Rescissions Act of 2025
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, our conference chair (Mrs. McClain) for managing this time on this important bill.
Mr. Speaker, a lot of people come up here, and they talk about trying to get America's fiscal house in order. They talk about the idea of getting back to balanced Federal budgets. I don't know many people here who are against it.
I know later in this Congress when we put a bill on the floor to require a balanced Federal budget, there will be many Democrats, Mr. Speaker, who will vote ``no'' on that because when it comes time to actually put your votes on the board to back up the principles that most Americans relish, they walk away. They won't be there when it actually matters.
Everybody can talk about cutting wasteful spending, even if you don't necessarily agree that it is wasteful spending. However, what we are bringing today is wasteful spending, even if you think it might not be as bad as some other things you don't agree with. We all have to agree, Mr. Speaker, that as we just saw a few weeks ago, Moody's downgraded the credit rating of the United States.
It wasn't a recommendation, Mr. Speaker. It wasn't a warning that if you folks don't get your fiscal house in order this might happen. They actually did it. They downgraded the credit rating of the United States because spending has to get under control. The party over there that spent the last 4 years under President Biden spending like drunken sailors, in all due respect to drunken sailors because they don't spend this bad, but the trillions of dollars of debt that were racked up had consequences, Mr. Speaker.
It had consequences not only in terms of our national debt, but it affected the pocketbooks of families all across America because that bloated spending in Washington, which is money we don't have, by the way; and it increased inflation to the point where people couldn't even go to the grocery store to fill up their carts. They couldn't afford to go to the gas station to fill up their cars. They couldn't afford to take out a loan to buy a house because interest rates had gotten so high that today we are spending more money servicing our interest than we are on America's national debt.
These are all real, dramatic facts that concern most Americans. They say: Thank goodness Congress is finally bringing a bill to the floor to start cutting some spending that aren't priorities.
You can call it wasteful if you want. Call it whatever you want, but these aren't things that we can afford to spend, even if you agree with them, because it is not money we have in the bank. It is all borrowed money, Mr. Speaker.
Where did we start? The White House laid out a number of things, but they looked at that USAID program. They didn't gut the whole thing, but they said there are a number of things that are being done that just don't represent the values of the United States and are being done in foreign countries while we don't have our fiscal house in order here in America, so how about we start there.
I know the Democrats on the other side are acting like, oh, my God, the world is going to stop spinning on its axis if this spending goes away, so why don't we talk about some of the spending that will go away.
Mr. Speaker, again, it is borrowed money, not money we just took out of the bank. It is money we borrowed from countries like China to spend that is a debt to our kids.
To each one of these I list, Mr. Speaker, you should ask: If you vote ``yes,'' you are finally relieving that debt burden, but if you vote ``no,'' you think it is okay to send this bill to our kids. We are not paying for it today, Mr. Speaker, but our kids would if we keep doing it.
If the other side votes no, they want to keep borrowing money from our children to spend a million dollars on voter ID in Haiti. This is the same party that doesn't want voter ID in America, calls it racist, wants to fund voter ID in Haiti. They want to spend $6 million for net- zero cities in Mexico. I know some of their best supporters are waving a Mexican flag in an American city right now, and they support those efforts. Most Americans don't support those efforts, Mr. Speaker. They want to spend $3 million for ``Iraqi Sesame Street.'' The minority leader held up a ``Sesame Street'' character here on the floor as if ``Sesame Street'' is somehow going to go away.
I was just watching a commercial on TV yesterday where the Cookie Monster was actually doing an advertisement for Netflix because a private company is paying money to run ``Sesame Street.'' It is not going away. It is doing just fine. It is very lucrative.
What will go away is some of the far-left radical views that are being espoused. By the way, when this goes away at NPR, you can still turn on about six or seven other channels and get the same far-left radical views, but they are all going to be private companies, Mr. Speaker, not taxpayer-funded entities.
If somebody wants to pay money to go on one of their services that they stream or get over-the-top or however they get their digital content, they can still do that. There are a lot of options. There has never been more options.
Some people joke that they buy their services for their cable or whatever else they get and that there are 200 channels, but they might only watch 4 or 5 of them. There is still going to be a plethora of options for the American people, but if they are paying their hard- earned dollars to go get content, why should your tax dollars go to only one thing that the other side wants to promote?
Let everybody compete on a fair basis. They can still watch ``Sesame Street'' in Iraq, but let the Iraqi people pay for it, not the taxpayers of the United States of America's children. Today's taxpayers aren't paying for it because it is all borrowed money.
They want to spend $2.1 million for climate resilience in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and East Africa; $500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda. Rwanda is more than free to go buy all the electric buses they want or diesel buses. Why should the taxpayers of America be borrowing money from our children to buy electric buses for Rwanda?
They want to spend $33,000 for ``Being LGBTQI in the Caribbean.'' It is taxpayer money that a ``no'' vote today says is more important than strengthening a program like Social Security. I say not.
Also included is $643,000 for LGBTQI+ programs in the Western Balkans. This is borrowed money.
Mr. Speaker, there is $567,000 for LGBTQI+ programs in Uganda and $5.1 million to strengthen the ``resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, intersex, and queer global movements.'' I am not sure what that global movement is. They can continue that movement in some other way, but just not with the taxpayer dollars of the United States of America's children.
Again, there is no bank account that $5.1 million came out of. It is all borrowed money that a ``no'' vote says is more important than strengthening Social Security.
There is $135 million in contributions to the World Health Organization, which we all saw during COVID was the mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party. I would imagine if we stop this $135 million funding, the CCP may pick it up because they were regurgitating their talking points during COVID.
At some point, Mr. Speaker, the question we have all got to answer is: Number one, do you believe in fiscal responsibility? Maybe some people have other priorities than these they would like to defund. If you think these are all things that are worth borrowing money from our children to fund, then that is what the ``no'' vote represents.
If you think it is time we start somewhere, and here is the place to finally start--not to finish, just the beginning--getting control over spending and respecting those families who are working hard, who are working two shifts at the diner to pay taxes on tips that will soon go away if our One Big Beautiful Bill Act passes, or somebody who is working overtime because you want to send your kid to college and you find out this is where your taxpayer dollars are going and you are disgusted and say, when will somebody do something about it, then today is the day to do something about it.
Talk is cheap. Put the action on the floor. Let's finally get control over spending in a small way. Start a bigger picture toward a balanced budget. It starts here.
Vote ``yes,'' to get this done, and let's keep moving forward to strengthen this great country. I urge a ``yes'' vote.
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