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12Congressional Earmarks, Limited Tax Benefits, or Limited Tariff Benefits
Daily Digest
Public Bills and Resolutions Introduced
69 public bills, H.R. 2023- 2091; and 10 resolutions, H. Con. Res. 19; and H. Res. 212-220, were introduced.
Pages H1147-51
Report Filed
A report was filed today as follows: H. Res. 211, providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 25) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Internal Revenue Service relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales''; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1156) to amend the CARES Act to extend the statute of limitations for fraud under certain unemployment programs, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1968) making further continuing appropriations and other extensions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes; and for other purposes (H. Rept. 119-15).
Page H1147
Speaker
Read a letter from the Speaker wherein he appointed Representative De La Cruz to act as Speaker pro tempore for today.
Page H1071
Recess
The House recessed at 11:21 a.m. and reconvened at 12 p.m.
Page H1080
Returning Senate Joint Resolution 3 to the Senate
The House agreed to H. Res. 212, returning Senate Joint Resolution 3 to the Senate.
Page H1093
Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act
The House passed H.R. 1156, to amend the CARES Act to extend the statute of limitations for fraud under certain unemployment programs, by a yea-and-nay vote of 295 yeas to 127 nays, Roll No. 68.
Pages H1093-99, H1124
Pursuant to the Rule, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Ways and Means now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted.
Page H1083
H. Res. 211, the rule providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 25) and the bills (H.R. 1156) and (H.R. 1968) was agreed to be a recorded vote of 215 ayes to 214 noes, Roll No. 67, after the previous question was ordered by a yea-and-nay vote of 216 yeas to 212 nays, Roll No. 66.
Pages H1092-93
Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025
The House passed H.R. 1968, making further continuing appropriations and other extensions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, by a yea-and-nay vote of 217 yeas to 213 nays, Roll No. 70.
Pages H1102-1124, H1125-26
Rejected the Meng motion to recommit the bill to the Committee on Appropriations with a yea-and-nay vote of 213 yeas to 216 nays, Roll No. 69.
Pages H1124-25
Pursuant to the Rule, the amendment printed in H. Rept. 119-15 shall be considered as adopted.
Page H1102
H. Res. 211, the rule providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 25) and the bills (H.R. 1156) and (H.R. 1968) was agreed to be a recorded vote of 215 ayes to 214 noes, Roll No. 67, after the previous question was ordered by a yea-and-nay vote of 216 yeas to 212 nays, Roll No. 66.
Pages H1092-93
Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Internal Revenue Service relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales'': The House passed H.J. Res. 25, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Internal Revenue Service relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales'', by a yea-and-nay vote of 292 yeas to 132 nays with one answering ``present'', Roll No. 71.
Page H1126
H. Res. 211, the rule providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 25) and the bills (H.R. 1156) and (H.R. 1968) was agreed to be a recorded vote of 215 ayes to 214 noes, Roll No. 67, after the previous question was ordered by a yea-and-nay vote of 216 yeas to 212 nays, Roll No. 66.
Pages H1092-93
Suspensions: Proceedings Resumed
The House agreed to suspend the rules and pass the following measures. Consideration began Monday, March 10th. DHS Biodetection Improvement Act: H.R. 706, to improve the biodetection functions of the Department of Homeland Security; and
Page H1126
Amending the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to enable secure and trustworthy technology through other transaction contracting authority
H.R. 1692, to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to enable secure and trustworthy technology through other transaction contracting authority.
Page H1127
Committee Elections
The House agreed to H. Res. 213, electing Members to a certain standing committee of the House of Representatives.
Page H1127
Committee Elections
The House agreed to H. Res. 214, electing Members to certain standing committees of the House of Representatives.
Page H1127
Work Period Designation
Read a letter from the Speaker wherein he designated the period from Tuesday, March 11, 2025, through Sunday, March 23, 2025, as a ``district work period'' under clause 13 of rule 1.
Page H1130
Quorum Calls Votes
Five yea-and-nay votes and one recorded vote developed during the proceedings of today and appear on pages H1092, H1092-93, H1124, H1124-25, H1125-26 and H1126. Adjournment: The House met at 10 a.m. and adjourned at 7:50 p.m.
Every speech and line is the Congressional Record's own text, read from GovInfo. Speakers are matched to members by GPO's own metadata. Referandom places each turn on the Clerk's video by matching its words: 181 of 324 spoken turns were found. Turns without a time are still listed; they just can't seek.
Morning-Hour Debate
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of January 3, 2025, the Chair will now recognize Members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning-hour debate.
The Chair will alternate recognition between the parties, with time equally allocated between the parties and each Member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip limited to 5 minutes, but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Juuso Young of Port Allegany, Pennsylvania.
Juuso recently accepted a fully qualified appointment to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Juuso is the son of Ink and Andrew Young and the grandson of Pat and Paul Young of Clearfield, Pennsylvania.
As a student at Port Allegany High School, Young is active in the classroom, on the athletic field, and on the stage. He is the senior class president, a member of the chorus, a varsity athlete in two sports, the captain of the varsity football team, and a member of the Keystone Boys State.
Outside of the school, Juuso is an active volunteer with the YMCA, earning him the Youth Volunteer of the Year Award.
I thank Juuso for his commitment to service and wish him the very best of luck as he embarks on this exciting phase of life at West Point.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and congratulate Avary Powell of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
Avary recently accepted a fully qualified appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Avary is the daughter of Melissa and Mark Powell, and she is the granddaughter of Margaret and David Young of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and Carol and Gary Stonbraker of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
Avary is a senior at Punxsutawney Area High School, where she has excelled in and out of the classroom. As captain of the varsity basketball and softball teams, Avary is a strong leader. She also serves as the senior class secretary and vice president of the National Honor Society.
Avary is an outstanding young woman who excels academically and demonstrates strong leadership in her community. Her dedication and work ethic as a student will undoubtedly serve her well as she embarks on her military career at the United States Naval Academy.
Madam Speaker, I wish Avary the best in Annapolis, and I look forward to seeing all that she achieves.
Congratulating Cory Matejovich on Air Force Academy Appointment
Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and recognize Cory Matejovich of Howard, Pennsylvania. Cory accepted a fully qualified appointment to the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Cory is a senior at Middletown Valley Academy. He is the son of Elizabeth and Todd Matejovich. He is the grandson of Marlene and Terry Matejovich of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Judy Fredericks of Huntington Beach, California.
Cory is a cadet colonel with the Civil Air Patrol. He is also a licensed private pilot, an Eagle Scout, and a member of the cross- country and swimming teams. Cory is also one of only 2,567 individuals to earn a Spaatz Award since its inception in 1964.
Colonel Matejovich's years of hard work, discipline, and leadership have exemplified the core values of the Civil Air Patrol and will serve him well at the academy.
Madam Speaker, I thank Cory for his commitment to the Nation, and I wish him the best of luck in Colorado Springs.
Madam Speaker, it was an honor to nominate these young students. Their dedication to serving our country is inspirational. I look forward to seeing their successes in the years to come.
I thank them all again for their commitment to our Nation.
Madam Speaker, on the evening of February 27, the Community Legal Aid Society of Delaware, CLASI, was informed that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was immediately terminating their fair housing enforcement grant at the direction of DOGE.
This funding, which amounts to nearly half a million dollars, represents roughly 4 percent of CLASI's entire annual budget. It is a devastating blow to a well-respected, beloved, and vital organization that has been the sole enforcer of Federal fair housing laws in Delaware for decades.
Since 2004, CLASI has been a critical player in protecting Delawareans from discrimination in housing transactions, whether they are buying, selling, renting, or simply trying to secure a safe place to live.
For many of our most vulnerable residents, including individuals with disabilities, survivors of domestic violence, and low-income families, CLASI has been a beacon of hope and a lifeline in pursuit of safe, quality, and affordable housing.
Before CLASI began receiving HUD funding, much of this mistreatment went undetected, with only a small number of complaints filed and investigated each year. Yet, in just the first 2 years of receiving HUD support, the number of discrimination investigations in Delaware doubled. That number only continued to rise as CLASI expanded their work.
Let me share some recent examples of the vital work of CLASI. This is work that has now been jeopardized by President Trump's cuts.
A Delaware woman was injured in a horrible act of domestic violence. As she missed work for medical appointments and struggled financially, her landlord threatened eviction. CLASI stepped in, preventing the eviction, securing funds for the landlord, and ensuring this survivor of domestic violence was able to remain safely in her home.
Another Delaware woman was facing life-threatening harassment from an abuser. She was in urgent need of a safe place to live but was trapped by a landlord refusing to let her end her lease. CLASI was able to negotiate an early termination of her lease and helped her preserve her section 8 voucher, enabling her to escape her abuser and find a safe home for herself and her children.
There is an elderly woman who, after becoming wheelchair bound, was confined to her apartment on the third floor of a building that lacked an elevator. For nearly a year, she struggled to get the building to address her need for a safer, accessible unit. It wasn't until CLASI intervened that she was able to secure a transfer to a ground-floor unit, finally allowing her to live with dignity and safety.
These are just a few of the examples of the impacts that CLASI has had on individuals and families in Delaware. Across the country, other fair housing organizations are facing the same fate, the same heartbreaking cuts by this administration.
As of the current grant year, CLASI has handled 163 fair housing cases. That is 163 families, individuals, and neighbors who are able to access support and the protections guaranteed by Federal law. That is 163 instances where CLASI's expertise and commitment have kept someone in their home or ensured that they could have housing that met their needs.
Since the actions of President Trump took effect, all of that is at risk. At a time when the American Dream remains unaffordable and inaccessible for many and when housing, even basic shelter, remains out of reach for working people, this administration's actions make that problem worse. The termination of this funding is not just a fiscal hit. It is an attack on the principle of fairness.
Housing isn't a luxury. It is a basic need. I will continue to fight to restore these funds. I will fight for the future of CLASI and other fair housing programs, and I will fight to ensure that every person in Delaware and across the country can rent or buy a safe, quality, and affordable home.
The Delawareans' lives touched by CLASI's work should know that I stand with them. I will fight for them. Together, we will continue the work of guaranteeing fair housing for all.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from trafficking the well while other Members are under recognition.
Mr. Speaker, I rise with a heavy heart to join Buffalo's LGBTQ+ and arts communities in mourning the tragic and senseless deaths of Michael ``Mickey'' Harmon and Jordan Celotto.
We remember these two extraordinary artists, activists, and partners for the impact they made on the lives of countless people. Mickey Harmon's art captured the heart and soul of Buffalo: its beauty, its grit, its history, and its potential.
Mickey's vision and skill, in partnership with his fellow artist and activist Ari Moore, told the story of Buffalo's LGBTQ+ heroes on a mural in the heart of Buffalo's gay nightlife neighborhood. Mickey showcased his art at The Good Stuff, his store on beloved Allen Street, selling everything from prints of Buffalo's architectural beauty to his famous Metallica-inspired Cheektowaga T-shirt.
His talent can be seen in murals across Buffalo, including most recently the beautiful work he completed at the Friends of Night People.
Mickey thrived as a leader in Buffalo's LGBTQ+ and arts communities. For 7 years, he organized Allentown's First Fridays, leading to the galleries and shops on Allen Street to stay open late on the first Friday of every month to promote small businesses.
He organized innumerable festivals, celebrations, and other programming such as Exist and Intersect that celebrated and showcased the work of queer artists.
Just the weekend after his tragic and untimely death, he was scheduled to debut his newest event featuring performance art, music, and dancing. That event instead became a celebration of life for Mickey and Jordan, a heartbreaking yet fitting tribute to their legacies.
Jordan, too, was a fixture on the arts scene, working with Mickey to pull off event after event, selflessly giving back to the community. He found his professional home at Remedy House, a unique cafe on Buffalo's west side, where he was known for his warm smile, his can-do attitude, and his commitment to his colleagues.
Jordan came to Buffalo from Canada about 5 years ago, after meeting Mickey. The two of them truly completed each other, building a home filled with love, complete with their beloved cats, Beef and Chicken.
Mr. Speaker, I will close with some of Mickey's own words to the city he loved which he released in a series of postcards at the height of the pandemic: ``Let us be reminded of our community's past and present so we can all look forward to a more positive future.'' ``It is your Buffalo. It is my Buffalo. We are all neighbors.''
Mr. Speaker, may the families and friends of Mickey Harmon and Jordan Celotto be comforted by the joyful memories they each leave behind, and may we all do more to build a world they would be proud of. May they rest in peace.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate Theodore W. ``Ted'' Lina on receiving the 2025 St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute Man of the Year award.
Ted is an educator, mentor, and institution in the St. Joe's community, striving for excellence and inspiring generations of students, including myself.
Mr. Lina has dedicated his career to instilling a deep respect for history, a nuanced understanding of government, and a reverence for civic engagement in his students.
Since 1983, Mr. Lina has brought his passion and expertise to his AP government class, however, his impact extends far beyond the classroom.
In 1984, Mr. Lina hosted the very first St. Joe's political debate. The event stemmed from Mr. Lina's passion for local politics and American Government.
For more than 40 years, the SJCI Political Debate has grown into one of the seminal, annual public forums for political discourse in the entire region.
Through his leadership in the SJCI Political Debate, Mr. Lina has helped cultivate a generation of informed, engaged citizens.
During the debates, students serve as panelists, fact checkers, and timekeepers, but learn lessons that are applied later in life as many go on to serve in public life, law, business, and beyond.
Mr. Lina embodies the Lasallian spirit of faith, service, and community. His commitment to St. Joe's and its mission is evident in the countless students he has inspired over so many years.
At a time when our political discourse has deteriorated such that finding common ground seems impossible, this work is more important than ever.
On behalf of western New York and a proud Marauder, and student of his myself, I extend my deepest gratitude and congratulations to Mr. Lina. This honor is well deserved.
Mr. Speaker, I thank him for his unwavering dedication to our alma mater and for shaping the future leaders of our community. Enjoy the celebration, and as always, let's go St. Joe's.
Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize March 10 through March 16 as Brain Awareness Week.
During Brain Awareness Week, neuroscientists around the world educate young students and the public on the wonders of the human brain. These activities will contribute to a public understanding of brain function, scientific research, and bring awareness to the brain disorders and diseases that directly affect the lives of nearly 100 million Americans.
Groups such as the Society for Neuroscience meet with legislators across Capitol Hill to educate us on the biggest issues facing scientists today, including the importance of robust funding for research agencies and programs such as the NIH and the BRAIN Initiative.
Researchers across the country rely on this funding to be able to conduct their groundbreaking work into a variety of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, traumatic brain injuries, and mental health disorders.
It is our responsibility to ensure funding continues because the potential to find a cure isn't a matter of if, but absolutely when.
One of the leading programs in advancing our understanding of the brain has been the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, the BRAIN Initiative.
The BRAIN Initiative has been instrumental in developing tools and technologies revolutionizing the field of neuroscience. For more than a decade, research supported by the BRAIN Initiative has led to major breakthroughs. For example, researchers have gained new knowledge on how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information. Basic research such as this is critically important to find cures and treatments for disease and brain disorders.
The BRAIN Initiative has resulted in numerous key accomplishments that have fundamentally changed our understanding of the brain's neural circuits. The BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network revealed the genetic, cellular, and structural makeup of the human brain and nonhuman primate brain, paving the way for a new generation of precision treatments for people with brain disorders.
Researchers have been able to develop the first complete cell atlas of a whole mouse brain through the BRAIN Initiative which characterizes more than 32 million cells across the mouse's brain and provides critical information that extends to the study of neural circuits and how they underpin behavior in health and disease.
The impact of BRAIN Initiative is far-reaching. Through separate research projects, BRAIN-funding cells census tools are being used to actively investigate disorders of the brain such as Alzheimer's disease and opioid use disorder.
The BRAIN Initiative has also transformed the way we do science, fostering collaborations among large teams of researchers. This collaborative approach has enabled researchers to tackle large problems and deliver knowledge and resources on a scale not previously possible in neurosciences. These accomplishments are expanding our fundamental knowledge of brain function and paving the way
BRAIN is lifting all boats, ranging from basic science to disease- focused research in a complex neuroscience research ecosystem involving government, industry, philanthropy, and healthcare systems.
Building on a remarkable decade of innovation and discovery, the BRAIN Initiative is now setting its sights high with large-scale projects aiming to break current barriers in knowledge and technology related to human brain science, and it is critical we continue to support and invest in this initiative moving forward.
In addition to all the amazing work being done in brain disease and disorders, we should also, as a forward-thinking, innovative country, become citizen scientists curious about how to sustain brain health, even in the absence of disease or disorder.
Viewing the brain from more than a medical perspective to include thinking proactively about optimizing its daily performance is what Brain Awareness Week can inspire.
Imagine a world where information and tools that can benefit the brain of every American, regardless of age or stage, were accessible to all. The impact on education, industry, and military would be profound. It is vital that we inspire the next generation of scientists to continue brain research. The discoveries made by these future scientists will shape the next frontier of medicine, unlocking new treatments, therapies, and ultimately cures for conditions that affect millions of families across our Nation.
Madam Speaker, as co-chair of the Congressional Neuroscience Caucus, I urge my colleagues to join me in recognizing Brain Awareness Week and the contributions that thousands of dedicated scientists are making to unlock these mysteries behind the human brain.
Madam Speaker, last week, President Trump came in this Chamber and said he was going to balance the budget immediately. I will just go over some facts, not politically speaking, just facts.
We have got a $36 trillion debt. That is where we stand.
Currently, we are running a $1.8 trillion deficit. If you were to balance the budget, that would be zero and we should stay at a $36 trillion debt.
What does President Trump do with the Republicans? What is their budget? Their budget actually is going to add $28 trillion of debt over the next 10 years.
Here is the kicker. It is not just that they aren't balancing it to keep it at $36 trillion; it is that they are adding more debt by adding to the deficits more than the current deficits.
The current deficit projection would add $23.9 trillion of debt, but the Republicans want to add $28.5 trillion of debt, $4.6 trillion more of debt spending than the current deficit spending.
I just ask for some math. You want to deficit spend to have tax breaks for the wealthy because you think that will help the economy, fine, but every American should look at this chart because the Republican budget is making the deficit and the debt worse. It is not balancing the budget.
Now I will speak about my second chart.
Madam Speaker, many of us want to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from government, so where should we look first? Well, how about the Pentagon, which has 13 percent of the Federal budget.
Mr. Musk, who I have known for 15 years, is firing all these veterans. Is he saving money? Let's look at this chart. All of the DOGE firings, 0.004 percent of the budget, is where Mr. Musk's cuts have come. That is 455 times less than the Republican tax breaks, which are 1.82 percent of the budget.
I don't understand it.
Elon, you are an engineer. You are cutting 0.004 percent, while the Republicans are providing 455 times that in a tax break and you are not touching the main budget of 13 percent of the Pentagon.
I have a proposal for you. You can either come to Congress to explain this chart while you are going after 0.004 percent or USAID, which is 0.7 percent, as opposed to going to the 13 percent of the Pentagon budget while you are allowing tax breaks of 455 times more than the savings you are finding at DOGE--YOU can either come to Congress or you can go to Jon Stewart.
Jon Stewart called you out and said: Why not, if you want to cut waste, cut the Pentagon defense contract budget? Why not cut the fossil fuel subsidies? Why not cut the drug manufacturers who are ripping off the government?
Let's talk math about how you get actual cuts because right now you are cutting 0.004 percent while not going after any of the real ``holy cows'' in our government.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks to the Chair and not to a perceived viewing audience.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor and celebrate the life of a west Texas giant, a proud Texas Tech Red Raider, a loving husband and father, and my dear friend, John Billingsley.
From humble beginnings in O'Donnell, Texas, John's entrepreneurial spirit and west Texas work ethic propelled him to a series of successful ventures, becoming one of the most accomplished business leaders in the entire country.
A common man with uncommon character, endless vision, and a love for God and people as big as the west Texas horizon, John was the epitome of the American Dream. His life was proof that greatness is often found in the most obscure places and within the most unassuming people.
John was a true gentleman whose uncanny business acumen was matched only by his humility, integrity, and authenticity.
John's story reminds us that with big dreams, hard work, and determination, the opportunities in this great country of ours are endless.
We grieve this great loss with his loving wife, Harriett, and the entire Billingsley family. We pray God's comfort for them, but we celebrate alongside them, as well. We celebrate John's amazing life and legacy and all the tremendous contributions he made to his friends, family, community, and our beloved country.
God bless the Billingsley family, and go west Texas.
Madam Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to honor the life of Jonathan Nicholas Williams, beloved husband, father, true west Texan, and dear friend of mine.
When I first met Jon at a Farm Bureau meeting in Terry County, he was brutally honest, direct, and plainspoken, like a lot of ag producers. While the meeting was tension filled, we became fast friends.
Jon was the epitome of a west Texas farmer, no doubt: hardworking, God-fearing, and humble, a man who was totally dedicated to his family, community, and friends.
Anyone who knew Jon would tell you that his greatest source of joy was his family, his beautiful children, Paisley, Lexi, Owen, and Willow, whom he raised with the love and support of his wife, Melissa. A proud and committed father, he instilled in his children the values of personal responsibility, perseverance, and, of course, a love of the land.
I know I speak for the entire community of west Texas when I say that the Williams family is in our prayers, and our entire community stands ready to care for them in the same way that Jon cared for us, his community, and his friends.
May God comfort the Williams family, and may He give all of us the courage and character that Jon had to live up to his legacy of truth- telling, servant leadership, and fighting for all we believe is good and right in this world.
May God bless my friend, Jon, and may he rest in peace. Blessings on his family. Go west Texas.
Madam Speaker, I rise today because something is rotten in the state of our government.
Over the past 50 days, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE have willfully spread chaos and confusion inside Federal agencies. They have gleefully fired thousands of employees. By taking out their chain saw and cutting down to the bone, this Republican administration is maliciously hurting the American people. We also know they have their sights on Social Security and Medicare, per Elon Musk's statement that it is the ``big one'' to cut.
This isn't fear-mongering. It gives me no pleasure to report these facts, but we need to be honest. The speed, scope, and scale with which these bad-faith actors are disrupting lives is unprecedented.
While attention has been on the impact of firings in Washington, this is not a Washington story--far from it. In fact, fewer than one in five Federal workers live in D.C., Maryland, or Virginia. That is right, the ongoing efforts to cut back the Federal Government are falling on the over 80 percent of workers who live outside the beltway. They are falling on everyday Americans who rely on our government in countless ways, big and small.
Today, I would like to share some stories from Rhode Island of those being hurt by Donald Trump's callous disregard for public service.
I will start with a constituent of mine from Barrington, Rhode Island, who works in international development. Since December, she has been employed by a nonprofit organization that helps children with disabilities outside of the United States. The way she explains it: ``Eliminating USAID in its entirety has hollowed out what used to be the largest bilateral aid agency in the world. When these programs stop, kids suffer. They lose access to shelter, medical care, clean water, food, and education.''
Cuts to U.S. foreign aid have forced the nonprofit to start laying off people. They have lost thousands in the field and terminated hundreds more on the international programs team. This hurts our humanitarian and national security goals.
Every day, my constituent goes to work worried that their job will be next on the chopping block. Worse still, because of potential cuts to Medicaid that Republicans are pursuing in their budget resolution, she is worried whether her family, including her two young sons, will have health insurance if she loses her job.
My question is: Is the cruelty worth it, Madam Speaker?
It is not just those who project American influence abroad. It is also those who carry their service forward after serving in uniform. The Federal Government is the largest employer of our brave veterans. Thirty percent of the Federal workforce are veterans, including one of my constituents from Bristol, Rhode Island. As a disabled veteran with 23 years of service, my constituent was unceremoniously fired from his position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on February 27.
In his letter, he had asked the Department of Commerce if he could receive a letter of displacement to acquire another Federal position versus having to apply as a member of the public. He received no answer, but then again no longer had the access to find out. Thankfully, we learned yesterday that he was reinstated and will report to work tomorrow.
The question is, though, how many veterans have not been so lucky? How many are now scrambling for a job, wondering if their ``thank you for your service'' is an unceremonious pink slip?
It is shameful. It is un-American. It is wrong.
I want to end on a hopeful note. Recently, I heard from Stephanie, a constituent from North Smithfield, Rhode Island.
Stephanie isn't a Federal employee. She is a researcher who went into the field after personally experiencing and seeing her loved ones experience diseases with few treatment options available.
Stephanie earned her Ph.D. in experimental and molecular science. Today, she is a post-doctoral research fellow working to find treatments for neurofibromatosis type 1. Currently, her job is safe. Cuts to research through the National Institutes of Health have been halted by a Federal judge. I proudly led more than 150 of my colleagues in a letter to support this bipartisan--yes, bipartisan--funding priority.
The overall point remains, though: Cuts to Federal funding and Federal workers affect millions of Americans across the country.
Our community is lucky to have researchers, veterans, international aid workers, agricultural experts, and meteorologists. They work to find cures, promote American interests, predict the weather, and keep us healthy, fed, and safe. Their jobs aren't just a line item on a budget. They are about people. They are about Americans who care about our country and the direction of where we are going. Each one of them has done the most American thing possible. They have dedicated their lives to making our Nation a better place.
Madam Speaker, I rise to highlight the rampant fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid that is draining American taxpayers and hurting our most vulnerable seniors, disabled, and other Americans who rely on this program.
Yesterday, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, told us something shocking, that one out of four Medicaid payments are improper payments--one out of every four.
This echoes a 2024 report from the Biden administration's Office of Management and Budget that designated Medicaid and Medicare as a high priority for susceptibility to fraud, waste, abuse, improper payments, and overpayments.
In 2024, the Government Accountability Office released a report estimating over $100 billion in improper payments were made in the Medicare and Medicaid programs for the fiscal year 2023.
Now, I could read some of these headlines that highlight it in the media. There was a CNBC report that detailed how Medicare and Medicaid programs are being brazenly targeted by sophisticated criminals to the tune of $100 billion a year.
``Lack of State oversight spurs Medicaid fraud,'' says Spectrum New York.
``Scammers ripped off NY's controversial Medicaid home care program to the tune of $68 million,'' from the New York Post.
The New York Times says: ``Staggering Rise in Catheter Bills Suggests Medicare Scam.''
``Florida Man Indicted for [Medicare and] Wire Fraud . . . in $97 Million Scheme.''
``Medicaid program suspended from two south Jersey nursing homes,'' after being ``accused of taking $83 million from nursing homes funded by New York Medicare and Medicaid.''
``Fiscal year 2023 proved to be a high-value one for healthcare frauds and settlements, with the DOJ totaling $2 billion in illicit activity.''
In California: ``Attorney General Bonta Announces Indictment of Southern California Healthcare Provider for Medi-Cal Fraud of Nearly $60 Million.''
CEO of ``Digital Health Company Arrested for $100M Adderall Distribution and Healthcare Fraud Scheme.''
In New York: ``Doctor Convicted of $24M Medicaid Fraud Scheme.''
``Attorney General James Announces Convictions and Sentences of Five Taxi Company Owners in Orange and Rensselaer Counties for Stealing Millions from Medicaid.''
``Florida Telemarketer Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison for $67 Million in Medicare Fraud Scheme.''
In San Antonio: ``Hill County doctor sentenced 10 years in prison, $26 million in restitution for Medicaid fraud scheme.''
I can go on and on, reading headline after headline about the rampant fraud and abuse in this program that is actually taking away--that is what is hurting our vulnerable Americans who rely on this program, the fraudsters who are stealing the money.
My Governor, Kathy Hochul, lied to New Yorkers about what Republicans
Kathy Hochul said it herself in her own words. She pointed out how fraudulent the program is. In July 2024, the Governor said that the State's Medicaid Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program has ``become a racket.'' She said it is ``one of the most abused programs in the entire history of the State of New York.'' She said that the current trajectory of Medicaid spending is ``not sustainable.''
Other Democrats have pointed out the same things. Attorney General Garland, President Biden's Attorney General, in a 2024 speech regarding healthcare fraud, announced charges against 193 defendants for over $2.75 billion in false Medicare and Medicaid claims, and that was just one event.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a January 2025 speech, said: ``Companies that illegally profit by exploiting Medicaid patients steal taxpayer money and undermine the healthcare system that all New Yorkers rely on.''
To my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, let's work together to actually fix this. Let's work together to go after those fraudsters to eliminate this abuse that we are seeing in this system so we can preserve this very important program that our seniors, our disabled, our children with developmental disabilities, and vulnerable Americans rely on. Let's not play partisan politics with something that is so critically important to so many New Yorkers and Americans across the country.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate who I believe will be the next winner of ``American Idol,'' Sierra Vista High School's own and Nevada Third District constituent Isaiah Misailegalu.
Over the weekend, I watched Isaiah get his golden ticket to Hollywood after singing ``A Song for You,'' with his uncle playing the guitar by his side. With a voice like his, it is no wonder they are calling him Samoan Silk.
Not only is Isaiah a powerful and talented singer, but he also shines on the football field and volleyball court and in leading his school's Polynesian Club.
No matter what Isaiah does, I hope he knows that the entire southern Nevada community is behind him chasing his dreams. I wish him the best of luck on his ``American Idol'' journey.
Madam Speaker, as we take on the continuing resolution, once again it is not the best way of doing business around here. We should be grinding through the twelve different points that the appropriations process has.
At least there is good news as CRs go in that part of it that is being plussed up includes the issue with our military.
A lot of times when CRs occur, our military is the one that gets shorted on that. They have to plan for the long term for weapons systems, what they need in upgraded facilities, and take care of the personnel in the process. This does boost up our military needs to an extent in the CR.
It will upgrade all four branches--Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines-- that are on the front lines. It will strengthen their readiness and help modernize some of their infrastructure. Delays, of course, put these projects at risk. That is why it is important that the CR be done timely.
As I mentioned, family housing is a very important aspect for the comfort and efficiency of our personnel. It is directed towards improvements in the living conditions for the servicemembers and their families. Stable funding makes sure these projects stay on track.
The Arlington National Cemetery, of course, has amazing meaning to our whole country, especially those that have fallen and would be interred there. There are improvements there for a better process for people to be able to get in and out of the facility, as well as the ceremonies that might be held there.
We have a significant improvement in veterans' healthcare, medical services, community care, and facility improvements to ensure veterans can get the good healthcare that they need and deserve. Uncertainty does not help that to remain. That is why passing the CR at this time is important.
For retirement homes for veterans, it ensures they will have facilities that continue to stay on track, whether new ones are built or continued upgrades and maintenance is not passed over.
One of the aspects that we are disappointed with not getting into the continuing resolution has bipartisan support. I am pleased to work with my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Neguse) on what is known as Secure Rural Schools. That is a fund that we do every single year. It is nothing new. It is nothing that is going to plus-up spending around here or require additional budget effort. It is something that is basically there to supplement the income at the local level, for counties.
It is called SRS, Secure Rural Schools. A large part of it goes to help local schools, as well as county roads. This funding used to come from the timber industry which overlaps so many of the areas that the SRS fund would go to.
With the decimation of the timber industry starting really in the late seventies and the eighties, and the spotted owl movement and other environmental concerns that have made it just nearly impossible in some cases to do the timber harvest that is really needed to be done, this program came along and replaced those receipts.
It is fairly tough every year to come here. Our county supervisors come here hat in hand every year and ask us to support the SRS one more time. These are dollars that have to come from the U.S. Treasury rather than from the forest and the industry.
Until such point as we can get a much more viable timber industry going again in this country with a much more streamlined process of permitting, especially on Federal Forest Service land, why should it be difficult to do things that make good sense as far as thinning our forests and harvesting from it? It is a renewable resource. We plant it back, and the trees grow again.
What we do instead is we seem to ignore that fact and just let them burn year after year, especially in the Western States. In my own district, we had a million-acre fire 3 years ago; a 400,000-acre fire last year; a 600,000-acre fire a couple of years before that, time after time.
All my colleagues in the Western States pretty much can point to that same thing happening in their States as well, millions of acres burned every year in the West. For some reason, the U.S. is now the number one importer of wood and paper products and the number one importer of lumber. What are we doing here?
We have to come hat in hand each year and ask for funding from the Treasury to replace an industry that we need and to replace wood and paper products that we use regularly in our daily lives. Heaven knows, this place goes through a lot of paper. Why should we have that come from foreign forests somewhere?
When I am at the railroad crossing back home waiting on a train, I see all these loads of lumber and Canadian wheat coming south. Why aren't we doing that at home? We need to get SRS in the next round.
Madam Speaker, I rise today in defiance of the House Republicans' partisan funding bill.
Democrats pulled up a seat for Republican leadership at the negotiating table to discuss a bipartisan solution, but Republicans walked away.
What did Republicans propose instead?
A blank check to Donald Trump and Elon Musk to take money away from you and spend as they will.
For years, I have heard my Republican colleagues talk about the power of the purse and how that power belongs to Congress and Congress alone.
What do I hear now? Silence.
Now that Republicans are in control of Congress, they decide to bend the knee to Donald Trump. Republicans are giving Donald Trump and Elon Musk the power to decide who gets money and who doesn't. Based on these last 8 weeks, we know who Trump prioritizes: his billionaire friends and big corporations. He does not care for veterans, workers with disabilities, children, senior citizens, farmers, or families just trying to make ends meet.
Republicans will try to call this a clean continuing resolution. Believe me, that is a bunch of fill-in-the-blanks because this is far from clean. The Republican funding bill has dirt all over it.
With this bill, the Trump administration will decide construction funding by the Army Corps of Engineers. Trump will cut funds for lead pipe replacements for schools, better water mains to prevent flooding, and better streets for our communities.
Elon Musk and DOGE have proven how little they care for our veterans. They made sweeping staffing cuts to veterans' centers across the country, including in Danville, Illinois. My office has gotten calls from workers and some vets who were fired for no justifiable reason, impacting their own families and the veterans they care for.
The Republican funding bill goes even further, cutting $23 billion in veterans' benefits. It gives Trump permission to eliminate programs for veterans, including homelessness prevention programs, which could lead to more than 32,000 veterans losing their homes. These are people who defended our country.
Trump would also have the power to reallocate funding dedicated to maternal and child health programs, including Healthy Start, rural maternal health initiatives, and maternity care training.
For over a decade, I have rolled up my sleeves to save mothers who are dying from preventative pregnancy-related causes. In the middle of a maternal mortality crisis, Trump would sign away all the programs that help mothers and babies.
Trump likes to talk a big game about border control and our country's fentanyl crisis. He plays as the world's biggest bully and hits our closest allies with tariffs. Meanwhile, Republicans give Trump the power to steer funding dedicated to stopping the flow of fentanyl and instead spend that money on mass deportation initiatives.
Last September, Kankakee County in my district received funding to help law enforcement crack down on illicit drug trafficking and address the overdose epidemic. That funding would stop under the Republican bill.
You heard at the joint address to Congress last week that RFK, Jr., is free to run with his conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination lies. This bill would give him broad discretion to spend money as he wishes at the CDC, ignoring critical lifesaving programs like ending the HIV epidemic initiative, Alzheimer's disease programs, and cancer prevention.
If you are not part of the 1 percent, House Republicans and Donald Trump simply do not care about you. It does not matter if you are Democrat, Republican, or Independent. This partisan funding bill proves it. Republicans are giving Donald Trump the green light to do as he wishes, and we all know that he does not have the American people in mind.
I, alongside House Democrats, have also been at the negotiation table, but we will never negotiate away veterans' benefits, healthcare, or people's Social Security. I refuse to betray my constituents. Please stand up, speak out, and make your voices heard.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities towards the President.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 40th anniversary of Access Independence, a dedicated organization serving people with disabilities in Virginia's Northern Shenandoah Valley.
For four decades, Access Independence has been a beacon of hope and empowerment, promoting independent living through essential services and resources.
Founded in 1985 as one of 17 centers for independent living in Virginia, Access Independence has continuously expanded its impact, offering independent living skills training, peer mentoring, information and referral, and advocacy services to the counties of Clarke, Frederick, Page, Shenandoah, Warren, and the city of Winchester.
Led by Middletown Mayor Charles Harbaugh and guided by core values of empowerment, integrity, respect, and equal rights, Access Independence's dedicated team has touched thousands of lives. Last year alone, it served 678 clients and generously provided over 200 pieces of medical equipment to those in need.
Mr. Speaker, please join me in congratulating Access Independence on this significant milestone and wishing them continued success in the years ahead.
Mr. Speaker, over the last few weeks, Americans have actively watched the dismantling of Social Security and direct attacks on our seniors, our families, and also our veterans.
I have heard directly from my constituents, and they are scared. They are worried about their next meal. They are worried if they will be able to see their doctors. They are worried if they will be able to retire with dignity. They are worried about the skyrocketing cost of living and the price of groceries. It is because they have heard so much about the cuts to Medicaid, the cuts to SNAP, and the cuts to the VA, all being proposed by the House Republicans.
Let's take a closer look at what the House Republicans are proposing. House Republicans are proposing Medicaid cuts of $880 billion, SNAP cuts of $230 billion, Social Security cuts of $1.5 trillion, Medicare premiums raised by 22 percent, and 83,000 veteran employees being fired.
Let's take a closer look at what they actually promised the American people.
House Republicans have promised the American people to actually put forward bills that will make their life better.
Let's take it to the board. Nothing, nada, nothing has been proposed to help them with their financial situation. To make a visual of it, nothing has been proposed for the American people.
I dare my House Republicans to join House Democrats to put forth bills that will actually help the American people. The American people do not want $880 billion cut from their healthcare. The American people do not want $230 billion cut from SNAP and other assistance programs. They want to actually live the American Dream, and they want opportunities.
Right now, House Republicans have offered nothing but a blank piece of paper.
Why, you may ask? Elon Musk says the only way to save America is by jeopardizing our most vulnerable. It is by eliminating entitlement programs. In fact, Mr. Musk said that the biggest issue that he has and what he must do is eliminate these programs.
What types of programs are we talking about?
It is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans' benefits.
For the American people, this is ridiculous. These are our most vulnerable populations. We had promised our warriors and our heroes that we would be there for them and that we would provide their benefits for them.
What are we doing? I dare House Republicans to join the Democrats and stand up for the American people and to stand with us as we fight for the American people.
I dare House Republicans to stand up for Social Security, to stand up for Medicaid, to stand up for our heroes.
The time is now. Let's stop the madness and make sure that all Americans
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Pusch Ridge Christian Academy men's basketball team for winning their first championship in the history of the program.
The 11th ranked Lions beat the 5th ranked Palo Verde Titans with a score of 69-46, an incredible performance by all players.
From being four games under 0.500 just 6 weeks ago to clinching their goal as champions, this victory is an incredible underdog story.
This championship caps off a monumental achievement for second-year coach Steve Solita, who has transformed the Lions into a winning program during his short tenure.
To the players, coaches, family members, and anyone who played a part in this special season, I congratulate them on this historic achievement. They have made their school and our community extremely proud. Mr. Speaker, may they know that we all look forward to rooting for them next season again.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the incredible contributions Wolfgang Weber has given to the soccer community in southern Arizona.
Born in Germany in 1944, Wolfgang distinguished himself as a talented soccer player before immigrating to the United States in 1973.
In 1977, he was the cofounder and head coach of Tucson United Soccer Club and the Tucson Soccer Academy. During this time, his team made it to eight finals and won three state championships.
In 1982, he became head coach of Salpointe Catholic High School men's soccer program and has amassed an outstanding record of 888 games, 793 wins, went to the State finals 12 times, becoming State champions 10 times. He is the longest tenured head coach in Tucson's history, coaching 43 seasons.
In fact, Coach Weber just led the Salpointe men's soccer team to a championship this year, their fifth title in a row.
For his passion, devotion to all student athletes that he has coached, and his genuine love for the game of soccer, Wolfgang was rightfully inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Arizona High School Athletic Coaches Hall of Fame. Wolfgang Weber is known as the father of soccer in southern Arizona, and rightfully so.
Wolfgang's legacy reminds us of the incredible impact one person can have in a community. Through his passion for soccer, he has enriched southern Arizona in ways that will be felt for generations to come.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Mark Schmitt on his retirement as the director of the Small Business Development Center at Cochise College and thank him for his outstanding leadership and support for small businesses, the backbone of our local economy.
As a former businessowner himself, Mark leveraged his deep knowledge of the trials and triumphs of running a small business to help others. Through his 17 years as the SBDC, he was more than willing to help out those chasing their own American Dream.
The center not only helps prospective owners launch their businesses, it also provides a variety of cost-free classes and services, such as forming a business plan, designing a website, and much, much more.
Throughout his time as director, Mark was instrumental in hosting workshops, pursuing grants, and advocating for the small business economy to thrive.
Mark's unwavering commitment to this purpose has truly made a long- lasting impact. I know we are all thankful for Mark's leadership and service to southern Arizona. His legacy and the invaluable contributions he has made will continue to positively influence his community and the lives of countless people. Once again, I thank him for his service.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate Jefferson County Schools superintendent Dr. Walter Gonsoulin, who was just named the 2025 National Superintendent of the Year.
Superintendent Gonsoulin was celebrated at the AASA's National Conference on Education for his leadership within Alabama's Jefferson County School system.
He helped to create over 20 signature academies in the school district that exposed students to potential careers, all while increasing the district's college readiness rates and dual enrollment participation.
He is the first Alabama educator to win this national title.
As the daughter of two educators, I am forever grateful for Superintendent Gonsoulin's efforts and all of the teachers, administrators, and parents who share his mission to provide the best education possible to our next generation of leaders.
On behalf of Alabama's Seventh Congressional District, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Superintendent Walter Gonsoulin. We are all so proud of him, and we are grateful for the work that he does each and every day to create opportunities for our students to thrive.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise with a deep sense of responsibility to highlight an issue that is disappointing that we have to highlight.
We just spent the weekend, myself and colleagues on both sides of the aisle from both the Senate and the House and people from around the country and around the world, down in Selma, Alabama, and Montgomery, Alabama, commemorating the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, which recognizes the importance of voting rights. We reflected on the lives of the people who marched across that bridge 60 years ago for me to be able to stand here today and for people who look like me to be able to have a fair opportunity to participate in our electoral process.
They were led on that day by a former colleague of many Members here, Congressman John Lewis. Before Mr. Lewis was nearly killed in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, he was nearly killed a few years earlier in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a Freedom Rider, and he was on the bus of Freedom Riders himself with other young college students at the time, both Black and White, as they came from Birmingham into Montgomery, Alabama.
They were abandoned by the State highway patrol escort that they had on that day. When they got to the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station, there were hundreds of Klansmen and Klan supporters awaiting them who unleashed a brutal and savage attack on them nearly killing them, including a U.S. Department of Justice official who had been sent to monitor the freedom rides.
The reason I stand here today is because several years ago we had the wisdom to designate that Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station as a national historic landmark, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places here in the United States, and the National Freedom Rides Museum is now housed in that building.
Last week, just before we went down to Alabama, DOGE, in its infinite wisdom, decided to list that building for sale. That strikes a chord with people in the State of Alabama, both Democrats and Republicans. That strikes a chord with me as someone who sits here today who is the product of the Voting Rights Act.
We think we will win on this one. We hope that they will see the logic in preserving American history. After all, just a few years ago we saw people literally lose their minds over efforts to remove the monuments that have been
I think we will win this one, but we shouldn't have to keep doing this. We shouldn't have to stand up for pieces of history in this country. We shouldn't have to stand up for pieces of history related to our civil rights, related to voting rights. We shouldn't have to deal with an administration where it seems every single week we are having to stand up again, whether it is talking about the Tuskegee Airmen and their rightful place in history, whether it is repealing an equal opportunity executive order that has been in place since the 1960s, whether it is seeing this administration hit pause on Federal scholarship funding to land-grant institutions for historically Black colleges but not hitting pause on the same funding for land-grant schools that were not historically Black colleges.
It is a shame. We should not be doing this. We have to do better. We cannot keep running the clock back in an effort to appease this administration's efforts to whitewash history.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in honor of John Lewis, in honor of the civil rights workers, both known and unknown. We will stand with you. We will fight for you because we will not sell our history. We will not go down silently. We will not go down quietly, and we certainly will not go backwards.
Mr. Speaker, I rise as this week on March 14 in my hometown of St. Louis we are celebrating 314 Day.
This day is much more than just our area code or an excuse to celebrate our hometown sports teams: the Cardinals, the Blues, St. Louis City Soccer Club, the Battlehawks. I am also going to acknowledge Mathews-Dickey and a huge shout-out to the St. Louis Stars, our Negro league baseball team back in the day, and St. Louis' own James ``Cool Papa'' Bell. God rest his soul.
It is not just about what high school you attended, which is also a St. Louis thing, or it is not just about the beer, which we are known to make a lot of. It is not about the gooey butter cakes. It is not just about Imo's Pizza, Vess soda, and Ted Drewes. God rest his soul. It is not about the fact that many St. Louisans sincerely believe that our Chinese food is better than Chinese food in China.
I won't even quiz you on what a chicken St. Paul with cheese is, which is also a St. Louis thing.
It is about recognizing and renewing the powerful bonds and resilience that define our community.
St. Louis is a city of complexity, a rich history, and deep contrasts. From neighborhoods in Webster Groves, Normandy, and the 24-1 communities to historic neighborhoods in North City and Ferguson and Florissant, from Saint Ann to Soulard and South City, our city encapsulates both the beauty and the struggle of America.
We have faced challenges, economic inequality, racial injustice, and public health crises, but we have never backed down from confronting hard truths or demanding necessary change.
That is why 314 Day matters. In a country that feels deeply divided, days like today remind us of the power of community. Families in Tower Grove Park, the immigrant communities of the Hill and our Bosnian brothers and sisters in South City and South County, businesses thriving in the Central West End in Clayton all remind us of the collective strength we gain from unity and cooperation.
St. Louisans know what it means not to fall in the shadow of hateful rhetoric, but instead to rise in the face of adversity. Whether it is organizing for justice, rebuilding neighborhoods, or simply coming together to support each other through difficult times, our community exemplifies resilience and compassion every day.
On 314 Day, let's not just celebrate our history, our food, and our iconic art. Let's celebrate our city's extraordinary spirit, the unwavering belief that our greatest challenges can become opportunities for growth, justice, and meaningful change.
Today, we recommit to that ideal because St. Louis deserves nothing else.
On a solemn note, rest in peace Berkeley, Missouri, Mayor Babatunde Deinbo and his fierce passion for his community.
I wish a happy birthday to Jordan Sanders and to Justin Tatum, a former St. Louis University basketball star and father of St. Louis- born and bred NBA champion Jason Tatum. Boston, you are welcome.
Finally, I wish a very special--and I won't say the number because I don't think she wants me to--but a very special birthday to my mother, Sharon Gardner, our matriarch, the primary reason that I rise in these Halls so that I could rise before you today.
Mr. Speaker, our Founding Fathers had a pretty clear principle when it came to corruption. Thomas Jefferson, a fellow Virginian, warned of the fate of our country if corruption prevailed. He said: ``The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.''
There are wolves in our government and in governments all around the world. Look at Russia, where the wolf, Vladimir Putin, has become the richest person in the country and maybe the world. It is a country where if you speak out against him, you will pay the price. If you make a lot of money, he better get half.
We see what a democracy can become. It will cease to be a democracy. The people will cease to govern, and those in power will enrich themselves.
We cannot let that happen in our country, but we are trending in the wrong direction today. The U.S. recently received the lowest ever Corruption Perceptions Index score in recent history.
For all the things this administration has done, we cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption it has endorsed.
Let's start with the profiting off of the Presidency. From the time President Trump got elected, he has used the office to actively profit from Amazon deals, branded Bibles, shoes, and digital trading cards. Then there are the meme coins, which are a perfect way for Russia, the CCP, and anyone else with an interest in influencing U.S. policy to conveniently pad the President's personal pockets. It sends a message to our adversaries that America is for sale.
How can we ever trust that decisions are being made in the best interests of the American people and not as a financial quid pro quo?
Then there is DOGE. The first thing it did was fire the very people in charge of rooting out corruption and protecting whistleblowers. Why? They would never have signed off on the administration's actions.
It doesn't stop with the administration. They have green-lighted corruption abroad by getting rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a law to prevent bribery of foreign officials. Companies will now have to put corruption experts on their payrolls, and they will pass along those costs to consumers.
Then there is the normalization of corruption by pardoning corrupt politicians across the political spectrum.
Mayor Eric Adams was in a bind, facing indictment on charges of corruption, conspiracy, wire fraud, and bribery, but President Trump directed prosecutors to drop the charges. Conveniently, Mayor Adams is now steering his city's policies at the whims of this administration.
When Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, convicted for essentially selling a U.S. Senate seat, asked for a pardon for his corruption, he got it. Blagojevich even had a name for a corrupt Democrat bailed out by an administration, a ``Trumpocrat.''
These actions are hurting the American people. They steal from the American people. They erode our trust, raise costs on working families, and steer us into bad policy.
Thomas Jefferson also liked to say that when ``a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its
We have the power to remedy this. With decisions like Citizens United and the actions of this administration, it is not going to be easy, but my constituents and the American people have the power to stand up and make their voices heard. They should keep speaking out and sharing stories.
Do not let this be normal. Together, we must remove corruption and restore its lost principles.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, we are in a dark time, but this is no time to retreat or to despair because we have been in dark times in this country before.
This past weekend, along with dozens of my colleagues and hundreds of others, I had the opportunity, the chance, to travel to Selma, Alabama, to recall and reflect on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, where courageous Americans, many of them just children, protested for the right to vote.
In his ``Letter from Birmingham Jail,'' Martin Luther King teaches us of the danger of indifference and shallow understanding, and yet he teaches us of the power of collective action. King warned us not just of the ``hateful words and actions of the bad people,'' but also ``the appalling silence of the good people.''
This must not be a time of shallow understanding, not a time for lukewarm acceptance. I call out the appalling silence of so many of my colleagues in the face of what we will vote on today, in the face of what we have seen from this administration: cuts to veterans, cuts to families, and a threat to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
I first crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge back in 2019 with our late colleague, Congressman John Lewis. He told us then and is telling us now that when we see something that is not right, not fair, not just, we have to speak up. We have to say something. Why else would we be here? We have to do something. We have to act.
Let us recommit ourselves to the cause of justice. Let us remember the lessons of King, of Lewis, and of so many others who sacrificed so much, including their very lives, and let us do something.
Mr. Speaker, we have some amazing people in Virginia's Fifth Congressional District that spend their life helping others.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to wish happy birthday to the president of the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce, Anne Moore- Sparks, who celebrated her birthday on March 1.
Anne is a native of Danville and graduate of Averett University and the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. She has lived her entire life in service to the citizens of Danville and Pittsylvania County.
As President of the Chamber, she has led the charge to build a secure economy in southside Virginia.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Anne on her success and wish her a happy birthday.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Hazel Dukes, a former civil rights champion and the former president of the NAACP New York State Conference.
After her family migrated to New York from the South, Dr. Dukes became involved in the fight for racial justice and spent more than seven decades tirelessly fighting for voting rights, economic development, fair housing, and education.
She was ultimately selected by Lyndon B. Johnson to head the Head Start program.
Dr. Dukes was an active and dynamic leader. She was someone that you will never forget. If I could describe her, I would say that Dr. Dukes was Harlem, and in many ways, Harlem was her.
Mr. Speaker, we will always remember her as an icon and the heartbeat of Harlem and the NAACP. She will always be with us in thought. May she rest in power. Harlem loves her.
Mr. Speaker, today, House Republicans will vote on a continuing resolution which
President Trump backs the legislation so that ``we can continue to put the country's financial house in order.''
Among the benefits today, it maintains government operations without increasing borrowing more of taxpayers' money. It increases border security. It supports veterans and ensures full funding for their healthcare services and benefits. It enhances defense investments and includes the largest pay raise for junior enlisted troops in over 40 years.
The continuing resolution is necessary to support the agenda of President Trump on behalf of American families and allows Congress to address Federal waste, fraud, and abuse.
In conclusion, God bless our troops as the global war on terrorism continues. Open borders for dictators put all Americans at risk of more 9/11 attacks imminent as warned by the FBI. Trump is reinstituting existing laws to protect American families with peace through strength.
Mr. Speaker, 5 years ago, a young Louisville woman was killed in the middle of the night by police officers who forced entry into her home without warning.
Her name was Breonna Taylor.
While we will never forget how Breonna Taylor died, we get to choose to remember how she lived. Breonna was a sister, a daughter, and a girlfriend.
Breonna was a caregiver, working at Louisville's emergency room to save lives. Breonna was a 26-year-old with her whole life in front of her. She had dreams, including of becoming a mom someday.
Breonna loved her family, her community, and more than anything, she loved life.
In the face of injustice, we cannot be silent. We must speak up. We must say her name: Breonna Taylor.
Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks, DOGE has been hard at work locating wasteful spending and improving the efficiency of the Federal Government, something that has been a priority for me during my time in Congress.
For many years, I have worked in a bipartisan manner to highlight and target government waste, fraud, and abuse.
Over 4 years ago, my legislation, the Taxpayers Right-to-Know Act, passed the House and became law.
This bipartisan legislation required the Office of Management and Budget to publish an online inventory of each agency's Federal programs to streamline duplicative programs and prevent wasteful spending on ineffective programs.
Last year, the OMB officially launched the Federal Program Inventory, representing a vital first step in increasing transparency and providing us with the tools necessary to eliminate government waste.
Along with OMB Director and DOGE, I remain committed to ensuring that taxpayers know how the government is spending their hard-earned money.
Mr. Speaker, on January 25, I had the honor of joining Worcester Mayor Joe Petty, former State Senate President Harriette Chandler, and other community leaders to present Richard ``Richy'' Perlman with the Key to the city of Worcester.
It was a moving ceremony for a man who has spent his life quietly serving others.
For over 110 years, three generations of Perlmans, have provided care and comfort to families during their most difficult moments.
As a funeral director, Richy has ensured that every person is treated with dignity and respect, honoring sacred traditions that have stood the test of time, including the sacred Jewish ritual of Tahara.
Richy's service has strengthened our community and upheld the values of compassion, faith, and humanity. Worcester is better because of him. I was proud to stand with so many local leaders to celebrate Richy's contributions, and I congratulate him, once again, on receiving this great honor.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize March 13 as K9 Veteran's Day, honoring the courageous dogs who serve alongside our men and women in uniform.
The legacy of military working dogs dates back to Sergeant Stubby, the most decorated war dog of World War I.
Stubby served in 17 battles, warning his unit of poison gas attacks, detecting incoming artillery, and finding wounded soldiers.
On March 13, 1942, the U.S. military officially established the K9 Corps, recognizing the importance of war dogs. Since then, these highly-trained canines have served in conflicts from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Today, over 3,000 military working dogs are deployed worldwide protecting our troops and supporting critical missions. For decades, however, these heroic dogs were classified as ``equipment'' and often left behind after service.
Thankfully, since the year 2000, retired military dogs can be adopted, usually by their handlers, ensuring they receive the care and the love that they deserve and have earned.
Our canine veterans have served our country with loyalty and bravery. Today, we recognize them as the heroes that they are.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember the life, the legacy, and the leadership of the legendary Hazel Dukes.
Dr. Dukes was a New York icon, a remarkable role model, and an American hero who helped to breathe life into the principles of liberty and justice for all and equal protection under the law.
As an iconic president of the NAACP and the leader of our New York chapter for decades, Dr. Dukes was a fierce civil rights champion, a defender of democracy, and a powerful voice for the voiceless.
She never hesitated to speak truth to power and always fought for a nation designed to be the best version of herself.
The lasting impact of Dr. Dukes will be felt for decades to come, including through her work to launch the Head Start program nationally and her continued support for children and families all across the United States of America, fighting to make sure that every single child had access to a high-quality education so they could experience the American Dream.
I pray for Hazel's son, Ronald, the entire Dukes family, and all who loved her. May she forever rest in peace.
Mr. Speaker, God bless Hazel Dukes, God bless New York, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to offer a warning to college basketball teams across our country: The Panthers are coming.
For the first time in history, the High Point University men's and women's basketball teams have both
The men's team clinched their spot with a Sunday night victory over Winthrop, coming back from a 15-point deficit.
The women's team punched their ticket by winning the Big South tournament against Longwood University.
Together, these teams have made history, and they are not stopping now. To anyone unfortunate enough to be facing the Panthers later this month, good luck. You are going to need it.
Mr. Speaker, I say to both teams that Guilford County and the entire Sixth District of North Carolina are with them. May they remember their values: God, family, and country. Let's choose to be extraordinary and bring it home.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Reverend Phil Lawson, a civil rights leader, pastor, tireless advocate for social justice, mentor, and friend.
From a young age, Reverend Lawson committed himself to faith and peace, studying nonviolent direct action under the leadership of Bayard Rustin. He emerged as a powerful voice for civil rights, participating in events like the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches alongside his friend, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
After leading a Methodist parish in Kansas City, Reverend Lawson took a job with the city of Berkeley, California. He later served in roles at two local Methodist parishes before being appointed to lead the Easter Hill United Methodist Church in Richmond, California. His work on social justice issues earned him recognition as the Contra Costa County Humanitarian of the Year in 2003.
After a distinguished life of service, Reverend Lawson passed away earlier this year at the age of 92. He will be remembered for his outstanding character and his deep impact on this country and our community in California.
I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the life of Reverend Phil Lawson.
Mr. Speaker, one of the good aspects in the continuing resolution for California, and nationally for those who like California-grown food, is a portion that will be in there through the WIIN Act regarding Bureau of Reclamation funding for water projects in California, mainly the Sites Reservoir.
What you see here is the Shasta Reservoir and all that water going over that is actually going nowhere except out to the Pacific Ocean. Sites Reservoir's existence will mean we will have the ability to impound up to 1.5 million acre-feet of saved water that the whole State can use instead of being lost.
We have lost so much water this year due to, I think, not great management of that resource. At least 800,000 acre-feet, maybe up to 2 million acre-feet, have been lost just from Lake Shasta down the river out to the ocean.
This funding here will help build a good project. It will help California's water supply go much further than what we see happening right now. We see farms being cut to 35 percent of their allocation. We see people in urban areas being cut to 42 gallons per day because we can't manage this water supply.
Build the storage, manage the water better, and we will get a lot more wins.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in defense of the National Park Service, whose payroll and costs may be cut up to 30 percent by the administration in the coming weeks.
For over a century, the National Park Service has protected and preserved the stunning beauty of our country for all Americans, and these parks have further generated tens of billions of dollars for our local economies.
My district is the Sixth District of Maryland, and we are home to seven national parks, including Antietam and the C&O Canal, which has over 4 million visitors annually. This supports thousands of jobs, hotels, and restaurants.
Cuts to the National Park Service just don't hurt its employees, like my constituent Carrie Schmitt, who was laid off by the Catoctin Mountain Park 2 weeks ago. They also hurt the millions of small businesses that depend on our parks to keep the lights on.
Equally important, our future generations, like my first grandbaby, 7-week-old Charlie, deserve to see the beauty and grandeur of our geography. We must protect our parks and the dedicated public servants who take care of them.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend President Trump for his position that the United States Steel Corporation must remain an American company.
Steel is foundational to our Nation's economic and national security. We must maintain a strong domestic steel industry.
U.S. Steel was once the largest steel producer in the world, a symbol of our global competitiveness, but over decades, it was weakened by an onslaught of subsidized steel dumped from overseas.
Instead of auctioning off critical manufacturing assets to the highest foreign bidder, President Trump is focused on policies to ensure our American steel industry stays resilient.
This is not about being anti-Japan or any other nation but about being pro-America and protecting our economic future and national security.
We shouldn't sell out our workers or our future to foreign corporations.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to recognize Bob Christianson, a resident of a local nursing home in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Bob is 85 years old. He bravely served our country in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. He, like millions of seniors across the country, gets his nursing home coverage through Medicaid. When I met Bob, he said he would not be here today were it not for Medicaid.
Now, congressional Republicans are proposing to gut Medicaid in order to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, which would mean less access to services, less access to care, and worse quality of life for seniors everywhere.
Bob told me he is fighting this proposed budget with all the effort he can muster, calling his representatives, joining local organizations, and going to protests, all at 85 years old.
It shouldn't be this way. Bob should not have to be spending his days protesting just to get the healthcare and nursing home coverage he needs.
Remember, 62 percent of all nursing home residents in the United States are covered by Medicaid. We cannot put our seniors' care on the chopping block to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
I implore my Republican colleagues to work with us on a budget that will give our seniors the care they need and deserve.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a towering figure in the fight for justice, civil rights, and equality, Dr. Hazel Dukes, a trailblazer whose impact will be felt for generations to come and a dear friend and mentor.
For decades, Dr. Dukes was a force of nature, dedicating her life to the advancement of people of color and all Americans in the unyielding pursuit of social and economic justice.
As the longtime president of the NAACP New York State Conference, she led with extraordinary courage, wisdom, and an unwavering commitment to the cause of equality. From 1990 to 1992, she carried that leadership to the national stage as president of the NAACP, steering the organization through a pivotal era in the ongoing struggle for civil rights.
She was not just an advocate. She was a warrior fighting on the front lines for fairness, dignity, and opportunity for all. From her early days pushing for desegregation to her tireless work empowering marginalized communities, Dr. Dukes was a guiding light, illuminating the path toward justice for countless Americans.
Dr. Dukes' influence extended far beyond the NAACP. She shaped policy, broke down barriers, and lifted up those who too often had been left behind. She never wavered, never backed down, and never stopped believing in the power of collective action to change the world.
New York and our entire Nation are stronger because of her relentless dedication to equality and fairness. Her legacy is one of courage, resilience, and an unshakable belief in what is right.
Let us honor her memory not just with words but with action by continuing her fight and working toward a future where justice is not just an aspiration but a reality for all.
Mr. Speaker, I am deeply saddened today for the passing of Dr. Hazel Dukes. We called her Ma Dukes.
Ma Dukes' lifelong commitment to equality, from breaking racial barriers in New York to leading the NAACP at the national and State levels, has left an indelible mark on our society. She was a trailblazer. For many of us, she was our present-day Sojourner Truth.
In 1966, Ma Dukes became the first Black woman employed at the Nassau County Attorney's Office. Her tireless work for voting rights, fair housing, education, and economic development uplifted countless individuals and communities. Through her leadership and determination, she not only changed policies but also inspired generations to continue the fight for justice.
While words cannot fully ease the pain of such great loss, I find comfort in the extraordinary legacy that she leaves behind. May her memory continue to inspire us all to carry forward the work she so passionately championed.
As all of us grieve in the State of New York and across America, we find peace in the words of Psalms 34:18: ``The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.''
May His presence bring strength, wisdom, and healing to all who are mourning the loss of the great Ma Dukes, a woman of warmth, wisdom, and unwavering dedication to those she served. Her impact has extended beyond her advocacy. She was a mentor, friend, and guiding force to me and so many others.
Mr. Speaker, like many who have met Dr. Hazel Dukes, you will remember the first time that you meet her, for she is a force and her presence is pronounced.
For me, it was at a dinner at the Rome, New York, NAACP, which was an area that was new to me. When I had a chance to speak with Dr. Dukes, she was warm and welcoming. She held my hands and said to me: ``You are on the right side of history, and it is always the right time to do what is right. I am confident that you will be successful.'' Like many words that Dr. Dukes spoke in her lifetime, she was also correct, just, and right.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Dr. Dukes for her service, her faith in me, and her faith in the American Dream and American values.
Providing for Consideration of H.J. RES. 25, Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted by the Internal Revenue Service Relating to "Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That...
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.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, we are here to debate the rule providing for consideration for H.J. Res. 25, H.R. 1156, and the continuing resolution.
The rule provides for H.J. Res. 25 and H.R. 1156 to be considered under a closed rule. One hour of debate for each bill shall be equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, or their designees. The rule provides for a motion to recommit for both bills.
The rule also provides for H.R. 1968 to be considered under a closed rule. One hour of debate shall be equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee or their designees. The rule provides for one motion to recommit for this bill.
Mr. Speaker, House Republicans want to keep America open for business. I would like to believe nobody in this Chamber wants a government shutdown, and the bill we are considering today would keep the government fully funded through September 30. This will ensure that there are no disruptions to veterans' healthcare services and benefits or to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid.
It invests in defense personnel with the largest pay raise for junior enlisted troops in over 40 years. It includes funding for the Toxic Exposures Fund to treat veterans who have experienced service-related exposure to toxic substances. This bill fully funds the program that provides key nutrition assistance for mothers, infants, and children and increases funding for the WIC program. It increases funding for the FAA.
There are no poison pills in this bill. It is a clean CR that fully funds the government. A shutdown would mean small businesses cannot get their Federal loans, national parks would close, and assistance programs for families would quickly run out.
There is nothing controversial in here for my Democrat colleagues to vote against, but I am certain many of them will. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have taken to fear-mongering. They are okay with the chaos of a government shutdown because they cannot see past their blind hatred for President Trump.
We are also here today to discuss legislation to repeal a misguided Biden rule that requires decentralized finance platforms to file a Form 1099-DA. This would include disclosing taxpayer information and transaction details these platforms currently do not collect. This rule demonstrates a lack of understanding about how decentralized currencies and the platforms they are traded on actually work. Misguided policies like this need to be repealed, and that is what this CRA will do.
Finally, we are here to debate the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act, which was introduced by the Ways and Means chairman, Mr. Jason Smith, to extend the statute of limitations for prosecuting unemployment insurance fraud that took place under the CARES Act. Currently, the statute of limitations is 5 years, which means many of these would expire at the end of this month. Unfortunately, we saw a wide range of fraud and abuse taking place in this federally funded unemployment insurance program, and more time is needed to root it all out.
This bill, which extends the statute of limitations to 10 years, is a clear example of the House's commitment to removing waste, fraud, and abuse from the Federal Government. Anyone who is serious about protecting taxpayer dollars should agree that simply giving law enforcement the ability to continue to investigate and prosecute fraudsters is a commonsense proposal.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Fischbach) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, as we speak, prices are going up, inflation is up, groceries are up. I saw eggs for $10 recently. Used car prices are up, other than Teslas. Those seem much cheaper these days for some reason.
Energy prices are up 25 percent in the gentlewoman's home State of Minnesota. Energy prices have increased 25 percent for her constituents thanks to Trump's tariffs that she is supporting by bringing this rule to the floor. Boy, I am just glad she is not my Representative.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk was on Fox Business this morning. He is not talking about food prices or energy prices. He is talking about how he wants to eliminate entitlements. This is the guy that called Social Security a Ponzi scheme and the guy that is laying off people at Social Security offices already. Maybe Elon doesn't know this, but Social Security is not an entitlement. It is a program that people have spent their entire life paying into. Shame on him.
Mr. Speaker, maybe Elon needs to watch the news instead of going on it because what else is going down is consumer confidence. People are waking up to the fact that Trump's trade war is going to hurt them in their pocketbooks. The stock market is going down. People in this country are starting to panic because their retirement accounts are dropping.
Planes are going down. We have had several major accidents and several close calls. We just learned that Elon Musk, the guy whose rocket just exploded in midair this weekend, wants to fire air traffic controllers. Make that make sense.
Republicans are doing nothing about any of it. Trump spent 2 minutes in his 2-hour lecture last week talking about lowering prices. Republicans now bring to the floor this CR, basically a blank check to Trump and Musk, that says keep doing what the President and Musk are doing. We are all fine with it. No way.
My Republican friends want to pretend like this is a clean CR. It is 99 pages, for God's sake. A CR is pretty simple. The government gets funded at the same levels. Calling this CR clean is laughable. This bill cuts healthcare for veterans. Mr. Speaker, $23 billion is ripped away from veterans exposed to burn pits and Agent Orange.
This bill defunds the police. I guess my Republican friends only care about the police when they need their votes because this CR takes money away from the police. What is another word for taking money away? It is defunding.
This CR helps fire thousands of Social Security workers, forcing seniors to wait longer for their benefits that they have earned. That is what House Republicans are trying to jam through on the floor right now. The brazenness that Musk and Trump have when going after Social Security takes my breath away.
They tried to close down a Social Security office in Chairman Tom Cole's district in Oklahoma. That is nuts. He is one of the most senior Republicans in Congress, a Republican, the chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, and Elon went after his constituents. Chairman Cole was able to stop it.
What about the rest of the country? God help them if their Congressman doesn't run a powerful committee because that means there is nothing to stop Elon Musk from coming after their Social Security.
Republicans are really, really hoping I don't bring up this last part. Guess what they tucked into this rule, hoping nobody would notice? They did this after everyone went home. They slipped in a little clause, letting them escape from ever having to debate or vote on Trump's tariffs. Isn't that clever?
Trump's trade war will result in one of the largest, if not the largest, tax increase on American families ever. This rule gives him the ability to do it without a vote in Congress.
I get it. They are already hiding from their voters, running away from their own townhalls, slipping out the back doors because they are afraid of being held accountable for their own's actions.
Guess what, Mr. Speaker. People don't send us here to hide. They send us here to fight for them, and they send us here to vote.
Democrats are not going to be complicit in voting to screw over America's veterans. We are not going
What we are going to do is we are going to show up in our communities. We going to stand up for veterans. We are going to speak up for people on Medicaid and Social Security. We are going to put up one hell of a fight when it comes to the middle-class families who are counting on us to fight for them. I urge a ``no'' vote on this disgraceful rule and a ``no'' vote on the underlying legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would just like to take a minute to address one thing out of that entire rant because it is categorically false.
The Community Oriented Policing Services, COPS, program maintains a consistent level under this CR. The only variation in levels reflects the removal of previously enacted FY24 community project funding allocations which are separate from the main programming.
Claims that the COPS program has been defunded to zero are categorically false. Unlike the Democrats, Republicans remain committed to supporting law enforcement and ensuring public safety. I wanted to address that one thing.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Norman), my Rules Committee colleague.
Mr. Speaker, it is really laughable for the listening audience and those watching on TV to hear my good friend, Mr. McGovern, talk about defunding the police. They are the party that wanted to defund the police. Their Vice Presidential candidate put up money to pay the rioters to get out of jail.
Mr. McGovern talked about the military. We have had 4 years of a Biden administration that ran the military off with the wokeness in DEI. Enrollments are up at record levels. President Trump has been in office now for 49 days. Look what he has done.
My friend mentioned cutting Social Security. There is nothing about Social Security that is in this bill. My friend mentioned or I guess will mention cutting Medicaid. There is nothing about cutting Medicaid in here.
What they are doing is using scare tactics, but the American people aren't buying it. The Democrats had 4 years to have their way with the government and look what it brought. It brought high taxes, high gas prices, and high egg prices.
Why did 77 million people vote them out of office? It was because of their policies. President Trump in 49 days is bringing it back.
If the Democrats get back in control, the main thing they will try to get a concession on is to defund--they keep saying ``billionaire Elon Musk.'' I am sorry. Elon Musk didn't make it from government. He made it from producing a product.
Guess what he has had the mind and the genius to find. The Democrats support these things that he found in the different agencies, mainly leading off with USAID.
Mr. Speaker, I want everybody to listen to see if they agree with this. For the taxpayers, what Elon Musk found was $2 billion, which was part of a greenhouse gas emission fund. Guess where it went. It went to Stacey Abrams. Is that where the taxpayers want their money spent?
There was $1 million to the Social Security Administration's Gender X initiative marker. Is that where the taxpayers want their money to go?
There was $45 million for a diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarship in Burma. How does that work?
There was $182 million in Health and Human Services contracts including $168,000 for an Anthony Fauci exhibit at the NIH.
Folks, this would be funny if it wasn't so serious, $2.5 million to promote inclusion in Vietnam.
I am not going to waste the time, but this is just a short list of how this President under Elon Musk is identifying waste, fraud, and abuse.
All the things that you are saying are just not true. I sat through this. You mentioned this was like needles in your eyes. Hearing you say these things is worse than that because it is just untrue.
What this bill does is it extends funding--and I am typically not for CRs; it is no way to do business--but it extends funding with fixed spending at 2024 levels. It includes anomalies requested by the Trump administration to support immigration enforcement efforts to deport criminals.
Their party was the one that opened the gates to America. How is that working out? How about the deaths occurring? We had the mothers and fathers of victims in this audience for the joint session, and guess who didn't stand. Nobody in your party stood. No one had the decency to stand up for the little boy with cancer who wanted to be a police officer.
These anomalies increase defense discretionary spending by $6 billion. It cuts nondefense discretionary spending by $13 billion. It reduces the overall Federal spending for fiscal year `25 below the `24 levels. Guess what. Do you remember the 87,000 IRS agents that were going to harass the taxpayers? This bill cuts $20 billion out of it. It does away with it.
This President is just getting started.
I doubt we will have any support from the Democratic side, which I don't expect. This bill is going to pass, and the country is in better shape. You had your time 4 years ago, and how did that work out for the American people? It didn't work out too good. I fully support this bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks to the Chair.
Mr. Speaker, the gentleman wants to talk about grocery prices? Read the room, man, or better yet, visit a grocery store. Give me a break.
Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 1974, a short-term continuing resolution that keeps the government funded through April 11.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this full-year CR.
This bill abdicates our constitutional responsibilities to direct funding and it gives it to Elon Musk and Mr. Trump. It undercuts the separations of powers in our Constitution.
This CR cuts $13 billion from domestic priorities that Americans rely on. Let's talk specifically about the $2.2 billion reduction to healthcare. Here are a few examples: $280 million cut from NIH means cuts to research and clinical trials. Fewer lives will be saved.
The bill removes congressional directions for CDC funding. That is how we detect and control health threats at home and abroad.
There is an $891 million reduction to HHS investments. That will lead to more healthcare workforce shortages.
The ramifications of these cuts will be felt everywhere but especially by the most vulnerable Americans who are already hurting from the illegal cuts Elon Musk is making to healthcare grants and research.
This CR includes a $17 million reduction to Indian Health Service facilities, which are already falling apart.
The bill shortchanges our veterans by failing to include $22 billion in advance funding for the VA Toxic Exposure Fund. That jeopardizes the healthcare of our veterans exposed to burn pits and Agent Orange.
The bill cuts DOD medical research by over $850 million. This will obstruct new cures for cancer and infectious diseases. These just aren't funding cuts. The Republicans are cutting cures and treatments and hopes for healthier American families.
This is before we know what Elon Musk has in store for Social Security disability, Medicaid, and Medicare. A full-year CR is a disaster, and it does not have to be this way.
The American people deserve better.
I urge my colleagues to defeat this PQ and bring forward a short-term CR, and let's get to work.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
So here we are again. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who constantly always talk about the need to support a CR to ``keep the lights on'' now find themselves in the curious position of not wanting to have the lights on because they don't like what is happening. So they don't want the lights to be on because you have got people in the executive branch who have taken seriously the election mandate that was given to the President of the United States to end the absurdity of nonstop wasteful spending and the ridiculousness of expenditures like $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.
That is the kind of stuff that makes the American people's heads explode. There are hundreds of these examples. I can sit here and list them. The fact is this stuff is getting exposed in real time. The American people are seeing it, and now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to run from it.
That is why they don't like this bill. That is why they want to have a shutdown. After all of these years of decrying the possibility of a shutdown, you are seeing all over the news today talk about the possibility of a Schumer shutdown. What you are talking about there are news article after news article such as The Hill, February 11, ``Democrats step up talk about using shutdown as leverage against Donald Trump'': ``A Democratic Senator who requested anonymity . . . said . . . the March 14 deadline may be the best `leverage' they have,'' and The Guardian, February 15, ``Democrats in Congress see potential shutdown as leverage to counter Trump.''
I can insert into the Record dozens of these stories because the fact of the matter is the gig is up. It is much like how the American people were able to see the absolute and rampant corruption of our education system during COVID. When everything was shut down, they were watching their kids and they saw these screens, and they said what on Earth are they being taught? Suddenly the American people saw the reality of our broken education system. They saw the fraud that was perpetrated by Anthony Fauci on the American people in shutting down their way of life.
Now, you have got Democrats who are being exposed for having continuously funded this largess and this bureaucracy that is completely indefensible. The American people are tired of having their tax dollars taken and dollars being borrowed by an endless stream of borrowing by this Congress. Now, you have got a Congress that is willing to work with the President to stop it, to stand up and say this is enough.
What are we putting in place? We are putting in place, oh, the horror, a spending freeze. Oh, can you believe that the Federal Government might need to tighten its belt and have a spending freeze? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to bring out these parades of horribles, that somehow this is a massive number of cuts because only in Washington is that a cut. You have got a spending freeze and holding basically spending in check for 2024. We have a bill that, by the way, pulls out earmarks, which are often replete with special wish lists. By the way, that is both sides of the aisle. We have got a bill here that is going to hold spending in check to allow us to do our job for the fiscal year '26 appropriations cycle between now and September.
By the way, it was Republicans who passed 5 appropriations bills off of the House floor last year and 12 appropriations bills out of committee last year. The previous year it was Republicans who passed 7 appropriations bills off the floor and all 12 out of committee. The Democrat-led Senate passed zero.
Do you want to know why we are where we are right now? It is because our Democratic colleagues in the Senate passed zero appropriations bills, not one.
So we came in here, and now Republicans have control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, and now we are trying to get things moving in the right direction, and our Democratic colleagues don't want to have any part of it. We are putting forward a commonsense measure. I understand why some of my conservative flank fiscal conservatives have concerns about a CR. I don't love CRs, but when you can have a CR that extends spending at 2024 levels for the next 6 months and empowers the President to be able to continue to do what they are doing, shining the light on spending restraint, shining the light on waste so that we can do our job and implement that--and, by the way, I will say that to both sides of the aisle. Both sides of the aisle need to take in that information and implement it when we do appropriations this year. We will move spending down, eliminate the waste. We will try to do something about the fact that in 2019 our entire budget was $4.5 trillion, and today it is $7 trillion.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have no answer to that besides, oh, magic tax cuts. You could literally confiscate the wealth of the wealthiest 1 percent of America and not dent what we have got in terms of $36 trillion in debt. You would kill jobs and destroy the economy in the process.
That is the only answer my colleagues have to $7 trillion in spending.
The fact of the matter is, this CR is responsible. It is fiscally appropriate. It will leave the lights on so the President and DOGE and Elon and Russ Vought of OMB can do their job, and I hope that my colleagues on this side of the aisle will support the rule.
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. It is CR day on Capitol Hill, and what is going on with Republicans? I mean, President Trump puts out a tweet and says please and all a sudden they just flip- flop.
Let me mention some mean tweets about how Republicans feel about CRs when they are in the minority only. The first one is actually from the gentleman from Texas. It says: ``It is Groundhog Day in the House Chamber--all the time, every day. Yet again, spending money we don't have'' apparently only when he is in the minority.
Here is another one from a colleague comparing continuing resolutions to attending a P. Diddy party. In any given year, another colleague said that if Congress raises the debt ceiling, passes the CR, and rams through an omnibus bill, no Member of Congress should receive a paycheck. That is awkward for you guys. How many of you are going to give back your paycheck?
Another colleague said: I have never voted for a CR. You sent me to Congress to cut wasteful spending, and I am a woman of my word. You can guess who that is.
This is my favorite. What does a CR stand for? It stands for capitulating Republicans, caving Republicans. That was said by a Republican. You know what? I am going to miss the never CR group. I mean, they were great, but they are breaking up. It was great to see them live while there were together. They had lots of fans. I am going miss them. I mean, they were mostly a boy band. Some of them are going solo. It appears it is only Thomas Massie. Something tells me there will be a reunion but only when they are in the minority.
To quote Representative Massie talking about Republicans: ``I guess deficits only matter when we are in the minority.'' So, listen, go home to your families, turn in your voting cards, and give Trump the gavel because that is what has happened to your entire party. You don't need to be here. He tells you to do something, you jump.
What is going on in the world? Another Representative brought up what is going on in the world in the last 30 days. Let's see. Egg prices are up. Goods are up. The stock market is down.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are again reminded to address their remarks to the Chair.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the sudden religion my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have found on spending restraint and the need to cut spending. I look forward to all the proposals that my colleagues will put forward on reducing significant amounts of spending and waste, fraud, and abuse. I will look for that press conference they will no doubt have some time this week.
I would also note that when we talk about continuing resolutions, what my colleague just failed to mention was the fact that literally every single Democrat voted for the CR that we just had in December, like literally every single Democrat except for one who I think maybe took a ``present'' vote.
The fact of the matter is it has nothing to do with that. The fact of the matter is for those of us who do not like CRs as a general principle, the fact is because Democrats literally wouldn't pass an appropriations bill out of the Senate, we are left doing the cleanup work of trying to figure out how to move forward while we have an administration that isn't at war with its own people when the previous administration was blatantly disregarding the well-being of the American people to have wide-open borders letting fentanyl and letting all manners of evil come into our country leading to the death and destruction of the people that I represent, people like Jocelyn Nungaray who lost her life to the hands of the Tren de Aragua because Joe Biden decided it was more important to let millions of people into this country in violation of our laws endangering the people.
That is why our bill has additional funding for ICE to make sure that we have got the beds to undo the damage that the Biden regime has carried out on the American people. Those are the actual facts. The fact of the matter is, no, you don't want to have a CR to continue the funding under Joe Biden because Joe Biden was at war with the American people.
Now, we have a present administration that is trying to do the job that they sent him there to do: secure the border of the United States; hold back spending; eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; get this economy going again; get the regulations out of the way of the American people; and do the job they want us to do.
Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump's policies are collapsing our economy. Unemployment is rising. The NASDAQ had its worst day since the COVID crash. Millions of dollars in retirement savings have been wiped out in just weeks. The reason is clear: the Trump administration's reckless tariffs on our allies.
To impose these tariffs, Trump declared a made-up national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, but the law has a safeguard. Any Member can force a vote to terminate the emergency.
What happened? Speaker Johnson doesn't want a vote. Why? It would force Republicans to go on the record about Trump's tariffs. Instead, Speaker Johnson has rewritten the law in real time.
Here is what the rule says: ``Each day for the remainder of the first session of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day.'' What? If you don't think that makes any sense, neither do I.
House Republicans are declaring that the days are no longer days and that time has literally stopped.
The Speaker is petrified that Members of this House will actually have to take a vote on lowering costs for the American people.
This is what the American people elected us to do, but now, because of Donald Trump's tariffs and because Republicans would have to take a tough vote, Speaker Johnson is stopping us from voting.
If Congress can't act to lower prices, protect retirement savings, and hold the President accountable, why are we even here? What are we doing here?
A ``yes'' vote on this rule is a vote for Trump's tariffs. A ``yes'' vote on this rule is a vote to keep prices high for American families. A ``yes'' vote is a vote to block Congress from doing its job to lower costs.
If you actually care about lowering costs, you should vote ``no'' on this rule.
Mrs. Fischbach. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that Democrats love to claim foul on Republicans for shutting off national emergencies, but they are cherry-picking the facts.
Let's take a look back at when we were in charge in the 117th Congress. They never allowed a vote on terminating the COVID national emergency. Mr. Gosar introduced two separate national emergency disapproval resolutions, and Democrats, who were in control at the time, not only shut off consideration of those resolutions without a single vote, but they shut them off for the remaining 18 months of the Congress. Even 2 years after the COVID emergency was declared, Democrats still silenced the voices of Republicans who wanted to take a vote.
What is that saying again? Rules for thee but not for me.
Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman just conceded that this rule would prevent the House from voting on Trump's tariffs, thereby resulting in the biggest tax increase on middle-class families that we have ever seen.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).
Mr. Speaker, sometimes when I am standing in this Chamber, I literally cannot believe my ears, and I have to say that today is one of those days.
As we stand here on the floor today, I am hearing Members of the other side of the aisle who said they would never vote for a continuing resolution, that they would never vote to raise the debt, and that they would never vote for a bill that extends the debt ceiling say that we have to pass this bill.
I literally cannot believe my ears today because the GOP today is here with a great American bait and switch.
Let me explain what exactly is going on. Donald Trump spent the weekend calling our colleagues across the aisle, asking them to keep the government open until the end of the fiscal year so that they can get on with their real agenda. You all know what the real agenda is. The real agenda is that they are dismantling the Federal Government. They are firing tens of thousands of Federal workers, teachers, firefighters, veterans, military, and members of our community who are in crisis right now, and they are illegally impounding funds.
Meanwhile, my Republican colleagues who said they would never vote for anything like this are saying that they are going to vote for it because, on the side, Donald Trump is winking at them, and his people are telling them not to worry, if you pass this bill, we are going to continue to do all of that illegal activity. We can get on to the real work, which is dismantling our basic programs that support our communities.
They want to take away your Medicaid. This weekend, Elon Musk said he wants to take away your Social Security. They want to dismantle housing programs. They want to dismantle food assistance programs. They are literally bait and switching the American people and abdicating their fundamental responsibility as Representatives of the people.
The people have spoken, my friends, and there is no number of townhalls that you can run away from to know that your people in your communities do not support your bait and switch.
I say to my GOP colleagues: Do your jobs.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. I want to commend the previous speaker on setting an excellent example on addressing remarks to the Chair. Thank you very much.
Add to that list now: Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to remind everyone that the people have spoken. They spoke in November. The Republicans are the majority in the House. The Republicans are the majority in the Senate. They elected President Trump. The people have spoken.
I would like to bring it back to what we are actually talking about today, and that is the rule in front of us. We are discussing the rule and the continuing resolution.
As my colleague from Texas mentioned, there was not a single ``no'' vote from Democrats for the continuing resolution in December. They are standing here today willing to shut down the government not because of anything substantive in the bill but because they believe that as long as they are acting against the Trump administration, against the elected President's and Republicans' agenda, then they must be doing the right thing.
Motivation by blind hatred, that is the Democratic Party that we have before us today.
Mr. Speaker, this rule contains tariffs, and I don't understand why the gentlewoman supports these tariffs. She represents a district with over 50,000 farmers, the second most of any Member of Congress.
During the last trade war started by Trump, American farmers lost $27 billion in agricultural exports. It is farmers in the gentlewoman's district who are being harmed by these tariffs, so I don't understand why she supports them.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Frost).
Mr. Speaker, I think it is interesting that anytime my colleagues want to defend horrible moves by the Trump administration, whether they are trying to cut Medicare or cut Medicaid, they keep saying the people have spoken, without realizing that the people are speaking. That is why they continue to cancel their townhalls. They don't want to hear what the people are saying right now.
Costs are at an all-time high. I came down here to tell people that if you are struggling to afford food, can't pay rent, or the medical bills are stacking up, this bill will make your life worse. Why? To give tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations.
This bill sets up major cuts to Medicaid, which 60,000 children in my district rely on for healthcare. It steals from veterans, ripping away benefits. It steals from working people and families. It gives even more unchecked power to president Elon Musk and DOGE.
Recently, Musk said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Every vote in favor of this bill endorses those words.
If my colleagues on the other side vote for this, go to your constituents and be loud and proud. Tell them that the program that they have paid into and worked on their entire life so they can retire with dignity is a Ponzi scheme.
Republicans have been told by their leadership to stop doing townhalls. Why? The people are pissed off. They are scared. Many have been sold this BS lie that if we just give all the power to billionaires like Elon Musk, we will all be okay.
I have breaking news: The billionaires have always had immense power in this country, and it hasn't worked out for us.
I am opposing today's rule so we can stop the House from voting on the Republican Party spending bill that works to cut Medicaid and Medicare, Social Security, veterans benefits, and school lunches, all in favor of the ultrarich.
I know what it is like to not be able to pay for housing, to go into debt to just survive. We are not in this because people have lived beyond their means but because we have been denied the means to live.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This is just another example of how talking points are written before they actually read the bill because this is about a government shutdown, plain and simple. We have to have the rule to pass the CR so that we can avoid a government shutdown.
Mr. Speaker, this is about the rule so that we can get to this continuing resolution or so-called continuing resolution.
Mr. Speaker, let me tell you what continuing resolutions are. They give Congress time to negotiate budget bills in the interest of the American people.
Let me be very clear that is not what Republicans want to do here. They are proposing we skip budget negotiations and give the Musk-Trump administration a slush fund.
Their actions prove that they have more respect for their billionaire bosses than they do for the Constitution. They are more willing to hand over their power to Trump and Musk than they are to defend the power of the people. They are more committed to enabling a bully than to standing up for their constituents.
That is what Trump and Musk are. They are bullies who use intimidation and retribution to get what they want. Trump under Musk, as my colleague said, they want it all. They want to disregard the law. They want to dismantle the agencies that serve the American people. They want to destroy the programs and services that Americans rely on.
The bottom line is this: Republicans are using a shutdown to bully us into giving Trump a blank check, no guardrails, Mr. Speaker, and 6 months to plunge us into further chaos. Yes, if we are in chaos, it is their fault. You control the House, you control the Senate, and you have your guy in the White House.
So let me be honest. I will not be bullied. The full-year slush fund CR is the red line.
I call on my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and on the Republicans' slush fund CR.
Mr. Speaker, the House Appropriations Committee worked in good faith throughout the FY25 process, and it was the Democrats who weaponized this process, holding up negotiations on demands that were completely unrelated to funding. If my colleagues choose a Democrat shutdown simply because they hate Donald Trump and his administration, then they are showing they have still learned nothing from the results of last year's elections.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are again reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, today House Republicans are trying to avert a funding crisis of their own making by passing a partisan Republican spending bill they drafted behind closed doors. It cuts $13 billion from programs like low-income housing, agricultural inspections, and election security.
This bill would allow President Trump and Elon Musk to supercharge their attacks on essential Federal programs and workers, including Social Security and the FAA, with no input from Congress.
I will highlight how this bill impacts our Nation's veterans, particularly in light of the administration's recent actions.
Due to the success of the PACT Act, more veterans than ever before have enrolled in VA care, and we should celebrate that success. Instead, this bill reneges on a commitment of $23 billion in healthcare funding for veterans who were exposed to burn pits and Agent Orange.
It also fails to guarantee essential programs within the Veterans Health Administration. Programs like homelessness assistance, mental health care, rural health initiatives, opioid and substance abuse treatment, oncology services, and caregiver support are left undefined and, therefore, subject to cuts or elimination by DOGE and Trump.
This is not an oversight. Our Republican colleagues are supporting this bill because it allows Musk to eliminate more programs without congressional approval.
Mr. Speaker, in just 6 weeks, over 6,000 veterans have been fired from the VA and other Federal programs. Veterans comprise 30 percent of our Federal workforce. They are among the hardest working and most patriotic employees in our country. Nonetheless, Trump has allowed Elon Musk and DOGE to fire thousands of them without cause, and more jobs are on the chopping block; 80,000 at the VA, tens of thousands at the IRS, and 7,000 at Social Security. When DOGE destroys Federal programs, it is not just cutting essential services for American families. It is also firing veterans.
Between deep VA cuts, eliminating funding for veterans' healthcare, and job cuts that disproportionately hit veterans, it appears that the Trump White House has declared war on veterans. Our veterans and their families deserve better than this.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this travesty of a bill and instead pass the clean CR offered by the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this rule and the full-year continuing resolution. The CR is an act of fiscal sabotage against D.C. and is an abuse of power over a disenfranchised jurisdiction, the consequences be damned.
For the last 20 years, D.C. has been able to operate under the local budget enacted by D.C. for the next fiscal year for the duration of every CR, including full-year CRs and the first two fiscal year 2025 CRs. The CR under consideration does not allow D.C. to do so.
Instead, the CR effectively repeals the fiscal year 2025 local budget enacted by D.C., which D.C. has been operating under for the last 6 months, and it restores the fiscal year 2024 local budget enacted by D.C., which D.C. stopped operating under 6 months ago.
This unprecedented budget substitution will result in an immediate cut of more than $1 billion from D.C.'s $21 billion budget. This cut will likely force D.C. to immediately terminate programs and to lay off or furlough police officers, firefighters, other first responders, and teachers. This cut does not save the Federal Government any money because D.C.'s local budget consists entirely of locally raised revenue such as taxes and fees.
The CR also fails to exempt D.C. from a Federal Government shutdown in fiscal year 2026. Since the 2013 Federal government shutdown, Congress has exempted D.C. from Federal Government shutdowns because Congress recognized that shutting down a city of more than 700,000 people was harmful to the operations of both D.C. and the Federal Government.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a memorandum from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's office detailing the impact of this CR on D.C.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia?
There was no objection.
Impacts of Continuing Resolution on Critical Agencies & Services
Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the Republicans' partisan sham of a government funding bill which is nothing more than a blank canvas for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to continue their smashing and looting of our Federal Government.
There are too many things that are wrong with this bill to mention in just 2 minutes, including cuts to safety net programs for housing, food, veterans, and law enforcement, as well as essential community projects for every district in the country. What is really shocking is that Republicans rejected any and all input from Democrats, even though they need Democratic votes to pass this bill in the Senate.
If the Republicans want to go it alone, then go it alone, but they can't blame anyone but themselves when it fails.
If the government shuts down with a Republican House, Republican Senate, and Republican President, then it will be solely because the Republicans have moved forward with a terrible and partisan, take-it- or-leave-it bill.
In November, the clear number one issue on voters' minds was the economy and the cost of living. However, since he has taken over, President Trump has increased costs significantly and tanked the economy.
It gets even worse. The President has not only failed to keep his promise to help working Americans, but he has enlisted a corrupt, unelected billionaire to slash essential programs that hundreds of millions of Americans depend on.
Elon Musk isn't cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. He doesn't even know what he is cutting.
Unlike regular appropriations bills, this bill does not include the usual language to fund specific programs. What that means is that Elon Musk has unfettered discretion to cut whatever he wants.
You don't need to take my word for it, Mr. Speaker. The House Freedom Caucus issued a press release supporting this bill because of that very reality.
With this bill, Republicans are handing the power of the purse to Congress and not working with Democrats. We continue to stand ready to work together, but this bill does not do that.
Mr. Speaker, Americans across the country are angry about Elon Musk illegally firing employees and freezing Federal funds.
Rather than stand up to Musk, Republicans are giving him the power to shut down the government programs Musk doesn't like. Remember, just last night Musk said that he wants to eliminate the big programs like Social Security and Medicare. Musk also wants to fire thousands of VA employees. This bill cuts $22.8 billion for veterans' care. It cuts housing, and it cuts programs that protect our food supply so we can bring down the cost of eggs.
This rule also endorses Trump's tariffs under the guise of a national emergency. Yesterday Trump's tariffs caused the markets to plummet, taking Americans' retirement savings with them. That is the real national emergency. A vote for this rule is a vote for Trump tariffs.
Is that why Republicans are hiding from their constituents? Is it because they are backing unpopular tariffs that will cost the average family $2,000 a year?
Or maybe they are hiding because their funding bill cuts $15 billion from community projects. We are losing first responder and water infrastructure projects in New Mexico.
Republicans are also defunding the police in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, in Representative Bresnahan's district, and they are eliminating a clean water project in Lehigh County in Representative Mackenzie's district, just to name a few of the many projects that are being gutted in Republican and Democratic districts alike.
This is not a clean CR. It is as dirty as it gets.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his extraordinary leadership.
Mr. Speaker, today Republicans will vote to pass a continuing resolution that hollows out our Nation's commitment to the health, education, and economic security of America's working families. Instead of working constructively in a bipartisan way to meet the needs of the American people, Republicans are trying to starve the domestic budget with a partisan bill--I am going to focus on veterans here--that cuts nearly $23 billion in veterans' benefits in addition to slashing even more money from healthcare and affordable housing.
Indeed, the Republican CR is a betrayal of America's veterans with devastating cuts to initiatives that care for our veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances.
Our Nation's sacred promise is just as the military says: On the battlefield we leave no soldier behind, and when they come home we leave no veteran behind. With this bill, Republicans have broken that promise.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this betrayal of our veterans, and I urge my Republican colleagues to join Democrats at the negotiating table to get serious about the peoples' business. Vote ``no.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, if you vote for this rule, then you own the tariffs.
Republicans snuck in a provision that blocks this House from voting on resolutions that could end the tariffs. They know these tariffs will cost families an extra $1,200 a year, and they are scared to vote for them. So instead of letting Congress do its job, they are shutting down debate. They are hiding, and they are shielding themselves from any accountability.
Do you know who is going to feel the pain, Mr. Speaker?
It is working families and small businesses who are already struggling with high costs. It is farmers who are already the victim of retaliatory tariffs.
Meanwhile, the stock market was in a free fall yesterday, and today it is going down again. Retirement accounts have taken a huge hit. Ontario is already hitting us with a 25 percent electricity surcharge hurting families in Minnesota.
In fact, I saw a breaking news story this morning that Trump is now escalating his trade war by doubling tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. He and his enablers are pushing forward full steam ahead into a possible recession with no regard for the chaos he is causing in this country. That is why House Democrats, led by Representative Meeks, introduced resolutions to end Trump's devastating tariffs.
According to the National Emergencies Act, these resolutions should be fast-tracked for a vote on the House floor. Republicans are using this rule to shut them down. I would love to hear them explain to their constituents why they are standing by while prices are skyrocketing, but Republicans are scared of their constituents too, hiding in their offices instead of holding townhalls.
Let me be perfectly clear. If your Representative votes for this rule, they are voting to ratify the Trump tariffs. They are hoping you won't notice while they let our economy burn.
That is not leadership. That is cowardice. A vote against this CR is not a vote to shut down the government. We have offered a 1-month CR to fund the government while appropriators finish the budget process instead of giving up on everything and handing the reins back to Trump and Musk.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, now that we have finished listening to the Democrats' talking points, the same talking points that they use over and over to mislead the American people and demonize Republicans and demonize President Trump, I will actually focus on what we are talking about today and what is actually in front of the body. That is the rule to deal with the CR and two other bills.
Even with the additional funding for veterans and the FAA and families in this bill, it will cost less than last year. It won't be by gutting programs, as my Democratic colleagues have so wrongfully claimed, but by removing projects from the fiscal year 2024 bill so that they are not double funding projects that have already received funds in fiscal year 2024.
My Democratic colleagues must be confused because I certainly would not want to be accused of calling them liars. This bill upholds the responsibility of our veterans and ensures full funding for healthcare services and benefits. It includes the largest pay raise for junior enlisted troops in over 40 years. It supports Federal wildland firefighters. It increases funding for air traffic controller priorities.
It does not cut grants for law enforcement. It does not cut spending on family assistance programs. In fact, it increases spending for WIC by more than $500 million, and it includes an additional $6 billion for the Toxic Exposures Fund to treat veterans who have experienced service-related exposure to toxic substances.
This bill can increase spending on these critical needs by making sure that we are not double funding existing programs. It is really that simple.
Avoiding government shutdowns ensures that the administration can continue to identify waste, fraud, and abuse. It also allows ICE to continue deporting criminal migrants. This clean CR will allow us to focus on one big, beautiful reconciliation bill.
Furthermore, this rule provides a way for us to continue to remove waste, fraud, and abuse right now by extending the time to prosecute those who committed unemployment insurance fraud during the COVID CARES programming.
I would ask my Democratic colleagues to spare us the speeches about President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency trimming some of the bloated bureaucracy from our Federal departments. They are about to vote against a continuing resolution in the hopes of shutting our
The truth is that there are more than 25,000 Federal employees in the State of Massachusetts whose paycheck will be put on an indefinite hold if the government shuts down. That is what my Democratic colleagues are going to vote for.
My Democratic colleagues keep complaining about how unfair this CR is to the D.C. residents, but there are over 160,000 Federal employees in the District of Columbia. Quite frankly, there are more than there should be. Yet, Democrats are going to make every one of their paychecks go away if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle succeed in shutting the government down.
I thank my colleagues, Mr. Carey, Mr. Cole, and Mr. Smith from Missouri, for introducing these thoughtful pieces of legislation, and I encourage every single one of my colleagues to vote for this nonpartisan continuing resolution to keep our government fully funded and hold fraudsters accountable.
Mr. Speaker, I will make it very clear: A ``no'' vote on this rule is actually a vote to shut down government.
Mr. Speaker, I support the rule and the underlying legislation.
The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:
An Amendment to H. Res. 211 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair will reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on the question of adoption of the resolution.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 216, nays 212, not voting 4, as follows:
Mr. VICENTE GONZALEZ of Texas changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Ms. LETLOW changed her vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 211, I call up the bill (H.R. 1156) to amend the CARES Act to extend the statute of limitations for fraud under certain unemployment programs, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 211, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Ways and Means, printed in the bill, is adopted and the bill, as amended, is considered read.
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for 1 hour, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) each will control 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Missouri?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the American people supported President Trump in November because he pledged to eliminate waste and fraud in government.
There is no better example of what President Trump is talking about than the rampant fraud the Ways and Means Committee has uncovered in the COVID-era unemployment insurance program.
This money was supposed to help workers and their families through a crisis. Instead, it was stolen. It was stolen by fraudsters and criminals. According to government estimates, between $100 billion and $135 billion of UI benefits were stolen during the pandemic.
Outside estimates range as high as $400 billion. That is higher than the economy of my home State of Missouri and about 20 other States. It is the greatest theft of tax dollars in U.S. history. So far, the government has only recovered about $5 billion. As we stand here, there are over 157,000 open UI fraud hotline complaints and more than 1,600 ongoing fraud investigations.
This is a must-pass bill. The statute of limitations for these investigations starts to run out in 16 days on March 27. If we don't extend it, the criminals who stole money from the pockets of taxpayers, and continue to do so to this day, will get away.
The Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act is simple. It doubles the statute of limitations from 5 to 10 years so we can prosecute and recover hundreds of billions of stolen tax dollars. We did this in the 117th Congress when Republicans and Democrats voted unanimously to extend the statute of limitations for fighting fraud and other COVID- era programs plagued by criminal theft. This legislation deserves the same strong bipartisan support. Yet during our markup, not a single Ways and Means Democrat voted for this bill. Let me preview some of the fear-mongering you are going to hear today on this floor.
First, committee Democrats will argue that giving law enforcement more time to prosecute fraud will lead to surprise bills or targeting of innocent Americans who accidentally received an overpayment. This is completely false.
DOJ is focused on prosecuting sophisticated criminals who maliciously defrauded the government, including international crime rings, online scammers, and gangs that are using tax dollars to illegally purchase firearms and commit crimes.
This is not about going after grandma who made a mistake on her form. Anyone making that claim is simply not telling the truth. That isn't happening today, and it won't happen tomorrow. All this bill does is simply extend the investigations ongoing today.
Second, Democrats claim that rescinding $5 million to offset the cost of this bill is a bridge too far. This is unused money sitting over at the Department of Labor. With over 1,600 open investigations, Democrats should be more concerned about what their constituents and American taxpayers have to lose if this doesn't get done.
Third, Mr. Speaker, you will hear complaints about items unrelated to this bill like DOGE or the streamlining of the Federal Government to make it work better for the American taxpayer.
I understand that my colleagues on the other side may want to use their floor time to discuss those issues, but that is not what the bill in front of us is all about. It is simply about continuing ongoing efforts to recoup tens of billions of dollars criminally taken from the American taxpayer.
A ``no'' vote is a vote to allow these criminals to keep the money they stole from taxpayers. It is a vote to surrender to fraudsters. It is a vote that says to Americans we don't care about their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to reluctantly oppose H.R. 1156 that would extend the statute of limitations for pandemic unemployment insurance fraud for 5 years.
During the pandemic, criminal actors and fraud rings took advantage of overwhelmed State unemployment offices and unqualified contractors to steal billions of dollars from American taxpayers. Like the rest of my Democratic colleagues, I have strongly supported the Department of Labor Inspector General's, or OIG, efforts to serve justice and recover taxpayer dollars.
We opposed Republican cuts to the OIG budget that slowed their work. Then 2 years ago, when the inspector general recommended we extend the statute of limitations for specific crimes to allow more time for prosecution of criminal rings, we tried to work with our Republican colleagues on a bill to accomplish that.
Why then am I opposing this bill today? Just before this bill was introduced, President Trump illegally fired the very inspector general who recommended this extension of the statute of limitations and who led the OIG's work to prosecute criminal rings, securing 1,400 convictions and over $1 billion in court-ordered restitution. President Trump also illegally fired 16 other nonpartisan inspectors general, the same officials we depend on to fight fraud and hold agencies accountable.
Since that time, we have seen Elon Musk and his DOGE team sweep through Federal agencies, firing experts, demanding access to American citizens' most sensitive identity and financial information, and levying unfounded accusations of fraud at Federal program beneficiaries, even at Social Security recipients.
One in four Americans received pandemic unemployment benefits. Many of them unknowingly received modest overpayments, often because of State or contractor errors. For example, Arkansas businesses received specific instructions from the Arkansas unemployment office about how their workers should report income on their pandemic unemployment applications. Unfortunately, this guidance was incorrect, resulting in overpayments.
Consequently, the Arkansas unemployment office applied to the Department of Labor for permission to waive overpayments to employees whose employers gave them incorrect information. These workers did nothing wrong, but the bill today would allow the DOGE team to falsely claim these workers defrauded the government and file criminal charges 10 years after they spent the funds on rent and food to survive the pandemic.
Extending the statute of limitations without a Senate-confirmed nonpartisan inspector general and without any guardrails limiting the extension to serious criminals could put every American who lost their job during the pandemic at risk of harassment and accusations of fraud.
Given the false accusations of rampant fraud by Federal program beneficiaries, coupled with the administration's stopping enforcement against criminal activity by certain foreign adversaries, any extension of the statute of limitations needs guardrails in the law to protect workers who were unemployed during the pandemic.
I filed an amendment to limit the extension to cases with an expected recovery of at least $100,000, which is standard practice at the Office of Inspector General right now. I am deeply disappointed that my amendment that would simply codify current practice was not made in order so that I could support the bill.
This bill will also cut the Department of Labor's limited budget to support State fraud prevention, including criminal identity verification tools.
As unemployment surges across the country due to the DOGE firing of Federal employees and contractors, due to the Trump administration's illegal cuts to nonprofits and theft of Federal funding, and due to the Trump trade wars, States will need all the help they can get to pay benefits accurately and to protect against the same bad actors that targeted us during the pandemic.
Mr. Speaker, given the failure of this Republican bill to protect the tens of millions of unemployed workers during the pandemic from the DOGE witch hunt, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill until language is included that ensures that the prosecution focus remains on criminal rings and large-scale fraud rather than overpayments due to State individual errors.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for his leadership on this very important topic.
I rise in strong support of H.R. 1156, the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act. This bill extends the statute of limitations for CARES Act unemployment fraud from 5 to 10 years to provide law enforcement agencies with more time to go after the fraudsters and international criminal organizations.
Nearly 5 years after the CARES Act was signed into law, we are facing the expiration of the statute of limitations for holding criminals accountable.
Congress must act quickly. We cannot retroactively change criminal liability for Federal crimes.
As chairman of the Work and Welfare Subcommittee, we have done considerable oversight to investigate the size and scope of unemployment fraud throughout the pandemic.
GAO estimates between $100 billion and $135 billion, with a b, was lost to fraud, yet only $5 billion has been recovered.
This February, our subcommittee held a hearing with fraud experts from across the country. One of our witnesses said that as much as 70 percent of the fraudulent unemployment benefits went to Russian mobsters, Chinese hackers, and Nigerian scammers.
A recent DOJ case involved a Pennsylvania man obtaining $59 million in public benefits and laundering the proceeds to China. As a member of the House Select Committee on China, cases like this are deeply concerning to me and confirm our worst fears regarding the attacks on our institutions by hostile nations such as China and the CCP.
Witnesses also told us that fraud is continuing to happen. Fraudsters are now targeting the disaster unemployment benefits using stolen identities of California fire victims.
The Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act is a commonsense bill that doubles the statute of limitations so we can recover hundreds of billions of stolen taxpayer dollars.
Prosecuting bad actors has a ripple effect that will deter crime and prevent additional losses to the Federal Government and American taxpayers.
The DOJ has more than 1,600 open, uncharged COVID-19 criminal matters, and the Department of Labor inspector general has yet to investigate 157,000 UI fraud hotline complaints.
This bill is simple. Once the statute of limitations expires, these cases will go cold and criminals will go unpunished.
Let me be clear. A vote against this bill is a vote to surrender to fraudsters and criminals. Don't let the criminals and fraudsters win.
Mr. Speaker, today Republicans offer a truly remarkable answer to unemployment insurance fraud, and that is to make a big cut in those who are already fighting unemployment insurance fraud and abuse.
Likely gone will be the resources for providing the States access to databases that they use to prevent fraud by confirming identities.
Once again, arithmetic is just simply not a Republican friend. They cut $5 million from antifraud efforts that are going on today to produce a savings of $500,000 over a 10-year period according to the independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which estimates that any additional recoveries from their sorry bill of overpaid benefits would be insignificant.
This rash Republican move comes on top of Elon Musk's slash-and-burn rampage through our government. Who knows how many civil servants have already been fired whose principal responsibility is to fight fraud; not only the fraud that has occurred in the past but some shyster who has come up with a new approach?
As the sponsor of antifraud legislation myself, legislation which Mr. Smith has refused to consider to prevent some bilking of Medicaid, I can tell the difference between a real antifraud measure and one advanced on behalf of administration extremists who don't believe in unemployment insurance in the first place.
This bill's true objective is to penalize working Americans who, through no fault of their own, both lost their jobs during the pandemic and then received mistaken amounts of overpayment thereafter. Now, years later, instead of accepting responsibility for the failure of the first Trump administration in improperly making those overpayments done first by the Trump administration itself and in failing to establish safeguards so that there would not be overpayments, Republicans instead are shifting the blame from Trump's wrongs to workers that did not commit the wrongs in the first place.
This bill is just another part of the Trump-Musk fake war on fraud, waste, and abuse--big claims, big, big claims, no proof of genuine savings. Really it is all about wrecking programs like unemployment insurance that the extremist Project 2025 said they wanted to eliminate even though they don't actually help taxpayers.
One thing we can be sure of is that with Trump we have no accountability, no transparency, and no watchdogs. That is why he moved quickly to fire at least 17 inspectors general in different agencies, including the Department of Labor Inspector General Larry Turner.
At the very time he was fired, Mr. Turner received no cause for being fired, of course, because the real cause was they didn't want a watchdog there. He was about fighting fraud. He was prosecuting large, sophisticated criminal rings responsible for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars in other ways.
Make no mistake, if they had really wanted to target those who are taking this money unfairly in a criminal way, they would have taken Mr. Davis' amendment to prioritize those who are doing the most damage. I believe that Trump, Musk, and House Republican enablers here today are much more interested in brash declarations than in genuine savings.
They have made clear that their number one priority in our committee is not unemployment fraud but more tax breaks for plutocrats by shifting more of the tax burden to working families and irresponsibly increasing by trillions of dollars the size of our national debt.
I would urge rejection of this bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Yesterday, my colleagues introduced an amendment that would limit prosecution of fraud cases with at least $100,000 in stolen funds.
Apparently, Mr. Speaker, Democrats want to give some criminals a get- out-of-jail-free card.
Let me give you an example of what that looks like. A woman from Rockford, Iowa, was sentenced to more than a year in prison for receiving $45,000 in unemployment benefits from eight different States using stolen identities and laundering the proceedings through cryptocurrency.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a September 20, 2022, release from the United States Attorney's Office Northern District of Iowa titled: ``Iowa Woman Sentenced to Federal Prison for COVID-19 Related Benefit Fraud and Money Laundering.''
Iowa Woman Sentenced to Federal Prison for COVID-19 Related Benefit
A criminal, Mr. Speaker, is a criminal no matter how much they steal from the American taxpayers. H.R. 1156 is a must-pass bill for anyone interested in enforcing the rule of law.
I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Malliotakis).
It is unconscionable to me that our colleagues on the other side are actually continuing to fight to protect fraudsters, going so far as to even say that if they just stole $500,000 that they should not be prosecuted.
We House Republicans are fighting for transparency. We are fighting to protect taxpayers. We are exposing the waste, the fraud, and the abuse, including an estimated $100 billion to $135 billion in pandemic unemployment fraud, money that was paid for by the hardworking taxpayers of this country to help people who are going through a tough time during the COVID pandemic.
Sadly, my State of New York ranks near the top of the list with an estimated $11 billion in fraudulent unemployment benefits. The precious taxpayer dollars went to fraudsters, many overseas, including China, Russia, and Nigeria. They even went to dead people and inmates in prison.
Criminals spent their money on luxury items like Rolex watches; fancy furnishings; items from Louis Vuitton, Burberry, and Gucci; and even a $10 million villa in the Dominican Republic. One spent $3.5 million on a mansion in New Jersey; a chartered private jet; Porsches, Ferraris, Bentleys, BMWs, and Mercedes-Benz. Another received over $1.5 million over a span of 10 months.
Meanwhile, my district offices in Staten Island and Brooklyn had to help dozens of constituents who had their identities stolen and could not get the unemployment benefits they desperately needed. This is about fixing something that went badly wrong to not just recoup taxpayers' money but to ensure it doesn't happen again.
This bill will help crack down on this type of fraud and would extend the statute of limitations that law enforcement needs to pursue criminal charges or civil actions and also incentivizes States to help us crack down and recover these fraudulent payments, and it puts in checks and balances to stop future unemployment insurance payments from going to incarcerated and deceased people.
To date, only $5 billion or less, about 4 percent of this massive fraud, has been recovered. This statute of limitations for prosecuting fraud in COVID-19 pandemic-era unemployment insurance will expire on March 27, and there are roughly 1,000 open cases investigating that fraud. We must allow law enforcement to do their work.
I gladly support this bill because I am on the side of the hardworking, tax-paying American who have had to foot this bill while my colleagues on the other side of the aisle continue to defend and protect the criminals and the fraudsters.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. This partisan-charged bill targets innocent workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic, received unemployment benefits, spent them in good faith to pay for necessities, and had no idea that their States made mistakes in paying their benefits.
Sadly, my Republican colleagues are using this bill to throw millions of Americans' lives and livelihoods into instability.
This financial attack on my constituents required them to then reimburse the Federal Government for a mistake that they did not make, upending their ability to pay their rent, leaving families homeless, upending their ability to purchase school supplies or make a car payment resulting in the loss of transportation that gets them to their jobs.
For people living on the margins of poverty, they don't have a financial cushion to fall back on when a surprise bill like this one is thrown into their family. It will cause major disarray.
This bill is not about addressing fraud. Republicans are simply using this opportunity to wage war on individuals themselves who did no wrong.
I encourage my colleagues to vote against this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for introducing this commonsense piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act. Before I get into my planned remarks, I want to fact check some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle attacking President Trump, claiming that laid off Federal workers are being prevented from receiving unemployment.
We have been in touch with the Department of Labor. They have published documented guidelines describing filing and eligibility requirements that make it clear Federal workers are eligible for unemployment.
The biggest risk to Federal workers is not being able to claim their benefits at all because fraudsters got there first. There have been multiple data breaches at agencies across the government, including the Office of Personnel Management, exposing the personal information of millions of Federal workers.
Democrats should be supporting this bill to catch fraudsters that are still out there using stolen identities to file illegitimate claims.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have insisted, despite their pushback on the Trump administration's actions, that they want to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Today, they can prove it.
The bill we are debating is really pretty simple. We know that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans benefited from unemployment insurance, but fraudsters took advantage of an overwhelmed system, resulting in more than $100 billion in sham UI payments, including $466 million of UI fraud in my home State of Kansas. The statute of limitations is fast approaching, on March 27, and if Congress doesn't act, these scammers are off the hook.
Our legislation today extends the statute of limitations from 5 to 10 years. With nearly 1,700 open cases, this bill gives the Labor and Justice Departments the tools they need to go after these criminals.
This should be an easy ``yes'' for everyone in the Chamber.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 1156.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic's start, Democrats have gone after the criminal fraud rings that stole from our pandemic unemployment insurance programs and empowered our partners across the Federal Government.
Today's Republican bill is so hypocritical. It completely ignores President Trump's illegal termination of the nonpartisan inspector general responsible for that very work. Before he was fired, it was Inspector General Larry Turner's leadership investigating UI fraud that resulted in over 2,000 individuals charged, 1,400 convictions, and more than $1 billion in taxpayer dollars recovered.
In fact, it was IG Turner who had recommended that Congress extend the statute of limitations in the first place. It is outrageous that Republicans now want to act on the IG's recommendation but refuse to address the illegal firing of IG Turner and 18 other nonpartisan inspectors general across the Federal Government.
Further, Republicans refuse to even consider my and Congress Member DelBene's amendment, which would have extended the statute of limitations for 6 additional months and would have allowed for the full 10-year extension only if the President either reappoints IG Turner or appoints another Senate-confirmed individual for the role.
This would have been the responsible thing for Congress to do. Keep the door open for now on investigating and prosecuting this fraud while also ensuring we have a competent, Senate-confirmed inspector general leading the charge.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1156, the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act.
Unemployment insurance, or UI, fraud ran rampant during the pandemic. The Government Accountability Office estimates that pandemic-era unemployment insurance fraud totaled $135 billion. That is about 15 percent of total UI benefits during the pandemic. Other estimates estimate that UI fraud ran up to $400 billion.
California alone accounts for $20 billion to $33 billion of fraudulent pandemic UI payments. One estimate put the State's improper payment rate at almost 37 percent during the first 6 months of the pandemic.
This fraud isn't just a blatant waste of hardworking taxpayer dollars. It completely undermines Americans' faith in the system, in our management of taxpayer-funded programs.
The Hoosiers who I represent expect more from their government, as they should.
Despite these egregious levels of fraud, we have recovered only $5 billion, or less than 4 percent, of fraudulent payments. As of January, the Department of Justice had over 1,600 open, uncharged criminal matters relating to COVID-19 fraud. Additionally, the Department of Labor has approximately 157,000 open UI fraud complaints assigned to its hotline office.
Unfortunately, the statute of limitations for prosecuting these fraudsters expires at the end of March. This bill would extend that deadline for another 5 years so that we can continue to hold these criminals accountable and recover the stolen funds.
One of our most important responsibilities as Members of Congress is to be good stewards of taxpayer money. It would be irresponsible not to take every possible step to recover these fraudulent funds.
This is a commonsense bill, and I am proud to be a cosponsor of it. I urge its support. I thank Chairman Smith for his leadership on this bill.
Mr. Speaker, the COVID pandemic is over and so are many of our problems that disappeared with it, but the mushroom cloud of fraud still lingers in the air.
The COVID-19 pandemic didn't just reveal cracks in the U.S. relief programs. It turned them into sinkholes. Due to a lack of guardrails, fraudsters stole hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars from numerous pandemic-era programs.
Mr. Speaker, $135 billion is how much was stolen from the American people in unemployment insurance programs alone. As of today, only a paltry $5 billion has been recovered. Meanwhile, the statute of limitations is set to expire on March 27.
Mr. Speaker, letting cheats get away with stealing taxpayer money would truly be a tragedy.
To the fraudsters, con men, and outright thieves, I have a message to you from the American people: We want our money back, and this bill is going to help us get it.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud today to rise in favor of my colleague from Missouri, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith's bill, H.R. 1156, the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act. This must-pass bill will extend the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions from 5 to 10 years so the Justice Department can deliver justice and go after these fraudsters and recover our money.
The only answer, Mr. Speaker, is to vote ``yes.'' Let's go get them.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1156, the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act, introduced by our chairman, Jason Smith.
It is clearer by the day that the COVID pandemic gave rise to widespread financial fraud. A prime example of that is the fraudulent unemployment insurance claims that were filed, which totaled between $100 billion and $150 billion, most of which happened as a result of organized crime.
Incredibly, to date, less than 4 percent of these stolen funds have been recovered. If we do nothing before March 27, the statute of limitations to bring these criminal cases against these fraudsters will come to an end, and the rest of these taxpayer funds will be lost forever. We cannot allow this to happen, and we must make best efforts to recover these stolen funds.
Mr. Speaker, make no mistake, the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act is supported by both red and blue States across the country. The National Association of State Workforce Agencies, a nonpartisan association representing all States, endorsed extending the statute of limitations so that criminal prosecutions and civil enforcement actions could continue uninterrupted.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, dated February 11, 2025, supporting passage of H.R. 1156.
Mr. Speaker, this bill gives States the time they need to go after criminals who commit acts of malice and intentional fraud against American taxpayers.
As a proud cosponsor of this legislation, I strongly urge my colleagues to stand in support of the American taxpayer and stand in support of passage of this important piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for his leadership on this important piece of legislation.
During the pandemic, Congress created three new unemployment benefits and issued $675 billion in benefits to folks who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. Since then, the Government Accountability Office estimates up to $135 billion in fraud nationwide, with some of the more egregious States, like California and New York, reporting $18 billion and $11 billion, respectively, in fraud alone.
Despite such rampant fraud, only $5 billion, less than 4 percent, has been recovered.
Without H.R. 1156, the statute of limitations to recover fraud will expire in just 2 weeks.
Simply put, we cannot let criminals who defrauded the Federal Government retain over $100 billion of improper payments. That money rightfully belongs to the American people and must be recovered.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge support of this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I am quite astonished. I had every expectation I would be coming to the floor for what would be a bill with overwhelming bipartisan support. After all, COVID-era unemployment fraud was the largest fraud of taxpayer dollars in U.S. history. In California alone, it amounted to some $32 billion.
By the way, California made it really easy. People would submit claims with the name ``Mickey Mouse,'' or something along those lines, and it was given no scrutiny as the State ignored the basic fraud detection procedures that were recommended by the Federal Government.
Because of the scale of this fraud, there is a very small percentage of the cases that have been prosecuted, and thousands remain unresolved, so there is the need to extend the statute of limitations.
The question with this bill is: Are we going to allow those cases to go forward, or are they all going to be dismissed?
Are we going to hold the perpetrators accountable, or are we going to let them all go free?
Are we going to try to recover these funds for taxpayers, or are we going to allow the international criminal syndicates to keep it?
By the way, Mr. Speaker, what do you think they are going to do with the money? Give it to charity? No. They are going to use it for further criminal activity.
This is a commonsense measure. I am sure 99.9 percent of Americans support it, and I sure hope 100 percent of our friends on the other side of the aisle don't oppose it when it comes for a vote.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the committee for bringing this bill, and I rise in strong support of H.R. 1156, the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act.
There is an old expression that we have all heard at one time or another about the somewhat famous bank robber Willie Sutton. He was asked: Why do you rob banks? His answer was: Because that is where the money is.
That is exactly what happened with expanded pandemic unemployment insurance during the pandemic. We all lived through it. We saw it. I had a front-row seat as a State law enforcement official at the time. We saw enormous and unprecedented amounts of money shoveled from this town out into State unemployment systems that were ill-equipped to handle it.
Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? We didn't just know that. The fraudsters, the criminals, and the organized criminal enterprises knew it, too. They saw opportunity. They saw that is where the money was, chased it, and stole enormous amounts of money. In the case of my State of Kansas, a subsequent forensic audit suggests it was about $466 million in documentable stolen pandemic funds.
The question is, what are we going to do about it?
Mr. Speaker, I will tell you what we did about it as State officials at the time. We looked to our Federal partners. We worked closely. Everybody was dealing with a circumstance we hadn't seen before. We were assured that our Federal partners had the tools, capacity, and reach to exceed our borders and reach out and touch these transnational criminal organizations operating from overseas that stole money from our taxpayers right here at home. We deferred. We relied on the assurances that the Federal Government was going to step up and enforce the law to its full extent.
Now, here we are, 5 years later, not just by happenstance but because of decisions made in this body by people who came before us. The sun is about to set on the ability of the Federal Government to do what it promised to do because there is a statutorily enacted statute of limitations that shuts the door on further prosecutions in only a few short days.
It is within our power to change that decision and to let the Federal Government follow through on its promise to bring to bear whatever tools we have to try to recover whatever portion of that remaining stolen money is able to be recovered.
Why on Earth would we not do that? It is the right thing to do for our taxpayers, and it is the right thing to do
We should abandon the ``see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'' approach that is the status quo. We should adopt this bill, extend the statute of limitations, and let our dedicated Federal law enforcement authorities do their jobs to keep chasing this money and bring back whatever they can find.
Mr. Speaker, I support the bill, and I am grateful for the leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.
Mr. Speaker, after listening to the comments of Chairman Smith and my Republican colleagues, it is pretty clear to me that they don't intend to stay the course, the course that led to 1,400 convictions. It appears that they really intend to prosecute everybody, the whole group, everybody involved.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my Democratic colleagues for their thoughtful comments and ongoing efforts to fight fraud while protecting workers from harassment.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the bill so that we can incorporate the guardrails needed to balance our goals of prosecuting criminals and protecting innocent workers from harassment by DOGE or others who might misuse this authority. I trust that those individuals will not have to endure the harassment that often comes.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, the folks on the other side of the aisle were referring to President Trump firing the Department of Labor inspector general earlier. President Trump campaigned on changing Washington. He is well within his power to remove members of the executive branch at will, and it is understandable, Mr. Speaker, that he wants people in his administration who reflect his views.
The Labor Department's inspector general plays an important role in identifying fraud but does not charge cases or decide which ones to prosecute. The Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Offices handle prosecution of Federal crimes. This bill extends the statute of limitations to ensure the Department of Justice has the time they need to go after criminals who committed acts of malice and intentional fraud against American taxpayers.
The criminal activity in the COVID-era unemployment insurance program represents the largest theft of tax dollars in U.S. history. This money was supposed to help American families through a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. Instead, thousands of criminals, including foreign crime rings, made off with hundreds of billions of dollars.
We know that some of these same groups are continuing to perpetrate UI fraud targeting disaster victims. Fraudsters are filing claims on behalf of individuals impacted by fires in your State, Mr. Speaker, and the North Carolina floods, and then using the money for criminal activity.
The statute of limitations to prosecute these crimes is set to expire this month with just 4 percent of the stolen funds having, so far, been recovered. Criminals are going to get away scot-free unless we pass this legislation.
Over the past few weeks, Democrats have sued and stonewalled President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE over the broader investigation into how our tax dollars are being spent.
The American people are tired of words. It is time for action. The Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act will buy prosecutors and law enforcement more time to go after criminals and recoup the money taxpayers are rightfully owed. It is no wonder this legislation is widely supported by Federal law enforcement agencies and States.
The American people deserve justice, and now it is up to Congress to deliver it.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 211, the previous question is ordered on the bill, as amended.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted by the Internal Revenue Service Relating to "Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital...
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 211, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 25) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Internal Revenue Service relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 211, the joint resolution is considered read.
The text of the joint resolution is as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The joint resolution shall be debatable for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) each will control 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Missouri?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of a Congressional Review Act resolution repealing the last-minute, unfair, and unworkable Biden IRS rule that places a bureaucratic burden on the Americans who own cryptocurrency and the platforms that allow them to own it.
Congress gave the IRS clear instructions in the 2021 infrastructure law regarding digital asset reporting. The IRS was given an inch and took a mile, writing a rule that is overly broad and downright sloppy in the process.
The rule subjects decentralized finance platforms, or DeFi exchanges, to the same reporting requirements as a centralized bank or traditional securities broker. Under President Biden, the IRS traded congressional intent for a politically motivated mandate.
The Biden administration made no secret of its opposition to digital assets and America's leadership in this booming industry. Bureaucrats weaponized every tool in the toolbox, including finalizing this rule at the eleventh hour, crippling the digital asset industry and threatening American leadership and innovation in the process.
Approximately one in four Americans own cryptocurrency. This rule puts a huge burden on these regular folks and could discourage participation in the digital asset market altogether.
While workers lose, foreign countries win. Since only American companies and taxpayers have to comply with the burdensome rules, only American companies and taxpayers will need to spend billions of dollars to change their business models and report billions of pieces of taxpayer data.
America risks losing our edge to foreign companies as a result. The rule disincentivizes the very innovation that has powered American leadership in the digital asset industry. In a global economic competition with China, this rule chips away at a source of American economic strength.
There are real questions if the rule can even be administered. DeFi exchanges are not the same as centralized crypto exchanges or traditional banks or brokers. DeFi platforms do not and cannot even collect the information from users needed to implement this rule. Their software never controls the digital assets. DeFi platforms cannot exchange currencies, hold assets in escrow, or maintain third-party records of financial transactions like their counterparts, yet the Biden administration wanted to treat them the same.
As former IRS Commissioner Rettig said himself, these new IRS crypto regulations require millions of taxpayers to file new Form 1099s in a way that would ``overwhelm the agency and have little or no value to effective and efficient tax administration.''
The lesson here is simple: Laws passed by Congress should be interpreted and implemented fairly, not used as a pretext to gain more control over the economy at the expense of individual taxpayers.
The repeal of this misguided rule would remove a barrier preventing American consumers from participating in crypto and help cement America's digital asset leadership.
I thank my Ways and Means colleague, Congressman Mike Carey, for leading the effort to protect taxpayers from an unjustified overreach from the Biden administration.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, back in 2021, when we passed the bipartisan infrastructure law, Congress felt it was necessary to pay for what we spent. That is a novel concept around here these days, I know. As part of the offsets to that truly bipartisan bill, we made some changes around tax reporting for the sale of cryptocurrency.
Under the tax system, taxpayers are required to pay tax when they sell an asset, such as stocks or securities, at a gain. I know that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle bristle at that notion, but that is how our income tax works.
Nothing in the bipartisan infrastructure law changed anything about the tax that cryptocurrency sellers owe. Instead, we created a reporting requirement relating to the sales of these assets. When you sell stock with a stockbroker, the broker reports the proceeds of the sale to both you and the Internal Revenue Service.
Probably to no one's surprise, when there is independent reporting on these sales, taxpayers are more likely to report their income to the Internal Revenue Service. It is simple human nature. When there is an independent check on one's financial gain, taxpayers are more honest in their reporting of that gain.
This resolution today would repeal some but not all of the Treasury regulations by the Biden administration regarding the new reporting requirements related to sales of cryptocurrency. Although cryptocurrency is exchanged on both centralized and decentralized platforms, the bill today only repeals the regulation related to decentralized exchanges.
This inconsistent treatment of cryptocurrency exchanges leaves a significant gap in this reporting system. If this CRA passes, while redundant, taxpayers, who would rather avoid paying taxes on the gains of their cryptocurrency sale, can now move to a decentralized exchange knowing that the transaction would not be subject to reporting.
In fact, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that this bill will cost the Federal Government $4 billion in tax revenue. That is, this bill is expected to cause $4 billion in tax cheating. It is clear to me that this bill weakens the Internal Revenue Service's ability to detect and reduce cheating.
Further, I am deeply troubled by the potential of this bill to bolster nefarious criminal activity. Decentralized exchanges are far less regulated than other exchanges. They are known for being a method of laundering the sales of fentanyl and human trafficking.
At the Rules Committee hearing yesterday, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle suggested that nothing is stopping Congress from coming back and modifying the rules to ensure tax compliance.
Unfortunately, given that my Republican colleagues have repeatedly promoted tax cheating by the wealthy by their repeated efforts to cut funding for IRS enforcement, this claim that they would take action to ensure tax compliance in the deregulated crypto world rings hollow.
In short, this is an unpaid-for $4 billion giveaway to wealthy crypto traders with the potential for side-effects that are much worse.
Mr. Speaker, for that reason, I do not support this joint resolution, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for his work on bringing this legislation to the floor.
I also thank the staff of the Committee on Ways and Means for their efforts in moving this very important legislation forward. This commonsense, bipartisan resolution would overturn the IRS' Digital Assets Sale and Exchanges Rule, otherwise known as the ``DeFi broker rule.''
This legislation has broad bipartisan support. How do we know this? Last week in the Senate, 51 Republicans were joined by 18 Democrats and 1 Independent who favored it.
The DeFi broker rule, which came out at the end of 2024, implements stringent reporting requirements on decentralized finance exchanges, or DeFi exchanges.
DeFi exchanges were subject to the same reporting requirements as traditional brokers in centralized exchanges, despite the fact that DeFi exchanges don't have the ability to collect any information that the IRS requires from individuals using their platforms. This goes well beyond the scope of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act instructions to the IRS and Treasury regarding establishing rules for digital asset exchanges.
Through this ruling, the IRS effectively imposed consumer and technology-related regulatory policies through the tax code in absence of an explicit delegation of legislative authority.
The DeFi broker rule invades the privacy of tens of millions of Americans, hinders the development of an important new industry in the United States, and would overwhelm the IRS with over 8 billion new information returns on Form 1099-DA. ``DA'' stands for ``digital asset.''
To put this into perspective, this is more than double the amount of information returns the IRS currently receives on all forms of 1099 combined. This rule would push American companies, jobs, and tax revenue overseas into foreign countries because American cryptocurrency owners would seek DeFi platforms outside of the United States.
It is essential that we pass this legislation today to avoid this nightmare for the IRS and for the American taxpayers while ensuring that the United States is in a position to lead the world in innovation with the digital asset and cryptocurrency sector.
Mr. Speaker, that is why I am proud to have introduced H.J. Res. 25, and I encourage my colleagues on both sides to vote ``yes'' on this important legislation.
Mr. Speaker, brokers who sell stocks and mutual funds have long been required to file a report in January of each year on Form 1099. They send it to their customers. They
Many honest taxpayers out there right now have been collecting their 1099s from a bank or a securities broker to attach when they pay their taxes. Well-established crypto exchanges, like Coinbase and Binance, are required to do the same thing this year.
Why is it that Republicans are coming here today and saying: We want these decentralized finance crypto exchanges to be exempt from what everyone else in the financial service industry does?
The answer is two words. The answer is the same answer as to why it is we are about to see a new spending bill approved tonight.
It is the same answer as to why Republicans are insistent on a reconciliation bill that will add literally trillions of dollars to our national debt as they boast about being fiscal conservatives who are cutting healthcare in this country.
It is the same answer as to why Republicans cannot find their tongue when Elon Musk goes rampaging through our civil service. The President is responsible for dismissing more veterans than any President in the history of the United States.
It is the same answer that exists when the same rampage is undermining Social Security and the ability of the Social Security system to pay those checks that have been the lifeline for so many individuals who are seniors or individuals with disabilities.
The answer, in short, is: Donald Trump.
Shortly before he became President, Mr. Trump began raking in tens of millions of dollars in fees by launching his own meme coin, and the Trump family launched World Liberty Financial, which seeks to become a future decentralized finance.
As usual, the Trumps don't want to play by the rules that apply to mere commoners. King Trump, as he has described himself, plays by different rules for the royalty. Of course, disclosure and transparency are an absolute anathema to this administration, for whom lies are the currency of the realm.
Getting a special interest exemption from a pesky 1099 disclosure makes tax evasion and money laundering so much easier for the wealthy Republican donors who have been using these decentralized exchanges.
This bill, designed to exempt crypto fraud, is consistent with the sudden decision last week of Trump's SEC to halt prosecuting fraud against a Chinese businessman who, just coincidentally, invested $75 million in the Trump family's World Liberty Financial. In this administration, friends don't prosecute friends, or certainly not friendly investors.
Despite President Trump's claim that he must launch a trade war and impose a 25 percent tax on Americans who purchase anything from Canada in order to stop the estimated fraction of 1 percent of the fentanyl that enters our country from that longtime ally, today's bill opens the door to rewarding drug traffickers in fentanyl, cocaine, and whatever, as well as terrorists.
My colleagues need not take my word for it. We can turn to a Republican, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who said: ``Cryptocurrency has played an increasingly prominent role in the global fentanyl trade . . . both in terms of . . . manufacturing and trafficking of fentanyl and in laundering drug cartels' criminal proceeds.''
He says: ``This is particularly true of so-called `decentralized' crypto exchanges,'' for which this bill provides a totally unjustified special treatment.
According to the nonpartisan FACT Coalition, cryptocurrency is becoming attractive to hostile actors like Hamas, who seek ways to sidestep sanctions. The risks are especially severe with decentralized finance platforms, which are enabled to operate outside the traditional regulatory oversight that applies to others.
I further note that, when we talk about fiscal responsibility, this bill will add $4 billion to our national debt. Republicans can't even question that. It is like the $8 billion in one of the gifts the majority gave to the oil industry last week.
With $4 billion here, $8 billion there, and $4 trillion or so with the Republican tax bill to provide more tax breaks to people like Elon Musk and the people who were seated in the front row at the President's inauguration, it adds up. Those Republicans who have been telling us that we have a great national security problem with our national debt are so concerned about it that they are going to add trillions of dollars more, and $4 billion is nothing to ignore, which this bill does and does not pay for.
We should reject this new Trump special interest legislation that will just result in more corruption in this administration, a loophole that would be exploited by wealthy tax cheats, drug traffickers, and terrorist financiers, for which there is absolutely no reasonable justification.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, the IRS' DeFi broker rule is a misguided and overreaching attempt to impose financial reporting requirements, which represents a fundamental misunderstanding of digital assets and its underlying technology.
DeFi protocols are not brokers. They don't facilitate transactions like traditional financial institutions, nor can they collect and report user information. DeFi protocols provide infrastructure.
Expecting them to track and report user activity is both impractical and misaligned with the core function of what they do. Yet, the IRS wants to force software developers, validators, and even everyday users into compliance with regulations that simply don't fit.
This is the equivalent of requiring the builders of our interstate highways to report the identity of every driver who uses them. It is unworkable, it is unfair, and it completely misses the mark.
This rule would drive U.S. blockchain innovation overseas, killing jobs and stifling economic growth, while doing little to increase tax compliance. Congress should lead in crafting clear, workable regulations that protect consumers, ensuring that innovation isn't stifled and compliance remains practical.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' and do away with this unworkable rule.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.J. Res. 25, which overturns the Biden administration's misguided attempt to impose unworkable reporting requirements on the digital asset industry.
In November, the American people sent a very clear message. They were tired of the far-left policies of the Biden administration. They gave President Trump a mandate to turn our country around.
Despite this clear mandate and warnings from committees, the Biden administration pressed forward with partisan midnight rulemaking.
Last December, the Internal Revenue Service finalized a rule requiring decentralized platforms to facilitate digital asset transactions to report user data to the IRS.
While the Biden administration claimed this rule was about improving tax compliance, in reality, it goes far beyond what Congress ever intended.
This rule would place impossible burdens on software developers, threaten American leadership in digital asset innovation, and ultimately drive entrepreneurs and investors overseas.
We cannot continue the Biden-era policies that crush innovation and put American companies at a disadvantage. That is why I support H.J. Res. 25, which repeals this harmful IRS rule and allows Congress to develop a targeted, commonsense framework that protects both consumer privacy and American innovation.
This resolution is backed by over 117 industry leaders, including the Blockchain Association, Coinbase, and the Crypto Council for Innovation.
Empowering innovation, not stifling it, is key to keeping America competitive.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to stand with American entrepreneurs and innovators by supporting H.J. Res. 25.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the heartfelt arguments from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but at the end of the day, it is hard for me to overcome the fact that this bill would add $4 billion to the deficit solely due to taxpayer noncompliance.
If Republicans have a meaningful solution to address this noncompliance, we look forward to working with them on it, but embracing tax cheating by completely throwing these rules out is simply not the answer.
Mr. Speaker, for that reason, I do not support this joint resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Earlier this afternoon, the other Chamber was reminded that the Constitution says all revenue measures must originate in the House of Representatives.
The Senate must have been just so excited about this bipartisan CRA that they couldn't wait another minute, but that is okay. Whether it is the CRA or the budget, I guess they will just have to vote again.
Mr. Speaker, the repeal of the Biden IRS rule is a victory for common sense. The Federal Government shouldn't demand decentralized finance platforms, used by ordinary Americans to buy and sell cryptocurrency, to fill out forms when those platforms don't collect the information needed for the form. Neither the American people nor the IRS are equipped to handle the demands of this unworkable rule.
These platforms are not like banks. They are not like security brokers, yet this rule treats them as if they are.
In order to justify the burden placed on ordinary people, Mr. Speaker, the Biden IRS stretched and twisted congressional intent to enact regulations designed to cripple the digital asset industry.
I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this bill and help dismantle the politically motivated regulations from the last administration.
Mr. Speaker, there are concerns with the IRS Final Rule, in that it may exceed the scope provided for in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The rule also raises important issues that warrant further scrutiny, including its potential impact on innovation and privacy.
However, as the Congressional Review Act (CRA) would not only repeal the current rule but also prohibits the agency from issuing any similar regulation in the future without explicit congressional authorization, I think a ``Yes'' vote goes too far. While I acknowledge flaws in the current rule, I believe that additional study could be useful. It is impossible that a more tailored rule aimed at appropriate tax compliance in the digital assets space could be appropriate. At a minimum, we should not completely forgo that possibility, without further study.
For these reasons, I will be voting ``Present'' on H.J. Res 25.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 211, the previous question is ordered on the joint resolution.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the joint resolution.
The joint resolution was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the joint resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 211, I call up the bill (H.R. 1968) making further continuing appropriations and other extensions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 211, the amendment printed in House Report 119-15 is adopted, and the bill, as amended, is considered read.
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:
TITLE VIII--DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
TITLE IX--DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND
TITLE XII--DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED
TITLE VIII--DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED
TITLE IX--DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND
TITLE XII--DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS, AND RELATED
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole).
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the measure under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Oklahoma?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1968, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act 2025.
Today's bill comes about at a critical time for this institution and this Nation. As Members are well aware, government funding all runs out at midnight on Friday. That means that Members are faced with a stark but clear choice: Will they vote in favor of this bill and thereby keep the government open and operating, or will they vote ``no'' thereby affirmatively choosing to shut down the government? This choice is the choice we face today.
We are now nearly 5\1/2\ months into the fiscal year 2025. Congress has previously passed two short-term continuing resolutions, both of which extended government funding and kept the status quo in place, ensuring the government can remain open.
Today's bill is really no different than the CR passed in December. Other than the most essential and critical anomalies, it simply maintains current conditions through the end of the fiscal year.
For those that supported the CR in December, you should have no qualms about voting the same way on today's bill. There are no policy differences, no poison pills, and no reason to vote against keeping the government open and operating.
A yearlong CR is not how I hoped the FY 2025 appropriations process would end. The Appropriations Committee and the House did their work. Indeed, the committee reported out all 12 appropriations bills by midsummer and the House passed five of those bills covering over 70 percent of discretionary spending across the floor by the end of July.
Sadly, despite our best efforts, we were unable to come to a final agreement on the full-year appropriations bills. Although we were very close on a final dollar figure, my colleagues in the minority made additional demands that would restrict the legitimate authority of the executive and the appropriations process. These are restrictions that the minority would never accept for a Democratic President, nor are they provisions that President Trump would or should sign into law.
It is deeply unfortunate and disappointing that the minority chose to make these unreasonable demands. Republicans never left the negotiating table and indeed worked diligently with Democrats to reach a bicameral, bipartisan deal.
Sadly, the minority allowed their opposition to the President to cloud their judgment, giving in to a political temper tantrum rather than voting to keep the government open.
That truly is the choice before us, Mr. Speaker. Today's bill is a simple, straightforward continuing resolution, funding the government and keeping it open through September 30. It maintains the status quo, providing flat funding for the government, and including only legitimate anomalies.
Importantly, this bill does not contain a single poison pill policy rider. It is a clean CR, fully funding our government. This includes our military and defense needs, and indeed we have accomplished this while also fully funding the Department of Defense, including the largest pay raise for junior enlisted personnel in over 40 years.
We are also maintaining funding for other critical functions of government, including border defense, roads, parks, childcare, water infrastructure projects, biomedical research, job training, and countless others.
I know Members have heard some fear-mongering about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This bill
Let me say that again. There are no changes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, period.
Mr. Speaker, the outcome of the fiscal year 2025 appropriations process is not what I wanted, but at the end of the day, it is significantly better than the alternative: a government shutdown.
The choice is clear: Either Members will vote for this bill and for keeping the government open, or they will vote to shut the government down. I know which option my constituents expect, and I know which I will choose.
I urge all my colleagues to do the same and vote for this bill. I urge all my colleagues to vote to keep the government open and operating.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this 1-year continuing resolution. It is not a simple stopgap that keeps the lights on and the doors open. This is Republican leadership handing over the keys of the government and a blank check to Elon Musk and to President Trump.
As the White House has said, this bill creates more flexibility for this administration to continue to undermine the Constitution and the countless spending laws by stealing promised investments from American families, children, and businesses, unlawfully dismantling agencies, arbitrarily firing civil servants, and canceling union contracts.
Read the Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7: The power of the purse resides with the Congress and not with the executive. In fact, the President has no legitimate authority to meddle in the appropriations process.
Mr. Speaker, our colleagues across the aisle have gone to their districts and witnessed rage from their constituents at these actions. They have been advised by their political consultants not to do townhalls altogether. Why bother listening to the American people?
It was President Lincoln who said public sentiment is everything, and without it, you can do nothing. They do not have public sentiment.
Now, what should we do? The answer should not be cutting nondefense programs by $15 billion and defense by $3 billion, as compared to the Fiscal Responsibility Act agreement for 2025.
They are in violation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. There was an agreement with Senator Schumer and Speaker Johnson. We all voted for it here. This is a violation that cuts nondefense by $15 billion and defense by $3 billion.
Why do they want to shortchange defense investments by $3 billion, I ask them. Not only is it bad for our military--there is a reason the Department of Defense has never operated for an entire year under a continuing resolution--but, above all, it transfers more power to the administration to shut off and repurpose funding as they see fit.
The will of the Congress and the people would be ignored. Elon Musk and President Trump would be able to fire thousands of employees.
Yes, we do not oversee Social Security. That is in the purview of the Ways and Means Committee. However, we do have control over the administration on Social Security, and the President and Elon Musk would be able to fire thousands of employees at the Social Security Administration. Just witness, they are talking about 7,000 positions gone.
What does that result in? Office closures, longer wait times, and unacceptable backlogs for Americans trying to access their earned benefits. In effect, you remove the staff and personnel, thereby crippling the agency to be able to do its job and, yes, to provide benefits.
It is nice if you can individually negotiate with the administration on your own to keep your Social Security office open. There are 47 on the docket to get closed. If one stays open, why not all 47?
Army Corps of Engineers construction projects would be cut by $1.4 billion, 44 percent, and President Trump, not the Congress, would determine who gets the funding--what cities, States, and localities-- and how much money that is there.
Instead of helping to address housing costs, the bill cuts rent subsidies by over $700 million. It leaves landlords to foot the bill or to evict. We will evict more than 32,000 households.
This bill breaks promises to veterans. House Republicans wisely proposed $23 billion in advance funding for the toxic exposures fund to care for veterans who were exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. In their bill last summer, it was in there. We voted for the PACT Act on a bipartisan basis, but that $23 billion in advance funding has now disappeared. It is gone.
We do advance funding here. We do it with veterans programs and others. We do it with the Indian Health Service. We do it for public broadcasting. Why do we not want to do it for veterans' care, their healthcare and treatment? Why? If I were a veteran and they said no to my advance funding--and we do advance funding so that issues like veterans' medical care don't get caught up in the political whims of this organization, of this body. Veterans today have to understand that that $23 billion for them is not there. There is uncertainty about that.
There is no emergency funding in this bill for disaster relief. It abandons American families who have had their lives turned upside-down by extreme weather. The funding for the disaster relief runs out in the spring.
What about Kentucky that just had a winter storm in February? Families will not be able to get back on their feet and recover. Neither will businesses that have been shut down because of a natural disaster.
The decisions about investments that we make cannot be entrusted in one single officeholder. This Congress must decide: Do we have the authority to control spending as we were granted and as laid out in Article I of the Constitution?
Why would we want to relinquish this, to give power to this administration, which is already doing massive harm by dismantling agencies, firing people, telling them today they are no longer needed? With the chaos and confusion that has been caused by Elon Musk and President Trump, why would we want to turn over our authority to appropriate bills?
I implore my colleagues to join me and stand up for our constituents against an unelected billionaire, Elon Musk, who is stealing taxpayer dollars from American families, children, and businesses. Oppose this giveaway to the administration. Pass a short-term CR, which I introduced yesterday, which would take us to April 11, to continue negotiations. Let us finish the regular bills that we agree on. That would be such an improvement over a full-year continuing resolution.
I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that a shutdown will be the result of the Republican majority walking away from negotiations. We were that close. They pulled the rug out from under us and said to stop negotiating because Musk and Trump want to have the control with a full-year continuing resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford), my very good friend and a distinguished member of the Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I will just preface my remarks by saying how much respect I have for the ranking member and her passionate arguments. Although we don't agree, I respect her highly.
Mr. Speaker, America broke up with the progressive Democrats, but they just can't let it go. In the words of Glenn Close, they will not be ignored. They are like the ex in the 1987 movie ``Fatal Attraction,'' the ex who got dumped and is stuck in a deranged reality, refusing to move on.
They are causing chaos, spreading mistruths, and doing everything they can to disrupt what the American people voted for, all because they cannot accept that their Big Government, open-border, America-last agenda is over.
We saw it just last week in this very Chamber, Mr. Speaker. We see it when we go back home to try to have conversations with our constituents. It is quite simple: House Republicans are
This continuing resolution gives President Trump the time and power to continue draining the swamp and undoing the damage the radical left did to our country for the past 4 long years.
What is the far left doing? They are throwing a tantrum, a childish, petulant tantrum full of fear-mongering and gaslighting of the American people, rooting for a shutdown just so they can point fingers.
Let me tell you something, Mr. Speaker. It is not going to work. We are not falling for it. We are not playing this game. This will be a Schumer shutdown when it gets to the Senate if that happens.
The American people chose secure borders, a secure economy, secure neighborhoods, and an America First agenda. The progressive Democrats just can't accept it.
Guess what, Mr. Speaker. This breakup is final. Republicans are moving on. We will pass this CR. We will keep America running.
I urge progressive Democrats to join the rest of the Nation. It is that or they can keep screaming into the void because America is not taking them back. The breakup is over. Leave the rabbit in the backyard alone.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentlewoman for her tremendous leadership and for yielding.
I don't really understand the ``Fatal Attraction'' reference because if anyone is dealing with fatal attraction, it is between President Trump and House Republicans. As soon as he says jump, their only answer is: ``How high?'' It doesn't matter whether they are hurting the American people.
That is why House Republicans are marching the country on a track toward the largest Medicaid cut in American history. It will hurt children, families, Americans with disabilities, and seniors. It will close nursing homes and hospitals.
When Donald Trump says, ``Jump,'' extreme MAGA Republicans say, ``How high?'' That is the fatal attraction that is hurting the people of the United States of America.
By the way, the core promise that they made last year was about lowering costs. All they talked about was how they were going to lower the high cost of living.
Democrats believe that America is too expensive. Housing costs are too high. Grocery costs are too high. Childcare costs are too high. Utility costs are too high. Insurance costs are too high.
America is too expensive. We believe that that, in fact, is the case, but Republicans have done nothing to lower the high cost of living--no bill, no executive order, no administrative action. That is the broken promise.
We were told by President Trump that costs were going to go down on day one. Grocery prices haven't gone down; they have gone up. Inflation is up.
Do you know what is going down? The stock market. It is because President Trump and House Republicans are crashing the economy in real time and marching us to a possible Republican recession. That is what is confronting the American people.
Now, we have this partisan, reckless spending bill that we are being asked to consider on the floor today. Bipartisan negotiations were underway. Rosa DeLauro was at the table, working to reach an agreement consistent with the Fiscal Responsibility Act that was passed by Republicans and Democrats and then signed into law in 2023, but when Donald Trump says, ``Jump,'' extreme MAGA Republicans say, ``How high?'' He ordered the Republicans to leave the negotiating table to try to jam this far-right, extremist bill down the throats of the American people.
There are so many challenges with this bill, too many to detail, but let me just articulate a few.
The House Republican, highly partisan, shutdown-threatening bill is an attack on veterans. It is an attack on families. It is an attack on seniors. It cuts funding for veterans, including billions of dollars in funds that will be cut from veterans in desperate need of healthcare for people who served this country and who are suffering from painful exposure to toxic substances, Agent Orange, and burn pits. This bill before this House cuts billions of dollars in that healthcare that is desperately needed. That is an attack on veterans.
It is an attack on children and families in America because this bill cuts funding for nutritional assistance that would otherwise be available for everyday Americans to put food on the table when people are already struggling because grocery prices aren't going down. They are going up under this administration. Yet, this Republican bill will cut funding for nutritional assistance. That is an attack on children and families here in America.
It is an attack on seniors, an attack on everyday Americans, an attack on housing, an attack on healthcare. It cuts funds from things like Alzheimer's research to help older Americans battle these challenges.
That is what this extreme Republican bill is all about. It will hurt families, hurt seniors, and hurt veterans.
Mr. Speaker, the second problem, equally troublesome, is that this bill does nothing to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We have been very clear. As Democrats, we look forward in this Congress to protecting these vitally important priorities for the American people.
Why is the bill silent on these priorities? The Republicans are trying to set in motion a chain saw to Social Security, a chain saw to Medicare, and a chain saw to Medicaid. Yesterday, their other boss confirmed that when he talked about these entitlement programs, as he called them. They are not entitlement programs. They are earned benefits.
Mr. Speaker, when you start to use the language of entitlement programs, it is because you are trying to set in motion an assault on Social Security and an assault on Medicare. They are saying the quiet part out loud.
We know they are going after Social Security and Medicare because they have been firing thousands of people from the Social Security Administration. They want to collapse the system, and this bill does nothing to stop that. All it does is facilitate the collapse of Social Security by dismantling the Social Security Administration.
Of course, we know what is going on with the assault on Medicaid, $880 billion, assaulting the healthcare of the American people. We have been very clear. We will work together to protect Social Security, protect Medicare, and protect Medicaid. They have no interest in doing that because they want to take a chain saw to these priorities.
By the way, it has nothing to do with waste, fraud, and abuse. As Democrats, we have been very clear. We want to build a Federal Government and make sure that we have a Federal Government that is effective, that is efficient, and that is equitable, delivering services all across the country in a manner that spends taxpayer dollars wisely.
That is not what this effort is all about. This bill will unleash fury on the American people. It will facilitate the ongoing effort that is currently underway. The average Social Security recipient in this country receives $65 a day. They have to survive on $65 a day, but the Republicans want to take a chain saw to Social Security, when Elon Musk and his tens of billions of dollars of government contracts essentially makes at least $8 billion a day from the taxpayers.
If we want to uncover waste, fraud, and abuse, start there. Don't start with the $65 a day that Social Security recipients receive from their earned benefits and from their hard work throughout their entire life. Start there. Elon Musk is feeding at the trough of the American taxpayer for $8 billion a day.
This bill has nothing to do with waste, fraud, and abuse. It is all part of a broader scheme to pass massive tax cuts for billionaire donors, the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected, and then to stick working-class Americans with the bill. That is the entire scheme.
As Democrats, we want no part of it because we are fighting hard to make life better for everyday Americans. We
That is the American Dream we, as House Democrats, are fighting to preserve. This Republican shutdown bill does nothing to enhance the American Dream. It undermines it, which is why we are strongly opposed to this effort. It is part of a power grab from those who are unelected, unaccountable, unhinged, and then working at the direction of this administration which, again, has done nothing to improve the economy, nothing to lower costs, and nothing to make life better for everyday Americans. This reckless Republican bill will make things worse.
Mr. Speaker, I was in Selma over the weekend. We had an opportunity to once again cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Think about the fact that John Lewis and Amelia Boynton Robinson and Hosea Williams and so many others, as they stood on that bridge, knew there was trouble on the other side. Even though there was trouble on the other side, they believed that their cause was righteous, and it was. It was a just one. It was designed to make America the best version of herself.
We stand here today, standing on their shoulders, continuing that effort. How do we make sure that the American Dream is alive and well for everyone, in every corner of America, and throughout every community? That is what House Democrats will continue to fight for. That is why we oppose this bill, this effort to hurt families and veterans and seniors and children and everyday Americans.
We are going to continue to show up. We are going to continue to stand up. We are going to continue to speak up for what is right. We oppose this bill. We oppose this partisan effort to hurt the American people, and we will continue to stand on the side of bringing the American Dream to life for every single American.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the Democratic leader and certainly great respect and personal friendship for the distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.
I don't know what bill the leader read, but it certainly wasn't this bill. We heard a lot about Social Security. There is not a single thing in this bill on Social Security. We heard a lot about Medicare. We don't deal with Medicare under the Appropriations Committee. It is not in here. We heard a lot about Medicaid. It is not in here either. If it will be dealt with, it will be dealt with in a reconciliation bill but not this bill.
This bill is about keeping the government open, something my friends pride themselves on and have often patted themselves on the back on. They have the opportunity to do it today because that is all this bill does. It also does a couple of other interesting things.
My friend said we cut funds for food support. It doesn't do that. It actually adds $500 million to WIC.
They said we cut support for housing. It doesn't do that. It actually adds money to the housing accounts.
If we actually go through the bill, the charges made simply don't have much to do with what is in this bill.
The simple reality is we are either going to keep the government open or we are going to shut it down. If we want to keep the government open and keep working on these problems, vote ``yes.'' If we want to shut the government down and throw the country into chaos, vote ``no.''
It is certainly the privilege of my friends on the other side to vote how they care to vote, but don't say there are things in this bill which simply are not there. That is just fear-mongering of the worst sort.
Mr. Speaker, again, I urge my friends to keep the government open. By the way, just for the record, neither the President nor the Speaker ever asked me to leave the negotiating table. It was quite the opposite. The Speaker said to keep going, to keep trying, and to keep at it.
We are 4 days away from the shutdown. My friends introduced a lot of things in the negotiations that aren't normally appropriations issues. They chose to do that. We couldn't come to a deal. We are pretty close on the top-line number. We were right there, but we are not going to have a Republican Senate and a Republican House restrict a Republican President from the legitimate exercise of executive authority and then, oh, by the way, ask him to sign the bill.
How do my colleagues think that is going to work out? That is not a very reasonable request. We resisted it. My friend, Senator Collins, who is my negotiating partner from the Senate, resisted it and will continue to resist it. That is not going to happen.
This bill is about none of those things. This bill is about keeping the government open. If they choose to shut it down, then that is their prerogative. They are allowed to do that, but I don't intend to do that. I don't think my colleagues on my side of the aisle intend to do that.
Mr. Speaker, I urge Democrats who actually read the bill to reflect on it and avoid shutting down the government as well and working with us in that regard.
Mr. Speaker, the President has no legitimate authority by the Constitution to insert himself into the appropriations process.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguishing ranking member of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I adopt all of what the leader said, notwithstanding the rebuttal from the chairman of our committee.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is about giving Trump more unfettered power. That is what this bill is about. This country has been in crisis and chaos over the last 45-plus days, and this bill will continue that process.
The Congress, if it passes this bill, will have failed. We should have passed all of our bills by September 30 of last year. We didn't. We then passed, as some of the Republicans have said, some appropriation bills. All of them were partisan bills.
This is a partisan bill. In a Congress that is that close, I would think that we would come together and work together. One of our Members said that if Trump says pat our heads and jump up and down, that is what we will do. Welcome to the pat our heads and jump up and down CR.
A CR is failure. The majority puts forth its partisan CR that helps this administration dismantle vital services for the American people, outlined by our leader, rejecting any guardrails on these illegal and unconstitutional actions by Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump. It is that chain saw they want to take to Federal employees and the Federal Government.
This bill requires the District of Columbia, for instance, to take a $1.1 billion cut, not out of Federal funds but out of their own funds that they tax their people. It defunds the police.
Mr. Speaker, I wish I had more time to say how bad this bill is. Vote ``no.''
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, for his leadership in helping negotiate a really important bill to keep the government funded.
As has been duly noted along the way, over this past year, roughly 6 months in this House, the last majority in the last Congress passed over 70 percent of the government funding bills, Mr. Speaker. We passed them to the Senate. Back then, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats were in charge, and they chose not to pass a single House appropriations bill, not one.
The House under Republican majority, not always with help from the other side but we still got it done on our own, passed over 70 percent of the government funding bills. Eventually it got to a point where we had to let the Senate try to get something done which, unfortunately, they didn't. Then we got to the verge of a shutdown. We said we are not going to let that happen, and we had a short-term funding bill.
Here we are again on the eve of another potential shutdown, and this Republican majority said we are not going to let that happen. In fact, this Republican President Donald Trump said we are not going to let that happen either. It would be irresponsible to have a government shutdown.
Maybe it is because Donald Trump said he is for it that then the Democrat leadership decided they were going to be against it. When did they decide they were going to be against this bill? They decided this before the bill was even written. Before it was filed, they came out against it and started saying things that were in the bill when it wasn't even written, Mr. Speaker.
You heard them talking about cuts to Medicare, cuts to veterans. The bill wasn't even written, and they were already making up stories to try to figure out how to vote ``no'' and shut the government down. That is sadly where this Democratic Party has gotten.
The Democratic Party of today is a leaderless, rudderless ship. They don't have an agenda. You saw it at the State of the Union, Mr. Speaker, when you saw President Trump--not only laying out his agenda-- that 77 million people, a majority of Americans, went to the polls to elect. That is the mandate that President Trump got, not just with the majority of Americans and a majority of the electoral college but all seven--seven out of seven swing States all voted for President Trump because they wanted that agenda implemented.
You know what irritates the Democrats the most? What irritates them the most is the fact that President Trump is following through on the promises that he made, actually doing the things he said he would do.
He is securing the border. That was the number one issue all across this country. No matter which State you went to, people wanted a secure border. He is following through on it, and yet the Democratic Party is criticizing him for doing that part of his job.
Rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government is something that should be bipartisan. In fact, it used to be bipartisan to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, but now, because Donald Trump is doing it, the Democratic Party of today up here in Washington is so consumed with hatred that they oppose even rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse that has been not only highlighted up here but people around the country are talking about getting rid of that waste once they have seen it.
A lot of this was a veil that was pulled down where people couldn't even find out what was going on because the payment systems were being hidden by the Biden administration. We couldn't even find out about a lot of that spending that we were anecdotally hearing about, but finally you saw it on full display. It was so embarrassing that some of those employees have left.
Fortunately, a lot of that taxpayer money that was being wasted is now being saved, and the money is being recouped so that we can shore up programs that work vitally for people.
The President talked about Social Security, a program that we help protect. When you have got somebody that is listed as 300 years old in the Social Security system, that shows you the kind of fraud and abuse that is going on. President Trump is willing to confront that and take it on so that people who actually paid into the program their whole lives can get the benefits they deserve.
That is what people elected President Trump and this majority on the Republican side to do. You would think Democrats would want to join in and help accomplish that, and yet here they are on this floor talking about things that aren't even in the bill, trying to scare people. They are talking about cuts to veterans in the bill, and maybe it is because they just didn't read the bill. It is only 99 pages long. I would urge them to go read it. They might actually vote for this bill in the next hour because they will realize, in fact, the cuts that they are talking about are not true. They are not in the bill.
There is an increase for veterans in this bill. You know what else is in this bill, Mr. Speaker? I again applaud the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and his members for negotiating something that has been needed for a long time, and that is the largest pay raise for our junior enlisted military personnel in over 40 years. Now, if somebody doesn't think our men and women in uniform deserve that pay raise, maybe they will vote ``no.'' I am proud to say I am going to be voting ``yes'' to support our men and women in uniform who have been waiting for that raise and deserve it. How can you justify a ``no'' vote on that, Mr. Speaker? That is actually in the bill.
As they talk all day about what is not in the bill because they were against it before it was even written, if they actually read this bill, again only 99 pages, it is a pretty quick read, you would find out that that pay raise for our troops is in the bill. Stronger funding for our veterans is in the bill.
Why are they voting ``no,'' you would ask? It is just because the name of the President is Donald Trump.
I think the people of this country are fed up with that kind of hatred that consumes people here in Washington.
Again, when you watch the State of the Union Address, and the President is not even talking about his agenda, he is introducing and paying tribute to a 13-year-old boy who just beat cancer, they couldn't even stand up and applaud that on their side because of the person who said it? If the hatred is so consuming that you can't even support what is great about America, maybe you need to reevaluate what is important in doing these jobs.
We are elected to represent the people, and if the President, no matter who he is or she is, has a great idea, you support it.
There were a lot of things about Barack Obama's policies I disagreed with, Mr. Speaker, yet, when he said something that was good for America at a State of the Union Address, I stood up. We actually worked with the President. The chairman was part of that, Chairman Cole, in passing the 21st Century Cures Act, the last bill that Barack Obama signed to help put more funding in the NIH so we could cure major diseases. We protect those gains in this bill.
If they are advocating to vote ``no,'' they are advocating for a government shutdown. It is a binary choice. It is not like there is a plan B behind door number two, Mr. Speaker. If the plan is to vote ``no,'' what you are really saying is you want to shut down the government.
We all get to bring a guest to the State of the Union, and they get to sit up in the balcony. You have the First Lady and the President's guests up there. Again, there was the 13-year-old boy who beat cancer who was a guest. The widow of a slain police officer was in the balcony, and Democrats would not even applaud and pay tribute to her. They were there. Everybody else got to bring a guest.
Most Democrats bragged that they were bringing Federal workers as their guests. You saw a lot of them holding rallies in front of Federal offices with Federal employees, some of whom hadn't shown up for work in 3 years since COVID, but they found their way to the office not to work but to protest. Democrats are about to vote to furlough all of those Federal workers. Why? Not because of what is in the bill. They have been telling you stories that aren't even true about what is in the bill. They don't like it because of the name of the President of the United States.
Aren't we bigger than that? Aren't we a better country than that, Mr. Speaker?
This is our responsibility to get this job done and then turn the page and go to work. This is the business, frankly, of the Biden administration that we are cleaning up, and we all ought to join together and finish that and then come together and start a real appropriations process where we move not just 70 percent of the bills in the House and zero in the Senate.
Senator Thune, to his credit as the new majority leader, has vowed to actually work on a true appropriations process so we are not working at the midnight hour on CRs but where we can actually have a fully functioning appropriations process, something we haven't seen in this town in a long time.
We have to first take care of yesterday's business before we can start on tomorrow's appropriations process. It is critical that we get this job done, not to vote to lay off and furlough all the Federal workers and the TSA agents. You won't even be able to go to the airport or your favorite Federal park if they got their way.
Let's actually get our work done so we can start a 12-bill appropriations process that moves through the Senate too where you can actually have a negotiation between two sides of the aisle, again, something we haven't seen in a long time but is long past due.
It is a new day in America, and I applaud President Trump. This morning we had Vice President JD Vance come and talk about the importance of passing this bill because they want to fix the problems of this Nation. They want to fulfill the promises that were made during the campaign and follow through on the mandate that was given to President Trump, Vice President Vance, and this Republican majority in the House and Senate by 77 million people to turn this country around.
Let's get back to being the greatest country in the history of the world. We can do it. We can come together and solve big problems. We solve big problems by first taking care of the basics of government and that is to keep the government open.
Let's pass this CR. Let's see a big vote to do it, too. I welcome both sides of the aisle. My friends on the other side, they can criticize a bill they have never read that wasn't even filed, but once they look at this bill, I think you might even see some of them vote ``yes,'' as well.
Let's get our work done, and let's move on to the next challenges that the American people expect us to deliver for them.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for yielding.
Republicans made a promise to the American people. We are going to build a stronger economy, we are going to lower costs, and we are going to have safer communities.
For 7 weeks we have seen nothing but ideas and bills that break that promise. We all want government to run more efficiently, to be better for people who depend on it, but stealing money from the Veterans Administration, from schools, from law enforcement, from children's healthcare and giving it to a tax cut to the wealthiest man on Earth and his billionaire friends is not finding efficiencies. That is not taking on waste and fraud in government. It is destroying working families.
The GOP are crushing the American people under the weight of their own political ambition. Rents are going up. Housing is in a crisis. This bill today, they propose to evict 32,000 families from their homes, 32,000. Those are veterans. Those are kids. Those are seniors. Those are domestic violence survivors.
Eggs at my grocery store on Sunday were $8.49 a dozen. In this bill, Republicans propose to take $27 million away from the inspectors who go out to our chicken farms who are fighting and trying to stop bird flu that is causing the spike in the price of eggs. What kind of insanity is that?
Then if we look at the budget overall, we have got healthcare spiking, and you want to cut Medicaid. That is the answer? Seniors' cost of living is out of control, and Republicans are saying let's run up the cost of prescription drugs. As Elon told us directly this week, coming next Republicans want to eliminate Social Security.
If Republicans feel this is the mandate that they have, they can do that on their own.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. First, let me say I appreciate the work the chairman has done over the last several months trying to get our regular appropriations bills done and then trying to get this CR finished when it became apparent we weren't going to be able to negotiate a top line yet, something that we will continue to work on.
There have been a lot of things said on this floor that I have to say just aren't true. It is not a different interpretation of the facts. They are just not true. There is nothing in here that cuts Social Security. There is nothing in here that cuts Medicare. There is nothing in here that cuts Medicaid. Yet, I keep hearing that.
These are the talking points that were created before this bill was actually written. It is difficult to write a year-long CR. This is the first time I can remember it being done. It is almost harder writing that than it is writing the regular appropriation bills because we have to put anomalies in it, things that have to be done as we move on with the regular funding.
The reason I have been able to support this CR and will vote for it is because of the work that our chairman, Mr. Cole, has done with some of these anomalies that were absolutely necessary.
In the Interior arena there were four anomalies that really needed to be addressed to get this CR done. One is it fully funds PILT payments, which is an estimated level of $600 million, which is $85 million above what was the current level. In Indian Country, the CR increases funding for Indian Health Services to expand availability and direct healthcare services funding the Bureau of Indian Affairs. BIA and BIE programs are held at 2024 enacted levels. The CR removes the 2024 earmarks with BIA and HIS, but the overall net effect on Tribal programs is still a $25 million increase.
In addition to the program increases, the CR also provides $999 million in increases for Tribal contracts, court costs, and an additional $256 million for section 105(1) leases in an effort to continue our commitment to upholding our trust and treaty responsibilities.
It also increases, on a permanent basis, the wildfire fighting pay. That costs $147 million. It actually saves us $27 million rather than just extending the 1-year extension of the wildfire pay. I think when we have seen those great jobs that wildfire firefighters do for us, it is incredible what they do. We don't pay them enough now. If you can make more flipping burgers in California than you can fighting wildfires, something is wrong. This permanently fixes that for us.
It is a very important bill. Shutting down government is never good policy. It is never good politics. Why anyone, Republican or Democrat, would vote against this, I have no idea.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Subcommittee.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member DeLauro for allowing me this time.
This bill was drafted by Musk's greed machine and seeks to put his claws even deeper into the pockets of our people. Why? To extract the largest transfer of wealth from money they are taking from these bills from middle-class and working-class people and put it in the pockets of the top 1 percent, who already own half of this country, a handful of people who are so very wealthy.
The top 1 percent of billionaires now own as much wealth as the bottom half of our population. That is what is going wrong, and I rise in strong opposition to this bill.
Elon Musk and his DOGE boys don't need Medicaid, Social Security, and veterans benefits. Our Constitution assigns our legislative branch the responsibility to direct Federal spending, not unelected billionaires and the 1 percent.
In our subcommittee area of energy and water development, this Musk bill would stifle American prosperity by cutting nearly half of the Army Corp's budget. Musk and Trump don't know anything about public works and how essential the Army Corps is to our daily life in every district in this country and to economic growth.
The greed machine wants to steal assets from America's people and put them in the pockets of billionaires at places like moolah-lago. Did I say that right? Mar-a-Lago.
Finally, the greed machine is cutting a total of nearly $600 million in support for local law enforcement. That is nearly $600 million in cuts for local police, leaving the kitty dry. The greed machine is underfunding our local police.
In opposing the bill, I stand with our people, not with the billionaires and their greed machine. Think about it. Why rob Main Street to dole out even bigger tax breaks and more contracts for the moolah-lago crowd and billionaires whose crew haven't got a clue what working life is like for American men and women?
It is over time for them to pay their fair share. Vote ``no'' on this horrendous bill.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Rutherford), my very good friend and a member of the Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate all the hard work that got us here today.
Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, as I sat here on this floor listening to the conversation, it reminded me of an old saying that my father had. For many, many years, I heard this: A lie can travel around the world three times before the truth can get up and put its pants on.
That was before the internet. Now, after what I have heard today, I would say it is probably more like 100 times that a lie can travel around the world before the truth can get up and put its pants on.
I happen to know that House Republicans have been working diligently to fully fund the core Federal Government services so that President Trump and his administration can continue to identify the waste, fraud, and abuse of American tax dollars, protect our border, and support Americans, including our veterans--contrary to what you heard--our military families, first responders, of which I am a former, and our seniors.
Most importantly, by passing H.R. 1968, this continuing resolution, we are ensuring that a costly government shutdown does not fall upon the American public.
It is our constitutional obligation in Congress to fund the Federal Government, and House Republicans are acting on that duty. Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not. House Democratic leadership came out in opposition to this bill and spread egregious falsehoods about what this bill does and does not do before it was even printed. You have heard that before.
Let's be clear, this bill will not hurt law enforcement by slashing COPS grants, nor will it zero out the toxic exposure fund for veterans. Instead, it is a clean bill that will extend funding and certainty for the American people.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. Speaker, this bill would maintain government operations while responsibly protecting Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare recipients from unnecessary disruption and the confusion that comes along with a government shutdown, promote public safety, renew our commitment to supporting law enforcement officers, raise pay for our junior enlisted troops by the largest amount in 40 years, fund important nutritional assistance for mothers, infants, and children, and the list goes on.
House Democrats seem dead set on shutting down the government over their disdain for the Commander in Chief, no matter the cost to their own communities.
Mr. Speaker, I am committed to passing this bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this full- year continuing resolution.
Let's call the CR what it is. It is a Republican majority abdicating our constitutional responsibilities. Republicans have turned over congressional power to direct funding to Elon Musk and President Trump.
The Republican appropriations process for fiscal year 2025 has been a disaster. Republicans have had 18 months to write, pass, and negotiate these spending bills. They failed. The Republican leadership never wanted to negotiate with Democrats, which their slim majority in the House would have required.
Here we are stuck with a full-year CR, something that has never happened in the history of this Nation. It is a complete failure to govern.
To make things worse, the CR cuts $13 billion from domestic priorities that Americans rely on. I will mention a few, like lifesaving medical research at the NIH. Rent assistance for low-income working families is cut.
Republicans failed to include $22 billion in advanced appropriation funding for the VA toxic exposure fund. This jeopardizes the health of our veterans exposed to burn pits and, yes, Agent Orange.
Community projects submitted by our constituents for police and first responders have also been eliminated by this bill.
For the Defense Department, the bill reduces DOD medical research by about 50 percent. It will obstruct the search for new cures for cancer and infectious diseases.
Republicans also underfunded military training exercises, which will mean the readiness of our troops will be put at risk. They cut DOD technology research and development funding, which helps us keep our edge over our adversaries.
Simply put, this CR is a disaster, and it did not have to be this way. The American people deserve better, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this Republican failure.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice), my very good friend and a distinguished member of the Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1968, a clean continuing resolution that funds government through September 30, 2025.
I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are confused about what is in this bill and what is not. They keep talking about impacts to mandatory spending, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That is not in this bill. Just because you keep repeating the same dishonest talking points doesn't make it true.
This legislation continues funding and prevents a government shutdown, which would have a devastating impact on my home State of Oklahoma and communities across the country. We must keep government open so we can continue the America First agenda, which is focused on securing our border, unleashing American energy, safeguarding our Nation, and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. This legislation fully supports our vets and servicemembers. It does not cut 1 cent from toxic exposure funds or eliminate COPS grants.
Continuing resolutions are not ideal, but we cannot allow for the distractions of a government shutdown, which is why I support this bill. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), the distinguished ranking member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this cruel betrayal of America's veterans, seniors, and working families.
This 1-year CR doesn't make rent or healthcare bills more affordable, which is what keeps my constituents up at night. Instead, it actually cuts housing aid that could force 32,000 veterans, domestic violence survivors, seniors, and people with disabilities into homelessness.
What does this spending patch do as we all now stare down the barrel of another Trump recession? It hands an unelected billionaire free rein to keep stealing taxpayer dollars and paves the way for billionaires and big corporations to luxuriate in more tax breaks.
This isn't a clean CR. This CR stands for cut and run. It lets Trump close hundreds of Social Security offices and fire thousands of workers who deliver our seniors' checks. It allows Musk to keep hacking into your private tax data. It puts critical Everglades restoration funds at risk. Worst of all, it lets Trump and Musk keep up their brutal assault on veterans and the people who care for them. It does it by eliminating $23 billion in guaranteed funding for healthcare for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins.
We should debate bipartisan, full-year funding bills that grow the economy and provide vital resources Americans need. Instead, this Republican cut-and-run bill turns Congress into a missing kid on a milk carton and cedes massive power to Trump.
This is the same President who, in 2 short months, tanked your 401(k) and unleashed a job-killing trade war. Yesterday, the stock market just recorded its worst day since 2020.
What really enrages me is that this cut-and-run bill sides with the most anti-veteran President in American history. Trump has fired 6,000 veterans, inflicted mass VA layoffs, and killed hundreds of veterans services contracts. Trump even plans to lay off another 83,000 VA workers. On top of that, this cut-and-run bill makes even deeper cuts to the healthcare services for all those who bravely served our Nation.
Democrats are more than willing to back bipartisan funding legislation, but we will never sell out our seniors, veterans, and children like this cut-and-run bill shamelessly does. Vote ``no.''
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Oklahoma for yielding.
My, my, how times have changed.
How many times have we been sitting on the floor of the House listening to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying that a CR is the greatest thing since sliced bread; we must have the CR?
That is because when some of us were saying: Wait a minute, Mr. President, wait a minute, President Biden, maybe we should actually secure the border of the United States instead of letting millions of people flood in and kill Americans and let fentanyl flood into our communities.
So when we wanted to secure the border and we dared to say the funding should actually reflect that and we threatened to actually have a fight on spending, then my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said: CR, we have got to have a CR, our precious CR.
Mr. Speaker, here we are.
What are we doing?
Our colleagues oppose the CR.
Why?
It is because we would have spending frozen for 6 months down about $7 billion, but, importantly, allow DOGE and allow our friends in the administration to continue to expose the absurdity of Federal spending.
How about $1.5 billion to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion at Serbia's workplaces; $70,000 for a production of a DEI musical in Ireland; $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam; $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia; and $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru?
This is what our Democratic colleagues are fighting for, to continue to fund absurd programs rather than do the commonsense work of what we are trying to do to have more beds for ICE, secure the border of the United States, ensure that our defense is funded, and ensure that we are able to hold spending in check so we can actually have a chance of saving this great country.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I oppose this full-year continuing resolution and urge my colleagues to reject it. If we vote ``no'' and reject this CR, then we can go back to work and negotiate a regular, full-year spending bill.
This full-year continuing resolution is not a responsible way to govern. The bill does not set funding levels for individual programs, and because it doesn't, it creates another dangerous opportunity for President Trump and Elon Musk to defund congressional priorities, and we all know what a disaster that has been for our country: an illegal, unconstitutional disaster.
It is the duty of Congress to negotiate regular spending bills. This means that we actively decide on every individual program's funding level and that we make adjustments where necessary.
For example, the Indian Health Service needs an additional $345 million just to maintain current direct healthcare services. This continuing resolution fails to provide those funds, so Tribal communities will experience a lower level of healthcare service.
A regular bill also gives very specific directions to agencies to carry out specific work. For example, in prior years in the Interior bill, we have directed the EPA to conduct PFAS research that will help farmers, ranchers, and rural communities manage the disastrous impact PFAS has had like in my home State of Maine. Under the continuing resolution, without our direction, the administration may decide that work should stop.
As ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies of the Appropriations Committee, I am deeply concerned that the Republican majority is giving the administration a free pass to abandon programs that protect the public from pollution, that safeguard human health, and that address the climate crisis.
Mr. Speaker, as the great George Costanza said: ``It's not a lie if you believe it.''
That is what we have heard today from my Democratic colleagues, a bunch of lies that maybe they sincerely believe.
The reality is this bill does not touch Social Security, it does not touch Medicare, and it does not touch Medicaid. Those programs are fully funded and protected. Our veterans are fully funded and protected. Fiscal year '24 was a total of $1.665 trillion. Fiscal year '25, of which we are voting to complete with this CR, is $1.658 trillion. The reduction of $7 billion is because community project funding that has already been paid and that has already been approved as part of fiscal year '24 is not going to be double paid.
So we are saving $7 billion by removing it, as it should be.
Why would we pay for projects that have already been paid for?
The fact is that we have to keep the government funded and open. Why anyone would vote to shut the government down is beyond me.
When Joe Biden was President of the United States, I voted every time to keep the government funded and open.
The idea that we are going to shut it down because the priorities changed--guess what, Mr. Speaker. The administration changed.
That is the reality of elections. Donald Trump won in November, Republicans won the House and the Senate, and so, yes, budgets will change. The fact is that we have to keep the government open.
I would remind my colleagues that the reason we are in this situation is because Senate Democrats under Chuck Schumer passed exactly zero appropriations bills on the Senate floor, zero. There was nothing to negotiate. They couldn't pass a bill. They refused to pass a bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
They refused to pass a bill. We passed appropriations bills on the floor last year. We were ready to conference. We were ready to negotiate. Chuck Schumer failed in his responsibilities.
It is now incumbent on us to pass a CR through the House and for the Senate to do its job and keep the government open and funded.
Mr. Speaker, we can pass a 1-month CR and do that and do what we need to do to keep the government open. There is an alternative.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Meng), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this partisan bill.
As ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, I cannot stand by as the GOP slashes funding for law enforcement,
This bill hurts our local police officers by taking away $247 million from their public safety technology and equipment. Additionally, it cuts $350 million from projects that support community efforts to prevent crime, improve law enforcement, to provide precincts with equipment to prevent car theft and provide victim services. These are projects that Republicans and Democrats on our committee approved and agreed on.
Furthermore, the bill does nothing to prevent this administration from gutting NOAA. As a result, the lifesaving weather forecasts we all receive will be less accurate and timely.
Federal funding cuts in the GOP's continuing resolution are dangerous to communities like Queens and so many others. This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP benefits which serve as a lifeline for millions of Americans.
Let's be clear: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are not entitlements. They are earned benefits that hardworking Americans pay into throughout their lifetime so they have the opportunity to retire with dignity.
Mr. Speaker, this bill allows the administration to fire thousands of employees at the Social Security Administration and close offices nationwide, which will mean long wait times and delayed benefits for families.
For these reasons, at the appropriate time I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to the House Appropriations Committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill. My amendment would prevent any law or executive action from eliminating, restricting, or reducing access to these programs lawfully owed to beneficiaries across the Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record the text of this amendment.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from New York?
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), who is the chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Cole, who has done an excellent job of putting this continuing resolution together under difficult circumstances.
The appropriators tried to come to an accommodation, but we weren't able to get there. So the best alternative we have today is this continuing resolution which does good things for our country. It obviously keeps the government shutdown from happening to the American people and fully funds our core government services.
Something that I am interested in, and I think most Members are interested in, is our national security. This continues to fund our national security. It makes sure that the young men and women who serve our military, especially our enlisted soldiers, are going to get a historic pay raise, the highest pay raise they have had in 40 years. A lot of these E-1s who come in and make $11 an hour, their pay is going to be put up significantly. This is something that I think needs to happen, so I would hope my friends on the other side of the aisle would not vote to diminish these individuals' pay that they need very much.
This also supports important weapons systems: the Virginia-class submarine, the Columbia-class submarine, shipbuilding across the United States, our satellite construction, and rebuilding the ordnance for the United States that we need desperately.
A vote against the CR would stop all of this. So to me, Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely important vote for our national security. I would hope that everyone would vote for that, vote for continuing our government and to make sure that these weapons systems are delivered on time for the American public.
Mr. Speaker, let's have the 1-month CR that has been introduced as an alternative and do the business of the House and pass appropriations bills.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Lois Frankel), who is the distinguished ranking member of the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee.
Mr. Speaker, I will tell you why I am voting against the bill. It doesn't lower any of my constituents' costs. Instead, it gives the Trump administration free rein to continue its chaotic and lawless dismantling of the United States' influence in the world, gutting nearly all of our humanitarian, development, security, and global health programs, programs that constitute less than 1 percent of our Federal budget.
These are not serious cost-saving measures. Instead, they make us less safe, less prosperous, and less healthy. Counterterrorism programs are halted, contracts with American farmers are cancelled, children are left wasting away, bird flu, Ebola, and HIV spreading, education programs ending, all done without any thought or any reason.
The vacuum is left for China, Russia, and extremists to fill. We should not be handing this President a blank check to continue his harmful, sledgehammer approach to how we spend taxpayer money.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a resounding ``no'' vote on this bill.
Mr. Speaker, there is a national shortage of more than 7 million units of affordable housing across America and more than 771,000 people experiencing homelessness. This CR does nothing to lower the cost of housing.
That is what I was going to talk about for my 2 minutes, but after listening to this debate for so long, I think significant correction has to be made.
Programs are not fully funded and protected if you gut the agencies that operate them. Programs are not fully funded and protected if there is no one there to operate them.
Under President Trump, spending bills have become a farce. He is not following the previous spending bill law that we passed.
Are we saying: Well, this time we really mean it; this time the President really promises he is going to follow the law?
Have we gotten to the point where Article I is optional?
Our constituents are asking us: However great you say this bill is, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, they are going to blame us because we believed you this time. We believed the President who, when he gets in the room with the truth, a fight breaks out, as we have seen time and again in the last month.
So with all due respect, don't tell us what is in this bill, how great it is, and how we need to read it when he doesn't have to follow it and you don't complain when he doesn't follow it and you abdicate your responsibilities in Article I and as appropriators.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Mr. Speaker, one of my colleagues on the Republican side asked earlier what Democrats are fighting for.
Mr. Speaker, I am a proud Democrat fighting for America's healthcare, and I stress that this partisan Republican bill cuts American healthcare. This bill slashes funding for our community health centers, which provide care for millions of people, as well as our Nation's teaching hospitals, which train the next generation of doctors.
It fails to reverse the Medicare physician pay cut, which endangers access for seniors, especially for those in rural and underserved communities. It also does nothing to stop Republicans' planned catastrophic cuts to Medicaid.
Rather than voting on this partisan bill, we should be working together to lower costs and expand access to
Unfortunately, Republicans walked away from this agreement because Elon Musk opposed it.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this reckless Republican funding bill. Republicans claim that this is a clean CR, but the facts tell a different story.
This bill slashes $23 billion from veterans' benefits, turning its back on the brave men and women who served our country; guts healthcare, leaving families, children, and seniors vulnerable; and it slashes affordable housing, putting thousands, including veterans, domestic violence survivors, and people with disabilities at risk of losing their homes.
If these cuts weren't bad enough, the Vice President said this morning that this administration will continue to refuse to spend money on programs that they don't like.
I will not vote for a CR that green lights these dangerous cuts. Democrats are ready to fund the government, but we will not stand by while Republicans sell out the people we are sworn to serve.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this dangerous bill.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this partisan Republican spending bill because it guts the Honoring our PACT Act and abandons veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxins. House Republicans claim to support the Honoring our PACT Act, but their actions tell a different story.
They are eliminating the funding for Honoring our PACT Act recipients starting in October, cutting off critical healthcare and benefits for those who sacrificed for this country. Last Congress, Democrats forced Republicans to fully fund this critical program.
Mr. Speaker, Republicans are taking Elon's chain saw to it, slashing $23 billion and breaking our Nation's sacred promise to our veterans. Where you invest your money shows what you truly value. By gutting this funding, Republicans have made their priorities clear.
Mr. Speaker, I stand with our veterans. I stand firm in our priorities and promises, and I will not stand by while Republicans rip them apart.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this partisan Republican spending bill.
Mr. Speaker, this CR is an act of fiscal sabotage against the District of Columbia and an abuse of Congress' power over disenfranchised D.C.
This CR will result in an immediate cut of more than $1 billion from D.C.'s $21 billion budget 6 months into D.C.'s fiscal year.
For the last 20 years, D.C. has been able to operate under the local budget enacted by D.C. for the next fiscal year for the duration of every CR. This CR does not allow D.C. to do so.
Instead, the CR effectively repeals the fiscal year 2025 local budget enacted by D.C., which D.C. has been operating under for 6 months, and restores the fiscal year 2024 local budget enacted by D.C., which D.C. stopped operating under 6 months ago.
This cut to D.C.'s local budget does not save the Federal Government any money because D.C.'s local budget consists entirely of locally raised revenue.
Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman from Connecticut has expired.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, it has been an interesting debate. There have been a lot of things said that are exaggerations and a lot of things said, in my view, that are fabrications. I will talk about a few of those.
There is nothing in this bill about Social Security. There is nothing in this bill about Medicare. There is nothing in this bill about Medicaid.
There aren't cuts in nutrition for the poor. There is a $500 million increase in WIC, at the request of the President. There are no cuts in housing. There is an increase in housing to try to adjust for inflation.
We probably would have been better off if we had negotiated a deal, but that didn't happen. We did the proactive thing. There is more money in here to take care of junior enlisted personnel. I don't think that is probably an article of much dispute. It certainly shouldn't be.
Mr. Speaker, I can go charge by charge.
On the Toxic Exposures Fund, we are going to deal with that in the fiscal year 2026 bill. It is for 2026. Everything is funded for 2025. That is what this bill covered. It is an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2025. That is what we are covering here.
We are going to deal with the fiscal year 2026 bill, and then we will deal with that issue. I voted for the Honoring our PACT Act. I believe in it. I voted for additional funding for it. I suspect we will find common ground there.
There are a lot of fireworks around this bill. Let's just talk about what it does.
Mr. Speaker, it is pretty simple. It is a CR. It is a continuing resolution. The Democratic leadership came out against it before they ever saw it. Maybe that is why we have all these fabrications and hallucinations about what is in it. It is pretty short. It is 99 pages. Read it.
Now, I am sorry that everybody didn't get their projects. I really am sorry about that. We don't do that in CRs.
The big cuts here mostly are an elimination of congressional projects. I think most of those are worthy projects. I support them. I actually support the reforms my good friend, the ranking member, put in there. I think she did a great job for that for this institution, but we can't do them in a CR. We just don't do them. People are upset about that. I am sorry about that.
At the end of the day, there is only one important thing that matters here. Members can vote ``yes'' and keep the government open. Whatever my Democratic colleagues' problem is and whatever the minority's concern is, it is going to be worse in a government shutdown, not better. It will be worse. Whatever my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are worried about, shutting down the government is not the answer to their concern. My colleagues are only going to make it worse.
Keeping the government open is the right thing to do. I wish we could have gotten a deal, but we are not going to sit here and concede the executive authority of a Republican President because it upsets the minority. It is not going to happen.
We made that crystal clear, and I think that was the biggest thing. It wasn't a top-line number. We basically got to a top-line number. We are here, and the government shutdown is 4 days away.
If Democratic Members want to vote ``no'' and succeed in shutting down the government in 4 days, that is their choice. I respect every Member's vote.
I have never voted for a government shutdown. I have always voted to reopen the government. I don't like government shutdowns. I don't think they work. I think the minority will find that if they succeed in shutting down the government it won't work very well for them either.
It never works. I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be better advised to vote ``yes'' than to
Actually, this body will not have the final say. It is going to go to the United States Senate, and the minority has the power in the Senate to shut down the government if they choose because they have a filibuster over there. They have 60 votes. If Democratic Members are worried about it, just let it go over there. They have the power in that body to do it.
If my colleagues want to shut down the government, it is their choice.
Mr. Speaker, I think the choice is crystal clear. If we took a poll on it and the American people were asked: Do you want to shut down the government? The overwhelming answer would be: No.
Do you think we should keep the government open and keep working on our problems? That would be an overwhelming yes.
I choose to do what the American people want to do: keep the government open. That is what my constituents want. Maybe Democratic Members' constituents want to shut it down. Mine don't, and I suspect theirs don't, either.
Mr. Speaker, I suggest we set aside the rhetoric and the intense feelings and just do the right thing, and the right thing is to vote ``yes'' and keep the government open.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I urge them not to vote to shut down the government, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, to oppose a Continuing Resolution that will allow a chainsaw to, among other things: minimize Medicaid with underfunded block grants to states, marginalize Medicare's ``Dual Eligibles'' long-term Medicaid care, and privatize Social Security by allowing private investment of Social Security funds in the stock market with no protections from market downturns. Mr. Speaker, the costs of the cuts in spending will be measurable. However, the human cost in pain and suffering will be immeasurable.
I will not participate in what can become the chainsawing of proven safety net programs. I will vote against exposing lifesaving programs to an uncertain, shameful future.
Mr. Speaker, for all of American history, it has been understood that Congress, not the president, has the ultimate power to determine how government funds are spent. Few principles are as fundamental to the structure of government enshrined in the Constitution.
From time to time, this authority has been challenged by the Executive Branch, and each time Congress has responded by rejecting the executive's encroachment on the fisc to further underscore the legislative branch's primacy over spending matters. Those conflicts have led to bedrock laws that further bolster the Congress's fiscal authority. The collection of statutes known as the Antideficiency Act (currently codified in title 31 of the United States Code) placed controls and safeguards on top of Congress's constitutional power, reiterating the Executive Branch's inability to spend without Congressionally approved legislation.
Similarly, on the other end of the fiscal law spectrum, Congress enacted the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to establish an orderly process by which the executive could request legislative action by Congress to limit already-enacted spending--simply put, affirming the existent requirement that the executive branch carry out provisions of law that require spending (that is, appropriations).
Both the Antideficiency Act and the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 provide safeguards for a legal reality that existed before either law was enacted, and which carries on to this day: When a law is enacted providing an appropriation for a purpose in an amount, the executive branch is required to take care that the appropriation is fully and prudently obligated and expended to carry out its intended purpose unless Congress provides discretion in statute to do otherwise.
Congress may provide such discretion, for example, by setting a minimum amount for an appropriation that serves as a floor or by setting a maximum level that serves as a ceiling. Certain appropriations in H.R. 1968 provide this flexibility. But in the absence of such discretion being expressly provided in legislation, when Congress provides an appropriation for a specific amount, that level is both a floor and a ceiling. These appropriations and levels stipulate an exact amount for a specified purpose and are therefore a directive to the executive branch to prudently obligate and expend that specific amount for the purposes specified within the timeframe allowed. Such is the case for the vast majority of the appropriations in H.R. 1968.
Though H.R. 1968 is a full-year continuing appropriations Act in a format unlike a traditional appropriations Act, the legal principles underlying every appropriation in the bill are the same: an appropriation, whether explicitly spelled out in the legislation or incorporated by reference from a prior-year appropriation Act (such as those included in section 1101 of H.R. 1968) is a direction from Congress to prudently obligate and expend that specific amount, for the applicable purposes and within the timeframe defined unless discretion is provided in statute to do otherwise. H.R. 1968, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025 (FYCAA), effectuates these appropriations chiefly through section 1101. That provision appropriates anew for fiscal year 2025 each appropriation in the referenced bills from fiscal year 2024, under the same authorities and conditions as were included in those same bills, except as specified otherwise in the FYCAA. That is, each new appropriation from section 1101 is for the same amount, and purpose, as in last year's bill except as directed otherwise in provisions in the FYCAA.
Congress is explicit about any such deviations. For example, section 1103 states that the appropriations provided by section 1101 retain a ``comparable period of availability.'' That means an appropriation provided in a referenced bill that was available for obligation for two fiscal years (for fiscal year 2024 and remaining available through the end of fiscal year 2025), that is appropriated anew by section 1101 would be available for obligation for two fiscal years as well (for fiscal years 2025 and 2026). The FYCAA also includes some specific and explicit negations of authorities and conditions in last year's bills, such as section 1503(a), which loosens the requirements under which the Army Corps of Engineers is required to spend the appropriations provided in this bill to that agency. These are only a couple examples of the deviations (called ``anomalies'') specified in the bill.
The FYCAA is also distinguishable from the short-term continuing appropriations Act contained in division A of Public Law 118-83. which is currently applicable through March 14, 2025. The FYCAA for example, contains no provision comparable to section 109 of division A of Public Law 118-83: whereas Congress contemplated limited funding actions from the continuing appropriations provided in section 101 of such division, that instruction does not extend to the appropriations provided in the FYCAA, nor other appropriations that were previously enacted, either in this fiscal year or in prior fiscal years.
The appropriations contained in the FYCAA directly renew the appropriations with the applicable authorities and conditions from Public Laws 118-42 and 118-47--except where explicitly directed in this law otherwise--and are a reaffirmation of Congress's intent to provide for those activities in full. That intent was made clear by the original enactment of the appropriations in those laws and the accompanying Joint Explanatory Statements in March of 2024, and by the affirmation and continuation of additional funding for those same purposes under the same authorities and conditions (except where otherwise revised in statute) in September and December of 2025 through the enactment and amendment of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025.
Fully acknowledging the change in Administration on January 20, 2025, the Congress has observed dramatic changes in how duly enacted appropriations have been executed over the last 50 days. I note that the current Administration's actions to defy Congress's specific appropriations have been rejected by the Judicial Branch to date. The FYCAA also represents a rejection by the legislative branch of the current Administration's unlawful refusal to take care that enacted appropriations be faithfully executed.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 211, the previous question is ordered on the bill, as amended.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further proceedings on this question are postponed.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Proceedings will resume on questions previously postponed.
Votes will be taken in the following order:
Passage of H.R. 1156;
Motion to recommit on H.R. 1968;
Passage of H.R. 1968, if ordered; and
Passage of H.J. Res. 25.
The first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, remaining electronic votes will be conducted as 5-minute votes.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the bill (H.R. 1156) to amend the CARES Act to extend the statute of limitations for fraud under certain unemployment programs, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 295, nays 127, not voting 10, as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. There are 2 minutes remaining.
Mses. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, LOIS FRANKEL of Florida, and PINGREE changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mses. HOYLE of Oregon, MENG, Mr. CONNOLLY, Ms. ELFRETH, Mr. QUIGLEY, Mrs. McBATH, and Mr. SCALISE changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on the motion to recommit on the bill (H.R. 1968) making further continuing appropriations and other extensions for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, and for other purposes, offered by the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Meng), on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk will redesignate the motion.
The Clerk redesignated the motion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
This is a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 213, nays 216, not voting 3, as follows:
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Mr. Speaker, due to obligations, I was unable to submit a vote for the Motion to Recommit, Roll Call No. 69, on HR 1968. Had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 69.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted by the Internal Revenue Service Relating to "Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital...
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 25) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Internal Revenue Service relating to ``Gross Proceeds Reporting by Brokers That Regularly Provide Services Effectuating Digital Asset Sales'', on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the joint resolution.
This is a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 292, nays 132, answered ``present'' 1, not voting 7, as follows:
So the joint resolution was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and passing the bill (H.R. 706) to improve the biodetection functions of the Department of Homeland Security, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Green) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
Producing Advanced Technologies for Homeland Security Act
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and passing the bill (H.R. 1692) to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to enable secure and trustworthy technology through other transaction contracting authority, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Green) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
Mr. Speaker, I send to the desk a resolution, and I ask unanimous consent for its immediate consideration in the House.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under guidelines consistently issued by successive Speakers, as recorded in section 956 of the House Rules and Manual, the Chair is constrained not to entertain the request unless it has been cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee leaderships.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor RayQuan Williams, a senior at Groves High School in Savannah, Georgia, whose resilience and work ethic has inspired many.
RayQuan has faced immense hardship, losing his father at the age of 57 and his mother in December of 2024. Throughout these hardships, he has excelled academically, participating in dual-enrollment studies at Savannah Technical College, never letting his circumstances define him.
As a two-way lineman for the Groves High School football team, RayQuan demonstrated exceptional work ethic and dedication, earning the respect of his coaches and teammates. His perseverance earned him the Abbie DeLoach Foundation and the Savannah Quarterback Club Scholar Athlete Award which includes scholarship funds that will help him fund his educational aspirations.
Mr. Speaker, RayQuan's story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the power of community support. We congratulate RayQuan, and we are very, very proud of him.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to highlight the Agriculture Commodities Price Enhancement Act.
Input costs for our farmers are astronomically high right now, whether it be fertilizer, seeds, or labor, not to mention the volatility of the current world food market.
On top of this, the past year was one of the worst years for farmers in North Carolina, between the impacts of drought and Hurricane Helene and other factors beyond their control.
Our farmers need some certainty that they will be able to farm next year if their crops are not bringing in enough income to provide for their families.
The Agriculture Commodities Price Enhancement Act directly addresses this by increasing reference prices for key commodities grown in eastern North Carolina and across the United States.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor the life and the legacy of Juliann MacDonald, a lifelong Missourian from Savannah who recently passed.
Juliann was a beloved mother and grandmother who touched the lives of many in our community.
Friends and family knew her as Mimi. She was someone who put service above herself, caring for her neighbors, her community, and especially her family.
She regularly volunteered at multiple organizations and schools. She was deeply involved in her local church, and she brought joy to her book club with friends that cherished her company.
Throughout a 42-year teaching career, her compassion, leadership, and dedication touched and inspired the lives of countless students who had the privilege of learning under her mentorship.
A rich life and a storied legacy, Juliann leaves behind her husband, Martin; her sons, Ryan and Scott; her daughters-in-law, Vicki and Laura; and her two grandchildren, McKenzie and Jameson.
My prayers are with her loved ones and with her family.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call out a vile attack on an American patriot, Senator Mark Kelly of the great State of Arizona.
Yesterday, unelected billionaire Elon Musk, who has never served this Nation a day in uniform, called Senator Kelly a traitor for visiting our Nation's ally Ukraine.
A traitor is one who commits treason. That consists of giving aid and comfort to an enemy. Ukraine is not our enemy. Ukraine is our ally.
Mark Kelly has served our Nation honorably from 1986 to 2011 in the United States Navy rising to the rank
During his naval career, he was awarded two Defense Superior Service Medals, one Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, four Air Medals with Combat V, two Navy Commendation Medals, one Navy Achievement Medal, two Southwest Asia Service Medals, one Navy Expeditionary Medal, two Sea Service Deployment Ribbons, a NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and an Overseas Service Ribbon.
He only resigned his commission to help provide care and assistance to his beloved wife who had served here formerly, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, following an assassination attempt on her in Tucson in 2011.
Words and statements have meaning. Elon Musk needs to be held accountable for his. Today, world leaders have resoundingly stood tall aside the Nation of Ukraine in agreeing to a 1-month cease-fire. The United States has also agreed to lift the embargo on armaments and will be sending 1 month of armaments to Ukraine as the rest of the world looks to Russia to be cooperative in our effort to stop the killing in central Europe.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring much-needed attention to an extraordinary ballplayer and young man and a Vol hopeful. His name is Alberto Osuna.
He was born in America, and he is affectionately known as Berto. He transferred to the University of Tennessee in January after an impressive career at North Carolina and Walters State Community College where he knocked out 45 home runs and knocked in 140 runs over three seasons.
Despite following all the necessary steps to secure eligibility to play for the University of Tennessee, the NCAA in their infinite wisdom has blocked his opportunity. Students at UT have painted the rock to my left here to show their support for Berto in hopes that he might play his final season with the Vols at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
He wanted to do something for his family. This is what this is all about. In over a minute I don't have time to explain it all, but this situation just isn't about Berto. It is about ensuring that student athletes are on a level playing field, Mr. Speaker, against the bureaucratic machine and nightmare that the NCAA has become and seemingly continues to let down the student-athletes they claim to serve. They just follow the dollars, Mr. Speaker.
I would urge the NCAA to take some serious action and grant Alberto the immediate eligibility he deserves and take the necessary steps to prioritize the well-being of their student-athletes, ensuring that opportunities for success are not blocked by unnecessary red tape.
Osuna left his whole life in Tampa to come to Knoxville and play for Coach Tony Vitello and the Vols. The NCAA needs to do the right thing. Free Berto. Give him the time he deserves on the field. The balls are stacked again this year, Mr. Speaker. They are coming off a national championship. They are winning again. It is not imperative that he gets on the team for them to win. It is just the right thing. NCAA should do the right dadgum thing.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the extraordinary life of Gwen Robinson, a dear friend of mine, an incredible leader, and an incredible human being.
She was one of the first people I met when I arrived in Cincinnati, and she welcomed me in the way she did with almost everyone, immediately kind and immediately generous.
There is a real argument to be made that much of what I have accomplished, what so many of us accomplished in southwest Ohio wouldn't have happened without her. She fought so hard for the children in the Bond Hill Head Start program that she helped lead, making sure each one of them had the highest quality preschool. It was part of what convinced me that every child in Cincinnati deserved 2 years of quality preschool, and when we said we wanted to do that, she was there every step of the way. She poured everything into helping us get the Preschool Promise passed. She did the same with the public transit levy a few years later.
There aren't enough words to capture her impact. Gwen was a giant and will be missed by all of us.
Mr. Speaker, here is some truth. Despite many false claims, the continuing resolution we just passed does not cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, or veterans benefits or any healthcare benefits at all.
In reality, the CR was almost entirely the Democrat's budget bill last year. The opposition today and their vote to shut down the government is a little perplexing.
Mr. Speaker, here is what this bill actually offers: it gives our troops a 10 percent raise; provides $6 billion for veterans' healthcare; invests $7.6 billion into WIC for women and infants; $425 million for food delivery programs for seniors, among other things.
Mr. Speaker, we are paying for it responsibly. We are repurposing $20 billion in excess funding from the attempt to increase the IRS by $80 billion last year, and we are redirecting $10 billion from the Commerce Department's slush fund, funds that were not used and need to be repurposed.
This CR sets the stage for a plan for a new golden era for our country, and I was pleased to support it.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago on their 50th anniversary and to recognize the enduring legacy of Gale Cincotta, a fearless leader for housing justice.
Gale understood that owning a home was not just about having a place to live, it was about stability, opportunity, and the chance to build a future, a better future. She took on fighting the banks against redlining and was a champion of the Community Reinvestment Act and never backed down in her pursuit of fairness for working families.
During the early 1980s, I had the privilege of working at NHS to see how access to affordable housing could change lives. I saw struggling families become thriving homeowners. I saw struggling neighborhoods revitalized into thriving communities. NHS has shaped many lives. It certainly played a pivotal role early in my own formation.
Our work is far from over. Families are still being priced out. Displacement and gentrification are still impacting families, and the access to these programs is under attack.
Today we celebrate NHS for 50 incredible years but also recommit to the fight for housing justice.
Mr. Speaker, last weekend when I was home I saw a very good guy who was recently married. He already has two children, and he was happy because he was buying a new house. He had to save up money for a down payment to do it.
The thing I noticed, though, is that during the 2 or 3 years that it took to save for the down payment, he had to live with his in-laws, which was fine because he had a strong family, and that is what it took to buy the house. It bothered me knowing that in other places in this country people are just
I hope in the future that this Congress changes the rules so we no longer benefit or raise this guy's taxes to set up someone for their own house immediately.
Mr. Speaker, the power of the purse belongs to Congress, not to the President, and this has nothing to do with our current President Donald Trump. This is in the Constitution, and it is clear as day, and it has been affirmed over and over again by the Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to have it both ways. They want to let Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire, wreck our government with illegal cuts, but they seem to lack the courage of their convictions to actually vote on these cuts. They lack that courage because they know how toxic these cuts are, deep cuts to healthcare, cuts to childcare, cuts that help the most vulnerable among us.
They won't even allow a vote on my amendment when all it would do is force the President to follow the Constitution. I am here with a simple request for my Republican colleagues.
Abide by your oath. Stand up for the Constitution. Allow a vote on this amendment. Stand up for your own constituents. Stand up for your own constitutional authority. That is what we are elected to do. That is why we are here. It is one of the main reasons we are here. Do not give our authority as Congress away to an unelected bureaucrat.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the great people of Youngsville, North Carolina, ahead of their 150th anniversary celebration on March 17.
Originally a railroad town and a community along U.S. Highway 1, Youngsville played a pivotal role in the growth of North Carolina's agricultural and rail industries and, in turn, helped develop the economy of our State and our region together.
Today, Youngsville mirrors her residents. It is a vibrant, proudly patriotic community with robust growth across the board. Yet somehow, despite this growth, Youngsville has retained its character and heart by reimagining its downtown to meet the demands of an active community. It is no wonder that young families from across North Carolina and the region have flocked to this area.
As its residents know, Youngsville is a truly special place and a treasure for the great State of North Carolina.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Youngsville community on this anniversary, and I wish them all the best in the next 150 years.
Mr. Speaker, Hazel Dukes was a lifelong champion for families and children in New York and across the country. Through her decades of civil rights activism, including as president of the NAACP, Dr. Dukes fought tirelessly to build a more perfect Union.
Dr. Dukes broke barriers as the first Black American to work for the Nassau County District Attorney's Office, where she stood up for Long Island communities that had been long ignored or underserved.
As we mourn her tremendous loss, we take comfort in the fact that Dr. Dukes' legacy will continue to live on in those that she mentored and the countless Americans who have been impacted by her life's work. May she rest in peace.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Jeremy Zavitz, a beloved father, husband, and member of our community and a teacher at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis.
Jeremy dedicated his life to teaching and touched the lives of hundreds of Minneapolis students over the years. Even in the midst of difficult health challenges, he never wavered in his commitment to educating and supporting his students.
Generations of young people will carry his lessons of kindness, authenticity, and the power of connection.
Jeremy saw education as more than just an avenue for teaching. He saw it as a place to help his students become their best selves. His students and colleagues alike remember him as a teacher who led with authenticity and heart.
Our community will miss Jeremy dearly, and his legacy will live on.
House Republicans have abandoned working Americans. They are taking housing and food from our seniors, children, and families. They have abandoned our veterans, the people who have bled for our country so that we can be free.
They have given this administration and its illegitimate mercenaries free license to gut agencies and services.
Mr. Speaker, make no mistake, the vote the Republicans took today is a shameful turn for this body.
In the words of Donzaleigh Abernathy, the daughter of Reverend Ralph Abernathy, best friend to Martin Luther King and a civil rights leader:
Mr. Speaker, I say to Donzaleigh and Oregon that I will continue to fight, and I hope they will stay with me in this fight.
Mr. Speaker, the House just voted to pass a radical, partisan government funding bill. I voted ``no'' because it lets Elon Musk decide how this money is going to be spent by Federal agencies.
There is a lot wrong with this bill.
This bill fails to lower the cost of housing and instead cuts rent subsidies for low-income Americans, including seniors and domestic violence survivors, by $700 million.
This enables President Trump and Elon Musk to cancel transportation infrastructure projects already underway. These projects are reducing traffic congestion and improving subway systems.
This reduces the emergency food program by $20 million at a time when food prices are on the rise.
This allows Musk and Trump to fire thousands of employees at the Social Security Administration.
It cuts funding for healthcare for veterans who are exposed to toxins, and so much more that is worse.
We needed a bill that protects the middle class and makes life less expensive for residents in Westchester and the Bronx. This continuing resolution is the opposite of that. Remember, I told you so.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to state that should now the House-approved full-year continuing resolution become law, it will be a legislative tragedy for northwest Indiana that will strip away specific funding for public safety and economic development.
By not including community project funding requests approved by this institution in the House Appropriations Committee just last year, Indiana's First Congressional District loses $4 million in approved funds to support equipment and resources for law enforcement agencies and $7 million in approved economic development projects. It reduces health benefits for veterans and puts at risk healthcare for seniors and children with complex medical conditions.
The House majority has made northwest Indiana less safe, jeopardized our potential for economic growth and the ability to create more work and wealth, and put veteran healthcare and those veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits, Agent Orange, and radiation at risk.
It is shameful that we have misled our local law enforcement agencies, local units of government, veterans, and seniors. I encourage my Senate colleagues to reject this harmful measure.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in honor of Dr. Hazel Dukes, a lifelong activist, a champion for civil rights, and the president of the NAACP New York State Conference.
Dr. Dukes' fierce commitment to fighting for equality and justice is simply unmatched. She was a trailblazer in New York State and across the country, a renowned community organizer, and a leading voice at the NAACP for nearly 40 years. She worked tirelessly for equity in housing, healthcare, and education.
I remember sitting next to Dr. Dukes at a long meeting where we were standing for hours, clapping and cheering. I was so tired and kept trying to sit down, but she reminded me that it was a privilege to be there, and I stood right back up.
Dr. Dukes' strength came from her compassion and love for our communities. The legacy that she leaves behind will inspire women, girls, and advocates across New York for generations to come.
It was an honor to have known Dr. Dukes. May she rest in power.
Mr. Speaker, in recognition of National Nutrition Month, I introduced the Feed Hungry Veterans Act, legislation to permanently remove barriers to SNAP often faced by veterans with work-limiting disabilities.
According to the 2023 RAND report, 1.4 million veterans are food insecure. That is in part because many disabled veterans do not meet all the qualifications for Federal nutrition programs like SNAP.
My legislation amends the definition of ``elderly or disabled'' for SNAP to include veterans with one service-connected disability rated at 60 percent or higher or two or more service-connected disabilities, at least one of which is rated 40 percent or higher.
With more than one third of disabled veterans in the United States facing food insecurity, we must do more to support those who have honorably served our Nation. The Feed Hungry Veterans Act is a critical step to ensuring veterans have long-term access to critical food assistance.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona, my fellow member of Ways and Means, for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Moorhead boys' hockey team on their first State championship, defeating Stillwater 7-6 at the Xcel Energy Center over the weekend. The 2A championship win was led by this year's Mr. Hockey, Mason Kraft.
The team dedicated the game to their teammate Ethan, who passed away unexpectedly last year at the age of 16. Holding up his jersey throughout the game and bringing the jersey through the handshake line, the Moorhead Spuds have made their families, community, and the whole Seventh District proud. I congratulate the Spuds.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the East Grand Forks boys' hockey team on their incredible Class 1A championship win.
With what sounded like the entire community of East Grand Forks in the stands, the team defeated Saint Cloud Cathedral 2-1 in overtime.
The East Grand Forks Green Wave has made their families, communities, and the entire Seventh District so very proud, and I am excited for them all to hoist that championship banner back at home.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the Warroad girls' hockey team, the Lady Warriors, on their 10-year streak as section champions.
These women, from a small town in northernmost Minnesota, are part of one of the best girls' hockey teams in the last 20 years. They have made their families and communities proud.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Praise Live in Osakis, Minnesota, on 40 wonderful years of broadcasting.
For 40 years, Praise Live has been bringing hope and faith to people across central and western Minnesota. They have even partnered with stations in Ghana and Uganda and as far-reaching as war-torn Sudan to spread the Gospel and its message of encouragement, faith, and hope across Africa.
I thank Praise Live for connecting with, praying for, and strengthening the Christian communities they are committed to serving. I pray for a successful next 40 years.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to try something this evening. The thesis I am going to try to sell tonight is that data is substantially a solution for us. What? I am going to walk through a number of things that just came out in the new Med Pack report. I have only just started reading it, but there are a couple of interesting things.
I am going to try to walk through the reality of what drives debt and deficits like I do every week. I am going to try to walk folks through some of the actual math instead of some of the hysteria that is modern politics where we make crap up because we don't tell the total details, and let's see if we can actually make any progress here on sort of the intellectual capital of this place.
So just off the top of my head, Mr. Speaker, you have seen the stories of the butchering of Federal employees.
I have a chart we are working on, it did not make my stack, to show the growth in the number of Federal employees in the last decade. It is a little rich how many folks run around here and they want more spending for their projects, so they don't want this or they don't want that, but at the same time, they are lined up at our doors and want more spending.
Mr. Speaker, if I could come to you and say: Guys, we are going to try to find a way to make the way we deliver services much more efficient and much more rational. So let's actually sort of walk through a couple of the boards.
This is one we start with a lot. The number now is a bit more dour. This board is 1 year out of date, but I didn't want to spend the money to reprint it.
Mr. Speaker, do you see the blue portion?
This fiscal year, about 25 percent of all the spending is in the blue. That is what we get to vote on. That is military. That is what we call nondefense discretionary.
We borrow about, let's see, last year for every dollar we took in in taxes, we borrowed or we spent $1.39.
So functionally, 39 cents this year, it will be a little better, we think it will only be about 36 cents for every dollar we take in in taxes. So what that basically means is everything you and I as Members of Congress vote on is borrowed.
However, we have this reconciliation budget. It is one of the few times where we actually get to talk a little bit about what is in the red, but we don't get to touch net interest. Interest is interest, and some of the math coming in right now says that interest this year, this fiscal year, could be about 1.1 to 1.2. I actually am a bit more dour, $1 trillion, making interest functionally the second highest expense in the Federal Government.
Until this reconciliation budget makes it through, defense is like number four on spending, so Social Security, interest, Medicare, Defense.
Take a look at what we are even allowed to talk about, Mr. Speaker, in a reconciliation budget. You know why we do the reconciliation budget, it is so we can get around the 60-vote rule in the Senate. So we are doing all this dancing and stuff because of the Senate rules, but we can't touch net interest and we are not allowed to go near Social Security.
So think about that, Mr. Speaker. That area on that last chart I just showed you that was red, the majority of it we are not even allowed to talk about it. We can't touch it, and we can't do anything about it. So when you see the authorization, Mr. Speaker, that is actually why committees like Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce have such a lift.
So what happens if I come to you, Mr. Speaker, and start to say: You have this country that is binging on debt.
We are in extraordinary measures right now, so some of the daily debt calculations are a little screwed up, but before we went through extraordinary measures, we were in the 60, $70,000 per second, every day, every second. If my math is correct and we come in about $2.2 trillion, maybe $2.3 trillion of borrowing this year, then we have to start thinking about that.
So we take in about $5 trillion in tax receipts, we are going to spend about $7 trillion, meaning about 7.25 percent of the entire economy is borrowed this year, and if we don't get our act together, in 9 budget years it could be 9.2 percent of the entire economy is borrowed.
I just wanted to make the point because I have come here in the past, interest rates have fallen dramatically in the last couple of weeks which, remember the seesaw, we have talked about the seesaw, when the economy is really strong or there is a shortage of capital to borrow, interest rates go up meaning United States pays a lot more in debt servicing. When interest rates go down, it typically means the expectations of the economy are slowing down meaning our tax receipts fall. So the middle of the seesaw stays the same.
I saw some people getting giddy: Look, interest rates are down.
It also means actually some of our modeling in the future quarters of tax receipts also are starting to fall now. So there is no free option anymore. However, Mr. Speaker, you have seen some of the discussions. Ray Dalio has been out there talking about the heart attack of debt and what happens to other countries and the history of that going back, I think in his book he is going back a couple thousand years.
Here is functionally the world borrowing. China is borrowing about 17 percent of what we call the available capital for sovereign borrowing. Japan is borrowing about 10 percent. We are borrowing 40 percent. We are about 25 percent of the world's GDP, but we are borrowing 40 percent of the money that goes to sovereigns. Mr. Speaker, you have to understand the scale, the binging on debt.
Mr. Speaker, when I get to the very last board, I am going to show again the chart that just seems to upset people, but it is math. Over from today through the next 30 years, discretionary spending, according to the CBO's 30-year model, actually ends up with a growth slower than tax receipts, but it is Social Security and Medicare. It is demographics. It is not Republican, and it is not Democrat, it is demographics.
Where it becomes partisan is where it is the unwillingness to tell the truth about the math and then actually the creativity of how we disrupt the cost.
How do you actually find some of these things?
This chart is a little awkward. I would have designed it a little differently, but sometimes you are running around.
The point we are trying to make is here was the effective interest in 2014 to the United States. Now all of a sudden we are up here, and the actual market rate we expect in the future to actually continue to consume, meaning interest is our great fragility in this country.
I have told the comment many times that at our current rate of borrowing, we have almost put the bond market in charge of this country because, Mr. Speaker, if you have to bring hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars to market every month, you screw with your banker. In many ways that bond market now is our banker.
For my brothers and sisters on the left who often want to attack the tax reform of 2017, attack tax receipts, I have done presentation after presentation behind this microphone using the stuff from the Manhattan Institute that basically shows if we do all the Democrats' tax hikes and then do the economic adjustments, often from Democrat groups, you get about 1.5 percent of GDP in new tax receipts.
Okay, maybe we are going to be pushed against the wall and have to do that, but we are borrowing over 7 percent of GDP. So it is like on Social Security, it is common that the refrain is we will just raise the cap. Okay, in 2033, the Social Security trust fund is empty.
Our brothers and sisters on Social Security will take a 17 to 20 percent cut. We double senior poverty in America. When someone says: Well, just raise the cap, our model is in that next year, 2034, raising the cap only covers about 38 percent of the shortfall, Mr. Speaker, and you have wiped out the cash and other things you actually need to also save Medicare, which actually that trust fund runs out 3 years later.
So one of the reasons for this chart is trying to demonstrate something very simple that back when before TCJA, the 2017 tax reform, the actual projection of what tax receipts would be, so before the tax changes, we are right on track.
Do you see the weird blip there, Mr. Speaker? That was a remarkable amount of spending that happened during the pandemic. We actually just went back to nominal.
So what happens here? What happens when there is this intense hunger to play this weird blame game instead of being willing to tell our voters the truth?
The vast majority of debt this decade will be interest and healthcare costs, mostly Medicare.
So one more contribution to the increase in spending from 2024 to 2035, interest, so remember why this chart is important. Let's put it in perspective.
Baseline, this is actually with the taxes going up at the end of this year, just baseline. So sort of following current law, not the clowns who actually run around and say: Let's just avoid the law and let's just pretend what we spend we spend.
The law says we are going to borrow $22 trillion over the next 10 years. That is baseline.
Here is the mix of that borrowing: 24 percent of that will be interest of the additional borrowing; old-age, survivors, Social Security will be 31 percent; discretionary 13; other mandatory 4 percent; and Medicare 28 percent.
Now, the fact of the matter is old-age, survivors, and Medicare have their own trust funds except for the fact that within that 10-year window, at least, this trust fund is now empty.
Are we allowed to talk about it? Are we allowed to do the moral thing here and maybe stop the doubling of senior poverty?
Yet, the fact of the matter is maybe I am an idiot for getting behind the microphone and actually mentioning the word Social Security because there is someone writing an attack ad on me right now for trying to save it. It is just the sickness of this place.
So let's actually walk through a little bit.
I saw a number of folks who actually have been attacking DOGE and the attempts to use data.
Understand, Mr. Speaker, that some of the communication skills are haphazard, but if I came to you today and said: Let's strip any partisanship, we need to find waste, fraud, and abuse modeling issues where we are doing things the wrong way, where we have models that are sometimes decades and decades out of date, would you hire an army of auditors, an army of lawyers, or would you hire data scientists, Mr. Speaker?
It turns out several years ago Congress started requiring agencies that send out payments that cover healthcare costs, that send out checks, these things, start telling us your error reports.
Okay, so for 2023, the reports come back at $236 billion of improper payments. Okay, that is a stunning amount of money, but that doesn't mean there is $236 billion of improper payments that have been stolen. There is a bunch of it that has been, but it is more complex. An army of auditors it would take years to grind through this. That is why actually the miracle of technology right now--hire some data scientists. They are really expensive. Most of them actually I have met recently are bathing, that is both funny and shockingly true. I met one who is an MIT dropout. Apparently MIT wasn't hard enough for him, but that is actually what he does.
The failure to access data information, well, it turns out a whole bunch of what we label as improper payments we lacked data on understanding.
So what happens when it is the data scientists who will help us grind through?
I just grabbed this one because Treasury itself, not just CMS and all the other agencies, Treasury itself has $21 billion of improper payments. When you walk through what those were, Mr. Speaker, and why they are improper, they didn't verify household size, they didn't verify the qualifications. They didn't verify these things that is basically data.
So let's actually have a little more fun here. Types of improper payments. Okay, we actually estimate of that $236 billion--and actually this was for 2024, the other chart was for 2023--$135 billion are overpayments.
Now, understand for a lot of those that maybe come through CMS, a Medicare reimbursement. CMS has the ability months and months, a year later, to try to recapture those moneys. We are trying to get the data scientists to build us models to understand, okay, if there is $135 billion of overpayments, how much of that comes back to us and how much is we will call it leakage, even those leakage is with a b. Then we have 12 billion unknown payments, we know payments went out but there wasn't enough data telling us what they were.
We had almost $8 billion of underpayments, where we underpaid people.
Mr. Speaker, what I am trying to provide here is that we know that we have a problem. We have known that we have had this problem for decades. For the last decade, we have been tracking the problem, and it has only been the last couple of months where we are beginning to tackle the problem and try to use technology to dive into what these categories are and to understand.
Mr. Speaker, some of this, you will notice the huge spike in improper payment amounts. That is actually mostly from the pandemic when we were pushing money and shoveling money out of this place like crazy, but we have been tracking this since 2014.
It has taken until now to find the technology and to find the talent to start diving into this math. Why is this just so important?
If you are someone like me, who believes that there are trillions of dollars over the next 10 years that we can save by just modernizing the way we deliver services, you first have to identify the outliers and identify what is going on.
Why is this so incredibly important? You have to understand what we are up against.
Outlays of the largest mandatory programs are projected to massively increase.
A moment of brutal honesty: This is 2025. This is 2034, so functionally 9 budget years. Social Security will have a 61 percent increase in spending. These are our demographics. I am going to try to explain these numbers a little bit more.
Medicare will have almost a 78 percent increase in spending over those next 9 budget years. There is a little more for this because this has none of the offsets, so I will try to provide a level of brutal honesty.
Remember, on Medicare, on some things, you have a portion of copay, those things. Yet, it is still a 75 percent increase, but it goes from $2 trillion of spending. In 9 budget years, Medicare itself will be a couple trillion dollars, just the spending on that. If you do the offset, the payments that the senior makes, that is about $400 billion. That is still a 75 percent increase in spending.
What would happen if I could come to you and say: If we would use technology, if we would modernize--here is the MedPAC report that came out in the last couple of days. I haven't read the whole thing. I read part of it.
Here is last year's MedPAC report. We read all of it, highlighted it, and we actually make our staff read it.
Well, it turns out, around here, actually reading the actual math and the concepts--if I came to you right now and said: In here, there is a whole paragraph that is saying there is something wrong in Medicare Advantage data.
Mr. Speaker, the MedPAC report says that Medicare Advantage is a really important program. We need to keep it, but we are going to have to dive in on how to modernize how it works. They made the adjustments for coding intensity, but it basically translates into a projected $84 billion, or 17 percent, of total payments. Meaning, Medicare Advantage is coming in at $84 billion this year. That is more than fee for service. That is with the adjustments for renal failure and other things.
I am already starting to have the MedPAC report fall apart, so if any of you talk to the MedPAC folks, ask them for better binding on their reports.
What would happen if I came to you right now and said: By changing the incentives, we can do things to fix these outliers and costs and never cut a service? Instead of the incentives that the MedPAC report talks about of scoring people as sicker and sicker and taking that additional spiff, spending, how about a system that says: Why don't we incentivize the providers in this program to help our brothers and sisters who are seniors be healthier? And that helping your population be healthier is actually your profit.
Is that heresy? I would argue that it is just good design.
We don't have a choice because, last week, the Joint Economic Committee published a report. I chair the Joint Economic Committee, and I appreciate that we have remarkably hardworking economists. We are trying very hard, but we are willing to go to places that are politically dangerous but mathematically honest, which is something that rarely happens around here.
Yet, we tried to touch on things like how fragile is U.S. debt to higher interest rates? The fact of the matter is I
We do a chapter here on the effects of obesity on our society, on spending, on longevity, and on family formation. Last year's report came in over $9 trillion. This year, we even define it more to understand what happens when the single biggest spend in our society could actually be mitigated by helping our brothers and sisters in the country be healthier.
Are we allowed to talk about that, or is that just heresy? Once again, I have to tell the truth.
Over the next 30 years, Social Security and Medicare represent all of the borrowing. It is about $116 trillion of borrowing.
Discretionary, which we talk about a lot because that is where you find some of the really stupid spending, the shiny objects, is projected to grow slower than tax receipts.
My point is, for everyone out there who wants to be enraged by the White House, enraged by those of us who are trying to find solutions, bring us ideas. Bring us actual math. Stop making crap up. However, if you are going to give us ideas, actually maybe read your subject area first.
You would be amazed how many things we get where, if we just didn't have foreign aid, and then we show the chart that it is a week of borrowing. Understand that you have a country where our baseline is going to be borrowing about $6 billion a day. How long do you think we can do that?
First, if we can find ways to do it better, faster, and cheaper, read the actual reports that we have been given for a decade that actually have ideas for this and be willing now to do the hard work of just using technology and data and modernizing.
Mr. Speaker, one of the insane things around here, when you meet many of the folks who are in our hallways and demanding more spending, demanding more regulations, demanding more barriers to entry to protect their business model or their bureaucracy, they actually hate the discussion of modernizing.
You are a medical professional. You know what you are doing. The fact of the matter is that there is hope. I don't think there are a lot more years that we can wait. There are ways to do this.
How do we get this body, both our brothers and sisters on the Democratic side--if they would be willing to work with us--saying let's modernize, let's embrace the technology, let's do the things we know that, if we were actually caring--it may not be great politics, but it is really good economics and really good for the future of this country.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material for the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Illinois?
Mr. Speaker, I will first thank my colleagues on the Democratic Rapid Response Task Force and Litigation Working Group for helping us with these various Special Order hours discussing the Trump administration's various reckless actions.
Tonight, I rise to bring attention to an issue that really should have all Americans on alert, which are President Trump's tariff policies.
Since the beginning of this administration, American businesses, manufacturers, and families have been stuck in limbo as the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened, then implemented, then paused, then restarted tariffs, creating uncertainty and instability.
The most recent policy shift to a 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico has been fraught with delays and exemptions, leaving American businesses, manufacturers, and consumers just stuck in limbo, not knowing how to react and how to make their plans.
In fact, just this morning, Trump doubled planned tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada to 50 percent. Then, a mere couple hours ago, a spokesman from the White House said that the tariffs on Canada were back down to 25 percent. Who knows?
In true Trump administration fashion, this is complete and utter chaos. Yet, the truth is that these tariffs, no matter if and when they go into full effect, whether it is this week or next month, they will all ultimately have the same result: higher prices for everyday goods and a less competitive U.S. manufacturing sector.
In fact, a business in my district, which makes precision-form steel tubing components, told me that the price of hot rolled steel is up 33 percent since Trump's inauguration in anticipation of these tariffs, and there is just no way that they are going to be able to avoid passing these inflationary price increases on to their customers.
According to an analysis from the Yale Budget Lab, if implemented fully, these tariffs would cost the average American family between $1,600 and $2,000 a year, with working-class families, who can least afford it, being hit the hardest.
Prices would spike across the board. Electronics, like computers, phones, and TVs, could rise by 11 percent; clothing, up by 7.5 percent; cars and auto parts, up by 6 percent; groceries, up 2 percent with fresh produce rising nearly 3 percent. Oil and other energy costs will rise over 1.6 percent, making it more expensive for families to fill up their gas tanks and heat their homes.
Mr. Speaker, Trump is trying to spin these tariffs as something that is solely attacks on foreign companies, but history and macroeconomic facts tell us otherwise. When Trump first imposed tariffs during his first administration, it was not other countries that paid, but it was American consumers and businesses.
Importers passed these cost increases on to their consumers, and domestic producers hiked their own prices in response. This made U.S. manufacturers less competitive worldwide. In fact, in the last administration, Trump's policies put us into a manufacturing recession well before COVID hit.
Beyond hurting hardworking American families, these tariffs threatened the stability of our economy. Analysts from across the political spectrum warned that they could slash 2.3 percent from GDP by 2026, wiping out a lot of projected growth.
Markets also reacted with great uncertainty, as they should. The stocks have dropped, and consumer confidence is cratering.
For American farmers, many of whom are already facing mounting economic challenges, the situation is even more dire. The costs of critical supplies, such as fertilizer, fuel, and equipment, will skyrocket, making it harder for farmers to maintain their operations.
Mr. Speaker, I was just at an event earlier today with corn farmers from the Midwest. For example, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, Canada supplies over 80 percent of our potash imports, which are an essential component for agricultural fertilizer. Guess who the next leading producers are after Canada? Russia, China, and Belarus.
Wouldn't it be better if we could import from our friends in Canada instead of Russia, China, and Belarus, or does our President feel differently?
In any case, with increased costs, farmers will be forced to either raise prices or absorb the losses, neither of which is sustainable in the long run.
Besides rising costs, farmers are already facing devastating losses in international markets. China, the largest export market for U.S. food products, has already announced retaliatory tariffs on key American agricultural goods, including wheat, corn, soybeans, pork, and dairy products.
Mexico, our largest corn export market, knows what they are going to do because they did it last time. When Trump did various things to insult the people of Mexico and assault their economy, they simply stopped buying corn from the United States and began buying it from Brazil.
Brazil, by the way, gets two crops a year, which, when you tell that to corn farmers in the Midwest, they react. We are in danger of losing these markets permanently if Trump continues what he did in his last go-around on tariffs.
According to the USDA, in fact, the last time President Trump engaged in a trade war, it cost U.S. farmers nearly $30 billion in lost sales and market disruptions. In an effort to keep the farmers' heads above water, $30 billion of taxpayer money was sent their way.
That is not what farmers want. For decades, American farmers have worked tirelessly to expand access to foreign markets, ensuring their products reach consumers around the world.
These new tariffs will undo years of progress in expanding those markets, closing off opportunities and shrinking demand for American- grown goods in a foreign market, something which domestic consumption alone cannot compensate for.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, long before coming to Congress and long before my career as a scientist, I started a manufacturing company with my brother. Starting with $500 from our parents, we built a company that now manufactures over half of all the theater lighting equipment in the United States. It provides over 1,300 manufacturing jobs in the Midwest.
We do hardware, software, painting, wiring harnesses, customer support, everything, and I am very proud that we have kept those good manufacturing jobs in the United States.
That is why boosting the U.S. manufacturing and creating manufacturing jobs here has always been a top priority of mine and why I was so horrified at the damage done to U.S. manufacturing by the last set of Trump tariffs.
I watched with deep concern as the first Trump administration's tariffs and our other trade policies put us in a manufacturing recession a year before COVID even started.
Once again, Trump is pursuing a failed economic policy that is going to do nothing to bring jobs back, but instead it will drive up costs, kill growth, and undermine U.S. manufacturing, the very sector that he claims to protect.
Manufacturers will be hit with soaring costs. Many U.S. manufacturers rely on imported raw materials, such as steel, aluminum, and auto parts from Canada and Mexico. These tariffs will increase costs across the supply chains, making it harder to produce goods economically and much harder for U.S. manufacturers to export their goods in a competitive world environment.
Contrary to what Trump and the Republicans are trying to say, higher costs mean fewer jobs. When manufacturers face rising production expenses, they are forced to either pass those costs on to consumers, further driving up inflation, or cut jobs and production. Studies have shown that Trump's previous tariffs led to job losses, not gains, in the manufacturing sector.
American manufacturers will, once again, struggle to compete globally. By making essential inputs more expensive, Trump is weakening U.S. manufacturers against foreign competitors who are not burdened with these artificial price hikes.
Not to mention, manufacturers will likely be hit by retaliatory tariffs when trying to export their goods to the countries that President Trump has targeted.
This is not America First; this is America last in the global economy.
The last trade war was a disaster. Under Trump's first round of tariffs, manufacturers suffered as input prices soared, supply chains were disrupted, and retaliatory tariffs from other nations crushed U.S. exports.
This time the consequences could be even worse.
The truth is, there are no winners in trade wars, only those left to bear the burden of higher costs, lost jobs, and economic instability.
Instead of strengthening our economy, Trump and his Republican allies are needlessly putting it at risk, gambling with the livelihoods of American families.
When the U.S. is threatened with a recession, you don't have to take my word for it, you can read the front page of The Wall Street Journal. It will be those policies who are to blame.
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be joined by my colleague, Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury. As a Representative of the southern border State, New Mexico, she knows all too well, the importance of fair trade with Mexico for our Nation's economy and especially for working families' wallets.
Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).
Real-world Impacts on Communities of Actions Taken by Elon Musk and Donald Trump
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for convening this Special Order hour.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the real-world impacts of what is happening right now in our Federal Government. With the dismantling of Federal agencies, the free fall of our economy, and the impacts that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are having on our communities, what is happening right now is not normal. It is impacting our communities in ways that many do not even understand.
Right now, real people are hurting. They are scared. They don't know what is going to happen. Today, in my office, I met with members of a Tribal council and leaders from a Tribe in New Mexico who came to visit me.
Like others, they shared stories about the people in the community who are frightened about what is happening. Teachers and educators and Tribal schools who have been fired without any explanation, critical Federal funds that are on hold. When they went to meet with the Department of the Interior today, they were told that even those who are in charge of the very programs that they were meeting them about didn't know what was happening.
Back home people are frightened. They are scared. They don't know if they are going to lose their Social Security, their Medicaid, or the access to lifesaving care.
A few days ago, I met with the largest food bank in the State of New Mexico. They distribute food to hundreds of food pantries, churches, homeless shelters, and individual families across the State. They told me that if the cuts to food assistance go through that Republicans are proposing in their budget framework, that the number of families, and especially our children and seniors who are currently facing food insecurity, will double.
There is not enough support, resources, and infrastructure in the State of New Mexico to meet the need if these programs are cut. Our food system will do everything that it can to support our communities, but it will be more severe than even during the pandemic.
Every day I am hearing from constituents in my district who have lost their jobs. These are real people, real New Mexicans. Thousands of Americans are being fired every single day by this administration for no reason. These are not faceless people, but real members of our communities.
A Tribal schoolteacher was told in the middle of the school day that she was being fired for no reason, after she had taught for years, to pack up her things and return home in front of her students. These are students who don't know if they are going to be able to finish the school year and graduate. There were no answers. There was no explanation. There was no follow up for how she is going to support her son and her disabled mother at home.
A veteran, who was on medical leave, returned to their job at the VA on a Monday only to find out that they had been locked out of their email, and inside that email was a nameless, faceless dismissal, letting them know that they had been fired for no reason. A dedicated public servant who drove 60 miles to work every single day to the VA hospital to serve their fellow veterans was never even notified as to the reason they were terminated. It was just a mass email sent to thousands of Federal employees across the United States.
Just like the other veterans across my district who lost their jobs over the last several days, another veteran who
These are the real people being impacted by this administration, an administration that seems to have no regard whatsoever for the thousands of Americans who are literally losing their livelihoods every day as a result.
While they take on these actions, while they dismantle these Federal agencies, while they withhold the funds that literally thousands of organizations across the country depend upon to provide vital services across our communities, while they fire these thousands of Federal public servants who have dedicated their life to service, including our veterans and members of the military, they are giving themselves contracts to replace the very programs and create new services that will give them more wealth like Elon Musk at the FAA.
They are talking about monetizing HUD programs. That is right. Voucher programs that our lowest income family members and members of our communities depend on, they want to turn it into a monetary program that makes private companies money. They want to turn over mortgage markets to their crypto buddies. Well, that sounds like a good idea, right?
They are doing all of this against the backdrop of trade wars that are not only endangering the American economy, but endangering the lives of millions of Americans and making it more expensive.
Now the thing I ask myself is: What is the end goal of all of this? Seriously, what is the end goal?
Donald Trump campaigned for the last 2 years on lowering costs. He told the American people: If you elect me, I will make it cheaper and easier to live in America. I ask my fellow Americans, is it cheaper than it was 6 weeks ago in America? If you have been grocery shopping over the last several weeks, you are seeing that prices are higher than they have ever been.
We are not just talking about the price of eggs and meat. It is everything: the price of housing, the price of groceries, the price of energy. Not only have prices not gone down, they have gone up, and now because of these tariffs and trade wars, we know that everything is going to get exponentially more expensive.
The raw materials that fuel American manufacturing and construction will get more expensive. Produce and food will get more expensive. Energy will get more expensive.
What are they doing? Why are they doing this? Why are my colleagues enabling this administration to harm the American people, enabling this administration to put harmful policies in place that are making it not only more expensive for Americans but tanking our economy? What is this all about? To what end?
I ask my colleagues honestly, Mr. Speaker, to what end is all of this? What is the point of hurting real Americans?
These policies are not making life better for real Americans. It is really about stealing from the working people of this country to make the wealthier more wealthy.
Mr. Speaker, if you need any more evidence of that, then all you have to do is look at the budget framework that they passed here in this Chamber 2 weeks ago.
A couple of weeks ago, when they passed this budget, they pretended like we are just trying to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and that we are going to take those savings and reinvest it into tax breaks to help the American people. As the last couple of weeks have passed, they are not even trying to hide it anymore.
Over the weekend, Republicans were on a blitz across the news media, saying that they were going to gut Medicaid. They are talking about it openly now. They are going to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the basic programs that sustain Americans. Over the weekend, Elon Musk talked openly about gutting Social Security. This is their plan.
What are they going to do with all of that ``savings''? They are going to use it to give permanent tax breaks to billionaires. That is it. That is what all of this is in service of: taking from the people who have spent their lives serving this country, proudly serving this Nation, proudly working to put food on the table and a roof over their head for their families, and they are going to give that money to billionaires. That is what this is all about. It hurts my heart.
My colleagues passed their budget resolution, their budget CR, this afternoon, and the vast majority of them are on planes back to their districts, where they are not going to hold townhalls. Their leadership told them not to because they don't want to hear from the people who are unhappy and being hurt by this harm to our communities.
I have to ask my colleagues: Why are they even here? What is this all in service of? Go home and represent the people, and come back here and have a backbone to stand up for the Constitution and the people of this country because real people are being hurt.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Stansbury for speaking today and for sharing how some of Trump's policies are going to harm her constituents.
In her State and near her district are national security workers, atomic scientists at Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs, who were fired and then unfired and are still being threatened with being fired.
I am a scientist. I know a lot of people who are in that situation. Damage is done to our national security when you tell people who are working at a national lab, especially a national security lab, that it is not a safe place in terms of being able to depend on an income to raise their families. That does damage to our national security that can never be undone.
It is not a small deal, and the fact that some 23-year-old kid with a software background has decided they know more about the workforce that we need to make sure our nuclear weapons are safe and effective is about as bad government as you can ever imagine.
I would also like to echo Ms. Stansbury's questions about why does Trump do this. Why does he actually do this? The President's reputation as a great businessman is based on making a series of one-off deals. He is a real estate dealmaker, not a manufacturer, not a businessman who has real customers.
He thinks he has done a good deal when he uses all the leverage in his negotiation to make sure that he has really rooked his counterpart, his customer, to the extent possible in his real estate transactions.
I am very different. I am a manufacturer. The last thing you want if you are a manufacturer is a dissatisfied customer. It is a completely different mindset.
The problem occurs when Donald Trump views our allies as people to be rooked, people to be insulted, people to use, to leverage to get the most out of the current situation with them instead of trying to develop the long-term business relationship that is really the basis of the long-term economic security of our country.
That is my best understanding of why the President does these things because he certainly has his advisers that let him know that his policies are going to have disastrous economic effects.
In fact, just a couple of nights ago, in an interview, President Trump declined to rule out the possibility of a recession, which I imagine his competent advisers have been shouting in his ear for weeks now.
As I said earlier, there are no winners in a trade war. There are only those who are left to bear the burden of higher costs, lost jobs, and economic instability.
Instead of strengthening our economy, Trump and his Republican allies are needlessly putting it at risk, gambling with the livelihoods of American families. If the U.S. indeed enters a recession, we will know who to blame.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the topic of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Arizona?
Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to be here tonight with my colleagues who are also members of the Border Security Caucus.
For 4 years, we have stood here and exposed the open-border policies of the Biden-Harris administration. For 4 years, we have seen what happens when the America First border security policies that President Trump had put in place were thrown out.
In just over 1 month, we have seen what happens when those policies are put back in place. Since President Trump took office, ICE agents have arrested more than 20,000 illegal aliens. That is just in 1 month. By comparison, Joe Biden only had 33,000 at-large arrests for the entire year of 2024.
When Joe Biden was in charge, over 300,000 illegal aliens crossed the border in just 1 month. In President Trump's first month, illegal crossings did not even reach 10,000. The actual number was 8,400.
Whereas Biden let all those people into the country without proper vetting, some of which were known criminals and terrorists that we are now trying to find, under President Trump, people who illegally crossed the border are stopped and immediately detained or removed.
Due to President Biden's catch and release policies, every State had the pathologies of a border State. Immediately after taking office, President Trump charged ICE officers with cleaning up streets across the country by detaining the illegal aliens that Joe Biden had released into the country.
While they were attempting to prosecute President Trump for bogus charges in multiple jurisdictions, the Biden regime was releasing actual criminals into every city in America.
Tonight, we are going to be exposing the Biden-Harris administration's open-border policies and President Trump's work to remove them. We will highlight the tireless work of ICE agents tasked with arresting some of the worst individuals who have invaded our country.
Despite being demonized by the mainstream media and organized campaigns to interfere with and prevent arrests, including by exposing personal information of agents, in just 1 month, those agents have taken thousands of violent and malevolent offenders off of our streets. In just 1 month, President Trump has put an end to the endless invasion of our communities by illegal aliens.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin), my co- chairman of the Border Security Caucus.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), my good friend and co-chair. I really appreciate him having tonight's very important Special Order.
The truth is simple. The Biden administration threw open the floodgates, allowing murderers, rapists, and chaos to pour into our communities, all in pursuit of political power. They knew exactly what they were doing.
Securing the border was never an impossibility, as they let the Nation and us believe. It was always a choice.
For the last 4 years, the wrong choice was deliberately made. We were told that enforcement wouldn't work, that the crisis was simply too big to fix, but those were lies meant to cover up the fact that an open border was exactly what they wanted to do.
They dismantled every tool that worked, inviting criminals to walk right in. We saw the consequences play out in the most destructive ways imaginable. Mr. Speaker, 15 million illegals entered under the Biden administration's watch.
Tonight, you will hear about the evils that were unleashed on our neighborhoods by the Biden administration, resulting in death and destruction of innocent American lives.
How many more lives must be lost? How many more families must grieve before they admit their open-border agenda is destroying this country? There are 100,000 Americans dying per year from deadly Mexican cartel and Chinese drugs that have come in over our open border.
There have been hundreds of thousands of lost children from the child sex trade and human trafficking. There have been murders, rapes, and pillaging from illegal alien gangs and swamped public schools, hospitals, and public services.
Here is the good news, though. The days of lawlessness are over because, on day one of the Donald Trump administration, we finally have a strong leader in the White House. Just like that, the border was shut down. All it took was that leadership and the will to enforce the law. The message was sent loud and clear: America is not open for lawbreakers anymore.
Illegal crossings have plummeted. Deportations are back in full force. As co-chair of the Border Security Caucus, I am committed to keeping these dangerous criminals off of our streets.
Working hand in hand with President Trump, Vice President Vance, and leaders like Tom Homan, we are making sure that child traffickers, drug smugglers, and gang members are rounded up and sent packing back to where they belong. We are kicking them out by the thousands, just like we should have been doing all along these last 4 years.
This is how you put America first: You don't make excuses; you act. You don't let criminals run free; you lock them up or send them home. You don't leave the border wide open; you shut it down and take control.
The American people deserve safety, not suffering. They deserve law and order, not chaos. They deserve leadership that protects them, not one that absolutely betrays them.
That is what Donald Trump and Tom Homan are delivering to us right now, and they are just getting started.
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I thank the gentlemen who have led the Border Security Caucus, Mr. Babin and Mr. Biggs. I thank them for their leadership on this issue. It is as a result of their efforts that they continue to deliver this message to the American people of what a disaster this was going on at our southern border that caused this to be the number one issue in the past election before the American people.
In particular, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs). The first trip I did after being sworn in, in May 2020, was to go down to the southern border on a trip that he led with many of us, as he did so many times with so many Members. I don't know if there are hardly any Members on the Republican side that he didn't lead to the southern border to deliver the message.
It is there that I got to meet people like Sheriff Mark Lamb from Pinal County in Arizona and Sheriff Mark Dannels down in Cochise County, who back in 2020 talked about how the border was becoming secure, that at the end of the Trump administration's first term, the border was becoming more secure. We visited them a year later, and they told us that it was all deteriorating simply because there was a change in the Presidency. I thank them for their leadership in regard to this. They have done a service to the American people. Hopefully, we can fix this for the future.
We just had a hearing this morning with a sheriff from one of the counties in Texas, a border county there, as well as one of the leaders of the Border Patrol union. They told us that it is night and day since January 20. Thank God we have new leadership in the White House because the border is once again secured.
I would just say, remember when the media and Democrats told us that President Biden needed a bill to fix the border? That was a lie. As President
If there is one thing that has been proven over the last month, it is that the Democrats' border invasion was intentional.
Mr. Speaker, President Trump announced illegal border crossings in February were the lowest in decades: February 2024, under Biden, nearly 190,000; 2025, under Trump, a little over 8,000.
That is a 96 percent decrease without a single new law from Congress. The difference is real leadership. It is truly a shame that Democrats willingly let the killers of Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray and Rachel Morin into this country. It is also a shame that they did not deport criminals like the one in my congressional district who killed Steven Nasholm, a father of three daughters.
Thankfully, President Trump didn't wait for excuses. He took action by putting remain in Mexico back in place. He declared an emergency at our southern border, sent troops to help the border patrol, put a stop to illegal crossings, and signed the Laken Riley Act into law to deport dangerous criminals.
Gone are the days of catch and release, which have a completely different meaning where I come from in the lakes in northern Wisconsin. President Biden had turned it into an illegal alien term where illegals who were caught at our southern border were released into the U.S.
To be clear, the last administration chose to let America be invaded. President Trump chose to stop it.
American strength is back and stronger than ever, but we cannot stop here. Congress must act now to ensure these gains are not undone by the next weak President in the White House. We must codify things like stopping birthright citizenship, ending catch and release, ensuring that ICE has the tools needed to carry out mass deportations, and preventing parole abuse permanently.
President Trump is doing his job. Now it is time for Congress to do ours. There are no more excuses. It is time to stand up for America.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate his willingness. We have been to the border together. As has everyone else speaking tonight, I think we have all been except for Mr. Gill who I have got to get down there. It is always fun.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Clyde).
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Biggs for holding tonight's Special Order and leading on this critical border issue.
Since day one, President Trump has taken incredible steps to secure our border and protect the American people. These measures include ending catch and release, reinstating remain in Mexico, restarting construction of the border wall, and cracking down on sanctuary cities.
Recently, the Trump administration ended the taxpayer subsidization of open borders, meaning Americans' hard-earned tax dollars will no longer be used to support or incentivize illegal immigration. Additionally, the Trump administration has made great progress in carrying out its mass deportation operation.
What used to be called the CBP One app to allow illegals to more easily come into the country is now the CBP Home app. Why is it called the CBP Home app? It is good for a one-way ticket home for illegal aliens so they can self-deport. President Trump is emptying our country of illegal aliens. Promises made; promises kept.
Border Czar Tom Homan and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem are tirelessly working to detain and deport illegal aliens. ICE agents, along with key assistance from local, State, and Federal law enforcement partners, have already arrested and issued detainers for thousands of criminal illegal aliens including murderers, drug traffickers, suspected terrorists, and MS-13 gang members.
For example, ICE recently arrested an illegal alien in Atlanta, in my home State of Georgia, whose criminal history includes a conviction of four counts of indecent liberty with a child. This heinous criminal illegal has no place in the Peach State or anywhere else in our great country for that matter. I am deeply appreciative of the Trump administration for taking criminal illegals off of our streets.
My northeast Georgia district has seen the devastating impact of criminal illegal alien crime up close and personal. Last year, Maria Gomez Perez, a 12-year-old girl, was abducted in Gainesville, Georgia, by an illegal alien. Thankfully, she was rescued and found in Ohio.
Days before the 2024 election, Mimi Rodriguez-Ramirez, a 25-year-old mother, was murdered by an illegal alien from Mexico. That happened in Habersham County.
Just outside my district, Laken Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student, was brutally murdered by an illegal alien in Athens, Georgia.
Mr. Speaker, President Trump is working to prevent these tragedies from devastating additional families and communities across our country. I applaud his work to make America secure, safe, and great once again.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Indiana (Mr. Baird).
Mr. Speaker, I will always remember him going off with Art Del Cueto and leaving the rest of us in a car, stuck in the dirt and with a bad tire, as we were down on the border. It is good to see that he made it.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Arizona for this Special Order.
Mr. Speaker, under the Biden administration, our borders were wide open with record numbers of illegal immigrants and deadly drugs flooding across our border.
Under President Biden, every single State became a border State including Indiana. These include dangerous criminals with ties to gangs such as the Tren de Aragua and MS-13, who have committed horrific crimes and vicious attacks against innocent Americans.
Last year, an illegal immigrant with ties to MS-13 stabbed a teenage girl in the hand at a baseball game in Lowell, Indiana. After an extensive search, the culprit was found and arrested. I thank law enforcement officers for their hard work to find and arrest this criminal.
Under President Trump, we have swiftly returned to commonsense border policies, and illegal border crossings have plunged to a record low. In January 2025, there were 61,465 illegal border crossings, down from 176,000 in January '24. Just last month, illegal crossings at our southern border plummeted to the lowest level on record.
President Trump has sent a message loud and clear that the border is closed, and his strong border security policies are working. House Republicans are working with the President to implement his agenda to secure our border and keep Americans safe.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, who is also a member of the Border Security Caucus, for being with us tonight.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gill). Texas is another border State, and Mr. Gill is a newcomer who is setting the world on fire.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for hosting this Special Order.
Over the past 4 years, Joe Biden and the Democrats have inundated American communities with massive numbers of violent, illegal aliens who are murdering, raping, torturing, and pillaging our people on our soil.
They did it the entire time, not by accident but as a deliberate policy decision, to open up our borders and flood our country with people that they believed would be future Democrat voters for life.
We have to remember it was also a part of a policy that was done with the approbation of a cheap labor lobby who wanted to import millions of people who would act as a virtual, new serf class of laborers to reduce American working-class wages in this country.
The consequences of this were absolutely catastrophic for the American people. Almost 15 million illegal aliens, perhaps more, depending on what estimates we use, have come into this country.
Thankfully, this nightmare is finally over because we have a President who
His border enforcement efforts have caused known got-aways to fall by 93 percent with an average of just 132 a day right now. Even as this nightmare in this country is finally coming to a close, we have colleagues on the other side of the aisle right now who are facilitating this invasion as best they can and going back to their districts and helping protect illegal aliens who have no business being here in the first place. They are teaching them how to evade ICE detection.
Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely disgusting. We have got to codify President Trump's border policies into law so that we don't let the other side of the aisle unleash the same kind of hell on our country that they did over the past 4 years. We have got to codify every single executive order including his remain in Mexico policy. I have got a bill, the REMAIN in Mexico Act, which would do precisely that. We have got over 100 cosponsors.
Mr. Speaker, I think we need to bring this bill to the floor. This is what the American people want. This is what the President wants. I think we need to act fast.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his passion. He is right. We do need to codify President Trump's policies because we cannot go back to the period of time like we just experienced under the Biden regime.
Mr. Speaker, the Trump policies are a product of understanding what needs to happen. The mere fact that Donald Trump was elected almost immediately terminated the onslaught of people crossing our border.
Let me give an example. When I was meeting with the new border patrol chief, Chief Banks, I asked him what is going on. He said: Andy, three caravans turned back yesterday.
Mr. Speaker, that is what happens when you enforce the law. People were going to break the law. They stopped breaking the law. When I was down at the border just a few weeks back, I wanted to compare. I went to a place where I knew we had a regular flow of illegal aliens crossing the border. It was eerily quiet when I was there. The only thing that we saw and noticed on the southern side of the border were the watchers and the scouts. All of a sudden, they saw us. They came out. They were watching and observing us.
Let's talk about some of the people that have come in under the Biden administration's terrible and dangerous anti-American policy. First is Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul; some call him Turko. In the sanctuary city of Los Angeles, Federal agents arrested Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul, also known as Turko, who is charged with running one of the largest human smuggling organizations in the country. It spanned 5 years, and he smuggled in around 20,000 illegal aliens, largely between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Just so you know, the last number was about $10,000 per person that he was smuggling.
A codefendant of his was also charged with threatening to behead a Homeland Security Investigations agent and his family while authorities were conducting a search of his home.
Charges against him and his codefendant include hostage taking, transporting aliens into the U.S., and transporting aliens for private financial gain, resulting in death.
Illegal aliens were charged in some instances more than $15,000 for transportation. If they couldn't make the payment, they were held as hostages in stash houses in Los Angeles and Phoenix.
Let's take a look at someone else. Let's see if we can find Wilmer Yovani Fuentes-Benitez. On February 2, ICE officers in Philadelphia arrested Honduran national Wilmer Yovani Fuentes-Benitez who was previously deported three times. This time he was also arrested for resisting arrest and battery of a police officer.
These are the people that my friends across the aisle say should be allowed to remain here in these sanctuary cities.
ICE agents in Omaha arrested a member of Tren de Aragua who had spent 7 years in a Venezuelan prison for robbery, resisting arrest, and unlawfully discharging a firearm.
ICE agents arrested Fernando Hernandez-Martinez for two counts of child molestation.
We have another poster. This is Jose Roberto Rodriguez-Urbina. On January 22, ICE agents arrested El Salvadoran national Jose Roberto Rodriguez-Urbina who was wanted in his home country on extortion charges. This is what happens when an administration does not properly vet people they let into the country.
Criminal fugitives see the U.S. as a safe haven from justice, and they abuse the parole statute. They literally granted parole to millions of people when the very purpose of parole never saw more than 25 or so people admitted into the country under parole but not under the Biden administration.
In Saint Paul, Minnesota, another individual was arrested by ICE agents, Victor Covarrubias-Ozuna, for sexually assaulting a child.
Here is another one. In San Francisco, California, ICE agents arrested Erwin Davila-Galvan for lewd acts with a minor.
We have another poster. On January 27, ICE agents in San Diego arrested an Afghani who had an existing removal order and was a known or suspected terrorist. Despite having a removal order, the Biden- Harris administration and Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas could not be bothered to deport this suspected terrorist. He was roaming our streets and had to be captured by ICE agents.
We have another individual. On February 5, ICE officers in Harris County, Texas, arrested Mexican national David Gonzalez-Martinez for aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. Gonzalez has illegally entered the country at least four times and was removed from the U.S. in 2001, 2008, and 2015. He was previously convicted of voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault with a weapon, drug possession, and illegal reentry.
On January 27, ICE agents in Brockton, Massachusetts, arrested Guatemalan national Edilio Agustin-Orellana. Agustin is charged with five counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, three counts of kidnapping, and armed home invasion. He has a record with ICE going back as far as 2002 when he was first arrested for illegally entering the United States.
These are the types of individuals that are currently being arrested by ICE under the leadership of Tom Homan. These are the types of individuals that are being protected by sanctuary cities.
When we recently had a hearing, we had the mayors of four of these sanctuary cities come in. All of them said: We cooperate with ICE. We don't keep people from being deported or we don't stop handing them over. But they do; they release them in the parking lot.
Let me read you the statutes that they are violating. Here is one. 8 U.S.C. 1373(a) states: ``Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, state, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.'' You cannot do it. There is not even a culpable mental state required. You simply can't restrict it.
The sanctuary cities are preventing ICE and the immigration officials from getting this information. There is this one. This is 8 U.S.C. 1324(c). It states: ``In conducting investigations and hearings . . . immigration officers and administrative law judges shall have reasonable access to examine evidence of any person or entity being investigated . . .''
When the sanctuary city mayors say you can't cooperate with ICE, they are violating this statute. They have criminal culpability. Also you will see again there is no culpable mental state. There is no requirement that they intentionally or willfully knowingly do it. It is a per se statute. They are violating this. They have criminal culpability.
The sanctuary cities also have culpability on this. ``Any person who knowing''--now you have a culpable mental
You have to understand something. What you have here is you have mayors telling their police chiefs and their officers don't hand these people over. Don't hand them over. There is no distinction between civil or criminal. When they do that they know that they are concealing. That is a criminal sentence up to 10 years. They are violating the law. They need to be prosecuted.
I am calling on Pam Bondi, the new Attorney General, and I am also calling on Mr. Homan to make that happen.
Mr. Speaker, I tip my hat to President Trump. What he has done just by enforcing the law has actually secured most of our border.
