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19 public bills, H.R. 3206- 3224; and 11 resolutions, H.J. Res. 95; H. Con. Res. 30; and H. Res. 386-394, were introduced.
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Reports Filed
Reports were filed today as follows: H.R. 478, to require the appropriate Federal banking agencies to establish a 3-year phase-in period for de nova financial institutions to comply with Federal capital standards, to provide relief for de nova rural community banks, and for other purposes, with an amendment (H. Rept. 119-90); H.R. 976, to repeal the small business loan data collection requirements under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, with an amendment (H. Rept. 119-91); H.R. 1919, to amend the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit the Federal reserve banks from offering certain products or services directly to an individual, to prohibit the use of central bank digital currency for monetary policy, and for other purposes, with an amendment (H. Rept. 119-92); H.R. 2384, to establish an Independent Financial Technology Working. Group to Combat Terrorism and Illicit Financing, and for other purposes, with an amendment (H. Rept. 119-93); and H.R. 2392, to provide for the regulation of payment stablecoins, and for other purposes, with an amendment (H. Rept. 119-94).
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Speaker
Read a letter from the Speaker wherein he appointed Representative Strong to act as Speaker pro tempore for today.
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Recess
The House recessed at 10:46 p.m. and reconvened at 12 p.m.
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Recess
The House recessed at 12:45 p.m. and reconvened at 1:30 p.m.
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Gulf of America Act and DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act: Rule for Consideration
The House agreed to H. Res. 377, providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 276) to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the ``Gulf of America'', and providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 881) to establish Department of Homeland Security funding restrictions on institutions of higher education that have a relationship with Confucius Institutes, by a recorded vote of 213 ayes to 209 noes, Roll No. 118, after the previous question was ordered by a yea-and-nay vote of 206 yeas to 200 nays, Roll No. 117.
Pages H1864-69
Discharge Petition
Representative Boyle presented to the clerk a motion to discharge the Committee on Rules from the consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 278) entitled, a resolution providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 185) to advance responsible policies (Discharge Petition No. 3). Quorum Calls--Votes: One yea-and-nay vote and one recorded vote developed during the proceedings of today and appear on pages H1868-69 and H1869. Adjournment: The House met at 10 a.m. and adjourned at 3:28 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: 76 of 90 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.
Mr. Speaker, our kids, our seniors, and constituents deserve to live healthy, prosperous, and independent lives. That is why I spoke with hundreds of my constituents at a Medicaid townhall this past weekend, since most of them depend on Medicaid to live fulfilling lives with dignity.
The impacts of the $880 billion in cuts being proposed to Medicaid are not statistics. They are children, parents, educators, and grandparents. They are our neighbors and our friends.
I heard from a father whose son was almost institutionalized. He was getting ready to quit his job to take care of his son full time. Instead, his son got access to care through Medicaid, which allowed the father to continue running his nonprofit, which was helping adults with intellectual disabilities.
I listened to a grandparent of two intellectually disabled kids who has been their legal guardian for 15 years now. With the help of Medicaid, both children are living independently. Yet, with these cuts, they may face medication bills of $7,000 per month and be forced to move back in with their grandparents.
I heard from a nurse who shared that 40 percent of the births in her hospital are covered by Medicaid, including prenatal, maternal, and postpartum care. That is what supporting families and family values looks like.
A speech language pathologist at a title I school told me that most of her students are on Medicaid. They rely on it for free and reduced school lunches, and students with disabilities rely on it for their education.
Mr. Speaker, let's look at the facts. Medicaid supports 1.8 million Virginians, and hundreds of thousands of them would lose their Medicaid access because a 1 percent cut in the Federal Government's contribution to Virginia's Medicaid program will mean everyone from Medicaid expansion loses their Medicaid.
There are 3 in 10 children who are on Medicaid, 2 in 7 working-age adults with disabilities are on Medicaid, and 5 in 8 nursing home residents are on Medicaid.
Medicaid is also the fourth largest Federal funding source of our public schools. It provides mental health services. It ensures kids with disabilities get what they need. In 43 States, including Virginia, it also provides access to free and reduced-priced school meals.
There are over 37 million children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, in the United States. These are the most vulnerable people in the country who stand to lose the most from these deep funding cuts.
If my colleagues want to talk about fiscal responsibility, cuts to Medicaid will mean less preventative care, more costly emergency room visits, and much higher costs for treating preventable diseases and illnesses. That will increase premiums and costs for every single American, even those with private insurance, those who are not on Medicaid. Everyone will be affected by these cuts.
Yet, we hear that these cuts won't touch Medicaid, but that is not true. Just look at the math. It is the only way to make these cuts.
Medicaid is a lifeline. It is not a line item that can be blindly chopped to pay for a partisan wish list of bad ideas and tax cuts for the biggest corporations. In the richest country in the world, we should be working to cure diseases, explore new medical technologies, and expand Medicaid, not cutting off basic care.
Mr. Speaker, our kids, our seniors, and our communities deserve better.
Mr. Speaker, I will respond that, once again, we hear myth after myth when we talk about reforms to Medicaid, which its greatest threat is $37 trillion in debt.
Yet, when we talk about reforms to a Medicaid program, it is to preserve Medicaid, and children, the disabled, and nursing homes would not be impacted.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the retirement of Chief Keith Kimball, who served the people of Bettendorf and the State of Iowa with distinction for 35 years.
Chief Kimball started on third-shift patrol and worked his way through the ranks with grit, integrity, and a heart for service. From becoming Bettendorf's first-ever school resource officer to leading the Investigative Services Bureau and, finally, being named chief in 2018, he never lost sight of his mission: to serve and protect with honor.
He has been a mentor to many, a leader in his department, and a trusted figure in the community. Chief Kimball represents the very best of law enforcement: steadfast, compassionate, and committed to making a difference.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Chief Kimball for his dedication to the people of Bettendorf and for setting an example that will inspire future officers for years to come.
I congratulate Chief Kimball on his retirement. He has earned it.
Mr. Speaker, this National Small Business Week, I rise to celebrate the small businesses that power Iowa and make our country strong.
As a former small business owner myself, I know the early mornings, the long nights, the lack of vacations, and the risks it takes to keep a business running. These men and women are the heart of Main Street America, and they deserve leaders who will fight for them.
In Iowa, small businesses represent 99 percent of all businesses in the State. In President Trump's first term, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, giving small businesses the relief that they needed to grow and hire.
I will also say that there are no Fortune 500 businesses without first starting as a small business, or a mom and pop.
If we don't act now, those tax cuts will expire, and Iowa's small businesses will be hit with a crushing 20 percent tax hike. We cannot let that happen.
Let's extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, protect small business owners and farmers, and keep the American Dream alive in Iowa and across the country.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of President Jay Byers, a proud Iowan and dedicated public servant who has led Simpson College at Indianola until his untimely passing on April 17.
Jay spent his life working to make Iowa a better place, from his years as CEO of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, where he championed economic growth across the metro, to his time as president of Simpson College, where he put his students first every single day. He brought energy, vision, and a heart to everything he did.
Jay is survived by his loving wife, Katie, and their daughters, and my prayers are with them, the entire greater Des Moines area, and Indianola during this difficult time. Iowa has lost a leader, Simpson College has lost a champion, and many of us have lost a dear friend.
Mr. Speaker, may Jay rest in peace. Our prayers are with him.
Mr. Speaker, the United States Postal Service isn't just a convenience. It is a constitutional promise.
For more than two centuries, the USPS has connected every corner of this country, delivering prescriptions to seniors, paychecks to workers, and ballots to voters. They do all of this without taxpayer funding because it was never built for profit but for the public good.
Today, that promise is under threat. This administration's effort to privatize the Postal Service would mean higher costs, slower service, and the elimination of rural delivery because corporations won't serve what isn't profitable. It will also mean the loss of strong, middle- class jobs for over 640,000 postal workers across the country, including nearly 74,000 U.S. veterans. In Delaware alone, nearly 1,000 of my neighbors would be at risk.
This isn't about efficiency. This is about dismantling public services so that Republicans can prove that government doesn't work and then hand those services to the highest bidder.
We should be strengthening the Postal Service, not selling it off, because some things should serve people, not profit.
Mr. Speaker, this week's travel delays and cancelations are frustrating millions, but behind the headlines is a deeper issue: a national shortage of air traffic controllers, pushing a vital workforce to the brink.
I recently toured the Philadelphia International Airport and met directly with controllers managing the skies above Delaware. They are working 10-hour days, 6 days a week, making split-second decisions to monitor thousands of lives at once. The pressure is relentless, and the margin for mistakes is zero.
On top of all of this stress, this administration and Republicans in Congress are trying to gut their retirement security. Air traffic controllers are mandated to retire at 56. Yet, this administration and House Republicans are advancing a proposal to shrink the retirement benefits for Federal employees who are retiring before 62, all to help pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. We cannot expect to solve for shortages by breaking our promises to air traffic controllers after a lifetime of work.
The problems we are hearing about at Newark could be a nationwide problem if the majority in Congress continues to disrespect and deplete this vital workforce.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate an extraordinary achievement by students from the Charter School of Wilmington, who were just named national winners of Samsung's Solve for Tomorrow STEM competition.
These brilliant students, who I met with last week, tackled Delaware's physician shortage with an innovative solution: an AI- powered smart bandage that monitors wound healing in real time.
Their project, called AKQUA-Gel, rose to the top from thousands of entries nationwide, earning their school a $100,000 prize package and a national title.
This isn't just a win for Delaware. It is a powerful reminder of what young people can achieve when we invest in education, in STEM, and in their belief that they can solve big problems in their communities.
While I am a proud graduate of Cab Calloway, I couldn't help but come to the well of the House to congratulate the Charter School of Wilmington. They have made Delaware proud and inspired us all.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize my great friends and two wonderful civic leaders of Omaha, Bruce and Pam Friedlander, during Jewish Heritage Month for their lifelong commitment to service, generosity, and helping others in our community.
Bruce and Pam grew up in Omaha, attending Omaha Central High School, but they didn't meet until they both attended the University of Nebraska Lincoln. They were married in July 1971, and each proudly say that the other is the best decision they have ever made.
Bruce tells people he started working at his grandfather's store, Louis' Market, at the age of 2 and jokes that he failed retirement five times.
In addition to running a successful business, Bruce's grandfather Louis, who is from Russia, was an avid baseball fan and would frequently take Bruce and the other grandchildren to baseball games.
Bruce said his grandfather would tear up during the national anthem at every game because he was free. Bruce says he is not trying to be his grandfather but credits him as being the best mentor he ever had.
After learning a strong work ethic from his grandfather and his father,
Pam is an accomplished educator who devoted 32 years to Omaha Public Schools. She is passionate about going to the synagogue and reading the Torah. She believes people should listen to each other, be there for each other, and listen to God every day. That is great advice for everyone.
Their pride is their two children, Andee and Jimmy--I know both of them; they are wonderful--and their four grandchildren. Bruce credits Pam with their smarts. Enhancing the quality of life for others is their family's mission.
Bruce has continued his service as a member of the Jewish Federation, which oversees the Jewish Community Center, also known as the JCC, and the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home. He served as president from 2017 to 2018.
Approximately 1,500 people visit the JCC every day, and a significant number are not Jewish. Bruce credits this to the theme of the Jewish Federation, which says: ``Everyone is welcome.'' The Friedlanders apply this to their work every day.
As the JCC gets ready to celebrate 100 years, Bruce is helping to lead a 100 Days of Giving campaign to expand the Rose Blumkin Jewish Home and serve more people. He tells everyone that the home is our safety net.
The Friedlanders have volunteered at Beth El Synagogue. In addition, Bruce helped to revamp the Omaha Community Playhouse, serving as the president of the board. Bruce and Pam were the honorary chairs for the Omaha Community Playhouse's 100th anniversary.
Bruce was named Volunteer of the Year by the Jewish Federation in 2009, 2010, and again in 2015. He has added a new role of serving with the Boys Town Boosters, who help to raise funds to ensure that every child deserves a future.
Reflecting on his life, Bruce often says that he was ``blessed to be born into a wonderful family and a wonderful community.'' He tells others: ``My family were experts at helping people. During the time I have spent giving back, I have had three rules: first, take care of yourself and those you love; second, do your job; and, third, take someone with you.''
Bruce and Pam have passed down their wisdom to future generations, including their grandchildren. Their advice? It is not who gave the money but who made the difference; don't get your information from social media; and when you hear the jets fly overhead toward Offutt Air Force Base, realize that they are keeping us safe.''
As Bruce has said: ``When you save someone, God remembers your name.''
Thank you, Bruce and Pam. Surely, God does remember your names. ``Thank you so much''; ``Toda rabah.''
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the career and service of Makiko Shirai, a Japanese foreign service worker who worked to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Japan.
On May 20, Makiko will be presented with Japan's Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Rays, for 35 years of supporting the U.S.- Japanese relationship.
Throughout her career, Makiko served more than 90,000 Japanese nationals in the Los Angeles area, and she played a large role in the Consulate's emergency response to the 1994 Northridge earthquake and again during the attacks of 9/11 on our country.
I thank my good friend and neighbor, Makiko. I thank her for being a role model and showing us all what the power of relationships between countries can do.
Congratulations to Makiko on a well-deserved honor.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Sophie Garcia, a sophomore at Orange Lutheran High School in my district, who is making school history as the first female wrestler to win a CIF Southern Sectional individual wrestling championship.
Sophie's championship run included winning five matches in the 2-day tournament, showcasing her exceptional skill, determination, and competitive spirit.
Sophie trained very hard but studied even harder. She maintained a 4.2 GPA, earning recognition as a student-athlete scholar.
I am very proud of Sophie. I know she is going to do even better and will keep up the good work.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to honor and celebrate the recent recognition of one of Nebraska's preeminent banks and a pillar of the community it serves, First National Bank Omaha, better known as FNBO.
FNBO has long led Nebraska's banking sector, especially in their efforts to expand access to affordable housing across our State. By engaging with local communities, listening to stakeholder feedback, and leveraging the Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka's Affordable Housing Program, FNBO has become a driving force in promoting homeownership across Nebraska.
Their dedication was recently recognized when FNBO was named Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka's overall Housing Champion of the Year. Along with the honor, they received a $5,000 award, which is going to the Nebraska Housing Developers Association.
All of Nebraska is proud of the work FNBO is doing in housing. I look forward to seeing what they can do next to strengthen our communities through more affordable housing.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to recognize and celebrate a truly remarkable milestone for the city of Lincoln and the entire State of Nebraska, the 100th Anniversary of Bryan Health.
Since first opening its doors in 1925, Bryan Health has grown from a hospital in Lincoln into one of Nebraska's most innovative, trusted, and patient-oriented healthcare networks.
Over the past century, Bryan Health has expanded its reach and services to meet the needs of communities in Kearney, Crete, Grand Island, Merrick County, and well beyond.
Bryan Health's commitment to compassionate care and medical excellence continues to draw patients from across our State. Their enduring mission puts patients, families, and their communities first, and it has earned them the respect and gratitude of generations of Nebraskans.
Once again, I congratulate all of Bryan Health's staff and medical professionals for their 100 years of remarkable service and leadership in healthcare.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to recognize the next generation of leaders and innovators emerging from my own hometown. This inspiring group of young people is known as the Rebel Robotics FTC team.
Rebel Robotics is a FIRST Tech Challenge team hailing proudly from Norfolk, Nebraska. Founded in 2019, the team gives students the opportunity to engage directly with cutting-edge technologies and robotics shaping our future.
Most recently, Rebel Robotics stood out at the FIRST Championship held this year in Houston, Texas. Competing against top teams from across the country, they earned the prestigious Inspire Award, which recognizes excellence in programming, robot design, engineering portfolios, judged presentations, professionalism, as well as community outreach.
The Inspire Award is the highest honor presented at the competition, and it also means that Rebel Robotics secured a world championship title in Houston.
I congratulate these exceptional high school students on their achievements and for inspiring others to explore the world of robotics.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Dr. Margaret Leinen, who is stepping down as director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and vice chancellor for marine science at the University of California San Diego.
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography works to study and find solutions to our most pressing environmental challenges, such as the relationship among our oceans, climate change, and human health.
Under Dr. Leinen's leadership, Scripps grew its degree programs and student enrollment, doubled its sponsored research and philanthropic funding, and furthered UC San Diego's reputation as one of the prestigious research institutions on the world stage.
Dr. Leinen has shaped our ocean and climate research. She oversaw the commissioning of state-of-the-art research vessels, the opening of multiple new facilities, and fostered Scripps' relationship with San Diego's developing blue economy industry.
Dr. Leinen has also served as the U.S. Department of State's science envoy for the oceans to Latin America and the Pacific and as assistant director for geosciences at the National Science Foundation. I have enjoyed working with her and learning from her at the U.N. climate change conferences, or COP.
Dr. Leinen's work has left an extraordinary mark on oceanography. I thank Dr. Margaret Leinen for her service. Along with all of San Diego, I wish her the best in her retirement.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a constituent of mine, Dr. Alessandro Sette, for being awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and being granted the status of knight, or Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia, for his exceptional work in immunology. He was previously elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology.
Dr. Sette is a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in the centers for autoimmunity and inflammation, infectious disease, and vaccine research. He has dedicated his career to understanding our body's immune system and developing interventions against cancer, autoimmunity, allergies, and infectious diseases. His laboratory works to understand scientific structures called epitopes that the immune system recognizes in diseases, and he uses this knowledge to improve our immune responses.
Dr. Sette's research led to the creation of the Immune Epitope Database, which is a vital source of experimental data on antibody and T cell responses. Dr. Sette's research revealed how T cells can fight pathogens like tuberculosis, dengue, SARS-CoV-2, pertussis, and the virus that causes Mpox.
Dr. Sette and the La Jolla Institute team were the first in the world to publish a detailed analysis of our immune system's response to the coronavirus. Their research exemplifies San Diego's role in developing the cures and treatments of tomorrow.
I congratulate Dr. Alessandro Sette on his achievements and on this most recent distinct honor of being knighted by the Italian Republic.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the remarkable Shane Crotty, a San Diegan and world-renowned immunologist whose work has transformed our understanding of the human immune system.
Dr. Crotty's groundbreaking research into the body's response to virus was not only vital to the global fight against COVID-19 but also to the advancement of vaccines and treatments for a wide range of infectious diseases.
In recognition of Dr. Crotty's enduring contributions to research on the immune system, he was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This honor is a testimony to the value of his scientific contributions and to the curiosity, integrity, and commitment to public service that define his work.
At a time when public trust in science is more important than ever, Dr. Crotty stands as a beacon of integrity, innovation, and hope. His tireless pursuit of knowledge continues to save lives and will inspire future generations of researchers.
I am grateful for his leadership and proud to honor his legacy, and I thank Dr. Crotty.
Mr. Speaker, I keep hearing the term ``constitutional crisis'' over and over again. Candidly, the only constitutional crisis that has taken place over the last 4 years was the last administration abandoning their responsibility to defend our border and allowing over 10 million people to enter this country illegally, cutting in line over people who want to come here legally and add to the American Dream.
We don't know who these 10 million people are, where they came from, or if they could be a danger to our community and country. On top of that, they put a strain on our social welfare system, schools, hospitals, and law enforcement, taking away resources from the tax- paying citizens in areas not just on the border but around the country.
When food, gas, and rent prices were going up by 20 and 30 percent, if not more, over that time period, the very people who were breaking the law were actually getting free things, whether it be rent, phones, cash cards, and other things that Americans were struggling to pay for every single day.
Cleaning up this mess has become our responsibility, the new majority, the new administration that has committed itself to actually keeping the promises from the campaign trail in 2024. Instead of bending over backward to help people who are breaking the law, they want to look at it and say: How about those folks that were left behind?
They were facing a constitutional crisis in the sense that their own government was not enforcing the laws of this land.
As the new administration is moving forward to deport gang members, wife-beaters, and others, the real constitutional crisis is finally being defined, that America should finally stand up for the citizens who make this country great and allow people to enter this country in a legal way so they can contribute to the American Dream.
I am so proud of this administration for keeping those campaign promises and working swiftly and in a smart way to deport those folks who broke the law, not just coming to this country but once here in this country.
For a change, I think a lot of people are finally saying that the government is working for them instead of against them. Let's send a clear message that law and order mean something, the Constitution means something, and we can finally end this constitutional crisis.
I applaud the President for moving forward and allowing the American people to stand up. Let's just look at it candidly: When you are standing up exclusively for judges, you are not having a checks-and- balances system. You are putting one single judge above the American public's popular vote, let alone the electoral college.
I am so glad that this House said that we are going to move forward in a thoughtful way and not allow, again, one single judge, who is not elected by the people, to decide the policies of this government.
I thank the President for his leadership. We stand with him in making sure that the rule of law is finally followed, ending the constitutional crisis that existed for the last 4 years.
Mr. Speaker, I will just say if this administration was keeping their promises, we would actually have a President, who, when asked if it is his responsibility to uphold the Constitution, wouldn't say I don't know, and instead of passing laws
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and celebrate the winners of this year's Congressional Art Competition.
Art is a cornerstone of educational success for our students, giving them a healthy, creative outlet to process their emotions and share their stories with the world.
We had over 80 talented young artists submit their work to my Congressional Art Competition as the California 31st Congressional District's Representative.
I am proud to announce Marely Gutierrez, an Azusa High School senior, as our first-place winner. Her charcoal and graphic artwork, Heartfelt Gaze, will be hung in the Cannon tunnel for the next year for everyone to see.
I had the pleasure of meeting Marely and the other talented young artists at a ceremony we hosted last month. Our ceremony was held in the beautiful Vincenzo's Terrazza in San Dimas, where we celebrated with students, parents, teachers, and everyone who participated in this year's competition.
It was such a joy to meet many of California 31st District's bright young artists and hear about the impact art has on their lives.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Marely again and all the students who submitted their artwork. I am so proud of each and every one of them.
Mr. Speaker, the Big First District of Kansas is home to more than 20,000 small businesses who employ over 80 percent of working adults in my district. These small businesses are the backbone of our economy. Their stories, defined by sacrifice, hard work, and determination, serve as a reminder of what the American Dream is all about: that anyone, from anywhere, can come to the U.S. the right way, work hard, make an honest living, and succeed. That is what it is all about.
Many of the small businesses I represent are family owned and operated. As the fifth generation to grow up on my family farm and feedyard in western Kansas, I understand the immense sense of pride and gratitude that comes with growing up around a family business. It is much more than a 9 to 5; it is a personal investment of endless hours to see a dream come to life. When that dream gets off the ground, families give it their all to keep it afloat. They take pride in serving their neighbors and leaving their communities better than they found them. Our Federal policies ought to help them do just that.
Since I came to Congress, I have worked nonstop to make this a reality. Every year, I have introduced legislation to preserve stepped- up basis and to stop far-left Democrats' farm killer tax. For decades, stepped-up basis has protected families from being forced to pay capital gains taxes on inherited assets.
President Biden tried his best to remove this provision, which would have resulted in the destruction of family farms across my district and around the country. I have always and will continue to oppose any effort to impose new taxes on small, family-owned businesses, period.
I have fought to protect similar exemptions for students from family farms and small businesses. Last year, new FAFSA provisions altered the Federal formula for student aid, counting assets in small businesses and family farms as part of the family's net worth. My Family Farm and Small Business Exemption Act seeks to correct this flaw and to level the playing field for students who come from these families.
When these students are applying for higher education financial aid, assets tied up in a small business should not count against them. As their families work tirelessly to make an honest living and serve their neighbors, we should make it easier for them to succeed and pass on these businesses to the next generation.
My bill evens the playing field and protects the American Dream for every student. I was proud to see it included in the bill that the House Education and Workforce Committee marked up last week.
Congress should also roll back burdensome regulations that further handcuff our small businesses in an already challenging environment. For the last 4 years, our small business owners navigated regulation after regulation imposed by the Biden administration. President Biden attempted to regulate every aspect of small business owners' livelihoods if they didn't fall in line with his Green New Deal agenda.
Small business owners, already struggling with sky-high inflation, begged Washington, D.C., for less regulation and more freedom to just make a living. The Republican majority has spent the last 4 months rolling back these regulations. That is what our small business owners want and that is what they deserve.
Most importantly, Mr. Speaker, over the last few months, this body will work to further support small business owners by extending the 2017 tax cuts. These historic tax cuts by President Trump during his first term ushered in an economic boom that benefited America's small businesses and the communities they serve. We have a duty to bring back the growing economy and to ensure that family businesses that are the backbone of our country can thrive again.
If we fail to extend the Trump tax cuts, small businesses will see their tax rates nearly double, harming local economies and Main Street. This financial burden would limit small businesses' ability to grow and force some to reduce the size of their staffs or even close their doors entirely. America can't afford to leave these men and women out to dry.
During this National Small Business Week, we thank the hardworking men and women who make up the more than 33 million small businesses across our great Nation, employing nearly 62 million Americans, and equipping them to feed their families, put a roof over their heads, and clothes on their backs. I look forward to working with my colleagues in this body to see America's small business community thrive once again.
Mr. Speaker, if our small businesses fail, America fails, and the world cannot afford that. I recognize that over these next few weeks we will have very difficult conversations on the best way to extend these cuts and enact President Trump's agenda, but they are conversations worth having.
Mr. Speaker, last month, an air tourism helicopter crashed into the Hudson River near Jersey City killing six people, including three young children.
This tragedy is yet another example of the threat that nonessential helicopters pose to public safety, especially in the congested airspace over New Jersey and New York.
Since 1983, there have been at least 30 helicopter crashes in our region, resulting in at least 31 fatalities. We also continue to hear from countless New Jersey residents whose lives are upended by the constant, incessant noise of helicopters traveling at low altitudes over our neighborhoods.
Since taking office, we have consistently worked to address these challenges, from the noise and nuisance they cause to the safety risks that have been well documented.
In the 118th Congress, we introduced two pieces of legislation and directly engaged with the FAA to address these issues, hosting a workshop in Jersey City with stakeholders and local leaders, but this crash is a clarion call to every level of government that further urgent action is needed.
That is why, along with my colleagues from New Jersey and New York, I introduced the Improving Helicopter Safety Act, which bans all nonessential helicopter traffic within a 20-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty.
It is clear that the helicopter industry is not a good actor or one willing to proactively take measures to protect our communities. In the wake of this most recent tragedy, one air tourism
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in support of this bill so that we can protect lives in our communities and ensure that tragedies like this one never happen again.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Buddy Baseball in Bayonne.
Every year, more than 100 children and young adults with special needs gather for a season of Buddy Baseball, giving everyone the opportunity to succeed, play, and enjoy this incredible game.
This year, I was proud to march in the parade to celebrate their opening day and commemorate the opening of their brand-new field. Hundreds of spectators lined the streets to cheer on this year's players, and it was heartwarming to see our community come together for such a great cause.
The city of Bayonne is leading the way in bringing communities together in an inclusive way, lifting up those around us, and showing what we can achieve when we work together.
Mr. Speaker, I thank everyone who made this dream a reality and for reminding us what we can do when we come together as one in a community.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Israel's Independence Day and 77th birthday.
The United States and Israel have a binding, ironclad partnership that continues to grow stronger as the months and years go on.
As President Reagan once said: ``For the people of Israel and America are historic partners in the global quest for human dignity and freedom. We will always remain at each other's side.''
Our values are one and the same, and our joint commitment to advancing freedom and human dignity will never cease.
To the State of Israel and the Jewish people, I say this: We will always stand firmly alongside you. You can count on us today, tomorrow, and always.
Mr. Speaker, this week we recognize National Small Business Week and, with it, the incredible contributions of our many small business owners, workers, and entrepreneurs across Pennsylvania and the United States.
These individuals, Mr. Speaker, deserve more than recognition; they deserve our support and applause. Small businesses aren't just a line in an economic report; they are the lifeblood. They are the employers, the mentors, and the community leaders, and they are the ones giving to local charities and sponsoring youth sports, putting their names on the back of Little League jerseys in communities across our Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
We also recognize the critical role of our local chambers of commerce in assisting small businesses. Throughout Pennsylvania's Ninth Congressional District, we are blessed with some of the best chambers in Pennsylvania, if not the country.
Throughout my district and Pennsylvania, from Schuylkill County to Wyoming County, to the Susquehanna Valley to Lebanon, from Luzerne to Lycoming, these chambers are working every day to support job creators and bring small businesses together. They serve as a bridge between the private sector and government, and they help ensure that entrepreneurs have a voice. Their efforts deserve our thanks.
As someone who worked in small business, I understand the challenges entrepreneurs face, and while I was fortunate to help grow a small business into a larger business, I never lost that small business mindset. That mentality, grounded in what we call the WIT principle, Whatever It Takes, is built on hard work, results, teamwork, and customer service. It continues to guide my work here in Congress.
Mr. Speaker, that work, on behalf of small businesses, starts with regulatory relief. Small businesses don't have compliance departments or teams of lawyers. Every hour spent on paperwork is an hour not spent on growing their business.
That is why House Republicans and the Trump administration have taken important steps to roll back burdensome regulations that never should have applied to small employers in the first place. We fought to eliminate the Biden administration's imposed Beneficial Ownership Rule, which would have forced small businesses to submit sensitive ownership information to FinCEN, adding compliance burdens and creating legal risk with little benefit.
We pushed back against the CFPB's 1071 rule, which mandated that lenders collect and report demographic and financial data on small business loan applications, raising costs and potentially limiting access to capital.
To ensure we are hearing directly from those affected, the Small Business Administration has also now launched recently a red tape hotline, giving small business owners and manufacturers a direct channel to report excessive or unworkable Federal regulation so we can act on them. As a matter of fact, their hotline phone number at the SBA is 1-800-827-5722.
Beyond regulatory relief, we are advancing smart legislation to support growth and innovation. I introduced the Investing in All of America Act, which expands access to capital for small manufacturers and startups in economically underserved and rural areas by raising the leverage cap on small business investment companies.
My 7(a) Loan Agent Oversight Act improves transparency and accountability in the SBA's most widely used lending program by requiring annual reports on loan agent activity. This bill ensures Congress has the data needed to provide proper oversight, protect taxpayer dollars, and keep the program strong for small businesses that rely on it.
The Regulatory Review Improvement Act, which I also introduced, ensures that Federal agencies take into account the real-world impact of their rules on small businesses. It requires agencies to regularly review existing regulations already on the books and evaluate whether they should remain in place based upon their effect on small businesses. That and ensuring access to capital are some of our major focuses here in Congress.
Finally, through reconciliation--also known as the one big, beautiful bill--we are committed to extending the provisions of President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which helped countless small businesses invest, expand, and hire.
Provisions like section 199A, bonus depreciation, and the R&D tax credit have had a direct, positive impact on small businesses. These provisions, and the broader income tax reductions, must be extended to maintain growth and protect jobs.
By voting for this plan, we are simply continuing the tax plan that stimulated the strongest economy in the past 50 to 100 years. A ``no'' vote on this plan is a ``no'' vote for small business. Anyone who says this reconciliation package doesn't help small businesses either doesn't understand it or is choosing to ignore what is in it. This legislation is progrowth, proinvestment and pro-small business.
Separate from the small business provisions, if the individual tax cuts are allowed to expire, the average Pennsylvania family, Mr. Speaker, will face a tax hike of over $2,500. If my Democratic colleagues oppose this bill, they are voting in favor of the largest tax increase on working families in American history, plain and simple.
Frankly, we need Pennsylvania's executive office and State agencies to get on board with this progrowth initiative, as well. Mr. Speaker, let's thank every entrepreneur, employer, team member, and small business for all they do to deliver for America.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the men and women in the nursing profession.
This week is National Nurses Week. Every year, from May 6 through 12, we celebrate the work and the contributions that nurses make in the healthcare field.
National Nurses Week ends on Florence Nightingale's birthday, the founder of modern-day nursing.
Prior to serving in Congress, I spent nearly three decades in the healthcare profession. There, I worked closely with nurses and saw firsthand the care and compassion that they showed their patients.
Nursing is a science and an art reserved for those who are the most caring, giving, and passionate about helping others. Nurses provide their patients and families with comfort, compassion, guidance, and care.
Mr. Speaker, we should always thank our nurses for their hard work and dedication. Please join me in recognizing the nursing community this week. We should all be grateful for their commitment to caring for others, especially during these trying times.
A special shout-out to my Aunt Jessie, who is retired now as a nurse but cared for so many and made her way to the point where she was the executive director of the Pennsylvania Nurses Association. We are very proud of the difference that she has made.
Mr. Speaker, I rise for the fifth time to bring attention to the Trump administration's failure to restore funding for food aid for malnourished children, despite their promise to do so.
I speak today about the biology of hunger. A 2-year-old child may weigh the same as a newborn. Their bodies stop growing. Their immune systems shut down. They lose the ability to walk and sometimes even the ability to cry. That is what severe malnutrition looks like, and it is the leading cause of death for children under 5.
There is treatment. Ready-to-use therapeutic food is a nutrient-rich peanut paste that delivers the fat, protein, and vitamins that starving children need to survive. It can save a child's life in just 8 weeks.
The Edesia factory in Rhode Island has helped save 25 million lives with this food, but that work is now in jeopardy because the administration hasn't followed through on its own promises to continue funding the program.
We must restore funding for emergency food aid now. Lives are at stake. I will keep speaking on this floor until that funding is restored.
Mr. Speaker, it is Small Business Week, and we are getting back to the basics: less red tape, lower taxes, and policies that actually help people who run a business and hire workers.
Small businesses are the building blocks of our economy. They do not need more interference from Washington or their home State. They need us to be out of the way of what they need to do to provide the things people actually want.
That is why I am working to stop the largest tax hike in American history and to make the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions permanent. These lower rates help businessowners grow and reinvest in their own workers.
Under President Trump, we saw how lower taxes and fewer regulations actually sparked real growth. We are building on that by passing bills that support small businesses and American manufacturing in America. When Main Street is strong, our country is strong.
We are going to keep doing what works and stop what doesn't, what actually hurts. That is how we get this economy moving in the right direction and actually being dedicated to the needs of the American people and the economy that drives it.
Mr. Speaker, in 2005, the 988 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline was launched to provide 24/7 access to counseling and referrals for Americans in crisis.
In recognition of these challenges, the challenges these Americans face, the 988 lifeline provides specialty services targeted at LGBTQ youth, who are at a higher risk of suicide than the population at large.
According to a 2024 survey by the Trevor Project, 12 percent of LGBTQ youth attempted suicide in the past year--12 percent of American youth in this category.
Now, the Trump administration is reportedly considering eliminating these specialized support services, which would cut off the lifesaving resources they provide.
Young people, young Americans, when they are in crisis, should be able to speak to a professional counselor who understands their experiences and is trained to communicate with people facing similar struggles.
This is a cruel idea. For the health and safety of all young Americans, the President must immediately reverse course on this ill- advised, cruel, and dangerous plan.
Mr. Speaker, friends of freedom are grateful that the House overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan, bicameral Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia's Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence Act, the MEGOBARI Act. This bill counters the Ivanishvili regime dragging Georgia toward Iranian terrorists, the Chinese Communist Party, and war criminal Putin.
The passage of the MEGOBARI Act, with a mandate vote of nearly 90 percent, demonstrates America's support for legitimate President Salome Zourabichvili and the Georgian people and the rejection of the tyrannical mafia cabal, which is selling out Georgia to dictators. The Georgian Dream insults President Trump. The only way forward is for fair elections and the release of all political prisoners.
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, revealing that war criminal Putin lies, subverting freedom in Belarus from legitimate President Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor this year's Orlando Sentinel's Central Floridians of the Year, JJ Holmes and his mother, Alison Holmes. Together, they are a force, not just in central Florida but across the entire State and country.
JJ has a severe disability, but he hasn't allowed that to stop him from speaking out and advocating tirelessly for our disability community.
His mother, Alison, shows up every day to care for JJ and to stand up for families across the country just like theirs.
Their advocacy and their continued work started 10 years ago when JJ was just 12 years old and was removed from a Trump rally in 2016, after protesting the President's mockery of a reporter with a disability.
For over a decade, they have continued to speak out at the local, State, and Federal levels, advocating for expanding Medicaid, closing coverage gaps, quality healthcare, and affordable healthcare for everyone.
The way that they lead with love and courage should stand as a testament to their strength and the amazing work they do. Central Florida is stronger because of both of them.
I congratulate both JJ and Alison on this honor. I thank them for never giving up on the fight to build a more inclusive world for everybody, no matter who you are. I am so proud to be in this work with them.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Van Robinson, of Syracuse, who died Saturday at the age of 87.
The history books will remember him as the first African-American president of the Syracuse Common Council, a body whose chambers now bear his name, but his legacy and contributions are far richer.
It was Van Robinson who began the conversation about tearing down the highway that divides our city through a thriving African-American neighborhood. Now, the reimagining of I-81 is the largest infrastructure project in the history of upstate New York.
It was Van Robinson who revived the local NAACP chapter. It was Van Robinson who always advocated for his community. It was Van Robinson who went out of his way to mentor and support the leaders of Syracuse, including me.
I thank Van for making Syracuse, a place we both love, a better place.
I send my prayers and condolences to Linda Brown-Robinson and the Robinson family.
Mr. Speaker, on Sunday night, the community that I represent in Glendale, Arizona, was rocked by yet another mass shooting in America.
As families and friends came together to eat, drink, and dance, they looked forward to celebrating Cinco de Mayo and spending time in their community. Instead, their worlds were shattered as someone with a gun fired into the crowd outside the restaurant, killing three people and injuring five more.
I cannot imagine the pain and sadness that their families and loved ones now feel, and I am sending them love and strength.
Every single person there will be forever impacted by the violence and trauma that mass shootings impose on communities.
For far too long, we have been forced to watch as gun violence devastates our communities, and we feel unsafe going to the movies or eating out at a restaurant.
One thing is clear. These acts of violence and the trauma they inflict on all of us are preventable. They are a policy choice. It is time for us to make a new choice.
Commonsense policy reforms to regulate guns and prevent mass shootings like this one in Glendale have broad, bipartisan support. It is beyond time we stand up and do something.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to address the unfair double taxation that my constituents are facing due to the State and local tax deduction cap.
Hardworking families across Long Island and across our State and many other States already face some of the highest tax burdens in the Nation. For 8 years, they have been unfairly penalized and subject to double taxation.
I have heard from countless hardworking families in my district over the past few years who have had to pay tens of thousands of dollars more in taxes, making their lives even more expensive and adding to the cost-of-living crisis on Long Island.
Last year, the President came to my district and vowed to get SALT back. My constituents deserve this real relief; so let's go.
I will continue to push for a full repeal of this cap, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same. Anything less than eliminating the SALT cap and restoring the full deduction fails Long Island and fails our State.
Providing for Consideration of H.R. 276, Gulf of America Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 881, DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act
Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), 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, last night the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 377, providing for consideration of two measures.
The first one is H.R. 276, the Gulf of America Act, under a closed rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.
Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 881, the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act, to be considered under a closed rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, we are here to debate a rule on two pieces of legislation beginning with H.R. 276, the Gulf of America Act.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 276 is straightforward. It permanently renames the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and directs Federal agencies to update their documents and maps to incorporate the new name.
President Trump directed the name change a few months ago, Mr. Speaker, and there have been no issues during that time. We are simply using our Article I authority to reflect the Gulf's importance to our country.
Moving on, Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for the consideration of H.R. 881, the DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act.
It goes without saying, Mr. Speaker, that the Chinese Communist Party does not share our interests or our values.
Confucius Institutes were originally established in America in 2004 and marketed as a way to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges; however, it has become clear that this was not the real goal, Mr. Speaker. The true intent was a sophisticated and global influence campaign, allowing the CCP to conduct espionage in our country and steal our intellectual property and trade secrets.
While there are less than five Confucius Institutes still currently active in the United States, the Government Accountability Office has reported that 43 of the 74 schools it surveyed still maintain a relationship with the entity that supported their Confucius Institute.
Further, the Department of Education has shown that over $3 billion has been collected by U.S. universities from entities connected to the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.
This bill, which has been worked on and will pass in a bipartisan manner, I believe, simply bans eligibility for DHS funding from an institution with a relationship to a Confucius Institute, Thousand Talents Program, or Chinese entity of concern until such a relationship is terminated.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to consideration of these pieces of legislation and urge passage of this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, as much as it pains me to say this, we are here on the House floor today because the House Republican majority has chosen to prioritize debate and passage of a bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That is not what my constituents think is the most important thing Congress should tackle this week or this year, and I bet it is not what your constituents think either.
It is easy to mock this legislation because it is so inane and embarrassing, and we have, but its very existence and the fact that House Republicans have chosen to waste time and taxpayer dollars to bring it up for a vote, is worth considering.
Let's talk about the real gulf of America--the gulf in America--the gulf between the ambitions and priorities of this White House, aided and abetted by the House majority, and the needs of the American people.
That is the gulf that makes Republicans think that it is more important to give tax cuts to billionaires than to make sure that America's children, veterans, and seniors have food, housing, and medical services, and that we protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.
It is the gulf that causes the Speaker to bring ridiculous legislation to the floor to flatter the President and appease his base rather than meet the needs of the American people.
Americans want a Congress and a White House that solves problems rather than creates them. Americans aren't asking to rename the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, public polling, including on FOX, says that nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose that executive order and this legislation to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Like many Americans, I follow the news each day with trepidation. Many folks tell me that the chaos and missteps of this administration are too painful or upsetting to follow. They have tuned it out because the only guarantee we have is that every day the President or his administration will have done something dumber or more dangerous than the day before.
Each day brings its own self-inflicted crisis with this White House, and millions of Americans are exhausted by it. They are pleading with their elected officials to act, to do something, anything, to bring normalcy back to this country, to bring decency back to this country.
There was a time when American public life was guided by a genuine sense of duty and a converse fear of shame, but today neither appear to hold much sway.
Instead, we have a White House filled with charlatans, con men, snake oil salesmen, grifters, billionaires, and criminals, all using the power of the Federal Government to enrich themselves at the expense of the American
Last week was President Trump's 100th day in office, a customary benchmark by which we measure the successes and failures of a new President's term. I think it is safe to say that Trump's first 100 days have been a disaster. His tariff policies are likely to cause a recession. Millions of people have seen their retirement savings evaporate. Families don't know if they are going to be able to afford basic goods, much less Christmas dolls. Businesses, big and small, are paralyzed by uncertainty and reducing their spending, and many small businesses may not survive.
To add insult to injury, when faced with these facts, the President says: Deal with it. Those are the President's own words. The tariffs will be painful, but it is a price that must be paid; but paid by whom? It won't be Trump or the billionaires in his Cabinet or at his golf clubs. No, it is going to be real people, people who work for a living, who will have to pay the price for his ill-conceived trade war. It is not going to be guys like Bessent and Lutnick, who have multimillion- dollar mansions and fly on private planes. They will be just fine.
However, for working parents, according to Trump, maybe the kids will have 2 dolls instead of 30. I don't know who has 30 dolls. Maybe the moms who live in my district will have to pay more for the stroller they use to transport their kids to daycare and doctors and the grocery store. So much for the guy who said he was going to bring down prices on day one.
It is worth noting that just yesterday in our Rules markup, our Republican colleagues voted, once again, to keep the Trump tariffs in place. Over a month ago, they rigged the rules of the House to prevent Congress from voting to end the Trump tariffs. They literally voted to stop time, to say that for the purposes of protecting the Trump tariffs, there is only one day between now and the end of September in order to prevent anyone from being able to force a vote on whether to end Trump's tariffs. They are dragging down our economy and American families with it.
That is just the terrible Trump tariffs. In these first 100 days, the administration has cut services at Social Security, fired medical staff at VA hospitals, and withheld aid to food banks, children's health programs, and community violence prevention efforts. They have waged a political war against universities and scientific research, and illegally froze over $400 billion in congressionally appropriated funds, including billions of dollars to FEMA, to everyone from local firefighters to States that have been affected by natural disasters.
This White House has issued hundreds of controversial executive orders, many of which courts have deemed illegal or unconstitutional. Every day this administration is disappearing hundreds of people, sending them to faraway detention centers without any due process, due process that would expose mistakes and lies about some people who are not criminals and, in some cases, are even citizens and, therefore, should not be deported.
The damage that is being caused right now by this administration to our communities, to our international standing, to our national security and national fabric, will take years to unwind. Eager to do their part and contribute to the chaos, House Republicans continue to find novel ways to bring this Chamber to new lows.
This week, Republicans are putting forward two bills, one that is pretty much a redundant effort to counter Confucius Institutes and another to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
The second bill may be the dumbest bill brought to the floor during the 6 years I have served in Congress. With all of the important work this Congress should be tackling, the Speaker and House Republicans have chosen to indulge the President in a whim that the American public does not support.
Frankly, if I had to vote on a bill like this, I would find it deeply embarrassing. I know my Republican colleagues are smart people. They are not dumb, so I have to think that they share this embarrassment, unless they are members of a cult, a cult of personality based around a dear leader who they are required to obey or risk retribution, and upon whom they bestow endless compliments and praise in order to seek personal favors.
It doesn't matter how much damage he causes, how much money he wastes, how many lives and families he hurts. It doesn't matter if he causes a recession. It doesn't matter if he encourages influence peddling and grift with a Trump coin, or his Gulf of America merch, or if he gives insider stock tips before taking executive action. House Republicans seem to always do what Trump says.
If he wants to do something as dumb as rename the Gulf of Mexico, Republicans apparently will fall in line. We will watch them twist themselves into pretzels to come up with increasingly convoluted rationales for the President's actions. Today will surely be a master class in delusion.
Further adding to the chaos, this month, House Republicans are expected to finish drafting the text of the reconciliation bill through which they are planning to cut healthcare benefits to seniors, children, and people with disabilities and cut nutrition assistance to the poor in order to pay for a huge tax giveaway to billionaires and big business.
Despite more than 40 years of empirical evidence showing that Republican trickle-down economics are a resounding failure, Republicans are nonetheless pushing ahead with their party orthodoxy. We have more than enough evidence that trickle-down economics does not work. It doesn't help the middle class. It doesn't create jobs. It doesn't increase business investment, and it doesn't grow the economy.
What these policies actually do is allow companies and their shareholders to pocket more profits at the expense of everyone else. It is because of trickle-down economics that we now have some of the most extreme income inequality in this country in our Nation's history.
To pay for this giveaway to the rich, Republicans are going to take away healthcare benefits and food assistance and cut critical Federal investments in our local communities, our democracy, the environment, and our national security, all so millionaires and billionaires can get an extra buck. It is horrifying, immoral, and un-American.
Unlike many of my Republican colleagues, I have participated in multiple townhalls this year to hear from my constituents. One message that I hear consistently is that people are scared. These are good, honest, hardworking Americans who in one way or another have been forced to rely on Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, WIC, Head Start, Social Security, or LIHEAP in order to make ends meet for their families, and they are rightfully scared that Republicans are planning to gut those programs.
We will surely hear all kinds of mental gymnastics from our colleagues about how millionaires really need that extra tax cut or how cutting Medicaid won't really lead to a loss of coverage or service. We will hear tortured arguments from Republicans to hide what they are really doing.
When you take a step back and look at everything that is happening, this White House, in concert with Elon Musk and congressional Republicans, have put the country on a dark and troubling path, a fear- based path. It is leading us to a place that has more in common with Stalin's Russia than the free society envisioned by our Founding Fathers. It is heartbreaking to see the lengths to which some people will go to destroy the ideas and institutions that for decades have made this country great.
Mr. Speaker, I think it goes without saying that I rise in strong opposition to this rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I would just remind my colleagues that Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. While we are yet to put many of his policies into law, where the Democrats left us was with an interest payment of $2.6 billion a day.
If you took 100 percent of the money from the people that are billionaires in this country, you probably couldn't pay the interest on the national debt for a year.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this complete waste of time, the Gulf of America Act.
While Americans are struggling with real problems, while Trump is trampling over the constitutional rights of the citizens he swore to protect, Republicans are wasting this Chamber's time with performative nonsense.
Here is the choice this comes down to:
We could focus on helping 40 million Americans saddled with medical debt, or we could rename the Gulf of Mexico.
We could ensure that the 10 million children going hungry every night have enough food to eat, or we could rename the Gulf of Mexico.
We could address our Nation's highest maternal mortality rate, where women are dying in this country every day while giving birth, or we could rename the Gulf of Mexico.
We could address our Nation's lack of affordable housing, where families are struggling to find safe shelter, or we could rename the Gulf of Mexico.
We could make sure our veterans, who are waiting for weeks for appointments at VA clinics, get the desperate care they need after making such extreme sacrifices in the honor of service to our country, or we could rename the Gulf of Mexico.
We could be protecting Social Security and Medicare, protecting Medicaid, finding affordable childcare for the millions of children in this country and reducing the high cost of living that so many families in all of our districts are struggling to afford basic necessities, or we could rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Republicans have made their choice. They want to focus on renaming a body of water that doesn't need renaming instead of the emergent needs of the people that we all represent. The bill's cosponsor, the woman from Georgia, in her district one in five residents live below the poverty line. Her district ranks near the bottom in Georgia for health outcomes, and opioid overdose rates continue to climb. Broadband access remains limited, and public schools are underresourced.
However, again, instead of working on bills to bring down the high cost of healthcare, making broadband accessible for Americans all over the country, or helping families struggling with addiction, we are renaming the Gulf of Mexico as if it is the most important, pressing issue facing this country.
This is not governing. It is a distraction. It is political theater, and it is an insult to the intelligence of every American who expects us in Congress to do the serious work of solving real problems and making their lives better.
This bill does not achieve any of those ends. The American people did not send us here to troll and suck up to a President. They sent us here to legislate, lead, and make their lives better.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this stupid bill and focus on what matters to the American people.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President.
Mr. Speaker, I would just like to point out that in the State of Georgia in the district that was referenced, 68 percent of the voters in that district, as patriots, voted for Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States because they don't believe they need the Federal Government to micromanage their life.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
In January when House and Senate Republicans punted once again on passing a budget and instead passed a continuing resolution, they forgot to include the funding to operate the District of Columbia.
The Senate moved to rectify that mistake and has passed a bill to fix it, and the President has said that he will sign that bill. The Mayor of D.C. has repeatedly spoken to House Republicans about the urgency of fixing the city's budget. The clock is ticking, and if the fix isn't passed, D.C. will have to lay off hundreds of teachers and police officers and curtail critical services in the District.
While this is going on, House Republicans are instead using floor time to prioritize removing the longfin smelt from the endangered species list, to rename the Gulf of Mexico, and to do other, frankly, stupid messaging bills like those we are considering today.
The Speaker may claim that it is just a matter of schedule, but once again, clearly, the gulf in America is between what Americans--the people who live in D.C. and most of the country--think is important and what House Republicans are willing to do.
Mr. Speaker, I would remind you that the Chinese Communist Party is no longer an economic adversary. They are an enemy. They have been very creative in the way they have embedded themselves into the university systems in this country. This rule gives us a vote on kicking them the rest of the way out of this country. I think, Mr. Speaker, that that is going to pass in a very bipartisan manner.
With all of the antics, yelling, screaming, and pointing of fingers, I just remind you, there is a very serious piece of legislation to deal with the Chinese Communist Party in this rule that I believe will pass in very much a bipartisan manner.
Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 2753, the Hands Off Medicaid and SNAP Act, which will prevent the Republican budget from cutting Medicaid or SNAP benefits.
Mr. Speaker, this week the House is voting to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. I am not joking. This is what House Republicans are spending their time doing publicly. However, privately, behind closed doors, according to reports, Republican leadership is meeting with vulnerable, moderate Republicans to try to sell them on trading devastating cuts to Medicaid for tax cuts for billionaires.
Under their plan, they have to cut $880 billion from Medicaid and $230 billion from food assistance just to make the math work for their disastrous reconciliation bill. Mr. Speaker, what is worse is they continue to argue that they aren't doing that, but the math doesn't lie. They can't reach the levels of billionaire tax cuts they want without gutting vital programs like Medicaid and SNAP, programs that the most vulnerable in our country rely upon.
Republicans are publicly claiming that they won't make those cuts, so today I will give them a chance to prove that to the American people by putting their money where their mouths are and voting to ensure those devastating cuts can't move forward in this House.
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 gentlewoman from Pennsylvania?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question. The country deserves better leadership, leadership focused on the common good and public service rather than culture wars and private profit.
The United States faces enormous challenges, and the American people want Congress to act on their behalf. They want us to lower the cost of groceries, rent, and healthcare. They don't want Congress wasting time on performance, on pointless legislation like the bills we are debating today.
The American people want real solutions. They want their elected officials to collaborate, to govern with decency and discipline in ways that benefit the American people, not deep-pocketed donors. They don't want politicians who chase headlines or who try to flatter the whims of erratic leaders with insane ideas like renaming the Gulf of Mexico, invading Greenland, annexing Canada, or reinstituting Alcatraz.
While many Americans are struggling just to get by, the last thing they want is a Republican tax bill that guts their healthcare and denies food and housing to children and seniors so that millionaires can pay less in taxes. It is obscene.
If Republicans carry out their stated plans, it will be one of the largest government handouts in American history, paid for by those who can least afford it and delivered to those who need it least. Talk about corporate welfare.
While the rich will get their tax cut, working families will be stuck footing the bill for Trump's tariffs. It is not too late for Republicans to change course. I pray that enough of them find the courage to push back against this plan, to listen to their constituents, and to do the right thing.
We don't need to slash Medicaid and SNAP, and we can move forward with a sensible tax bill that invests in families and the middle class, not just billionaires and the Fortune 500. I urge my colleagues to vote down this resolution, reject these unserious bills, and join us in the business of governing for the public good, the common good.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for the purpose of closing.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot over the last few minutes about the $2.6 billion a day interest payment that the Democrats, under Joe Biden's lead, left the United States citizens with. Now we hear their demand that we allow the current tax rates to expire, thereby raising taxes on virtually every American citizen.
It is very convenient that they say billionaires. Now, they have acknowledged millionaires, but just factually speaking, if the tax rates are allowed to expire, virtually every American that works would receive a tax increase. We as Republicans are committed to stopping that.
Today, and this week, the House has the ability to advance two pieces of legislation under this rule:
H.R. 276, the Gulf of America Act, which simply reflects the Gulf's importance to our country, the United States of America, and H.R. 881, the DHS restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act which puts our national security first and bans eligibility for DHS funding from an institution with a relationship to a Confucius Institute, Thousand Talents Program, or Chinese entities of concern until such relationship is terminated.
Mr. Speaker, the Chinese Communist Party is our enemy. That is a decision that they have made. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on the previous question and ``yes'' on the rule.
The material previously referred to by Ms. Scanlon is as follows:
An Amendment to H. Res. 377 Offered by Ms. Scanlon of Pennsylvania
Providing for Consideration of H.R. 276, Gulf of America Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 881, DHS Restrictions on Confucius Institutes and Chinese Entities of Concern Act
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on ordering the previous question on the resolution (H. Res. 377) providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 276) to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the ``Gulf of America''; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 881) to establish Department of Homeland Security funding restrictions on institutions of higher education that have a relationship with Confucius Institutes, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous question.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 206, nays 200, not voting 27, as follows:
Messrs. PAPPAS and LARSON of Connecticut changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Kumara Jayasuriya on his remarkable tenure as the president of Southwest Minnesota State University.
Under President Jayasuriya's leadership, SMSU thrived. In a period where most Minnesota schools saw an enrollment drop, SMSU's rose by nearly 20 percent.
Just last year, the university recorded its highest enrollment in 14 years, and I am incredibly grateful for what he has done to improve higher education in western Minnesota and to protect the legacy of a respected institution.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate President Jayasuriya on his retirement and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with him to advance SMSU.
Mr. Speaker, to the more than 3.8 million educators across the country, I wish you a happy National Teacher Appreciation Day.
I know our teachers work tirelessly to provide our students with an education that opens the door to opportunity, and I am sure everyone in this body can think of a teacher that profoundly impacted their lives.
Despite working long hours, without a salary that reflects the work they do, our teachers in Virginia have made sure that Virginia schools consistently rank high in the country for K-12 performance, test scores, and even safety. Over 92 percent of our students here in Virginia graduate high school in 4 years, and we have amazing teachers to thank for that.
We need to make sure our teachers are being paid what they are worth, have the support they need in the classroom, and have access to all the resources they need to do their jobs.
Happy National Teacher Appreciation Day to all the teachers out there.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Dr. William Clark, who is stepping down as chair of the Okefenokee Swamp Park Board of Trustees after 15 years of hard work and dedicated service.
Since 2010, Dr. Clark has advanced the mission of Okefenokee Swamp Park, promoting a community connection with nature and preserving its ecological health through stewardship, education, and outdoor recreation.
While serving as chairman, Dr. Clark was instrumental in expanding the park's mission to promote tourism and education. Under his leadership, the park strengthened partnerships with organizations such as the University of Georgia, focusing on conservation efforts to maintain the swamp's native alligator population.
He was instrumental in expanding ecotourism by acquiring the visitor concession at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge headquarters and the nomination by the U.S. Department of the Interior as the next American World Heritage site.
After his successful tenure in this role, Dr. Clark has expressed enthusiasm for this transition and remains confident in the ongoing excellence of the Okefenokee Swamp Park board.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Dr. Clark for his commitment to improving the Okefenokee Swamp Park and I wish him the best in his future endeavors.
Mr. Speaker, this week is National Teacher Appreciation Week. My gratitude for teachers far surpasses 1 minute of time.
Our Nation is a better place because of the work teachers do every day to teach the next generation and arm them with the skills that are needed to succeed.
My favorite teacher was Rayella B. Heely, who taught my eighth grade algebra class in Mount Vernon, New York, in 1966. She was tough, and she did not give out easy grades. I did not get a particularly good grade, but she taught me concepts that I remember to this day.
Teachers are increasingly asked to do more in addition to teaching. They check in on the well-being and mental health of their students. They make sure that students get enough to eat during school meals and have notebooks and pencils and crayons. They are advocates in front of school boards to prevent cuts to funding and to resources.
There is a famous saying: ``To teach is to touch a life forever.''
Mr. Speaker, I thank teachers for the lives that they continue to touch and shape. As former students and parents of students, we are forever grateful.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to recognize a valued member of my staff and a true American hero, Mr. Keith VanBuren.
Keith's service in the United States Army reflects the very best of sacrifice and devotion to our Nation. While deployed in Afghanistan, Keith was severely wounded when his vehicle was struck by an IED in Logar Province. For his bravery, he was awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.
After completing his military service, Keith continued his commitment to our country. He served on my predecessor's staff, Congressman Bill Posey, and he still proudly serves now on my staff assisting veterans and so many people in our community.
Keith recently was elected commander of the Space Coast chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. In his role, he will continue the proud tradition of honoring local heroes who have sacrificed in the line of duty.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Keith and salute him for his courage, his service, and his unwavering dedication to our State, our Nation, and our district.
Mr. Speaker, today, on National Teacher Day, I rise to recognize Fredericksburg Mayor Kerry Devine as this week's Constituent of the Week.
Mayor Devine also spends her time as a history teacher in Stafford County. She is a role model in civic leadership, both for the city of Fredericksburg and for her students in Stafford.
Whether in city hall or in the classroom, she has made community a cornerstone of her tenure as a public servant and educator. She has also tirelessly worked to increase reading comprehension, counter the harmful impacts of social media on young people, and she supports phone-free schools.
Her work reminds us that educators don't just teach; they shape the future. As a dad of two kids who have attended Virginia schools, I am grateful.
Mr. Speaker, today, I thank Mayor Devine and all the teachers across Virginia's Seventh Congressional District who go above and beyond to make sure every student feels seen, valued, and empowered. Their work is incredibly important.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Minot, North Dakota, my husband's hometown, named one of the 2025 Great American Defense Communities.
Only three cities across the Nation received this honor, reflecting the remarkable commitment the people of Minot have shown to the men and women stationed at the Minot Air Force Base.
Through events like the Prairie Warrior Auction and efforts by local leaders and initiatives led by the Minot Area Chamber, this community goes above and beyond to welcome airmen and support their families.
Whether it is raising funds to send airmen home for the holidays or educating the Nation on nuclear deterrence, Minot leads with pride and purpose. Their motto sums it up best: Only the Best Come North.
Again, congratulations to the city of Minot on this well-earned recognition, and thanks to this amazing community for standing behind our military every day.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the Wings Over Wayne Air Show, hosted at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
It was an incredible event that showcased the pride, professionalism, and precision of our Air Force, which brought our community together on Military Appreciation Day.
Seymour Johnson is a pillar in our community that drives our local economy and brings us pride and joy. The base reflects the deep bond between servicemembers and the people of eastern North Carolina.
With the roaring of the Thunderbirds, Wings Over Wayne celebrated freedom, patriotism, and community. I thank the men and women who continue to serve our country. They make us extremely proud.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a tremendous honor for the heart of Texas' 26th Congressional District, Flower Mound, Texas, named the best place to live in America. My family and I are blessed to call it home.
The distinction didn't come from luck. It came from leadership, vision, and a community where hometown charm meets national excellence.
In Flower Mound, top-tier schools set the standard, green spaces stretch for miles, and small businesses like Flurry's Market + Provisions bring neighbors together. It is a town where families plant roots, where freedom is felt, and where opportunity isn't just a promise; it is a way of life.
At the heart of Texas-26, Flower Mound shows what happens when faith, family, and hard work form the foundation of a community.
I congratulate the local leaders whose dedication made this recognition possible. Flower Mound isn't just the best place to live in America, it is proof that the American Dream lives right here in north Texas.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support my bipartisan, bicameral legislation, H.R. 3159, the Improving SCRA Benefit Utilization Act.
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act includes a specific benefit that caps interest rates on preservice debts like mortgages, credit cards, and auto loans, at 6 percent. Unfortunately, too few Active-Duty servicemembers even know about this hard-earned benefit, let alone use it.
My bill would address this knowledge gap by expanding military financial literacy programs. It would also require details of existing SCRA benefits on military activation orders.
Under H.R. 3159, creditors would be required to automatically apply the 6 percent cap to all accounts on active servicemember holds instead of requiring military members to request the cap account by account as they prepare to enter duty service.
My bipartisan legislation identifies commonsense opportunities to improve benefit awareness and utility. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to cosponsor this bill.
Mr. Speaker, many parts of Kentucky are just now recovering from a devastating flood that we saw a few weeks ago. I thank the first responders who were first on the scene, and thank our utility crews who worked day and night to restore utilities.
I want to let the families who lost everything know that if there is anything my office can do to be of any assistance, don't hesitate to reach out. President Trump has signed a declaration for individual assistance. FEMA should be on the ground, working with families to try to help identify any type of assistance that the families in need can qualify for, and I encourage FEMA to continue to work with the local governments to ensure that the heavy burden of debris removal is reimbursed by the Federal Government. That is something that my office will continue to ensure to see that it happens.
We have had devastating floods. The government's responsibility is to help those in need, and that is what we expect to do. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to make that point loud and clear and hope that we can continue to work through the recovery phase.
Mr. Speaker, Donald Trump says that he isn't sure if he needs to uphold the Constitution. It is clear to all of us from his attacks on the courts, the rule of law, our democratic institutions, our civil and legal rights, an open and free press, the dismantling of Federal agencies, and attacks on our communities that, indeed, he does not know what his constitutional duties are.
I have to say, Mr. Speaker, we are a nation of laws, a nation governed by a Constitution of the people and by the people. Donald Trump and his administration are not above the law. We will hold them to account, and that is why we are here every day fighting back, pushing back, and defending our democracy and the rights of the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the tireless dedication of our public servants.
Michigan is seeing the real-time impact of President Trump's and Elon Musk's mass firings. I have heard and seen people's fears firsthand at my townhalls because civil servants are the quiet force behind the services that hold our communities together.
When a farmer in west Michigan loses a season's worth of crops, it is the USDA employee who helps them adjudicate a crop insurance claim, making sure they can recover and keep food on our tables.
Public servants are the problem-solvers, neighbors, and first responders in times of crisis. They protect our food supply, ensure veterans receive their benefits, and respond when disaster strikes. These are the people who have devoted their careers to making our country better.
We must continue to honor and support our public servants, not only during Public Service Recognition Week,
Mr. Speaker, a lot of times on this floor and in the press you hear about how the Republicans somehow are cutting Medicaid or slashing Medicaid, but the facts are that in the Republican budget resolution, we increase Medicaid expenditures by at least 25 percent over the next 10 years.
Yes, we will fight fraud, waste, and abuse. We think the American people agree that fraud, waste, and abuse robs the Medicaid system from covering the people like the disabled, the elderly, pregnant women, and children. It robs money from those programs and wastes it.
Even after we eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse, we have enough to increase Medicaid expenditures by at least 25 percent over the next 10 years. Those are the facts. There is no cutting going on. There is no slashing. There is elimination of fraud, waste, and abuse, and it is about time that happened to the U.S. Government bureaucracy, not only in Medicaid, but across the government.
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 North Carolina?
Mr. Speaker, I rise today alongside four of my esteemed colleagues to both highlight and condemn the misuse of taxpayer dollars funneled to illegal immigrants.
An outrageous pattern of perverse and intentional incentives reveal deliberate efforts to worsen the border crisis and to allow tens of millions of illegal aliens to invade our Nation at direct cost to the American taxpayer.
The Biden-Harris administration cycled through repeated falsehoods: claiming the border was secure, claiming they did not have what was needed to stop this invasion, claiming that they were helpless and needed Congress to take the lead. Meanwhile, that same administration lined the pockets of leftwing NGOs to shower illegal immigrants with incentives in the form of open-ended access to your tax dollars.
Earlier this year, reports surfaced from the watchdog group, Open The Books, exposing Biden's Department of Health and Human Services for awarding shockingly large amounts of grants and dollars to nonprofits focused on aiding illegal immigrants, amounting to as high as 20 million people who illegally crossed into our country during Biden's term in office.
Taxpayer-funded awards paid for illegal aliens' housing, healthcare, education, even music lessons, therapy. You name it, the taxpayer covered it.
Using NGOs as a proxy, the Biden administration sent a clear message that our laws were not to be taken seriously, and living off of the American taxpayer was both acceptable and encouraged. The same people fueling this elaborate scheme also pushed a false narrative that supporting illegal activity somehow gives them a moral high ground. This, of course, is false.
Mr. Speaker, I am here to tell the American people that they are right to expect secure borders. They are right to demand law and order. They are right to be outraged that hundreds of billions of their dollars have gone to illegal aliens and politically connected NGOs who facilitated this recent invasion.
President Trump's swift actions to halt illegal crossings and to deport illegal aliens in his first 100 days has made one thing painfully clear: The Biden-Harris administration was never working to fix our immigration system. They actively and deliberately worked to undermine it.
The Center for Immigration Studies found illegal immigrants annually take--and this is a conservative estimate--nearly $120 billion directly from public services, to include public schools, public welfare, and healthcare. Every American across the country should expect more from their government.
Joining me today are a few of my colleagues. I yield first to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Moore), my fellow North Carolinian and a fierce border security advocate. Congressman Moore has been a leading voice in the fight to reform FEMA and to ensure its funds go toward helping American citizens rather than to illegal immigrants, especially those recovering from Hurricane Helene.
Mr. Speaker, just a couple things about Congressman Knott, for folks who don't know, before he was a Member of Congress here, he was actually a very well-esteemed prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office. Congressman Knott has shared many stories where he was personally having to prosecute a lot of these violent gang members, these MS-13 gang members. For some reason, some of our colleagues want to go down and hug a thug or something and see these folks down in Central America.
Mr. Knott was helping prosecute these folks, and I know the prosecutors were very frustrated at the time with what they were seeing with these open borders. I appreciate, one, what he did before he came to Congress; two, what he is doing now; and, three, hosting this opportunity today to bring attention of this to the American people.
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise on behalf of the people of North Carolina, particularly western North Carolina. I represent hardworking Americans playing by the rules, doing everything they can right--paying their taxes, raising their kids, and taking care of their neighbors whose lives were impacted substantially by Hurricane Helene that hit last year. It tore through our region. It destroyed roads. It destroyed homes. It took lives. It changed so many things.
I will say the good news is the resilience of North Carolinians, not only in government, not only in local government, but also in volunteers and the faith community. I see my good friend, Congressman Harris, over there. The churches stepped up in such a tremendous way to help folks out in a serious time of need to do what they needed to do.
We also saw where the Federal Government, in a lot of ways, failed to do the job. Under the past administration, we saw where FEMA wasn't doing the job. I am proud to say that under this new administration, FEMA is getting the job done. Many folks who didn't live there saw pictures of the mass destruction that was in western North Carolina and the lack of response in so many ways.
Just to kind of put some points on that with some numbers, according to the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, FEMA could not account for $7.4 million out of an audit sample of $12.9 million. These sound like small numbers, but that is an audit sample. Think about that. That is 58 percent of those funds were either unsupported or not properly documented.
There was an example where one contractor billed $9 million for labor and could only support or back up $1.5 million of it. Another was reimbursed twice for the same $40,000. Some grantees couldn't even prove they delivered services. FEMA had approved it all.
Then you compare things, Mr. Speaker, where folks were needing help, and they were getting the runaround and getting the delay. Again, I stress to folks that that has changed since January of this year. We are seeing FEMA getting the job done in a lot of ways. I will talk about what FEMA did with some of this other money in just a moment.
Here is another example of some mismanagement by the previous administration. Remember the so-called American Rescue Plan. Democrats passed a
Here is the problem. It wasn't for disaster recovery. It was to fund something they were calling humanitarian assistance. What that was, was to help illegal immigrants at the border. That was just the start.
Mr. Speaker, they followed it with another $150 million in March 2022 and then $800 million more in December of that year. FEMA was effectively converted into a border response welfare agency and rebranded as the Shelter and Services Program. It paid for migrant housing, transportation, and services in sanctuary cities, while American disaster victims waited months just to hear back about their applications. It is absolutely shameful.
My constituents were patching their roofs and clearing debris by hand. FEMA was busy footing the bill for nice hotel stays in New York for folks who weren't even supposed to be in the country. This was a willful effort by the other side to just enable this border crisis.
I have to say that Congressman Knott pointed out how the border is finally secure, and it didn't require a change in law. It simply required a President who would follow the law.
What do we have going on now that things have changed? My colleagues on the other side of the aisle, respectfully, are not showing up in towns that were damaged by the storm, asking questions of FEMA, and looking to go see what is happening. Who has shown up? Secretary Noem has shown up. President Trump has shown up.
Instead, some of my colleagues--and I don't know why--have decided they want to go to El Salvador and rub elbows and maybe grab a margarita with some former MS-13 gang members. It looks like it is a delegation to meet face-to-face with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a known member of MS-13.
That gang is responsible for countless murders, assaults, and human trafficking. Instead of demanding justice, Democrats took selfies. For example, I know Congressman Knott had to prosecute MS-13 when he was prosecuting in the Eastern District of North Carolina.
We don't need any more hug-a-thug diplomacy. We need a Federal Government that puts the American people first, puts their safety first, their livelihoods first, and their families first.
My friends, we are still feeling the consequences of this failed border policy in North Carolina. Just last week, this picture to my right, the FBI in Charlotte--and I want to give a shout-out to the FBI agents based out of Charlotte. They arrested an illegal immigrant who had already been deported.
That is a picture of him right there. He was charged with the kidnapping of a mother and her 1-year-old child in Garner, North Carolina. That is in Congressman Knott's district right there. They kidnapped her. They tied up her husband, took the woman and the child at gunpoint, demanded a ransom of $1 million, and then dumped them in the woods.
By the grace of God and the swift action of the FBI, Garner police, and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, they were rescued.
That crime never should have happened. Estrada-Hernandez should never have been in this country in the first place. Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? He would not have been if it weren't for the Biden administration's open-border policy and refusal to simply follow the law.
Mr. Speaker, this is not compassion. This is not justice. This is chaos, engineered and endorsed by some on the other side. I do hope those on the other side who disagree with this will start stepping up and pushing back with what is happening there.
I will say this, too. Thankfully, under President Trump's leadership, we are cleaning house. The Department of Government Efficiency has exposed FEMA's failures in the past administration. Secretary Noem is working to get this agency back on mission, and Congress is moving to eliminate the Shelter and Services Program and return those funds to real disaster recovery where they belong.
To the families who are still recovering from Hurricane Helene and to those who were told there was no money left while FEMA lost track of millions, I hear you. Help is on the way.
This, my friends, is what it means to put Americans first, to restore common sense, and to lead with integrity.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congressman from North Carolina (Mr. Moore).
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Haridopolos), my good friend from the Eighth Congressional District, otherwise known as the Space Coast.
Congressman Haridopolos and I have had many conversations about the cost of illegal immigration on programs that are designed to help and support vulnerable Americans, especially Medicaid.
Congressman Haridopolos has extensive experience in the Medicaid space, and he knows that it must be guarded to protect those who rely upon it here in the United States. It is not an international charity, and it is especially not for the illegal immigrants here in this country. I will ask him to elaborate on his experience with this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Knott for yielding and for holding this hearing.
Mr. Speaker, these are the kind of conversations the American public needs to hear. They need to understand the impact that illegal immigration is having on our country and how it undercuts the rule of law and really undercuts those people who truly want to play by the rules and enter the United States in a legal fashion.
It is frustrating when we can bring so many bright, conscientious people who want to come into the United States, yet they are deprived of these opportunities because of the long line that exists because of the challenges we have with illegal immigration.
I very much appreciate the Congressman leading the charge on this and bringing in some of us who have experience with Medicaid to talk about the impacts that it has on our individual States.
As we know, Medicaid is designed to help our most vulnerable citizens--seniors, veterans, kids, low-income families, and especially the disabled. Today, that lifeline is being strained by illegal immigration and open-door policies.
While Democrats and sanctuary States deny the problem, the data is clear. Let's be clear that every dollar spent on illegal immigration is a dollar taken from a senior, a veteran, a child, and a family struggling to pay the bills.
For the past 4 years, the pattern has been very clear. Migrants cross the border and surrender to authorities. They repeat carefully rehearsed lines, provided by NGOs, to meet the bare minimum threshold for asylum. They are released into the country and set a court date years in the future. They will begin to actually receive healthcare benefits at the expense of taxpayers, who have already been hard hit by higher prices for basic things like gas, food, and rent.
The burden is real. From 2017 to 2023, the Federal and State Governments spent $27 billion on emergency Medicaid for noncitizens, according to the CBO. Also, according to the CBO, around $18 billion came directly from Federal taxpayers, and I mean every single American.
Under the Biden-Harris years, Medicaid spending on illegal immigrants surged 124 percent higher than under President Trump. In 2021 alone, $7 billion was spent on emergency care for illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Democrats in Washington and blue States are demanding we actually pay even more.
To put this into perspective, as the Congressman from North Carolina (Mr. Knott) mentioned, I am from the State of Florida. We actually audited how much we spent on Medicaid emergency care last year. It was $660 million for hospital care for illegal immigrants, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration in Florida. That was $660 million that was intended to be spent on healthcare for American citizens, or to maybe move the dollars around for education or roads, or to help our environment.
Instead, $660 million was spent on people who came here illegally. That is a substantial amount of money, and we
How the system works is very frustrating. Mr. Speaker, if you pay taxes in America, you are paying for illegal immigrants to get healthcare, whether you like it or not. Federal law requires Medicaid to cover emergency healthcare, period. That is just the law. If they go to the emergency room and that person qualifies, the American public pays for it. States, of course, pick up the costs initially, but the Federal Government reimburses somewhere between 59 and 73 percent of those costs to the States.
American taxpayer dollars are being spent on this program, whether we like it or not.
Reimbursement quietly channels billions of Federal dollars into care for illegal immigration through State Medicaid programs. States like California and New York are actually the most abusive of this law. These sanctuary States choose to allow illegal immigrants to receive State Medicaid programs and then send the bill to Washington, D.C., for all taxpayers to pay for it. It is not like they are being generous with just their taxpayer dollars. It is spread across the entire system in the United States.
States like California and New York manipulate provider taxes and use creative accounting to maximize Federal reimbursement, thus shifting more of the burden to taxpayers across the country.
Here is the gall of it all. New York even promotes free medical care for illegal immigrants with official State flyers, encouraging them to use emergency services. That is pretty rich.
I mean, think about it. They are saying they are just using their State tax dollars. That is not the truth. They are promoting, with taxpayer dollars, this push to have, again, other people pick up the costs.
This is not some federalism deal where it is handled by one State. This is, again, real life in that someone else will pay the bill. Thus, they are being generous with other people's money.
To counter this myth that the Democrats are trying to push, that illegal immigration does not cost taxpayer dollars--it is just not true. This is why I want people to look closely at what Medicaid is.
Again, every Republican that I talk to--and I go across the country to talk about this issue--wants to provide Medicaid for seniors in nursing homes. We want to provide it for pregnant women. We want to provide it for kids. We want to provide it for the disabled. Mr. Speaker, when that relationship is upset by having people here illegally, you are actually potentially putting Medicaid programs at risk.
For those who really want to study the issue, there is a water balloon effect here. Medicaid really doesn't reimburse doctors for their care. It causes private healthcare costs to go up. Imagine the ire that so many people have.
Mr. Speaker, if you talk to a family of four and talk to the parents, they are going to say, for a family of four, they pay like $1,500 to $2,000 a month for private healthcare. Yet, a person who comes into the country illegally pays zero in healthcare because they get Medicaid services where there is not even a copay.
That is the ironic part about this. They break the law and are rewarded for it. That undercuts the American Dream.
People start thinking logically: Why do I play by the rules? Maybe I will manipulate a form so that I qualify for Medicaid, and they might never check it again. Mr. Speaker, that is happening today.
People are even objecting to the idea that we check to see if the person still truly qualifies for Medicaid; that is theft from other taxpayers.
So as the CBO confirmed, $18 billion in Federal spending was put on emergency care, and these are just the facts that play out.
Again, let's have the honest conversation. If the other side wants to fund it, then say it; but don't say it is not happening or bury it under the typical bureaucratic or political doublespeak. These are the conversations we need to have.
Just so you know, Mr. Speaker, in the policy that we are looking at today where we are going to let's say reconsider the budget, they are going to spend $45 billion for basically jails for illegal immigrants who come across, because if we don't have that jail space or the detention centers as they are looking at asylum, then they go into the country. That means they might not have a court case for a few years.
Let's just think logically here, Mr. Speaker, there are 10 million people.
How many judges, lawyers, public defenders, bailiffs, and other folks do you need to actually have 10 million court cases in their version of due process?
As our lead prosecutor today, Mr. Knott, will tell us: The law is simple. If you came here illegally, then the only thing you are allowed is a ticket out of here.
Let's be honest about immigration. This is about the rule of law. I want to bring in a lot of folks. I want to have an immigration system that works and they actually sign up, they get online, and we find out who these folks are. Just like they check us on an airline, they check them at the border.
Instead, this previous administration literally said: Here is the script. Tell them this, you will get the court case in years to come, and you can go into the interior of the country.
That is a double standard.
I applaud Congressman Knott for taking this opportunity to talk about this in a real way and my friends from North Carolina talk about how it impacts every one of us. It is taking from the system, causing people to pay more for insurance, and undercutting the rule of law.
That is why we had an election last year, and the voice was good. The President said that he would stop this crazy idea because we are already $1 trillion in debt year by year and $37 trillion in debt overall.
This is common sense, and the President has finally stood up for those people who have been left behind the last 4 years.
So, Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Knott very much for taking on this real issue. It is the kind of discussion we need to have. If the other side feels that we have not been telling the whole story, then come up and have the debate. We would love to see it.
Mr. Speaker, I am ready for that debate any day, and I am ready for that discussion any day.
Again, the Republicans believe that American tax dollars should serve American citizens and not those who are here illegally.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the Eighth Congressional District of the great State of North Carolina (Mr. Harris).
Congressman Harris pointed out back in February that an NGO in North Carolina was actively working to hinder law enforcement, aid illegal immigrants, and further worsen the crisis engulfing our communities both in North Carolina and all over our country. A pastor of more than 30 years, Congressman Harris is proof that allowing this humanitarian crisis to continue is not compassionate and that enforcing our laws is not hateful.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Knott for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to be able to share in this time together. I am grateful to Congressman Haridopolos for sharing, also for Congressman Moore whom we heard from earlier. I am honored to be a part of this, and I am very thankful for the vision and the passion that Congressman Knott has shown in pulling together this Special Order.
When a burglar breaks into your house, Mr. Speaker, you don't set a place for them at the dinner table. That principle seems pretty obvious. However, for some reason, radical progressives just can't understand it.
For the past 4 years, radical, progressive Democrats have openly welcomed criminal aliens into American communities.
Lest we forget, here are just a few of the violent guests the left has invited into our country:
Felix Rojas, an illegal alien who was deported multiple times, was charged just last week for raping a corpse on a Manhattan subway.
In my home State of North Carolina, two illegal aliens whom Congressman Moore alluded to earlier, Paola Duran Duran and Miguel Duran Duran, were arrested for breaking into a home and kidnapping a mother and her 11-month-old daughter.
Just outside Washington, D.C., an illegal alien, Hyrum Rodriguez, was arrested by ICE after a local court dropped his charges.
What was the crime that he was charged with?
It was abducting a 4-year-old.
These heinous criminals are only a small number of those welcomed into our country by Joe Biden and who were arrested in just the past few days by the Trump administration.
Mr. Speaker, you can only imagine what is happening in our country on a grander scale. While under President Trump's leadership, illegal border crossings are down 95 percent from last year, yet we are still suffering from the impacts of the open-border policies of the last 4 years.
The left did not just facilitate an open-border invasion, they have made the American taxpayer pay for it, and we are still paying for it.
Under former President Biden's open-borders agenda, it is estimated that at least 10 million illegal aliens entered our country, and on top of the massive financial cost of the crimes they commit and the jobs they take away from Americans, a huge chunk of them have been accessing government benefits like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable. Americans are hard workers. That is why we have the best country in the world. They don't work backbreaking jobs their whole careers for their taxpayer dollars to subsidize the lives of the very invaders who have subverted their sovereignty.
The left loves to fact-check, so why don't we take a moment and hear some cold, hard facts:
Fact number one, under the Biden administration, more than 1 million illegal aliens received Medicaid benefits.
Fact number two, in fiscal year 2024 alone, over 2 million illegal aliens were given Social Security numbers.
Fact number three, a 2023 study showed that the net cost of illegal aliens to the American taxpayer was at least $150 billion annually.
Fact number four, States are still having to bear the financial burden of Biden's border crisis. Texas taxpayers have to shell out $8.88 billion a year to pay for the illegal aliens who invaded their State. For Californians, it is almost $22 billion.
By the way, fact number five, in some States, in a complete affront to citizens, illegal aliens can get mortgages, bank loans, insurance, driver's licenses, in-State college tuition, and free healthcare. For illegal aliens, the U.S. has been an all-you-can-eat buffet. However, the American taxpayer and innocent women like Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, and Rachel Morin have paid the full price of the left's open- border agenda.
It is time to turn off the faucet permanently. American taxpayers shouldn't have to fund their own demise, paying for government programs that actually encourage an invasion.
President Trump has shown us the path forward. Border crossings are down. As I mentioned earlier, criminal aliens and gang members are being deported left and right. In other words, the forgotten American is first once again.
Nevertheless, there is still much work to be done, especially in this 119th Congress. Under President Biden, Americans' hard-earned taxpayer dollars in the Federal budget were used as a slush fund for the radical left to facilitate a border invasion of millions of illegal aliens, export their woke ideologies across the globe with wasteful pet projects, and weaponize the government against anyone who disagreed with their policies.
However, President Trump's budget proposal, when signed into law, will be a crucial step in taking our country back from the left. It will defund the wasteful government programs subsidizing illegal aliens and provide President Trump with the very tools to solidify his sensible border security initiatives.
For example, President Trump's budget would eliminate the shelter and services program that facilitated swarms of illegal aliens into American communities and save taxpayers $650 million at the same time. It will also stop funneling $428 million to migrant education programs that are taking away from struggling American students.
Those are just a glimpse of the countless wasteful projects for which the American citizens should not be footing the bill. It is up to Congress now to come together and advance both the President's budget and the reconciliation package across the finish line.
Mr. Speaker, we owe nothing less to the American people who are tired of being placed behind illegal aliens. When illegal aliens are given benefits like Medicaid and Social Security by the thousands, then they will keep coming into our country, burdening the American taxpayer, and exacerbating the crime in our cities.
This is why it is so important that this Congress act now with a budget reconciliation, to give President Trump the tools he needs to keep both the wallet and the soul of America safe.
Burglars are in the house, and they don't just want a seat at the dinner table. They want the entire spread.
It is time for us to use this historic opportunity to correct our course.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Knott for his vision and his leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Harris for his remarks.
At least 1 million illegals are on Medicaid. I would submit that I have heard not one syllable from the Democratic Party from 5 years ago when Joe Biden took power until today protesting that fact. The Republican Party wants to protect Medicaid and get the 1 million-plus illegals on it out of the country and off of the program.
Mr. Speaker, I mentioned earlier that some of the ridiculous benefits that taxpayers have unknowingly funded for illegal aliens include something as unique as music lessons. When digging into this issue, Congressman Kennedy and I were both outraged and simply shocked at the brazen and flagrant waste of funds on these perverse incentives.
I know Congressman Kennedy to be a fierce advocate for conservative principles both for his district in Utah and for the country at large.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the Third Congressional District of Utah (Mr. Kennedy).
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Knott for shining much-needed light on this issue and for the opportunity today to speak about some of the consequences of the Biden-Harris administration's irresponsible actions over the past 4 years and how Congress and the Trump administration are working to claw our way back to sanity for the United States of America.
We have lived through the most devastating border crisis in modern American history. Let's be honest. It wasn't a natural disaster, and it wasn't an accident. It was the direct result of bad choices made by the Biden-Harris administration.
This wasn't mere mismanagement. It was facilitation, it was incentivization, and it was done at the expense of our laws, our national security, and our people.
During their time in office, President Biden and Vice President Harris dismantled nearly every meaningful safeguard at the southern border. Their administration presided over a record surge in illegal immigration, over 700,000 illegal aliens were apprehended at the border from October through December of 2023 alone. That was more than any full year during the Obama Presidency when President Obama famously stated that over 1,000 illegal border crossings a day would be considered a crisis.
The Biden-Harris Harris administration frequently allowed in 6,000 a day.
Unfortunately, instead of restoring our control and protecting our sovereignty, they did the unthinkable. They rewarded the lawbreakers. Rather than empower border enforcement, the Biden-Harris administration threw open the Federal checkbook, funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to private nonprofits like Family Endeavors Incorporated, Southwest Key Programs, and Global Refuge. These NGOs didn't just shelter illegal aliens. They pampered them.
Those contracts paid for luxury hotel rooms, room service, 24-hour snacks, laundry, bilingual television, recreation, cultural events, and individual tutoring for mathematics and social studies. Most shockingly, it paid for
In 2021 alone, Endeavors paid Christy Merrell, a music therapist, $533,000 for her services. In addition to this nonsense, the nonprofit conducted 1,656 people-plant interactions and 287 pet therapy sessions between April 2021 and March 2023.
This wasn't emergency aid. It was five-star treatment funded by hardworking American families, families that are struggling to pay their own rent and put food on their own table, much less providing themselves with music, plant, and pet therapy.
I know many taxpaying American families who would love to be able to provide their children with one-on-one academic tutoring but simply cannot afford it.
This all begs the question: Why are we investing in illegal families while stripping financial resources from our own citizens to do so?
In one case, Endeavors Incorporated, a Texas-based NGO, received a $1.3 billion contract from the Federal Government in a single year. Meanwhile their top executives are paid over $600,000 annually, and the group spends more than $700,000 on lobbyists all to keep the money flowing.
Contrast that with the conditions our military servicemembers faced during the same time: moldy barracks, sewage overflows, and rodent infestations to highlight a few. In 2022, a mere $56 million was spent on housing maintenance for military families, less than one-twentieth of what was spent for illegal aliens.
Who did the Biden-Harris administration care about? It certainly wasn't our men and women in uniform.
Unfortunately, the extreme misuse of funds wasn't their only slight to the American public. The Biden-Harris administration relaxed vetting standards for those who claimed to sponsor alien children. DNA testing was scrapped, and background checks were watered down. There were no public records checks required for other adults living in a sponsor's home, and tragic consequences followed.
In one case, a 24-year-old Honduran man posed as a 17-year-old child and was placed with a sponsor in Florida who he later murdered. Sadly, that was not a one-off failure. This type of senseless violence became a regular news story.
While Americans were working multiple jobs to afford rent and groceries, the Biden-Harris administration was funding a billion-dollar pipeline for unaccompanied aliens, and empowering NGOs that had no incentive to solve the crisis, only to profit from it.
They called it compassion, however, in reality, it was corruption, recklessness, and disregard for the rule of law.
The good news is this: Their time in office is over. However, the ramifications of their decisions persist. While our southern border is certainly more secure now, we have hundreds of thousands of illegal alien cases that will overwhelm our legal system for years. The nonprofit industry they supercharged is still bloated, and the American people are still waiting for real accountability.
Now is the time to fix what they broke. We must defund corrupt NGOs, restore vetting and enforcement, and put the American people first again. We owe it to our citizens. We owe it to our troops, and we owe it to the integrity of this Nation. The crisis wasn't spontaneous. It was built, funded, and incentivized. Let's make sure it is never repeated.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
Mr. Speaker, you have heard today from our colleagues and myself about the outrageous government-funded incentives and plans to keep illegal aliens not only flowing into this country but also to stay in this country. This scheme goes beyond waste. It represents, candidly, a betrayal of the American people and the American taxpayers, who have suffered mightily in this country because of the illegal immigration crisis.
In closing, I simply ask the following of the American citizens who rely on Medicare or Medicaid: Should we allow illegal immigrants to dilute the quality of your benefits and run up costs in emergency rooms who are precluded from turning illegal immigrants away?
I say, along with my colleagues: Absolutely not. No tax dollars should be allocated to covering healthcare costs for any person who is in this country illegally.
To the American parents, whether rural or urban, who are struggling to feed your children, I ask: Should illegal immigrants receive tax- funded meals day in, day out to eat on your dime?
Again, I heartily say: Absolutely not.
To the children at risk of falling behind in lagging schools all over this country, I ask: Should we continue to allow millions upon millions to arrive here illegally and crowd out your classrooms?
I would say, again: Under no circumstances should we give public education dollars to any person or any family who is here illegally.
To the Social Security recipient I ask: Should we take on more debt and endanger your access to continued benefits just to keep our borders open?
With no hesitation, I again say: Absolutely not. We must protect the tax dollars of American citizens.
To the veterans who are battling homelessness or addiction or the western North Carolinians who are left without shelter following Hurricane Helene, I ask: Should your tax dollars go to housing illegal aliens, to transporting illegal aliens while you continually suffer?
Again, I say definitively: Under no circumstances is this appropriate.
I urge all of my colleagues in Congress to join me in reversing this perverse incentive structure by sending a clear message that the United States laws are to be respected. Put candidly, if you are here illegally, leave. If you return here illegally, you will be punished.
Mr. Speaker, I could almost hear the joy from my staff saying: Hey, it is only 30 minutes this time, not an hour.
Mr. Speaker, I want to do just a handful of things. One of these days we are going to have not enough noise about the facts, the numbers, the data, the debt, those things that we can come in and sort of do our boards, our charts, on things that actually reduce spending and modernize.
I do want to sort of start with this. We have spent time since last summer working on pieces of legislation. The Wall Street Journal series and the ProPublica series came out about the scale of bad acts that were happening in what we call Medicare part C, which is Medicare Advantage for most of us, which is now I think about 55 percent of the Medicare population. We have been working on that to sort of modernize it, and so for all the lobbyists who are making money trying to beat us up for trying to actually fix it, I will warn you that the legislation is almost done. We now have to work with the economists and others to score it. We have been stunned though that it continues. Even last Thursday, I think, there was another whole set of investigations or indictments announced.
Let's get on to some of the math here. Mr. Speaker, I have come behind the microphone many times and talked about the scale of debt. We borrow about $72,000 per second. Our math next year, that goes up to about $82,000 borrowing per second. If you are a country that needs to borrow about $6 billion a day, we borrow about $6 billion a day, what happens in a world where you actually--the liquidity of the debt markets.
I grabbed an article that was in one of my--I think it was in one of my bond publications because I have some weird reading habits. ``Japan prepared to use its role as America's largest creditor as leverage in Trump's trade talks.'' The point I want to make by reading that headline to everyone is: Japan now is our largest individual creditor country. When you have a country that has $900 billion, maybe a trillion dollars of U.S. sovereign debt, and you walk in the door and say: We want to renegotiate some of our trade pact with you or we want to build an actual trade pact with you, they look
The fact of the matter is if you are a country that is borrowing $6 billion a day, does anyone understand the fragility, and I am going use that fancy word a couple of times, because also interest--we are actually seeing some indications that when we get out of extraordinary measures--for everyone who doesn't understand, we hit the debt ceiling a couple months ago. Right now, the Treasury every day for that $6 billion shortfall is juggling money internally and borrowing it out of the military retirement accounts or our thrift savings accounts, the cash accounts, and those things. We are doing internal borrowing. All that has to be paid back, and it all has to be paid back with interest.
We are still working on the rough calculation. Treasury put out a number, but I don't like their number because I don't think it was real, and we had all the visibility. We worked on the dataset saying: When we finally raise the debt ceiling, let's say a month or two from now, Treasury is going to need to pay back those dollars plus the interest. They are going to come to market with $400 billion, $500 billion, $600 billion of borrowing. Just be prepared for what is really going on in the interest rate markets, the debt markets, and will we be beyond some of the discussions of trade where countries like Japan aren't leaking stories that they are going to use our debt as leverage against us.
I used this board a couple of times now, but I want it to make sense. This is the estimate for net interest as a share of revenues in 2035, so that is 9 budget years from now. The chart here and the bar here I want people to pay attention to is Moody's, who has this whole thing where they do analytics on debt and spending. Mr. Speaker, their estimate is in 9 years, 30 percent of U.S. tax collections, that is everything, corporate, individual, estate, the tariffs, everything, they estimate in 9 years, 30 percent of all those tax receipts that come into the Federal Government will just pay interest. This is based on sort of today's interest rate projections.
I showed some charts a couple weeks ago that showed an estimate that if U.S. debt went up 1 percent in interest--selling our bonds, if interest rates went up 1 percent on us, in that 9 budget years, it is not 30 percent of tax receipts that go to just interest, it is 45 percent.
Are you prepared to have a world where here is $1 of taxes I am paying, and 30 cents of that just pays interest; or God forbid, interest rates go up, and 45 cents of that dollar just pays interest on the bonds?
There is also a chart where we actually went back to the early 2000s when we were kissing up against 6 percent, and it was just like devastating, the amount of tax collections that get consumed by interest.
Remember, when we finish this fiscal year, the CBO estimate is U.S. sovereign debt, all of it, the gross debt, will be at $37.2 trillion. The thing we are not supposed to tell people because it hurts their feelings, gets them upset, but it is called math, is over the next 10 years, the vast majority of debt is interest and healthcare costs, mostly Medicare.
Unless you are willing to have honest conversations about debt deficits and demographics, the demographics is the driver of U.S. sovereign debt. We have a shortage of young people in America. We have foreigners come and get educated here, and we send them home because we are so brilliant.
Healthcare costs: We do all this game playing around here where our healthcare discussions are about healthcare finance, not about changing the cost of healthcare.
The thing about this, the ACA, many of you know it as ObamaCare, it is a financing bill. It is a financing bill. It is who gets subsidized and who has to pay. The Republican alternative was a financing bill. Medicare for All is a financing bill.
We don't have the discussion of how to revolutionize this either through technology, a healthier society, taking on obesity, the things that drive the cost of healthcare--how about this concept of we build a healthier society, and we use technology.
I am wearing one of these Oura rings. We are doing experiments in our office with other wearables trying to build data. Is that Republican or Democrat? It is just data. I don't know why we haven't been able to build a love connection here or a policy connection or whatever the hell we are supposed to call it between the left and right saying: What would happen if we engage in policies that change the price of healthcare? Instead, we do these debates because everything in Washington is about the money.
The people marching up and down our hallways here are not coming to our office to say: David, adopt technology. Lower the price of living. Lower the price of healthcare.
It is: We want more money, or we want you to build a barrier to entry to our competition.
We call it rent-seeking, if you remember your high school economics class.
Let's take a look here. I need you to understand how rough our position is in the world right now. Global 10-year borrowing rates. I brought the charts before. We have been bouncing between the 13th position--I think we fell to the 12th position, then the 14th position--where other countries are able to sell their bonds cheaper. Yet, the one that just enrages me, here is Greece. Greece can sell a 10-year bond cheaper than the United States today.
When you run around thinking that the United States is the gold standard, we are also screwing up our extraordinary privilege of having the world reserve currency, and the dollar is coming back to us because you start to see some slowdown in buying U.S. sovereign debt.
Mr. Speaker, we don't know the real numbers because we are in extraordinary measures. We are not coming to market with new debt. Yet, think about this. Here are the countries that can sell a 10-year bond cheaper than the United States: Italy, Greece, France, Canada, Germany, China, and Japan all can sell a 10-year bond cheaper than the United States with lower interest rates. Does that make anyone concerned?
I think I have a chart that shows that the United States will consume 30 to 40 percent of all of the world capital that is going to sovereign debt in the next decade. Yet, we are not supposed to talk about that. Then, the absurdity from the left: Well, we tax rich people more.
Okay, at best, you might get 1 percent, 1.5 percent of GDP. For all of the things we talk about cutting, we get about 1 percent. So the 2.5 percent--Mr. Speaker, this year, we are on pace to borrow 7.3 percent of the entire economy. That is just this year.
One of our charts--and I think this one comes straight from CBO--says that with that little change in interest rates, in 2035, we may be well over 9 percent of the entire economy that year in borrowed money. It doesn't have to be this way.
We are doing these reconciliation negotiations, all of those things, and the inability of groups that come into the office and demand more money to come in with an idea, saying: Maybe we shouldn't be spending billions and billions of dollars on duplicative MRI scans or the things we just waste money on because it turns out that that waste--some people who come behind these microphones call it fraud--turns out to be the profit model of many of the bureaucracies and many of the business models. It doesn't have to be this way.
Start to take a look at the actual data. Last year, the gross interest--that is what we sold publicly and had to pay interest out internally. When we borrow money from the Social Security trust fund or these other things, which all that money has already been borrowed, we have to pay interest back. When Social Security redeems its bonds, we pay them back the money they need for that next month's checks to come out because, remember, Social Security is running about a little less than a structural 25 percent shortfall from tax collections to checks out the door. We also pay them interest.
Last year, we spent $1.133 trillion in interest. Our best estimate right now is your government will spend just a little shy probably of about $1.3 trillion
Starting at about 2022, our interest became more than the Department of Defense budget. How many of the public understand that interest, if you actually calculate the gross interest, is now the second biggest spend in the United States? Social Security comes in at about $1.480 trillion. Interest this year will probably come in at, what, $1.2 trillion, $1.3 trillion?
Interest now is No. 2. Defense right now is actually coming in around No. 4--Social Security, interest, Medicare, defense.
How many times do you hear people come behind these microphones who actually at least know their basic math or want to tell the truth to the voters? Once again, is this Republican or Democrat? It is just math. It is an obligation that we have to pay.
We are going to do what about it? We are going to squeeze out our ability to do the things that we believe are important for protecting the Constitution and the society because, God forbid--the bond markets forbid--that we all of a sudden start to have a spike in interest rates.
You start to understand that many of our brothers and sisters who come behind these microphones--I show the chart all the time saying: Here is the pie chart of all of our spending. Today, about 75 percent is on autopilot. Mr. Speaker, you and I get to vote on 25 percent of the spending. About half of that is defense; about half of that is nondiscretionary. Every dime that a Member of Congress votes on today is borrowed.
Think about that. Other than when you are in reconciliation where Members actually get to have a vote or try to work on mandatory spending, which is formulaic, all defense and all nondefense discretionary is borrowed.
My colleagues have heard a number of Members come behind the microphone and talk about how much nondefense discretionary has gone up, and it has. We have lied repeatedly when we did sequestration.
Paygo, how many times--paygo, I actually think was a Democratic proposal from years ago that, if we are going to add new spending beyond the 5-year window, there needs to be an offset. Members saw a number of bills that expired just before the fifth year so that they don't set off the paygo, or like we did back in January when we owed approximately $1.2 trillion in cuts to meet the paygo--pay as you go-- rules.
Now we just waive it, just like we have done with sequestration and all these other things. We tell people that we are going to be fiscally disciplined. As soon as it is uncomfortable, then we will just waive it.
Why this is important is we will say that there is a 45 percent increase in discretionary spending since 2019, and it is. Yet, when my colleagues actually look at it, it is a lot of money.
Did I mention that we are borrowing $6 billion a day? We went from $662 billion--this is nondefense discretionary, this is the Park Service, this is the IRS, this is the State Department, all of the things we think of as the government--it went up to $960 billion.
Yet, why this is important to understand--I would vote to roll that back to the 2019 budget. Yet, if you see it as a percentage of GDP, the size of the economy, we are spending, which is the proper way to do big-boy math on budgets.
In 2019, nondefense discretionary was 3.1 percent of the economy. Last year, it was 3.3 percent of the economy. It went up, but the economy got bigger. It turns out that, if you are borrowing 7.3 percent of the economy this year, you could get rid of all of what you think of as government, nondefense discretionary, and you could get rid of all of defense, and my math on the top of my head--I probably should have calculated this before coming behind the microphone--you would still need about another $400 billion to cover borrowing that covers Medicare. Think about that.
There are those who say: David, balance the budget today.
I can do it. Of course, you are not going to have a military, you are not going to have what you think of as government, and I need to find $400 billion in the mandatory space.
There is this lack of understanding of the scale. Getting old, when it is healthcare and interest, that is the primary driver. No one wants to hear that. That doesn't set off the dopamine receptors. It doesn't make people mad. It doesn't get you on television.
If you tell the truth about the drivers of U.S. sovereign debt, you will never end up on MSNBC or FOX News or any of those because no one wants to hear the actual math. We want things that anger people. It turns out that good accounting isn't really that exciting, but it is math.
Mr. Speaker, here is the punch line which worries me and why I beg my brothers and sisters: For those of us in the House, we have a reconciliation budget. We are trying not to let the expiring provisions raise people's taxes. We have a reconciliation budget in the House that, if we do everything right, we get a couple trillion dollars of savings over 10 years. We are going to spend over $68 trillion in the next 10 years.
How many Members of Congress have had protesters outside of their offices saying that they can't cut things. We are talking about a total of $2 billion or $2 trillion in savings over 10 years when we are spending $68 billion. Have we lost our minds?
Yet, if we were to do the Senate's reconciliation budget, which has almost no cuts in spending in it, we will borrow approximately--I am conflating publicly sold debt with the debt we would create in the next 10 years. What took us 240 years to build, we will double in 10 years, or come close to doubling in 10 years.
Does this body, the lobbyists in the hallways, the groups in the hallways demanding more spending, or any of the staffers who might not have a life so they are watching this really think that the bond markets aren't going to go: They are doubling U.S. debt, maybe we should ask for a little premium, which is called term premium, on U.S. sovereign debt, but I just showed you and told you what happens if we go up 1 percent.
Just that 1 percentage point is $3 trillion of additional interest. It is more than everything we are talking about trying to cut.
Here is your balance: How do you communicate to the people we borrow money from that we are a good credit risk? We are going to pay you back. We are going to pay you back appropriately. We are not going to say crazy things: Maybe we should force you to go longer on the bonds, or maybe we should ask you to do this or that. You can't do that. You don't screw with your bankers.
Just as in the article, we are already up against the leverage of Japan in this one, but I don't know why it is not about other countries using the fact that we have used them and we have needed them to finance our debt. Then we intend to leverage them?
Okay. They need trade with us. Let's use that leverage, but let's also be respectful of the fact that they are one of our bankers.
Understand the fact, Mr. Speaker, that if we don't get our act together, the United States is on track to double its borrowing over the next 10 years. If that becomes the perception in the world debt markets, we are going to pay a penalty for it, and that penalty is really expensive.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to go back to the office and have more coffee. I appreciate the Speaker's tolerance, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.
The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 3 o'clock and 28 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, May 7, 2025, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.
