Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the appropriations chair, my good friend from Texas, for yielding and for bringing this important legislation, which I strongly support.
We have seen the atrocities in Israel. We have also stood by Israel. In fact, the United States is proud to be the first country that recognized Israel as a Jewish state on the heels of World War II as the nations were coming together and recognizing the importance that we all get behind a Jewish state. Unfortunately, from that day there were always people around the neighborhood who wished Israel harm.
Over time, you have seen peace agreements, Abraham Accords, but you have always seen seeds of discord. Of course, the biggest discord started with Iran funding terrorist organizations like Hamas. Hamas took action weeks ago, atrocities that are hard to repeat that we have seen and the world needs to continue to see because, unfortunately, as the world is seeing the atrocities, while we recognize the lives that have been lost--not only Israelis, Jews, Americans, Palestinians--but you also see the ugly head of anti-Semitism popping up.
Here on college campuses in the United States, other places around the Nation and the world, where anti-Semitism seems to rise its ugly head at times when Israel seems to be in a dangerous position, these are times when we all need to be standing with Israel, giving them the tools they need to make sure they can defend themselves against these atrocities. That is what this legislation does.
In fact, we worked with the leadership in Israel. We worked with the Biden administration, the Pentagon, and others who know what is at stake. We have had long-time partnerships in our strength and our defense systems. If you think about the Iron Dome and David's Sling weapons systems that will be replenished with this legislation, a lot of this is American technology that has been partnered with Israel over many, many years to save lives in Israel.
And as those weapons systems get depleted, we need to make sure they are replenished; the Iron Beam system, a more advanced missile systems. Some of the other partnerships that we have had for a long time, that is also funded in this bill. We are making sure that Israel has the tools they need.
We came out of the box ensuring, under Speaker Mike Johnson, that we send a strong message to the world that we support Israel, passing strong legislation to unite behind Israel. But now we need to back that up with action, with the support in military strength that they need to continue this conflict.
And it is actually paid for; paid for not by taking away existing IRS agents, but tens of thousands of new proposed IRS agents. And where are they coming from? Who are they going after? If you look at the CBO report, the proposed IRS agents that we would be defunding in this, we are actually helping President Biden keep his promise. You heard over and over again, President Biden said no American making under $400,000 will pay a dime in new taxes. We all heard that. It was a promise made over and over again, except President Biden broke that promise.
Families making under $400,000 are paying more in new taxes, and part of that is the army of IRS agents that they are sending after people, tens of thousands. Under this bill, these IRS agents that we would be eliminating save the American taxpayers making under $400,000 a total of $4 billion. That is $4 billion back in the pockets of hardworking families who were promised by President Biden they wouldn't see their taxes go up. Yet, he wanted to put tens of thousands of IRS agents looking into and raising their taxes. That won't happen if this bill passes, which is more money they need right now because prices are higher on those families.
At the end day, sending the message that we are willing to stand up to Iran and give Israel the tools they need--tomorrow, we are bringing more legislation, by the way, in the SHIP Act, to put sanctions on Iranian oil. Again, Iran is at the heart and center of funding Hamas.
Hamas started this. As the President talks about a cease-fire, it was Hamas who broke the cease-fire when they invaded and attacked and murdered, barbarically, Israel.
Israel needs the right to defend themselves. They need the tools to defend themselves, but let's also defund Iran and the money they are getting. They made $80 billion during the Biden administration selling their oil on world markets. We need to pass that legislation tomorrow, which we will, and hopefully in a very big bipartisan vote. We need to start today by passing this legislation to give them the tools they need in Israel to make sure that they can push back and destroy Hamas and protect those citizens in Israel who deserve peace. America has always stood by our ally Israel. Let's continue that today. I urge passage.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for the purposes of a colloquy. I still call him Leader Hoyer.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the conversations that the gentleman and I have had. He has led many delegations to Israel. I think most of us have been to Israel and seen firsthand some of those towns. I have been to Sderot and other cities that have come under attack. I have seen the heartbreak going to some of the kibbutzim and have heard the harrowing stories. We want to make sure they get their relief.
I also know this. Obviously, as we talk about funding of government, we just passed an appropriations bill last night, and we are going to be moving after we get through this bill into two more appropriations bills. We will be working late into the night and tomorrow on more appropriations bills to properly fund government.
If you look at the bills we have already sent over to the Senate, that includes the Defense appropriations bill, that includes more funding for Israel, along with the State and Foreign Operations bill that also includes more funding for Israel.
When we have had heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, military leaders, come before us in committees to testify about the major threats globally, they have been asked pointblank: What is the major threat to America? You would think if you are a military leader, you would be talking about maybe China and some of the threats that they pose that we know are very real and other countries. That is not what they talked about. They talked about our Nation's debt, that the Nation's debt is the biggest threat.
If we can do both, support our friends around the world and start confronting our Nation's debt--we are going to have to do this over and over again. The Speaker talked about a debt commission that got a lot of bipartisan interest, in fact, bicameral interest. These are all issues we have to confront at the same time.
We are going to continue to do our work. The Senate could pass that bill to the President's desk, and I think in the end he would sign it. If the Senate passes this bill that we are going to pass today to the Senate, I have no doubt the President would sign this bill.
We have to confront our challenges here. We need border security. As we talk about Ukraine, we need to secure America's border, because we know there are people on the terrorist watch list coming into our country right now that we cannot ignore.
This administration might be ignoring it. Democrat mayors and Republican mayors alike recognize it is a problem in major cities that has to be confronted. We are going to confront it and continue to work on those issues, as well. All of this has to be dealt with at the same time. None of this happens in a vacuum. Many of these problems are interrelated. We are going to continue to confront all of them and work as we can hopefully together. Obviously, today maybe we might not all be on the same page. Tomorrow, I think on that Iran oil sanctions bill, we will be closer, but we have to keep working through these issues together.
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, one final point on that. Obviously, if you look at the history of CBO, they are the referee, the scorekeeper that has to be used. They have often been wrong. I would say often wrong but never in doubt. When they are wrong, they are usually wrong to the detriment of taxpayers.
Here is a classic example. Only in Washington does eliminating government positions count as something that is going to cost the deficit. Getting rid of the size of government is ruled by CBO as increasing the deficit, but they exposed a dirty little secret about these new IRS agents. I emphasize ``new.'' These are not existing employees. This is tens of thousands of new IRS agents that President Biden wants to hire. It exposed that the only way that they generate money is by raising taxes on families, including those making under $400,000. In their report, they point this out.
If you are an American citizen who believed Joe Biden's promise that you will not pay a dime in new taxes if you make less than $400,000-- and he said it over and over again; it is on video--that promise is broken, according to the CBO in this report, to the tune of over $4 billion in new taxes that those families will be paying. Those are not existing taxes. They are new taxes those families will be paying.
If you want to save $4 billion in taxes and you are one of those families that bought the promise--and, frankly, in times of high inflation, high interest rates, high cost for everything from gas to groceries, no family should be paying more in new taxes. I would argue this bill will save those families a lot more money than what those new IRS agents were going to collect in new taxes, and we are doing them all a favor while also helping address a serious spending problem in Washington and standing with our ally Israel, most importantly.
Mr. Speaker, that is why we need to pass the bill.
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