| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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15 Minute Deadline Vote
00:02:59
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unidentified
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Mike Pompeo, Mark Milley, and John Bolton. | |
| Given the heightened tensions with Iran right now, is he considering restoring those security details? | ||
| That's not under consideration right now. | ||
| Fran. | ||
| If I could follow up on Trade and then I have a question about the bill as well. | ||
| Are you saying at this point that there's no plans to extend that July 8th and July 9th deadline, especially with everything that's been going on from Iran to the tax bill on Capitol Hill? | ||
| Is that under consideration at all at this point? | ||
| Perhaps it could be extended, but you can continue watching this on our website, c-span.org. | ||
| We take you live now to the U.S. Capitol where the House is gaveling in to work on immigration-related legislation. | ||
| Live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 9 of Rule 20, the remaining electronic votes will be conducted as a five-minute vote. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8, Rule 20, the unfinished business is the vote on the passage of H.R. 875, on which the yays and nays were ordered. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the bill. | ||
| Union calendar number 19, H.R. 875, a bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide that aliens who have been convicted of or who have committed an offense for driving while intoxicated or impaired are inadmissible and deportable. | ||
| The question is on passage of the bill. | ||
| Members will record their votes by electronic device. | ||
| This is a 15-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
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And the first and only round of votes expected here in the House underway now. | |
| The legislation in question would allow for the deportation of non-U.S. citizens for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. | ||
| Also, expected at 4 p.m. Eastern, we'll be live from the White House, where President Trump will talk about the status of his tax and spending cuts bill. | ||
| It's making its way through the Senate. | ||
| The President has said he wants Congress to finish work on the measure and have it on his desk to sign by next Friday, the 4th of July. | ||
| Also, on the other side of the Capitol, the Senate's scheduled to begin work in about 30 minutes, including a likely vote on preventing any further military action against Iran unless authorized by Congress. | ||
| As members come to the floor here in the House for voting, we'll show today's State Department briefing wrapped up a short time ago. | ||
|
Meals Distributed Challenges
00:15:28
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unidentified
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Hello, everybody. | |
| Hopefully, you're staying somewhat cool in this weather. | ||
| That's been a hot couple days. | ||
| It's been a hot couple days, at least for me. | ||
| So I'm glad to hear some people are enjoying it, but it's been kind of hot. | ||
| Not used to this level, but nice and cool in here, which is nice. | ||
| So I have a few announcements up top, and then I'll be happy to take some questions. | ||
| This week, President Trump and Secretary Rubio returned from the historic NATO summit in The Hague, where allies committed to dramatically increased defense and security spending to 5% of GDP. | ||
| This landmark pledge reflects a generational shift in NATO's posture, ensuring that NATO has the forces, capabilities, warfighting readiness, and resilience needed to deter and defend against all modern threats. | ||
| This is peace through strength. | ||
| It's not just about budgets, it's about building real military power, a stronger industrial base, and interoperability to last. | ||
| As President Trump said, this is a monumental win for the United States, for Europe, and for the cause of transatlantic peace and prosperity. | ||
| The President's leadership deserves full credit for reinvigorating NATO and restoring strategic clarity to the alliance. | ||
| Today, the Secretary announced a new visa restriction policy for family members and close personal and business associates of drug traffickers sanctioned under Executive Order 14059. | ||
| This will not only prevent them from entering the United States, but it will serve as a deterrent for continued illicit activities. | ||
| We will continue to use all necessary tools to deter and dismantle the flow of fentanyl and other deadly drugs from entering our country. | ||
| Tomorrow, Secretary Rubio will host the ministerial signing of a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, right here at the Department of State. | ||
| This is a significant milestone for peace in the Great Lakes region, and a reminder that peace on paper must be matched by implementation on the ground. | ||
| As the Secretary has made clear, implementation enables the economic investment and regional stability we all seek. | ||
| The United States is proud to support this hard-won progress. | ||
| And next week, Secretary Rubia will host foreign ministers from Australia, India, and Japan for the 2025 Quad Foreign Ministers meeting on July 1st in Washington, D.C. | ||
| The Secretary's first diplomatic engagement was with the Quad, and next week's summit builds on that momentum to advance a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific. | ||
| This is what American leadership looks like. | ||
| Strength, peace, and prosperity. | ||
| And with that, I'll take some questions. | ||
| Nothing on GHF? | ||
| So what I can say on GHF, actually, let me anticipating this question. | ||
| So what I can say is we have approved funding for $30 million to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. | ||
| And we call on other countries to also support the GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and its critical work. | ||
| A track record of distributing over 46 million meals distributed to date, all while preventing Hamas looting, is absolutely incredible and should be commended and supported. | ||
| From day one, we said we are open to creative solutions that securely provide aid to those in Gaza and protects Israel. | ||
| This support is simply the latest iteration of President Trump's and Secretary Rubio's pursuit of peace in the region. | ||
| This is a technical question. | ||
| Do you happen to know what account that money is coming from? | ||
| At this point, I do not. | ||
| I'll take it back and see if we can get an answer. | ||
| For something completely different, and I'll stop after this. | ||
| Are you aware of any rifts being issued today? | ||
| At this time, I have nothing to announce on that front. | ||
| I'm not aware of anything to that effect. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Hi, Bob. | ||
| I'll keep with the reorganization. | ||
| So there, I'm just wondering, so you guys have the July 1st deadline for state reorg, right? | ||
| There's an injunction by a federal judge that effectively blocks the department from implementing agency-wide layoffs. | ||
| And there is SCODIS potentially weighing on this. | ||
| So can you tell us if we don't hear from SCOTUS by July 1st, which is Tuesday, is the State Department still going to go ahead with reduction in force? | ||
| Well, I'm not going to speculate until the future on hypotheticals, but I can tell you we have no plans here at the Department to violate a court order. | ||
| Right, so you're saying that if SCODUS between now and July the 1st does not weigh in on this, then the July 1st deadline will inevitably be postponed? | ||
| Well, my first answer stands, and I'm not going to speculate further on that. | ||
| We have no plans here at the Department to violate a court order. | ||
| One more on this. | ||
| We understand the Foreign Affairs Manual recently has been tweaked to prepare for the foundation of the RIF procedures. | ||
| This administration has eliminated DEI and it said it's great bringing back merit-based. | ||
| However, we understand that some of the rifts will depend on where a Foreign Service officer, for example, is working at the moment. | ||
| And there are critics who are saying that that type of criteria basically ignores the years of knowledge, experience, language skills these officers have accumulated. | ||
| So can you help us understand how this is going to be completely merit-based? | ||
| Well, look, what I can say is from the beginning, as the Secretary has said, this reorganization is about making sure we're able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, being able to move at the speed of relevance, as the Secretary says. | ||
| It's about empowering people instead of a bureaucracy. | ||
| And I think it's also important to note the process of this from the beginning. | ||
| A full transparency in this process communicating with the American people, with Congress, from the very beginning on this. | ||
| So the point of this reorganization is, again, to move at that speed of relevancy. | ||
| Again, I'll stress I don't want to speculate moving forward exactly on what may happen, but I think it's important to remember the track record of how we got here and the ultimate point of this and what the American people I think would expect when it comes to meeting those challenges that we face today. | ||
| Could I ask Gabal, though, if the point is to move at the speed of relevancy, would experience language and previous posts, wouldn't that play into consideration? | ||
| Well, ultimately, what we're seeing here is wanting to make sure the State Department is able to meet those challenges. | ||
| That's been this whole process that's been communicated from the beginning to make sure we're effectively meeting those challenges. | ||
| Language proficiency process. | ||
| Well, again, I don't want to speculate on certain individuals or get too specific on hypotheticals. | ||
| But what I can say, as the Secretary has said, is this reorganization is about making sure we're empowering people, not bureaucracy, that we're able to meet those challenges in an effective way. | ||
| He has spoken to that routinely. | ||
| He has spoken to that publicly. | ||
| That's the point here, and I think the American people expect to see that. | ||
| If I may, I also want you to follow up on something that Matt raised. | ||
| On the GHF, there has been a lot of criticism, almost universal criticism from the Arab world, from the UN and others, about the distribution process, foreign-limited sites in southern Gaza, no access in northern Gaza, the deployment of IDF troops, monitoring access in violation of certain international norms and the Geneva Conventions. | ||
| Can you tell us, as the U.S. is about to begin funding, whether they are expanding the sites to more sites so that they can equal what the World Food Program and others had done previously? | ||
| Well, look, what I can say is, again, that 46 million meals distributed to date. | ||
| That's something that should be applauded. | ||
| We've talked about here in the past different distribution sites that have been opened, but I think this is an example of seeing that aid that has been distributed. | ||
| And President Trump's commitment, Secretary Rubio, implementing that vision here to get aid to the people of Gaza. | ||
| So we're seeing those 46 million meals, and then we're seeing from there the fact that we're seeing this $30 million approved. | ||
| If I may, if you do the math, there are 2 million people in Gaza. | ||
| If you figure that families have multiple children and that this process has been going on now for nearly a month, 46 million meals don't amount to feeding the population of Gaza. | ||
| Well, it's 46 million meals that have been distributed. | ||
| That is a positive thing. | ||
| And we call on other countries to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and its work as we have this $30 million that are approved. | ||
| We're seeing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in line with President Trump's call to deliver aid in a way where it can't be looted by Hamas. | ||
| We're seeing those creative solutions. | ||
| We're seeing the fact that we have 46 million meals distributed. | ||
| That is good news that we have those meals being distributed. | ||
| And we call on other countries to join in supporting the GHF's work. | ||
| Can I follow up on that please, Tommy? | ||
| Every time there's been a distribution in some of those centers, there's been chaotic scenes and according to the Palestinian sources, shots and people actually dying, you know, heading towards these centers. | ||
| Now, the Israeli army is saying it's investigating all that, but it seems to be a pattern from the beginning. | ||
| So do you have no issue with that whatsoever? | ||
| What's your take on that? | ||
| Well, there are two factors here. | ||
| First, we refer you to the IDF on their investigations. | ||
| Second, I would remind you that many of these reports, some of these reports, are based on Hamas propaganda. | ||
| So we have two factors here when it comes to some of these reports. | ||
| Ultimately, we want to see aid reach the people of Gaza. | ||
| The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has delivered 46 million meals. | ||
| We've seen that. | ||
| We want to see that food being delivered. | ||
| We see the $30 million approved. | ||
| So that's what the story is here, moving to implement, get those creative solutions in there to make sure that the aid being distributed is not being looted by Hamas. | ||
| And just to follow up on that, you said $30 million. | ||
| Has that money actually been given to the foundation already? | ||
| It's been approved. | ||
| It's been approved. | ||
| That's as far as I can go on that front. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Yeah, just to follow on what everyone is asking about, you say you want to see aid get into Gaza. | ||
| Are you pushing the Israeli government to allow other groups into Gaza to distribute aid today? | ||
| GHF was the only one allowed into the strip. | ||
| What we're pushing for is for other countries to join us in supporting the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's work. | ||
| That's what we're pushing for. | ||
| Groups who had been established and had methods that were able to distribute more widely before the restrictions of the Israeli government. | ||
| So are you asking them to also lift these restrictions? | ||
| What we're pushing for is for other countries to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's work, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation being able to deliver that aid without it being looted by Hamas. | ||
| And again, that's about that creative solution that President Trump has said from the beginning. | ||
| So we call on other countries to support the GHF in this. | ||
| Yes? | ||
| Thank you, Tommy, to follow up. | ||
| I mean, I'm sure that 46 million meals are very good, and the Palestinians appreciate that. | ||
| But, as Andrea said, that translates to about 20 meals per person over a period of a month, because it's been a month since they started this thing. | ||
| So there are only like four centers. | ||
| So are there any plans to expand these centers to make more opening, more entry points and so on for aid and all these things? | ||
| Because Gaza used to receive a thousand, maybe a couple thousand trucks of food a day. | ||
| So the situation is very dire. | ||
| So I don't have anything to preview in terms of future plans here. | ||
| I'm not going to get into that here. | ||
| I can say what we've seen in the past is distribution sites opening. | ||
| We've seen a ramp-up of the meals being delivered. | ||
| And I think, again, the story here is 46 million meals being delivered to the people of Gaza. | ||
| That is the story here. | ||
| Right. | ||
| If I may. | ||
| If I want to follow up one point. | ||
| If I'm very, very quickly. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But, you know, also, it has been a death trap. | ||
| I mean, everybody is documenting that. | ||
| Palestinians are being killed at these centers and so on. | ||
| Many of them are afraid to go. | ||
| There's a looming disaster. | ||
| I mean, are you talking to the Israelis? | ||
| Are you urging them not to be trigger happy and confronting very hungry people who are so desperate that they're probably grabbing stuff and so on? | ||
| Well, I answered your question earlier, but I think it's also important to recognize that Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict, as has been stated from this podium several times by spokesperson Tammy Bruce. | ||
| The fact that we're seeing Hamas act in certain ways and really in barbaric ways that they've continually done that. | ||
| So Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict. | ||
| And again, the story here is the 46 million meals that have been able to be distributed to the people in Gaza during this time and the fact that we're encouraging other countries to also support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. | ||
| Yes? | ||
| Thanks, Tommy. | ||
| Sticking on the JHF, do the Americans plan on playing, other than the role of a benefactor here, any other role in terms of management, in terms of security? | ||
| There were eight Palestinian GHF contractors that were shot dead last week. | ||
| What is the role here other than here's cash? | ||
| Well, look, fundamentally, again, we wanted to make sure we get those resources in a way that helps deliver that food, helps deliver that aid. | ||
| I have no further details for you at this time. | ||
| We may have more details in the days ahead. | ||
| But ultimately, this is about those 46 million meals and trying to get more aid into Gaza in the sense of that $30 million that's been approved for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. | ||
| Special Envoy Witkoff stressed moving forward with the Abraham Accords. | ||
| President Abbas wrote a letter to President Trump basically congratulating him on the Iranian ceasefire, expressing his desire to move forward with the peace process here. | ||
| I'm trying to figure out, because there's been almost no discussions between, at least publicly, between the State Department and the Palestinian Authority. | ||
| I know Tammy always says just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not going on. | ||
| But if Hamas is going to be out of the picture, maybe Arab countries don't know where it's going. | ||
| What is the State Department's vision for future Palestinian Authority involvement in the region? | ||
| What is the vision? | ||
| What is the policy? | ||
| Well, right now, what we're looking at is trying to get a ceasefire. | ||
| That is our focus. | ||
| Our focus now is the ceasefire we need to see. | ||
| Our focus is getting to that ceasefire, standing with Israel's right to defend itself, its right to protect itself. | ||
| That's where we are currently. | ||
| That's where our focus is. | ||
| And that's where it's going to remain until we reach those goals. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Tommy, I'm going to stick on this subject just for a little bit more. | ||
| You keep saying that the story is the distribution of 40 plus million meals. | ||
| And we're trying to just point out all of the other multifaceted angles of what's going on here, given that the government is about to invest a lot of money into this. | ||
| So I'm just wondering, like, why, again, to Jenny's question, does this mean the U.S. government doesn't support the World Food Program trying to get into Gaza right now? | ||
|
Dynamics of Aid Delivery
00:09:57
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unidentified
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If not, why not? | |
| We're just trying to get a clear answer on whether, why is it just one organization and not the others? | ||
| Well, as I just said, what this indicates is the fact that we have $30 million approved for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. | ||
| That's what this indicates. | ||
| We've also seen the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as I was saying, been able to deliver aid in a way that is not being looted by Hamas. | ||
| The story here, again, as I said, as you pointed out, is that 46 million meals. | ||
| That's the story here, and the fact that we're encouraging other countries to step up and support this. | ||
| President's been clear, he's been looking for those creative solutions to get aid into Gaza. | ||
| This is one of those indicators showing a follow-through on that commitment from Secretary Ruby here implementing that vision at the State Department. | ||
| Sorry, if I could just have one more. | ||
| I don't know if you've seen, in the last couple of weeks, there was an American security contractor who used to work for the organization. | ||
| He wrote his experience in ZTO, and he described how the contractors, the Americans going to work for the Gaza Health Humanitarian Foundation, were themselves not getting enough sleep, not getting enough to eat. | ||
| He describes how some of the contractors were picking up food from the ground, aid food that was supposed to go to the Palestinian people. | ||
| I'm just going to very quickly read this to you. | ||
| He said, we're telling crying women trying to pick up food for their families that they had to go and they were looking at this food on the ground that they desperately needed and they couldn't take it. | ||
| He said it was absolutely horrific. | ||
| So when you say the story is that they are getting millions of meals out, the other side of it is that there are many more people who are not getting food and it's not enough food and the security situation on the ground. | ||
| Other stories are starting to come out about people who are actually there. | ||
| So do you have a comment on the experience of some of these contractors who you're about to fund? | ||
| Well, every single one of these briefings, every single day, we have conversations about the situation in Gaza. | ||
| Every single day we have those conversations. | ||
| And every single day we've been working in terms of trying to figure out creative ways to get aid to the people of Gaza. | ||
| Every single day we've been working on that. | ||
| The humanitarian situation, trying to address that every single day. | ||
| And what we're seeing here is that $30 million commitment to this organization. | ||
| That is what we're seeing. | ||
| That is the commitment that President Trump laid out in terms of trying to get those creative solutions in there. | ||
| So that's really what we're talking about here, that $30 million going to the organization, the 46 million meals. | ||
| But of course, we're aware of what's happening in Gaza. | ||
| That's part of why the President had this commitment to get aid in there, but also to get to that ceasefire, get to that peace, talking about long-term prosperity for everyone in the region. | ||
| The fact that the people of Gaza have suffered tremendously under the hands of Hamas. | ||
| The President has spoken about this continually, so has Secretary Rubia. | ||
| So that's part of what we're seeing here, that $30 million to this foundation. | ||
| And we encourage, as I said, other countries to also join in supporting this effort. | ||
| Yes? | ||
| Thank you, Tommy. | ||
| On Iran, there's been some perhaps mixed messaging on the diplomatic outlook. | ||
| The president has said he doesn't think a deal is necessary, but Special Envoy Witkoff said yesterday that he's hoping for a comprehensive peace agreement. | ||
| If talks with Iran do indeed happen next week, as the President said they would, can you say what the goal would be for those discussions? | ||
| Well, I refer you to my colleague Caroline. | ||
| She spoke about this at the press briefing at the White House. | ||
| One of the things that she said there was, the goal of an Iranian meeting is to obtain long-standing peace in the region, and I have nothing further to add to her comments. | ||
| So no nuclear agreement would be, would that be necessary? | ||
| Again, nothing to add in addition to my colleague Caroline's comments. | ||
| Yes, sir. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| No, the right here. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thanks, Tom. | ||
| You mentioned Israeli Army investigations into some of the food distribution incidents at these GHF sites. | ||
| On June 2nd, Ambassador Huckabee attacked the press for reporting on some of the scenes of chaos and bloodshed. | ||
| And he said that all the meals back then initially had been distributed smoothly and with, quote, without incident. | ||
| Will the ambassador amend his statement against the press if the army, the Israeli army, confirms that there had indeed been chaos and bloodshed at the aid distribution sites? | ||
| Well, I'm not going to speculate on the future there. | ||
| What I can say is, as I refer you to my earlier answer, about the two dynamics that we're dealing with. | ||
| Secondly, there's been some reporting from Israel today about what happens next, assuming there's a durable ceasefire that endures, including the US and Israel talking about bringing Syria and Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, and that a peace plan could help Arab countries help administer Gaza if Hamas is removed. | ||
| Are you able to talk about that at all or describe the administration's next focus for the region? | ||
| I'm not going to speculate. | ||
| As I said, our focus remains on achieving that ceasefire. | ||
| Yes? | ||
| Debate in Riyadh, there was a meeting between Saudi foreign prince Faisal van Farhan and U.S. Special Envoy Tombara. | ||
| Can you give us more details or read out about the meeting? | ||
| Nothing to preview here. | ||
| I'll take back your question and see if there's anything we're able to share about the GHF. | ||
| You said that there are investigations. | ||
| Or are you aware that there are investigations from the Israelis? | ||
| Because you said that they are looting by Hamas, but we are seeing kids dying. | ||
| So why are they using force when there are kids just trying to get food that they are in dire need for? | ||
| As I said, the humanitarian situation in Gaza is part of why we have seen the President call for creative solutions to get aid into Gaza. | ||
| It's important to remember, though, that as I said again, Hamas bears sole responsibility for this conflict. | ||
| That is fundamental. | ||
| And what we're seeing here is the President saying we need creative solutions to get aid into Gaza. | ||
| And we're seeing $30 million approved to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in order to support those efforts. | ||
| Where is force used next to kids who are in dire need of food? | ||
| Why aren't the IDF using force and bullets next to kids who are trying just to get some flour? | ||
| Well, as I again refer you to my earlier answer, you have the two dynamics here. | ||
| The fact that there are some examples, and the IDF has said publicly that they are investigating. | ||
| I refer you to them on their investigation, but also that there are examples, excuse me, of Hamas propaganda. | ||
| So there are two different dynamics here. | ||
| I refer you to them on their question. | ||
| Yes? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you, Tammy. | ||
| Two questions. | ||
| The Russian Defense Secretary, Andrei Belussov, announced that thousands of North Korean engineer corps would be sent to help rebuild Krusk. | ||
| Krusk is Ukraine territory. | ||
| Do you think this will be an issue between Russia and Ukraine in ceasefire talks? | ||
| I'm sorry, could you repeat that one more time? | ||
| I missed the first part of your question. | ||
| First partner, the Russian Defense Minister, I mean, Defense Secretary Belussov announced that thousands of North Korean engineer corps would be sent to help rebuild Krusk, I mean Ukraine territories. | ||
| So do you think this will be an issue between Russia and Ukraine in ceasefire talks? | ||
| On the issue of North Korea support for Russia or vice versa, we've spoken to that multiple times from this podium. | ||
| I refer you to those earlier comments from myself and spokesperson Bruce. | ||
| As the President has said many times, we hope to see that ceasefire, that long peace. | ||
| We've been working for that, engaging with that. | ||
| Ultimately, it is up to the parties in order to reach that. | ||
| Do you know how much will the U.S. increase its defense cost sharing with South Korea? | ||
| And when will you discuss this issue? | ||
| Let me take back your question and see if we can get some further details for you. | ||
| Somewhat related to that, can I just ask a logistical thing? | ||
|
unidentified
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And just very quick. | |
| You mentioned the Quad meeting that the Secretary is going to be hosting. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| He is still planning to meet with these foreign ministers individually before the Quad meeting, right? | ||
| I'll see what we're able to read out. | ||
| At this point, I can confirm the Quad meeting, but I'll see if we can get you more details on that. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| Can I go to Africa? | ||
| What you talked about at the beginning? | ||
| What exactly is being signed tomorrow? | ||
| Because Nobel Peace Prize winner Dennis McQuege said that this peace process has been opaque, non-inclusive, that this deal rewards aggression. | ||
| I mean, he's been very critical of this, so I'm wondering what exactly is being signed here. | ||
| Also, first of all, as you mentioned, tomorrow Secretary Rubio will host the ministerial signing of the peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda right here at the State Department. | ||
| There are provisions on respect for territorial integrity and a prohibition of hostilities, disengagement, disarmament, and conditional integration of non-state armed groups, establishment of a joint security coordination mechanism that incorporates the CON OPS of October 31st, 2024, facilitation of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as humanitarian access and a regional economic integration framework. | ||
| So, though I would stress also what was mentioned in my topper, that it is with implementation. | ||
| The yays are 2.45, the nays are 1.60. | ||
|
unidentified
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Miss Sewell. | |
| Votes aye. | ||
|
Classified Briefing on Suleimani Strikes
00:08:05
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| On this vote, the yeas are 246 and nays are 160. | ||
| The bill is passed. | ||
| Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| Pursuant to clause 8 of Rule 20, the unfinished business is the vote and passage of H.R. 275, on which the yays and nays are ordered. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the bill. | ||
| Union calendar number 130, H.R. 275. | ||
| A bill to require the Secretary of Homeland Security to publish on a monthly basis the number of special interest aliens encountered attempting to unlawfully enter the United States and for other purposes. | ||
| The question is on passage of the bill. | ||
| Members will record their vote by electronic device. | ||
| This is a five-minute vote. | ||
|
unidentified
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And the second and last vote of the day here in the House now on whether to require the Homeland Security Department to publish a monthly report detailing migrants encountered at the border who could potentially pose a national security risk. | |
| Also let you know over on C-SPAN 2, the Senate scheduled to gavel in in just a couple of minutes. | ||
| A vote there likely on preventing any further military action against Iran without congressional approval. | ||
| And later, watch our live coverage from the White House as President Trump is set to discuss the status of his tax and spending cuts package making its way through the Senate. | ||
| The president has said he wants Congress to finish work on the measure and have it on his desk by next Friday, the 4th of July. | ||
| President Trump live at 4 p.m. Eastern over on C-SPAN 3. | ||
| As this last vote of the day is underway, we'll show reaction by lawmakers after they received a classified briefing on the U.S. military strikes in Iran. | ||
| I'm going to give you a preview. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| So this is a really important issue. | ||
| I'm going to go in there and get the brief from the Secretary, from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. | ||
| What I'm really, really hoping is that this is not a repeat of almost the identical press briefing, or not press briefing, classified briefing we got after President Trump killed Suleimani. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay? | |
| Another bold action against Iran that was needed. | ||
| This terrorist killed and wounded thousands of our troops in the briefing five years ago with Secretary Pompeo, our military leaders under President Trump. | ||
| Trump won. | ||
| The Democrats spent the entire briefing criticizing the administration, asking, did you have evidence that Suleimani was going to kill American troops in Iraq? | ||
| Are you kidding me? | ||
| Suleimani has been killing troops for years. | ||
| And did you have the authorization to kill this number one terrorist in the world? | ||
| So I'm really, really hopeful that my Democrat colleagues make this about the evidence in not maybe thanking President Trump for taking this bold action, which is what every president since George W. Bush has said we had to do, prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, in not making this all about what AOC, the leader of the Democratic Party in Congress, wants, impeachment of the president, right? | ||
| So this is a really important issue. | ||
| It's going to be a real indication of where the Democrats are. | ||
| Are they serious? | ||
| Or is this going to be badgering, you know, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, General Kane on did they have evidence? | ||
| Did they have authority? | ||
| I'd like to hear a thank you. | ||
| And how bad was the damage assessment? | ||
| So it's going to be a lot of fun. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You know, you say you want to hear them say thank you, but this is a briefing for senators to ask questions. | |
| What are the cores that you need to pull out of that to be satisfied for your constituents that, yes, this was handled properly and that we did what they're saying? | ||
| So, one thing that I don't think has gotten enough attention right now. | ||
| Yesterday, the Israeli ambassador briefed us at lunch. | ||
| So taking out the Iranian nuclear capacity has a lot to do with taking out the facilities, but it's also a lot to do with taking out the personnel, right? | ||
| The scientists, the generals, how much is that degraded? | ||
| How many of them were killed? | ||
| And also, as the ambassador mentioned yesterday, the archives where they've done all their research. | ||
| There's a whole host of facilities that aren't directly related to the exact bombing of this one that have a lot to do with the capacity to create and deliver a nuclear bomb. | ||
| So those are the kind of questions I'm going to be asking. | ||
| But this shouldn't be what it was with General Suleimani. | ||
| General Suleimani's briefing was one of the more embarrassing things I've seen as a U.S. senator. | ||
| Every Democrat was going after Secretary Pompeo saying, you didn't have the authority, you didn't have the evidence. | ||
| And it was ridiculous. | ||
| Suleimani deserved to be dead. | ||
| And the world is a better, safer place when President Trump ordered him to be killed. | ||
| And now the world's a better, safer place now. | ||
| Iran's nuclear capacity has been dramatically degraded. | ||
| We'll see by how much. | ||
| But this idea of kind of prosecuting these guys as opposed to thanking them, I think is ridiculous. | ||
| And I'm hoping it's not going to happen as much as possible. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The Trump administration wants to brief senators less. | |
| Can you comment on that? | ||
| Don't you feel that any comprehensive, don't you feel that any comprehensive analysis should include the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard? | ||
| And what do you make of her absence here today? | ||
| I wish we were hearing from everyone who had detailed knowledge that is essential for us and the American people to hear. | ||
| All of the intelligence community ought to be involved. | ||
| And I'm disappointed that we may be lacking some of the real factual background that's necessary to evaluate how much of the job remains to be done in stopping a nuclear-armed Iran. | ||
| Clearly, there was extensive destruction, but whether and how Iran could reconstitute is an essential question, which all of the intelligence community ought to be contributing to our knowledge of. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There was a report that the Trump administration wants to brief senators less on classified information, hold these briefings less often. | |
| Have you spoken with your Republican colleagues about that? | ||
| I have spoken to some of my Republican colleagues, and I think there is a very bipartisan view that the American people, not just Congress, but all of the public, deserves to hear more. | ||
| In fact, everything we're hearing today, a lot of it, should be before the American people. | ||
| And if the administration is withholding essential facts, it's a disservice to the brave and skilled American military who accomplished a feat that will go down in the annals of military history for its skill and daring. | ||
|
Gentlewoman Georgia Requests Recognition
00:04:07
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||
| And they owe it to those military to be completely forthcoming about how successful this strike was. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So last night, Todd Blanche said that he would be willing to prosecute a member of the country. | |
| But the yeas are too. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm just trying to do other things. | |
| Ms. Kamick. | ||
| vote aye. | ||
| On this vote, the yays are 231, the nays are 182. | ||
| The bill is passed. | ||
| Without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| For what purpose does a gentlewoman from Georgia seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the clerk be directed to make the change in the engrossment of H.R. 275 that I placed at the desk. | ||
| And Mr. Speaker, I hereby remove my name as co-sponsor of H.R. 1329. | ||
| Lady, we'll suspend. | ||
| The clerk reports the change. | ||
| Modification to H.R. 275, offered by Ms. Green of Georgia in section 2C2 of the bill, strike, quote, 4872D2, end quote, and insert, quote, 4872F2, end quote. | ||
| Is there any objection? | ||
| Without objection, so that ordered. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do it one more time. | |
| Okay. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Georgia seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I hereby remove my name as co-sponsor of H.R. 1329. | ||
| The request is granted. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Wisconsin seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on House Administration be discharged from further consideration of HCON Res 39 and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. | ||
| The clerk will report the title of the resolution. | ||
| House Concurrent Resolution 39. | ||
| Concurrent resolution authorizing the use of Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitor Center for a ceremony to present the Congressional Gold Medals awarded under the Harlem Hill Fighters Congressional Gold Medal Act. | ||
| Is there objection to the consideration of the resolution? | ||
| Without objection, the resolution is agreed to, and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from New York seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House out of order for one minute. | ||
| Without objection, you are recognized. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise together with my colleagues from the New York delegation to honor the memory of former Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy from New York's 4th Congressional District. | ||
| She was a trailblazer in Congress and a visionary leader who turned an unimaginable tragedy into a lifelong mission to protect others. | ||
|
Moment of Silence
00:02:30
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||
| Carolyn was a tireless advocate for the South Shore of Nassau County on Long Island and a fearless champion in the fight against gun violence. | ||
| After the heartbreaking loss of her husband and the injuring of her son in a horrific shooting, Carolyn could have retreated into grief, but instead she chose action. | ||
| She ran for Congress as a mother, a nurse, and a voice for families devastated by the senseless scourge of gun violence. | ||
| Her courage helped shape the national conversation and inspired a generation of advocates whose work is saving lives in communities across our country every day. | ||
| She also advocated for America's children as a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, working to fund school lunch programs. | ||
| She was also key in drafting the Watershed No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, which aimed to make our schools more accessible for students with disabilities. | ||
| My family, all of us on Long Island, the New York delegation, and New York State and our nation mourn her passing. | ||
| We are praying for her loved ones and for all the lives who were touched by her decades of service. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to join us now in a moment of silence in the memory of Honorable Carolyn McCarthy. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| yields back. | ||
| I'm going to let it clear out a little bit. | ||
|
Bill Cody Ranch Centennial
00:15:21
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| Those In conversation, please leave the chamber so we can start with our one-minute speeches. | ||
| The chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Wyoming seek recognition? | ||
| The gentlewoman will suspend. | ||
| The House will be in order. | ||
| I rise today to recognize a remarkable Wyoming institution, the Bill Cody Ranch, as it celebrates its centennial. | ||
| For 100 years, the Bill Cody Ranch has welcomed guests from across the country, giving them a taste of the American West. | ||
| As a flag bearer of Wyoming's Dude Ranch community, the Bill Cody Ranch is truly a remarkable testament to the enduring cowboy spirit that we hold near and dear to our hearts in Wyoming. | ||
| The Bill Cody Ranch continues as a living legacy of stewardship, hospitality, and dedication to our way of life. | ||
| Please join me in congratulating the ranch and the many families who have called at home on reaching this marvelous milestone. | ||
| Your commitment to preserving Wyoming's heritage is something that we are all proud of. | ||
| Thank you and congratulations once again on this historic milestone. | ||
| What purpose does the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands seek recognition? | ||
| I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I have repeatedly told people when asked about the rationale for actions of this administration to follow the money. | ||
| Yesterday in the House Budget Committee, we heard alarming testimony from expert witness Robert Gordon. | ||
| He reminded us those motives in the Republicans' reconciliation bill when he explained the lucrative opportunities for powerful private contractors to profit off of the red tape and the bill created in Medicaid. | ||
| Republicans' beautiful bill for billionaires requires increased work check-ins for people to retain that Medicaid. | ||
| For employment data, states are likely to use the work number from Equifax, which costs over $20 per person per search. | ||
| Under the bill, more than 18 million people would have to be checked every month. | ||
| That equates to $360 million per month, and that is $4.32 billion per year, or roughly $43 billion over the bill's 10-year budget. | ||
| Going to the vendors who make many, who are going to be processing this, follow the money. | ||
|
unidentified
|
For what purpose does the gentleman from Florida seek recognition? | |
| Mr. Speaker, I wish to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | |
| Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honour Sue Mitra, a remarkable high school student from Brevard County who has shown incredible commitment to service in our community. | ||
| While attending West Shore Junior and Senior High School, she became youth ambassador for the Children's Home Society of Florida. | ||
| She volunteered with groups like Who We Play For and HOSA, Future Health Care Professionals. | ||
| Through a web-based campaign, Mitra raised over $20,000 to enhance STEM education activities at Endeavour Elementary School and even served as a senior high-class president. | ||
| For her efforts, she earned the National Peter R. Burst Silent Servant Scholarship Award. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I am proud to recognize Ms. Mitra for her leadership and her service to the community. | ||
| And with that, I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman yields. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from New York 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. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| The vibrant African-American community in the Bronx and Westchester County have had a tireless advocate on their side for decades, the NAACP, fighting for reform and social progress, the rights of residents who want a fair shot in life, and a better today and tomorrow for their children. | ||
| We're all familiar with the effective advocacy of the NAACP, including the lifetime achievement of Dr. Hazel Dukes, who recently passed away. | ||
| But there are local heroes, too, who do exceptional work in our hometown neighborhoods. | ||
| Let me recognize some of these key branch leaders. | ||
| In Co-op City, Leslie Peterson and Brenda Brown. | ||
| In New Rochelle, Aisha Cook and Jerrica Lee. | ||
| In Yonkers, Keisha Skipper and Karen Edmondson. | ||
| Williamsbridge, Laura Rodin, and Shirley Fearon. | ||
| Mount Vernon, Kathy Brewington, and A.J. Woodson. | ||
| White Plains Greenberg, Janice Griffiths, Porchester Rye, James Henderson III, and other leaders such as Minister Mark McLean, Reverend Frank Coleman, and the Reverend Margaret Fountain Coleman. | ||
| Their hard work and principal advocacy for equal rights, economic justice, education warrants recognition on the floor of the House of Representatives. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield back. | ||
| 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 from Ohio is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Madison Wasmer. | ||
| Madison is a junior at Jackson High School and has recently earned the Eagle Scout Award, becoming the first female in Jackson County to earn this distinction. | ||
| To achieve this, Madison obtained 21 merit badges, showcasing fundamental skills she learned as a scout and commitment to her community. | ||
| Madison is a true leader who has served on her school's student council, engaged in local cleanup initiatives, and assisted special needs students. | ||
| A member of Troop 7056, Madison embodied the spirit of the Scouts, which is to make ethical and moral choices that contribute to the well-being of society, ultimately fostering civic engagement and love of community. | ||
| Madison, Southern Ohio is proud of your accomplishments and happy to call you one of our own. | ||
| I look forward to seeing how you continue to create positive change in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District. | ||
| I would also like to recognize Madison's grandmother and Scout Master Ryan Pelleter for their role in this process. | ||
| Without them, this achievement would not have been possible. | ||
| Congratulations, Madison. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from North Carolina seek recognition? | ||
| I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentlewoman from North Carolina is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise today with grave concerns about Donald Trump's proposal to eliminate FEMA. | ||
| In September 2024, Western North Carolina was ravaged by Hurricane Helene, the most devastating storm in our state's history. | ||
| We lost over 100 lives and countless communities were changed forever. | ||
| In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, FEMA provided indispensable support to save lives, clear debris, and house families who lost everything. | ||
| As hurricane season begins, it is a disgrace that Donald Trump and his administration are proposing the elimination of FEMA. | ||
| This scheme is nothing less than a slap in the face to Western North Carolina communities that he pledged to support. | ||
| If Trump really cares about effectively managing disaster response, then he should submit a funding request to Congress to replenish the disaster fund. | ||
| Eliminating FEMA is not the answer. | ||
| It will put lives in jeopardy across the United States and severely hamper ongoing disaster efforts. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Montana seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to extend and revise my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman from Montana is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| I rise today to congratulate my dear friend Jim Duncan on his well-earned retirement as president of the Billings Clinic Foundation. | ||
| For three decades, Jim served the great folks of the Treasure State, advocating tirelessly for rural health care access and the expansion of community wellness programs. | ||
| Jim grew the foundation's endowments from $3 million to an astounding $150 million, funds that will benefit the community for generations to come. | ||
| He also played a key role in introducing innovation and excellence in Montana health services, helping to bring new cancer, cardiac, pediatric, psychiatric, and trauma care to eastern Montana. | ||
| Jim's advocacy will be missed, but I know the foundation will be left in good hands with Nicole Mailing at the helm. | ||
| He led with integrity, vision, and compassion. | ||
| I wish him and his wife, Heidi, a well-deserved, adventure-filled retirement. | ||
| Congratulations again, Jim. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I yield. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| I request unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from California is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Under the economic policies of Donald Trump and Republicans, America is now in decline. | ||
| For the first time in three years, we have negative GDP growth. | ||
| That means our economy actually shrank this year. | ||
| It takes a special kind of stupid to take 12 consecutive quarters of positive economic growth and make it go negative. | ||
| And we also know overall inflation has also increased. | ||
| And Trump Republicans want to make it worse. | ||
| They want to pass the big, ugly bill that's going to cut off health care for over 16 million Americans, all in service of massive tax breaks to billionaires. | ||
| Tell them to take their heads out of the sand and to stop harming the American people. | ||
| Trump and Republicans should be working for you, not for billionaires. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from New York seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I seek to unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and remind me to extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from New York is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay tribute to the extraordinary life and dedicated service of John W. Grodke, a proud resident of Eden, New York, who recently passed away on June 19, 2025. | ||
| John proudly served in the United States Marine Corps, where he dedicated several years of his life to upholding the values, honor, courage, and commitment. | ||
| During his time in uniform, his service exemplified a deep sense of patriotism and dedication to our country. | ||
| After serving in the military, John also served as the commander of the Hamburg American Legion Post 527, where he played a leading role, being a voice for the organization and representing his members effectively. | ||
| He devoted his time advocating for veterans in the community and ensuring their families received the care they deeply deserved. | ||
| John was not only an exemplary Marine, but a strong leader and a wonderful husband, father, and friend. | ||
| He was the beloved husband of Karen Grocki, loving father of Matthew, Keith, Gregory, and Joshua, and the cherished grandfather of six grandchildren. | ||
| John W. Grocki leaves behind a legacy of service and unwavering dedication to his community and his country. | ||
| His accomplishments and leadership leave a lasting impact and set a gold standard that will continue to inspire generations to come. | ||
| The Western New York community was blessed to have such a remarkable resident. | ||
| May he rest in peace, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman from California is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to sound the alarm on the impending closure of the Quartz Hill Post Office and who knows how many other contract postal units across the country. | |
| On June 1st, Stan Boylan, a veteran and the owner of the Quartz Hill Post Office, received a written termination notice informing him that his post office was scheduled to close. | ||
| Now, my family loves the Quartz Hill Post Office. | ||
| My wife was devastated to hear this news, and we're not alone. | ||
| It has been a staple of our community for over 70 years and services tens of thousands of my constituents. | ||
| I say we do not know the scale of closures because even after I submitted an inquiry to the acting Postmaster General, we have not yet been given a straight answer. | ||
| What we do know is that the White House has been trying to absorb this historically independent agency and has given Doge the green light to cut USPS staff and gut services. | ||
| Let me be clear. | ||
| The United States Postal Service does not use taxpayer dollars for operating costs. | ||
| Reducing post office locations will lead to slower service, longer wait times, and delays in receiving packages, medications, and other necessary deliveries. | ||
| I urge the Postmaster General to reverse the decision to terminate the Court Sail Post Office contract, and I yield back. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from California is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, this week I am introducing the No Tax Dollars for Riots Act, a bill that will assure that public funding is not used to create the sort of horrifying scenes that we just witnessed in Los Angeles. | ||
| In the wake of the LA riots, we have learned that a group claiming non-profit status, known as CHURLA, received $34 million in state funding and some federal funding as well. | ||
| This group played a central role in organizing the riots, providing real-time locations to the rioters of where federal officers could be found. | ||
| Several of these federal officers were subsequently assaulted with bricks and Molotov cocktails. | ||
| My bill will assure that an organization like this, whose officers are convicted of assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers or of organizing, promoting, encouraging, participating in, or carrying on a riot under Section 111 or 2101 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code loses their nonprofit status and is ineligible for federal funding going forward. | ||
| This is a common sense step that will prevent the sort of lawlessness that we saw in Los Angeles from reappearing in our state or elsewhere in the country. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purposes do gentlemen from Virginia seek recognition? | ||
| I rise to address the House for up to one minute and extend and revise my remarks. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from Virginia is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk about an issue that's hurting our country that we aren't talking about enough, and that's the uncertainty of this administration's student visa process. | ||
| We have students doing groundbreaking research that are being forced to leave the country and students that last academic year contributed to $43 billion to the U.S. economy. | ||
| The administration is trying to prevent institutions from enrolling top international students altogether. | ||
|
Welcoming the Best and Brightest
00:09:49
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| The United States has welcomed international students for decades, and some of them include world leaders, founders of billion-dollar companies here, and over 40% of the founders of America's leading AI companies, just as a few examples. | ||
| We're shooting ourselves in the foot. | ||
| And instead, why don't we go back to being a place that welcomes students to dream big and conduct groundbreaking research, no matter where they are coming from? | ||
| Why don't we become a place that unites people of all backgrounds and welcomes the best and brightest? | ||
| Because that's something that makes our country great. | ||
| I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Indiana seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to address the House for one minute to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman from Indiana is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| I rise today to congratulate Angola, Indiana's Trine University women's softball team on winning the 2025 NCAA Division III Softball Championship. | ||
| Under the leadership of head coach Donny Dochlasson, the Thunder gave the championship game their all. | ||
| This game was a nail-biter as the team was down by one run throughout most of the game. | ||
| On top of that, the team's star pitcher, Alexis Michon, pitched the entire game despite an injury early on. | ||
| Even with this adversity, the team rallied together and kept their determination to win. | ||
| Everything turned around for the Thunder in the sixth inning when Emma Lee crushed a three-run homer and this team sailed to a 3-1 victory. | ||
| Trine University Women's Softball has continued to make Indiana's third district proud as this is their second national title in three years. | ||
| Their perfect postseason is a testament to the hard work and talent of this team. | ||
| These women have set an example for all of us as the achievements that are possible without unwavering dedication and strong leadership. | ||
| To the 2025 Trine University softball team, congratulations on this monumental accomplishment. | ||
| I know each of you will continue to pursue excellence and set an example for others. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I'll yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, we'll address the body for one minute and without objection. | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from California is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize Sister Teresa Lynch, who will be retiring from Santa Ana St. Anne School. | ||
| She served as a teacher for 31 years and principal for 19 years at St. Genevieve and St. Anne School. | ||
| She also worked to improve the lives of the incarcerated prisoners at the California Institute for Women in Chino, California. | ||
| And she also co-directed the Get on the Bus program that connected children with their incarcerated parents. | ||
| Thank you, Sister Teresa, for showing us all what it means to care for the community. | ||
| Thank you for your friendship. | ||
| Congratulations on your retirement. | ||
| And I suspect now as a retiree, you will be busier than ever. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I yield. | |
| For what purpose does the gentleman from California seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman from California is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | |
| I rise today in celebration of National Dairy Month and to honor the hardworking dairy farmers of California, our nation's leading dairy producer. | ||
| In my district, which encompasses Tulare, Fresno, Kings, and Kern counties, we are proud to be the epicenter of dairy production. | ||
| Tulare County alone holds the title of the largest dairy-producing county in America, home to 500,000 dairy cows and 222 dairies and some of the largest dairy processing plants. | ||
| Most of these dairies are family-owned enterprises. | ||
| I myself personally know the efforts it takes to operate these family businesses. | ||
| I am proud of the legacy of my own family members that are in the dairy industry who brought their farms to the Central Valley. | ||
| Even our region's large-scale operations remain rooted in family traditions, reflecting the dedication and perseverance of our agricultural communities. | ||
| Together, these dairies contribute one-fifth of our nation's milk supply, producing everything from butter to ice cream, nourishing families, and bringing joy to countless households across America. | ||
| To our dairy farmers, thank you for your tireless efforts to feed our nation. | ||
| Your work sustains us, and it is an honor to stand in your quarter. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from Tennessee seek recognition? | ||
| Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I rise to recognize the life of Ms. Marcy Thomas. | ||
| Ms. Thomas served as my district director in my Memphis office since 2013, and she came to my office first in 2007. | ||
| She was an outstanding human being who cared about everybody that came into her office who needed constituent services. | ||
| She was a special person in Memphis because she represented what people do in Memphis who are really good people who care about others. | ||
| She cared about her family, Alonzo Thomas, her husband, who passed away in 2024, her two children, her grandchild, and her sister, who survived her. | ||
| She cared about her church, East Trigg Baptist Church, a famous church where the minister was, Reverend Brewster, was known for his gospel songs that he wrote and sang. | ||
| She was in the choir in a beautiful voice, and she was very dedicated to her church and Pastor Beasley. | ||
| And she was concerned about our country serving for a long time in my office. | ||
| She was just a wonderful person. | ||
| She was a great friend to me. | ||
| She cared about me greatly, and I miss her much. | ||
| She had a life well lived, and I was thankful and fortunate to have her work with me in the office. | ||
| I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentlewoman from Hawaii 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 gentlewoman from Hawaii is recognized for one minute. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| Just days ago, a Hawaii veteran, Sejoon Park, said goodbye to his family, his elderly mother with dementia, his two adult children, his home. | ||
| Mr. Park was shot twice in combat, earning a purple heart for his bravery. | ||
| Yet, despite his sacrifice, ICE officers gave him no choice but to self-deport back to South Korea after nearly 50 years. | ||
| Mr. Park served. | ||
| He fought. | ||
| He belonged. | ||
| And yes, he made mistakes, as many veterans struggling with PTSD do, but he turned his life around. | ||
| That's the reality for many veterans. | ||
| They fight hard for this country and still face battles back home, too often alone. | ||
| Now, Republicans are pushing a funding bill that would abandon even more veterans like Mr. Park. | ||
| It shifts critical care from the VA to private corporations and makes it harder for women and immigrant veterans to get the services they need. | ||
| This bill isn't inefficiency. | ||
| It's cruelty. | ||
| I will not stand by while Republicans turn our veterans into bargaining chips. | ||
| When we fail our veterans, we're not just breaking a promise, we're breaking our people. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back. | ||
| For what purpose does the gentleman from New Jersey seek recognition? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. | |
| Without objection, the gentleman from New Jersey is recognized for one minute. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Ten years ago today, our nation made a remarkable step towards equality with the legalization of gay marriage, a day that came after decades of advocacy by individuals and organizations across the country, including Guard and State Equality in my home state of New Jersey. | ||
| But now the rights of our friends and neighbors are under continuous attack from the Trump administration, including by cutting HIV treatment and prevention and rolling back anti-discrimination protections. | ||
| More than 1.3 million Americans have sought life-saving help by making the call to 988, yet this administration has eliminated funding for those specialized services. | ||
| These are blatant attempts to harm the LGBTQ community that has already overcome so much and made incredible strides towards equality. | ||
| And it is here in this chamber that we should be standing beside them, fighting for them, because when we are elected to serve here in the People's House, it is our obligation to fight for everyone that we have the privilege of representing. | ||
| That is what I will always do and what I urge my colleagues across the aisle to do as well. | ||
| Thank you, and I yield back. | ||
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Schweiker, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| We're doing the really exciting discussion with my buddy over here of how CBO actually does scoring on things and trying to explain that some of the things we consider absurd are actually our fault because it's the law that we've passed to tell CBO how to do the scoring. | ||
| First off, an apology to everyone because this one's going to go a little longer than normal. | ||
| So, yeah, I know. | ||
| Everyone grab a cup of coffee or something and hopefully the Sergeant of Arms. | ||
| We're apparently not allowed to drink coffee on the floor. | ||
| So whatever happens, don't get caught, right? | ||
| I'm going to try three things tonight. | ||
| I will upset a number of folks. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| My math will be accurate because we've spent the last couple days double-checking it. | ||
|
Walking Through Social Security Actuary Report
00:15:37
|
||
| I'm going to try to do something a little insane. | ||
| I'm going to walk folks through the Social Security Actuary report. | ||
| And we're just going to do some of the most basic parts of it so folks understand what the reality is. | ||
| Number two, I'm going to walk through actually something that really bothers me because I have a number of politicians on the left and the right who spend day and night making up math. | ||
| Can you believe that, Mr. Speaker? | ||
| They attack the CBO, they attack the Joint Tax Committee, this and that. | ||
| I'm going to walk us through parts of the accuracy and what we call the variance report done by the Congressional Budget Office and try to demonstrate, yeah, there's mistakes. | ||
| They're actually more accurate than most of the outside groups. | ||
| So that's uncomfortable because one of the other things I'm going to touch on, and this is tough, is we have aspirational documents coming from the White House, from our own folks here on what growth can be, and we can actually do remarkable growth, but we've got to do very difficult policies to make it work. | ||
| Are we going to do talent-based immigration? | ||
| Are we going to do incentives to automate, to modernize, to use technology, to even use AI? | ||
| And my fear is we want to take credit for very high growth numbers. | ||
| You know, GDP grows this, but we're not willing to do the hard lift of the policy. | ||
| And then I'm going to, with that, I'm going to explain why that's so important because the growth of debt, the drivers of debt, is the thing we don't, it's hard to tell the truth about. | ||
| I'm going to show some charts in a little bit, Mr. Speaker, that show over the next 10 years, interest is the number one driver of debt, then health care, Medicare almost exclusively. | ||
| And it's hard to explain that it's actually like a 65-35 now. | ||
| The 22-some trillion dollars that are baseline and then stack everything else on that's going to be borrowed over the next 10 years. | ||
| About 60, 65% of that's just interest. | ||
| The reality of it, whether you like it or not, is this country, our federal government, is an insurance company with an army. | ||
| And we don't have enough cash in the bank to pay for all the promises we made as part of that insurance coverage. | ||
| So let's have at it, Mr. Speaker. | ||
| I keep bringing this chart just because it's a really simple visual. | ||
| Think of the people who almost attack us in our hallways. | ||
| How can you be wanting to cut spending? | ||
| And you show them this chart saying baseline, baseline spending, $86 trillion over the next 10 years. | ||
| And all we're talking about on the House reconciliation budget, and my understanding is the Senate, our good friends down the hallway, their cuts in spending are even more anemic. | ||
| What's 2%? | ||
| Well, 2.3. | ||
| $86 trillion is the baseline spending for the next 10 years. | ||
| We were trying in the House reconciliation budget to cut $2 trillion, and that caused absolutely panic because Washington, D.C. is about one thing, it's about money. | ||
| And when so much of America makes its money off of D.C. policy, this has caused absolute panic, but it's a fraction. | ||
| Because when you see what's happened on the new data on what's happening in health care costs, we got some new data today that the numbers are even worse. | ||
| Almost no one has actually started to do the math that the fact that the Social Security Medicare actuary report from four days ago actually has an 11% cut coming in the Medicare Trust Fund in 2033. | ||
| That's not actually in the baseline debt numbers. | ||
| Are we just going to pretend that we didn't get older as a society? | ||
| So let's actually walk through. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I've done this chart for a decade. | ||
| About 74% of all spending is on autopilot. | ||
| It's what we call mandatory. | ||
| It's interest. | ||
| It's Social Security. | ||
| It's Medicare. | ||
| It's Medicaid. | ||
| It's other promises that are built into the formula. | ||
| Members of Congress almost never, ever, ever, ever get the chance to vote on any of this red. | ||
| The only time it will ever really come up is if we have a reconciliation budget. | ||
| All the blue, defense and non-defense is 25-26% of our spending. | ||
| Every dime of it is borrowed. | ||
| Please, anyone who cares, get this in your head. | ||
| Every dime, other than some of the things in a reconciliation budget, every dime a member of Congress will vote on, many for their entire careers, is borrowed money. | ||
| So you see this 26% of it's in blue. | ||
| That's defense and non-defense discretionary. | ||
| This year we're on track for every dollar we bring in in tax receipts. | ||
| That's corporate taxes, that's individual taxes, that's everything. | ||
| We're going to spend $1 in, $1.39, $1.39 out the door. | ||
| Does anyone see a math problem? | ||
| So, a month ago, so Moody's actually downgraded U.S. debt. | ||
| So now the three big rating agencies have lowered our credit. | ||
| We actually have 18 states in America that have a higher credit rating than the federal government. | ||
| But if anyone bothered, and you sort of had to get it through your Bloomberg terminal or pay a subscription, we're blessed to have a terminal. | ||
| And I actually read it was actually really well done. | ||
| There were lots of details. | ||
| Yes, they got attacked by people who want to keep spending money saying, stop, don't, you can't downgrade U.S. sovereign debt. | ||
| Well, the other two rating agencies had done it years earlier. | ||
| The punchline in there, in less than nine years, and this was assuming interest rates stayed stable, in 2034, 30% of all tax receipts just covered interest. | ||
| If interest rates went up 1%, Mr. Speaker, 1% in 2034, 45% of all U.S. tax receipts pay interest. | ||
| Are we paying attention? | ||
| And yet, the first words I'll get from my brothers and sisters on the left is, well, just raise taxes. | ||
| I will show over and over here that if you look at times when we've had high marginal tax rates, low marginal tax rates, we basically always get about 17 to 18, sometimes 18.5% of the economy in tax receipts. | ||
| There's your problem, is that split? | ||
| So right now, if we're sitting in almost 18% of the economy, we're taking in taxes, but you're spending 24%. | ||
| And understand, over the next few years it goes from 24 to 25 to 26. | ||
| That gap is the annual deficit that gets piled onto the debt. | ||
| And we have lots of charts here that actually start to show, let's see if I can find my favorite one here, that when we actually raise actually I hit it in the back, so we're going to do that as a whole section. | ||
| Okay, how many understand we borrow $6 billion a day? | ||
| How many understand in nine years we're borrowing over $10 billion a day? | ||
| So right now that means we borrow, what, $70,000, $72,000 a second. | ||
| In nine years, we're functionally borrowing over $100,000 a second. | ||
| And the reason I try to break it down like that is I'm trying to find a way to make numbers like this, absolutely crazy numbers, work. | ||
| Okay, so you have that. | ||
| So my Democrat brothers and sisters have legislation they've introduced over the years. | ||
| They've never actually brought it to the fore, even when they controlled this body, controlled the White House. | ||
| So it gives you a sense. | ||
| Economic study, go on Manhattan Institute, Riedel, it's about a year, year and a half old. | ||
| They did the scoring on all the Democrats' tax proposals. | ||
| And here's your problem. | ||
| Increasing taxes, when you did actually all of them, and I'm going to do this in a couple fashions, you basically got to the point that when you did all the corporate, the estate, the individual, and then you did the economic effects, you got about 1.5% of the economy. | ||
| So all the tax acts, every time you have someone over on that side say, just raise taxes. | ||
| If you do every one of their tax proposals, you get 0.5% of the economy. | ||
| 1.5%. | ||
| Hopefully everyone knows what the joke is. | ||
| We're going to borrow 7.3% of the economy this year, and in nine years, we're borrowing 9% of the economy. | ||
| How do we tell the truth to the American people that we're going to have to embrace things that are actually hopeful? | ||
| But the cost of health care, and it's always fascinating. | ||
| I always thought I'd get beaten up for saying this behind the microphone. | ||
| And shockingly, we've had people being remarkably kind to us. | ||
| My Joint Economic Committee, our economist, and it was a hard report to write, a couple years ago wrote a major study saying, what does obesity cost America? | ||
| That's not Republican or Democrat. | ||
| It's just what we are. | ||
| Now, it means every time you say that, did you make all the people that make money off certain foods, off of certain health care, off other things nervous? | ||
| We came up with a number two years ago. | ||
| It was $9.1 trillion of additional health care spending over 10 years. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Milken, now this one's a few years old, did a study said 47% of all U.S. health care spending was associated with obesity. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Is that Republican or Democrat? | ||
| It's just the math. | ||
| And it's something we could do together around here. | ||
| How do we help our brothers and sisters be healthier so they live longer, they could have more family form, maybe family formation, live a life, participate in the economy, and use a hell of a lot less health care? | ||
| And you know the perversity around here when you start talking about maybe we need to modernize how we do agriculture in America, what we grow, because we concentrate functionally on like five crops. | ||
| What should we do? | ||
| Is it moral? | ||
| This is a question, and I've been attacked by Democrats on this. | ||
| Is it moral to give an EBT card, modern food stamps, to someone to go buy onion rings? | ||
| I love onion rings. | ||
| It's one of my addictions, working on getting off of it. | ||
| But is it moral with taking hard-earned money, rare resources, remember it's borrowed money now, and say go eat crap. | ||
| Now the people that sell onion rings come lobby us and attack us and say, you know, people should have their choice. | ||
| They should with their own money. | ||
| But the fact of the matter is, when we looked at some of the data of the 7 million prime age males that are missing in America, we have a data set that says about half of that population may be missing from the labor force. | ||
| Missing from the American labor force. | ||
| Not because of drugs, not because of video games, but because of health, because of obesity. | ||
| Are we allowed to talk about it? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, a bit of trivia. | ||
| So let's do something I consider wonderfully funny and amusing. | ||
| In the last 20 years, what's the only success that has happened in the United States of helping young people get healthier? | ||
| Remember, under Michelle Obama's initiatives with President Obama, I think we spent $16 billion or $36 billion, but some number like that. | ||
| And it had absolutely no success. | ||
| This was the dietary issues, the food issues, trying to get young people to go exercise. | ||
| Anyone guess? | ||
| Come on, this is a play-at-home game. | ||
| It was Pokeman Go. | ||
| I know it sounds crazy, but the gamification actually was the one great example of success the last couple decades of helping young people get healthier. | ||
| What if we took that knowledge of, hey, these incentives do work and actually legalize that and made that part of how we deliver health care services or how we allow insurers to provide incentives? | ||
| Because the ACA, Obamacare, is a finance bill. | ||
| It's who gets subsidized and who has to pay. | ||
| And you have three age groups and smoking. | ||
| Could you add, could you add, could you be creative enough to add a fifth category? | ||
| It says you can provide a series of these sorts of incentives. | ||
| You know, wear the digital ring, wear the wrist, go walk 5,000 steps, and at the end of the month, we're going to give you something. | ||
| Is that Republican or Democrat? | ||
| Or is it just using data trying to keep our brothers and sisters healthier? | ||
| Because the stock answers of, well, just raise taxes on rich people. | ||
| The math doesn't get you anything close. | ||
| Now, it may make you feel better. | ||
| It may make you feel better, but I'm going to show you numbers that should scare you half to death. | ||
| And you okay? | ||
| All right. | ||
| So let's continue to try to run through this. | ||
| Health care expenses, and we're going to have to update our charts because we got one just a couple hours ago and we didn't have a chance. | ||
| It actually had the spending growth on health care over the next decade actually accelerating again. | ||
|
Why Wage Growth Matters
00:15:43
|
||
| So here's part of my problem. | ||
| Nominal, which means before inflation, we actually have domestic productivity growing at 4.3% over the next decade. | ||
| We have health care growing at 5.8%. | ||
| It's geeky, but that margin keeps separating and separating and separating. | ||
| And unless we're willing to do policy, whether it be technology, incentives to stay healthy, these sorts of things, if that separation continues, the debt picture is actually worse. | ||
| And Mr. Speaker, at some point I'm going to show you a slide here that if you actually take some of the policy we're working on, the baseline of between now and 2035 of the $22 trillion we're supposed to borrow, some of the potential financing costs of what the Senate's doing right now, the higher interest rates, we come close, we're not exactly there, we come close to doubling U.S. sovereign debt over the next decade. | ||
| What took us 240 years 240 years that we functionally double it in the next decade. | ||
| So now let's get to the really uncomfortable stuff. | ||
| And I got to admit, I'm only about two-thirds through the Social Security Actuary report. | ||
| I have one on my desk, which is highlighters and little questions and things I have to get my economists to go back and help me understand and some where I actually don't like some of the math I see. | ||
| I'm going to try something and we're going to try to build a chart on this. | ||
| This is a crazy math, but we see it in the report. | ||
| You'll have lots of activists say, well, just open up immigration. | ||
| That will take care of the Social Security shortfall. | ||
| Remember, the report says in 2033, so is that seven, eight years from now, there's a 23% cut coming in Social Security checks, meaning we will double, and this is our, we've had witnesses that did explain this to us, we will double senior poverty after 2033. | ||
| Are we ready to do that? | ||
| Is that moral? | ||
| And yet I will get folks who will say, well, if we just open up immigration, well, it turns out that's actually not the math. | ||
| Because one of the real reasons they moved up the date of the exhaustion of the Social Security Trust Fund was actually flattening of wage growth. | ||
| Turns out there's no free option here. | ||
| So we have some charts and those things that show here's people who are undocumented in America. | ||
| They're working under stolen Social Security numbers. | ||
| They're giving into this system, but they're never going to get out. | ||
| And then you look at the suppression of wage growth. | ||
| I know this is geeky, but I need to sort of lay a marker on it. | ||
| The suppression of wage growth. | ||
| So when you bring in millions of people across the border that have similar skill sets, and they're often willing to sell their skill sets for even less money, Social Security Actuary Reports now modeling a flattening of wage growth. | ||
| That's one of the things that's actually shortened the life of the Social Security Trust Fund by a year. | ||
| So next time someone says, oh, we just open up the borders, that will take care of the Social Security Trust Fund. | ||
| Turns out it doesn't work that way. | ||
| You actually didn't get anything from it. | ||
| You did a suppression of working people's wages, and this one takes us out about a decade. | ||
| And I don't know why people don't think they don't understand these most basic economic. | ||
| I mean, we all went to our high school econ class, right? | ||
| And so here's what's coming. | ||
| You got the 23% cut coming in 2033. | ||
| If you're watching this and you don't plan to be around in 2033, you don't have to care. | ||
| But the one that's had almost no discussion about is the Medicare Trust Fund is gone in 2033. | ||
| Meaning if it lives off of its income, its tax receipts from the FICA taxes, it's still 11% cut. | ||
| So next time we get someone here saying, you know, we need more money for our hospitals, we need more money for outpatient surgeries, we need more money for hospice care. | ||
| Point out to them in seven years there's an ugly, ugly cut coming. | ||
| This 11% shortfall isn't even in our long-run CBO projections yet because a year ago, give me an idea how these numbers eroded in one year. | ||
| I think it was 2054 was last year's actuary report when the trust fund was gone. | ||
| Okay, so how many people over the last week, because this has been out for almost a week now, have you seen come behind these microphones and say, maybe we should all work together or actually do something that's mathematically honest or actually just even tell our voters the truth that in seven years you're getting a 23% cut in your Social Security check and by the way another 11% cut in your hospital coverage and other things in the Medicare because the Medicare Part A trust fund is gone. | ||
| For those that don't understand, and that's most of us, in Medicare, the portion of your payroll tax that goes to Medicare, about 38-40% of it is covered by the trust fund. | ||
| That's the hospital portion as we typically refer to it. | ||
| The rest of it actually comes out of the general fund. | ||
| And one of the most difficult numbers I have in my data set here, because this is the one that I see people get upset about, what's the primary driver of U.S. debt? | ||
| Interest? | ||
| Health care. | ||
| For every dollar you put into Medicare, you're getting $6 to $7 back. | ||
| That delta is uncomfortable to talk about, but it turns out to be that and interest are the primary drivers. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And you start to actually look at some more, and I put this chart together just because I thought it was really interesting, because we finally actually have really good data that's been designed on what happened during the Biden administration having the border open. | ||
| And we got some direct effects of, hey, we got a little bit more tax receipts and potential effects over the time. | ||
| But it turns out its deficit effects are more than two times, more than two times because of the consumption of services. | ||
| It turns out when someone tells you, oh, this is going to grow the economy, it's not in the economic literature. | ||
| It may be in your aspirational, it may be in your heart, how you feel. | ||
| It's not in the economic literature. | ||
| Tell the truth about the math. | ||
| National health expenditures as a percentage of GDP. | ||
| Remember how a couple moments ago I told you we're trying to figure out, we just got another report that the growth of health care spending we expect to pop almost 3% more than modeled? | ||
| That's a lot of money. | ||
| But here's the punchline. | ||
| We estimate this year, right now, we're right here, we're spending about 18% of the entire economy on health care. | ||
| In nine years, it's over 20%. | ||
| Those differences are monstrous when that's that much. | ||
| I mean, you're functionally seeing, if that's functionally a 12%, 12.8% growth in the cost of delivering health care in that nine-year span. | ||
| And this is going to tie into why I'm talking about some of our growth rate projections. | ||
| How do you hit these folks that are running around saying, David, we're going to grow at 3, 4, 5% GDP growth? | ||
| At the same time, interest and expenditures are chewing up everything around us. | ||
| How does that math work? | ||
| And then I'm going to show you some of the demographics. | ||
| I'm going to probably say this twice just so it starts to bleed in. | ||
| Today we have the same number of 18-year-olds as we had 20 years ago. | ||
| We have double the number of people 65 and up. | ||
| So we functionally have the same number of 18-year-olds. | ||
| And it's no one's fault. | ||
| It's not Republican and Democrat. | ||
| Starting in 1990, U.S. fertility rates rolled over. | ||
| We have a shortage of young people in America. | ||
| Tell me how I grow the economy if you're not going to let me do things like automation of ports, automated rail, AI, technology, allowing AI when it has the right data to be able to prescribe. | ||
| And people go, oh, I don't like that. | ||
| Fine. | ||
| Tell me how much poorer you're willing to live. | ||
| It's economics. | ||
| If I can't grow the economy and yet I'm being buried in debt service and increased costs of providing the services, tell me how I'm going to pay for it. | ||
| There's a path where I can make this math. | ||
| I can't pay it off. | ||
| I can stabilize it and make this another American century. | ||
| But damn it. | ||
| How do I do it in a body that's just terrified of telling the truth about math or just basic economics? | ||
| This is the reality. | ||
| This is our latest report. | ||
| In 2033, 20.3% of the economy will just be healthcare. | ||
| And considering government is functionally the primary payer, I think we're well over half of all health care spending coming out of the Trust Fund and the General Fund. | ||
| Anyone see a problem? | ||
| Remember a moment ago I showed you that the Social Security and Medicare Actuary report said there's 11% in 2033 cut. | ||
| Are we going to let that happen? | ||
| Probably not. | ||
| Are we going to reach into the general fund and pay for it? | ||
| Probably. | ||
| It's not in the debt projections yet. | ||
| The scale of this is off the charts. | ||
| And back to the math problem. | ||
| And if I'm making someone unhappy, be mad at the math, not me. | ||
| Be mad at all the people who've never told you the truth with a calculator. | ||
| How do I save my future? | ||
| Remember, my little boy turned three years old yesterday. | ||
| I have a nine-year-old. | ||
| Yes, they're adopted. | ||
| It's a miracle. | ||
| My wife's my age. | ||
| Yes, we've screwed up my retirement. | ||
| It's the most fun I've ever had in my life. | ||
| My child will be the first generation to live poorer than his mommy and daddy. | ||
| Hey, great job, America. | ||
| This is our morality. | ||
| And people would say, no, it's going to be great. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Great. | |
| Okay, I hope it's great. | ||
| Tell me how I do it in the math. | ||
| Walk me through the economics. | ||
| Walk me through what we're going to do to maximize GDP growth. | ||
| What we're going to do to change productivity. | ||
| Well, we're going to just grow. | ||
| Okay, tell me how. | ||
| And that's our problem right now. | ||
| We're using these wonderful aspirational words and we're not doing any of the policy. | ||
| And the reality of it, Social Security and Medicare and net interest account for 80% of the spending growth. | ||
| How many protesters, if you're a member of Congress, how many protesters did you have in your office this last couple days? | ||
| You can't review, you can't go after waste and fraud in Medicaid. | ||
| Medicare Advantage, the Wall Street Journal has done a five-part series that if you add it all up, is a trillion, two trillion dollars of waste and fraud over 10 years. | ||
| Well, it's hard. | ||
| You can't actually talk about that. | ||
| If we can't do the work, how do you save the country? | ||
| How do you save my kids' future? | ||
| How do you save your own retirement? | ||
| Maybe we can just keep lying to each other and lying to the public because the public really doesn't want to hear these things. | ||
| There is a path to make this math work. | ||
| But you keep telling me we're going to take off on productivity, but then you see the charts of available young people to participate in the labor force. | ||
| And the number keeps falling and falling and falling. | ||
| Remember, the smallest group of 18-year-olds is a percentage of population in U.S. history. | ||
| And next year's is even smaller. | ||
| And the year after that is even smaller. | ||
| And the year after that is even smaller. | ||
| But David, we're going to grow like crazy. | ||
| We can, but you have to do policies that maximize productivity. | ||
| Oh, but productivity might cause creative destruction. | ||
| We're not allowed to do free market economics anymore. | ||
| Remember, we're populists now. | ||
| If you embrace that, you're going to drive this country. | ||
| We'll still be greater than any country on earth. | ||
| But we're going to give it so much. | ||
| Wealth is prosperity is moral. | ||
| The growth is moral. | ||
| And we're killing ourselves, but we're making promises that aren't in the data. | ||
| They're not on the charts. | ||
| So you have an idiot like me that gets behind the microphone week after week after week. | ||
| I'm not smart, but I'm good at math. | ||
| And try to explain saying there's ways to make it work. | ||
| So one month ago, after almost a year's worth of work, I chaired the Joint Economic Committee. | ||
| I'm number four in ways and means. | ||
| I chair oversight. | ||
| It's public now. | ||
| The press got broke the story. | ||
| We've been doing investigations after the Wall Street Journal did that five major series on Medicare Advantage, the amount of fraud, the people being diagnosed with diseases they don't have, people being dumped on VA, even though they had the Medicare Advantage insurance, people being dumped on hospice care. | ||
| If you don't know about it, grab your computer, Google the Wall Street Journal MA. | ||
| Medpac report. | ||
| I have come to this floor year after year with, I'm sometimes thinking, Mr. Speaker, I'm the only idiot here who reads the MedPAC report. | ||
| Just grab the damage. | ||
| Now it's like this, but it's not a hard read. | ||
| And in there it will say, hey, when we started Medicare Advantage in 2005, it was designed to come in at 95% of the cost of fee-for-service, but its model was we're going to incentivize the folks that manage the care to make money by helping you be healthier. | ||
| The incentive was we're going to help populations be healthier. | ||
|
Forgotten Funds Debate
00:15:18
|
||
| Medpac report for the beginning of this year, today it comes at 120% of fee-for-service. | ||
| Just that delta from the 95 to 120% over 10 years is like $2 trillion. | ||
| So think we're knifing each other right now, trying to figure out how to finance as much of this reconciliation budget as we can. | ||
| So I'm an idiot, as I've been told by my wife over and over, because I thought we cared. | ||
| So we spent six months writing the modernization, the Medicare, the Better Medicare Act, Medicare Advantage, to make it so it incentivizes to help our brothers and sisters who are 65 and up who choose Medicare Advantage, which is 55% of the population, to get services so they're healthier. | ||
| The Joint Economic Committee economists say over 10 years, it's $1.76 trillion of savings over 10 years. | ||
| Preliminary score from our conversations with CBO, it's not in writing, but preliminary, $1.84 trillion, making it the largest savings bill in U.S. history. | ||
| And it doesn't take away a single service. | ||
| It fixes the misalignment in the system. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, how many co-sponsors do I have? | ||
| The bill has been introduced for one month. | ||
| Remember, we're tough. | ||
| We're going to help stop this borrowing. | ||
| We're going to take on the debt. | ||
| I have zero co-sponsors. | ||
| We have visited almost 100 members of Congress and their offices. | ||
| Oh, David, this is uncomfortable. | ||
| It has big words. | ||
| Oh, David, it has the word Medicare. | ||
| I beg of you, understand the scale of this debt. | ||
| I have people now that won't even look me in the eye as I walk down the hallway because they're fearful I might ask them again and again and again, will you sponsor this? | ||
| You tell me you care. | ||
| Help us. | ||
| Help us do the right thing. | ||
| And yet, if I try to show what's going on, remember, our baseline is over the next 10 years, we expect to spend $14.67 trillion on Medicare Advantage, not Medicare, just the Medicare Advantage portion. | ||
| All we're trying to do is save about 10% of that. | ||
| And that's the alignment of incentives. | ||
| Stop telling me how much you care. | ||
| Stop telling me you're a budget hawk. | ||
| I am a budget hawk. | ||
| I care about the budget, but God forbid I'm not putting my name on something that actually does something because that's hard. | ||
| I'm the guy in the 50-50 district. | ||
| I'm in one of the most competitive districts in America, and yet I'm willing to stand up behind this microphone and tell the truth and actually put it on paper. | ||
| So, my economists, we did a model over the next 10 years with what's happening demographically in America. | ||
| We have a shortage of young people. | ||
| President Trump said something that was brilliant on the campaign trail. | ||
| He said it is insane. | ||
| We educate people, we send them home to come, and then we send them home with their degrees from the American universities to compete with us. | ||
| That sparked an idea, and then we got our economists to do the modeling. | ||
| It creates about $150, $160 billion of additional tax receipts in the 10-year window, but in the second 10-year window, it explodes. | ||
| So we wrote an immigration reform bill moving the American immigration system to a talent-based system. | ||
| But it has the word immigration in it. | ||
| So it scares the hell out of the political class because the reporters will lie about it. | ||
| The activists on Twitter or X or whatever it is will lie about it. | ||
| But the economics are incredibly important. | ||
| If you're going to move this country to raise its productivity so we can raise wages, so we actually can survive what's happening in the actuary reports of Medicare and Social Security. | ||
| Guess what? | ||
| You almost can't close the numbers unless you do something like this. | ||
| And the reason I'm doing this is we added the president's gold cards, but the skills-based. | ||
| And I get people saying, oh, I don't know how I feel about that. | ||
| How many of you have a Dr. Patel? | ||
| It's meant to be funny. | ||
| I'm from Scottsdale, one of the greatest medical communities in America. | ||
| And a bunch of our great, amazing talent has come in from all over the world. | ||
| Stop bathing in folklore and start bathing in math. | ||
| So, our third bill to pay for the reconciliation budget. | ||
| This one is less of a cut. | ||
| This is more using data to find where the hell is all the cash. | ||
| Turns out, if you add up at all, which there's no way the Appropriations Committee or the White House, there's a trillion and a half dollars sitting in accounts up and down government that was appropriated three years ago, but they never built it. | ||
| There's a great example of hundreds of millions of dollars that were set aside for one state. | ||
| It's in the account to build a bridge. | ||
| They chose not to build that bridge. | ||
| Cash is still sitting there. | ||
| We call it total discretionary balances subject to rescission. | ||
| Okay, we call it forgotten funds. | ||
| You know, we're paying interest on that money. | ||
| Almost every dime of this was borrowed money, and it's sitting, and some of it's been sitting in accounts for years. | ||
| Why is it so hard? | ||
| We have the legislation. | ||
| I've introduced the legislation line item by line item by line item saying, let's just go grab that cash. | ||
| Even if you just went back to know-year money, or maybe the ones that are just a couple years out, it's a half a trillion dollars. | ||
| Grab that cash and bring it back and put it under Treasury. | ||
| And if we, as members of Congress, want to appropriate it again, appropriate it again. | ||
| But the forgotten funds, so I just gave you three pieces of legislation. | ||
| I gave you fixing Medicare Advantage, alignment of the incentives, moving to a talent-based immigration system, which in the long run is one of the most powerful things we can do for GDP growth, for productivity. | ||
| Capturing the forgotten funds I just paid for most of the reconciliation bill. | ||
| Wouldn't that solve a bunch of our problems around here? | ||
| Wouldn't that solve a bunch of the fighting? | ||
| Wouldn't that solve a bunch of the stress saying we're going to borrow how much? | ||
| Because this year we're going to borrow $2.2 trillion. | ||
| At the end of 2026, if we do what I think the Senate's going to try to jam us, that's $2.5, $2.6 trillion of borrowing that year. | ||
| But, David, we're going to have all this magical growth. | ||
| Look, I'm a single office. | ||
| Now, I accept I'm a senior member, I have staff, I have really smart economists. | ||
| But in three bills, I just brought you, without cutting a service to anyone, I just brought you $3.3 trillion of savings and not a single co-sponsor in Congress. | ||
| I'm going to try to do this next little section here, and I don't want to be a jerk. | ||
| Let's see if I can. | ||
| I'm going to hurt some people's feelings, but the math is important. | ||
| Why the math is important is there are solutions. | ||
| But I had, and the reason I'm doing this is, I think it was Monday or Tuesday, I had a member I was talking to, great member, brilliant on their area of specialty, really smart. | ||
| I've spent my whole life doing budgets and healthcare finance and a few other weird things. | ||
| David, CBO is always wrong. | ||
| Congressional Budget Office, they make up things. | ||
| It's way off. | ||
| Okay, for anyone to keep your staff or you keep telling you that, this is what you call a variance report. | ||
| CBO puts it out every year. | ||
| I know every staffer and every member of Congress grabbed it in January and actually read the data. | ||
| If you look at the calculations, and I'm embarrassed I didn't actually bring one to the board, which probably is good because it was really obnoxious. | ||
| What did happen to that board? | ||
| CBO projected when we did the 2017 tax reform, 2018, 2019, just before the pandemic, they were like 99.5, 99% accurate. | ||
| Don't tell anyone because it'll make it harder for us to lie around here. | ||
| And you get members saying, but over the next five years, they weren't accurate at all. | ||
| Does anyone remember there was this little thing called COVID? | ||
| Does anyone remember what Congress and the world actually did? | ||
| We dumped how much cash into the world market so you're accurate to hear, and then all of a sudden we dump how much cash. | ||
| Do you think there's a chance when you borrow trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars, pump it out in the economy, you don't have your tax collections go up? | ||
| Oh, but David, they didn't project that. | ||
| They didn't predict that. | ||
| Oh, come on, people. | ||
| Stop it. | ||
| Because even now, when we get back to baseline, after we get beyond COVID, they were still remarkably accurate. | ||
| I found the chart. | ||
| It was hidden back there. | ||
| It's on a smaller board. | ||
| The fact of the matter, what they projected, you know, and then what actually happened, and this is actually 2018, not 16. | ||
| So I found a printing error. | ||
| 99.5% accuracy. | ||
| Now you may not, and look, they're not always accurate. | ||
| On what they projected for the clean energy tax credits and inflation reduction, they missed by miles because they didn't actually pay enough attention that they were uncapped. | ||
| There's a number of things where they absolutely screwed up. | ||
| But the fact of the matter on tax collections, the numbers have been good. | ||
| And we need a scorekeeper. | ||
| What happens if we're... | ||
| My grandfather used to have this saying, it doesn't matter how you play the game, it's who keeps score. | ||
| He thought that was hysterical. | ||
| How do we convince the American people we're serious about economic growth, productivity, taking on the debt and deficits, and not bankrupting their future when we spend almost every day saying, well, we don't like the scorekeeping. | ||
| And then you look at every outside group, you know, the Tax Foundation, Yale Model Foundation, all these others. | ||
| And it turns out CBO is more accurate than they were. | ||
| I'm not standing here to be a defender of them. | ||
| I'm being actually a defender of my brothers and sisters here. | ||
| Please, I know it makes our lives easier. | ||
| We can attack the scorekeeper. | ||
| We can say, the scorekeeper didn't get it right. | ||
| pay no attention when they say we're trying to add $3-4 trillion of debt. | ||
| We're better than that. | ||
| And there's a reason so much of the economic press is just mocking us and making fun of us. | ||
| And you understand it's good politics. | ||
| You get to go home, get in front of an audience that's not reading the economic press and say, well, they didn't get the accurate right. | ||
| Let's treat our voters like they're adults. | ||
| understand what's going on. | ||
| Look, these are the scores from Yale budget, from Penn Wharton, from Congressional Budget Office, from Joint Tax, Tax Policy Center. | ||
| American Enterprise Institution, Tax Foundation. | ||
| And then here's what we're telling people. | ||
| Is every other PhD economist wrong? | ||
| Because it becomes an excuse not to do the things I was just complaining about when an idiot like me comes and says, I found you $3.3 trillion in savings. | ||
| David, we don't have to do those hard pieces of legislation. | ||
| We don't have to explain those bills to our constituents. | ||
| We don't have to take on the lobbyists who are going to be all upset with us. | ||
| We'll just tell people that it pays for itself. | ||
| So everyone else is wrong, because it makes our life as policymakers easier. | ||
| But somehow, we're going to have magic growth, magical thinking, when just today, parts of the latest census data came out. | ||
| Population 65 and older rose by 3.1% in the last year. | ||
| Population 18 years old under 18 decreased by 2.2%. | ||
| I'm trying to make an argument that I love the partisanship. | ||
| I love a good fight with my Democrat brothers and sisters. | ||
| But what happens when the debt and deficits are demographics? | ||
|
A Way to Make This Work
00:02:18
|
||
| But if we can blame the other side, we'll just do this ping-pong back and forth. | ||
| They're in charge, we're in charge, we're in charge, they're in charge. | ||
| We'll blame each other. | ||
| And then we're going to have a failed bond auction. | ||
| Interest rates are going to explode. | ||
| Remember, there's data sets, and I presented them here on the floor, that just a single point of interest going up over the next decade wipes out almost all the good we're trying to do extending the tax reform of 2017. | ||
| Mr. Speaker, there's a way to make this work. | ||
| And I'm just mentally just exhausted. | ||
| Maybe I need to consume more coffee. | ||
| Maybe I need to stop caring so much because I'm really worried. | ||
| There's a way to make this work. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's hope. | |
| But what happens when no one will hear a word you're saying because it requires doing hard stuff and pisses off some lobbyists or some group or some group that's in our office that wants us to regulate their competition's business or give them something? | ||
| We used to be the party of fiscal sanity. | ||
| I still think we are. | ||
| We can get there. | ||
| We can do it. | ||
| Maybe we just need to understand the math that I yield back. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman yields back. | |
| Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3rd, 2025, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Davidson, for 30 minutes. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Speaker. | ||
|
Central Bank Digital Currencies
00:15:25
|
||
| I ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the topic of this special order. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Without objection. | |
| Mr. Speaker, I'm here today to talk about central bank digital currencies. | ||
| A lot of people don't necessarily know what a central bank digital currency is, so we'll start with a definition. | ||
| A central bank digital currency begins with the central bank. | ||
| Central bank in the United States is the Federal Reserve. | ||
| And the Federal Reserve manages our currency and they manage settlement between banks. | ||
| So when banks have to pay each other, they do it directly, but a lot of times they manage it through the central bank. | ||
| Central banks around the world, whether in the United States or the European Union, China's central bank, pick your thing. | ||
| Most countries have a central bank. | ||
| Switzerland has the Bank of International Settlement, and their central bank is essentially the central banker to the central banks. | ||
| So when central banks pay each other, they broker the transaction through the Bank of International Settlement. | ||
| So what is the digital currency? | ||
| Digital, you know, sort of self-explanatory, and the currency is a means of payment. | ||
| You know, traditionally, you think of the money, the system of money is as old as people. | ||
| The right to transact predates any government. | ||
| People would transact with one another before we had a government. | ||
| It's an inherent natural right. | ||
| As our founders recognized, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. | ||
| Among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. | ||
| One of the ways we pursue happiness is by transacting with each other. | ||
| We buy things or we make money from selling things. | ||
| And in the natural order, there's nobody between you and the person you want to do business with. | ||
| In cash, that's still the case. | ||
| When you hand a $20 bill to somebody for, you know, say, you know, sweeping your driveway or a $100 bill for shoveling your driveway in the snow or things like that, that's between you and maybe the high school kid that came and shoveled your driveway. | ||
| There's no third party to get in between you and the other person. | ||
| But do you think about a lot of other transactions? | ||
| We've sort of migrated to a digital payment system of sorts today that involves third parties, like Visa or MasterCard. | ||
| They dominate the payment system in the United States. | ||
| Banks are behind the credit cards, so they're in this scene too. | ||
| But fundamentally, when you transact with a credit card, people think, well, that's digital. | ||
| And you're using a credit card company. | ||
| And what they do really is amazing. | ||
| For a relatively small fee, they guarantee that it really was you that did the transaction. | ||
| If it was fraudulent, they insure the transaction. | ||
| They'll make you whole on a credit card if you didn't pay it. | ||
| They establish the identity and say this really is you, and you really do have the credit available. | ||
| And then they establish the person that you're buying from as a store and say, this is really a credible transaction and they approve it or deny it. | ||
| And what they do you know amazing frequency and volume of transactions it is is incredible. | ||
| But that's a third party and it's a private party. | ||
| They don't necessarily collect the data between you and say, Walmart, what did you buy while you were at Walmart? | ||
| They will be able to say, hey, Walmart's a credible place. | ||
| You really were there. | ||
| You really did spend $100 at Walmart. | ||
| They don't necessarily know what you bought there. | ||
| They might be able to recover that at some point if they're forensically discovering what did you buy when you were at Walmart. | ||
| They might be able to work with Walmart to figure that out, but Visa doesn't necessarily cover that. | ||
| That's our current state of payments. | ||
| But in a central bank digital currency, they would be able to know with a digital identity who you are because they've got a digital ID. | ||
| And when you look at the state of privacy and the amount of data that government has on you, they know who you are. | ||
| They can have access to all kinds of information. | ||
| Even the private sector has a lot of information. | ||
| If you look at what's being done today to aggregate that data, it's not formally being done to establish a digital ID in the United States, but it is being done in lots of places around the world. | ||
| In China, they've done this digital identification. | ||
| They've tied it with your facial recognition features, your geolocation data, all your transaction data that they can discern, and everything else they can find about you in a government database in China. | ||
| And they build what's known as a social credit score. | ||
| So if you attend events with people that support the government, your social credit score might go up. | ||
| If you attend events and your geolocation data is associated with people that have, say, been critical of Xi Juping, your social credit score goes down. | ||
| And if it goes down enough, you can't even travel in China. | ||
| So they're linking this digital ID with the payment system, the digital currency. | ||
| And in that sense, they're kind of essential components to the way that it works. | ||
| The way that Visa or MasterCard establishes who you are, has its own system. | ||
| Here in a central bank digital currency, digital ID is a critical component to how it works. | ||
| And the last information I had in four provinces, this is the payment system. | ||
| And you think, well, China, I mean, they're a communist government. | ||
| They've got a very authoritarian leader in Xi Jinping. | ||
| Surely Western civilization wouldn't be doing this. | ||
| But the reality is 100 plus countries around the world are developing a central bank digital currency. | ||
| And they're not developing what you would think in America with freedom and free markets. | ||
| They're developing essentially the same kind of central bank digital currency that China is. | ||
| In fact, the Bank of International Settlement in Switzerland is telling people how to do it. | ||
| They're facilitating central banks, not just random central banks, our central bank. | ||
| And they're not working directly with the Federal Reserve entirely. | ||
| They're saying they're working with this independent private entity, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. | ||
| And this is this quasi-public-private kind of dynamic in the U.S. central bank with the Federal Reserve. | ||
| So they're building it. | ||
| Literally, multiple components of the Federal Reserve are actively recruiting people to write code to develop a central bank digital currency. | ||
| And this is why you see for Star Wars fans, this is a depiction of the Death Star. | ||
| I don't want to give away the plot, but the Evil Empire builds this Death Star that's like a moon-size place, and it can destroy entire planets with one giant laser beam and just boom, the planet's gone. | ||
| It's an amazing amount of power that the empires built for themselves in Star Wars. | ||
| And of course, it's fiction. | ||
| But the central bank digital currency is kind of the equivalent. | ||
| The central banks are saying, oh, well, don't worry. | ||
| We would need permission from the legislature before we could establish a central bank digital currency. | ||
| We're just designing it. | ||
| Well, in the movie, they didn't really get permission to turn it on. | ||
| They were just designing it. | ||
| And then they were just building it. | ||
| And it wasn't yet complete. | ||
| And then they were just testing it. | ||
| But once you demonstrate the capability, you've got all the power. | ||
| And the reality is, in the fall, I traveled with fellow financial services committee members to the Bank of England, and I met with them, and they're developing a central bank digital currency. | ||
| And they know that their legislature would have to act to impose it on the citizens of the United Kingdom. | ||
| And they know that it's not popular with their citizens. | ||
| Nevertheless, they're developing it, just designing it and testing it. | ||
| Then we traveled to Brussels, and we met with the European Central Bank. | ||
| And they too are designing and developing and testing how a central bank digital currency could work. | ||
| And they know that before they could impose this on the European Union, they would need not just support from the European Parliament, but from the member states of the European Union. | ||
| Nevertheless, they're working to build it. | ||
| And then we traveled to Basel, Switzerland, which is the base of operations for the Bank of International Settlement. | ||
| And we met with them, and they too said, well, we're just studying this. | ||
| We're not really proposing that everyone do it. | ||
| But the reality is when you talk to everyone who's developing it, who's helping coordinate it? | ||
| The Bank of International Settlement. | ||
| And again, not just, there's no country that we found anywhere that is developing a system that protects privacy, that perfects identity, that perfects the transaction data. | ||
| They're all doing it the same way China is, and they're designing it to be interoperable around the world. | ||
| And the reality is, a system of money is as old as civilization. | ||
| Like I said, the right to transact predates any government. | ||
| The government doesn't give you that right. | ||
| But governments around the world have adopted very similar approach. | ||
| In the United States, we have the Bank Secrecy Act, any money laundering laws, know your customer laws. | ||
| And in the United States, every Western democracy and in dictatorships around the world, they have similar features for banking. | ||
| If you spy on your customers, you're allowed to operate a financial services business. | ||
| They don't state it that way. | ||
| I mean, it's not that creepy inherently in the United States. | ||
| For the most part, you're supposed to get a warrant. | ||
| They don't always do that. | ||
| They've been found to violate it on occasion in the United States. | ||
| In certain other governments, it's very creepy. | ||
| But as we were working to protect secrecy, the Canadian government was literally imposing a shutdown on bank accounts for Canadian truck drivers who were protesting COVID policies in Canada. | ||
| So it wasn't they were stacking SWAT teams or special operators outside the door of houses. | ||
| The one ring to rule them all, the massive amount of power, was your access to your own money. | ||
| You can't even buy groceries. | ||
| You can't pay rent. | ||
| You have no means of payment. | ||
| And that's why it's essential that we protect the power to transact and we protect the privacy so that it really has the same kind of characteristics as cash. | ||
| Because as a citizen, without probable cause and due process, no one should see your transaction data. | ||
| And without being guilty of something, no one should limit your ability to transact. | ||
| That's the system of government our countrymen have. | ||
| And okay, around the world they don't have the same protections, but why is our government and our central bank working on the exact same plan? | ||
| When you look at dystopian fiction, whether it's Brave New World or 1984 or what I and billions of people around the world consider scripture, the book of Revelation, the money is always corrupted. | ||
| It's taken from its proper use as a store of value and an efficient means of transaction, and it's corrupted into a tool for surveillance, for coercion and control. | ||
| And unless you comply with the regime, whoever that is, well, then you don't get the right to transact. | ||
| Everywhere it's depicted, whether it's fiction or scripture, it's evil. | ||
| So we should rightly resist this future. | ||
| It's dystopian. | ||
| 1984 was meant to be fiction, not an instruction manual. | ||
| But unfortunately, you see people working to build this very future around the world. | ||
| So that's what a central bank digital currency is. | ||
| Let me tell you what it is not. | ||
| People often will associate every kind of digital money with central bank digital currency. | ||
| And I'll mention like the Bitcoin, Bitcoin, as maybe the most widely known form of crypto, certainly the biggest share of the market value. | ||
| If you look at the Bitcoin white paper, you can look it up out there in just the abstract. | ||
| The whole point is to preserve the characteristics of cash, permissionless peer-to-peer transactions where there's no third party that goes through it. | ||
| And the ability to do this, this is why Bitcoin became popular. | ||
| The ability to do this depends on the architecture. | ||
| There's no corporate headquarters, there's no CEO, it's really math and computer programming. | ||
| So how does this work? | ||
| They establish trust in a different way. | ||
| They assume they trust no one. | ||
| And the transactions are approved in blocks. | ||
| That's the way with blockchain, the way it's done. | ||
| It's done very securely. | ||
| And governments around the world initially didn't like it. | ||
| They wanted to ban it. | ||
| And after a while, they decided, well, okay, we can't really ban it. | ||
| We're not going to be able to stop it. | ||
| So the check-down position is, well, let's just keep it account-based. | ||
| And account-based crypto is pretty harmless. | ||
| It's about like banking. | ||
| I mean, cash isn't technically illegal, but when you go to the bank and ask for any significant amount of it, they always ask questions. | ||
| And that's because of the Bank Secrecy Act, the anti-money laundering laws, the know-your-customer laws. | ||
| What are you going to do with all that cash? | ||
| Well, it's my cash. | ||
| Why can't I have it? | ||
| And sometimes they'll tell you, sometimes they won't. | ||
| Well, I have to fill out this report. | ||
| Who gave you all that cash? | ||
| In fact, if you deposit more than $10,000, it creates a cash transaction report. | ||
| When that was first passed in the early 70s, it was $10,000. | ||
| Today, that number adjusted for inflation is over $81,000. | ||
| That's who they were looking for. | ||
| But if you look at the last presidential administration under Joe Biden, they wanted to know about your bank account if you had ever had $600 of transactions in your bank account. | ||
| So they're going the other way. | ||
| And the reality is they want to monitor every single transaction. | ||
| And that's how they know whether you had a transaction over $10,000, is they look at everything. | ||
| So there's already a lot of surveillance in it. | ||
| To me, maybe too much. | ||
| But the question is, what can you do with it? | ||
| Once you create a central bank digital currency, you've empowered the central bank to see every side of every transaction. | ||
| In fact, the former director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Giancarlo, talked about digital dollar. | ||
| He's gone around for a long time talking about it and touts the features. | ||
|
Programmable Money Threat
00:11:25
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||
| They call it programmable money. | ||
| If you wanted to put stimulus into the economy like we were doing during COVID, you could put money in and say it expires. | ||
| If you don't spend it by this date, it's gone. | ||
| You can say it can only be used for these things. | ||
| So when we did stimulus checks during COVID, a lot of people went out and bought flat-screen TVs from China. | ||
| That didn't exactly help the U.S. economy. | ||
| And proponents of programmable money were saying, see, we could make it so you could only spend it on these things and not those things. | ||
| Climate change alarmists, climatologists, as I refer to them, they could program the money so that if you're driving a hybrid vehicle but still need to buy gas from time to time to keep your hybrid internal combustion engine running, well, you could pay $2 a gallon for gas. | ||
| But if you're driving a pickup truck that's considered a gas guzzler, well, you could pay $10 a gallon. | ||
| It's programmable money. | ||
| You could design any feature in it you want because the central government controls it. | ||
| And that's why central bank digital currency is truly a threat to Western civilization. | ||
| It puts the government between you and your money. | ||
| You know, in the United States, the pursuit of happiness has been defined as protection for private property, property rights. | ||
| There's no more basic thing than your property right to your bank account, the money that you earn, the paycheck that gets deposited in your bank account. | ||
| But if that's not really yours, it's really programmable money and it's conditioned upon whatever the government wants to condition it upon, is it really yours? | ||
| And that's exactly the future that people want to create out of crypto. | ||
| Crypto, if you look at the Bitcoin white paper and many of the other use cases, is designed to somewhat separate money from state. | ||
| Because this future is pretty creepy. | ||
| It's quite literally Orwellian. | ||
| It's described as one of the characteristics in Orwell's famous book, 1984. | ||
| Dystopian, which is another synonym for Orwellian. | ||
| It gives the government a massive amount of power of coercion and control over the public. | ||
| And yes, perfect surveillance could, if in the hands of benign good actors, protect us and keep us safe from bad people. | ||
| But in our country, you could easily see people that suffer from what I label as Trump derangement syndrome, who are alarmed that Donald Trump would have access to information. | ||
| Imagine if Donald Trump could control this money. | ||
| A lot of people in our country would be scared to death. | ||
| But on the other hand, you could imagine maybe somebody from the political left who would control this money, and you could say, wow, that's pretty creepy. | ||
| And just like in Lord of the Rings, where they had the one ring to rule them all, the only good thing to do with the one ring to rule them all is destroy it. | ||
| But actively right now, the Federal Reserve is hiring coders to write code and develop a central bank digital currency. | ||
| Actively right now, our allies are working to develop this. | ||
| And actively right now, just as the person who spoke right before me addressed, Mr. Schweiker, the United States has a massive debt problem, but so does a lot of the rest of the world. | ||
| The last time the planet had this much debt was at the end of World War II. | ||
| And the main difference is at the end of World War II, we knew we had to spend less money, and we did. | ||
| Our debt to GDP ratio, the amount of money we owe versus the size of our economy, is about the same size as it is right now. | ||
| But instead of wanting to spend less, right now we can't even agree to cut off $9.4 billion in Doge cuts. | ||
| That's 0.13% of what our United States government's going to spend this year. | ||
| I mean, it passed the House with no support from Democrats and four Republicans voting against it, but it can't get a floor vote in the Senate yet. | ||
| So think about the sentiment. | ||
| At the end of World War II, we knew we had to spend less, and even then, they did a monetary reset. | ||
| So some people might have heard of this idea of a great reset. | ||
| One of the core components of it is resetting the money system. | ||
| And the money system they have in mind is this, central bank digital currency. | ||
| And when the crisis occurs, they might say, well, there's all kinds of things we could do, but here's what we can do now. | ||
| That would take forever to develop every other alternative. | ||
| But what we could do now is what we've been working on for a decade, is we could launch this central bank digital currency, and it's going to solve everything. | ||
| It's going to keep us safe. | ||
| It's going to catch the tax evaders and money launderers and illicit finance. | ||
| And in the hands of a good leader, it could. | ||
| But the reality is we know, as our founders recognized in Federalist paper after Federalist paper and in the very structure of our government, eventually somebody who isn't benign is going to have the power. | ||
| For Lord of the Rings fan, they know that even the best person, when they put the ring on, it's tempting to do evil things. | ||
| And that's what's going to happen with this. | ||
| We have to stop it right now. | ||
| That's why Donald Trump's executive order when he came into office on digital assets banned central bank digital currency. | ||
| That's why my colleague Tom Emmer has moved a bill to ban central bank digital currency. | ||
| Unfortunately, it hasn't gotten a vote on the floor of this House this term in the House of Representatives, and it doesn't have a clear path through the Senate. | ||
| Well, it's the creepiest surveillance tool I've ever seen. | ||
| I can't get my coalition of Republicans and Democrats to oppose it. | ||
| Last Congress, I had a coalition of 123 Republicans and 96 Democrats who blocked, who voted to end the evasion of the Fourth Amendment. | ||
| The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect your privacy. | ||
| The government is supposed to get your data only with probable cause and a warrant or a subpoena from a court. | ||
| But they're buying your data. | ||
| They're creating a market for data, and they're buying their way around the Fourth Amendment. | ||
| We wanted to turn that off. | ||
| The Fourth Amendment doesn't regulate private entities, but it does regulate the government, in part because the government has a power that no private sector body does. | ||
| They can put you in jail. | ||
| They can deprive you of life, liberty, and property. | ||
| I'm glad that we've got this bipartisan coalition, but I don't understand why Democrats are more concerned about the ability to monitor your transactions than they are about the invasion of privacy. | ||
| I hope we restore that coalition on this and we can work together to ban central bank digital currency, but I truly believe this poses an existential threat to Western civilization. | ||
| If this thing takes effect, it is a massive amount of power. | ||
| It is the kind of power that the Death Star has over civilization. | ||
| People think, oh, I would resist. | ||
| A lot of people won't even go vote. | ||
| How aggressively are they going to resist when the government shuts off access to your bank? | ||
| I mean, we had a trial run of this during COVID. | ||
| Lots of people really objected to all sorts of things about COVID policies, but their workplace imposed mandates and restrictions, including shots that weren't really tested or proven. | ||
| And now that we find out data, there's a lot of concern about mRNA in particular. | ||
| I talked to nurses who were crying in our office, but they felt like they couldn't risk losing their job, and they chose to get shots that they were concerned about. | ||
| Because the coercive power of your access to earning a living, massive amount of power. | ||
| People can't afford it. | ||
| They can't pay their way to live. | ||
| They can't raise their family. | ||
| This power is way bigger than that. | ||
| People, we got to stop this. | ||
| We have a president who wants to stop it. | ||
| He's issuing an executive order, but we don't have a legislature that's doing the work to stop it. | ||
| We're talking about moving crypto bills today. | ||
| The Senate's passed the Genius Act in the banking committee and on the floor of the Senate, which regulates stable coins. | ||
| Stable coins are about 7% of the crypto market. | ||
| The rest is market structure. | ||
| I've had a bill to regulate that since 2018. | ||
| Over seven years, I've been trying to stop this. | ||
| Not stop the good things, not stop the market from things like Bitcoin or Bitcoin ETFs or all kinds of other use cases that are good. | ||
| Not stopping self-custody, but protecting self-custody so that you protect the ability to transact. | ||
| But stopping the counter to it, central bank digital currency, the one ring to rule them all. | ||
| We've been trying to stop it for that long. | ||
| The idea was maybe not even possible technologically when science fiction writers were writing Brave New World or 1984 or Fahrenheit or in Scripture. | ||
| How could this even happen when you read Revelation through all time? | ||
| But today, we can see the technology that can do it. | ||
| And with artificial intelligence, it's even quicker. | ||
| And here we are talking about an AI provision in the big, beautiful bill that stays. | ||
| No matter what else they rule out, they seem to find a way for the AI provision to be there for more surveillance on more people. | ||
| Folks, we got to stop this. | ||
| And we need the legislature to step up and do it. | ||
| So I plead with you everywhere you can. | ||
| Don't be fearful of all digital assets. | ||
| Bitcoin, for example, is 180 degrees different than central bank digital currency. | ||
| But do everything you can to stop the government's power grab with this. | ||
| Or the superficial layer that's really just cosmetic, where the big banks offer a cosmetic layer of stable coins, but on the back end, it's effectively a central bank digital currency operated by not just the Federal Reserve, but the central banks around the world working together with the Bank of International Settlement to create this system. | ||
| It is a true threat to Western civilization. | ||
| And maybe something that to some of my colleagues who couldn't be here tonight also is as big of a deal to them. | ||
| I appreciate those people that have co-sponsored and voted for Tom Emmer's bill. | ||
| I hope we can vote on it soon in the House, and I hope the Senate takes it up. | ||
| So with that, I yield back the balance of my time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The gentleman yields. | |
| Does the gentleman have a motion? | ||
| Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Mr. Speaker, I move that the House may now adjourn. | ||
| The question is on the motion to adjourn. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Those in favor say aye. | |
| Those opposed, no. | ||
|
Ceasefire: Where the Shouting Stops
00:02:20
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|
unidentified
|
The ayes have it. | |
| The motion is adopted. | ||
| Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until 9 a.m. tomorrow. | ||
| The House today approved legislation that would deport non-citizens convicted of DUIs. | ||
| Members also approved a bill that would require the federal government to report on migrants at the border that potentially pose national security risks to the U.S. On Friday, members will consider a resolution condemning recent immigration protests in the Los Angeles area. | ||
| Follow live coverage of the House here on C-SPAN when members return. | ||
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| In a town where partisan fighting prevails. | ||
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| This fall, Ceasefire, on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
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