export of tires in America, creating jobs. | ||
| Reversing the rule requiring archaeological reports for oil and gas exploration or development plans on the outer continental shelf, led by Senator John Kennedy. | ||
| In conclusion, God bless our troops as the global war on terrorism continues. | ||
| Open borders for dictators puts all Americans at risk of more 9-11 attacks imminent, as warned by the FBI. | ||
| President Trump is reinstituting existing laws to protect American families with peace through strength. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from Hawaii seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, last December, Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, came together to pass the American Relief Act of 2025, securing $12 billion to rebuild communities devastated by disaster. | ||
| We made a promise to North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and yes, to Maui. | ||
| Now that promise isn't just being broken. | ||
| It's being ripped apart. | ||
| What a slap in the face for those constituents when that funding to rebuild homes, businesses, and communities gets delayed or even withheld because the Musk Trump administration plans to gut HUD's Office of Community Planning and Development, the very team responsible for getting billions of relief dollars where they belong, essentially eliminated. | ||
| That isn't streamlining our efficiency. | ||
| That's sabotage. | ||
| This week, I am proud to have led a bipartisan letter signed by 47 members of Congress calling on this administration to not cut these critical positions. | ||
| We voted for this funding. | ||
| Now let's do our jobs and fight to make sure it gets to the people who need it most. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Georgia seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and the legacy of Coach John Willis, the winniest football coach in Brunswick High School history who passed away at the age of 80. | ||
| Starting in 1980, he led the Brunswick High School Pirates to an impressive record of 138 and 103 and 103 over 22 seasons. | ||
| Under his guidance, the Pirates secured four regional championships, including three consecutive titles from 1997 to 1999. | ||
| The 1999 team reached a state championship game, finishing with a 14-1 record. | ||
| Beyond the field, Coach Willis was a dedicated physical education teacher at Brunswick High School, known for his motivational speeches and serving as a father figure to many of his players. | ||
| As a lifelong resident of Brunswick, Coach Willis, alongside his wife Barbara, contributed significantly to local education and to athletics. | ||
| He is survived by his wife Barbara and their three children, Michael Wesley and Maria. | ||
| Maria now follows in her father's footsteps, coaching the Lady Pirates basketball team. | ||
| Coach Willis's unwavering dedication to his students, athletes, and the Brunswick community has left an enduring legacy that will inspire future generations. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from North Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| To address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| For three years, Ukraine has fought for its survival against Russia's brutal assault. | ||
| And for three years, America has supported the Ukrainian people in their brave fight for freedom. | ||
| Now, Trump is halting military aid, blocking intelligence sharing, and betraying a Democratic ally. | ||
| This risks our national security and emboldens dictators around the globe. | ||
| History will judge us for abandoning a democracy under attack and for leaving innocent people to defend themselves against an aggressive authoritarian regime. | ||
| But there's still time for my Republican friends to speak up. | ||
| There's still time for Republicans to reaffirm to the world that America does not bow to our foreign adversaries. | ||
| There's still time for Republicans to join with Democrats and remind Donald Trump that America does not abandon our friends. | ||
| For our future and theirs, we cannot, we must not betray the courageous people of Ukraine. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Florida seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask for the unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the extraordinary service of Master Sergeant Orkadio Santiago Rodriguez, a proud member of the Army's 65th Infantry Regiment, known as the Buch Renkeniers. | ||
| During the Korean War, then-Private First Class Santiago Rodriguez displayed extraordinary heroism in the face of danger. | ||
| When his squad leader was gravely wounded, he swiftly took command, rallying his fellow soldiers and leading them safely with unwavering courage and determination. | ||
| Later, while evacuating a wounded comrade, he single-handedly engaged five enemy soldiers, killing four and capturing a fifth, forcing that captured soldier to carry the wounded soldier to safety. | ||
| For his heroism, he was awarded the Silver Star. | ||
| At 101 years old, Master Sergeant Santiago Rodriguez continues to inspire us. | ||
| I join my predecessor, the Honorable Bill Posey, in honoring Mr. Rodriguez, and I hope that he will be recognized for his unwavering service to our nation. | ||
|
Honor Of Beverly Byron
00:12:39
|
||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Maryland seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| First, Mr. Speaker, I applaud and support the remarks of the gentlelady from North Carolina. | ||
| We must be on Ukraine's side and against dictators, despots, and war criminals. | ||
| Now, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a great Marylander, a dedicated champion of our men and women in uniform, a former member of this body, Beverly Byron, a dear friend of mine for over 60 years. | ||
| She passed away at the age of 92 on February 9th. | ||
| When Beverly succeeded her husband, Representative Goodlow Byron, in Congress after his sudden passing in 1978, many people underestimated her. | ||
| Throughout her 14 years in Congress, however, she proved to be a gifted leader in her own right. | ||
| She became the first woman to chair a House Armed Services Subcommittee. | ||
| Her commitment to her constituents and to her principles earned her respect on both sides of the aisle. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this Congress needs more leaders like Beverly Byron today. | ||
| Her passing is a great loss to Maryland and to America and to this institution. | ||
| I ask my colleagues to join me in praying for Beverly and her family, and I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Wisconsin seek recognition? | ||
| I'd like to ask unanimous consent to speak for a minute, revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| I'd like to discuss some of the biggest highlight of the Trump administration so far, and that is what he's done at the border. | ||
| We've gone from having over 300,000 people a month trying to get in this country to under 8,000 in February. | ||
| That shows that with a little bit of determination, we can enforce our immigration laws. | ||
| But there was an important hearing that was not covered enough in this Congress this week in the Oversight Committee, in which we brought in four Democrat mayors who refused to say that our immigration laws should be enforced. | ||
| It is very difficult for President Trump to protect our country when we have elected officials, mayors and governors from around the country in essence saying we are going to stand in the way of enforcing our immigration laws. | ||
| It's time for the American people to stand up and tell your local officials that we want our immigration laws enforced and it is very difficult to enforce them if local law enforcement or social services expire on board. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from Michigan seek recognition? | ||
| Oh, excuse me. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from Maryland seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, as the proud gentlelady from Maryland. | ||
| I rise today to honor the life and legacy of Frank Turner, a distinguished educator and public servant whom we lost earlier this year. | ||
| Now, in 1990, Frank made history becoming the first black judge in Howard County, Maryland. | ||
| And then again, in 1994, he became the first African American elected to the General Assembly from Howard County, where he served with distinction for 24 years. | ||
| After his time in the legislature, he served his community further as a trustee of Howard Community College. | ||
| Frank will forever be remembered for his generosity and kindness, his thoughtfulness and his skill, but above all, for his unwavering commitment to his community, to Howard County, that stays with me and so many Marylanders. | ||
| He led a life of unparalleled service, and for that, we will forever be grateful. | ||
| I am personally keeping his family, his friends, and every life he ever touched through his good works in my prayers. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Pennsylvania seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, during the joint session Tuesday night, Republicans cheered for the vision, plan, and great future of America. | ||
| We cheered for secured borders, wiping out fentanyl and human trafficking, and an energy policy that lowers fuel costs and inflation. | ||
| We cheered for our military, increased recruitment of young patriots and readiness. | ||
| We cheered for peace, world stability, and an America-first economy, bringing a renaissance to U.S. technology, manufacturing, great-paying jobs, and the Made-in-the-USA logo. | ||
| We cheered for the President's leadership in fighting waste, abuse, fraud, and corruption. | ||
| We cheered for the vision of a new golden age. | ||
| And Americans cheered with us. | ||
| We saw in the polls over 75 percent, nearly 80 percent, appreciated the optimistic yet realistic outlook for our great country. | ||
| We cheered for a child who overcame cancer, a family who suffered loss, and the brave who were knocked down but got back up. | ||
| A truly American thing. | ||
| Unfortunately, not everyone cheered. | ||
| Rather, there was a seemingly opposition without a cause. | ||
| Time has expired. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's not productive. | |
| It's counterproductive. | ||
| America is an idea about hope, always will be, always was, and America is worth cheering for. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield back, Mr. Speaker. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| what purpose does the gentlelady from Michigan seek recognition? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| So I want to remind many of my constituents in the 12th Congressional District that I hear you and I understand the pain and the fear that you all are going through as you continue to hear about the $880 billion in Medicaid cuts. | ||
| The budget proposal that overwhelmingly on party lines Republicans supported cuts the very health coverage for those that only use it for long-term care, for families and parents that have a child with disabilities and special needs. | ||
| They rely heavily on this. | ||
| So I want to remind you all, you know, the Trump administration continues to really attack the values that we have in regards to taking care of our most vulnerable. | ||
| But shredding the Constitution, that's what I kept really seeing as I continue to watch the joint address. | ||
| Illegally dismantling, and I say illegally, not me, but the judges continue to say that it is illegal in dismantling the federal agencies that we have authorized to provide services for our families. | ||
| So I want to remind folks, 60% of Americans, 60%, live paycheck by paycheck. | ||
| In Michigan, 2.6 million residents have Medicaid. | ||
| We got to stick with the people, not the billionaires. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Oregon seek recognition? | ||
| The gentlelady from Oregon. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you for the question. | |
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Mr. Speaker, it's all over the news this morning. | ||
| In just a few hours, it's expected that Donald Trump will sign an executive order to shut down the Department of Education. | ||
| I condemn that in the strongest possible terms. | ||
| This will slash support for students with disabilities, undermine schools and rural communities, and also eliminate the civil rights protections that people fought and died for. | ||
| This executive order will be an illegal and unconstitutional abuse of power. | ||
| An act of Congress created the Department of Education, and only an act of Congress can dismantle it. | ||
| And we will fight that. | ||
| Last month, I introduced House Resolution 94 in defense of public education. | ||
| We have more than 80 colleagues on that resolution. | ||
| I want everyone to join us in signing that. | ||
| Do not let them bulldoze our public education system. | ||
| They're going to try to justify it by saying we have to return authority to state and local school boards, but they already have the authority. | ||
| The Department of Education, the federal government, we don't set curriculum. | ||
| We don't decide how many kids are in each class. | ||
| Time's expired. | ||
| But what the Department of Education does is protect civil rights, give support to students who are low-income and students with disabilities. | ||
| We'll fight the efforts to defund this important work. | ||
| If we can't legislate, we will litigate, but we will not back down. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Louisiana seek recognition? | ||
| Question unanimous consent to address the House for one minute, and then I revise my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart in honor of my friend, my colleague, and my confidante, Sylvester Turner. | ||
| Not often one gets the opportunity to serve alongside of a person like Sylvester Turner, one of the finest public servants this nation has ever known. | ||
| Each and every day we worked in this chamber, we sat side by side, center aisle, row five, seat one and two. | ||
| I called him Mr. Mayor. | ||
| Sylvester's brilliance was in crafting policy that served the underrepresented and became an inspiration to me. | ||
| After storms devastated his region, we stood shoulder to shoulder, fighting for disaster relief funds, building recovery plans that now protects millions. | ||
| As mayor, he transformed Houston infrastructure, expanded economic opportunity, and navigated the city through unprecedented challenges with grace and determination. | ||
| In our private moments, we always would sit in this chamber and we would say things like, Sylvester would say, Cleo, let me just tell you, we're not here for titles. | ||
| We're here for the people who will never walk these halls. | ||
| That was the measure of an extraordinary man. | ||
| As I remember my friend, he was not only just an accomplished legislator and mayor, but a man whose friendship and dedication made America a better place for all of us. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I will yield back the balance of our time. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| I request unanimous consent to address the House and to extend and revise my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Today, I rise to recognize Mr. Paul Taswell as Ohio's 13th Congressional District Champion of the Week for winning an Academy Award for his costume design work in the movie Wicked. | ||
| Paul's first Academy Award will join a crowded trophy case that contains an American Cinematique Award and a British Academy Film Award, both for his costume design and wicked. | ||
| He also won Critics' Choice and Costume Design's Guild Award for his work on the film. | ||
| While this is Paul's first win at the Oscars, he was also nominated for costume design in the 2022 film adaptation of The Westside Story. | ||
| Paul is a 1982 Bookdow High School graduate, proudly acknowledged during his acceptance speech that he is the first black man to win an Oscar for costume design to a resounding crowd and a standing ovation. | ||
| I don't know if you could hear us while he was up on stage, but our entire community in Akron was standing up and cheering him on when he heard his name, when we heard his name called. | ||
| He later shared, quote, I have evolved into that inspiring figure that I have been longing to emulate as long as a developing designer. | ||
| I receive this beautiful recognition with immense pride, and I dedicate it to everyone who has the dream to fly. | ||
| Congratulations again to Paul Taswell on this amazing accomplishment. | ||
| You have certainly made our community proud and a shining example of why Ohio's 13th congressional district is the birthplace of champions. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from Pennsylvania seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remote. | |
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| My Pennsylvania district is home to more than 32,000 veterans, many of whom rely on physical and mental health care from three VA medical centers, Lebanon in Berks County, Coatesville in West Noriton, and Philadelphia for Montgomery County. | ||
|
Protecting Social Security Recipients
00:09:48
|
||
| Yet, because of President Trump, the VA, which cares for more than 9 million veterans nationwide, has been gravely weakened. | ||
| Already in Coatesville and Philadelphia, they were forced to rescind job offers to physicians and to lay off administrative and clerical staff. | ||
| The Trump administration has jeopardized care, putting lives and health at risk. | ||
| Many of the brave men and women who serve in our armed forces continue to serve our nation in the civilian workforce, including in the VA. | ||
| So far, 1,400 employees have been dismissed, and an internal memo shows 80,000 more to come. | ||
| Firing of 80,000 VA workers. | ||
| Doge and this incompetent, chaotic administration are breaking our most sacred promise to our veterans. | ||
| They fought for us. | ||
| We must fight for them. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, my message today is an alert for Social Security recipients. | ||
| Pay attention to what billionaire Elon Musk is doing with your hard-earned Social Security benefits. | ||
| Musk is coming after your Social Security. | ||
| The top administrator of the Social Security Administration says that Musk's Dogeboys are trying to break the system entirely. | ||
| That will stop your hard-earned benefits from reaching seniors and eligible recipients. | ||
| Social Security benefits are your hard-earned benefits. | ||
| They don't belong to billionaire Elon Musk. | ||
| Americans work hard to earn their Social Security retirement and be secure as they age. | ||
| Social Security has been around since Franklin Roosevelt created the program nearly 100 years ago. | ||
| Social Security accounts are yours, and it is a sacrilege to do anything to disturb them. | ||
| You might think about President Trump. | ||
| He inherited all of his money. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He didn't have to work. | |
| Mr. Speaker, we have to do everything possible to protect Social Security for the millions and millions of Americans who deserve those earned benefits. | ||
| And no one should lie about them and say that they are in trouble or the accounts. | ||
| Time has expired. | ||
| They're 99.8% delivered. | ||
| 99.8%. | ||
| Perfect, almost a perfect score. | ||
| Don't believe what the President said down on this floor just a few days ago. | ||
| We're here to protect Social Security benefits, and I yield back. | ||
| Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair. | ||
| With that, for what purpose does the gentleman from Maryland seek recognition? | ||
| Missouri, excuse me. | ||
| What purpose does the gentleman from Missouri seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Ask me the members to consent to address the House for one minute and advise them to the student government. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to remember our colleague, Representative Sylvester Turner. | |
| My colleague previously discussed his policy accomplishments. | ||
| I'm going to take this from a different angle. | ||
| If I had to rank my freshman colleagues respectfully by kindness and decency, Sylvester Turner would have won in a landslide. | ||
| He had a warmth about him, whether you were a constituent, a colleague, or just someone passing by. | ||
| He didn't serve for recognition. | ||
| He did it because he wanted to make people's lives better. | ||
| Representative Turner made this a better place through his work and through the way he treated people. | ||
| Before Congress, he served as the mayor of Houston, leading with the same heart and dedication that defined his life. | ||
| Losing him reminds us to appreciate the people around us. | ||
| So today, let's take a moment to reflect, to check in on one another, and in this House and in houses across this nation, let's carry forward the kindness and service that defined Sylvester's life. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Virginia seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this week's address to Congress was one of the longest addresses to Congress ever, yet there was no real plan or blueprint for how we're actually going to lower costs. | ||
| We heard a lot about Greenland and golden tickets and something about Mars, but we didn't actually hear about lowering costs because the actions of this administration will actually raise costs for every American. | ||
| If you cut Medicaid, for instance, not only will you cut off care for millions, it will raise the health care premiums of every American, not just the ones on Medicaid. | ||
| Health costs will go up. | ||
| If you fire half the people who administer Social Security and undermine it, for our seniors, costs will go up. | ||
| And if you continue the brain drain in our government and fire federal workers who protect consumers or do critical safety or health research, you will make us less safe and costs will go up. | ||
| This administration's policies will directly lead to costs going up for all families, and Americans deserve better. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Ohio seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember the life of Larry Gerstner, an outstanding businessman who was well loved by his community and spent his life in service to it. | ||
| Larry was born in Columbus, Ohio, and grew up on a small farm in Hilliard. | ||
| Earning a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Cincinnati, Larry joined the Peace Corps in 1971 and spent three years in the Tonga constructing the Main Islands Road and country's first jet field. | ||
| Upon returning to the States, Larry was elected Hawking County Engineer in 1976 and later served as a board member for the Hawking Hills Creation. | ||
| Larry created numerous businesses that grew Hawking County's tourism industry, most known for the Columbus Washboard Company, the very last maker of washboards in the United States. | ||
| One of his incredible washboards is displayed in my office for Ohioans to enjoy, and similar to this one that I hold in my hand today. | ||
| After an 18-year fight with cancer, with his devoted wife Joyce by his side, Larry passed away in February of 2025. | ||
| Larry will be dearly missed in Hawking County and across Ohio, but the legacy of his life and service will continue. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from New York seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to ask the House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| The Republicans are trumpeting the dawn of a golden age of economic growth. | ||
| However, this week the Wall Street Journal had an editorial, Trump's Tariffs Whack Trump's Voters, with a subheader of whatever happened to the GOP's concern for the working class. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal said President Trump won the presidency a second time by promising working class voters he'd lift their real incomes, which makes it all the more puzzling that he's so intent on imposing tariffs that will punish those same Americans. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal said tariffs are taxes, and Mr. Trump's late tariffs are estimated to be an annual $150 billion tax increase. | ||
| Taxes are anti-growth. | ||
| That's the message investors are sending this week since Mr. Trump let his 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico take effect. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal said, brace for higher prices on berries, bell peppers, and beer. | ||
| Target CEO Brian Cornell told CNBC that tariffs on Mexico forced the company to raise prices on fruits and vegetables. | ||
| The Wall Street Journal said all of these things. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I couldn't have said it better myself. | ||
| I yield back my time. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the problem for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Lincoln High School football team on winning their second state title in three years. | ||
| This was a huge achievement, but it's even more amazing when you consider what this team had to overcome to get there. | ||
| The Hornets spent their entire season on the road after their field was deemed unsafe due to water damage. | ||
| The team boarded buses and traveled to every single practice. | ||
| They never played a home game. | ||
| But despite these obstacles, this team never gave up. | ||
| They demonstrated resilience, grit, and teamwork, and together they brought home the state championship. | ||
|
Dr. Hazel Nell Dukes Tribute
00:05:31
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|
unidentified
|
Congratulations again to the Lincoln High School football team and to all the incredible players and coaches you have made our entire district and city proud. | |
| Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from New York seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise today with a heavy heart. | ||
| Only days ago, New York State and our nation lost a giant, an icon with the passing of Dr. Hazel Nell Dukes. | ||
| I've known Dr. Duke for most of my life, and I consider it one of my greatest blessings to have called her my friend, mentor, soror, link sister, and inspiration. | ||
| When we look back on Dr. Duke's remarkable life, we'll remember her tireless advocacy and work to further racial diversity, equity, and inclusion, and prosperity for the black community. | ||
| We'll remember her leadership as a president of the NAACP and its New York chapter, which solidified her as a force for social action and change. | ||
| We'll remember how she stood tall against the oppressive status quo of Jim Crow and paved the way forward to a more enlightened, more accepting, more loving era for our country and world. | ||
| And I know I'll remember the image of her arm in arm with my mother, Dr. Euna Clark, at the Democratic Convention, where they stood in the trenches together fighting for the black community at each other's sides. | ||
| Truly, Dr. Dukes lived a life of courage, resolve, and unmatched tenacity. | ||
| We owe her a debt of gratitude that can never be measured or repaid. | ||
| And I will miss my friends' warmth and wisdom so dearly. | ||
| My dukes will never forget you. | ||
| May you rest in power. | ||
| May you rest in peace. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Illinois seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House in one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman from Illinois is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, today we say goodbye to a giant, a leader, a warrior for justice. | |
| Today we mourn the passing of my dear friend and brother in service, Congressman Sylvester Turner. | ||
| Mr. Turner was more than a colleague. | ||
| He was family. | ||
| He carried the weight of his community on his shoulder, never once complaining, never once backing down from a fight when the people needed him. | ||
| He walked these halls not for power, not for prestige, but for purpose. | ||
| And that purpose was clear, to uplift the forgotten and fight for the unseen, and to ensure that every child, no matter the zip code they were born in, had a fair shot at success. | ||
| His legacy will be defined by his lifelong fight for civil rights, economic justice, and opportunity for all. | ||
| But perhaps some of his most visionary work was co-founding the Congressional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Caucus. | ||
| He and I and Congressman Fields took on together with urgency purpose. | ||
| Sylvester knew that representation wasn't just a box to check. | ||
| It was the foundation of our democracy itself. | ||
| He fought to break down barriers, to build pipelines of opportunity, and to ensure that government truly reflected the people it served. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlelady from New Mexico seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to address the House and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlelady is recognized for one minute. | ||
| America, continue to be courageous because what is happening right now is not normal. | ||
| The dismantling of agencies, including today the Department of Education, the firing of teachers, veterans, military, hacking your personal data, cozying up to foreign adversaries. | ||
| This is not normal. | ||
| We must continue to fight back to pushback in Congress, in the courts, and in our communities. | ||
| So here is what you can do: raise your voice, push your members of Congress, push the administration, push your state and local leaders, engage in collective action, and engage in everyday acts of resistance in your own life. | ||
| Because America, this is not normal. | ||
| We will not go back. | ||
| So I say to you, stay strong, raise your voices, and engage in acts of courage. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Members are reminded to address the remarks to the chair. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Schweiker, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the Majority Leader. | ||
|
Public Borrowing Reconciliation
00:15:26
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||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Pro Tem. | ||
| Alrighty. | ||
| Have you ever had the time here where you basically are having to take on two things That push against each other, that create a real math problem, and that telling the truth about it, how do you say, oh, yeah, it gets the crap kicked out of you, but let's have at it. | ||
| President Trump stood there just a couple days ago, and within his speech, when you talk about some of the policy to help our brothers and sisters in this country, there was the discussion of no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, these things. | ||
| And the pushing to get us in Congress, Senate included, to move the extension of the 2017 tax cuts. | ||
| And I'm going to show you why that's so important. | ||
| But at the same time, within almost the same breath, the President looked out at us and said he also wants a balanced budget. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Now we need to deal with the reality of how hard that math is, but there's a way to do it. | ||
| I just don't know if intellectually, when you think about the things you heard behind these microphones this last week, how many of our brothers and sisters here, how many of the public, how many of the armies of lobbyists that are in the hallways here lined up saying they want more spending, more money, more regulation on their competition. | ||
| So let's go through some of the basic math facts and then let's have a brutally honest conversation of how we stabilize and how far we can actually go. | ||
| All right. | ||
| An oldie but a goodie. | ||
| And the numbers are actually worse, but I didn't want to print another chart. | ||
| So we've been using someone for the last year. | ||
| Do you see all the red on the chart? | ||
| That's what we call mandatory. | ||
| It's auto, it's earned benefits, it's you served in the military, your pensions, those things. | ||
| Interest. | ||
| Interest is automatic. | ||
| You got to pay it. | ||
| See the blue? | ||
| That's military and what we call non-defense discretionary. | ||
| A member of Congress, other than in a reconciliation opportunity, that's we're going to come back why it's so important, only votes on this blue. | ||
| Every dime a member of Congress votes on, other than that moment of reconciliation, is borrowed. | ||
| It's all borrowed money. | ||
| Last year, for every dollar we took in in tax receipts, we borrowed $1.39. | ||
| And look, the number of times I've come before here, you know, these mics, and I've done the charts and shown, you know, in times when we've had very high marginal tax rates, we take in about 17, 17, 18 percent of GDP in taxes. | ||
| When we've had very low marginal tax rates, we take in about 17, 18 percent of GDP. | ||
| And it's the seesaw of lower marginal tax rates, economy grows, higher marginal tax rates, economy shrinks. | ||
| We're getting basically the same percentage of the economy in tax receipts. | ||
| There's an article on the Manhattan Institute's website that does an aggregation of lots of studies, many of them from left-wing groups, showing that if you raised every tax that functionally the Dems have offered that's gotten scored, and then you adjusted for its economic effects, you get about a 0.5% of GDP in taxes, additional taxes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The cuts we had been talking about were now actually getting much broader. | ||
| But let's go back to that point and a half. | ||
| We're going to borrow 7.25% of the entire U.S. economy this year will be borrowed. | ||
| So when the President turned to us and says he really wants a balanced budget, that's a tough one. | ||
| Now, his Treasury Secretary has talked about if we could get down to 3% stability. | ||
| Ray Dilio, who's talking about a book he's giving away, about his incredible fear of the squeeze that's happening around the world because the countries in the world are binging on debt and that there may be a shortage of borrowable capital which will cause us, as he says, a heart attack, says if we could get back to 3% of the size of the economy. | ||
| Okay, maybe that should be our goal. | ||
| But once again, remember, your government is functionally an insurance company with an army. | ||
| Because the vast majority of our spending, the vast majority, are things like Social Security, Medicare, other benefits you either get because you hit a certain age, you worked a certain number of quarters, you fell below a certain income, you're part of a certain tribal group. | ||
| But they're automatic. | ||
| And the one time we get an honest opportunity to really look at them is when there's this reconciliation, you're able to open up and look at the formula spendings. | ||
| So let's actually walk through for someone like myself who basically is intellectually whipsawing them, just beating the crap out of myself, I do not want, and I believe it would be a horrible thing, to allow taxes to go up at the end of this year, particularly on small businesses and the working population. | ||
| This is the average. | ||
| And understand, I represent the Phoenix-Scottsdale area. | ||
| For my folks, we actually, our math is it's like $3,300, almost $3,400 a year. | ||
| A year for my average family in tax hikes. | ||
| But for the country, it's $2,850 is the tax hike that's already in the law. | ||
| That's already what's coming at you. | ||
| That's what the Democrats have been arguing, saying, we shouldn't extend these tax cuts. | ||
| And then they give these beautiful speeches about defending the working class. | ||
| This is coming to you. | ||
| This is part of the battle. | ||
| And understand, those tax hikes aren't just going on rich people. | ||
| 62% of the taxpaying population actually sees their taxes go up. | ||
| And I'm going to show you some distributional charts later. | ||
| Remember, after 2017, we actually made the tax code in the United States more progressive, meaning the higher income were paying a higher percentage of the federal income tax. | ||
| But what we also did is we functionally took half of our brothers and sisters who make much more moderate wages and we pulled them off the tax system. | ||
| They're not paying ⁇ now they're still paying payroll tax, which is your Social Security, your Medicare, your unemployment, your disability. | ||
| But those you pay in as sort of your retirement account. | ||
| Think of it that way. | ||
| But they pay almost no income tax. | ||
| And we're mostly going to focus on these charts about the income tax side. | ||
| So just once again, remember, this is coming at you at the end of the year. | ||
| This is what the budget reconciliation ultimately is about. | ||
| But for some of us, we're stressing about how do I not let the taxes go up, but how do I not play the scam of, here, we're going to extend your tax cuts. | ||
| Here, give me your credit card so I can charge it to you, because that's the scam. | ||
| Is it really economically honest? | ||
| Because we have a great set of data that shows if we borrow the money at the end of the decade, it actually costs those working families more because we slow down the economy, we raise interest rates, those things, than saying I extended your tax cuts, but because I charged it to you, your retirement account, your kids' future. | ||
| Because when we borrow money, understand, borrowing money is a tax. | ||
| It's just not collected right now. | ||
| It's collected in the future with interest on it. | ||
| All righty, let's set those back here. | ||
| Try not to hit anyone. | ||
| So let's actually walk through a chart that has upset a number of my fellow Republicans, but the math is honest. | ||
| So the day we were elected this November, publicly borrowed, and let's do a quick explanation. | ||
| When you hear someone say our total debt is $37 trillion, okay, or 36 point, whatever, a portion of that we borrow internally. | ||
| We reach into the Social Security Trust Fund and borrow that money. | ||
| Now we pay interest. | ||
| The Treasury gives them special T-bills and we pay interest on it. | ||
| And in some years, the interest we were paying to the different trust funds we've borrowed money from was actually a pretty good interest rate. | ||
| That's internal borrowing. | ||
| Then you have the public borrowing. | ||
| These are the auctions. | ||
| This is the note, T-bill, bond that's in your retirement account. | ||
| Another country may buy it as part to hold in their version of their Federal Reserve. | ||
| And remember, China is not our number one buyer of our debt. | ||
| Matter of fact, China's been rolling off its debt for years, the holdings of U.S. sovereigns. | ||
| They're actually somewhere in the eight, I think, under $900 billion now. | ||
| Actually, it should make you a little nervous that certain foreign governments are no longer binging on U.S. debt because we would love to get their money. | ||
| But most of the debt we sell to your retirement, to the business, to the bank, other things. | ||
| The day we were elected, publicly borrowed debt was about $28 trillion. | ||
| So let's do a math experiment. | ||
| Baseline borrowing for the next 10 years, $22 trillion. | ||
| If we were to do the tax extensions, and this is going to make sense when you hear people running around here saying, let's just use current policy, let's just pretend our spending stays the same, our tax policy all stays the same, we don't have to pay attention to the actual law. | ||
| That would be $5.5 trillion plus another $1.3 trillion on top of that in interest. | ||
| Okay? | ||
| Then let's add in some of the president's priorities. | ||
| No tax on tips, no tax on overtime. | ||
| If we did the note, if we could find the mechanics, it's a little harder because you can't actually do it in reconciliation. | ||
| No tax on Social Security. | ||
| If you add those all up, it would mean at the end of 2035, the amount of debt that's been borrowed from the public, one of the reasons the public numbers are higher, is in 2033, Social Security Trust Fund's empty. | ||
| So you don't get to reach over there and keep using that as your piggy bank, even though you've got to pay it back every month because the tax receipts from FICA taxes don't match the checks going out the door. | ||
| Here's the punchline. | ||
| It took us 240 years to get to that $28 trillion. | ||
| We're basically talking about doubling it in 10. | ||
| That the publicly held debt, it's not exact, but it's close. | ||
| It's math I can do in my head. | ||
| We're talking about almost doubling the publicly held debt in the next 10 years. | ||
| So, when you hear those coming behind the microphone saying, Doge, it's horrible, it's evil, really? | ||
| Federal spending this year will be about $7 trillion, but we're only going to take in five. | ||
| So, we're going to borrow about $2.3 trillion. | ||
| If I came to you in your business and said you're bleeding for every dollar of revenue you're taking in, you're spending $1.36, $1.39. | ||
| Wouldn't you turn around and try to find some ways to reduce spending, to modernize on how you do your business? | ||
| Could we think of this, if we're going to spend seven, could we find 15% savings? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Maybe. | |
| It would be really hard. | ||
| People will complain. | ||
| It will screw up some people's business models. | ||
| Some of the public employee unions will be cranky. | ||
| But if you could find 15%, that'd be a trillion dollars a year. | ||
| Still doesn't get you to 3% of the GDP borrowing, because remember again, we're going to borrow 7.25% of the entire economy will be consumed by this government in borrowing this year. | ||
| So, when idiots like me hold up charts like this and I get complaints saying, you're hurting my feelings, the fact of the matter is, this is why we've got to thread this needle and do really hard things. | ||
| How do we extend the tax cuts, the tax reforms, the tax benefits, the baseline economic growth of what we accomplished in 2017, but find ways to offset as much of it as we possibly can? | ||
| Once again, even CBO and some of the outside studies made it very clear if you offset the spending so that money stays in the economy instead of being borrowed by government here, by it staying in the economy, you maximize your economic growth because it gets lent to this business, it gets lent to this new construction project. | ||
| When we take it out of the economy, remember our baseline, we're already borrowing 22 trillion over the next 10 years. | ||
| How many more trillion should we stack on top of that? | ||
| And if we don't find offsets, it means we doubled U.S. publicly held debt in 10 years. | ||
| 240 years, and then we double it again in 10. | ||
| And this is how insane the chart looks from the people running around this place saying, just use current policy because it's easy and I don't have to say no to the army of people sitting in my office wanting money for whatever their cause is. | ||
| You do realize when you start looking at this stuff, you're talking about 140, 150 plus percent of debt to GDP. | ||
| So you go from 100 today to almost a 50% increase in the next 10 years. | ||
|
Why AI Could Revolutionize Tax Help
00:15:33
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| It's uncomfortable. | ||
| Primary driver of U.S. sovereign debt, interest and health care costs. | ||
| Now, are you all ready for if we were to do the people that run around here just want to pretend the law doesn't exist and that if we're already doing it, we should just pretend to look the other way and just keep doing it. | ||
| If we do that, that means in nine budget years, interest, just the interest, just the interest, and this was assuming the interest rates from like last December, we spent over $2 trillion a year in interest. | ||
| So, when you hear members from the different committees around here how hard this is, how difficult it is, when the Democrats are saying, how dare you talk about these benefits, help us? | ||
| Where's your creativity? | ||
| Where's your modernization? | ||
| Where's the use of technology to disrupt the cost but make it better, faster, cheaper? | ||
| Help us. | ||
| But that doesn't give you the dopamine hits and the hope to win back the next election to take the majority because winning around here is more important than doing what's moral, right, and economically rational. | ||
| This is important. | ||
| Are you ready? | ||
| Are we ready as a country? | ||
| We're going to probably, my math for this year is we're going to spend about $1.2 trillion in interest. | ||
| And, dear Lord, please don't let interest rates move against us. | ||
| Also, just an economic concept I need everyone to sort of process. | ||
| Think of a seesaw. | ||
| When you see interest rates going down, yay, except the problem is it typically means the economy is slowing down. | ||
| There's less demand for debt in the markets. | ||
| There's less demand for the debt in the markets, and the economy is slowing down. | ||
| What happens, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| What happens to the U.S. Treasury? | ||
| It means tax receipts are going down. | ||
| Now, they may not go down immediately. | ||
| We often don't see the lag for three quarters, sometimes a year. | ||
| But we can see it in the growth calculations that, uh-oh, interest rates are falling down, economy is slowing down, we're going to take in less tax receipts. | ||
| Oh, good. | ||
| Economy is growing. | ||
| Interest rates go up. | ||
| Now we're paying it because this year, or in the next 12 months, we have to refinance like $9 trillion of U.S. sovereign debt, plus probably add another couple trillion on top of that of what we call new issuances. | ||
| And so, those higher interest rates, okay, so we're going to take in higher tax receipts because the economy is doing well, but it all gets consumed by the higher interest rates. | ||
| The center of this seesaw, it's a technical economic term, we're screwed. | ||
| There is no free option anymore. | ||
| When you're walking around with $37 trillion of debt, when your baseline is adding another 22 trillion, and that's not with none of these policy discussions, why aren't more people around here just terrified? | ||
| Is it that our constituents are so desperate for more money from the federal government that explaining we're not giving you something free? | ||
| We're putting it on your credit card. | ||
| You will pay this back some fashion will deflate the value of the dollar so your savings crashes, will raise the cost of goods, or at some point we're going to brutalize your kids, your grandkids, and your retirement. | ||
| And it doesn't have to be their way. | ||
| There's ways, and God knows, over the last couple years, I've come here and showed how we can crash the price of health care by just using technology. | ||
| And then you get the lobbyists in your office. | ||
| Well, that would mean we have to change our business model. | ||
| Look, Eric Cantor, yesterday, CMBC, was in many ways almost mocking us, former majority leader here, now he's on Wall Street, saying, You really think the bond market isn't going to notice if you just do this pretend thing and say, let's just call this thing current policy. | ||
| So we'll keep the current tax regime. | ||
| Yeah, it means financing another $5.5 trillion plus another $1.3 trillion of interest on top of it. | ||
| and the bond market won't even notice that. | ||
| Greatest fragility right now to this country. | ||
| We're on the cusp of putting the bond market in charge of this country. | ||
| Not President Trump, not Congress, because if you're borrowing about $60,000, $70,000 a second every day, What happens when you pull up the next bond auction and not enough people show up for it? | ||
| It would create chaos around the world. | ||
| It's a dangerous, dangerous game we're playing around here. | ||
| But you go home and talk to voters, they want things. | ||
| We need your help. | ||
| Please understand this is a dangerous, dangerous game we're playing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So let's actually, I was going to show this. | |
| I was just trying to make the point, if we do all these things without financing, we're basically over 150% of debt to GDP. | ||
| So let's actually do something difficult. | ||
| Treasury Secretary, Ray Dillio, these other people who are sort of economic experts, they're a lot smarter than I am or anyone else here, keep saying if we get to 3% of debt every year, it's actually somewhat equivalent to the growth of tax receipts. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| To do that, it functionally, to get to 3%, it functionally requires a couple trillion dollars of reduction of spending every year. | ||
| You realize, think about that. | ||
| With where we're going growth-wise, how many of you see members of Congress come behind these microphones and say, let's work on this, let's get to $2 trillion a year. | ||
| But that's actually how screwed up these numbers are. | ||
| And when you get into the out years, so you get to 2034, thank you. | ||
| It's not $2 trillion you'd have to move to. | ||
| It's over three. | ||
| Current policy budget deficit in the billions. | ||
| If you wanted to be at a 3%, you've got to cut two this year, two the next year, and it grows and grows and grows. | ||
| I don't think there's an understanding. | ||
| The United States, this is a sequitur, these tie together. | ||
| The United States in seven and a half years now will have more deaths than births. | ||
| We have a shortage of young people, and yet you want to live in a fantasy world of, oh, we're going to grow at 3%. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Tell me how. | ||
| Unless you're willing to do talent-based immigration, adoption of AI, promotion of synthetic biology to do things better, faster, cheaper. | ||
| There's ways I can get you there. | ||
| I mean, I'm blessed. | ||
| I'm the chairman of the board of the Joint Economic Committee. | ||
| So we have a handful of PhD economists, freaky smart. | ||
| We have a model to do it. | ||
| What's my chance, Mr. Speaker, of getting this body to say, President talked about doing a talent-based immigration two nights ago, talked about modernizing, using technology. | ||
| You know, when you call the IRS, when you called the IRS, their own auditor says only 31% of the phone calls get answered. | ||
| Why wouldn't you jump up immediately and say, we're going to use the latest version of an AI chat that sounds like a person that knows everything about the tax code, will stay on the phone with you, will help you fill out your forms, maybe even send you a YouTube video of how to fill out the form, maybe a PDF of the form, and it will stay on the phone with you all night long and will always pick up the phone. | ||
| And you get the union going, oh no, you can't use technology. | ||
| That's part of the discussion going on here. | ||
| Do you want to keep living and existing in a model that's decades out of date and isn't working and is burying your future in debt? | ||
| Actually, you're current in debt. | ||
| Functionally, we're borrowing about $6 billion a day. | ||
| A little math I was doing standing back off the top of my head. | ||
| If you had 70,000 federal employees accept early retirement and they make $135,000 with benefits, you're functionally, you know, you're cutting less than two days of borrowing. | ||
| You need to do it. | ||
| Do not take that comment as saying, oh, you see, it doesn't enough. | ||
| Just the opposite. | ||
| It's just the beginning. | ||
| The lack of understanding of how much trouble we're in is the problem. | ||
| Stop pretending, saying, oh, these little things aren't big enough. | ||
| That's why you've got to do dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of them. | ||
| But it might affect my business model. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It might affect my, look, do you care about the future? | |
| I have a two and a half year old we've adopted. | ||
| My wife's my age. | ||
| When my little boy becomes, I think my math was 24 years old. | ||
| So 22 years from now, every tax in the United States has to have doubled just to maintain baseline services because that's our burn rate. | ||
| This place is absolutely immoral. | ||
| And then let's actually add to it. | ||
| In eight years, so 2033, Social Security Trust Fund is empty. | ||
| And yet I'll see my Democrat colleagues come behind and we should expand the benefit. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Tell me how to finance it. | ||
| If the first year where the Social Security Trust Fund is completely empty, our rough math is it's over $600 billion a year shortfall. | ||
| I think that's the entire corporate income tax. | ||
| There's this lack of understanding of the scale. | ||
| We're in trouble. | ||
| What's wrong with this place? | ||
| Is it so much easier to go home and just lie? | ||
| If cable television tonight, how many of them are going to do a petition, whether it be the left or the right cable, pull up charts and say, here's the reality of our demographics, the math, and how much trouble we're in. | ||
| For those folks that come up here and say, I care about poor people, I care about this. | ||
| Do you have any idea how much danger you're putting our future in? | ||
| Look, I personally believe prosperity is moral. | ||
| Design a tax code, design a regulatory code, to design the adoption of technology to maximize prosperity. | ||
| And somehow I'm the idiot that keeps getting up behind this microphone trying to get people saying, let's try to do things hard. | ||
| Maybe think about how we deliver health care services. | ||
| We're doing modeling with our economists on silly things. | ||
| How many billions and billions and billions do we spend every year in just Medicare and duplicative MRI scans, x-ray scans, ultrasounds? | ||
| If you take that scan and attach it to someone's phone and it becomes portable. | ||
| Now, our original number, I'm having trouble believing it because it needs more vetting, was like $20 to $25 billion a year. | ||
| What if it's a quarter trillion over $10? | ||
| Is that a cut in services? | ||
| Or is that using technology to make it more modern, portable, faster to use, easier to use, more accessible? | ||
| And there'll be lobbyists who will be in my office tomorrow because I said this, saying, David, you don't understand. | ||
| Those duplicative scans are our profit model. | ||
| Help us. | ||
| Okay, you're on the left? | ||
| Or even my Republicans, you don't like the discussions of where we're trying to do reforms? | ||
| Bring us ideas. | ||
| There's freaky smart people in this country. | ||
| You have a supercomputer in your pocket right now. | ||
| The concept of what this thing can do, 15 years ago, did you think you'd have the world's knowledge and AI on it? | ||
| Save us, save yourself, save your retirement, save your kids, save your grandkids, but you've got to do it by thinking. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The idiots I get, sorry, Mr. Speaker, I want to retract that. | |
| I'll get people saying, you know, if we just didn't have foreign aid and you send them the chart saying it's five days of borrowing. | ||
| This isn't easy, but it's math. | ||
| And for my friends on the left, it keeps saying, you know, make the tax code more progressive. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| But you've already seen your own studies from the progressive groups is you might get another 1.5% if you blow up everything, you maximize every tax policy you've ever promoted. | ||
| You're borrowing 7.25 this year. | ||
| And remember, today, half the taxpayers, 97% of the federal income tax is paid by the top half. | ||
| So functionally, meaning the bottom half of those who are out there working their hearts out but they don't make a great income pay almost no federal income tax. | ||
| They may pay FICA tax, Social Security, Medicare, those things. | ||
| This taxes now has become incredibly progressive. | ||
| Maybe you need to make it more progressive. | ||
| But don't pretend it actually makes that much difference in the debt model. | ||
| It doesn't produce nearly the revenues. | ||
| And I'm going to bang through some of these real quick. | ||
| Look, federal tax code remains incredibly progressive. | ||
| It's more progressive today than it was prior to 2017 tax reform. | ||
| And today, right now, if you actually take a look at the top earners, they're still paying the vast majority, the vast majority. | ||
| So what happens when your top 20% is paying like 40 plus percent, excuse me, the top 20 percent of income earners are paying, I think it's a little shy, of like 70, 80 percent of all federal income taxes. | ||
| So instead of an idiot standing here giving you percentages of GDP and numbers, I thought we would do it as time. | ||
|
Months Of Debate
00:10:37
|
||
| Let's use it as a calendar. | ||
| Some people, it's easier to think. | ||
| How Washington financed 366 days of spending in 2024. | ||
| Remember, it was a leap year. | ||
| There was an extra day. | ||
| Top 20% of earners covered 201 days of federal spending. | ||
| The next 20% covered 41 days. | ||
| The middle earners covered 17 days of government spending. | ||
| The bottom 40 percent all together covered four days. | ||
| And if you take the folks below the 40 percent, we spent 103 days of spending. | ||
| We sent them money. | ||
| We didn't tax them. | ||
| We sent them money on the federal income tax side. | ||
| Yet, when the intellectually vacuous go, well, just raise taxes. | ||
| Okay, tell me how to get beyond the 17 percent GDP conundrum. | ||
| The only model that really does that is why much of the rest of the world uses a value-added tax that every step of production you stack a tax on. | ||
| Fine, maybe that's what we're going to have to do in 10 years, but understand that crushes the poor and crushes the working middle class because their consumption is so much higher than those at the higher income. | ||
| And look, upper-income taxpayers overwhelmingly finance the federal government. | ||
| Yay! | ||
| You take the top 20%. | ||
| Look, the punchline here, get to the bottom 20%, we actually pay them. | ||
| Take the bottom 40%. | ||
| It's actually less than 5.5% of the total federal income tax. | ||
| I don't know how much more progressive you can make the tax system. | ||
| Now, if you want to do a super progressivity, great. | ||
| So, when the people keep lying about the budget resolution, which please understand, I do not believe there was enough spending offsets in it. | ||
| I want to make that perfectly clear. | ||
| I actually felt incredibly let down. | ||
| We spent months and months and months and months running around here trying to show people how you could modernize the delivery of services and lower the price of government. | ||
| That scared too many people. | ||
| So, we got a budget resolution with functioning baseline is $1.2 trillion and cuts and another half trillion if shock absorbers, and yet it's a $4.5 trillion authorization, meaning you would end up borrowing 3.3. | ||
| 1.7 is discretionary, completely unenforceable, and another 2.6 trillion of income is magic thinking that somehow the GDP is going to grow 40% over baseline because we're so good-looking. | ||
| And in that sentence I just gave you, I just made a whole bunch of people angry, but it's math. | ||
| Find me a credible economist who actually is truth-teller and say somehow magically in a time where the United States has a shortage of young people, remember, seven and a half years we have more deaths than births, and somehow magically we're going to start growing at this freakishly incredible rate while pulling stimulus out of the economy, which we have to do. | ||
| There's a way to make this work, but unless you're willing to do hard things, and then the army of people will show up saying, well, David, I really want to balance the budget, but I need more spending because, well, that's how I get elected. | ||
| I bring the bacon home. | ||
| That bacon is put on your own credit cards. | ||
| The highest earning 20% of taxpayers pay 90% of all federal income taxes. | ||
| Let's try it one more time. | ||
| The highest earning 20% of taxpayers pay 90% of all federal income taxes. | ||
| It's math. | ||
| It's not comfortable. | ||
| It doesn't fit almost any of the speeches you hear from the left behind the microphone. | ||
| It's a tax cut for billionaires and rich people. | ||
| But that's not what the math says. | ||
| Because when it comes to math, we're able to lie about it all the time because it's big, it's hard. | ||
| Trillion, 12 zeros. | ||
| No one can see that. | ||
| so you can just make crap up around here. | ||
| Ah, it's too complex. | ||
| I think I've brutalized this enough. | ||
| So let's actually go to one more time the chart that gets me the most complaints, it upsets the most people, and yet happens to be absolutely truthful. | ||
| The next 30 years, this is the CBO using current law, not make-believe of let's just continue to pretend we can extend policy and it has no cost because the bond markets aren't going to pay any attention when we're bringing trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars to the bond market. | ||
| The world's happy to just give us, keep giving us all their capital. | ||
| One more time, 100% of the next 30 years of borrowing is Medicare and its financing costs. | ||
| Social Security, because remember, eight years from now, the Social Security Trust Fund is empty. | ||
| We double senior poverty. | ||
| Yay, good job, guys. | ||
| We double senior poverty in eight years because the average recipient is getting something like a 20% cut. | ||
| How many people speechifying around here have been talking about how to stabilize Social Security? | ||
| But it's hard. | ||
| They'll run television ads saying mean things about you because you mentioned the word Social Security. | ||
| The absolute immorality of modern politics and how little the public understands. | ||
| Well, they stole the money. | ||
| No, no one stole the money. | ||
| The average family, the average family with their 40 quarters, actually gets about a $72,000 spiff out of Social Security. | ||
| It's a crap rate of return. | ||
| It's a horrible rate of return. | ||
| But many of you were the ones that went to war 20 years ago, 25 years ago, when President Bush said, could we take a little tiny piece and put it in the markets? | ||
| And today you would have dramatically greater wealth. | ||
| That decision was made. | ||
| The public spoke. | ||
| Actually, the leftist union spoke and scared the crap out of people. | ||
| But the real battle is we're almost to the point for every dollar you put into Medicare and that payroll tax, you're almost taking out $7. | ||
| That right there is the primary driver of U.S. debt. | ||
| So do you cut things? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| My argument is modernize, change it. | ||
| My little example of the duplicative MRIs and scans and those things. | ||
| Why are we so terrified to modernize how we deliver health care? | ||
| How many of you went to Blockbuster Video last night? | ||
| The fact of the matter is a technology change, you now go home and hit a button, there's all your movies. | ||
| Oh, well, that made my life more convenient. | ||
| You're telling me that the thing you can blow into, the thing you can wear on your body, the technology in this, you can also use it to keep yourself healthy. | ||
| When obesity is the single biggest expenditure in this government, think about that. | ||
| We modeled last year that obesity will add another $9 trillion of additional spending. | ||
| $9.1 trillion on the top end of spending over the next 10 years. | ||
| Maybe the revolution is the way you stabilize U.S. debt is stop being fearful of technology, be willing to actually modernize and cut spending where it's not working for the American people, and help our brothers and sisters get healthier. | ||
| And that means taking on farm bills, nutrition policy, how we deliver health care. | ||
| Maybe things like Medicare Advantage and these things should be rewarded for making their populations healthier instead of running around scoring them as sicker. | ||
| There are solutions here. | ||
| We've known this chart for decades that this is coming. | ||
| Why the hell can't this place have an honest conversation? | ||
| Oh, David, that's hard. | ||
| The President stood there just a couple days ago, gave us a list of things he wanted to help the middle class. | ||
| He also asked us to find a way to balance the budget. | ||
| I'm not sure I can make that happen, but I think I can get us to 3%, which is what the Treasury Secretary asked for. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, my question is: who's willing to join us? | ||
| I mean, I hand out my binders with research for months and months and months. | ||
| I footnote everything. | ||
| And you guys just beat the crap out of me for trying to tell the truth and trying to save us. | ||
| Screw me. | ||
| I'm an idiot who runs for this job. | ||
| But you have kids. | ||
| How many of you have grandkids? | ||
| How many of you would like your retirement? | ||
| How many of you have prepared for a 20% cut in your Social Security in eight years? | ||
| Help us! | ||
| This republic's worth saving. | ||
| Maybe we should actually buy calculators. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman yields back. | |
| Mr. Speaker, may I make an inquiry on time? | ||
| Time uses. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm stalling for you. | |
| The gentleman had 20 minutes remaining. | ||
|
Censuring Representative Al Green
00:05:15
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||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We can go ahead and start reading the script. | |
| Mr. Green. | ||
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Green, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. | ||
| And still I rise a proud, liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, and unafraid. | ||
| And I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to call to the attention of the House this place that I revere and notwithstanding recent events that I have great respect for. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today in response to a censure, a censure that took place as it relates to my behavior. | ||
| I have been told by some that they did not have an opportunity to hear the actual resolution as it was read. | ||
| I have here H. Res 189, the censure resolution, as it relates to my behavior. | ||
| I believe this resolution should be read. | ||
| I am not in any way upset with the Speaker. | ||
| I want people to know that the speaker did what he was supposed to do. | ||
| He did what he was supposed to do when we had the joint session of Congress. | ||
| When I interrupted, the Speaker called it to my attention. | ||
| He did it on multiple occasions. | ||
| I have no reason in my heart to be upset with the Speaker. | ||
| Later, persons came over and escorted me out. | ||
| I appreciate them. | ||
| They were very kind to me, the officers, very kind. | ||
| They said kind words to me. | ||
| And as a result of my behavior, I have been censured. | ||
| I'm going to read the resolution and give some commentary. | ||
| It reads, H. Res 189, in the House of Representatives, Mr. New House submitted the following resolution, which was referred to the Committee on, and the copy that I have does not have a committee. | ||
| I'm not sure it was referred to a committee. | ||
| It may have come straight to the floor. | ||
| But regardless as to how it arrived, it did. | ||
| And I'm not contesting the procedure. | ||
| The resolution reads, censuring Representative Al Green of Texas. | ||
| Whereas on March 4, 2025, during the joint session of Congress, convened pursuant to House Concurrent Resolution 11, | ||
| the President of the United States, speaking at the invitation of the House and the Senate, had his remarks interrupted by Representative, the representative from Texas, Mr. Green. | ||
| Whereas the conduct of the representative from Texas disrupted the proceedings of the joint address and was a breach of proper conduct. | ||
| And whereas, after numerous disruptions, the representative from Texas had to be removed from the chamber by the sergeant-at-arms. | ||
| Now, therefore, be it resolved that one, Representative Al Green be censured. | ||
| Two, Representative Al Green forthwith present himself in the well of the House of Representatives for the pronouncement of censure. | ||
| And three, Representative Al Green is censured with the public reading of this resolution by the Speaker. | ||
|
The Physician's Promise
00:03:48
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||
| Some things bear repeating, that concludes the resolution, but some things bear repeating. | ||
| I respect the Speaker. | ||
| I have no ill feelings toward the Speaker, none toward the persons that escorted me away from the floor because I did disrupt. | ||
| And I did so because the President indicated that he had a mandate and I wanted him to know that he didn't have a mandate to cut Medicaid. | ||
| I did this because Medicaid is the only insurance many people have in this country. | ||
| I am blessed as I stand here now. | ||
| There's a physician waiting. | ||
| If something should happen, I will be taken to that physician. | ||
| I have the best health care in the world. | ||
| There are other people who have less than I. | ||
| I would have them have what I have. | ||
| But I surely would not stand by and see them lose what little they do have. | ||
| Medicaid is for people who don't have the kind of health care that 435 members of Congress and 100 members of the Senate have. | ||
| But they do have some health care. | ||
| It has been approved by legislation that the Energy and Commerce Committee would cut $880 billion from their budget. | ||
| The overwhelming majority of that budget has to do with health care. | ||
| I see no way for this cut to take place without cutting into Medicaid. | ||
| I am going to fight the cutting of Medicaid. | ||
| I hope that this comment, this message that I'm giving today will deter them and cause them to go a different way. | ||
| Then they can say, we were never going to do it. | ||
| Al Green just had this false notion. | ||
| Well, let me have it. | ||
| Don't cut Medicaid. | ||
| It's all they have. | ||
| This is the richest country in the world. | ||
| Mr. Musk has doctors. | ||
| He will get the best health care. | ||
| Let him understand that he should be on my side. | ||
| He should be on the side of the people who need this health care. | ||
| He has the ear of the president. | ||
| Mr. Musk, speak to him. | ||
| He listens to you. | ||
| But for the grace of God, dear brother, you could be on Medicaid. | ||
| You've just been blessed. | ||
| Don't assume that it was your intellect that has caused you all of these great blessings that you've received. | ||
| You've just been blessed beyond measure. | ||
| Speak to the president and tell him that Medicaid ought not be cut. | ||
| But I continue. | ||
| I interrupted. | ||
| I was said to be in need of sanctions. | ||
| I came to the floor today and while the speaker was reading, I recalled what happened in the 60s. | ||
| I recalled when we were faced with adverse circumstances, we would sing a song that would inspire and encourage us to move forward with alacrity. | ||
|
Act of Incivility
00:09:17
|
||
| The words were, We shall overcome, we shall overcome. | ||
| We shall overcome someday. | ||
| Deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome someday. | ||
| That was an act of incivility. | ||
| Why, Al Greene, would you come to the well before your colleagues in the world and commit an act of incivility? | ||
| Here is why. | ||
| Because when the President of the United States, right there at that podium, addressed the members of Congress, Democrats seated on this side, seated, | ||
| Many of them saying nothing, the president of the United States looked upon them, pointed toward them, and said, I quote, and said, lunatics. | ||
| The president of the United States at a joint session of Congress called members of Congress lunatics. | ||
| That was an act of incivility. | ||
| Incivility. | ||
| There comes a time when you cannot allow the president's incivility to take advantage of our civility. | ||
| And that's what's happening in this country. | ||
| His incivility is overwhelming our civility. | ||
| We cannot allow this. | ||
| That act of incivility was in direct response to the president's incivility. | ||
| Mr. President, you, sir, you were wrong when you pointed to the members of Congress and called them lunatics, Democrats, I might add. | ||
| Called them lunatics. | ||
| The president hasn't been sanctioned. | ||
| President hasn't been reprimanded. | ||
| No censure of the president. | ||
| The president is above the law. | ||
| Supreme Court has said as much. | ||
| He can do things that no other can do above the law as it relates to certain things. | ||
| But not as it relates to all things. | ||
| Not all. | ||
| He is still subject to the norms of society. | ||
| The decorum that you expect from me, you have to respect and expect from the president. | ||
| Why would we allow him to use his incivility and expect me to continue to engage in civility as it relates to his incivility? | ||
| Mr. President, there are some of us who are going to stand against your incivility. | ||
| We have reached a point in our history where we have to hearken back to that which got us to this point in our history. | ||
| I remember the 60s. | ||
| I remember Dr. King. | ||
| I remember the movement. | ||
| I remember what it took to get me in this house. | ||
| I'm not here because I'm so smart. | ||
| I'm not here because of brilliance or good looks. | ||
| I'm here because people made great sacrifices. | ||
| And it was incivility. | ||
| It was disruption. | ||
| But they were prepared to suffer the consequences. | ||
| We're going to have to resort to the same tactics that we used in the 60s. | ||
| But we did it for a worthy and noble cause. | ||
| Calling the people of Congress lunatics was not noble, Mr. President. | ||
| It was an ignoble, ignoble act of incivility. | ||
| But I remember how we marched and how we protest. | ||
| And I prepared to do it again. | ||
| If you treat me like you treated me in the 60s, I'm going to respond the way I responded in the 60s. | ||
| It is time for us to use the same level of incivility that was used in the 60s for a noble cause to save Medicaid, to protect Medicare, to prevent the demise of Social Security. | ||
| It is time for us to take that stand. | ||
| Incivility emanating from the highest office in the land cannot be tolerated and has to be negated. | ||
| I did it, and I have said to people, while I respect others, and while I absolutely was cooperative when they led me away from the floor, but if circumstances permitted, given what I know, I have to be candid. | ||
| I would do it again. | ||
| I would do it because I care about these people on Medicaid. | ||
| For edification purposes, the state of Texas was accorded $100 billion. | ||
| $100 billion Medicaid dollars. | ||
| $100 billion Medicaid dollars sent to the state of Texas to help poor people. | ||
| And what did the state of Texas do? | ||
| The state of Texas rejected $100 billion for poor people and Medicaid. | ||
| $100 billion, not million, $100 billion. | ||
| State of Texas does not have the goodwill necessary to manage Medicaid dollars. | ||
| If we block grant this money and send it to Texas, those who are in need of it will get less of it. | ||
| We have to stand up for them. | ||
| They are among the least in our society. | ||
| Unfortunately, we have to stand up for them. | ||
| So I'm standing up for those people. | ||
| I will continue to stand, and I will continue to tell the world that this incivility has to be dealt with. | ||
| We have to deal with the president's incivility. | ||
| The name-calling never ceases. | ||
| Maxine Waters, he has assaulted verbally. | ||
| Miss Wilson from Florida. | ||
| The list goes on and on and on, as Congresswoman Waters is known to say, on and on and on. | ||
| We sit and we watch with civility as he employs incivility. | ||
| Yes, I said earlier, and I'm retreating to the point, that he has been given a certain amount of immunity. | ||
| He has not been given absolute immunity. | ||
| But he seems to have an inordinate amount of influence with his party. | ||
| Inordinate. | ||
| I see people doing things that I never thought I'd see them do. | ||
| I see people who are conservative that I have great respect for doing things that I never thought I'd see them do. | ||
| I'm not calling names. | ||
| I'm just saying to you, friends, the president has an inordinate amount of influence. | ||
| Inordinate, an unusual, incomprehensible amount of influence. | ||
| So, the courts have given him a certain amount of immunity. | ||
| His party has given him carte blanche to say anything, to come before the joint session of Congress and use the word lunatics as he refers to Democrats. | ||
| The only thing left in ordinary times would be the courts. | ||
|
Courts Orders Must Be Obeyed
00:15:33
|
||
| The court. | ||
| Court orders are to be obeyed. | ||
| I don't always like them, but I remember what John Lewis explained to me about peaceful protest. | ||
| Protest, the court orders you to do certain things. | ||
| You don't have to agree with it, but you do. | ||
| You do it. | ||
| You'll be willing to suffer the consequences. | ||
| Well, the courts are right now in the midst of, as best as they can, trying to give us the laws necessary to prevent certain things from happening. | ||
| Mass layoffs. | ||
| Mass layoffs have to be taken to court. | ||
| Mass layoffs. | ||
| No due process. | ||
| No thought of what's happening in the lives of these people that you just take a pen and with the stroke of a pen, you're off. | ||
| No concerned about children in school. | ||
| No concerned about loved ones who may be ill, that they are taken care of, being the chief breadwinner for the family. | ||
| No concern. | ||
| You've got billions, Mr. Musk. | ||
| Why should you care about the concerns of people who have much less, who are working every day to eke out a living? | ||
| You have billions. | ||
| You shouldn't worry about them. | ||
| Worry about making more money. | ||
| Go to the moon. | ||
| Well, they don't have that luxury. | ||
| I'm going to stand for them. | ||
| Mass layoffs without any consideration. | ||
| I just believe that this level of behavior, if conducted, committed, engaged in by one Barack Hussein Obama when he was president, if he behaved in this fashion, he would have been impeached. | ||
| He would have been impeached. | ||
| I will go to my grave with this belief. | ||
| We wouldn't allow these mass layoffs. | ||
| We wouldn't allow these cuts to veterans and we wouldn't allow Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security to be on the chopping block. | ||
| He would have been impeached. | ||
| And to be very honest, I would have voted for the impeachment. | ||
| Because I don't think that we should allow a president to circumvent what we know to be the requirements associated with the legislative process and with due process, which should be accorded people who are being fired, as it were. | ||
| So you do these things. | ||
| The courts are acting and the courts should act. | ||
| But there is a point in time, Mr. President, if your incivility, if your incivility allows you to disobey court orders, given that your party has given you carte blanche, given that you believe you have absolute immunity by virtue of what the Supreme Court has accorded you, and you don't have absolute, but I think you believe it. | ||
| When you cross that line, when you cross that line and you, Mr. President, decide you will no longer honor orders from the judiciary. | ||
| When you decide that Marlbury versus Madison means nothing, when you decide that you are the supreme law of the land, on that day, we will have a dictatorship. | ||
| And we are close because you are continually inching right up to the line and you're looking over to the other side. | ||
| And at some point, regrettably, you may cross over. | ||
| Mr. President, I beg that you not do so. | ||
| I beg that you would not do so, that you would honor the third branch of government designed to settle disputes among us. | ||
| Not always in a favorable way to some, obviously, but that's what it's there for. | ||
| So I beg, Mr. President, that you would not, you would not dishonor the judiciary in this country. | ||
| But here's what I know: I know that you have the ability to say to a judge, you've issued your court order. | ||
| Now let me see you enforce it. | ||
| That's my Justice Department, not Al Green's president. | ||
| That's my Justice Department. | ||
| The head of my Justice Department has pledged fealty to me, not Al Green, the President. | ||
| That's my Justice Department. | ||
| Let me see you get my Justice Department to enforce your order, Mr. Judge. | ||
| More specifically, Mr. John Roberts, get my Justice Department to enforce your order. | ||
| Let me see you get my marshals to enforce your order. | ||
| This president, whether wittingly or unwittingly, has put himself in a position such that the Justice Department has pledged fealty to him. | ||
| Generals in the military, you don't get these positions now unless you pledge fealty, have pledged fealty to him. | ||
| We ought to be ashamed of ourselves to allow such a thing to happen. | ||
| Yes, generals in the military, Justice Department, the courts, many of them, are bending knees. | ||
| Genu flex. | ||
| Somehow you believe that you are showing respect, I suppose, or maybe you're just currying favor. | ||
| But be that as it may, Justice Department, generals in the military, many of the courts giving a genuflex, Wittingly or unwittingly, he is setting himself up such that he is in a position such that at the end of his fourth year, he might attempt to do what he tried to do and failed at the end of his last term. | ||
| He tried his best to prevent the transition of power. | ||
| He did all that he could. | ||
| He encouraged persons to come over to the Capitol. | ||
| People came and they literally broke into the Capitol. | ||
| I was here. | ||
| They came and they marched through the Capitol. | ||
| And by the way, for doing it, the President has given them the ultimate reward. | ||
| You, you, and you, yes, you too. | ||
| All of you, you are pardoned. | ||
| You're given some sort of amnesty. | ||
| You're okay. | ||
| This is what the President has done. | ||
| So wittingly or unwittingly, he is now in a position to make that same effort. | ||
| Only this time, the Justice Department is with him, not with the Constitution. | ||
| Generals in the military are with him, not with their oath that they've taken. | ||
| The President, wittingly or unwittingly, has put himself in a position such that if he chooses to stay on beyond his term of office, if he chooses to do what a member of Congress has suggested that might be done by law, which is to give him a third term in law, | ||
| I hold no animus toward the member of Congress who's done this, followed the legislation. | ||
| No animus to you, dear brother. | ||
| But what we have done is witness a president who wittingly or unwittingly has put himself in a position such that he will have the power to enforce the inanity of not allowing a peaceful transfer of power. | ||
| He literally is putting himself in that position, wittingly or unwittingly. | ||
| He is. | ||
| And as a result of his doing this, we have to not allow his incivility, his requirement of fealty, to prevent us from taking the necessary actions to protect liberty and justice for all, to protect government of the people, by the people, for the people, | ||
| to protect what this country has in its great and noble ideals. | ||
| We have to do what is necessary. | ||
| I believe that we have to engage in a level of positive, righteous incivility. | ||
| Do what is necessary. | ||
| I believe that we have to engage in a level of positive, righteous incivility. | ||
| He won't be reprimanded. | ||
| He won't be censured. | ||
| However, there is one, one as the president uses it in his parlance, one card. | ||
| There's one card that we have. | ||
| You told the President of Ukraine, you don't have the cards. | ||
| Well, Mr. President, we have the cards. | ||
| There are 435 of us with the cards. | ||
| And the card, Mr. President, you know well because on two occasions these cards have been utilized to check you. | ||
| You don't always get convicted when you're indicted, but you do get indicted. | ||
| And if you continue with this line of behavior, you may not just simply be indicted. | ||
| That means impeached. | ||
| You may be more than impeached. | ||
| There may be a Senate that has the will to live up to the ideals in the Constitution. | ||
| And when that Senate does so, you will no longer be President. | ||
| There are 435 cards. | ||
| Mr. President, I have one of those cards. | ||
| I have one of them. | ||
| You are a Goliath. | ||
| You are a Goliath. | ||
| You now have control of the Justice Department. | ||
| You have the generals pledging fealty. | ||
| You are a Goliath, Mr. President. | ||
| But there are 435 Davids. | ||
| 435 Davids. | ||
| 435 with the power accorded to us by way of the rules of this House to bring articles of impeachment. | ||
| You may not be impeached the first time, but there's always a second and there's always a third. | ||
| And in the end, if you, Mr. President, continue with this behavior, you will be impeached. | ||
| And I believe that will be the will in the Senate to convict. | ||
| I'm not threatening anyone. | ||
| I'm talking about the rules that have been accorded this House, which I happen to be a member of and proud to be a member of, and accorded the Senate. | ||
| You are a Goliath, but Mr. President, there are Davids among us. | ||
| Your incivility can no longer be tolerated. | ||
| It has to be met with righteous indignation and righteous incivility. | ||
| I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the president and to direct their remarks to the chair. | ||
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley, for 30 minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| We've just heard the gentleman from Texas speak passionately on a number of topics, which is his prerogative as an elected member of Congress to speak from this floor on any topic he chooses. | ||
| What is not his or any of our right is to stand up during the State of the Union and interrupt the President of the United States. | ||
| Imagine if everyone did that. | ||
| Imagine if everyone took whatever grievance they have in the moment and decided to use the State of the Union to air that grievance. | ||
| Imagine if during President Biden's speech, each and every one of the Republicans in the House had stood up and objected to the President's open border policies or his runaway inflation policies. | ||
| The State of the Union could not be delivered. | ||
| The institution could not function. | ||
| What's even more remarkable, though, than the conduct of this one member is the fact that all but 10 of his colleagues on their side of the aisle chose not to censure this eminently censurable conduct. | ||
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Democrats Joining Censure
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| We held a vote today, and there were 10 Democrats who joined with Republicans in voting for the censure. | ||
| They were Ami Berra of California, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, Lauren Gillen of New York, James Himes of Connecticut, Chrissy Houlihan of Pennsylvania, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Marie Gluzenkamp Perez of Washington, and Tom Souzi of New York. | ||
| The other 200 members who are present chose not to censure that conduct. | ||
| I find that remarkable, and indeed, the antics on display during the State of the Union truly exemplified everything that is wrong with politics in this country today. | ||
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Premeditated Refusal To Applaud
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| Exemplified everything that Americans are so tired of. | ||
| There was, of course, the outburst from the gentleman from Texas. | ||
| There were the pathetic little protests of people walking out a handful in the middle of the speech. | ||
| There were the sad little cards with statements like lies on them. | ||
| But beyond all of that, there was a premeditated refusal from one side of the aisle acting in unison to stand and applaud for literally anything that the president said. | ||
| So, what were some of the things that they uniformly, acting as a monolith, refused to applaud? | ||
| Well, they refused to stand and applaud for record-low illegal border crossings, for protecting women's sports, for stopping fraudulent payments, for capturing a terrorist who killed 13 American service members. | ||
| They refused to stand and applaud for supporting law enforcement, for improving military recruitment, for protecting free speech, for having our workers actually show up to work, for hiring peaceable based on merit, for opening new power plants, for living in peace, for the signing of the Abraham Accords, for returning manufacturing to America. | ||
| Not a single person stood. | ||
| And that's kind of the most incredible thing: there was a willful decision to sacrifice any individuality to the orders being given by party leadership. | ||
| But it got particularly disturbing when the president recognized a number of heroic Americans who were present. | ||
| And we had our colleagues refuse to stand and applaud for a volunteer firefighter who provided a home to 40 foster children, to the victim of a deep fake who has become an advocate for other victims, to the family of Lake and Riley, to the family of Jocelyn Noongare, | ||
| To a heroic Border Patrol agent, to the widow of an officer who was killed in the line of duty, to a 13-year-old survivor of brain cancer, such an inspiring young man, to a young man admitted to West Point, to a history teacher who has finally been brought home after being a political prisoner in Russia for 14 years, and to the family of Corey Comperatore. | ||
| Each and every time the president recognized one of these individuals in the gallery, there was a premeditated refusal to stand and acknowledge them. | ||
| And we know that they know how to do it during President Biden's State of the Unions, which, by the way, his last one was one of the most caustic, partisan speeches I've ever seen, where he repeatedly compared himself to his predecessor, that is, his political opponent at the time. | ||
| Dozens of times they stood and applauded. | ||
| And by the way, on our side, for a lot of those times, we didn't stand and applaud because he was saying partisan things or things we disagreed with. | ||
| But when he said things that we agreed with, I would stand and others on my side would stand as well. | ||
| When he spoke to unifying ideas, ideas about what makes our country great, we would stand and applaud. | ||
| When he highlighted people who were deserving of commendation, we would stand and applaud. | ||
| And yet, the contrast could not have been starker in President Trump's speech and the reaction to it here in the chamber on Tuesday. | ||
| And I think that's really unfortunate because Americans of all party affiliates, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green Party, whatever the case may be, repeatedly say in overwhelming numbers that the political divisions in this country are a serious problem. | ||
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FBI Investigation Requested
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| I believe it's weakening us as a country. | ||
| And I think we need to find opportunities to come together. | ||
| We need to be looking for common ground. | ||
| And the fact that you had one side that came in to Tuesday's speech intent on finding no common ground whatsoever is a very unfortunate thing. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I formally requested that FBI Director Kash Patel open an investigation into California high-speed rail. | ||
| My letter to Director Patel reads as follows. | ||
| While I know that many issues are competing for your time, one issue that deserves your attention is California's high-speed rail project. | ||
| Nearly 17 years ago, California and the United States were sold on the dream of high-speed rail in California. | ||
| Originally projected to cost $33 billion and scheduled to be completed by 2020, that dream has become a nightmare. | ||
| According to the California High-Speed Rail Authority's own estimates, the total project cost has now ballooned by over $100 billion above that original estimate. | ||
| Moreover, California's auditor reports that the high-speed rail authority will miss its latest 2033 deadline without having completed a single segment of the track. | ||
| Indeed, the New York Times reported that according to quote projections widely used by engineers and project managers, the train could not be completed in this century. | ||
| This malfeasance leads to questions that transcend mere incompetence. | ||
| How is it possible to have spent over $13 billion without a single station opening? | ||
| Where have these funds gone? | ||
| Who benefited? | ||
| Because the project has consumed billions in federal funding. | ||
| The FBI has both the authority and, I would argue, the responsibility to pursue these questions and deliver answers to the American people. | ||
| The Public Integrity Division is uniquely qualified to root out any corruption, recover stolen funds, and restore confidence that our tax dollars are being stewarded carefully. | ||
| On behalf of my constituents and the people of California, thank you for your consideration of this request. | ||
| I am hopeful that through this investigation, we will finally see some accountability and a measure of justice for California taxpayers. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, the California Legislative Analyst has just released a new report on the amount of homelessness spending in California. | ||
| And it reports that since 2019, the state has spent over $36 billion. | ||
| This is truly astounding when you consider what has actually happened with homelessness in California during that time. | ||
| This is during the governorship of Gavin Newsom. | ||
| We have seen a 24% increase in homelessness. | ||
| The population is now over 187,000 people, and roughly half of all unsheltered homeless in the United States are in California. | ||
| So we have continued to spend more and more money over $36 billion over this time period, and the homeless population has only continued to grow. | ||
| What's worse, the legislative analysts has found that the governor's office lost track of most of that money. | ||
| This was in an audit that was released last year. | ||
| And in this new report, even since that audit, we are seeing the same problem with the new spending that has been authorized. | ||
| Indeed, the LAO reports that despite many requirements, as of this writing, no data have been provided to the legislature on how many people living in an encampment have received permanent housing or any other type of housing. | ||
| The legislature lacks other key outcomes data, such as the number of encampments that have been resolved. | ||
| So we continue to see the same problems in California. | ||
| Spending billions of billions, homelessness getting worse, zero accountability. | ||
| The governor even vetoed last year a bipartisan bill that would have allowed for greater transparency and accountability when it comes to homelessness spending. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this is absolutely unacceptable, and it's gotten to the point where I believe we need to find ways to bring new tools of federal oversight and accountability to the out-of-control homelessness situation in California. | ||
| And we are looking at ways of doing just that. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this week, I officially introduced the Coastal Commission Accountability Act to strip the California Coastal Commission of its powers under federal law. | ||
| The Coastal Commission is simply out of control. | ||
| It's one of the most out-of-control agencies in the whole country. | ||
| And it has veered far from its purpose of protecting the coast. | ||
| From blocking SpaceX launches to obstructing fire prevention projects, the Commission has repeatedly threatened the safety of Californians and weakened our national defense, while needlessly undercutting innovation and economic progress. | ||
| The need to rein the Commission in has now become urgent as we face the challenge of rebuilding Los Angeles following the fires. | ||
| And that will not be possible if the Commission is allowed to continue operating as it has been. | ||
| Just to give you a couple examples of some of its abuses. | ||
| One of them specifically related to fire. | ||
| In 2019, the LA Department of Water and Power began replacing nearly 100-year-old power line poles, wooden poles, that are cutting through Tabanga State Park. | ||
| The project, though, was halted because there was apparently an endangered plant, the Brontons Milkovich plant, that was in the area. | ||
| Now, the goal of this project was to improve fire safety for the Pacific Palisades area by replacing the wooden poles with steel, widening fire access lanes in the area, and installing wind and fire resistant power lines. | ||
| This was all after the area had been identified as having an elevated fire risk. | ||
| What the Coastal Commission did because of this Brontons Milkovich plant is they marched in, they halted the project, and they even demanded $2 million in fines. | ||
| On top of that, the Commission has blocked a desalination plant that had been proposed in Huntington Beach. | ||
| It has stood in the way of housing, contributing to the housing crisis that we have in California. | ||
| And it even tried to stop SpaceX from launching rockets out of Vandenberg. | ||
| This one was particularly remarkable because SpaceX and the Air Force came and said we want to increase our launch cadence at Vandenberg. | ||
| These launches are very important for a number of reasons when it comes to innovation and space exploration and when it comes to national security. | ||
| That's why the Air Force was involved. | ||
| And the Coastal Commission said, no, we're not going to allow that. | ||
| And what was the reason they cited? | ||
| Well, it had nothing to do with preserving the coast, which is their mission. | ||
| It had nothing to do with maintaining the beauty of the California coast, one of the most beautiful places in the world, which is their mission. | ||
| No, the commissioners explicitly said during their meeting that the reason they were going to stop these launches, which the Air Force said are in the national security interests of the United States, is because they didn't like some of the political posts put on X by Elon Musk on completely unrelated topics. | ||
| This gives you a sense of what a rogue agency the Coastal Commission has become and the barriers that we will face to rebuilding Los Angeles if this is allowed to continue. | ||
| So I am looking forward to advancing the Coastal Commission Accountability Act through the House and getting it signed by the President, who I know agrees with me on this issue. | ||
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Governor's Podcast Surprise
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| And I'm hopeful that we can get bipartisan support throughout the process. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, today I am calling on California Governor Gavin Newsom to immediately issue an executive order to protect women and girls' sports in California and to ask the legislature for legislation codifying in law that men shall never compete in women's sports in California again. | ||
| Today, the governor on his newly established podcast called This Is Gavin Newsom came out with a statement that surprised many on this topic. | ||
| He said that when it comes to men competing in women's sports, he said, I think it's an issue of fairness. | ||
| It is an issue of fairness. | ||
| It's deeply unfair. | ||
| Those were the governor's words. | ||
| Now, this was surprising because his policies have been the 180-degree opposite. | ||
| For example, he has signed legislation that have taken away the right of parents to be notified about decisions that their kids make at school with respect to how they identify. | ||
| Or on this issue of sports, in 2022, not that long ago, June of 2022, the governor attacked the state of Tennessee for not funding men competing in girls' sports. | ||
| So at that point, he was not only in favor of it, he thought that a state refusing to actively promote it and fund it was deserving of censure. | ||
| But okay, the governor's changed his mind. | ||
| I think that's great. | ||
| Maybe it has something to do with the fact that polls show that some 90% of Americans support the basic predicate of sanity that men should compete in men's sports and women should compete in women's sports. | ||
| Now, that message has apparently not been received by the United States Senate, which recently refused to pass the bill we passed in the House, the Protecting Women and Girls Sports Act. | ||
| But the governor has made his statement. | ||
| He claims this is his position. | ||
| It would represent a change of heart, but it means nothing unless he acts on it. | ||
| If he continues to support policies that do the exact opposite. | ||
| So, if the governor is serious, I am calling on him today to take executive action to protect women's sports and to get the legislature to take action as well so that we can end this absurdity and unfairness in California once and for all. | ||
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Massive Fire Mitigation Effort
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| Mr. Speaker, there is at this time a much-needed comprehensive effort underway to modernize our government, to root out fraud, to root out inefficiency. | ||
| to implement reforms that will save taxpayers' money and lead to a higher quality of government service while right-sizing the federal government. | ||
| This is an undertaking that is supported by a broad majority of Americans of all party affiliations. | ||
| I have been very appreciative of the administration's efforts to keep us informed as well as to solicit feedback from members of Congress as to how things are playing out in our districts, knowing that such a massive undertaking that's being done in a much-needed aggressive pace will inevitably, from time to time, | ||
| produce some effects that need to be looked at more closely. | ||
| And so, one of the ways in which I've provided feedback to the administration is as it concerns the issue of fire protection in my district. | ||
| Now, of course, we all saw the horror that unfolded in Los Angeles lately, recently, but in recent years, these catastrophic events have become a recurring phenomenon. | ||
| They've become, sadly, a fact of life for folks in California. | ||
| And several of the most devastating fires in state history have occurred in my district. | ||
| And in the wake of these fires, there has been a massive undertaking to do whatever we can to try to prevent similar events from happening in the future. | ||
| It's been one of my very first priorities since I got to Congress is to bring unprecedented resources to our district for massive fire mitigation projects that will keep our communities safe. | ||
| And by the way, there's a lot of reform that we still need to do in terms of the regulations. | ||
| There's been some minor improvements, but the Fix Our Forest Act, for example, is a bill that will go a long way. | ||
| But we do need the resources, which we have managed to secure at an unprecedented level. | ||
| And I have simply tried to emphasize the importance of protecting these efforts, especially given the fact that in parts of my district that have rather extreme weather, there's a pretty short window of time right now to get some of these projects started and to get them completed. | ||
| So just as a few examples, there's the Plumas County Fire Safe Council has a grant nearly $7 million that's very important for fire mitigation efforts. | ||
| The Nevada County Board of Supervisors has significant grants that have come in for vital wildfire mitigation projects, shaded fuel breaks, evacuation planning, and community wildfire protection planning. | ||
| The Mono County Board of Supervisors has a public safety and law enforcement grant related to staffing of the forest protection officers and law enforcement officers as well. | ||
| American Rivers, there's a $16 million grant. | ||
| It's being funded by the National Fish and Wildlife. | ||
| There's matching funds as well with a number of regional partners. | ||
| And the purpose of the project is to restore high-severity burned areas near the South Fork of the American River and Consume this River to prevent erosion and flooding as well as to protect water quality and for drinking, irrigation, and hydropower. | ||
| There's also the Eastern Sierra Climate and Communities Resilience Project. | ||
| This is in Mammoth Links, the $6.7 million for implementation funds, as well as a number of other types of funds. | ||
| And this is a project that, again, is designed to do important fire mitigation work. | ||
| And there's potentially 1,609 acres with a reduction of 77% of total acres that is now potentially being faced. | ||
| We have then, as well as some reports of folks with the Forest Service and positions that might be, that are in jeopardy. | ||
| And in the Camino Fire Safe Council, we've also gotten some reports of activity when it comes to their grants as well. | ||
| So that's just to emphasize that this is an issue of the highest importance for folks in my district and that we need to absolutely, and I've been advocating this since I've been in elected office, have much more sensible policies when it comes to forest management, when it comes to the laws and regulations that we have that make it so difficult to do this needed work. | ||
| We also need to do the work at a scale and the resources to do it at a scale that's much higher than we've done in the past. | ||
| I've been extremely critical of the governor, for example, of not doing that, of exaggerating the amount of fire protection work done by almost 700 percent, according to Capitol Public Radio. | ||
| And we've made good progress in terms of bringing federal resources to get this work done, and I'll continue to advocate for that here in every way that I can. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| The gentleman yields back. | ||
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Emergency Actions Against ICC
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| The chair lays before the House a message referred to the Congress of the United States. | ||
| Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 United States Code, the National Emergencies Act, 50 United States Code 1601 et Sec, Section 212F of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 United States Code 1182F, and Section 301 of Title III United States Code, I hereby report that I have exercised my authority to declare a national emergency in order to halt efforts by the International Criminal Court, ICC, to investigate, | ||
| arrest, detain, or prosecute persons in America or our close ally, Israel, through blatant lawfare. | ||
| I am enclosing a copy of the executive order I have issued. | ||
| The ICC has, without basis, asserted jurisdiction over and open investigations into personnel of the United States and of certain of its allies, including Israel, and has further abused its power by issuing baseless arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Prime Minister, former Minister of Defense Yoab Garland. | ||
| The ICC has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel, as neither country is party to the Rome Statute or a member of the ICC. | ||
| Neither country has ever recognized the ICC's jurisdiction, and both nations are thriving democracies with militaries that strictly adhere to the laws of war. | ||
| The ICC's recent actions against Israel and the United States set a dangerous precedent, directly endangering current and former United States personnel, including active service members of the armed forces, by exposing them to harassment, abuse, and possible arrests. | ||
| This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States government and our allies, including Israel. | ||
| Pursuant to the national emergency that I have declared, the United States will impose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible for the ICC's transgressions, including by blocking property and assets and suspending entry into the United States of ICC officials, employees, and agents, as well as their immediate family members. | ||
| I have directed the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General, to identify and sanction any foreign persons found to have, among other things, directly assisted in any ICC efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person without consent of that person's country or nationality. | ||
| I have further determined that the unrestricted immigrant and non-immigrant entry into the United States of any covered alien found to have participated in any ICC efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person, | ||
| as well as immediate family members of such aliens or aliens determined by the Secretary of State to be employed by or acting as an agent of the ICC would be detrimental to the interests of the United States as immigrants or non-immigrants and therefore have suspended such immigration except where the Secretary of State determines that the entry of the person into the United States would not be contractory contrary to the interests of the United States. | ||
| In addition, I have determined that donations of articles specified in Section 203B2 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act 50 United States Code 1702B2 by to or for the benefit of any person whose assets are blocked would impair my ability to address the national emergency I declared. | ||
| I have therefore prohibited such donations. | ||
| Signed, Donald J. Trump, the White House, March 5th, 2025. | ||
| Refer to the committees on foreign affairs and the judiciary and order printed. | ||
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unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| The chair lays before the House a message to the Congress of the United States. | ||
| Consistent with applicable law, including the National Emergencies Act 50 United States Code 1621 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act 50 United States Code 1701, I am providing notice of certain actions I have taken to address the synthetic opioid supply chain in the People's Republic of China and the flow of illicit drugs across our northern and southern borders. | ||
| As reflected in the executive orders described below, the sustained influx of illicit opioids and other drugs have profound consequences on our nation, endangering lives and putting a severe strain on our health care system, public services, and communities. | ||
| These actions are an expansion of the national emergency I declared in Proclamation 10886 of January 20th, 2025, declaring a national emergency at the southern border of the United States. | ||
| Executive Order 14193, as amended by Executive Orders 14197 and 14226, and Executive Order 14194, as amended by Executive Orders 14198 and 14227, expand the scope of the aforementioned national emergencies to Covered the threat to the safety and security of Americans, | ||
| including the public health crisis of deaths due to the use of fentanyl and other illicit drugs, and the failure of Canada, Mexico, Canada, and Mexico to arrest, seize, detain, or otherwise intercept drug trafficking organizations, other drugs and human traffickers, criminals at large, and illicit drugs. | ||
| Furthermore, Executive Order 14195, as amended by Executive Orders 14200 and 14228, expands the scope of the same national emergency declared in Proclamation 10886 to cover the failure of the People's Republic of China to arrest, seize, detain, or otherwise intercept chemical precursor suppliers, money launderers, transnational criminal organizations, criminals at large, and drugs. | ||
| To combat these problems, I've determined that ap prolorum tariffs on articles that are products of these countries are in order. | ||
| My administration will continue to consult with the Congress on our efforts to address the influx of illegal drugs into our communities. | ||
| As described in these executive orders, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in coordination with the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Commerce, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, are authorized to submit recurring and final reports to the Congress on this national emergency. | ||
| I am enclosing copies of the executive orders I have issued. | ||
| Signed, Donald J. Trump, the White House, March 5th, 2025. | ||
| Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means and ordered printed. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| I move that the House do now adjourn. | ||
| The question is on the motion to adjourn. | ||
| Those in favor say aye. | ||
| Aye. | ||
| Those opposed, no. | ||
| The ayes have it. | ||
| The motion is adopted. | ||
| According to the House, accordingly, the House stands adjourned until noon on Monday next for morning hour debate. | ||
|
Contact Information Update
00:02:57
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Today, the House adopted a resolution censuring Democratic Congressman Al Green for disrupting President Trump's address to Congress. | |
| He becomes the 28th lawmaker ever to be censured. | ||
| Also, today, lawmakers approved Senate-passed legislation to repeal a Biden-era rule on offshore oil and gas production. | ||
| The joint resolution of disapproval now goes to the President's desk. | ||
| And off the floor, lawmakers are still negotiating a federal government funding bill. | ||
| Current funding expires next Friday, March 14th at midnight. | ||
| Watch live coverage of the House when members return here on C-SPAN. | ||
| Looking to contact your members of Congress? | ||
| Well, C-SPAN is making it easy for you with our 2025 Congressional Directory. | ||
| Get essential contact information for government officials all in one place. | ||
| This compact, spiral-bound guide contains bio and contact information for every House and Senate member of the 119th Congress. | ||
| Contact information on congressional committees, the President's Cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors. | ||
| The Congressional Directory costs $32.95 plus shipping and handling, and every purchase helps support C-SPAN's non-profit operations. | ||
| Scan the code on the right or go to c-spanshop.org to pre-order your copy today. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, on this historic day, the House of Representatives opens its proceedings for the first time to televised coverage. | ||
| Since March of 1979, C-SPAN has been your unfiltered window into American democracy, bringing you direct, no-spin coverage of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House. | ||
| Is this Mr. Brian Lamb? | ||
| Yes, it is. | ||
| Would you hold one moment, please, for the President? | ||
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| You can keep democracy unfiltered today and for future generations. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
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Your gift today preserves open access to government and ensures the public stays informed. | |
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| Every contribution matters. | ||
| And thank you. | ||
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||