Government Funding and Immigration

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding to me. I, too, wish our friend from Ohio well in his future endeavors and appreciated serving with him in the Chamber and appreciate the same sacrifices with respect to our family, our children, and our wives when we are here traveling and the things that we miss out on. I do wish him well.

Today, in the House of Representatives, we voted by suspension of the rules what is called a continuing resolution to continue the funding of government at its current levels. Now, that is just another way in D.C.-speak of saying we aren't doing our job to pass appropriations bills through what we call regular order, the way that you would expect us to do it, send it to the Senate, negotiate back and forth, and then take that and do our job to do the work of the people on how we spend their money.

Last year, we set out to change the way the House works, the gentleman from Arizona knows. We made some progress actually. I had hope. We had moved in the right direction. We passed 10 appropriations of 12 out of committee. We had two ready to go. Seven we passed off the floor of the House.

We passed them not at the level I would prefer--a lower level--but we did pass them at the agreed-upon level last year under the FRA, the debt deal that capped spending. Again, we should have capped it a lot lower. It represented a mere 1 percent cut from last year's bloated level of spending under Speaker Nancy Pelosi passed at the eleventh hour in December of 2022.

Every member of the Republican Conference here today except for two opposed that bill, voted against that omnibus spending bill. They spoke out against it and put out press releases against it. They said that it was enormously expensive, adding up to our debt, passing policies we didn't agree on, done at the eleventh hour right before Christmas. There was massive opposition. Only two in this Chamber on the Republican side voted for it.

Fast forward. Last year, a deal was made and caps were put in place. We got our appropriations bills sent over to the Senate trying to do it at those levels, even though it was a mere just 1 percent cut. I would like to see a 10 percent or 20 percent cut. We wanted to get to pre- COVID spending levels, but this body on a bipartisan basis--a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats--sent to the Senate a debt deal, lifting the debt $4 trillion. For that, we were supposed to get a 1 percent cut.

Then there is something in this town called side deals.

Does that sound swampy? It is.

There were side deals, agreements saying, no, no, no, that won't be the real deal.

Do you know how I know that? Because the Democratic ranking member on the Appropriations Committee appeared before the Rules Committee about a month ago and said: Well, I voted against the FRA, the debt deal, because the side deals weren't written in it.

Now, she only admitted that after she had said you are not following the law. I said: Well, where in the law are the side deals? Oh, well, they are not in the law. In fact, in her public statement last year, she voted against it and said: I voted against it because they weren't in the law.

Yet today, Senate Democrats and House Republicans were negotiating spending at the level of not the caps, but the caps plus the side deals. That is to say, in plain English, Pelosi spending levels plus another $30 to $40 billion. That is what is happening in the swamp.

However, they couldn't get it done. They couldn't get it done fast enough. So here we are again after we have twice extended Nancy Pelosi's spending levels without getting the appropriations bills done, not getting our job done, not getting the work finished, and today we just agreed--the Senate sent over here another continuing resolution to fund government at Nancy Pelosi's levels, and we concurred in that.

Now, it is not just the debt. It is not just the spending. It is not just the fact that we are $34 trillion in debt. It is what we are funding. It is the policies we are continuing. That is the problem.

Here are just a few. The continuing resolution that we just voted for, a near perfect divide down the Republican Conference, 107 to 106. House leadership had to scurry around to whip up the votes to ensure a majority of Republicans supported this terrible bill.

What did we fund? Again, spending at the level of $1.6-something trillion, Nancy Pelosi's levels, we funded Biden's border crisis while we are currently trying to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security for failing to secure the border, ignoring his duty to maintain operational control and endangering Americans. Fentanyl is pouring in. We are empowering China, empowering cartels. He lied to us under oath. We are giving him the money. Let's impeach him, but let's keep giving him the money.

A weaponized IRS, an Internal Revenue Service targeting the American people.

A weaponized Department of Justice and FBI that targeted Scott Smith in Loudoun County and Mark Houck, a dad in Philadelphia. Give them the money. Build them a brand-new headquarters. Give them the money.

EPA, electric vehicle mandates. We are piling up electric vehicles on the lots of car dealerships around the country. We have a mandate going into place to mandate two-thirds of all vehicles will be EVs by 2032, which will massively create inflation for the American people, make goods and services more expensive, and make getting cars more difficult.

The average electric vehicle is about $16,000 more expensive, and where the heck are you going to charge it? The Governor of California actually told people with EVs recently: Please don't plug in your EVs between the hours of 4 and 8 o'clock.

What are you supposed to do if you can't take your car to go do your job?

EPA rules killing coal and natural gas power plants. China has got 1,100 coal-fired plants. We have 250. We are building none; they are building two a week. We are going to kill our own power supply chasing unicorn energy policies. But guess what, we are funding it. Every Republican in this Chamber who campaigns against these things just voted today to fund it.

The World Health Organization, anybody think that is doing us any good besides getting us involved with anti-American sovereignty and undermining our own ability to maintain health policy and our national security? We are funding it.

We are funding the pro-China, anti-Israel United Nations Human Rights Council. We are funding UNRWA, through which dollars flow to the Palestinians--that is Hamas; that is the enemies of Israel. We are going around saying: ``We stand with Israel.''

How many Republicans wear the little pins, ``We stand with Israel''? They are funding opposition to Israel.

ATF rule banning pistol braces. Unconstitutional, unlawful, executive tyranny, not getting congressional approval. We are funding it.

Over here, we are funding the Department of Education's student loan scam. The Supreme Court says you can't do that. The administration does it anyway. Lawlessly. We are saying: Here you go, here's more money.

We are funding the CDC, the NIH, and the FDA. No accountability for COVID tyranny, no restrictions.

We are funding the Department of Veterans Affairs vaccine mandate. I introduced legislation today to say we shouldn't do that. We should get rid of that mandate. We are funding it.

We are funding the chief diversity officers, DEI, critical race theory at the Pentagon and throughout the Federal Government.

The Pentagon's abortion travel fund, transgender surgeries at the Pentagon, funding sex changes.

I could go on and on the number of things that we are funding, but I want to be mindful of my colleague's time.

I will end by going back to the border crisis because it is the number one thing that galls me that Republicans complain about and continue to fund. Our borders are wide open. Our people are in danger. It undermines our national security. Texas and Arizona take it on the chin. We are spending the money to do what the Federal Government is supposed to do. Our people are getting absolutely decimated.

Ranchers are getting killed. Livestock are getting out. Children are dying from fentanyl. Cops are having to go do the job of the Feds. Migrants are dying, dying in the river, in the Rio Grande, dying along the border in Arizona, and we are funding it.

I just don't understand the logic of my colleagues campaigning about these things. I will close with this: Federalist 58, the Founders gave us the power of the purse in the House Chamber to stop an out-of- control executive branch. We should dang well use it.

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