Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H. Con. Res. Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2025
Floor Speech
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 313 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: H. Res. 313
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to take from the Speaker's table the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 14) establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034, with the Senate amendment thereto, and to consider in the House, without intervention of any point of order, a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on the Budget or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment. The Senate amendment and the motion shall be considered as read. The motion shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget or their respective designees. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to adoption without intervening motion.
Sec. 2. Each day during the period from April 9, 2025, through September 30, 2025, shall not constitute a calendar day for purposes of section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622) with respect to a joint resolution terminating a national emergency declared by the President on April 2, 2025.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), 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.
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Ms. FOXX.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.
This morning, the Rules Committee met and produced a rule, House Resolution 313, providing for the House's consideration of the Senate amendment to H. Con. Res. 14.
This rule makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the Committee on the Budget or his designee that the House concur in the Senate amendment to H. Con. Res. 14. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate for the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget or their respective designees.
Additionally, the rule tolls the day count for National Emergencies Act disapproval resolutions related to the emergency declared by President Trump on April 2, 2025, until September 30, 2025.
This budget resolution marks the next step in the reconciliation process to advance President Trump's America First agenda and deliver upon the American people's mandate from November.
We have certainly heard our fair share of fear-mongering and flat-out falsehoods from Democrats and their bedfellows in the mainstream media about what our budget resolution entails. Let me be clear: This resolution unlocks the path forward to deliver upon our commitments to the American people.
Over the next hour, I will bet you dollars to doughnuts, Mr. Speaker, that you will hear all manner of identity groups that Democrats will claim the budget resolution will hurt. You will hear them say that Republicans are abandoning the middle class and cutting benefits. None of that is even remotely true.
We heard some wild, wild conjecture in the Rules Committee this morning that Republicans would cut off your limbs and let you bleed to death if you had a cold. Notch that as another textbook example of Democrat fear-mongering that we have heard over the past few months. It is disappointing but far from surprising.
Here is the truth: There are no programmatic cuts or assumptions in the House-passed budget resolution. Not a single Democrat can back up his or her own claims that there are cuts to specific programs in the budget resolution. That is because, again, there are no programmatic cuts or assumptions.
Let's set the record straight about what this budget resolution actually accomplishes. It will provide funding for border security, provide for our national defense, and restore American energy independence.
On border security, the Biden-Harris administration's open-border policies resulted in over 10 million encounters at the southern border from 2021 to this year, a 500 percent increase in illegal crossings, and over $115 billion in costs to State and local governments. This wide-open border allowed deadly fentanyl to flood into our communities, killing over 100,000 Americans. Even worse, known gang members and violent criminals from across the globe have walked right into our country.
Because of the Biden administration's abject failure, innocent Americans have been raped, assaulted, and murdered by illegal immigrants who never should have been here in the first place.
Enough is enough, Mr. Speaker. We must and we will secure the border and put the safety of the American people first.
Next, the resolution enables us to protect tax relief. President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provided critical relief to middle-class families and small businesses. Americans are still experiencing high prices because we are still recovering from Bidenomics.
Real wages under President Biden declined by more than 3 percent. Mortgage rates skyrocketed. Credit card delinquencies rose by over 50 percent. Bidenomics cost American families more than $11,000 every year for the last 4 years.
Mr. Speaker, these are facts. They are documented. This is so different from what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing in their fear-mongering when they are projecting what they think will happen if we get through our reconciliation.
This budget resolution also puts American energy dominance first. Under President Trump's first administration, America achieved energy freedom for the first time in 40 years. We were producing more than we consumed. Gas prices were low and families were thriving.
That all changed the day Joe Biden walked into the Oval Office. President Biden waged an all-out assault on American energy. He shut down production, blocked development on Federal lands, and recklessly drained our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, all the while begging foreign dictators for oil. The result was skyrocketing prices and American families clutching their wallets in fear.
Again, these are facts, Mr. Speaker, proven facts.
This budget resolution is our roadmap to take this country back. It secures the border, slashes wasteful spending, delivers tax relief for working families, and begins to rebuild the economy that the Biden- Harris administration shattered.
It is time to put America first again, and the budget resolution is how we get it done. Once adopted, our committees and the entire House will begin detailed work to achieve these important goals for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I warned everybody that this is what we were going to hear. We were going to hear these outrageous claims that are simply not true.
The fact is that the rhetoric coming from the other side has reached an appalling level. We have heard the scare tactics for weeks now, but it has taken a dark turn, Mr. Speaker, that is literally instilling fear into the hearts of blameless, everyday Americans.
We heard in the Committee on Rules this morning of how Democrats brought people to tears in meetings by telling them lies about what was in our budget resolutions. Mr. Speaker, that is shameful. That is shameful.
We can have disagreements about policy decisions. We can have disagreements about the effects of mismanagement of tax-dollar funds, for example, or what amount of tax relief is appropriate. Yet, the Democrats have now impugned Republican motivations and put blood on our hands.
A Democrat in the Committee on Rules this morning stated that: Republicans would cut off your limbs and let you bleed to death, in the context relating to a patient asking for help with a cold.
It was an absolutely disgusting remark that has no place in this debate. Is this what Leader Jeffries wants to come to the floor to state, that we are cutting the limbs off of people to watch them bleed out?
Does Leader Jeffries want to stoke fear in this way and terrorize Americans?
Instead of recognizing the sickening, repulsive rhetoric for what it is, this Member doubled down and posted it on her social media accounts, instilling fear in and terrorizing those people who she claims to care for.
Mr. Speaker, Democrats are injecting fear into the lives of countless Americans, stoking their anxieties, disinforming them, dragging them into the muck of the worst of political discourse, and for what? For what?
Mr. Speaker, it is for political gain. It is sickening.
Let's be clear. This is a budget resolution. It doesn't have a shred of force of law outside internal procedures in this body. Yet, the Democrats would make us believe that we are targeting people.
There isn't any targeting. There aren't any assumptions about programs. Just read the resolution. It is a framework, and my colleagues won't find any of what the Democrats are discussing here today. Those things are not here.
With respect to what Republicans have been articulating outside of this resolution, we are aiming to ensure that Medicaid is targeted to the most vulnerable.
Mr. Speaker, we need to beef up Medicaid that is going to the most vulnerable. We want to rid the program of waste, fraud, and abuse that is robbing the American public of tax dollars that could better care for the sick.
Mr. Speaker, we truly care for those people, which is why we are trying to root out waste, fraud, and abuse which has not been acknowledged at all by our colleagues.
We want to create better patient outcomes through innovation. We want to rightsize State implementation so the truly needy are getting relief, and we want to focus assistance to those who are truly on the margins.
As Shakespeare said: ``What's past is prologue.'' The Democrats continue their campaigns of lies just as the minority has in the past. My Democratic colleagues famously got four Pinocchios from The Washington Post, hardly a conservative enclave, for their clearly false facts about the Trump tax cuts.
Democrats said they were targeted toward the rich and corporations that pay no taxes, but we factually know that the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of earners actually reached new heights, Mr. Speaker, after President Trump's tax cuts went into effect. The outcomes got more progressive.
Mr. Speaker, more recently, it has been publicly reported that ads placed by Democratic-aligned groups had to be taken down because of the same inaccuracies. What was their message?
Their message was that Republicans voted to cut Medicaid and give tax cuts to billionaires. That sounds exactly like what we are hearing on the floor. It wouldn't be able to be run on a billboard. It doesn't pass the simple test of scrutiny.
Mr. Speaker, the American public deserves better. Let's deal with facts, and let's not scare the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I am not very happy about the fact that I am a good predictor of what the Democrats were going to say on the floor today, that the minority was going to lie about what is in this budget resolution. I expect every single one of them to come down here and do that. I predicted it, Mr. Speaker. Here it is, coming true.
Let me talk a little bit about the tariffs. The tariffs announced by President Trump on April 2, 2025, are a response to our economy that will strengthen the international economic position of the United States and protect American workers.
Access to the American economy is a privilege, and these tariffs are a starting point to bring other nations to the negotiating table. They are intended to reduce reciprocal tariffs and achieve global free trade, decouple developing countries from competitive nations like China, or for national security purposes.
As we are seeing, President Trump and America are winning. Over 75 countries have reached out to representatives of the United States to negotiate a solution on the subjects being discussed relative to trade: trade barriers, tariffs, currency manipulation, and nonmonetary tariffs. These will mean wins for the American worker.
President Trump is taking decisive action, pausing tariffs for 90 days, except for China, as nations have come to the table.
As I have made clear multiple times now, when it comes to the pause on the National Emergencies Act disapproval resolutions, this is a tool utilized by both majorities, and my Democrat colleagues had no qualms with supporting it in their last majority on a much broader and open- ended scale as it related to COVID.
This is why delaying the NEA disapproval resolution is prudent. President Trump must be given the leeway to negotiate on a global scale parameters that will make good on his promises of securing the border, protecting our communities, and leveling the global playing field to ensure fair trade for American producers.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I do have some other Members who wanted to come down and speak on the rule. They are tied up right now. If the gentleman is prepared to close, then I am prepared to close.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear our friends say they don't share the values of trying to save hardworking Americans' money from waste, fraud, and abuse, which are rampant in the Federal Government.
The American people know that, Mr. Speaker. They know that in their hearts and in their minds. They understand it. They hear about it every day.
It is curious to me that our Democratic colleagues do not want to make Medicaid more effective, that they don't want to help the people on Medicaid get better healthcare. How sad, Mr. Speaker, that that is the case.
Mr. Speaker, this budget does not steal from the least of these. It does not. What it does do is everything it can to stop fraudsters, to stop bureaucratic waste, and to stop bad things from happening to those least because those in the government are not serving them well.
Let's talk about these predictions. I started out by saying you are going to hear these horror stories. They said we are going to cut people's limbs off and watch them bleed to death.
Let's look at the predictions that were made when President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act around Christmas 2017. Then- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi infamously predicted Armageddon for America--fear-mongering, plain and simple. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act led to historic growth and economic gains in this country.
Larry Summers, a well-known Democrat, described progrowth forecasts as ``tooth fairies'' and predicted a long recession. That is fear- mongering. We got the opposite, a historic economic expansion under President Trump. Senator Chuck Schumer earned a ``mostly false'' rating for claiming companies were laying off workers due to tax reform. That is fear-mongering again.
Yesterday, I had in my office some businesspeople, and they talked about what they did when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed. They gave all of their employees a raise. We know about that, Mr. Speaker, those of us who were around. We saw that. There was lots of news about that because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
As a result of that bill, we got historic reshoring and more jobs, as promised by President Trump.
Then-Senator Harris, later Vice President Harris, claimed there would be a middle-class tax hike because average tax refunds were slightly down as tax season began. One newspaper deemed her claim ``misleading'' and--surprise, surprise--``nonsensical.'' History now reveals it to be false, and I would call it fear-mongering, the same we have been hearing on the floor today.
In perhaps one of the greatest reveals, liberal Vox writer Matthew Yglesias, after admitting that facts show ``a clear majority got a tax cut,'' praised other liberals who ``did a really good job of convincing people that Trump raised their taxes.'' Fear-mongering revealed.
Mr. Speaker, the fear-mongering needs to end, and the business of this House needs to continue. Again, despite what our colleagues on the left may claim, the American people know the truth. The Biden-Harris administration was a relentless assault on our economy, our national security, and our energy independence.
Today in Rules, one of our colleagues said they are always left to clean up Republicans' mess. No. It is the Republicans who have to clean up the Democrats' mess.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, they waged war on American energy, opened our borders to chaos, and drove inflation through the roof, all while families struggled to keep up.
That is exactly why Americans were fired up at the ballot box last November. The American people had enough of Democratic dysfunction.
This budget resolution is the beginning of delivering on President Trump's America First agenda. We are cutting waste, restoring our economy, delivering relief to working families, securing the border, and unleashing American energy like never before.
This is more than a budget. It is a blueprint to take our country back, Mr. Speaker. We are done playing defense. It is time to lead, fight, and win, all for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the previous question and ``yes'' on the rule.
The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:
An Amendment to H. Res. 313 Offered By Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts
Strike section 2.
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