Remember Why We Serve the People

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen who were just speaking on the floor, my friend, Mr. Wenstrup, and my friend, Mr. Palmer, for what they were doing in reminding the American people what happened 7 years ago.

It too easily gets glossed over for the politically motivated attack on Members of Congress that it was. A lot of statements are made about January 6, about things that have occurred, but not enough is made about what happened that day when someone was targeting our friends, our colleagues, for political reasons. It gets, frankly, ignored, with all due respect, by some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Steve Scalise and everybody who was a part of it stand as, I think, a stark reminder of what is great and good about those who serve here who are willing to move forward for the good of the country.

The country shouldn't forget about what happened and forget what those gentlemen on that field went through and why that is so critically important. I thank them for that, and I certainly thank them for their continued service.

I do think it is really important that we remember, as a body, in that vein, why we are here. Why do we convene as a Congress? Why do we come here and engage from all over the country, from 50 States, and fly in here each week and conduct business?

Too often, it turns into a clock-punching exercise where people come in, fly in, do their votes, go to some meeting, go to some fundraiser, go to some event, go to a quick hearing, do their thing, go back, vote, and go home.

Yet, what we have to remember when we come here is that we are supposed to be stopping for a moment and remembering that we are representing 750,000-odd Americans each and that we have an obligation to fight for them and do what we said we would do when we ran for office to represent them in the first place.

When I go all over the country, doing campaign events or even a bunch of personal business, I am reminded that a lot of American people do watch what we say here. A lot of people do watch videos that get circulated around on social media.

From time to time, frankly, quite often, people bring up to me a speech that I gave about 6 months ago in which I asked rhetorically, but importantly and emphatically, to name one thing that we have done, name one thing that we accomplished. I was talking to Republican colleagues, in particular.

I stand behind that question. It is an important question to ask. Of course, it is often clipped to leave out the important part, which was to name one thing we have accomplished besides doing something that is equivalent to Democrat-lite or something that is the soft version of what our Democratic colleagues want to do.

I will remind people, because it is important, what we have been able to accomplish as a united Republican Party, under now the leadership of two Speakers over the last 18 months.

A little over a year ago, we passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act in which we had Republicans unite across the body to pass an increase in the debt ceiling that was relatively modest, $1.5 trillion is, sadly, relatively modest, in exchange for very significant policy changes to get our country on the right track.

We repealed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act subsidies that are subsidizing and empowering multibillion-dollar corporations, empowering China, and undermining our ability to produce energy effectively.

We implemented spending caps and put them in place to reduce the size and scope of government and to limit the size of discretionary spending and to cut back on the weaponized government at the Department of Justice and at the FBI and at the Department of Education and in so many other different agencies across the bureaucracy.

We passed the REINS Act to rein in the regulatory state and to say that if regulations are going to have a certain impact, they must be approved by Congress. We implemented work requirements on things like SNAP and Medicaid. We worked together to try to transform this country as we told the American people we would do.

We did that together. We united to do it. Again, we modestly increased the debt ceiling, modestly relatively speaking, in exchange for actual policy changes to take our country back and put it on the right path. We did that.

We passed a strong border security bill that effectively said you will be detained, as our current law contemplates, or you will be turned away. It is that simple.

Most Americans support that. You will be detained if you have some sort of a claim, asylum claim or something else or some humanitarian exception, but you will be detained for the full time until we adjudicate it, or you will be turned away. That is effectively what we passed in what we call H.R. 2, our second big bill number.

H.R. 2, is our border security plan that we, Republicans, united to pass. Again, for the first time in decades, if not ever, this body came together and we passed a bill that would legitimately secure the border of the United States and force the hand of an administration that is refusing to secure the border while our country is being undermined and endangered.

Even as we speak, I am seeing reporting pop up on my phone about the number of foreign nationals, the number of Chinese foreign nationals, 24,000 last year, the amount of fentanyl pouring in, and the dangerous individuals that are being encountered.

I am seeing reporting on a daily basis about this administration leaving our country wide open and refusing to do anything about it, so this Republican Congress voted last year to pass H.R. 2. We passed it, we sent it to the Senate, and Chuck Schumer did nothing with it.

The National Defense Authorization Act, we are in the middle of working on that bill, as we speak, for fiscal year 2025. We passed the FY24 NDAA and this year we are working on a bill that is similar, that is worthy of support by Republicans, by conservatives. I don't agree with everything in it, to be clear, but it is a bill that is taking a giant step forward to refocus our military on being a military.

Our military should be focused on killing people and blowing things up, on doing the hard work of defending a country when called upon to do it, hopefully, sparingly. We have a military that has now, currently, gone off track. It has been turned into a social engineering experiment. Recruiting is low.

We have individuals in our military who are tired of being told that they have got to be a part of abortion tourism or transgender training or whatever DEI planning and training that is being pressed upon them rather than just learning how to jump out of a helicopter or fire a gun.

Today, we passed amendments to the NDAA that will move it in the right direction. It will pull back on the DEI, pull back on all the transgender woke policies, pull back on the climate executive order by the President of the United States that is undermining the readiness of our military.

We passed that amendment today. We passed an amendment to end abortion tourism, so you don't have taxpayer dollars funding abortion because the Department of Defense should not be a social engineering experiment. Republicans today united to do that, just as last year we united to do that.

Just last week, we passed a bill to actually sanction, with teeth, the International Criminal Court because it is wishing to and seeking to issue warrants for the Prime Minister of Israel for simply defending his country. We passed that. We passed that bill with unanimous Republican support. I think there were two present votes, 42 Democrats.

We did that by uniting as Republicans to send a message to the world that we believe that not only is the International Criminal Court illegitimate, not only is the International Criminal Court wrong, not only is it undermining our ally Israel, but that we should sanction it with actual sanctions. Not watered down exceptions for the United Nations, exceptions for all manner of these international organizations so it doesn't have teeth, we passed sanctions with teeth. It is sitting over in the Senate.

Chuck Schumer refuses to stand with Israel. Chuck Schumer refuses to do the work that we are supposed to do as our country and allies are being targeted. More importantly, the International Criminal Court is carrying out activities that will be turned around and focused on us, that will be used against our own military.

Again, a united Republican Party over the last 18 months, when we have united, we have passed limits to spending, modest debt ceiling increases for legitimate policy changes that would put us on the right path, a border security bill that would actually secure the border, a National Defense Authorization Act--now maybe twice, come tomorrow-- that would repurpose our military on the military end or limit/reduce the social engineering and the woke policies. We passed an International Criminal Court sanctions bill with real teeth.

Last year, we passed a significant number of appropriations bills with significant policy changes, and we had 1,100 amendments processed. We were moving things in the right direction, but here is the trick.

There are a lot of pieces to this, but here is the trick: How do you get that turned into law? Here is the dirty little secret in this town, most of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle would tell you, you must win elections in order to get that done.

They are not wrong.

You cannot have the majority without elections. You cannot get the votes you need without the elections going the way you want; to get the votes you need to pass the law. I agree.

Here is the secret: You are never going to get stuff passed when you always have an excuse for not passing it.

I will say that again. You will never get something signed into law when you start with the excuse for why you won't get it signed into law.

All of the good things I just mentioned, all of the good things that I say that this united Republican Party has done in the face of absolute abject failure by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we have done these great things, but they have stopped. They have sat in the Senate because you have to be willing to sacrifice something to fight to achieve and force these things to a conclusion.

Now, my colleagues will say: Well, you got to win more votes and you can't ask for too much.

There are times where you can ask for too much and there are times where you can say, we simply don't have the votes. However, when you have current Members of our own body saying: Well, Chip, we are not going to have 60 votes in the Senate in January, so you have to go ahead and factor that in to why we are not going to get appropriations bills that we would prefer, why we should only have a continuing resolution going into December, into a lameduck. Why? So we can then have the powers that be use the pressure of Christmas to pass an omnibus spending bill in December? I don't agree with that.

We are already being told that we don't have 60 votes in the Senate. We won't get 60 votes in the Senate, so you must accept it.

The reason why I am focusing on this for a second is, the people that I represent always ask me why. Why don't you get these things done?

The people I represent, frankly, people all across the country that I run into, they ask me why. Why can't you secure the border?

It is a pretty simple question. Why can you not secure the border? I then have to tell them, I am 1/435th of one-half of one-third of the Federal Government. So we have got to go build the votes.

When you have the votes to pass something like H.R. 2 and you send it over to the Senate, then the only question that is going to matter is whether it is this year, right now, or whether it is next year. If you hope to go out into the election season and get a bigger majority by a handful of seats, get the majority in the Senate by a couple of seats, and hope to get the White House, then you say, don't worry, we will do it then. Some will say, oh, we can't even do it then because we are not going to have 60 in the Senate.

The point is, you have to pick something and fight for it. You have to pick some number of things and fight for them. You have to take the message to the American people. You have to be willing to risk that ``precious,'' to quote ``Lord of the Rings,'' that election certificate that you hold on to so tight that you don't actually use it.

I would rather serve one more term and jam through as much freedom legislation as I possibly could than to serve 5 more terms or 10 terms and not get passed what we need to get passed.

The average American family today is hurting. The average American family today, the average young person in America today, can't afford their healthcare because this government has destroyed the healthcare market and made it impossible to afford. They can't afford a vehicle because this government has regulated vehicles and made the price of gasoline and the vehicles that they want to buy cost prohibitive. They don't think they can afford houses, and as often is the case can't, because this government has been blowing money, driving up interest, and creating an environment in which housing costs are now astronomically expensive.

They don't think that they can, frankly, bring a family into this world and have children because of the things I just talked about as they don't believe they can afford them.

We have a responsibility as leaders of this country, in this Chamber and the other Chamber, in the executive branch, to actually deliver for the American people, to preserve and protect the way of life that we cherish.

We sit here on the floor and regale the men who walked into the wall of bullets at Normandy or regale them on July Fourth or regale our Founding Fathers or the Declaration of Independence.

We have an actual responsibility to preserve and protect the pursuit of happiness. The ability to carry out and live your unalienable rights given to you by God, but we are not doing that. I just want to be blunt. We are not doing that.

I would say of late that I believe that the Republican Conference has been doing some good work to make very clear to the American people what we can and will do if entrusted with the majority, and a majority in the Senate, and a Republican in the White House. I believe we have been doing that.

I believe in the National Defense Authorization Act with amendments and policies that reduce the woke social engineering and increase the focus on military.

I believe in the H.R. 2 bill; the border security provisions.

I believe that the appropriations bills are moving in the right direction and changing the process. They are not perfect.

I believe in last year's Limit, Save, Grow effort and a lot of the policies we are trying to advance.

I believe in the International Criminal Court bill.

I believe in the bill that I hope to bring to the floor in a couple of weeks, the SAVE Act, to make sure that only citizens can vote in Federal elections.

I believe these bills demonstrate very clearly the difference between Republicans and Democrats and demonstrate very clearly what Republicans can do when we unite for a purpose to defend the American people against the very swamp that we campaign against.

However, you will never, never achieve those results if you come here and you capitulate on day one out of fear, whether fear of government shutdown, fear of failure, fear of the slim majority, fear of the possibility the President might veto it, fear of getting crosswise to some politician who might say something about you on Twitter.

Instead, we should take this great work and take it to the American people, take it through the elections, and then set up the fight. We should set up the fight in 2025 to take our country back because this country turns 250 years old in 2 years.

On July 2, 2026, we will be celebrating our 250th birthday of separating from England, and then 2 days later we came to an agreement on the language of the Declaration.

What are we going to do for the people on our 250th birthday? What are we going to be able to say to our kids and our grandkids on our 250th birthday?

Next year, what are we going to do to set the stage? If Republicans go out and get elected, take the White House, take the House, take the Senate, will we be able to take the policies that we came together to pass but failed to force through the Senate and failed to force the President of the United States to even move frankly halfway to our demands? Will we use our power then?

Will we use our power in January to get any of them signed into law? It doesn't matter if you keep getting elected, it doesn't matter if you go out and win elections if you don't do anything with it.

Will we finally take H.R. 2 in its form now, tweaked as necessary next January, hopefully made better and stronger, will we finally pass legislation to secure the border of the United States that will force the President and transcend time, not just in President Trump's tenure, but once and for all, will we do that as Republicans? We better.

Will we ensure that our tax policy is geared toward working class, hardworking middle-class families, small businesses that are struggling to make ends meet around this country as opposed to the massive corporations and K Street lobbyists? Will we do that? We better.

Will we actually cut spending? Will we address the $35 trillion in debt that we currently have that will be no doubt $38 trillion or so by the time we start the next Congress?

Will we try to alleviate inflation by ending the reckless spending without any limit or will we just shrug and continue to borrow into oblivion such that if you look at the interest that we just spent in May, it is 79 percent of all of the personal income taxes collected into the revenue, into the Treasury. Eighty percent of that which we collected from the American people through their hard work, we took their money, 80 percent of that is just used to pay interest expense in May.

Think about that. Imagine if you were sitting at home, 80 percent of your income from your job, imagine that, you have got 80 percent of your income from your job in May was used to pay the interest on your mortgage. What have you got left? What do you have left for electricity, for water, for gasoline, for food, for your kids, for your clothing? We don't.

Will we actually fundamentally finally deal with spending in the next Congress?

Will we fully restore energy freedom, repealing the subsidies or subsidizing massive corporations, undermining the ability of Americans to afford energy, driving up the prices of automobiles, piling up EVs on lots?

Will we repeal the disastrous Inflation Reduction Act, so-called, $1.2 trillion in subsidies, will we repeal it?

Will we end the so-called tailpipe rule that is crushing American families?

Will we take back our country and provide the energy freedom that allows for human flourishing as it is doing around the globe? There are still 3 billion people around the planet who don't have access to reliable energy. Why would we move backward instead of forward?

Will we end, as we are starting to try to do in the NDAA, a toe in the water, will we end the social experimentation at the Pentagon and, instead, bolster our military with the confidence and the pride of defending a country without being told you must follow a woke social agenda or no longer be in the military, you must take a shot or you will lose your job?

Will we make our military stronger but more sparingly used? Will we end endless wars but use the power and the strength of our military for peace through strength and use our diplomacy through the State Department and our energy policies to stop wars before they start?

Will we use our spending power to end the weaponization of government that right now has a 75-year-old woman facing 2 years in prison in Washington, D.C., right here, 2 years in prison because she prayed at an abortion clinic, because she dared to go to an abortion clinic at 75 years old saying, how much do I have left to give on this Earth? I am going to give a little of my life to try to stand up for the unborn, and even if you disagree with me, and even if she was carrying out a misdemeanor or doing something that was stopping the flow and the law enforcement needed to move them, 2 years in prison under the FACE Act?

Are we going to end the weaponization of government against its people, against its politicians, to end turning this country into a banana republic?

Again, I ask of my Republican colleagues: We have united in purpose and produced these great results, whether it is Limit Save Grow, or H.R. 2 and border security or the National Defense Authorization Act, or the appropriations bills, sanctioning the International Criminal Court, hopefully passing the SAVE Act, will we take those things and turn those to victories that force them through the Senate so that the President can sign them?

Will we finally take our country back and restore it to the American people and give them energy freedom so they can afford the energy that allows them to power their lives and afford the automobiles to go about their work?

Will we drive interest rates down so they can afford a home again?

Will we make education affordable and useful again instead of subsidizing it and then paying off the loans of those who haven't paid their loans off and ignoring those who never took out a loan in the first place?

Will we restore order on our streets and put criminals back in jail?

Will we secure our borders and stop the lawless from coming across the Rio Grande?

Will we end the reckless spending that is indebting our kids and our grandkids to a future in which the dollar is worthless, and their country is destroyed because we didn't do our job here?

Will we pass tax reform that is good for families and small businesses, not the K Street lobbyists and big corporations?

These are the questions the American people want us to answer. They are tired of the excuses. They are tired of sternly worded letters. They are tired of hearings. They are tired of speeches. I will look in the mirror. I am giving another speech. They want to see us do it.

My call to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but particularly my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, we owe it, we owe it to the 400,000 tombstones sitting on the other side of the Potomac, we owe it to all those who fought and died and bled for that flag and for everything it represents. We owe it to our kids and our grandkids; we owe it to the world so that America can continue to be the beacon of hope. We owe it to restore American independence, restore liberty and freedom, restore a faith and a confidence in a government that is doing its actual constitutional job. We owe them that, not excuses.

We owe them to deliver, not to come back and say: Well, we tried. We owe them every ounce of our being when we are here in this town to work and get our job done; not to play politics, not to campaign, not to go to another political event, but to be here and do our job.

It is an honor to serve in Congress, but there is no point in being here if we are not actually going to deliver for the American people who sent us here to deliver for them. We will win the arguments if we will make them. We will lose the arguments if we are too afraid to fight.

I am tired of the celebrations of all the people who have fought, bled, and died for this country with an absence of a conviction politically, with all due respect to the many veterans in this Chamber who wore the uniform and fought and bled for this country, politically are you willing to fight and bleed and politically die for your country? Until you are, until you are willing to risk that, until you are willing to take that election certificate and nail it up on the wall and say: I am going to take this thing for a spin, I am going to actually do what I said I was going to do, and then let the American people decide. Until we are willing to do that, then we are going to be relegated to, in Reagan's phrasing, ``the ash heap of history.''

I happen to believe that we can take this country back, but I happen to believe that if we don't, if we don't take the steps right now to rescue her, then we are going to lose her. We are going to be that generation that Reagan talked about when Reagan said we are only ``one generation away from extinction.'' The question for us is, what will we do?

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