Providing for Consideration of H.R. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, Providing for Consideration of H.R. Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 723 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 723
Resolved, That at any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4365) making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived.
Sec. 2. (a) No amendment to H.R. 4365 shall be in order except those printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, amendments en bloc described in section 3 of this resolution, and pro forma amendments described in section 13 of this resolution.
(b) Each amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 13 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
(c) All points of order against amendments printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules or against amendments en bloc described in section 3 of this resolution are waived.
Sec. 3. It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or her designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 13 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
Sec. 4. At any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4367) making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The bill shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill are waived.
Sec. 5. (a) No amendment to H.R. 4367 shall be in order except those printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, amendments en bloc described in section 6 of this resolution, and pro forma amendments described in section 13 of this resolution.
(b) Each amendment printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 13 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
(c) All points of order against amendments printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules or against amendments en bloc described in section 6 of this resolution are waived.
Sec. 6. It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or her designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in part B of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 13 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
Sec. 7. At any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4665) making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The amendment printed in part C of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived.
Sec. 8. (a) No further amendment to H.R. 4665, as amended, shall be in order except those printed in part D of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, amendments en bloc described in section 9 of this resolution, and pro forma amendments described in section 13 of this resolution.
(b) Each further amendment printed in part D of the report of the Committee on Rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 13 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
(c) All points of order against further amendments printed in part D of the report of the Committee on Rules or against amendments en bloc described in section 9 of this resolution are waived.
Sec. 9. It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or her designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in part D of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 13 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
Sec. 10. At any time after adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4368) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees. After general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. The amendment printed in part E of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution shall be considered as adopted in the House and in the Committee of the Whole. The bill, as amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived.
Sec. 11. (a) No further amendment to H.R. 4368 shall be in order except those printed in part F of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, amendments en bloc described in section 12 of this resolution, and pro forma amendments described in section 13 of this resolution.
(b) Each further amendment printed in part F of the report of the Committee on Rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a Member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 13 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
(c) All points of order against amendments printed in part F of the report of the Committee on Rules or against amendments en bloc described in section 12 of this resolution are waived.
Sec. 12. It shall be in order at any time for the chair of the Committee on Appropriations or her designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in part F of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. Amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section 13 of this resolution, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question in the House or in the Committee of the Whole.
Sec. 13. During consideration of each bill--H.R. 4365, H.R. 4367, H.R. 4665, and H.R. 4368--for amendment, the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees may offer up to 10 pro forma amendments each at any point for the purpose of debate.
Sec. 14. At the conclusion of consideration of each bill-- H.R. 4365, H.R. 4367, H.R. 4665, and H.R. 4368--for amendment the Committee shall rise and report such bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on such bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit.
Sec. 15. The Clerk shall not transmit to the Senate a message that the House has passed H.R. 4367 until notified by the Speaker that H.R. 2, as passed by the House on May 11, 2023, has been enacted into law. Point of Order
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the point of order in favor of consideration of the resolution.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, the question before the House of Representatives is: Should the House now consider House Resolution 723, the rule that is before us, a rule that we are looking to advance this evening to advance four appropriations bills that, when combined with the appropriations bill we passed in July, would fund 73 percent of government.
Meanwhile, the United States Senate has passed no appropriations bills, and in fact, sent a continuing resolution to the floor just now, just this evening, having not done its job to pass appropriations bills.
The fact of the matter is the waiver we are talking about here in the rules is a prophylactic waiver that my colleagues used all the time when they were in the majority. They know full well that is what they are doing. This is dilatory. This is purposeful. I would do it too if I didn't have all my folks back for the vote. That is what I would do. That is the reality of what we are talking about here.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about unfunded mandates. Let's talk about unfunded mandates.
Let's talk about all of the subsidies that are going out for electric vehicles to subsidize the elite in this country that make over $200,000 and $250,000 a year.
Let's talk about the subsidies, 90 percent of the corporate subsidies going to billion-dollar corporations.
Let's talk about the mandates in the form of vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and all of the mandates during COVID that shut down the largest economy that this world has ever known.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle complain about a shutdown. Yet, they are the masters of shutdown. They shut down and brought to a halt the great American economy resulting in exactly what you are experiencing right now: what the American people are feeling in terms of inflation, in terms of inability to afford homes, inability to afford gasoline, inability to afford power. Those are the mandates that the American people are concerned about. Those are the unfunded mandates that are killing their way of life right now at home.
That is the simple fact.
My colleagues are talking about the government and what it might cost if there is a government shutdown Saturday. Let's be very clear. If there is a shutdown on Saturday, it is because President Biden, Chuck Schumer, and my Democratic colleagues would prefer to shut down the government of the United States than shut down the border of the United States and protect the American people.
That is the simple truth. That is how there would be a resulting shutdown on Saturday.
They lament what might be the impact on government, and that is because they have a government, the American people have a government that is on autopilot. We have a government that is so big and is funded with mandatory spending and is on autopilot such that you cannot constrain it.
The American people are asking why. The American people are asking what can you do about it.
I will give you the answer: My Democratic colleagues want more of the same. That is why our Democratic leadership in the United States Senate has put forward a continuing resolution on the floor of the Senate just now, in the last hour, that will perpetuate the status quo, will continue to fund government exactly as it was funded last December at the obscene levels of that $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill.
They are going to send that bill over here to the House and say to the American people they want status quo, business as usual, and they are going to pile on additional supplemental funding. That is their response to what the American people are feeling and seeing.
I, if I were my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, would also want to have a dilatory vote because I would not have actual solutions for the American people.
What we are trying to put forward here, again, are four appropriations bills that fund 73 percent of the government when combined with MILCON-VA, which we passed in July. That is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not want to go ahead and move to. They want to put forward a dilatory point of order because they don't have answers for the American people.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, as I said, this is a dilatory tactic by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I wouldn't want to speak about what is going on either.
I wouldn't want to speak about the story this afternoon of Hunter Biden receiving a $250,000 wire originating in Beijing with the beneficiary address listed as Joe Biden's home. I wouldn't want to talk about that.
I wouldn't want to talk about what we have been learning in the Committee on the Judiciary. I wouldn't want to be learning about what is going on or talking about what we have heard from the whistleblowers or from Devon Archer. I wouldn't want to talk about that at all. I would want to sweep that aside.
I wouldn't want to talk about the Department of Justice that targeted Scott Smith and put him on the domestic terrorism list.
I wouldn't want to talk about a Department of Justice that targeted Mark Houck and have used the FACE Act to go after pro-life Americans.
I wouldn't want to talk about anything that this administration is doing. I would want to delay.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson), my good friend.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, again, my colleagues don't want to focus on the issues the American people care about, and they certainly don't want to talk about the issues that are, frankly, pretty embarrassing to the track record of my Democratic colleagues.
As I said, they don't want to talk about Hunter Biden. They don't want to talk about the Department of Justice and how it has been weaponized against the American people.
They don't want to talk about a Strategic Petroleum Reserve that has been decimated and the high cost of gasoline and electricity. They don't want to talk about inflation. They don't want to talk about housing prices.
They don't want to talk about a Department of Defense that is more focused on social engineering than carrying out the mission that it is given.
They don't want to talk about crime.
They don't want to talk about woke policies in which men are swimming against women in swimming meets.
They don't want to talk about the border. We are going to talk about the border, but I assure you, they do not want to talk about the border.
They talk about consequences.
Last Thursday, Texas authorities recovered the bodies of two migrants, including a 3-year-old boy who tried crossing the Rio Grande. Then 2 weeks ago, a 10-year-old migrant boy drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande.
Last year, 853 migrants died crossing the southern border; 53 in a tractor-trailer in the city of San Antonio, which I represent.
Thousands of Americans are dying from fentanyl poisoning. There are moms that I have to talk to, dads that I have to talk to in Texas who have to bury another child because we refuse utterly to secure the border of the United States.
Again, the President of the United States, the Democratic leadership of the Senate, and the Democrat minority in the House utterly refuse to do their job to shut down the open border of the United States to secure our people. They are perfectly content with then shutting down the government because they refuse to do their job.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, last summer, our Democratic colleagues sent a package, a minibus of six appropriations bills, and in one vote wiped their hands and said they were done. Then there was a massive omnibus spending bill that was sent over to us in December.
What I ask my colleagues is: What would you cut? What would you do to actually reduce the deficit and reduce the debt of the United States when we are $33 trillion in debt and we are going to have $2 trillion of deficit spending this year?
We are putting forward bills that would reduce spending. We are putting forward bills that would actually move the Department of Defense appropriations bills over to the Senate, and do so responsibly, the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, the State- Foreign Operations, and Agriculture, on top of MILCON-VA, which we already passed.
My colleague talks about wasting time. What have we been doing for the last 20 minutes besides waste time here on the floor of the House with a dilatory tactic, which my colleagues fully understand has no basis. They are objecting to a waiver that they have constantly used themselves.
The fact is they have no message so my colleagues are resorting to dilatory tactics.
Again, shut down the open border or risk shutting down the government of the United States.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, on Saturday, the Rules Committee reported a rule for four appropriations measures and made in order 440 total amendments.
We bring to the floor H.R. 4365, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act; 180 amendments were made in order.
This bill, combined with the amendments that were made in order, takes significant steps to invest in resources that will help deter China, will cut the bureaucracy, will support military families and servicemembers, and will restore the Department of Defense's focus to warfighting rather than social engineering.
We bring to the floor H.R. 4665, the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2024.
This bill would defund international bodies like the World Health Organization, eliminate woke offices at the State Department, defund John Kerry, and it stands up for Israel while funding our State Department and foreign operations.
H.R. 4368, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024, was also a part of the rule.
This bill makes significant strides to reduce spending to pre-COVID levels, prevents members of the Communist Party of China from buying United States farmland, defunds the FDA's rule allowing abortion drugs by mail, and makes strides in ending wokeness at the United States Department of Agriculture.
Madam Speaker, importantly, these three bills, combined with the next one that I am going to talk about, reflect our commitment to reduce spending and an agreement to reduce spending further than the FRA, which was passed earlier this year, to a target of $1.526 trillion of discretionary spending.
That is our goal. That is our objective. It is something the American people are clamoring for from their leaders in Washington--to actually address the debt crisis fueling inflation and undermining the sovereignty of our Nation.
This is why we are here. This is the job we are supposed to do. I have offered to my colleagues that I wish this were July. We passed MILCON-VA in July. The Senate has passed nothing.
Last year, under Democrat control, six bills were packaged together in the summer and passed, and then a massive omnibus bill was passed in December.
I had an exchange with one of my Democratic colleagues a minute ago about this not being regular order, but this actually is regular order.
It is late in the process, I acknowledge. We are trying to move four bills that would total, when combined with MILCON-VA, upwards of almost three-quarters of the discretionary funding for our government.
Hopefully, we can reach some resolution as to how to move forward funding the government appropriately. We obviously have disagreements on what funding the government appropriately means, which stands here at the center of the debate, stands here at the center of the impasse, which brings me to H.R. 4367, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act.
It is a good bill, has strong provisions, strong language in it to try to encourage the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Mayorkas to do their jobs.
In our view, it is not sufficient because the Secretary, backed by the President of the United States, has utterly refused to do his job.
This should concern all of us. Every Member of this body, Democrat or Republican, Texas or New York, Florida or California, ought to be concerned with what is happening to our country, what is happening in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Madam Speaker, 11,000 human beings, 11,000 the night before last, 304,000 apprehensions in August--this is incomprehensible. The human toll is staggering; the deaths from fentanyl poisoning, the things that we have talked about ad nauseam on this floor.
As I was alluding to earlier, it is not compassionate to have open borders as currently exist under this administration and under the leadership of Secretary Mayorkas.
Last Thursday, Texas authorities recovered the bodies of two migrants, including a 3-year-old boy, trying to cross the Rio Grande.
Madam Speaker, 2 weeks ago, a 10-year-old migrant drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande, and 853 migrants died last year.
This is every day in Texas. I get a phone call or a text from a rancher every day in Texas. They find a body on their ranch. How is that remotely acceptable?
That is at the center of this debate. There are countless issues we disagree on, countless issues we need to address, and the appropriations process can, in fact, through the power of the purse, address many of those issues. These bills do that.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle say, well, these bills are dead on arrival. Well, that is how this process works. We put forward bills, and if there is disagreement, if the Senate disagrees, then we conference. I hope we can get to that stage.
I, again, will posit I wish this were July or August or 3 weeks ago, but we sit here with four bills that will fund almost 75 percent of the government when added to MILCON-VA.
Let's do our job. Let's work to move the DHS bill. Let's work together to figure out how to deal with the border.
To be very clear, we must address the border. That is a nonnegotiable truth; that we must address the border. We can sit around a table and debate how, but we must address it.
There has been too much death, too much destruction, too much damage to States and to human beings across this country, and the Federal Government has an obligation to do its job, and that is what we are endeavoring to do.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
First of all, with all due respect to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the bill we put forward does not cut funding. It increases spending over last year.
We can debate the merits of that and debate how much we need to restrain spending, but it is simply not true. Let's at least speak about the facts before us and the legislation in front of us.
I heard my colleague talking about getting our act together. I would say to my colleague from Massachusetts: How about the Senate and the President get their act together? How about they actually do their jobs and secure the border of United States?
The gentleman from Massachusetts just blithely swept it aside. Oh, it is an important issue. Tell that to the people in Texas. In August, 304,000 encounters, the fifth month in fiscal year 2023 over 200,000, 2.2 million in fiscal year 2023 encounters.
Since the President took office, there have been nearly 6 million illegal migrants encountered along the southwest border, more than the populations of Houston and Dallas combined.
We have had 2 million released in the United States, thousands of migrants traveling through the Darien Gap, trains chock-full of people, children getting sold into the sex trafficking trade on a daily basis.
We know it because it is in Federal orders from judges. These are not made-up facts. They are right before us, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle don't care, and the Senate leadership, the Democrats leading the Senate and the President don't care, and the Secretary of Homeland Security doesn't care.
My answer to the question about why we are saying that H.R. 2 must be signed into law before the funding bill gets passed is because the law must change, and the Secretary must be forced to do his job because he is refusing to do it.
Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman).
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, the only people being held hostage are the American people by Democrat leadership in the Senate and in the White House; holding them hostage to a wide open border, endangering them every single day, including the 110,000 some-odd migrants that have been sent to and gone to New York City, and that are endangering our people on the streets.
The American people are, in fact, being held hostage because this Democratic leadership refuses to do their job to secure the border.
Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), my friend and colleague.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, the American people are fed up, my constituents are fed up, the people we represent are fed up, and they are fed up with the very deal that the gentleman from Massachusetts just described that came out of the Senate.
Madam Speaker, that is 45 days of continued spending at the existing levels and continuing the status quo with an additional $6 billion for Ukraine, and nothing to deal with the border. Nothing. Zero changes at the border.
Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gaetz), my friend and colleague.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson), my good friend.
Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Madam Speaker, our debt, our deficit, and our spending are indefensible. Three years ago, our national debt was $23 trillion, a staggering sum by any measure. Since then, it has grown by 50 percent to $33 trillion.
We have heard allegations tonight from one side of the Chamber that everybody deserves blame for that crisis, so let me be very clear. During that time, I voted against $13 trillion in spending. Nevertheless, we find ourselves at a tipping point.
In the last 10 years, we have spent $3 trillion just on interest on the debt. In the next 10 years, we won't spend $3 trillion on interest, we will spend $10 trillion. For that money, our country gets nothing. No sailor, no soldier, no safety net. We get nothing.
Making matters worse, in 7 years, Medicare is insolvent and in 10 years, Social Security is insolvent.
We must get our fiscal house in order.
Now, the appropriations bills before us move us in that direction. They do so through real, robust, and significant cuts, billions of dollars in cuts.
Are the bills perfect? No.
Do I support every single cut in every single bill? No.
Can we balance the budget through nondefense discretionary cuts alone? No.
To be honest, these bills will not solve all that ails us, but they are a critically important step toward stopping this runaway train. Business as usual, Madam Speaker, is unacceptable. A ``yes'' vote acknowledges that and moves us in the right direction.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, one of the previous speakers from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talked about victims, and I would note the extent to which we have countless victims, as we have talked about before, from the scourge of fentanyl poisonings across this country.
Two weeks ago, 1-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici died from fentanyl exposure from a kilo of fentanyl at an at-home daycare in the Bronx, New York, that, reportedly, a new arrival from the Dominican Republic was renting out.
More than 25,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized in FY23. I spent time in August sitting on panels with moms and dads who lost their children to fentanyl poisonings--six children in the school district in which I reside. It is commonplace in Texas. It is becoming, unfortunately, more commonplace around the country.
How about the woman who was stabbed 28 times by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record in Pennsylvania, or the 10-year-old boy who was on a schoolbus on the first day of school killed by an illegal immigrant who ran into the bus? How about the father in Florida who opened his home to a supposedly unaccompanied alien child, who was 19 years old, and he stabbed and killed the father of this family who opened his home?
This is happening every day to the American people, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not care. They watch Secretary Mayorkas completely ignore his duty to secure the border of the United States, leaving us entirely exposed to cartels and to the flood of fentanyl pouring into our communities. Border Patrol is overwhelmed, trying to manage numbers at the border, which is completely avoidable if the Secretary and the President would actually follow the law.
Republicans have responded with a bill that would force the Secretary to follow the law and that would improve the laws of the United States to secure the border of the United States, as we are constitutionally required to do. We have made that a condition precedent for giving more money to the Secretary of Homeland Security as he ignores his job and endangers the American people. We will continue to do that.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I have absolutely no idea what the gentleman from Massachusetts was just talking about. We have four bills before us here in the House of Representatives, four bills that, when combined with the MILCON-VA bill that we passed in July, would fund upward of 75 percent of our discretionary spending of government. That is what is on the floor of the House.
The fact is, the four bills we have before us represent this body doing its job. The gentleman says the Senate is going to be the adults who save us. This is a Senate that has passed not one appropriations bill. This is a Senate that today dropped on the floor of the Senate a bill that no one had seen 45 minutes prior to the vote, a bill which would continue to spend at the levels adopted last December that are yielding $2 trillion a year in deficit spending.
If that represents the adults, I think I want to hang out with the kids because that is not the job that we are supposed to do--$2 trillion a year of deficit spending when we are $33 trillion in debt, continuing to fund an administration completely at war with the well- being of the American people and a Department of Justice weaponized against the people like Mark Houck, a father who wakes up with a raid at his home for defending his son, for exercising his free speech rights, completely not pursued by local authorities, taken to Federal court, and summarily dismissed within an hour by a jury. That is your FBI and Department of Justice at work.
This is the same Department of Justice that wants to label Scott Smith a domestic terrorist. That is your Department of Justice at work.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle would say the Senate being adults and writing another check to that Department of Justice is a good use of your money.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle would say it is a good idea to continue to rack up $2 trillion in deficit spending, to borrow more money, to increase inflation, to devalue the dollar, to spend money we don't have to fund a Department of Homeland Security that refuses to secure the homeland.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to do this while thousands of Americans die from fentanyl poisonings, while cartels are empowered, while China is empowered, while China is selling the printing presses and the fentanyl pills to the cartels, while thousands pour into Eagle Pass, while 11,000 people just the day before yesterday poured across into Eagle Pass, while people are in railroad cars, while children are dying, while children get sold into the sex trafficking trade, where migrants are being held for ransom so their little girl doesn't get raped in a stash house in Fort Worth, Texas. All of that, I suppose, is from the adults we have in the Senate. They want to continue to fund a lawless administration, exposing our people to danger and exposing migrants to danger, all in the false name of compassion.
Well, if that is what adults look like, count me out. I am going to stand up for the American people who sent me here to stand up for them.
Madam Speaker, we are going to pass these four bills. We are going to work hard to do the work for the American people while the Senate can preen and posture with yet another swamp game by putting forward another continuing resolution of the status quo rather than trying to change this place, rather than trying to stand up for the people who sent us here to do something different: to reduce spending, to secure the border, to fund our troops at a higher level than we have ever funded them; a $28 billion increase for the Department of Defense while we undo the social engineering experiment and refocus the military on its mission to defend the United States.
I am proud of these four bills. I am proud to stand up here and advance them forward but let me be very clear: We are going to secure the border of the United States.
It will be up to Democrats to make a choice. Will they shut down this open border or will they shut down the government of the United States.
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Mr. ROY. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.
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