Congress is Back

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to say to the American people: Well, Congress is back.

Congress is back because we were finally able to do our job after 43 days of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, our Democrat colleagues, parading around the country, acting like they were fighting for you when, in fact, they were preventing us from being able to do the work we were sent here to do.

They were fighting to make worse a broken healthcare system that they have been holding you, the American people, hostage to, as they were also holding our government funding hostage. They were fighting to protect a broken healthcare system on behalf of insurance companies and regulators and to fund healthcare for illegal aliens, transgender surgeries, and abortions.

Republicans said enough. We fought back, and we held the line. We funded the government through January with three appropriations bills because that is what we told you we would do. The President and the Speaker of the House deserve credit because we were able to deliver.

Throughout all the headlines that this place gets, House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and the President have done a lot this year to deliver tangible results and wins for the American people. Let's just take a look at a few.

On day one of his return to office, President Trump addressed many of the issues upon which he campaigned. He fought the powers of globalists, defunding UNRWA, the dollars that were going to Hamas against Israel and against our national security interests. He defunded the United Nations Human Rights Council. He defunded the World Health Organization.

Each one of these were things that I had introduced legislation on and many of my Republican colleagues had introduced legislation on, but our Democrat colleagues wouldn't allow us to move. The President came in and executed on those important items to get us removed from these world bureaucrats.

The President also signed a declaration declaring cartels as foreign terrorist organizations--again, a bill I introduced 5 years ago that the Democrats were blocking. The President was able to deliver. We should codify it, but we have to beat Democrats to do that.

The FACE Act: The President stopped the abuses of the FACE Act against pro-life Americans and people who have the Department of Justice abusing them for carrying out their faith, and then he pardoned the pro-life activists who had been targeted and given jail time for praying and standing in defense of life. I introduced a bill to get rid of this pernicious abuse of law. The President came in, and he executed.

January 6: Alongside pro-life observers, Americans who were charged and jailed, often unfairly targeted, were pardoned after the Federal Government conducted a massive sweep to openly punish thousands of Americans, including some of my constituents. Some of us had to go down to the jail to force them to release people who the President pardoned.

Gender sanity: In return to normalcy, the administration removed the Gender X designation on U.S. passports, a piece of legislation I was proud to introduce that JD Vance carried in the Senate when he was there.

Laken Riley Act: In March, the Laken Riley Act would ensure Federal immigration officials detain illegal aliens that commit crimes and would allow States to sue the Feds. I was proud to introduce, along with my colleague from North Carolina, Dan Bishop, the SUE for Immigration Enforcement Act, which was included in the Laken Riley Act. It will allow us to sue the government in the future when they fail to secure the border, a monumental change in allowing States to defend themselves against the abuses that we saw under Biden and Mayorkas.

Speaking of the border, perhaps the most comprehensive and consequential policy achievement under President Trump has been securing our border. With the leadership of Tom Homan, Secretary Noem, Stephen Miller, the President himself, Border Patrol, ICE, all of these great law enforcement officials, despite the criticisms of leftists and Marxist mayors and cities that refused to work with them, they have brought down the flow across our border to basically zero, a 92 percent reduction from the massive flow across our border that was endangering Americans, endangering the people.

Energy independence: Trump signed an executive order ending American dependence on unreliable energy sources and slashed $3 billion in bogus abuse of emergency spending that wasn't even being used for emergencies.

ICE officials were given access to data for the Nation's 79 million Medicaid enrollees to be able to look at it and go find illegal aliens that were using Medicaid.

The Interior Department announced today that all agency decisions related to wind and solar energy must undergo strict reviews.

The Treasury Department announced today that they are taking action to ensure no tax benefits will go to illegal aliens.

This year, we advanced a responsible budget, along with President Trump, to reflect our well-established goal to return to pre-COVID spending.

Let's look at more. This Congress, working with the President, has held spending flat for the last 2 years, and now it is flat through January. If we honor our commitments, it will be flat through next September. By holding government spending flat and growing our economy, we are reducing the size and scope of bureaucracy. We are reducing debt as a percentage of our GDP and honoring the commitment that we gave to reduce inflation and to take our country back from the grasp of debt.

We avoided a massive omnibus spending bill twice, the scourge of this town, where you have these huge omnibus bills in December, at the end of the year. We have now stopped that twice with a mix of appropriations work and continuing resolutions.

We achieved major rescissions in wasteful spending. We cut IRS funding. We gutted the Commerce slush fund. We boosted immigration enforcement and deportation operations. We set the stage for additional rescissions and pocket rescissions that the OMB Director, Russ Vought, has been able to carry out, as well as impoundments.

We delivered on cutting the Federal spending that went to the badly broken PBS and NPR. I would point out, for those who want to apologize, NPR didn't utter a word. In my district, in Kerrville, Texas, on the morning when the floods were underway, they were running ads trying to fight for their own funding, but the private radio stations were going out and putting out emergency alerts to help people. The President rightfully reduced their funding. If they want to survive, they can go compete, but they don't need taxpayer dollars for, effectively, leftist propaganda.

We were able to pass the big, beautiful bill, which is a monumental achievement in which we reduced taxes for the American people, ensured taxes wouldn't go up. We were able to secure over $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, five times the original projection of $300 billion.

We were able to end over half of the green new scam subsidies that were enriching the Chinese and enriching massive leftist corporations at the expense of the ability of the American people to have reliable grids and affordable energy.

We were able to advance welfare and Medicaid reforms, SNAP work requirements, commonsense work requirements for Medicaid.

We phased down the Medicaid provider tax threshold to save money and save hundreds of billions of dollars, cracking down on States' provider tax money-laundering schemes--which were going to illegal aliens--we saved money, made the system better and going to American citizens.

We were able to protect life by defunding Planned Parenthood and Medicaid.

We were able to protect the Second Amendment by ending taxation for suppressors and short-barreled rifles.

We were able to ensure full funding for border security, when we knew Democrats were going to shut down the government, with $150 billion set aside for continued operations for border security, as well as $150 billion for our defense, knowing that they would risk defense and border so they could try to shut down the government for political gain. We did that. We did that with the President.

We were able to ensure that our men and women in uniform didn't miss a paycheck in October, because we did that. We were able to ensure that we are continuing to revamp and restore our Defense Department, our War Department now, to a fighting machine rather than a woke indoctrination machine. Now we have enlistments at record numbers, we have people wanting to go to the military academies, proud to be in the military again, and people around the world are respecting our military again.

Now let's talk about this November continuing resolution: Democrats orchestrated the longest shutdown in history. They did so because they have nothing to run on, because they have nothing to sell to the American people except for hatred of President Trump and wanting to play games with your healthcare.

Because they broke the healthcare system, you now can't afford either health insurance or healthcare. You can't go to the doctor of your choice. If you do get any insurance, you are told that you only have a handful of doctors and that you have a massive copay or some other kind of limitation on your ability to choose a doctor. For example, in my case, as a cancer survivor, on ObamaCare, I can't go back to M.D. Anderson, which saved my life, because ObamaCare doesn't have M.D. Anderson as an option.

That is not coverage. That is fake. Democrats sold you fake coverage, and now your premiums have doubled, your copays and your deductibles have doubled or tripled, and you have fewer options for less quality care.

However, we were able to defeat the Democrat-led effort to spend another trillion and a half dollars to fund healthcare for illegals, abortions, and transgender surgeries.

We kept the reduction in workforce cuts that were made prior to the shutdown in order to hold and save money back for you, the American people, rather than bureaucrats who are at war with you.

We affirmed the President's goal of reducing the size of the bloated Federal Government, which 90 percent of Americans share.

We crafted a responsible, short-term continuing resolution through January, and now we are going to do the work to continue our job of holding spending flat.

We have done a lot. We have delivered on a large number of the promises upon which the President campaigned, on tax policy, on border security, on reductions in spending, on trying to drive down inflation, on getting interest rates under control, and we are just getting started. That is the truth. The American people are going to be the beneficiaries of that.

However, my message to my colleagues in this Chamber, and generally, is: We have miles to go. We have so much more to do. We have to continue to undo the damage of the last 12 of the last 16 years under Democrat control of the executive branch and policies that have been destroying the average, hardworking American family. We have had 10 months. We are going to continue to fight and to make those changes, but it takes a little time to unwind those damaging 12 years.

For example, healthcare, which is almost 30 percent of our budget. Healthcare is destroying the average American family. I know businesses in Austin, I know schools in Austin that are having to increase prices and increase tuition and increase what they have to deal with simply because of covering insurance premiums, which are going into the pockets of insurance companies to provide you substandard options in healthcare.

They don't provide you care. They don't. They are a middleman, a funding mechanism that gets in the way of you going to the doctor of your choice.

Republicans have plans to fix that. We have put forward those plans to fix that. Democrats block it at every turn. The simple truth is we believe in patients going to doctors. We believe in being able to share costs across Medi-Share, health-sharing ministries, other options, direct primary care, and getting bureaucrats out of your way.

We believe in ensuring that you will, in fact, have coverage that you can actually afford. We do that through the expansive ability for you to have the same tax treatment as corporations and the same tax treatment whether you are self-employed or employed by a business.

We can do that tomorrow, literally. We can transform the healthcare system in a day if we would put the legislation on the floor and Democrats would get out of the way. That is the simple truth.

The American people deserve, in a supposedly free country, to be able to go and get insurance products that work for them, doctors that are best for them, care that is best for them, and to be able to provide and take care of their families. Democrats would rather you be beholden to insurance companies, government bureaucrats, and their political priorities.

They want to scare you into believing they have got plans. They tried to do it with a shutdown. We called their bluff, and now we need to deliver healthcare freedom for the American people. We have the legislation to do it, and we have got to deliver.

We need to make sure that we address the price of housing. We shouldn't have corporate and foreign ownership of our housing supply. It is that simple. I don't know why foreign nationals and major corporations, BlackRock or otherwise, are buying up single-family residences. We should stop that. We should, frankly, give tax advantages to get rid of the ownership of those from corporations and foreign nationals to get them to American citizens so they can own those houses and own their ability to have a future for their kids and grandkids.

There are other things we can do, but we have got to drive down the price of housing, and we can do it if American citizens are the ones who are able to get access. You can get it also if you don't flood the country with literally tens of millions of people that are illegally here or through an abused legal immigration system.

Congressional stock trading: I have got to be honest, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, stop it. When you are serving out in the private sector, God bless you, do what you want to do, but when you come here and you want to serve, why don't you just pause and let's take our investments and put them in broadly held mutual funds, do our work for 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 years, and then go home.

If you want to day trade, get off the House floor because too many of my colleagues are day trading while we are voting on important issues. We could pass that tomorrow; we have just got to have the willpower to do it. The American people want us to. It is like an 85/15 issue.

Education: Give it back to the States, get out of the way, empower States and parents. Expand choice, expand those options, but don't fund bureaucrats. The President is right to dismantle the Department of Education. It was started in 1979. We put a man on the Moon in 1969. Why do we need the Department of Education? We don't.

Importantly, we need to codify what the President is doing on our border and go even further. We passed H.R. 2 in the last Congress, the most comprehensive border security plan we have ever had. It wasn't about future flow. It wasn't about amnesty. It was about securing the border. It was about fixing the broken asylum, the broken parole, the broken catch and release, all of the things that Biden and Mayorkas were using to abuse our system to flood our country with foreign nationals.

President Trump is delivering that through execution as President. We need to codify that and prevent a future administration from abusing it ever again. We could do that. We could do it tomorrow. We passed H.R. 2 in the last Congress. Let's pass it again. Let's send it to the Senate, and let's fix our broken immigration system.

I introduced legislation today to say that we should pause legal immigration except for very short-term tourist visas. Yes, pause it all. We have 51 million people in this country who are foreign born. We have massive abuses with diversity visas and chain migration in which tens of thousands of people come into our country.

We have serious abuses under H-1Bs, which are not really being used for high-skilled workers. They are often for entry-level positions. We are leaving American workers behind, and we need to reform it.

We need to reduce the magnets that are here. We need to end birthright citizenship as it is currently known and make it what the American people actually expect if you talk to them: that you are a citizen if you are born of an American citizen. You are not a citizen just because somebody walked across the Rio Grande. We have got to stop the Supreme Court's forcing of States from having to fund the education of illegal aliens, which brings me to my final point about legal immigration.

Mr. Speaker, we have got to stop allowing people who are adherent to sharia law from coming into the United States and then trying to force sharia law into our system. It is in direct conflict with Western civilization. It is in direct conflict with the Constitution and the rule of law.

If we want to see what America is going to look like across this country if we don't address it, look at Dearborn. Look at Minnesota. Look at Mamdani's election in New York. Look at London. Look at Paris. Look at Germany. Ask if that is what we want in Dallas or Houston. Ask if we want this in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ask if we want this in Atlanta, Denver, Phoenix, or anywhere else.

It is happening, and it is happening in Texas. I will fight it in Texas. I will fight it here. I have introduced legislation to deal with it, but this body has got to deal with it and speak up about it. That starts with ending the importation of people who want to undo our system. They openly say it. If they are adherent to sharia law, then they have no business being here. That is just the simple truth.

We have a country to save. We have the greatest country in the history of the world. We are making massive progress with a President who is bold and willing to lead. We need Congress to continue what we did with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and continue what we did with the Laken Riley Act. We need them to continue to do what Speaker Johnson did a great job of which is hold the line against Democrats who shut our government down for political purposes.

Now we need to drive forward and force Democrats in the Senate to deal with great legislation, to codify our border, make sure people can afford healthcare, make sure people can afford housing, and do the things we said we would do.

Mr. Speaker, I will close with this since today is Thursday and a week from today is Thanksgiving. I know that most of the people that I represent are deeply thankful to be Americans and to be Texans. Every Thanksgiving, The Wall Street Journal runs an editorial called, ``The Desolate Wilderness.'' To the best of my knowledge, I think it has run every year since 1960 or 1961. It goes like this:

``Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof:

``So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above 11 years, but they knew they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country where God hath prepared for them a city and therein quieted their spirits.

``When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

``The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other's heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide, which stays for no man, calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessings; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.

``Being now passed the vast ocean and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succor; and for the seasons it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

``Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? And what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: For which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.''

Mr. Speaker, this editorial appeared since 1961. That is what they did. They came here. Then they went into the desolate wilderness and carved into it a great country, a country that has seen its fortunes rise because of our collective recognition of our faith in the Almighty and our willingness to acknowledge it, such that the Speaker stands below the phrase ``In God We Trust'' here in this Chamber.

If we dare to leave the faith that built this country, then this country will lose the blessings that have been bestowed upon it. We are ever thankful to live in a country where we are free to believe what we want, where we can think what we want, and where we can say what we want for the most part.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to setting up a country and a system of laws, they must bind us together. They must bind us together as a community, the kind of community that could pull people from the four corners of a country to sit in foxholes together, to fight the most evil forces in World War II and beyond, without question, without fail, because we were bound together as Americans.

That is who we are. We must fight for it every day. We must fight to keep her. We do that here by stopping the ridiculousness and spending money we don't have to indebt our children and grandchildren.

We do it here if we pass policies that will allow the American people to prosper under their own devices, to be able to afford healthcare and houses and food for their families, without interference from people here who say they know best in the false name of compassion.

We do it here when we secure our communities with secure borders and security laws and to make sure criminals don't roam free on the streets but that law-abiding citizens can prosper by walking freely on the streets, knowing they will be safe.

We do it mostly if we adhere to our faith in the Lord Almighty, acknowledge that faith, and fight to defend our collective belief in him. We have people who wish to undermine that way of life. It is real. We cannot win a war that we refuse to acknowledge exists. That war is here. We either fight right now to save this country for our kids and our grandkids or we lose it forever.

This Thanksgiving, I will be ever thankful to be an American, to be a Texan, and to live free. I am evermore committed to double down to save this country for our kids and grandkids. It is the responsible action here on this House floor and as a responsible member of my community back home in Texas and in every step that I try to take.

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