We use analytics tools to understand how people use the site. They're optional: if you decline, the site works the same, no analytics cookies are set and Google gets only a cookieless, anonymous count signal. Your votes are saved either way; the details are in the privacy policy.
49 public bills, H.R. 6370- 6418; and 4 resolutions, H. Res. 922-925, were introduced.
Pages H5024-26
Reports Filed
There were no reports filed today. Recess: The House recessed at 11:01 a.m. and reconvened at 12 p.m.
Page H5004
Communication from the Clerk of the House
The Chair announced that, pursuant to 44 U.S.C. 2702, the Clerk appointed the following individual to serve as a member of the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress: Mr. Benjamin Francis-Fallon of Washington, D.C.
Page H5005
Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act
The House considered H.R. 1049, to ensure that parents are aware of foreign influence in their child's public school. Consideration is expected to resume tomorrow, December 4th.
Pages H5007-10
Pursuant to the Rule, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Education and Workforce now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted. H. Res. 916, the rule providing for consideration of the bills (H.R. 4312), (H.R. 1005), (H.R. 1049), (H.R. 1069), (H.R. 2965) and (H.R. 4305), was agreed to yesterday, December 2nd.
Page H5008
Recess
The House recessed at 1 p.m. and reconvened at 4 p.m.
Pages H5010-11
Small Business Regulatory Reduction Act of 2025
The House passed H.R. 2965, to require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to ensure that the small business regulatory budget for a small business concern in a fiscal year is not greater than zero, by a yea- and-nay vote of 223 yeas to 190 nays, Roll No. 310. Consideration began yesterday, December 2nd.
Page H5011
H. Res. 916, the rule providing for consideration of the bills (H.R. 4312), (H.R. 1005), (H.R. 1049), (H.R. 1069), (H.R. 2965) and (H.R. 4305), was agreed to yesterday, December 2nd. Destroying Unnecessary, Misaligned, and Prohibitive Red Tape Act: The House passed H.R. 4305, to direct the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration to establish a Red Tape Hotline to receive notifications of burdensome agency rules, by a yea-and-nay vote of 269 yeas to 146 nays, Roll No. 311. Consideration began yesterday, December 2nd.
Pages H5011-12
H. Res. 916, the rule providing for consideration of the bills (H.R. 4312), (H.R. 1005), (H.R. 1049), (H.R. 1069), (H.R. 2965) and (H.R. 4305), was agreed to yesterday, December 2nd. Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems Act: The House passed H.R. 1005, to prohibit elementary and secondary schools from accepting funds from or entering into contracts with the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, by a yea-and-nay vote of 242 yeas to 176 nays, Roll No. 312.
Pages H5012-13
Agreed to amend the title so as to read
``To require public elementary and secondary schools to disclose certain funds received from, or contracts with, a foreign source, and for other purposes.''.
Page H5013
Pursuant to the Rule, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Education and Workforce now printed in the bill shall be considered as adopted. H. Res. 916, the rule providing for consideration of the bills (H.R. 4312), (H.R. 1005), (H.R. 1049), (H.R. 1069), (H.R. 2965) and (H.R. 4305), was agreed to yesterday, December 2nd.
Pages H5005-06
Meeting Hour
Agreed by unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. on Thursday, December 4.
Page H5013
Quorum Calls: Votes
Three yea-and-nay votes developed during the proceedings of today and appear on pages H5011, H5011-12, and H5012-13. Adjournment: The House met at 10 a.m. and adjourned at 6:52 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: 94 of 135 spoken turns were found. Turns without a time are still listed; they just can't seek.
Morning-Hour Debate
The SPEAKER. 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, I rise today to honor a most hallowed occasion in the history of our Republic: Delaware Day, which falls on this Sunday, December 7.
On that momentous day in 1787, the greatest State in the Union became the first State in the Union, boldly seizing the mantle of leadership by ratifying the United States Constitution before any of our hesitant sister States dared to do so.
Officially declared a State holiday in 1933, Delaware Day invites each of us to reflect upon our State's central role in forging a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
We Delawareans celebrate being the first as any eldest sibling would; that is, obnoxiously and with great relish. It is with no small measure of delight that I stand here on the House floor to celebrate my beloved home State and the noble citizens who keep its spirit alive.
What we lack in size, we make up for in endless discoveries. While December 7 may technically be Delaware Day, it is always Delaware Day in my heart.
To all Delawareans, may their Delaware Day be filled with cheer, with history, and with the profound satisfaction of knowing that we beat everyone else to the punch.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Sue Ryan, who is retiring after 10 years of extraordinary service as the executive director of the Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
For a decade, Sue has been the steady, principled voice behind a coalition that works every day to prevent domestic violence and support survivors across our State.
With more than 25 years in nonprofit service as an attorney, advocate, and administrator, Sue has devoted her life to advancing justice for people who are too often overlooked: survivors of violence, impoverished families, refugees, and those experiencing homelessness.
It has been an inspiration to watch Sue lead the Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Her integrity, compassion, and quiet strength have shaped the way I think about this work and what it means to serve with purpose.
Delaware is safer, stronger, and more compassionate because of Sue Ryan's leadership. We thank her for her vision, her courage, and her unwavering commitment to dignity and safety for all.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of Delaware families who are still catching their breath after Thanksgiving--a holiday that should bring joy, not undue anxiety over the cost of a single trip to the grocery store.
Last week, too many Delawareans told me that the price of their holiday meal felt heavier this year, and they are right. Delaware families are paying an average of $8,745 a year, or 14 percent of their income, just to put food on the table.
Those grocery bills aren't rising in a vacuum. Across The First State, shoppers are seeing coffee up 21 percent and beef up 11 percent. Flour, sugar, and canned fruits are each up more than 30 percent. These are costs that hit parents, seniors, and working people the hardest.
At Our Daily Bread, a food bank in Middletown, they are now serving 240 meals a day, up from just 200 a few months ago. This is a clear indication of how my neighbors are being squeezed by rising prices.
Delaware families are being hit from every direction--by inflation, yes, but also by policies coming out of the Trump administration that are pouring fuel on the fire. Tariffs are driving up grocery prices even higher and contributing to price uncertainty. The one big, ugly bill imposed the largest cut to food assistance in U.S. history. Premium hikes will cost Delawareans an average of $6,000 more a year in healthcare. Cuts to energy investments are pushing up electricity bills. New limits on student loan repayment hit working people hardest. Interest rates are so high that they put the dream of a first home further out of reach.
Delawareans deserve better than a government that increases their costs while taking away the lifelines that keep them afloat. No matter our politics, we all want the same thing: the ability to feed our families, put a roof over our heads, and find a job with dignity.
That is why I am proud to be a sponsor of legislation that would restore some common sense by banning the President from imposing tariffs without congressional approval, capping the cost of childcare, expanding health coverage, creating new pathways to
Mr. Speaker, after Thanksgiving season, where so many families felt the strain, the message from Delaware is clear: We need solutions, not tariffs and cuts to healthcare but policies that make life more affordable.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Pella Marching Dutch for their outstanding 2025 season and their well-earned invitation to perform at the celebration of our Nation's 250th birthday in Washington, D.C., next year.
This remarkable ensemble consists of 226 students who represented their community with excellent success, competing across multiple prestigious competitions. The Marching Dutch delivered their strongest performance at the Band of America Regional Competition, where they claimed first place in Class 2A and earned the Outstanding General Effect award.
They advanced to the open class finals and placed tenth overall. They celebrated competitive success in Iowa's largest class size for the first time in the program's history.
Their invitation to perform on the 250th birthday of our great Nation is a tremendous honor. I am proud of all of the members of the Pella Marching Dutch and look forward to watching them represent Iowa at this historic celebration.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize an extraordinary young Iowan, 8-year-old Marley Morris, whose kindness and compassion are making a meaningful difference in the lives of children battling cancer.
Marley has turned her passion for crafting handmade bracelets into a mission of hope and joy, donating 100 of her creations to young patients at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital.
Marley began making bracelets at just 3 years old, and she continues today to use that talent to brighten the lives of others. Her generous spirit and heartfelt efforts reflect the very best of Iowa.
Even at such a young age, Marley reminds all of us that one person, no matter how small, can have a powerful impact on their community.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to honor Marley Morris for her inspiring generosity, for leading by example, and showing what it means to serve others.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate an outstanding Iowan, Corey Leonhard of Muscatine, on his induction into the Special Olympics Hall of Fame.
For more than four decades, Corey has been a proud representative of Iowa in athletic competitions at every level, from local meets to the world stage.
Corey's accomplishments are remarkable. At the 2003 Special Olympics World Games in Dublin, Ireland, he earned a Bronze Medal in the 100- meter dash and a Silver Medal in softball.
Mr. Speaker, 4 years later in Shanghai, China, he brought home a Gold Medal in the long jump, a Bronze Medal in the 400-meter dash, and placed fourth in the four-by-four relay.
Mr. Speaker, Corey's impact extends beyond athletics. In 2015, he served as cocaptain for the United Relay Across America, helping carry the torch from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles.
Today, he remains active in Special Olympics Muscatine, embodying the values of perseverance, dedication, and sportsmanship.
I congratulate Corey, who is an inspiration to all Iowans, and his legacy of excellence and determination is well deserving of this honor.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor my constituent, Julie Humes of Donnellson, Iowa, a flight nurse with Air Evac Lifeteam and a recipient of the American Ambulance Association's prestigious Star of Life award.
For over 30 years, this award has recognized the best of our EMS professionals, those who go above and beyond the call of duty. Julie was nominated by her peers for her heroism during a severe car accident, volunteering in dangerous icy conditions to help save the lives of multiple trauma victims. Thanks to her quick thinking and courageous actions, every victim survived.
Julie's service is a shining example of the bravery and selflessness of our first responders, and they demonstrate this every day. It was an honor to meet Julie and hear about her incredible dedication firsthand.
I congratulate Julie and thank her for her steadfast commitment to saving lives and protecting Iowans.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Georgia Clark, a student from West Liberty, Iowa, who represented our State with pride and excellence at the 2025 National Civics Bee.
Competing against top middle schoolers from across the country, Georgia placed in the top ten, a tremendous achievement.
Held in Washington, D.C., on Veterans Day, the National Civics Bee celebrates civic knowledge and encourages young Americans to engage with their communities and understand their government.
Georgia was 1 of only 39 State champions invited to participate, representing the West Liberty community school district.
Georgia's dedication, leadership, and love of learning reflect the best of Iowa's youth. Her passion for civic engagement and understanding of our Nation's founding principles are truly inspiring.
I thank Georgia for her commitment to excellence and for stepping up as a young leader with ideas that will strengthen our community and our country. Her achievement makes all of Iowa proud.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the public service and accomplishments of Omayra Andino, who this week completed two terms, or and 4 years, as mayor of the village of Tuckahoe, with prior service on the village board as trustee.
Mayor Andino, in her professional career, has shown executive skill and leadership as CEO of the Institute for Applied Human Dynamics, an organization that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, helping them to live their lives on their own terms.
Managing that team and its mission across Westchester would be a task enough for anyone, but Mayor Andino added the responsibilities of elected office in Tuckahoe, a village of over 6,000 people in one compact square mile.
Tuckahoe local government has all of the responsibilities of any municipal entity: police protection, sanitation, parks and recreation, planning and land use functions, and more. Her leadership as mayor, chairing the village and the board, and providing policy direction and oversight to the professional village staff brought Tuckahoe into a new era, an era of capital improvement and better service delivery.
Her achievements come as she was the first woman and, as a Latina, the first person of color to lead the village government. She did not seek a third term and has left Tuckahoe in the capable hands of her colleague, new Mayor Cara Kronen, who was sworn in this past Monday.
Omayra has earned the respect of all of us, and we salute her as she completes her exemplary service to the people of Tuckahoe.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Transformation to Competitive Integrated Employment Act, which was recently reintroduced by Congressmen Bobby Scott and Pete Sessions.
This bill is a long, overdue modernization of the Fair Labor Standards
Today, those employed under 14(c) waivers make an average of $3.50 per hour. While originally well-intended, section 14(c) has not lived up to its promise, and it needs to change.
Two of my constituents recognized this injustice as it relates to their loved one, a high schooler, Ellie, who wants to be paid fairly.
Over 10 days, the father-son duo ran 260 miles from New York City to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness for the bill.
Their run raised national awareness, and it is now up to us to act. Together, we can support those workers by ensuring that they earn the fair pay that they deserve.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute the Rye High School Garnets football team as they head to Syracuse to compete in the New York State Athletic Championship for Class A under the JMA Wireless Dome, previously the Carrier Dome.
This Class A State championship game is much watched across the State of New York. Under the legendary 50-year leadership of Coach Dino Garr, Rye High School football teams have won four State championships and are now competing against Brighton for their fifth State championship.
This year's squad is led by quarterback Carson Miller; wide receiver Henry Shoemaker; running back Jagger Fenton; and the aptly named Charlie Garnet, Garnet being the school mascot.
Their strong offense mowed down all of the competitors in section 1 football and through five post-season games with huge margins, winning over Minisink Valley and Cornwall in the earlier games.
We salute the players and the coaches that have made the city of Rye proud. Go Garnets.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with great pride to honor one of the most beloved sons of the Texas 27th Congressional District, Brother Gary Moses of Victoria, Texas.
For more than 50 years, Brother Gary has been the heartbeat of Victoria and the entire Crossroads region. As a longtime educator at Patti Welder Middle School, a legendary radio voice on Majic 95.9, and Victoria's undisputed ambassador of joy, he has touched countless lives with his infectious smile and genuine love for every person he meets.
Whether Brother Gary is emceeing the Gorgeous Grandma Pageant, championing the Marine Toys for Tots on television commercials, firing up the crowd at Riverside Stadium for the Victoria Generals, or leading the Christmas parade, Brother Gary shows up with enthusiasm that lifts the entire community.
At 73 years young, Brother Gary is always reminding us that, in Victoria, we are all family. His nickname, Brother Gary, is not just a radio handle. It is the truest description of how he treats everyone he encounters. Residents make sure he is invited to every celebration because they know an event simply isn't complete without Brother Gary's presence.
Mr. Speaker, Brother Gary Moses embodies the very best of the Texas spirit: faith, family, and hard work. On behalf of the people of the 27th Congressional District and the countless lives he has brightened, I am proud to recognize him today and thank him for reminding us all of how one person truly can make a difference and make a community feel like a home.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Cuyahoga County's Myesha Watkins on her latest and well-earned recognition for serving the people of northeast Ohio.
Last month, Myesha received the Capstone Achievement Award from the University of Chicago's Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy. This distinction highlights her as a local and national leader when it comes to violence prevention.
As the executive director of the Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance and in her current role as the administrator of the Cuyahoga County Office of Violence Prevention, Myesha has dedicated herself to the hard work of public safety.
For years, she has been there for the people of Cleveland--in our schools, our community centers, our emergency rooms, and our most overlooked and underserved neighborhoods. She has been there taking direct action to mediate conflict, deescalate crises, and stop the cycle of violence.
This work isn't easy, but as Myesha often says, it is a calling, and it makes a difference.
That is why I was outraged earlier this year when the Trump administration rescinded Federal grants awarded to the Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance. Grants that had been awarded by the past administration were stripped away. It was a betrayal of northeast Ohio, but Myesha and our community have never stopped doing the work to make our neighborhoods safer because we know that community-oriented solutions work and are needed.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Myesha on her recognition from the University of Chicago. On behalf of a grateful district and a grateful nation, I thank her for her service and commitment to making our Cleveland communities safer.
Mr. Speaker, there is a saying: When America catches a cold, Black America gets pneumonia.
Since January 20, make no mistake, this country has been running a fever, a moral sickness, one that begins at the very top, a twisted agenda that pardons the powerful, protects the predators, and punishes the people. Black Americans are paying the price.
Mr. Speaker, buried in the last jobs report was this number: The Black unemployment rate is now 7\1/2\ percent. That is a recession- level rate, the highest rate since the pandemic.
Do you think they care at Mar-a-Lago? I will tell you who does care: the people in the community I represent. They are watching as prices keep going up while funding for programs people need, like SNAP, Medicaid, and the ACA, keep going down.
It doesn't stop at the kitchen table. No, we are witnessing a whole- of-government effort to erase Black history, to diminish Black voices, and to stifle Black progress.
More than $3 billion in Federal funding has been cut from HBCUs, Black communities, and Black entrepreneurs. Over 6,000 Federal research programs and datasets related to racial disparities have been deleted, putting us in the dark on everything from sickle cell anemia to maternal health.
We have seen Black authors pulled from school shelves and government websites quietly erase information on figures like Harriet Tubman and Jackie Robinson.
Just last month, we learned that memorials honoring the contributions of Black American soldiers during World War II were stripped from a military cemetery in the Netherlands.
This is not a coincidence. This is an all-out attack on our past, our present, and our future.
Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. Black Americans will not be erased. We will not be silenced, and neither will the millions of people of all backgrounds who are being harmed by this White House.
It is time for us to take up their voice and carry on their fight before this sickness spreads further.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of restoring our Second Amendment rights.
Earlier this year, I worked diligently on and proudly voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law by President Trump on July Fourth. Due to my hard-fought efforts, this monumental law delivers the most significant legislative win for our Second Amendment freedoms in almost a century.
Throughout the negotiations, I fought to restore our Second Amendment rights, ultimately securing a measure to zero out the $200 tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms under the draconian National Firearms Act. This tax had been on the books since 1934, representing both an unconstitutional and financial barrier to our Second Amendment rights. Thankfully, starting January 1, 2026, American citizens will no longer be subjected to this unnecessary and unconstitutional taxation.
However, the burdensome transfer and registration requirements linked to the zero tax have so far remained. Yet, it was Congress' clear intent to repeal the NFA registration by eliminating the NFA taxation. After all, the two are inseparably linked. Without the tax, the associated registration requirements no longer have a legal standing. In fact, had it not been for the radical, partisan Senate Parliamentarian, this intent would have been explicitly written in the bill text.
Apparently, what the Senate Parliamentarian didn't understand is the history and mechanisms of the National Firearms Act. Congress enacted the NFA in 1934, imposing an excise tax of $200, equivalent to nearly $5,000 today, on the manufacture and transfer of certain firearms.
Congress enacted the NFA pursuant to its taxing power under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court, in Sonzinsky v. United States, 1937, upheld the constitutionality of the NFA's registration and transfer provisions as ``supportable as in aid'' of Congress' proper exercise of the taxing power. Furthermore, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Constantine, 1935, held that a tax that doesn't generate revenue cannot be justified as a tax.
Therefore, NFA registration serves as the mechanism by which ATF accounts for the tax paid on each firearm, identified by its serial number. The tax stamp affixed by the ATF on an NFA application reflects both the firearm's serial number and the amount of tax paid for the transfer.
Moreover, the NFA's criminal provisions pertain exclusively to the failure to pay or register the payment of the tax with the ATF. The registry is a tax registry, a registry of the tax paid on each firearm cataloged by the serial number of each firearm.
Again, NFA registration and taxation are inseparably linked. You cannot have a registration of the tax paid on a firearm when there is no tax.
Last month, on Veterans Day, I led 30 of my House Republican colleagues in sending a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi to reaffirm congressional intent behind the zeroing out of the NFA tax provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as well as to urge that the DOJ adopt this position in all litigation concerning this matter.
Unfortunately, the DOJ's recent brief in a lawsuit involving NFA registration defends the draconian NFA firearm registration and ignores congressional intent.
First and foremost, the legal argument to defend and keep the NFA registration simply isn't there, plain and simple. When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated the tax on a broad class of firearms regulated under the NFA, the constitutional foundation for applying the NFA's transfer and registration requirements to those zero-tax firearms no longer exists. These requirements now improperly operate without any corresponding exercise of Congress' taxing power.
As the Supreme Court upheld the NFA's provisions only as ``in aid'' of that taxing power, and since the relevant excise taxes have been repealed, the transfer and registration requirements must likewise be understood as repealed with respect to the firearms now subject to the zero tax.
The Department's recent filing ignores this reality and instead offers a theory that would convert the NFA from a tax statute into a freestanding gun registry, an outcome Congress has never authorized and has repeatedly rejected. Even the 1986 Firearm Owners' Protection Act prohibited a Federal registration scheme: `` . . . nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established.''
In addition, when Congress reduced the ObamaCare penalty to zero during President Trump's first term, the Department of Justice refused to defend the underlying flawed law. Clearly, the DOJ is fully empowered to decline to defend statutory provisions that no longer rest on a valid constitutional basis. It has exercised that authority before and must do so again here, this time in defense of Americans' Second Amendment rights.
When I came to Congress, I promised my constituents that one of my top priorities would be to not only fight to protect our Second Amendment rights but to restore what we have lost. The National Firearms Act of 1934 is an unconstitutional relic that has infringed on these liberties for far too long. We must take this historic opportunity to ensure both taxation and registration on suppressors and short barrels are gone for good.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Sarah Dully, Rhode Island's 2026 Teacher of the Year.
Ms. Dully began her work as an educator in 2012. She joined Narragansett High School as an English language arts teacher in 2020, where she is admired and respected by her fellow teachers, students, and administrators alike. At Narragansett, she also serves as the National Honor Society adviser and the Class of 2025's adviser.
When asked about Ms. Dully, one of her students said: ``My favorite thing about [her] is just how active and excited she is every class.''
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Ms. Dully on this honor. I have no doubt that she will represent our State well in the National Teacher of the Year award program.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Dave Chenevert, who is retiring after 14 years as executive director of the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association and 41 years in the manufacturing industry.
Dave built RIMA into a powerful advocacy organization for the manufacturing industry, championing workforce development and education, and working with State leaders to bring more people into the profession. In his role, Dave built on Rhode Island's manufacturing legacy so that it will endure for future generations.
On his retirement, Dave said: ``When I first joined RIMA, my goal was to strengthen our voice, expand our reach, and build a solid foundation for the future.'' He has certainly done that, stabilizing the industry after years of decline, with more than 1,500 manufacturing companies in Rhode Island now employing over 41,000 people.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Dave for his many years of service to Rhode Island. His impact will long endure, and I wish him a very happy retirement.
Mr. Speaker, while Donald Trump and congressional Republicans spend time building a billion-dollar ballroom, bailing out Argentina, and lavishing tax cuts on billionaires, Rhode Islanders and Americans continue to struggle with the high cost of healthcare.
I wish that our colleagues would spend as much time worrying about how they are going to lower healthcare costs as they seem to spend building up Donald Trump's ballroom, sending billions of dollars to Argentina, and sucking up to their billionaire donors.
All across the country, people are getting letters like this from their insurance companies telling them how much more they are going to have to pay next year because of Republican inaction in extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits, letters like this one received by Susan from South Kingstown. She, her husband, and her college-aged son are going to see an increase of $1,700 a month, $20,000 a year more that they are going to pay for their health insurance for three people if Republicans don't do the right thing and extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
Kim, from East Greenwich, runs a small business with her husband, an appraisal company. She has a family of four with two teenage daughters. The
People cannot afford this. We have heard all the excuses from those on the other side of the aisle who are determined to stop funding the Affordable Care Act. They say it is just a subsidy for the health insurance companies. Really?
Are you going to tell Kim that she is a health insurance company because she is going to be paying thousands of dollars more a year for her health insurance? Is she a health insurance company? Is Susan from South Kingstown a health insurance company?
No. These are real people who are going to be impacted by the lack of Republican action to lower the cost of healthcare.
We have a plan: Extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits and reverse the cuts to Medicaid so that people do not have to pay thousands of dollars more for their health insurance.
What have we heard from the other side? Nothing. They have no plan. The best they can come up with is they will give everybody a few thousand dollars. We will cut them a check.
Do they have any idea how much it costs to go to the emergency room? Does President Trump have any idea how much an emergency room bill costs? I don't think so.
It is time for our Republican colleagues to do the right thing. It is time to come together in a bipartisan way and listen to the American people. Let's extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, reverse the Medicaid cuts, and lower costs for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, stop wasting time with ballrooms and bailouts, and instead deliver for the American people.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to provide an 11-month update to the American people.
While most media outlets struggle to be honest with the American people, under the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican House, and a Republican Senate, America is back.
It is a fact that inflation is down from 5 percent to 2.5 percent. Gas prices have hit a 4-year low, averaging $2.95 a gallon. Advanced manufacturing and industry are returning to U.S. soil.
President Trump has secured over $8 trillion in investments that will fuel job growth and create opportunity. The stock market continues to set new all-time highs.
It is a fact that Republicans are committed to making sure hardworking Americans keep more of what they earn. The Working Families Tax Cut delivered the largest tax cut for middle- and working-class Americans in history, like no tax on tips and no tax on overtime.
It is a fact that the southern border is closed. Drug dealers, sexual predators, human traffickers, and those who illegally invaded our country during the Biden administration from over 160 countries are being returned to the country of their origin.
Under Biden, our emergency departments and local hospitals became the preferred free healthcare provider for illegal aliens, driving healthcare costs through the roof while the American taxpayers footed the bill.
We didn't need legislation to put America first. We needed a new President.
It is a fact that the spirit of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse is alive in Washington, D.C. Funds being sent to foreign countries that hate America have been cut off. Republicans cut $100,000 for climate resilience in Ghana; cut $360,000 for gender nonconforming, nonbinary, two-spirit farmers in New York; cut $24 billion to USAID; cut $22 billion from Health and Human Services to provide housing and cars for illegal aliens; cut $45 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma; cut $8 million to promote LGBTQ in Africa; cut $10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique; cut $20 million for the Arab ``Sesame Street'' in the Middle East; and we cut $600 million from National Public Radio. Free enterprise in America is alive and well.
President Donald Trump is the President of peace, ending eight wars in 8 months. Tell me who in history has ever done this.
The war between Israel and Hamas is over. The hostages were returned home. The Iranian nuclear program has been set back for decades, and the Middle East is more stable than it has been in years.
To gain peace through strength, we have invested in America's national defense. We have increased pay for our troops. We are making generational investments in our defense industrial base. We are filling our stockpiles. We are making our soldiers the most lethal fighting force the world has ever seen.
We will never apologize for keeping America safe. Thankfully, Mr. Speaker, the people of America are now seeing through Biden's 4 years of smoke and mirrors here in D.C.
It is a fact that the Clinton-Steele dossier was proven a hoax.
It is a fact that the Department of Justice was weaponized against President Trump.
It is a fact that the Democrats' so-called Inflation Reduction Act raised the United States debt to more than $38 trillion. It raised inflation to its highest level in 40 years.
It is a fact that Biden's Green New Deal was nothing more than another scam on the U.S. taxpayers, and ObamaCare, known as the Affordable Care Act, is not affordable to anyone in America.
It is a fact that Space Command is coming to Redstone Arsenal in north Alabama and the Golden Dome is on the horizon.
It is a fact that President Trump and our Republican majority is making America better for the people. America is back.
Mr. Speaker, with only 10 voting days left in this year's calendar, Congress must act if we are to avert a full-blown healthcare crisis. I rise today to bring attention to the affordability and healthcare crisis that is pending upon us.
I think this is what Americans want us to do as opposed to bailing out Argentina or figuring out how to finance a $300 million ballroom that will dwarf the size of the White House.
What Americans are concerned about is premiums that are climbing.
What Americans are concerned about is the increase in their grocery bills.
What the Americans I represent in the San Joaquin Valley are concerned about is bearing more and more of this burden and not seeing any potential light at the end of the tunnel.
Families are forced to make impossible choices between putting food on the table or whether or not they should keep their healthcare coverage.
In July, President Trump's one big--I never thought it was beautiful--bill became law. It slashed over $1 trillion from Medicaid, from children's healthcare coverage, from Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, adding $4.2 trillion to our national debt.
Programs that protect children, seniors, and working families are being gutted. In my district alone, over 65,000 people risk losing their Medicaid coverage, threatening access to essential healthcare for vulnerable populations.
Now, despite the passage of the fiscal year 2026 continuing resolution, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, once again, have failed us, I think.
Republicans are threatening the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits that will expire at the end of this year in just four weeks. Open enrollment is now, and Americans are seeing the cost that they are paying for this effort, which has failed so far. But there is still time.
There is still time when families can avert the stark choice of having to pay more for their healthcare or make sacrifices elsewhere in their lives. There is still time to continue these tax credits, so that we can avoid the dramatically higher healthcare costs that our constituents are paying in copayments and deductibles, which is impacting up to
To illustrate what this means, a couple who are 60 years old in Fresno earning $82,000 a year will pay $18,000 more per year for coverage. A family of four in Tulare County earning $64,000 a year will pay $2,500 more.
This is not fiscal responsibility. This is a Republican healthcare tax hike on working families, imposed in the richest country in the world. I think it is unacceptable. These are not just numbers on a page. These are real people.
It is a mother in Fresno who has to choose between filling her prescription and paying rent. It is a father in Tulare County who may have to decide whether his children can see a doctor when they are sick. It is seniors who have delayed care, skipped medications, or avoided preventive screenings because of these rising costs. These are the consequences of inaction. But there is still time.
Mr. Speaker, the Democrats have a plan.
Our plan is to keep the premiums affordable.
Our plan prevents Republican healthcare tax hikes.
Our plan requires President Trump to carry out a bipartisan budget. That is what we are supposed to do, a bipartisan budget.
We know healthcare cannot wait, and our families cannot wait. Our Nation needs certainty, affordability, and leadership more than ever.
Let us come together at the table in a bipartisan fashion. That is what my constituents expect of us.
Let us extend the Affordable Care Act tax premiums.
Let us keep healthcare affordable for Americans.
Let us show the American people that Congress can act responsibly, that we can protect our families, that we can deliver on the promises to ensure that no one has to choose between healthcare and their basic needs of the safety net that is a contract that we have with the American people.
Mr. Speaker, our constituents are counting on us. Let us not fail them. Americans deserve affordable healthcare, and we have until the end of this month to make that happen.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a dear friend and a great patriot, Benny Ray Adkins.
Mr. Speaker, over my 15 years of service in this wonderful Chamber, I have given many speeches. I have eulogized and talked about many great people.
Today is a very special speech for me and for our great Nation.
I knew Benny Ray Adkins back when I practiced law. He worked for the Hamilton County Courts. He worked for the Sunshine Biscuit Company for years, and Ray was my friend.
When I got elected to Congress, Ray Adkins really stood out to me not only as a mentor but as someone who loves his country. Ray loved the United States Army. He was Army proud. He was a lieutenant colonel. He served 36 years in the United States Army and Army Reserve.
Time and time again, when I needed Ray, whether it was to get advice on active military, veterans affairs, and the like, he was there.
Now, the largest city in my district is Chattanooga, and Ray was from a part of Chattanooga called Lookout Valley, Tiftonia. It is on the western side of Chattanooga.
Ray was always there whether it was Wreaths Across America, Memorial Day, or Veterans Day. He was omnipresent. He was always there for the veterans. It didn't matter if it was World War II, Korea, Desert Storm, Desert Shield, he was always there. He would show up in his uniform.
For the past decade or so, Mr. Speaker, he struggled health-wise, but he would always show up in his uniform. He would always show up Army proud, and he participated in so many different things.
We had a situation where we put together a Military Advisory Board, and I had people from all branches. Ray was so well-respected by everyone, whether it was the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, or the Marines. In that room, he was Ray, the great colonel.
He loved the Army. He loved our country. He loved our veterans. He was a member of the VFW. He was a member of The American Legion. He was named Veteran of the Year in Chattanooga in 2017 and received the Hometown Patriot Award in 2018.
This man was so well revered in Chattanooga and rightfully so. He was honored with the Ray Adkins Interchange by the Tennessee General Assembly, our State assembly in 2021. I drive past that on occasion.
Mr. Speaker, I will end by saying this: I thank Ray for his friendship. I thank him for his service to our great Nation, and I thank him for being a great American. America is a greater nation because of him.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today because this weekend my community in Stockton, California, was shaken by a horrific mass shooting.
Families were gathered at a banquet hall for a 2-year-old's birthday party. They were about to cut the cake when gunshots rang out. Four people were killed, including three kids. They were 8, 9, and 14 years old. Thirteen more were injured. Think about that for a second.
As a dad, I cannot fathom the pain these families are feeling right now. This was supposed to be a moment of celebration, and instead it became a nightmare that has rocked our community to its core.
Mr. Speaker, I ask for a moment of silence to honor the victims, including Amari, Susano, Maya, Journey, and their families as they navigate this tragedy.
My wife, Pam, and I are praying for the victims, their families, and our community. We are and always will be Stockton Strong.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to honor the life, service, and sacrifice of Deputy Terri Sweeting-Mashkow of the Indian River County Sheriff's Office, who was tragically slain in the line of duty.
Deputy Sweeting-Mashkow served the community with courage, professionalism, and deep compassion. She was the kind of public servant every community hopes for, steadfast in her duty, kind to those in need, and unwavering in her commitment to keeping Indian River County safe.
Her loss is felt not only by her brothers and sisters in law enforcement, but by every family she protected, every neighbor she reassured, and every life she touched. Today, we honor not only her heroism, but the legacy she leaves behind.
We also hold in our prayers her husband, Casey; her daughter, and her family; and the entire Indian River County Sheriff's Office as they face this heartbreaking tragedy of a person who served our community for over 25 years. May they find strength in knowing that this Nation stands with them as they face this very difficult time.
I thank our sheriff in Indian River County, Sheriff Flowers, and his incredible team who put together a dignified funeral yesterday honoring her life.
Deputy Terri Sweeting-Mashkow gave her life in service to others. For that, we are forever grateful. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring her memory and supporting all those who continue to answer the call to protect and serve their communities.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor the life of David Long, a local locksmith in Indian River County, an Army veteran who was tragically killed in Vero Beach while assisting deputies during a court-ordered eviction. David was simply doing his job, fulfilling a legal obligation, supporting law enforcement, and helping keep the process orderly and safe.
By every account, he was a kind, dependable member of the community.
This tragedy is a sobering reminder of the risks that not only our deputies, but our civilians take in working alongside them when they face the realities of simply upholding the law.
May we honor his memory by standing firmly with those who keep our communities safe and recognizing that everyday heroes come not always in uniform.
We remember David Long today for his service and as a person who makes America the great Nation that it is. May David Long rest in peace.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today about this issue of affordability.
I find it shocking that the Democrats actually have the gall to talk about the issue of affordability after 4 years of failure: 9 percent inflation, higher interest rates, just challenges across the board for everyday Americans.
I think one of the reasons why our party has the majority today is simply because they failed for 4 straight years. They never cut taxes on overtime or tips, let alone Social Security. Republicans did, and we think this is going to help turn around a very challenging situation which we inherited.
I look forward to the debate over the next month in how we take down even more prices so Americans can have a more affordable life. This is the challenge of our day. I am glad that we are talking about affordability because for too long Washington, D.C., has turned its back on the issue.
Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to raise the alarm on the Republican healthcare crisis.
Speaker Johnson shut the government down for 43 days and kept the House out of session, effectively running out the clock to find solutions to address the healthcare affordability crisis created by my Republican colleagues.
Now we have just 11 session days left before recessing for the holidays, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have offered zero solutions.
At the end of the month, the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits will officially expire, leaving 24 million Americans who currently purchase healthcare on the exchange in an unimaginable position. While Mike Johnson may be sleeping soundly and enjoying the holidays with his family, millions of Americans will be up at night worrying about how they are going to pay for health insurance on top of the affordability crisis the Trump administration created with reckless policies.
My family knows what this feels like. My sister, Olivia, was born with microcephaly, which means her brain was small and the doctors didn't know why. Even with insurance provided by my dad's civilian job at the Department of Defense, Olivia wouldn't have gotten the care that she needed to live for 19 years as healthy as possible if it weren't for the Washington State Legislature expanding Medicaid the year she was born.
My family would have faced dire choices about which bills not to pay in order to meet Olivia's needs if it weren't for Medicaid access. Would we give up heating, groceries, school lunches?
Neighbors of mine in Washington's Sixth District are already sick to their stomachs, looking at their monthly costs. For example, a couple in Clallam County, ages 60 and 55, with a household income of $85,000, for them the least expensive plan available would jump from $127 per month to $1,485 per month. That is a 1,062 percent increase.
That same couple in Kitsap County, where I grew up, would go from paying $56 to almost $1,500 a month under the least expensive plan. That is an annual insurance bill of $24,000 without even having to go to the doctor for a medical emergency or routine healthcare.
I recently heard from a neighbor in Port Townsend who said: ``My husband is retiring in a few weeks.'' She retired years ago. ``So although we currently have a good benefits package through his work, we will be on our own for coverage soon. Only yesterday we learned of the substantial increase through Healthplanfinder. We have now determined that the best way to cover our upcoming healthcare costs will be for me to take my Social Security early.''
She says: ``It is upsetting to me that my Social Security will not be used for other living expenses or be as much per month as it would have if I could hold off taking it a few more years.''
She is worried in her last line about not being able to use her Social Security for other living expenses because she is going to have to use all of it for healthcare coverage.
Under this administration, costs are up across the board. Groceries are more expensive. Housing is more expensive. Childcare is more expensive. Gas prices are soaring. Today, the average price for a gallon of gas in Washington State is over $4, one of the highest in the Nation.
Healthcare costs are only one aspect of why millions of Americans are needlessly suffering under this administration. We don't have to keep living like this. It is time for my colleagues to get serious about solving the ACA tax credits, as serious as they were about extending tax breaks for billionaires in July, and get back to delivering on their promise to lower costs for Americans, which Trump promised to do on day one of his administration.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Salpointe Catholic High School's girls' flag football team for winning the 4A State championship in its first season.
On November 22, the Lancers took home the State title in a fierce match against Mesa Eastmark. Even a 2-hour weather delay couldn't stop the Lancers from taking down the number two ranked Eastmark 17-0, winning them the 4A title in the first year of the girls' flag football program. In an impressive season, they finished 16-1.
Freshman quarterback Isla Collins, who is a youth national team player for the United States, led her team with two rushing touchdowns, scoring her first at the end of the first quarter and adding her second touchdown in the middle of the fourth quarter. Additionally, junior Andie Tkalcevic added a 21-yard field goal, extending the Lancers' lead.
To Coach Barrie Pedersen, the entire team, and everyone who played a part in this successful first season, I congratulate you. There are undoubtedly many, many more to come ahead. They have made their school and our community incredibly proud.
Lancers, enjoy this victory. You earned it. Congratulations once again.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Ironwood Ridge girls' cross country team for winning the 2025 Division 2 State title. This is the fourth time that the Nighthawks have taken home a State championship title.
Senior Sorella Natale was the D-2 runner up, with a finishing time of 19:23.4, securing the Nighthawks' win. Additionally, sophomore Sophia Simmons finished in 9th place, with a time of 20:05.5. Sophomore Kylie Lederhos finished in 10th place, with a time of 20:08.9.
Congratulations to coaches Michael Smith and Bob Jones, the whole team, and everyone who made this win possible. They have made their school and our community very, very proud.
Nighthawks, enjoy this victory. You have earned it.
Congratulating Salpointe Catholic High School Girls' Volleyball Team
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Salpointe Catholic High School's girls' volleyball team for winning the 4A State championship for the first time in 5 years.
The number one ranked Lancers took home the 4A conference State title against the number three ranked American Leadership Academy-Queen Creek, with a score of 3-1. After a struggle to maintain the lead, they prevailed in the end, including an impressive 6-0 run in the fourth set.
Senior Kate Mobley earned the tournament's MVP title, with a powerful performance of 11 kills, 22 digs, 25 receptions, and 5 solo blocks.
On their way to the top, the team took down the number 16 Sahuarita, as well as other teams around the region and across the State.
This thrilling victory marks Salpointe's fourth State championship win and caps off an amazing season in which Salpointe Catholic went 24- 2 overall.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Coach Keith Rubio, the team, and everyone who played a part in this successful season. There are undoubtedly many more wins ahead. They have made their school and community incredibly proud. The Lancers should enjoy this victory. Once again, they have earned it, and I congratulate them.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the 28 NJROTC cadets from Cienega High School, Andrada High School, Empire High School, and Mica Mountain High School who competed at the Area 20 Stars and Stripes field meet in El Paso, Texas, under the leadership of Commander Micah Brewer.
These cadets did an amazing job and brought home a number of impressive awards. They placed number one overall, as well, for personal inspection, physical fitness team, armed drill team regulation, and unarmed drill team exhibition. They placed second for unarmed drill team regulation and color guard. They placed third for academic team and armed drill team exhibition.
Additionally, Madelyn Michael won the individual award for most sit- ups for girls, completing a total of 178.
Mr. Speaker, to these 28 cadets and all who took part in this special competition, I congratulate them. They have worked hard and made their schools and our community extremely proud. I congratulate them once again on all their wins. They are all well-earned.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to welcome the Penn State Lion Caucus to Capitol Hill.
Lion Caucus is a university-affiliated student organization connected to the Office of Government and Community Relations. Lion Caucus promotes the official message and positive impact of Penn State University to local, State, and Federal elected officials. It also educates students about legislation and policies that impact the university and students. Each year, Lion Caucus organizes and executes Capital Day, Penn State's annual State advocacy event.
The organization also hosts seminars for students across campus, holds meetings in Harrisburg with legislators and lobbyists, and welcomes elected officials to University Park.
Lion Caucus is made up of a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students from any background or major.
As a graduate of Penn State, I am proud of these students for devoting their time and resources to educating and advocating for their fellow students, promoting civic engagement, and showcasing the Penn State community--We Are.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the life and public service of a mentor of mine and many people in California and in the bay area, and a wonderful human being, a dedicated public servant from Walnut Creek, California, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay.
Gwen Regalia began her career as a fourth grade teacher--she was a teacher all her life in many ways--before serving on the Walnut Creek School District governing board for almost a decade.
Gwen later served on the city council for 21 years and also served regionally on the Association of Bay Area Governments. She had five terms as the mayor of the city of Walnut Creek, during which time she championed the development of local institutions, like the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek and the Walnut Creek Library, two remarkable local institutions.
Sadly, Gwen passed away in November. She will be remembered for her outstanding leadership, her indelible mark that she left on Walnut Creek and the San Francisco Bay Area, the State of California, and, indeed, the United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Gwen, for her service and incredible personality.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Harbor Beach High School football team for winning the Michigan Division 8 State championship last week.
The Harbor Beach Pirates took home their second State championship in football. Never trailing in the game, they won 31-20 at Ford Field in Detroit, and, I might add, they had a perfect 14-0 season.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Coach Schelke and his talented young group of men on their incredible accomplishment at Ford Field. They have made Michigan's Ninth District proud. I really hope they cherish this memory and all of the hard work that they dedicated this season. I again congratulate the Harbor Beach Pirates.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and legacy of my dear friend, Fred Durhal, Jr. He was a former colleague and a remarkable public servant who devoted decades of his life to fighting for Detroiters.
Throughout his years in the Michigan statehouse and as the chair of the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus, Fred carried with him passion, courage, and a deep commitment to public service. He was so kindhearted.
From his advocacy for working families to his dedication to mentoring the next generation of leaders, Fred truly helped shape our communities and uplift countless lives. His impact can be seen in the people he guided, the change that he championed, and the lives he inspired.
I join our community in mourning his passing during this difficult time and send my deepest condolences to his family, his children, and all who were touched by his life.
Mr. Speaker, may his legacy continue to live in the city he loved so dearly, and may he rest in peace.
Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to recognize Army congressional fellow Captain Andrew ``Andy'' George for his service to America and the citizens of South Carolina.
Throughout his dedication to the office, Andy has been a valued team member for legislation supporting the military and veterans.
After graduating from Virginia Tech, Andy served in leadership positions within the 101st Airborne Division, including deployment to Syria with Operation Inherent Resolve. Andy later served as a special operational detachment commander for multinational exercises in Central and South America. Impressively, Andy is a White House military social aide.
The only unfortunate quality about this Massachusetts native is that he is a fan of the New England Patriots.
In conclusion, God bless our troops as the global war on terrorism continues. Trump is reinstituting peace through strength, revealing war criminal Putin lies, insulting Trump, and mocking Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow today as Putin threatens expanded war in Europe.
Mr. Speaker, Thanksgiving brought families together to enjoy delicious meals and some of us are still recovering.
There were two fortunate turkeys, one named ``Gobble,'' the other ``Waddle,'' from Travis and Amanda Pittman's farm in Wayne County, North Carolina, and they were selected for a Presidential pardon.
They went on a journey from the East to the White House. They even stayed at The Willard InterContinental hotel and now at North Carolina State University.
Although, Gobble and Waddle survived the dinner table, they shine a light on the dedication of our agriculture community and the hard work that is taking place with companies such as Butterball and the National Turkey Federation.
Farmers allow for these longstanding traditions, and we must never forget it. Let us take a moment to recognize eastern North Carolina farmers and those across our country.
Mr. Speaker, I am extremely proud to honor the Pittmans and Gobble and Waddle as they strut their stuff now with the Wolfpack.
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 916, I call up the bill (H.R. 1005) to prohibit elementary and secondary schools from accepting funds from or entering into contracts with the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 916, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the Committee on Education and Workforce, printed in the bill, is adopted, and the bill, as amended, is considered read.
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and Workforce or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) each will control 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 1005.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Michigan?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1005.
For much of the 20th century, the United States bravely confronted the threat of communism worldwide.
As the Soviet Union oppressed its own people and extended its influence abroad, countless Americans dedicated their lives to stopping the spread of repressive ideology.
In 1987, President Reagan famously called on Secretary Gorbachev to ``tear down this wall'' at the Brandenburg Gate. A few short years later, the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed, and democracy gained ground across the globe.
In the years that followed, democracy and Western values flourished, but authoritarian regimes like the Chinese Communist Party have chosen repression over freedom, indoctrinating their citizens to embrace socialism and communism, ideals fundamentally opposed to American values of liberty, freedom, and self-determination.
Now, we are seeing those same authoritarian efforts reach into our classrooms. While some are now closed, the CCP established Confucius Institutes on college campuses and Confucius classrooms in K-12 schools, funding programs with untold dollars. Marketed as cultural exchanges to teach Chinese language and culture, these classrooms are in reality beachheads in the war for young minds.
That is why I am proud to support H.R. 1005, the Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems, known as the CLASS Act, from Representative David Joyce and Representative Michael Rulli. It is an important piece of legislation requiring schools to disclose any funding or contracts received from foreign entities above a nominal threshold.
For too long, schools have allowed foreign adversaries to funnel propaganda into classrooms, propaganda that rewrites history and undermines American values. These programs are funded and directed by the CCP's propaganda arm, targeting children for indoctrination.
No lesson from an authoritarian regime comes without strings attached. The CCP seeks to shape American students' views of communism and tyranny, softening opinions toward authoritarianism, and potentially fostering replication of those same ideas here.
Already, we see these influences on college campuses. Instead of free speech and open debate, we see censorship. Instead of independent thought, we see indoctrination.
This is why we must pass the CLASS Act. Confucius classrooms and similar programs pose real risks to both national and academic security while promoting authoritarianism over freedom and democracy.
As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Greater transparency in education will reveal where school funds come from and whether foreign adversaries are exploiting financial ties to influence students.
By requiring disclosure, we protect American values, strengthen national security, and ensure our children learn what is right, not what our adversaries dictate.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1005, the Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems Act.
This bill would compel schools to implement new reporting mechanisms, monitoring procedures, and compliance structures despite the complete absence of any factual verified threats.
Under current law, K-12 schools are not required to report funding from foreign governments or contracts with foreign entities, as most school funding comes from local property taxes, State formulas, and a little bit from the Federal Government. This bill would require schools to report funding from or contracts with a foreign source.
Let's be clear. There is no evidence that K-12 schools are under any threat from misinformation or covert influence by authoritarian foreign governments in any measurable way.
If passed, school districts already facing shortages of teachers, counselors, and support staff now will have to divert critical time and resources from instruction to completing bureaucratic paperwork, like what qualifies as a foreign source and who qualifies as a foreign source. Schools have got to have professional development, so every school principal and superintendent knows exactly who needs to be reported and how.
Confucius Institutes were mentioned. We have got 15,000 school systems that will have to comply with this bill. Five Confucius Institute classrooms have been found to exist in the United States at last count. Mr. Speaker, 15,000 school systems are going to have to put up with this paperwork. This is the very definition of unfunded mandate and imposes obligations without offering the capacity or funding to meet the mandate.
Instead of strengthening our school system, it distracts from the urgent challenges our schools are facing, such as widening achievement gaps, as reflected in the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, the NAEP scores, and the growing difficulty of recruiting and retaining quality educators.
Let me underscore the broader point. My colleagues across the aisle have remained silent as the administration has dismantled or is in the process of dismantling the Department of Education, undermining its legitimacy, capacity, and effectiveness. Most recently, the administration announced plans to move six interagency agreements which would offload core functions of the Department of Education and spread them across other Federal agencies.
Yet this bill assigns additional responsibilities to what is left of the Department of Education. It simply doesn't add up. Who will be left in the Department of Education to enforce these mandates?
For these reasons, H.R. 1005 does nothing to improve our schools and everything to bog down schools in administrative red tape. I strongly recommend a ``no'' vote.
Mr. Speaker, I inform the chairman that I have no additional speakers. I reserve the balance of my time until closing.
Mr. Speaker, especially after last weekend, I take a second to thank the chairman for his comments.
Mr. Speaker, the CLASS Act prohibits K-12 schools from accepting funds or contracting with the People's Republic of China or the CCP. Let's just let that sink in for a second. My
It will also prohibit any person or entity acting on behalf of other such governments or parties. It also requires K-12 schools to submit a report to the Secretary of Education with the name and country of origin, the amount of funds that are being put into our public schools, and any terms of that contract.
The CCP is anti-American to its core. We stand for freedom of speech, expression, and religion. They stand for none of our values. Confucius classrooms are propaganda, and they are often set up near our military bases, just to give it another layer.
There are CCP and Chinese affiliations in 143 schools throughout this country. Honorable Speaker, I was shocked myself to realize that one of them sits right outside our capital city of Columbus, Ohio. This is unacceptable.
They could be coming to a school near you very soon. That is why I urge a ``yes'' vote from all my colleagues, especially from the other side of the aisle. We do not want them to be labeled as pro-Chinese, but as pro-American.
This is not going to have a lot of cost that will be put onto a school district. I was a school board member. This bill contains very, very few requirements to actually log in and say where this money is coming from.
I urge a ``yes'' vote today on H.R. 1005, otherwise known as the CLASS Act.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Joyce), the bill's sponsor. As a Member coming from the Wolverine State, I congratulate him on Saturday's victory.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague from the State of Michigan for yielding. He certainly is a class act.
I am proud to join my friend Representative Rulli in supporting this effort to protect our children and national security from dangerous foreign actors.
For years, China has been attempting to exert soft power over our country by forging ties with American schools and universities. In an attempt to influence our future generation, the People's Republic of China has been establishing Confucius classrooms in our K-12 public schools. Styled as language and cultural programs, these classes and their teachers are funded and vetted by the Chinese Government, a fact that is rarely disclosed to the parents.
A report from Parents Defending Education revealed that over 140 K-12 schools across the country had contracts with a Chinese Government entity. Attached to these contracts are a variety of incentives, including fully funded teacher exchanges, Chinese language programs, and opportunities for American students to learn in China.
However, this funding comes with strings attached. These teachers could also be terminated if the CCP deems that they violate Chinese laws or go against the national interest of China.
The CLASS Act combats this foreign interference by preventing our public schools from accepting these funds. It also ensures that the Department of Education will be notified of these contracts.
As China seeks greater influence in education across the globe, we should take commonsense steps to protect our children and maintain the integrity of the U.S. system of schools.
These Confucius classrooms are just another example of the CCP trying to exert influence outside their borders. The fact that they are targeting our kids should be a significant cause for concern.
That is why I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and demonstrate that Congress will always fight to protect our children and national security.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is not limited to China. This bill says ``foreign source,'' and under the definition of foreign source, it includes any individual who is not a U.S. citizen or national of the United States, so if you have a plumbing contract over $10,000, you have got to check out the owner of the plumbing company's citizenship to know whether you have to document and report the contract.
Every one of the 15,000 school systems, every school, every contract over $10,000, you have got to report, and you have to ascertain the citizenship of who you are contracting with. I don't know how you do that. If you order something over the internet, you have got to check out somebody's citizenship. I don't know how you comply, but that is just a little gap in the bill.
Every school system, every school would have to comply with this. It is just not China. It is any person who is not a citizen or national of the United States.
Mr. Speaker, there is actually no credible evidence that this bill is even needed. We are under no threat of misinformation or covert influence by authoritarian foreign governments.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill. This bill does nothing to improve our schools, close the achievement gaps, or increase teacher pay. It burdens schools with bureaucratic red tape due to imagined covert influence from foreign governments.
It is so broad that it covers every contract over $10,000. If we don't know the citizenship of the other side, I don't know how we find out the citizenship of the other side.
We have real issues that we need to address, and we should address those issues. For those reasons, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1005, the CLASS Act, is a critical step in limiting foreign influence in our classrooms. Too often, foreign funding comes with strings attached--maybe in every case--especially when those dollars come from adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party.
Students deserve strong education without indoctrination. I would hope my esteemed colleagues on the other side of the aisle would agree with me on that. Cultural exchange is valuable, but it should never mean sitting through lessons created by the CCP propagandists attempting to rewrite history and change our minds.
Our classrooms are becoming front lines in a battle of ideas, and the CLASS Act provides the transparency needed to protect our students and uphold American values. Students deserve better than indoctrination. That is why we must pass the CLASS Act, send it to the Senate, and, ultimately, to the President's desk, defending both our children and our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, Representatives Joyce and Rulli, for their clear-eyed attention to this important and credible concern, and I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 916, the previous question is ordered on the bill, as amended.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. Speaker, Pursuant to House Resolution 916, I call up the bill (H.R. 1049) to ensure that parents are aware of foreign influence in their child's public school, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 916, the
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and Workforce or their respective designees.
The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) each will control 30 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1049.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Michigan?
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1049.
We need greater transparency in American education. In recent years, foreign governments have increasingly sought to influence our K-12 schools. It is not for their stated purpose of cultural exchanges or diplomacy, but to push propaganda.
The Chinese Communist Party, for example, has spent untold sums across hundreds of schools to indoctrinate or influence thousands of children. These so-called little red classrooms were sold as opportunities to teach Chinese language and culture. In reality, they required teachers to omit discussion of human rights abuses, present the CCP in a positive light, and rabidly celebrate the regime.
Students in these classrooms rarely learn about events such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or the ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims. Students don't learn about these despicable crimes because the CCP doesn't want them to. This one-sided approach extends beyond K-12 classrooms.
While the CCP operates programs in U.S. schools, American educators are not allowed to expose Chinese students to American culture. The goal is clear. The Chinese Communist Party wants to control information and shape young minds.
Over nearly two decades, the CCP has demonstrated a persistent effort to influence the minds of our children. According to a 2020 State Department report, many of these classrooms are funded and operated, in part, by the CCP's United Front Work Department, a known overseas propaganda and influence operation.
Foreign experience in our schools threatens not only student learning but also our national security. H.R. 1049, the Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act, or the TRACE Act, by Representatives Aaron Bean and Ryan Mackenzie, addresses this problem by giving parents the right to review course materials funded or provided by foreign governments and entities of concern.
Students perform better when parents are involved in their education. Yet, in recent years, parents have often been silenced or forced to navigate bureaucratic hurdles just to understand what their children are learning.
The TRACE Act ensures transparency, strengthens parental rights, and protects students from foreign indoctrination. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and defend the role of families in safeguarding our children's education.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 1049, the Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act, the TRACE Act. This bill suffers from many of the same shortcomings in the earlier bill we just discussed. This bill, H.R. 1049, would require schools to allow parents to access certain information if it was paid for by a foreign entity of concern. It doesn't say ``China.'' It says ``foreign entity of concern.''
This includes all teachers' and administrators' professional development material and salary information, as well as the school districts' contracts and records for all materials purchased from or paid for by a foreign entity of concern. While this is not currently required by law, parents now already have access to their children's records, including their curriculum, under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, or PPRA.
It is worth noting that there is no evidence that foreign entities of concern are contributing to public schools at any scale. We have already noted that there are five Confucius Institutes throughout the United States, throughout 15,000 school systems.
H.R. 1049 would impose new layers of reporting, auditing, and bureaucracy on every school district in the Nation. Yet, once again, this is without allocating a single dollar to support these added responsibilities.
For years, my Republican colleagues have warned against unfunded mandates. They have rightly criticized Federal actions that impose requirements on States and local communities that cannot afford to implement those policies.
Yet, H.R. 1049 is precisely that, another unfunded mandate wrapped around rhetoric but lacking in substance. At a time when our schools need smaller class sizes, they need to pay teachers more, and they need more academic support for students, the last thing they need is a new stack of new Federal compliance paperwork.
That would include the professional development to inform every school official what a foreign entity of concern is and where they can get the most recent list.
Let me underscore the broader point though. At the same time as congressional Republicans are creating additional bureaucratic hurdles for K-12, the Trump administration is actively dismantling the Department of Education.
Who is going to enforce these mandates anyway?
I challenge my colleagues, many of whom privately acknowledge that abolishing the Department of Education is a mistake, to actually oppose those actions publicly. Our schools need stability and support, not disarray and mixed messages.
Mr. Speaker, again, I oppose the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I would remind my friend and colleague from Virginia that the U.S. Department of Education has been in place while our concerns with foreign influence have been developed and, ultimately, caused the concerns that we address today. We believe that what is being done with reshaping how we deal from the Federal level with our local community schools will, in fact, be more conducive to the ability for them to deal with key issues of concern such as national security when we see that as necessary.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bean), who is a world-class auctioneer and who is unwilling to auction off our children's future to any malign actor.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Walberg for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, we have all heard the saying: There is no such thing as a free lunch. It turns out mom and dad were right. Everything comes at a price, and nothing is free.
Every dollar that flows into American classrooms from foreign countries comes with strings attached. This is particularly true for China, whose strategy is to gain a foothold in America's educational system to steal personal data and to manipulate the material children are being taught.
Millions of dollars of Chinese funds have flowed into America's K-12 classrooms where students are subject to Chinese Communist Party propaganda under the guise of Chinese language and culture programming.
In fact, a recent Parents Defending Education investigation found that 143 schools across 34 States hosted a Confucius classroom or otherwise had ties to the Chinese Communist Party. But wait, Mr. Speaker, there is more. Disturbingly, the same investigation found that the CCP specifically targets schools around 20 U.S. military bases.
China is not the only country making sizeable investments in K-12 classrooms across the country. The Qatar Foundation allocated $30.6 million to various schools around the Nation.
What did they get, Mr. Speaker?
What do you get for $30 million invested in our schools?
It is a clear act of anti-Semitism. Classroom maps where they funded omitted Israel and instead labeled it Palestine. Following a congressional hearing last year, New York Public Schools acknowledged receiving large donations from Italy and South Korea. These blatant attempts to inject foreign ideologies into our schools undermines the fundamental purpose of American education. It goes without saying that we should be teaching American values in American schools.
This is what happens when institutions of learning accept the Trojan horse of foreign funding. It shouldn't take an act of Congress or a congressional investigation hearing for parents to know who is funding their schools.
My bill, H.R. 1049, the Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act, or let's just call it the TRACE Act, solidifies the rights of parents to know how foreign influence may be impacting their child's classroom and stops foreign nations from reaching America's youth.
Specifically, the TRACE Act requires that as a condition of receiving Federal funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, public schools would be required to provide each parent the right to review any curricular material provided or purchased with funds from a foreign government or foreign entity of concern.
The bill also guarantees parents the right to know how many personnel at their child's school are being compensated by foreign sources or any donation of foreign transactions between the school and a foreign entity.
The dangers of foreign influence in American K-12 schools cannot be overstated. They threaten our national security, compromise our geopolitical interests, and erode our academic freedom.
American schools are not for sale, and they are for education, not espionage. We cannot allow our students, the future of our great Nation, to be corrupted by foreign adversaries who are systematically and aggressively attempting to influence our Nation's K-12 schools.
Chairman Walberg has been a warrior on this issue to make sure that American schools remain American. I thank Congressman Mackenzie for his partnership on this legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 1049, the Transparency in Reporting of Adversarial Contributions to Education Act, and let's give parents the right to know just who is funding their kids' school.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, again, I thank Representative Bean for introducing this important legislation. Again, anytime we have legislation that makes a foundational principle, an actual fact, that we support parents having transparency about what is going on in their schools, for anything, it is important as a discussion and ultimately important to make sure in law that is put into motion in every way possible.
It is also a fact that we look at the malign influence that comes from the CCP, yes, but there are other entities equally determined to undermine America, and they are starting in its educational system. Because if you control the minds of young people and you shape their teachers even before that, so when they enter the classroom, even if it isn't a Confucius classroom, those teachers have been impacted in what they point out about some of these malign actors in the world, even if it puts down some of their concerns, is a problem for the United States.
If there is complete transparency, where we talk about all of the entities with truth, then that is fine. That is America. We can take it, having our students know about the Chinese Communist Party and how they have taken Uyghur Muslims and committed genocide on them for years. If we can talk about the Tiananmen Square massacre that went on, that is not a problem. However, that is not what these malign actors want. They want to cover that over.
Mr. Speaker, there is significant evidence of ongoing threats to U.S. schools from malign actors. They may change names and they may change approaches, but they are there. We wouldn't have seen the type of demonstrations and attacks on our Jewish students on college campuses all over this country if there weren't malign actors changing the focus of our students' minds on key issues.
China strategically deployed and expanded their Confucius classrooms rapidly going from only a few in 2008 to over 1,000 worldwide by 2019. More than 500 American K-12 schools have hosted Confucius classrooms. A 2023 Defending Education report identified 143 schools across 34 States with Chinese ties, with at least 7 still active as of this publication.
The report also found that many of these schools are located near military bases.
My Democrat colleagues are correct that the known number of Confucius classrooms has declined after attention from media and advocacy groups increased, including from Congress, but that doesn't prove the CCP threat is gone.
There are 500 Chinese Communist Party-affiliated Chinese nationals--I say ``affiliated'' because they are required when coming over to work in a new production center in my district that will be opened up very soon by a major corporation. These 500 employees have signed a contractual agreement with the Chinese Communist Party to provide any information back to China that they come up with. Who knows what type of influence will take place within 15 minutes of a National Guard base and a key drone wing of the United States military.
These are concerns that we ought to have, but this doesn't prove that we have done enough yet. I think what we have seen causes us to be concerned about what is taking place. It may be that the CCP has found more covert ways to influence our schools. Schools may still be making contracts with CCP entities. If not, great. We will find that out, just without easily identifiable keywords such as ``Confucius,'' but what else will take place. That is why we need these bills.
Under these bills, schools must avoid contracting with the CCP or its agents. Schools must report gifts from or contracts with foreign governments, and resources must be available for parents to review.
We know this can go on right now. We know contracts are undertaken with all of our school districts now. We know that the lawyers on staff have means by which to make sure that the appropriate t's are crossed and i's are dotted. They can follow the law. We must do that.
Advocacy groups, such as Defending Education, have done tremendous work to ensure we know about the CCP's influence, but it shouldn't take a third-party nonprofit to tell us who is teaching our children.
The CCP remains a threat to American interests. I have no doubt that they would still like to indoctrinate American children and teachers, and that is why we must be vigilant and pass these bills.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Moolenaar), who is also the chairman of the Select Committee on the CCP.
China is our Nation's greatest adversary, and it seeks to harm our country on a daily basis. It thrives in the shadows. It uses fentanyl precursors, predatory trade practices, and cyberattacks to hurt us.
China also uses informational warfare, and it would love to influence what American students learn in classrooms, from kindergarten through college.
The CCP uses our free and open society against us, bankrolling civil organizations with nice-sounding names to sponsor exchange programs and curriculums that hide the truth about China.
Earlier this year, my committee highlighted how Montgomery County in Maryland has sent 31 students to China on a trip paid for by the People's Republic of China. That is just one example of why the legislation the House is considering this week is urgently needed.
The CCP does not want Americans to learn about the horrific Cultural Revolution in their history classes. It does not want young Americans to know that it slaughtered innocent students at Tiananmen Square, nor does it want students to learn about the CCP's ongoing Uyghur genocide and the slave labor that affects the supply chains of clothes and other products they use every day.
Parents may think the Chinese Communist Party isn't interested in what their kids are learning, but the CCP wants to influence every American.
These bills will empower parents, protect students from Chinese propaganda, and shine a light on how China tries to influence our education system.
I thank my colleagues for their work on this legislation and my good friend Chairman Walberg from Michigan for moving the bills through the committee and bringing them to the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for the bills.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, if there was real evidence of influence, I think we would have heard specifically what that evidence is. We haven't.
My colleagues keep talking about China, about the Confucius Institute. At last count, there were only five active programs in 15,000 school divisions. There used to be more. There are only about five now.
This bill is going to be hard to manage. It is difficult, if not impossible, to easily access the most recent list of foreign entities of concern.
As we have pointed out, this bill doesn't talk about China. It talks about foreign entities of concern. That list can change without notice. In fact, the most recent list from the Department of State has 91 listings, 12 added since Labor Day of this year. Good luck to those 15,000 superintendents who have to keep up with that list, with the added problem that the Departments of Energy and the Treasury also keep separate lists. Those 15,000 superintendents have to keep up with those lists, too.
At its core, this is just another unfunded mandate, where you have to train 15,000 superintendents and unlimited numbers of principals so they will know what a foreign entity of concern is and how to deal with it with this new legislation. It burdens our already overstretched schools with new reporting requirements, new paperwork, and new bureaucratic hurdles, all without adding a single dollar to help them meet their obligations. Our educators deserve meaningful support, not legislative gestures that create more problems than they solve.
For these reasons, I will be voting ``no'' and urge my colleagues to reject this measure and refocus our efforts on policies that will actually strengthen our public schools.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
H.R. 1049, the TRACE Act, sends a clear message: Parents have a right to know what their children are learning, especially when curricula are funded by authoritarian regimes.
Foreign influence in classrooms not only undermines our cherished American values but also our national security. The TRACE Act allows parents to review foreign-funded materials and raise concerns when needed. Concerned parents should not be labeled as terrorists, domestic or otherwise, or treated like criminals when they stand up for their children.
By empowering parents, we strengthen student outcomes and protect our schools, which should be in the business of public service to our homes, our families, our children, and our parents.
I urge my colleagues to support the TRACE Act and stand with families in defending the integrity of American education from foreign tyranny.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 916, the previous question is ordered on the bill, as amended.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the bill (H.R. 2965) to require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to ensure that the small business regulatory budget for a small business concern in a fiscal year is not greater than zero, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 223, nays 190, not voting 19, as follows:
Ms. DeGETTE changed her vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Destroying Unnecessary, Misaligned, and Prohibitive Red Tape Act
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the bill (H.R. 4305) to direct the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration to establish a Red Tape Hotline to receive notifications of burdensome agency rules, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
This is a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 269, nays 146, not voting 17, as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. There are 2 minutes remaining.
So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
Combating the Lies of Authoritarians in School Systems Act
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, the unfinished business is the vote on passage of the bill (H.R. 1005) to prohibit elementary and secondary schools from accepting funds from or entering into contracts with the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, and for other purposes, on which the yeas and nays were ordered.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
This is a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 242, nays 176, not voting 14, as follows:
The SPEAKER pro tempore. There are 2 minutes remaining.
So the bill was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The title of the bill was amended so as to read: ``A bill to require public elementary and secondary schools to disclose certain funds received from, or contracts with, a foreign source, and for other purposes.''.
Mr. Speaker, due to an official engagement, I was unable to vote on H.R. 2965, H.R. 4305, and H.R. 1005. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 310, YEA on Roll Call No. 311, and YEA on Roll Call No. 312.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize and congratulate the West De Pere Phantoms football team for winning the WIAA Division 2 High School State Championship.
Following an impressive regular season and dominant performance in the playoffs, the West De Pere Phantoms traveled to Camp Randall Stadium in Madison to compete in the 2025 WIAA Division 2 State Football Championship.
In a hard-fought matchup, the West De Pere team won its third State title in program history. The Phantoms' defense held their opponent to zero points in the second half, and the offense broke records on the way to a 28-14 victory.
I commend the coaching staff and the entire Phantoms team for their hard work and dedication that led to this unforgettable season.
I also want to give a special shoutout to the father-son duo of West De Pere Head Coach Chris Greisen and all-star quarterback Patrick Greisen, who set the Division 2 record for total passing yards in a championship game, an extraordinary achievement on an already memorable day.
Mr. Speaker, I once again congratulate the team on this accomplishment, and I look forward to seeing many more championship wins in their future. I am proud to recognize this talented team, and I urge my colleagues to join me in applauding their outstanding season.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Minneapolis Fire Chief Bryan Tyner for over 30 years of selfless, heroic, and dedicated service to our city.
Serving as the second Black chief in the department's history, Fire Chief Tyner led Minneapolis Fire through some of the city's most significant public safety challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout his tenure, he has worked tirelessly to advocate for the department's health and safety initiatives, improve operations, and promote inclusion within the ranks. At the end of this year, the chief will be transitioning into a new role, continuing his devoted service to our city as executive director of the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center.
It has been an honor to work alongside such a dedicated public servant, and I am incredibly grateful for his work keeping our community safe.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize a fellow Hoosier and Purdue University engineer, Mr. Yuri Kubo. Yuri is a native of Columbus, Indiana, back in my district. He was recently selected as one of just 10 candidates from a field of 8,000 to join NASA's next astronaut program. That is rarefied air by any measure.
Over the next 2 years, Yuri and an elite cohort will train at NASA Johnson Space Center down in Houston as they prepare for missions to the International Space Station, the Moon, and whatever comes next. Yuri reflects the kind of scientific talent that Indiana grows.
Purdue, my own alma mater, has long been a launchpad for many of America's sharpest engineers and explorers, and he is rocketing that tradition forward. We are filled with Hoosier pride back home to see Yuri representing our State on a stage that is literally out of this world.
Mr. Speaker, citizens nationwide and across our district are pushing back on AI data centers. They are concerned these facilities demand massive amounts of energy and water, driving up rising regional utility costs even more.
How much more will our citizens be forced to pay for power and water? They have a right to know.
Will our building trades be true partners in economic growth or just temporary labor, while facing higher utility bills at home?
How many permanent jobs will these largely opaque facilities actually provide? Exactly which out-of-town interests will get the profits if these firms succeed?
Residents across our region complain State and local approvals are moving too quickly. In Ohio, the crooked PUCO and Ohio's Legislature have granted giant tax breaks to data centers, while local township officials remain in the dark about details. That is not fair.
Ohioans know what secrecy and inside deals bring. FirstEnergy scandals led to indictments, prison terms, and even suicides. Ohio Statehouse corruption rewards big business and harms the public. The American people deserve to know how AI data centers will affect their communities. Public hearings must be more robust and factual, not merely road shows by proponents.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a rising tradition out of the University of Georgia. It is The Fight Against Suicide. Born out of a student movement, this charity boxing event was created to spread mental health awareness, particularly among young men.
What began in Athens now spans across eight universities with the proceeds benefiting the Sam Asbury Foundation in Atlanta Georgia, and other local charities.
Sam Asbury was a proud graduate of the University of Georgia and a diehard Bulldog. He lit up every room with his smile and unique sense of humor. No one knew of the pain and battles he faced daily. Tragically, in 2020, Sam lost his silent struggle. His story is a
On December 3, 2025, on Page H5013, in the third column, the following appeared: faced daily. Tragically, in 2021, Sam lost his silent struggle. His story is a
The online version has been corrected to read: faced daily. Tragically, in 2020, Sam lost his silent struggle. His story is a
Mr. Speaker, I thank the students at the University of Georgia for their leadership in suicide prevention and for starting conversations that can save lives.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize two members of the Westchester County Board of Legislators who will each leave office at month's ends, as they have completed 12 years in their positions and have reached their term limit. They are the Honorable Ben Boykin of White Plains and the Honorable Catherine Parker of Rye. They have provided exemplary service to their districts and beyond and to all the residents of Westchester County.
Ben Boykin is a financial professional who previously served on the White Plains school board. He has also served as councilman and president of the White Plains Common Council. Since 2014, he has served as the legislator for the 5th County Legislative District of White Plains, Scarsdale, and West Harrison. He served two terms as chair of the county board, as well as chair of important committees, and more recently as president of the New York State Association of Counties.
Catherine Parker has owned her own retail business on Purchase Street in Rye, served as leader of her co-op apartment board, and served for 6 years as Rye City councilwoman. She was a majority leader of the board of legislators and has been the author of major environmental legislation. She represents the 7th District, which includes Rye, Mamaroneck, Larchmont, and part of Harrison.
Both Ben and Catherine will bring their public service skills to new challenges, but we salute them for their legislative accomplishments on the Westchester County Board of Legislators.
Mr. Speaker, Anderson County is facing a heartbreaking reality. They have experienced 55 suicide deaths this year alone, the highest number ever recorded.
Mr. Speaker, 55 families are shattered; and a community is left grieving. The pain reaches across South Carolina's Third District and across America.
Having counseled hundreds of patients and as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, I have seen what suffering looks like when it hides behind a smile. We often notice the physical scars, but we miss the wounds below the surface, the inward scars, the ones that ache in silence. We don't like asking the hard question: Are you thinking about ending your life? We have to, though.
I ran on the promise to help heal our Nation, and that healing starts with the unshakeable belief that every single life and every soul is created by God and with a purpose.
Mr. Speaker, if someone is hurting right now, I ask them to please reach out. They are not alone. They are seen. They are loved. They are worth it.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order hour.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Illinois?
Mr. Speaker, as a Chicagoan, I know firsthand the terror that Trump's mass deportation agenda and the Department of Homeland Security's immigration raids are having on our communities.
My constituents have been surveilled, threatened, teargassed, hit with pepper balls, and shot. They have been subjected to warrantless arrests, rammed with Department of Homeland Security vehicles, kidnapped, and disappeared. People keep asking us why DHS agents are allowed to behave this way. Why isn't Congress doing something about it?
Let me start by saying that DHS was intentionally established with an overbroad mission and, some would argue, unchecked power. Yet, Republicans have expanded that power with a blank check and unlimited personnel.
With his authoritarian tendencies, his power grabs, his overreach, and his willingness to shamelessly use DHS as his own terror force, Trump is only making visible what so many communities have already known to be true: Terrorizing is the point. Violating our rights is the point. Fear is the point.
Creating a public enemy is meant to convince Americans to sacrifice our freedoms for the promise of security. Let me be very clear. Nothing that the Department of Homeland Security is doing is making us any safer.
In this moment, under Secretary Noem and under Donald Trump, DHS has become the single greatest threat to public safety. DHS agents used chemical weapons on protesters and bystanders at least 49 times across 18 incidents in Chicago and the suburbs since October 1. Bovino and CBP agents are violating court injunctions and agency rules. They are lying in court about incidents where civilians have been put in danger.
The government alleges that Marimar Martinez used her car to assault and impede Federal law enforcement, but then, Federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss their own case.
Why?
It is because while she didn't assault the agents, they did shoot her five times, and then they went on and bragged about it.
You see, Mr. Speaker, President Trump and DHS are lying. They are acting with impunity. They are rejecting checks and balances, and they are ignoring Congress and the courts.
Here is my question to this House: If DHS cannot be held accountable, if we are obstructed from conducting oversight, and if they are systematically undermining our civil rights and perpetrating violence in our communities, then what, in fact, is Congress' responsibility?
You see, Mr. Speaker, the answer is clear. We must strip away every tool they are using to terrorize us, starting with the taxpayer dollars that they are using to harm Americans.
Today, in our Special Order hour, I am going to be yielding to my colleagues who will highlight stories of victims of Trump's enforcement overreach, discuss our ongoing work to hold the administration accountable, and uplift how we are pushing back against the abuses of this President, Secretary Noem, and of the entire administration.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington State (Ms. Jayapal).
Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Ramirez for her incredible leadership on this issue and so many others. I thank the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the Special Order hour and the Hispanic Caucus for all the work that has been happening at this very, very serious moment in time.
I stand here as the top Democrat on the Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement Subcommittee on the Judiciary Committee. I have been conducting shadow hearings both here in D.C. and across the country.
In October, we had a shadow hearing in Chicago, Illinois, in the gentlewoman's home State. I really appreciate all the work she did to help us facilitate that. We had 18 Members of Congress from all over the country come to that shadow hearing, and it was the largest act of congressional immigration oversight since Donald Trump took office.
What we heard was alarming, and I have worked in this space for a very
We heard from an Active-Duty servicemember, someone who has put his life on the line for this country, who was heartbroken because he had to fly back to this country because his father had been deported and was gone before he even got back from his deployment. He said: I have put my life on the line for this country, and my father who has done nothing wrong was deported.
It was outrageous.
On Halloween weekend alone, Bovino deployed tear gas in a residential neighborhood as children were gathering for a Halloween parade. Border Patrol agents dragged a 67-year-old U.S. citizen from his car, breaking six of his ribs, while children in Halloween costumes watched in horror.
What was his crime?
Turning down a street to get home. That is what he did.
Bovino then went south to Charlotte, North Carolina, to continue his reign of terror. Masked agents raided a church. Charlotte-Mecklenburg school records show that over 27,000 students were absent the first school day following Border Patrol's arrival in the city. One U.S. citizen reported Border Patrol tried to arrest him twice within 5 minutes.
In my home State of Washington, we have seen green card holders taken, people who have lived in the United States for decades with deep roots in our communities and U.S. citizen family members. In Issaquah, Washington, agents kidnapped a mother outside her child's preschool and quickly deported her. This is not unique. Since Trump rescinded the practice of avoiding enforcement actions at sensitive locations, we have seen a daycare worker snatched in front of children in Chicago and a father arrested outside his child's preschool in Oregon.
Let's not forget that many care workers are immigrants. Among early educators, 26 percent, close to one-half million people, are immigrants. Many are being forced out of their jobs, whether it is through Trump's mass forced layoffs when he has abruptly cancelled entire categories of legal statuses or workers forced to step back from care work after a loved one's detention and deportation.
Trump's assault on our communities is not possible without the U.S. immigration incarceration system. Since Donald Trump took office, people in detention have skyrocketed to unprecedented levels with over 66,000 people incarcerated in immigration facilities. ICE plans to increase its capacity to detain an average of 107,000 people by the end of the year using $45 billion that was in the Republicans' big, bad betrayal bill.
How did Republicans finance that unprecedented spending?
They did it by stealing healthcare from 16 million Americans.
This is cruel and unnecessary. First, let's be clear that immigration is a civil matter, not a criminal matter. People are held pending immigration proceedings, and ICE itself has said that detention is not supposed to be punitive. ICE's own numbers show that 73 percent of those who have been detained have no criminal record and the vast majority of the remaining 27 percent have minor convictions, like traffic violations.
People are detained in horrific conditions. Facilities are overcrowded, and people are sleeping on the ground next to toilets. Folks are denied medical care. If the private prison companies running the facilities provide any protein in meals, it is often undercooked and, yes, sometimes bloody. Dinner is often served after midnight.
So it is no surprise that these conditions are so poor because about 90 percent of people who are imprisoned are imprisoned in for-profit facilities which have a record of cutting corners on essential services to reap profits. Trump has decimated oversight, including by illegally blocking Members of Congress from doing unannounced inspections.
That is why today, with Representative Ramirez and 124 Members as original cosponsors, we introduced my Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, transformative legislation that would completely overhaul the system.
What is happening is not normal. We can't allow it to continue.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Ramirez for her leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Ramirez for her leadership in this special hour, and I thank the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as well as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and all the other Members associated with this special hour.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to forcefully speak against the Trump administration's horrific ICE abuses, far beyond an overreach on the immigrant and Latino communities across the country.
Back in New York City, my community is being assaulted, and we are hearing of the fear every single day. Fear has a way of settling into communities and making sure they don't move forward. So we must break with the fear.
Just recently a video surfaced from 26 Federal Plaza in New York City that shows a distraught woman violently shoved to the ground, thrown to the ground, and slammed to the ground by an ICE officer as her young daughter tried to assist her. The woman was unarmed, nonviolent, and posed absolutely no threat to anyone.
According to a recent investigation, more than 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents in recent months. These are U.S. citizens, people who often are telling these officers that they are a U.S. citizen, and they are disregarded and pushed aside, handcuffed and detained for hours. Many reportedly have been kicked, dragged, and detained for days.
As of November 2025, ICE has detained 65,135 people, and roughly 73.6 percent of them have no criminal conviction.
Many in immigrant and Latino communities, including U.S.-born individuals, now report fear, reluctance to go to court, to public services, or even to participate in regular civic life.
The violent incident at 26 Federal Plaza is not an isolated lapse. It reflects a much broader policy of aggressiveness and unaccountable enforcement with little transparency and no due process.
We must demand accountability, transparency, and protection of civil rights to ensure enforcement respects due process and human dignity. The American people are seeing the reality of this enforcement: fear, brutality and injustice. They will not stand for it.
Mr. Speaker, I will echo again what I said in Chicago during the hearing that we had there. Masked agents, without a first name and a last name, without a shield number, anonymous masked ICE agents, patrolling our streets, pushing people up against a wall, slamming to the ground a sitting U.S. Senator for the State of California, Senator Padilla, slamming a woman to the ground at 26 Federal Plaza in front of her young girl, not representing or respecting sensitive locations like places of worship, houses of worship--this is the State of America today.
This is the Trump dictatorship. It is not tomorrow. It is not next week, next month, or next year. It is happening right now. These are the characteristics of a dictatorship, and we must do everything we can to save our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose the Trump administration's outrageous overreach on immigration that is tearing families apart in my district and around the country.
Since taking office, Trump has declared war on our communities. Masked ICE and CBP thugs--I call them thugs because they don't identify themselves. In our State, police officers, law enforcement, always identify themselves. They have detained parents on their way to work. They have kidnapped U.S. citizens. They have tear-gassed people, including children. They have deployed the National Guard to our cities and terrorized hardworking immigrants who are following the rules, all without warning, charges, or due process.
This administration is abusing its power to trample on the Constitution and our civil rights. Federal agents have shot two of my constituents, one fatally. In the other, when they brought about charges, the case fell apart and the charges were dropped. That case was alluded to earlier in this presentation.
When agents show up in schools, hospitals, or factories without clear authority or regard for court orders, they send a message to everyone that their rights are conditional.
When agents run into a daycare center and drag out a teacher in front of the children and parents, they are not following the law. They are using gestapo tactics.
None of this is about public safety. More than 4,000 people have been arrested by Federal agents in Chicago, but only about 3 percent have any type of criminal records.
When the government goes after people just because of the color of their skin or the jobs that they hold, they are not going after criminals. They are clearly using racial profiling to meet the arbitrary detention quotas they have been given.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus are standing up for the people. We are calling for transparency, tracking every incident, and working on laws to curb unchecked power and to restore our constitutional rights.
In the Fourth District and across the country, every family deserves to feel safe and respected, knowing that their government is there to protect their rights and uphold the law. We intend to hold this administration accountable when they don't, every single time.
Mr. Speaker, I represent California's Central Coast where close to half of our residents are Latino and where farmworkers are essential pillars of our community.
Since Trump's return to the White House, our community has experienced an unprecedented level of chaos, fear from ICE raids, and family separations. I witnessed one of these raids myself in Carpinteria, California, where ICE agents unleashed a disproportionate show of force.
What I saw was completely unacceptable, masked ICE agents in military gear firing tear gas and other projectiles into a crowd of peaceful civilians and reporters. Even a child was injured by shrapnel.
Upon seeing these violent tactics, I demanded to speak to the person in charge, but I was denied.
As the elected Representative of the Central Coast, I have a duty to respond to my constituents and demand accountability for ICE's actions that day.
Sadly, this has not been an isolated incident. Throughout the year, ICE has carried out aggressive, indiscriminate, and often unjustified operations across our country, actions that erode our freedom and undermine our civil rights and public trust in government.
ICE claims they need to be aggressive to keep us safe, but how does harassing law-abiding farmworkers, families, and children make anyone safer?
While I agree our immigration system is broken, cruelty is not the solution. Harassment is not reform.
We must continue to shine a light on the Trump administration's abuses. We must enact legislation that holds ICE accountable and builds a fair immigration system.
At the end of the day, this is about who we are as a Nation. True reform is possible, and I will keep fighting to make it happen.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to call out the inhumane treatment of immigrants and people living on American soil.
Individuals are missing from work, children are skipping school, and people are too afraid to leave their own homes because Trump has ordered his administration to arrest immigrants at any cost.
This manufactured chaos has resulted in ICE vigilantes arresting U.S. citizens, even children. My own constituents have had to endure this horrific trauma across Oregon's Willamette Valley.
Last week, I visited the Tacoma, Washington, ICE detention facility to visit constituents and to conduct oversight. I wanted the opportunity to see for myself the facility, to understand what my constituents are being put through. I gave ICE their 7-day notice of my arrival, as they had requested, but I knew I would get a sanitized version of the privatized prison I would be shown. But the alternative would be to drive 3 hours, and then they would turn me away. The goal was to meet with my constituents and their attorney and get a tour of the facility.
When I asked about the detainees not being able to access medication, facility officials told me that detainees often lie about the lack of access to medical care. They claimed anyone could get access to the medical care that they need.
However, I know at least one of my constituents who was detained and was not able to access the heart medication he needed. He went 2 weeks without his lifesaving heart medicine.
Why would anybody lie about that, their heart medicine? He had no reason to lie. But he did get it 2 weeks later when he was sent down to Texas.
When I asked about the tuberculosis outbreak in the Alaska detention facility, ICE claimed the news reports got it wrong. I questioned if similar outbreaks happened in the Tacoma facility, and, again, was told flatout lies. The attorney I spoke to afterward told me, yes, there were outbreaks in the Tacoma facility.
When I asked about detainees not being able to access their attorneys, facility officials told me, oh, there are tablets that they can access and there are lots of rooms.
When I was supposed to meet with my constituents on that same day, I was refused access to my own constituents and so was their attorney.
Even with a full 7-day notice, the Tacoma ICE detention facility, the Department of Homeland Security, and the GEO Group couldn't get their story straight. They raised more questions than they could answer. The questions that they did answer were lies, half-truths, and misleading at best.
We should all be holding ICE, Homeland Security, and this administration accountable. It may start at our local or regional detention facilities, but it does not stop there.
We must hold Tom Homan, Kristi Noem, and Donald Trump accountable. They must tell me why a 17-year-old U.S. citizen was arrested, traumatized, and suffered shards of glass in his eye when an ICE vigilante smashed in his driver's side window and arrested him, detained him first, and asked questions later.
This is not justice. This is terror, but I have a voice. I have a voice for the people in my district. I have a voice for those who still believe that the United States is the land of opportunity, just as the Salinas family did in 1945.
I will continue to conduct oversight and publicize the horrific acts of ICE. They cannot continue to operate in the shadows. We must all continue to speak out and hold those who have raised their hands and pledged their oath to the Constitution accountable, but they are failing miserably today.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, my community of Charlotte was under siege by the Department of Homeland Security's campaign of terror last month. They called it Operation Charlotte's Web.
Border Patrol agents engaged in extreme racial profiling, excessive force, and brutal tactics, spreading fear in our community.
It was fear that shattered the car window of a U.S. citizen born in Honduras. He was thrown on the glass-covered ground in handcuffs after he already identified himself to agents.
It was fear when more than 30,000 Charlotte-Mecklenburg students, 21 percent of the student body, were absent from school on the Monday after the raids began because parents were terrified that their children would be victims of CBP's brutality.
It was fear as businesses shuttered their doors to try and protect their customers and employees from being wrongfully targeted by these Federal agents.
Cruelty was the point of their operation, but Charlotte never caved in to their cruelty. Instead, citizens packed churches for training to empower themselves to respond to Border Patrol agents. Parents band together to safely get their children to school, and businessowners patrolled the streets to protect their neighbors, their customers, and their employers.
CBP's actions in Charlotte were deplorable and absolutely unacceptable. I have already reached out to DHS and demanded transparency on exactly what Border Patrol was doing in Charlotte. I am still waiting for answers to my questions.
Make no mistake about it. My constituents want answers. I do, too. They deserve the answers, and I am going to keep fighting for them.
Congress must end these unlawful, un-American, and unnecessary raids on our communities.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, this isn't an abstract issue. I am hearing every single day from constituents who are too afraid to go to the grocery store, to go to school, to go to church, and to go to work. I am hearing from nonprofits that are already stretched too thin while feeding our hungry neighbors and are facing even more demand now that Trump is targeting food assistance and breadwinners are being snatched off of the street.
This is the impact of the Trump administration's cruelty, a yearlong tirade against immigrants in this country that has blown way past just targeting violent criminals.
At home in Louisville, we don't have national troops in our backyard or ICE performing public raids, but it is the quiet, steady increase in arrests and profiling and detentions that has been devastating to our community.
So many Louisvilleans, regardless of status, are afraid of being profiled, attacked, or violently detained just because of how they look. Masked agents are targeting parents in the pickup lines of their school. They are dragging mothers out of their cars. They are smashing windows to arrest old men, separating families in the middle of the night, and zip tying children.
They are using immigration hearings and check-ins as setups and defying court orders, and then our neighbors are being shipped off to countries where they have never even been. They are being held in detention centers with unspeakable, inhumane conditions with no due process, no access to attorneys, and no path forward.
This is not immigration policy. This is cruelty for the sake of cruelty and political theater with real-life consequences. Indiscriminate arrests do not make anyone safer. Masked agents with assault rifles and zero accountability don't give anyone peace of mind. This cruelty doesn't serve anyone.
This isn't just happening in cities that you see on your TV screens. As we have heard tonight, this is happening everywhere.
Mr. Speaker, to my colleagues across the aisle whose districts run on the backs of immigrant labor, whose neighbors are just as scared as mine, who are noticeably silent on this issue, where are you? Why aren't you protecting your constituents? Why aren't you fighting for the people who you represent because what you allow your government to do to someone else, they will one day do to you. Speak up.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez), for her incredible leadership and holding us together today.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to make one thing clear: Trump's cruel immigration agenda is not about public safety. It is about intimidation and cruelty. The people of Oregon are living with the consequences of that every single day.
A man recovering from surgery was violently pulled from his car and left in excruciating pain. A pregnant mother was taken, separated from her 2-year-old child, and denied comprehensive prenatal care while in custody. Another mother in my district, along with her four U.S.- citizen children, were detained for weeks without access to counsel. They are parents doing school drop-offs, workers heading to their jobs, and longtime neighbors who strengthen our communities.
Trump promises safety, but he delivers chaos. Cruelty is not law enforcement. It is intimidation, and the harm goes beyond our immigrant families.
In Portland, an elementary school had to relocate students because chemical agents deployed by Federal immigration officials drifted onto their campus. Low-income seniors were told to shut off their air conditioning in the middle of summer because those chemicals were entering their buildings' ventilation systems. When Portlanders have peacefully stood against these abuses, they have been met with pepper balls, tear gas, and masked agents using violent force.
Once again, nothing about this agenda is in the pursuit of public safety. It is Federal power turned against the people who it is meant to serve.
Congress must reject cruelty as a tool of policy and restore humanity, transparency, and accountability.
That is why I introduced the Restoring Access to Detainees Act with Senator Murphy. Every family should know where their loved one is being held. Every detainee must have easy, free access to call legal counsel.
I also authored the CLEAR ID Act with Representative Crockett to ensure that our community members are not approached or detained by unidentified Federal agents. Without identification, there is no accountability. That is how democracies erode, and we will not allow it.
Trump wants America to believe that his cruelty makes us safer. It does not. When communities live in fear, they cannot trust law enforcement. When families are torn apart, our Nation grows weaker. Real safety comes from stability, trust, and community, not fear and force.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Congresswoman Ramirez for organizing today's important conversation on the Trump administration's cruel and inhumane treatment of immigrant communities.
This is an important discussion to have in front of the American people because, as they have seen, ICE is out of control. All summer, ICE has been terrorizing communities across Los Angeles, sowing fear in our families, and rounding up our most vulnerable.
I have been sharing the story of Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz, a senior at Reseda High School who was detained by ICE while walking his dog. He is an older brother, a loving son, and a valued member of the community.
He is a high school student, just a kid. Benjamin should be in a classroom, not a courtroom.
Benjamin was detained by ICE, separated from his family and friends. He was originally transferred from the Adelanto Detention Facility in California to a detention center in Arizona. Less than 24 hours later, he was on a plane ready to be sent to Louisiana, but instead, he was sent back to California. This all occurred without his family even knowing.
I keep sharing this story because the American people deserve to see how cruelly ICE is treating children, elderly women, and others, even a U.S. Senator.
ICE is incapable of treating our most vulnerable with the respect that they deserve. If this was happening to Benjamin, imagine who else it is happening to.
I have been urging ICE leadership to answer for their chaotic, inconsistent, and cruel decisionmaking processes that have torn apart families across the country.
This is why I introduced the INFORM Act. My bill holds ICE accountable for the nightmare they are forcing families like Benjamin's to live through. Many immigrant families in my district do not know the whereabouts of their loved ones after they are detained
With my Hispanic Caucus and Progressive Caucus colleagues, I will continue showing up to detention facilities and working with my colleagues to hold ICE accountable, promote government transparency, and respect the dignity of immigrant families.
Mr. Speaker, Trump's unhinged immigration raids started in downtown Los Angeles, in my congressional district, not targeting the ``criminal'' immigrants that he promised he would go after, but targeting anybody that looked like me, looked like my colleagues, looked like my family members, looked like the people who live in Los Angeles.
I don't know any MS-13 members, gang members, who work at a car wash or as day laborers. That is where he was targeting, not focused on people he said he was going to go after.
We warned everybody in this country that this would continue, that they would go on to other cities, using immigration as a pretext to try to intimidate blue cities in blue States and blue cities in red States, and that a violation of the rights of immigrants and the rights of people across the country is not going to be contained in L.A. It is going to spread. They went on to D.C., Chicago, Portland, Charlotte, and New Orleans, just as of today. That is what they are going after.
They want to intimidate people. They want to intimidate people who don't agree with them, and that was before Donald Trump and the Republicans passed the one big, beautiful bill. That included a $175 billion slush fund that would turn ICE and CBP into its own personal national police force, where he could send it wherever he wants, whenever he wants, without any accountability.
That is dangerous. That is a threat to our Republic. That is a threat to our States. That is a threat to our communities.
We need to stand up and put an end to it. The way we do that is by taking that money away and reinvesting it into something that the American people need.
I introduced a bill called the Make Housing Affordable and Defend Democracy Act. It takes that $175 billion to tackle the housing affordability crisis in our country by investing that money to help start a 21st century housing boom that will build 1 million units of housing per year for the next 6 years, help renters with assistance to get by, and, at the same time, give first-time home buyers money for a downpayment.
If we want to tackle the affordability crisis that is at the top of the agenda for the American people that is not a con job, then we need to pass the Make Housing Affordable and Defend Democracy Act. It is about affordability, not authoritarianism. It is about American values, not Donald Trump's wins.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Ramirez for yielding. I appreciate her leadership.
It is so important that we do not allow the hostile acts of this administration to be normalized. We have to condemn, resist, and reject them at every turn.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the targeted and the marginalized, on behalf of our immigrant siblings who have had their bodies assaulted, who have had their lives disrupted, who have had their families separated, who have had their humanity erased and their dignity denied, the men, women, and children who have been ripped from our communities, thrown into cold cells, and shipped off to countries many have never known.
The Trump administration would have you believe that they are pursuing hardened criminals. Yet, according to ICE's own data, 85 percent of the people detained in Massachusetts, my home State, have no criminal record.
Rogue, masked Federal agents are violating people's civil rights, glorified bullies masquerading as public servants. They terrorize our communities in the name of so-called law and order, while detaining and deporting our neighbors without due process.
That hypocrisy is not a coincidence. It is a deliberate, resounding message from an administration that believes that following the Constitution is a mere suggestion.
My office has documented hundreds of cases marked by excessive force, racial profiling, and the unlawful arrest of legal residents.
Just last month, rogue Federal agents descended on the Allston neighborhood in Massachusetts' Seventh District, a diverse community that is home to small businesses and music venues that are welcoming to all. These Federal agents targeted a local car wash to harass and abduct hardworking community members. Among them were five women who were never afforded the chance to show their work permits and a 67- year-old man who had disappeared for 3 days without access to his medication.
Families waited in anguish to hear from their loved ones, many of whom reported not having enough to eat and being unable to shower-- cruel, callous, inhumane, and unlawful.
In these trying times, I am not defeated. I am fortified and resolved to fight back. The only way to beat a dictator is with defiance. Together, we will protect our communities and defend our immigrant neighbors and their families.
Mr. Speaker, as you can hear from my colleagues here, we are living the reality of this nightmare across the country. That is why we are here to push back.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke).
Mr. Speaker, I thank Mrs. Ramirez for yielding, and I appreciate her leadership in this moment.
Mr. Speaker, I rise on this day in opposition to the vicious, violent, unconstitutional, and illegal war Donald Trump and his administration continue to wage against our immigrant neighbors.
On the President's orders, the Department of Homeland Security and its agents of hatred have taken unprecedented, unthinkable, and abusive control over the lives of immigrant Americans. His goon squad has broken up families, torn apart communities, and committed atrocities equal only to the worst sins in the history of our Nation, with extra sins to spare.
Refugees, asylum seekers, and countless other people desperately seeking any semblance of safety beyond our shores have only found more pain here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Even our neighbors with citizenship have been targeted in this campaign of hatred. In fact, more than 170 U.S. citizens have already been wrongfully detained under this administration, some held for days, many subjected to brutality just for brutality's sake.
It pains me to know and to say that four of these citizens were arrested during ICE's crackdown on New York City's Canal Street. It is disgusting, unconstitutional, and uncivilized.
No matter how desperately he wishes it weren't, I have news for the President: New York City will always be a sanctuary to the oppressed and the powerless, as will other communities like ours across this Nation. Our doors will always be open to those seeking refuge and safety.
No matter how deeply they try to dehumanize immigrant Americans, the people of this country know full well where the inhumanity lies. The President and his masked agents of violence and hatred have seen to that.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Delia Ramirez so much for your leadership, for your truth telling, and for your standing up.
Mr. Speaker, to all of my colleagues on the Progressive Caucus, we are on the right side of history. This history that we are experiencing right now, this era, will go down in infamy.
Mr. Speaker, 80 years ago, over 120,000 Japanese individuals were stripped of their rights and forced into barbed-wire camps because of the way they looked and the language they spoke.
My great-grandfather, my GG, was one of them. He was taken from his
Now, the very sites where Japanese-American families were incarcerated have been reopened. Fort Bliss, a World War II internment camp, is now the Nation's largest immigrant detention center.
To add insult to injury, the Trump administration is using the same law, the Alien Enemies Act that was once used to imprison Japanese Americans, to detain and fast track deportations, with zero due process rights.
While this administration insists it is targeting dangerous criminals, we know that more than 73 percent of those in ICE custody have no criminal convictions at all.
This administration is also intentionally dismantling legal pathways and stripping people of lawful status so they can be deported. We just saw this on Kauai recently, where a raid that swept up 44 people ended with six Venezuelan men--who were legally here seeking asylum--self- deporting after the administration revoked temporary protected status for their country. To anyone who thinks this could never happen to me, consider this: Two-thirds of the Japanese imprisoned in camps were American citizens. Their children, like my grandfather, serving in the United States military in defense of a country who saw them as the enemy.
Today, American citizens are also being rounded up, once again, stopped and detained, simply for the way they look, by officers who face no accountability. United States military veterans are being picked up, detained, and deported.
What we are witnessing is a slow methodical erosion of citizens' rights and a cold indifference towards treating entire communities as national security threats.
We are in the midst of history in the making, and history has already shown us the dangers of what this country can do when given unchecked, unfettered immigration authorities.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues on all sides of the aisle: How much are we willing to tolerate before we say enough is enough?
Eighty years later, this Nation still reflects with shame at what it did to our Japanese-American families. We apologized. We vowed to learn. We vowed to do better, and we have failed.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. I rise today to join my colleagues in sounding the alarm on Trump's out-of-control immigration crackdown.
Since January, Trump has unleashed a mass deportation agenda and indiscriminate immigration enforcement that has pushed past all moral and legal boundaries.
In Chicago, Federal immigration agents tear-gassed kids and fired pepper balls at a pastor.
In Charlotte, ICE agents descended on the grounds by a church and forced terrified congregants to flee into the woods outside.
At home in San Diego, we had a horrific incident where Federal agents stormed into a local restaurant frequented by families. They handcuffed all the employees and flash-bang grenades were used outside.
There are stories like this from communities all across the country about what this administration has done. We heard them today. Stories of Trump's immigration agents causing fear and chaos. Stories of violent raids turning quiet neighborhoods into places that feel more like war zones.
Trump's out-of-control immigration enforcement is terrorizing our communities and putting our civil liberties under threat. Undocumented immigrants are not the only ones affected. It is also harming U.S. citizens, people with legal status, and those who have been here for decades contributing to our country.
We cannot turn away. We cannot be silent. We must continue to fight against these abuses. Communities deserve policies that protect families, protect peace and safety, and uphold rights.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the Catholic church and the bishops for their courageous, unwavering support for the immigrant community in our country. I ask all other religions and leaders of faith to come forward.
Why are you silent in this shameful moment?
We should hear your voices as it is commanded in Leviticus very clearly. Leviticus 19:33-34 says: ``When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.''
Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of his second term, Donald Trump has directed an enforcement machine that is not only cruel but unconstitutional, targeting longtime residents, law-abiding visa holders, U.S. citizens, and even veterans who have fought for this country.
In border communities like the one I represent in Arizona's Seventh Congressional District, we see the impact of these abuses every single day. We have seen Border Patrol waiting outside of hospitals, literally arresting women after they have given birth--no due process, no regard for human rights.
Last week, we saw a disturbing example near the ranching community of Arivaca. Humanitarian volunteers with No More Deaths reported that Border Patrol agents forced their way into their desert aid station known as Byrd Camp, without a warrant and arrested three migrants who were resting inside a trailer. Volunteers told agents they could not enter without a warrant. Agents left, then returned claiming that they were in hot pursuit, even though there was no chase, no threat, and no legal justification that would allow entering a protected structure.
This camp has existed for decades to keep people from dying in the desert. More than 4,400 men, women, and children have died crossing the border in Arizona since 2000. The camp has been raided before, but previously with a warrant. What happened on November 23 was different. It was lawless, intentional, and part of a broader pattern of unchecked enforcement that treats border communities as if the Constitution does not apply.
Let me say this clearly. The Fourth Amendment does not disappear in southern Arizona. Due process does not disappear because someone is a migrant. And humanitarian aid is not a crime.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak out against the narrative being promoted about immigrants, portraying them as rapists, drug dealers, and murderers.
These claims are nothing more than a self-reflection of our country's leaders who promised to protect Americans and enforce the law, yet whose actions have violated basic human rights, the Constitution, the rule of law, and are now costing our country economically.
Under these policies, DHS is targeting people because of the color of their skin, the language they speak, and where they come from. Families are being separated, children are traumatized, and communities live in fear. These actions are weakening our labor force, shrinking our tax base, and threatening industries that rely on a stable workforce.
Members of Congress should not be targeted with CS gas, shoved, or have false charges filed against them simply for performing oversight.
Citizens should not be shot at simply for raising concerns about the safety of children in the presence of armed men in their neighborhoods.
This approach doesn't make us safer. It disrupts local economies, increases costs for taxpayers, and undermines the workforce that keeps our country running.
Every day these policies continue, businesses lose workers, consumers lose purchasing power, and taxpayers pay for the unnecessary enforcement. We need transparency, fair treatment,
Let me remind this Chamber, undocumented immigrants--the same people being targeted--contributed $96.7 billion in Federal, State, and local taxes in 2022, including $25.7 billion into Social Security benefits they will never receive, $6.4 billion into Medicare, $1.8 billion into unemployment insurance.
If some Members don't care about the human cost, consider the financial one. Removing these workers weakens our economy and raises costs for everyone. Protecting them protects our bottom line.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Ramirez for her leadership.
Mr. Speaker, the Trump regime's mass deportation agenda is not about public safety. It is part of a much bigger story of corruption, cruelty, and abuse of power that defines Trump's America.
Earlier this year, Congress authorized a massive slush fund under Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill, pouring more than $170 billion of taxpayer money into enforcement and detention center expansion without any sort of meaningful oversight.
At the heart of this system sits a vast network of privatized detention facilities run by private prison corporations, like CoreCivic and GEO Group, whose bottom lines depend on filling these beds. These companies are awarded government contracts worth billions of dollars, yet their facilities are notorious for cutting corners on healthcare, food, and safety in order to maximize shareholder profits.
I have seen this firsthand at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona run by CoreCivic. I have talked to dozens of women who have been detained there. They shared with me their testimonies about lack of clean drinking water, lack of air conditioning during Arizona's extreme heat, racist inhumane treatment, and of course my constituent Yari, who was a green card holder who has leukemia, has been detained there and refused access to an oncologist for 6 months until direct outreach from our office and the community's input as well.
This is all, again, all about shareholder profit. CoreCivic, for example, had a revenue of $530 million during the second quarter of this year alone, an almost 10 percent increase from 2024.
Meanwhile, GEO Group's chairman said: Republicans' new slush fund for ICE would provide ``unprecedented growth opportunities.''
CoreCivic's CEO Damon Hininger stated in shareholder calls that this is a ``pivotal moment,'' and that ``business is perfectly aligned with demands of this moment.'' That is disgusting.
Donald Trump's cruelty against immigrants has transformed human misery into both a political spectacle and a business model. The more people that are detained, the more money private corporations make, and the more campaign contributions and political power flow directly back to Donald Trump and those who fund this system.
This is Trump's corruption machine turning our immigration system into a pay-to-play racket for his donors. Meanwhile, families across the country are paying the price, and parents are torn from their children, leaving households and communities economically devastated. Taxpayers in this country are footing the bill for a system not designed to keep us safe, but to funnel money into the pockets of a powerful few.
It does not have to be this way. We can invest in alternatives to detention centers that are proven to be more humane and effective. We can end blank checks for ICE and stop the privatization of immigration detention centers once and for all, and we can finally reject the lie that Trumpian cruelty is security because in America, our safety should never come second to a billion dollar corporation's profit.
Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is this: What is happening today in our communities is not an accident, it is not new. DHS is not rogue. From its establishment, DHS has always been empowered to violate our rights under the pretense of securing our safety.
It is why they wear masks, why they refuse to wear badges, why they won't identify themselves, and why they resist oversight and accountability.
They were designed to operate in shadow and secrecy because they are waging a war against the American people. You may not know it because they just haven't come for you yet. Trump's authoritarian fascist tendencies, his power grabs, his overreach, and his willingness to shamelessly use DHS as his own terror force is only making visible what so many communities have already known to be true: DHS is a democratic liability and a tool for authoritarian control.
Nothing that DHS is doing is making us any safer, and Americans, frankly, they are done. We see through the lies. We cannot assure our security by sacrificing our humanity, our dignity, or our liberty. We have seen what DHS can do with its unlimited resources and unchecked power, and we say enough. DHS has to be held accountable.
Today, as you have heard the stories from my colleagues of Trump's immigration enforcement overreach, I want to encourage you to remember history and context. We brought DHS into this world less than 25 years ago. We can build a world without it as well.
I thank my colleagues who joined today's Special Order on Trump's immigration overreach. We understand that true security is built by investing in people, and as Members of Congress we must actively build that world through policies that defend and expand our rights and civil liberties, not crush them. That is the work we must do, and we must resist the fear that would tell us that we must surrender our rights and forfeit our values in order to protect the little we have when we deserve so much more.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. I thank the good ladies for their spirited comments and remind Members to refrain from engaging in personalities toward the President and to direct their remarks to the Chair.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague Mr. Schweikert for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to stop in at Top of the Mountain Farms in Ashe County and support a local small business selling Christmas trees and wreaths.
Becky and Bill Fairchild, the owners of this Christmas tree farm, were very welcoming. I was fortunate to meet their three daughters-- Bailey, Brooke, and Blair--along with other members of the family during my visit.
Western North Carolina for many years has produced impeccable Christmas trees that have been featured at the White House and are the most beautifully grown anywhere. The Fraser fir, the true Cadillac of Christmas trees, is what our area is known for producing.
Christmas tree farms play such an important role in the economy of North Carolina, and I want to highlight them especially during the Christmas season.
The beautiful tree that I picked up that day is now in my living room, and I will be enjoying it until January.
I thank the Fairchild family for such an enjoyable visit and for helping me pick out a tree of my own. I look forward to stopping in again to see all of them in the future. May God continue to bless them and may He bless our country with a very happy and joyous Christmas season.
Mr. Speaker, the good news for the team here, I am not going to use the rest of the hour. I
Mr. Speaker, we had an incident today where the Budget Committee was inviting Members to come in and sort of give our priorities.
My comments to the Budget Committee--I brought them some work that has been done by the Joint Economic Committee economists. One of my only joys I have here anymore is I am blessed to chair the Joint Economic Committee. I have a handful of Ph.D. economists. It turns out they are really good at math. I handed it over. I said that we need to tell the truth about math. I say this almost every week, and I beg for someone out there to hear it.
Regarding debt and deficit, we are buried in debt, but it is primarily interest and demographics. I would love to blame the Democrats. They want to blame us. I have shown over and over that, as a country, 40 years ago, our fertility rates started to fall. I am going to show it on the board.
This year, we functionally have double the number of 65-year-olds as we had 20 years ago, but we have the same number of 18-year-olds. It gets worse next year. The year after that, it gets worse. The year after, it gets worse. Yet, we built Social Security, Medicare, and these things on a model that had population growth.
Mr. Speaker, I am only one-third through the paper. It is always dangerous to come behind the microphone and act like I know what the hell I am talking about. Let's actually walk through it.
This was brought to me by some of my economists. The National Bureau of Economic Research has a number of folks from Cambridge. It is not Cambridge, England. It is Cambridge, Massachusetts. There are little institutions hanging around there such as Boston University, MIT, Harvard. Apparently, they are freaking good at math.
The headline here should actually make us pucker up, ``Measuring What Matters: Why Italy May Be in Better Fiscal Shape than the U.S.'' Then, we go in here and start to understand the punch line of this paper. I will do my best to describe this.
Please, someone out there, if there is anyone listening, it basically says that if we keep things the way they are--the current tax policy, spending policies, and pension policies--to cover Social Security, Medicare, military retirement, and Federal employee retirement, it will require 104 percent of the income of the next generation.
This isn't building bridges. This isn't modernizing the military. This is just the retirement system of the United States. Doing so requires levying lifetime net tax rates exceeding 104 percent.
We need 104 percent of the next generation's income. It is not 100 percent of their income but 104 percent of their income to meet our pension healthcare obligations. Is that going to work? We have the research.
How many people are going to come behind this microphone the rest of this year and the next year and actually say: Hey, we have a demographic problem. We have a spending problem.
Let's actually walk through some of the things we do know. Every day, I send out something called the ``Daily Debt Monitor.'' It is a text message. We have a few thousand people who subscribe to it. We have probably a lot more people who don't want to get it. It tells us how much we have actually borrowed.
Mr. Speaker, this always goes on. This is the conflict between the White House, Congress, and those of us who actually have some responsibility on spending, budget, economics. They say: David, you are scaring people by telling people how much we are borrowing so far this fiscal year.
Think of this. We are what? I should have calculated this in my head before I got behind this microphone. What are we, 73 or 74 days into this fiscal year, Mr. Speaker? In that 70-some days, we have already borrowed $788 billion as of yesterday. If we stay at this rate, we will click off another $1 trillion of borrowing. From October 1, the beginning of this new fiscal year, to before Christmas, it is another $1 trillion of borrowing.
Once again, the left will blame us. We will blame them. No one wants to have a conversation of how healthcare costs are exploding on us, and we refuse to do the things to lower healthcare costs. Instead, we will spend months around here debating subsidies because we have turned healthcare into financing and not the actual price of services and healthcare.
Mr. Speaker, I need my colleagues to think about this. That $788 billion in that 73 days or so is like $148,000 a second in borrowing so far this fiscal year. If we average it out over 12 months--I did see the number. It is like $73,000 a second if we take the last 12 months. That is what we are borrowing.
Don't worry. Be happy. Don't tell the truth. Yet, I have done presentation after presentation over these years, saying that in 8 years, 8 budget years, 30 percent of all of our tax receipts in this country go just to pay interest. If interest rates go up 1 percent, 45 percent of all tax receipts in 2034 or so go just to pay interest.
Yet, the clown show--excuse me--the Congress will find shiny objects and will find things that will enrage them. They will go really hard on getting on cable television tomorrow night and say something inflammatory so the dopamine hits.
Mr. Speaker, how often do we go home and have meetings with our constituents? There will be this one person who found something on the Internet, and it sounds like a conspiracy theory. I would argue the greatest conspiracy in our society is the unwillingness to tell the truth about basic math.
Once again, let's go back. Let's go double down. I was told ``double down'' is actually saying when I have a good hand. Maybe it is not appropriate for this. Let's see what the report says. Assuming the current generation makes no contributions to reduce the U.S. fiscal gap--that basically means taxes, contributions, and incomes stay on the track they are on, and there is not suddenly much higher taxes or much further paydown--a newborn today, a new generation today, would pay a 104 percent net tax rate.
Mr. Speaker, 104 percent of their income would be required just to cover Social Security, Medicare, military retirement, Federal pensions, and railroad retirement pensions. It will not cover the rest of government. It will not cover a new building, a new bridge, the State Department, the FBI, or the military. It is just to cover our unfunded liabilities, Mr. Speaker.
Where is the fiscal commission? Where is telling the truth?
What will happen if we don't get our act together and adopt the technology, adopt the revolutions in healthcare, adopt the things that make our brothers and sisters healthier, adopt the things that actually raise wages, or adopt the policies on immigration that maximize growth instead of the importation of poverty?
We are being handed reports that say, if you actually look at the underlying math: You are worse than Italy.
When Greece has a better credit rating--Greece, right now, can sell a 10-year bond cheaper than the United States--I struggle. Greece can sell a 10-year bond cheaper than the United States. I keep trying to find out ways to describe this. Yet, in this place we call Capitol Hill, I will walk into a room with some of the budget documents and say: Hey, I am here not only as a Ways and Means member, I am number four on Ways and Means; I am the Oversight chairman, so I chair the Joint Economic Committee, our economists have come up with some numbers we really should talk about. I look around and everyone is getting up and leaving because we don't want to know.
So let's actually deal with a couple of other facts.
Remember, Mr. Speaker, last summer, I think it was July 4 this last summer, we raised the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. We have already burnt $2 trillion. So we borrowed $2 trillion of that $5 trillion of authorization.
We are doing a calculation by April 27, so in 1 year and a few months, we will hit the debt ceiling again.
Remember, Mr. Speaker, the debt ceiling is just the authorization to borrow what you have already obligated.
Tell me the functioning half of government--because, Mr. Speaker, you have to understand the economic effects if you stop the spending. So, Mr. Speaker, what is the 50 percent of government you want me to cut tomorrow?
Consider that only about one-quarter of U.S. spending is actually voted on by Congress. We vote on defense and what they call nondefense discretionary. The rest of the spending, the rest of the 75 percent of the spending is Social Security and it is Medicare. They are the things that we call entitlements. They are earned benefits that are on autopilot.
Well, David, they stole my money.
No, they didn't. We just stopped having children.
The number is a couple of years out-of-date, but the average couple in America gets about $73,000 more from Social Security than they put in. It is a crap rate of return, but Congress, the AARP, and the union groups back in the Bush administration--this was W--when there was discussion of: Hey, can we take maybe a small sliver and put that into markets? If we had done that 25 years ago, then today's retirees and those moving into retirement would be dramatically better off.
It is too late. Remember, in only a couple of more years all the baby boomers are 65 and up. So the demographic curve is here. It is just math. It is just math. These numbers get worse. So that is the debt ceiling.
Let's actually have a little bit more fun.
Medicare. There is a trust fund with Medicare. You pay it on your FICA tax, Mr. Speaker, your payroll tax. Except we have a little problem. We calculate in early August 2032, so 7 some years from now, the Medicare part A trust fund is gone.
Hospitals are probably the largest lobbyists here in Washington, D.C. They are all up and down the hallways.
Are they ready for the 11 percent cut in spending?
Because in less than 7 years this is coming.
So let's add something else on top of that. This is the one--and I am told I need to stop cussing behind this microphone. It shocks me because I will get some very important people around Washington, D.C., who get upset with me for this portion because apparently--particularly as a guy who is in the 50/50 district--we are never, ever, ever, ever supposed to use the word Medicare or Social Security.
So let's actually have some fun here.
The Social Security trust fund is projected to be depleted in late 2032, so 7 some years from now. When this happens, then we double the poverty of seniors in America.
Mr. Speaker, if you are on Social Security, then you will get a 24 percent cut in your check. There is math and there are models out there, and you will double the poverty of seniors, and we will double the number of baby boomers on the street.
Do these two things together, the trust fund for Medicare and the trust fund for Social Security, being gone in 7 years, to capitalize it--so that is happening in 2032. If you took 2033--and I am sorry but the dates are important--and said for that full year, we are going to just reach into the general fund. We are just going to use the general fund. It is over $600 billion, and then the next year it is bigger and the next year it is bigger. So it is functionally about 60 percent of the entire defense budget, just to make up that shortfall for that first year.
Mr. Speaker, you would think something this--to use my little girl's term--ginormous would be a big deal around here. Yet, what happened in this place, because it is so perverse, is that right now there is some leftist political consultant saying: Hey, Schweikert used the words Social Security and Medicare, let's design our attack ads for the next campaign.
They spent millions of dollars in the last campaign beating the ever- living crap out of me because I cared enough to want to fix this.
When this place cares more about what the political consultants can design as an attack ad, then where is our fiscal commission?
Where is the fact that we are putting people who can do math into a small room, turning off the air-conditioning, and saying: Come up with a plan to save the future? Or is just doubling poverty of seniors functionally our political plan?
The left says that we are just going to raise taxes. I have done presentation after presentation on the floor here. I have shown the math. Every tax hike of the Democrats--so a tax on capital gains, a tax on income, a tax on corporate taxes, you can go grab the entire Bernie Sanders playbook, and we have had it scored, and you do its economic effects, and we do the maximum tax rate before the tax receipts roll over--produces about 1.5 percent of GDP of the economy.
I am so sorry for the staff because they have all heard me say this a dozen times: When we do the cuts, the actual spending cuts and their economic effects, it produces about 1 percent of GDP.
So what is that, Mr. Speaker?
It is 2\1/2\ percent.
If we do the borrowing we did from the trust funds last fiscal year, we borrowed almost 7.2, 7.3 percent of the entire economy, then does anyone see the problem?
We borrowed over 7 percent, but all the solutions of raising taxes and cutting spending over here come in at 2\1/2\ percent. It is called a fiscal gap.
But, David, you are not allowed to talk about these things. We need to just pretend.
What sort of pretending is it going to be in 7 years when grandma gets a 24 percent cut in her check and when the hospital won't see her because they had an 11 percent cut in their Medicare compensation and they no longer can afford to see seniors?
This is coming. This is real. This isn't pretend. This isn't feelings. It is called math.
Please understand. I am giving up. I have spent one-and-a-half decades of my life behind these microphones running around here and actually producing actual legislation to fix it. I can't even get my fellow Members of Congress to cosponsor the legislation just to take on fraud in Medicare part C, let alone fix things. You know, David, it has the word Medicare, and we are not allowed to say that.
I need to do a correction from last week because I was going so fast at one point, I didn't describe this chart well enough.
I was actually trying to just say that tax collections are up, but capital gains are up 64 percent. Remember, Mr. Speaker, capital gains are only about 7 percent, where income taxes and taxes on wages are up 5\1/2\ percent. That is amazing. However, remember, Mr. Speaker, income taxes are over one-half of all income into the Federal Treasury. I didn't want to say: Hey, 64 percent of all tax collections are up because of capital gains. That is only the little sliver that is capital gains.
A 5.5 percent increase in wages is amazing. The problem is that spending is up about 9 percent. If we could just hold our spending flat--except our problem is our demographics. This year, every day we have 13,000 of our brothers and sisters turn 65, they move into their earned benefits. We made a social contract.
In 1990 or 1991, when the fertility rates in the United States started to roll over pretty hard, we never built a model saying, oh, heavens what happens when you don't have enough young people.
Let's make some more people mad with the truth. The customs duties, the tariffs, have actually been very helpful. They are important. I actually think we need to come up with a much broader scheme on international tax collections, particularly imports and dealing with other countries and their value-added tax, what we call a VAT tax, and how they arbitrage or they refund it when you export to the United States. However, if we send them something, they attach their VAT back on. It gets a little confusing.
We actually held a hearing today in Ways and Means on the international tax system because if the Supreme Court, whether it be this month or in
I need to tell you the truth about the math. Let's have a moment here. Let's do 2025. That is the chart here. The $77 billion you see right there on the chart, that was already the law. That was before the Trump Presidency. That was tariffs. Customs duties is the proper term.
The President added other rules, mechanics, tariffs, customs duties. They gave us another--a total of $155 billion. That means we collected, in the 2025 fiscal year, an extra $118 billion. That is a lot of money.
Remember, in 2025, we were borrowing $6 billion a day. You can do the basic math. That is like 18 days of borrowing, was the increase we took in 2025.
It is helpful. It is helpful. Do not walk away from it, but also don't make up numbers that it is going to pay off the debt.
In 2026, we modeled that the base tariffs, base customs duties, would produce about $84 billion. Wonderful. The total we model is $324 billion, meaning we are going to get an extra $240 billion this year, if President Trump's tariffs are allowed to stay in. It is really helpful, but it is basically 1 month of borrowing. It is 1 month of borrowing.
If you go on cable news tonight or cable talk and you say: We are going to get a refund--math is math, and I really wish this body would get better at telling the truth about it.
Just a couple more boards, then I am going to give everyone back their life. Then I will go home and deal with the angry text messages I am going to get from people who don't like it when I tell the truth.
You don't want that one, but it basically says CBO actually did some remodeling, and we calculate that total customs duties over the next 11 years will bring in about $3 trillion. That is a lot of money, very helpful.
But you have got to understand, over the next 10 years, what took us 240 years to build up in debt, we almost double in the next 10. It is estimated by 2035, we are somewhere around $63 trillion to $65 trillion in debt. You actually start to see the squeeze where publicly sold debt, compared to borrowing from the trust funds, goes because we are depleting the trust funds so there is less money so borrow out of them. In the next 10, 11 years, we almost double what took us 240 years as a country to build up in debt.
Here is the thing that is really hard to talk about. I actually saw Elon Musk this last week saying: We have got to have the productivity. We have got to not be afraid of AI.
I wish he would also talk about synthetic biology and all the cures and the fact that we are curing diseases. The President did an amazing thing of getting the prices down on glutides. We know obesity is almost 47 percent of U.S. healthcare spending. If we could cut that in half, could you imagine the growth of the economy, the family formation, the savings to the debt and deficits, if we helped our brothers and sisters get healthier.
There are policies that will work, but you never hear them evangelized behind these microphones because either they are complex or they don't set off a dopamine fit of anger.
We have got to deal with this reality, and this basically says demographics. We have fewer 18-year-olds than we did 20 years ago and almost double of number of 65-year-olds. That is going to continue. It is happening all over the industrialized world. We are actually in much better shape than so many other places in the world.
But we don't tell the truth, saying, hey, it is math. We are going to have to find a way, because we are magically not going to have millions and millions and millions of people in diapers, little people.
I am 63 and my wife is 63, and we have a 3-year-old and a 10-year- old. I am optimistic about the future. I had better be. Either that or my kids are coming to my nursing home. Sorry. I didn't mean to say that. This is the reality we are up against.
Just one more board. This is hard to see. It is important for anyone who is actually listening, who actually has a fondness for basic math. This isn't that complicated.
We now model, in the Joint Economic Committee Republicans, that there is over a 50/50 chance that the United States, this calendar year--so 2025, the calendar year we are in--will be close to zero population growth.
Why is that a big deal? We built our Social Security system, we built our Medicare system, and we built much of our entitlement, our earned benefit system, on a concept that we grew population-wise and therefore grew economically, therefore we grew in GDP, therefore we grew in productivity, and therefore wealth grew in the country for everyone.
What we are trying to show in these charts is, you can see from 2004 to 2024, the difference--this was under 18. We functionally have the same, but the number of those 65 and up going from 36 million to 61 million. Yet what is fascinating is if you go with no immigration, or even with immigration, we still end up upside down. It is just demographics.
Yet when the President tries to talk about this, he gets attacked. When people like me try to say there is a way to set off productivity so we don't live poor, that the future is prosperous, that this is another American century, instead we engage in sort of clown-show type politics because we want to satiate the theater instead of the economics.
There is a path to do amazingly good things for your retirement and for my kids, but the fact of the matter is that, Matthew, my 3-year- old, when he hits 23 or 24 years old, every tax in the United States has to be doubled just to maintain baseline services.
Have we really made the moral decision that the next generation lives poorer or will be poorer than we are? Is that what America has become about? It doesn't have to be that way.
Are we on the cusp of an amazing productivity curve with artificial intelligence, with synthetic biology curing diseases, and with robotics being able to produce products cheaper and faster? Possibly, but you have to understand that we have lots of laws that this place has made that it is illegal to modernize a port. It is illegal to modernize a rail system. It is illegal to actually adopt technology that can read your body at home and prescribe to you.
We have barrier after barrier so that when we talk about deregulation to make the economy grow, we also have to talk about the deregulation that the armies of lobbyists in our hallways are here to stop us from doing because it will force a change in their business models.
Once again, it can be another American century. The future can be absolutely amazing, but we need to get our act together and stop lying about the numbers, tell the truth about the demographics, and then actually think boldly. We can do amazing things. I just haven't had an amazing conversation around here in years.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to go and apologize to all of the people I have just made mad.
Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.
The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 52 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, December 4, 2025, at 9 a.m.
