guest: progressives made a lot of progress, we are continuing to do so. as we move through the end of the session. i think we are going to continue to do so, even >> we'll leave this program here to keep our over 40-year commitment of live coverage of congress. members returning for legislative business and debate a bill that prohibits nondisclosure agreements in the case of sexual assault or misconduct. and they'll have several veterans' related measures. live coverage of the house here on c-span. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the prayer will be offered by chaplain kibben. chaplain kibben: would you pray with me. sovereign god, for your namesake and out of goodness of your love, deliver the people of ukraine from their enemies unrelenting attacks. we pray for the poor and needy who have lost hope and home. heal the hearts of those wounded within who have lost faith and family. consider those whose lives and livelihood have faded away like the evening shadows. shine on them the light of your saving love. help the men and women, those of old age and the children, those who have fled their persecutors, and those who remain defiantly in place to preserve their land, the political leaders, and the warriors who battle on all fronts. protect each of them according to your unfailing love. then may the foes who pursue them know that it is your hand that has preserved ukraine. may those who curse ukraine be made mute by your just word. may those who attack be put to shame by your righteousness. and may those who continue to serve you faithfully in this fair time of trial find reason to rejoice in you. for you, o lord, stand at the right hand of the oppressed, to save them from their distress. and so it is with hope in your salvation and in the strength of your name we pray. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. pursuant to clause 1 of rule 1, the journal stands approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentlewoman from michigan, ms. tlaib. ms. tlaib: i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will entertain up to 15 requests for one-minute speeches on each side of the aisle. for what purpose does the gentleman from rhode island seek recognition? mr. cicilline: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. cicilline: madam speaker, i rise today to mark transgender awareness week. recent years we have seen increased transgender visibility within our teeny screens with an dwellica ross and the american horror story and amy schneider's success on jeopardy or the federal government with the confirmation of the aaciesant secretary for health. people want and deserve the same thing we all want to be treated with respect and equal members in our communities under our laws. to the transgender community, i am standing here on the floor of the house of representatives today to tell you that you are valued, loved, and your stories matters. your identify should not just be affirmed but celebrated. as chair. lgbtq+ equality caucus, we will never stop fighting for your ability to reach your full potential without fear of discrimination, violence, or stigmatization. you deserve full equality, nothing less. with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas seek recognition? >> address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> madam speaker, i rise today to recognize the united way 100th anniversary. it has supported the community in many kayways and enriched the lives of the people in the area. they have helped residents, volunteers, donors, businesses, governments, nonprofits, and community stakeholders and brought them together to solve some of the toughest issues affecting terrant county. i join in proclaiming november 17, 2022 as get united day. and am proud of their important work to encourage unity among all residents and commitment to building a stronger community. i want to congratulation lathe the united way of terrant county for this signature milestone. i am confident they'll continue their exceptional service to the community for the next 100 years. in god we trust. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from michigan seek recognition? ms. tlaib: ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. tlaib: madam speaker, i rise today in honor of the life of tyrone winfrey, a beloved resident of the 15th district. a tireless advocate and fighter for higher education opportunities. he served as the executive director of community affairs for detroit public schools community district. and was our former school board president. he worked tirelessly to advocate for our utah and ensure every student had access to quality education. tyrone served as our community over 35 years at the school district and cu during this time inspired so many of our students and families. unfortunately mr. winfrey lost his five-year battle with cancer this month. i'm here proud to stand in honor of his life and his love for our community. my thoughts and prayers are with his family and our school community as well as all those impacted by tyrone winfrey. i yield. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from south carolina seek recognition? mr. wilson: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. wilson: thank you, madam speaker. americans are experiencing inflation at 40-year high was families in south carolina paying over 14% more in the last year. under biden, inflation has outpaced worker wages for 18 months in a row and will cost the average american household over $8,000 annually, which is a loss of a month of income. a trip to the grocery store costs families 12% more from last year. eggs are up 43%. milk up 15%. the congressional budget office reports the irresponsible inflation expansion act will increase the deficit through 2026 and cost working families an additional $60 billion destroying jobs. our country is in crisis and americans need relief. which is why voters have achieved a house republican majority. republicans will fight biden nation undermining american families. congratulations speaker to be kevin mccarthy. in conclusion god bless our troops who successfully protected american for 20 years as the global war on terrorism continues moving from the afghanistan safe haven to america. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> madam speaker, i rise today in support of the v.a. infrastructure powers exceptional research act. mr. higgins: called the viper act. that the house will consider today. in buffalo in 1958 dr. william sharp deck and engineer wilson teamed up to develop the first implantable pacemaker at our buffalo v.a. hospital. today more than three million around the world have an implanted pacemaker. and the v.a. pacemaker program still monitors more than 11,000 veterans with pacemakers. the viper act will build on this record, bringing us another step toward the next generation of lifesaving treatments. i ask my colleagues to join in supporting this legislation. it's an investment in a stronger future for veterans and our health care system overall. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? mr. thompson: madam speaker, request unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. thompson: thank you, madam speaker. madam speaker, i rise today to congratulate the can juannies club of clarion, pennsylvania, on their 100th anniversary. since the founding on december 16, 1922, the members of the kiwanis club have been a crucial part of the community. it is an international organization of volunteers that strives to serve the needs of children. the club has over 550,000 members internationally and seeks to help children by fighting hunger, improving literacy rates, and improving children's health and educational outcomes. across the world kiwanis club members have taken part in over 150,000 service projects to benefit communities and help make them better places to live. today the clarion continue to carry out the club's mission of giving back to the community by hosting regular fundraisers, to benefit children, and providing an annual scholarship for students in clarion county. join me in congratulating the club on 100 years of service and thanking them for their many years of giving back to the clarion -- to clarion county. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recog recognition? >> request to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: no objection. >> thank you, madam speaker. today i rise in solidarity with south jersey sikh community. this month marks 38 years since the anti-sikh rioters in india massacred sikhs over three days. the massacre was retaliation for the assassination of indian prime minister indira gandy. there were mass rapes, lynching, sikhs homes and businesses were destroyed. senselessly slaughtered for nothing more than their beliefs and their religion. following the slaughter, some of the sikhs chose to flee india. today many of them call south jersey home. they built lives for themselves, contributed to the education, economic, religious, and cultural richness of our region. mr. norcross: they also carried the knowledge of those dark days. they keep the names and memories of those who are lost in those days very much alive. in memory of those sikhs' lost to this senseless violence between november 1 and november 3 of 1984, with respect to those who carry on their legacy in south jersey today, i stand here in solidarity with my sikh brothers and sisters. and i thank you. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from north carolina seek recognition? >> madam speaker, i seek unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> madam speaker, the midterm elections delivered a strong message to the g.o.p. politicians should keep their hands off women's reproductive decisions. voters in california, michigan, and vermont enshrined abortion access into their state constitutions and kentucky voters rejected a ballot measure threatening abortion protections. post election polls show a majority of voters want to see congress protect abortion rights, regardless of how unpopular their views, republicans in congress double down on their attacks on women's bodies. we know it's going to be an uphill battle to codify roe and house republicans made it clear, they won't stop with banning abortion. ms. manning: last july, 193 house republicans voted against my bill to protect the right to bit control. a mesh -- birth control. a measure 95% of voters agree with. the right to abortion and birth control are critical issues for the american people. so i ask my colleagues across the aisle why aren't they critical to you? thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from the virgin islands seek recognition? ms. plaskett: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. ms. plaskett: thank you, madam speaker. today i rise to highlight some of the historic results of my colleagues and i being able to deliver to the american people over the last two years. by putting aside political agendas and working for the betterment of our communities, we have made real change. in the 117th congress, house democrats fought to pass landmark packages to address the disenfranchisement inherently embedded in our country. we helped ensure more of our people can thrive by passing the american rescue plan. the bipartisan infrastructure law. the chips and science act. and the inflation reduction act. still there is more work to be done. my colleagues and i remain committed to putting money back in the pockets of american workers and families by addressing inflation, lowering health care costs, bolstering domestic manufacturing to create new good-paying jobs. not scaring people, supporting them. i thank you for that. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from georgia seek recognition? >> i seek to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> thank you. we have matched tens of billions of dollars be sent to defend another nation's border that not our own. mrs. greene: every single day our border is invaded by people from foreign lands and also by drugs. over 300 people are dying every single day, americans are dying every single day from fentanyl poisoning. yet the biden administration and this congress has not done anything to protect our nation's border and the american people. just to remind everyone, the building we are standing in, the federal government, and everyone's paychecks here is paid by the american taxpayer. and the american taxpayers and the american people deserve to have a secure border and deserve the protection of the federal government from the mexican cartels that funnel drugs into america to kill americans. i'm calling for an audit of every single penny that has been sent to ukraine, including aid money and any other moneys that have been given to the ukrainian government to defend their national security while hour national security has been -- while our national security has been ignored. this must be done. it has to be done as soon as possible for the american people. they deserve transparency. and they deserve to see where their money is going. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from indiana seek recognition? the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> madam speaker, i rise today in support of the strengthening the v.a. cyber security act legislation i introduced to support and protect our selfless veteran. the v.a. is the largest integrated health care network in the united states and it stores millions of records with personal information for veterans and their families. this legislation will require the v.a. to obtain an independent cyber security assessment of its most critical information systems and develop a timeline and budget to fix any uni ident -- fix any identified weaknesses and inefficiencies. we must ensure the v.a. has all the tools it needs to work. i urge my colleagues to move this commonsense, bipartisan legislation forward. thank you madam speaker and i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, madam. pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on november 15, 2022, at 4:39 p.m. appointment, united states china economic and security review commission. signed, sincerely, cheryl l. johnson, clerk. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> madam speaker, pursuant to house resolution 1464, i call up s. 4524, the speak out act, and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: senate 4524, an act to limit the disputability of nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses involving sexual assault and sexual harassment. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to house resolution 1464, the bill is considered read. the bill shall be debatable for one hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on judiciary. the gentleman from new york, mrn from ohio, mr. jordan, each will control 30 minute. the chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. mr. nadler: i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. nadler: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. nadler: madam speaker, s. 4524, the speak out act, empowers survivors of sexual misconduct by prohibiting the use of nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses that serve to silence survivors that entered agreements with those clauses before conflicts arise. often buries in contracts people sign every day these confidentiality clauses have cribbed to the culture of silence in cases involving sexual miscaught. as such, they have routinely enabled sexual predators to evade accountability. the confidential nature of these clauses makes it difficult to fully diagnose the scope of the problem. nevertheless, experts estimate that more than one third of workers in the united states are required to sign a nondisclosure agreement in their employment contracts. this is particularly concerning because of the rampant nature of sexual abuse in the workplace. an estimated 81% of women and 43% of men who experience sexual harassment in their lifetimes and more than half of all women report being subjected to unwanted sexual activity in the workplace. but these appalling numbers do not even tell the full story. the equal employment opportunity commission found that the vast majority of survivors simply never report incidents of sexual harassment or sexual assault. today, we will taken a important step toward fixing this problem by banning the enforce. of nondisclosure, nondisparagement clauses agreed to before sexual harassment or sexual assault dispute arises. for the purposes of the bill, a dispute arises when a person chooses to exercise their legal rights by asserting a claim of sexual harass. or sexual assault in some official context such as by chaining to a government agent soir by filing a lawsuit. this legislation continues congress' important work to protect the rights of survivors to come forward and hold perpetrators accountable for abuse. earlier this year, on a bipartisan basis, we enacted h.r. 4445 which empowers survivors to decide whether they resolve their disputes in court or through arbitration. that bill was an example of how congress can and should function. we work together across the aisle to identify a problem, establish a bipartisan solution to that problem and pass legislation to restore the rights of millions of americans to their day in court. the speak out act is an opportunity for us to work together once again to end the oppressive culture of silence hiding sexual misconduct, promote transparency and accountability and make the workplace safer for everyone. this legislation has already passed the senate unanimously and it is supported by a broad coalition of public interest organizations including the american association for justice, the national alliance to end sexual violence, the army of survivor, the national domestic violence hotline and the national coalition against sexual assault. i thank our colleagues, representatives frankel, buck, cicilline, jayapal, griffith, bustos an owens for their leadership on this issue. i urge all members to support the bill and reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. jordan: thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker: the gentleman is recognized. mr. jordan: sexual misconduct is terrible and it's wrong. those who engage in it should be held accountable. but this bill, while well intentioned, is misguided. for starters, it's a massive federal overreach. it regulates contract law that has been and should be handled at the state level. some states have decided to regulate confidentiality clauses and contracts, others have decided not to. that's how our system of government works. that's how our constitution works. states experimenting to find out what in fact works best. however this bill creates a new federal floor that undercuts the power of states in the process. and this is just the beginning of a new push by democrats to chip away at state's rights. the white house said as much this week. in comments on the bill thed bien -- the biden administration said, quote, it looks forward to continuing to work with congress to advance broader legislation that addresses a range of issues implicated in n.d.a.'s and nondisparagement clauses, end quote. they're not hiding the ball here. federalism is a serious issue and congress should not be taking power from the states just to impose its top-down approach. additionally, we should take a hard look at the findings included in the bill as passed by the senate. house democrats intentionally, intentionally left these findings out of the version of the bill that the judiciary committee marked up. these findings include statistics about the percentage of men and women who have experienced some form of sexual harassment or sexual assault in their lifetime. it's not clear whether these statistics and these -- where these statistics and new findings come from but seem to rely on a study that used a broad definition of sexual harassment, including misjeaneddering as sexual harass. that definition goes way beyond existing law. a feigning of congress that effectively treats, quote, misjeaneddering, on its own, as a form of sexual harassment will doubtless lead to future efforts to expand the law in other ways. democrats are going to include findings like this, they should at least have to debate it in the committee. we should think carefully about these findings before cementing them in federal law. finally this bill as drafted is too broad and will affect matters unrelated to sexual misconduct. the confidential my ty clause may apply to a broad range of information and the bill undoes all confidentiality clauses. it will give lawyers incentive to void confidentiality clauses and use items unrelated to sexual harassment and sexual assault. that is a flawed bill and it's going to create problems down the road. i urge my colleagues to oppose it and reserve the mans of our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: madam speaker, i only wish this bill did what the gentleman from ohio says it does. it's modeled on the -- by his logic we should never have passed the americans with disabilities act, we should have left it to the states that. obviously department work. i now yield four minutes to the gentlelady from florida, the sponsor of the bill, ms. frankel. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. frankel: thank you, madam speaker. i'm very, very proud to rise today in support of this game-changing historic bill, the speak out act with thanks to our senate and house speakers and to representative buck, bustos in the house, gillibrand and blackburn. of course our judiciary committee, our staff, my staffer, beck cars, and most especially to two very, very courageous women who may be with us today, gretchen carlson and julia raginski who against all odds fought back against the abuse of powerful men in a powerful corporation and lifted the voices of women by leading efforts to stem the scourge of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace and zivic society. thank you to gretchen and julie. today, madam speaker, we'll pass legislation in tandem with the no arbitration law which is aimed at stopping sexual abuse at the workplace and holding abusers accountable and with all due respect, to my friends on the other side, we're here to protect women from being raped, not states from being raped. current and federal law and most states allow employers an others to force nondisclosure agreements into employment and consumer contracts that silence survive yofers sexual assault and harassment. these are known as forced n.d.a.'s and one third of our work force is subject to them. madam speaker, i have an example of one right here. i just -- i mean, for a layperson to look, i will just tell you it's a bunch of gobbledygook. nowhere would you know from reading this n.d.a. which is very typical, that it means if your boss rapes you, you can't tell a soul about it or you'll be penalized. and businesses using these n.d.a.'s to cover up their dirty little secrets of sexual abuse, they force survive dwrors bear the trauma in silence. so it's not bad enough, madam speaker, that a survivor is humiliated, scared and hurt, that they have to leave their job or maybe the field entirely. if they're forced to sign an n.d.a. before a dispute arises, they must suffer in sims, not able to tell a spouse, parent or co-worker. if they do they can be fired or disciplined or sued for damages an attorneys' fees. that is crazy and unjust. the forced n.d.a. punishes a survivor and protects the perpetrator who is set to abuse and abuse and abuse again. today we hold abusers accountable and change the culture of the work police. employers who used to sweeping these stories under the rug will now be forced to stop toxic workplaces and sexual assault before it happens. and this should lead to safer, more productive workplaces and a zivic society for all. and the change couldn't come soon enough. it's not just the moving and thv personalities that we've read about that have been the victims of sexual abuse in the workplace. one in three women, disproportionately women of color, have suffered sexual ha razzment in the work mace. there are 71 million in the work place, millions and millions of women who have to endure. this our bipartisan women's caucus, we heard story after story, maids, hotel maids, raped by guests. waitresses pinched by their customers to earn tips. farm workers assaulted in the field by their supervisors. a tension workers forced to date potential customers. it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter where you're a hotel maid, a farmworker, a secretary, c.e.o., people in all wogs of life are being inappropriately touched, raped, harassed by supervisors, co-workers, customers and service providers aand the speak out act, madam speaker, will make these forced n.d.a.'s null and vid. but i do want to add -- mr. nadler: i yield the gentlelady 30 seconds. ms. frankel: it does not prevent a bids from protecting trade secrets and it doesn't take away the option for survive dwrors sign a nondisclosure in a settlement if they choose. let's say no though dirtily little secret of sexual abuse ruining lives. i urge my colleague, democrats and republicans alike, to vote yes on the speak out act. thank you, madam speaker, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman from new york reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. jordan: i yield three minutes to my friend and member of the judiciary committee, the gentleman from kentucky, mr. massie. mr. massie: i thank the gentleman from ohio. i want to be the first to admit this is a difficult bill to debate. it sounds good. and i believe the intentions of the other side of the aisle are good as well. nobody should be subjected to sexual harassment. there is a problem. we are legislating outside of our domain. we are violating states' rights in doing this. the law that we proposed that's -- thas that's being proposed to pass today here is already in some form or another been implemented in 15 different states. guess what? those 15 different states don't all have the same solution. it's sort of arrogant for us to sit here and say we are going to come up with a one-size-fits-all that's going to be better than anything that those 15 states have done. i've got three tests that i tell people back home that i represent that i apply to any bill before i vote for it. the first test is is it constitutional? this bill is questionable whether it's constitutional. because it would regulate intrastate contracts not just interstate contracts. we know we have no business inside of the states. the other test i apply is can we afford it? well, ostensibly this bill doesn't cost that much to impose something, a new thing on employers or contracts, but the third test that i always apply is, is this something we should solve at the federal level or can states do it better? and that's where this bill fails. the states can legislate on this. the states have legislated on this. 15 different states since 2018 have legislated on this. in fact, the definition -- as i read this bill and as we debated it, i wondered what is the definition of sexual harassment? the bill itself refers to the state definitions of sexual harassment. it's tacitly acknowledging that it is the domain of the states. contract law is. there was a concern expressed during the debate in committee on this that, is this the camel putting its nose in the tent when we let federal laws intervene or override state laws? that was a concern that was expressed, but it wasn't a conspiracy theory that there would be more legislation after that. in fact, the ink's not even dry on this. the vote hasn't happened today. but two days ago, just recently, the executive office of the president, o.m.b., issued a statement of administrative policy about this bill. they are giddy at overriding state laws and breaking state contracts. in fact, this -- their statement says the administration looks forward to continuing to work with the congress to advance broader legislation that addresses the range of issues implicated in ndaa's and nondisparagement clauses. they can't wait to do more of this. they can't wait to take over the state sleurs' roles in legislating these issues -- legislatures' roles in lemg slate these issues. i know it's a tough vote. i know the other side has good intentions, but this is the wrong bill. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: i now yield three minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from texas, a member of the committee, ms. jackson lee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. jackson lee: thank you, lois frankel, thank you mrs. bustos, thank you to the chairman, david cicilline and chairman cohen for the work they have done. and let me agree with the the gentleman from kentucky in saying that it doesn't cost much. in fact, it doesn't cost much of anything. as compared to the abuse that women have suffered for decades. let me also agree with the gentleman that there are and is something called states rights under the 10th amendment. let me be very clear that women don't have to suffer life or death circumstances under the constitution. i hold this book up for everybody to understand that this book does not require silence. this is not the constitution of silence. this is not the constitution of the 14th amendment with equal protection of the law, yet as a woman you are silent. it does not require due process, but you are silent. let me give you a fact, more than half of all employed women support -- report experiencing sexual harassment or sexual assault while at work. as a result, there is a significant concern that n.d.a.'s are abusive. to the extent that it breaks a woman to not be able to tell of her harassment abuse or rape. today widespread sexual misconduct can be covered up by n.d.a.'s hiding the fine print that says take it or leave it. when you have that, what you have is a circumstance where you are, in fact, promoting abuse and eliminating the power that women have and promoting the power that perpetrators have. i'd like to be able to stay on the constitution that says to create a more perfect union. this legislation does not allow the fine print. doesn't allow i'll make you sign an n.d.a. before there is an issue or a case that has arisen. and more importantly i think it saves lives and future women from sexual assault and rape. we know harvey weinstein that had this tool had a was used over and over again, in contracts at his company, included strict n.d.a.'s which prevented survivors from coming forward with their stories. i know that that is not the workplace that you want your daughters to go into. as our young women leave and begin to work in colleges -- from colleges, but also the women that work as factory workers, secretaries, and waitresses. those used to be the jobs that people would look down on and say, oh, we know why they are in those jobs. no, they were there so they could support their family. being a single parent, raising up their children. i know those women every day. bus drivers, school bus drivers getting minimum wage. but they encountered those conditions just as you would encounter them in the major corporations. i'm rising to support s. 4524, the speak out act, and ask whether or not you are a believer of the constitution, where in it that says you must be silenced, your due process -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady's time has expired. mr. nadler: i grant the gentlelady 30 seconds. ms. jackson lee: coming forward with their stories of abuse. the harvard business review has indicated over 1/3 of the u.s. work force is bound by the n.d.a. i close by saying i walk away from here and saying when we cast this vote we'll cast a vote for creating a more perfect union. and that women will not be second class, second rate without the same equal protection of the law as anyone else. i applaud the secretaries, the bus drivers, factories workers, cafeteria workers who happen to be women as well as i applaud the corporate women who are rising up. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. jordan: would yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from north carolina, valued member of the judiciary committee, mr. bishop. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. bishop: thank you, madam speaker. i thank the future chairman of the judiciary committee, the gentleman from ohio. i think whatever else voters said a week ago, they said don't go too far. that's the reason the gentleman to my right will be the judiciary chairman, the gentleman far to my left will no longer be. this goes too far. and in the chairman's comments in support of the bill he gave the pieces of information that help us to detect why that is. one, he said, he made reference to a bill, h.r. 4445, ending forced arbitration of sexual assault and sexual harassment act of 2021. he said appropriately so that that bill had bipartisan support. including mine. it made it so that women who suffer sexual harassment, anyone who suffers sexual harassment is no longer limited, if they have entered into a contract forcing arbitration, for mandatory arbitration of a dispute of that nature, they can bring it to court. court is public in the united states. that bill was supported on a bipartisan basis because it's fair and equitable. the other thing the chairman said is that this bill, the one we are talking about now, will empower survivors of sexual harassment. sexual assault. but it also will empower nonsurvivors. that is to say, anyone who wishes to bring a nonmeritorious claim of sexual harassment forward in order to destroy someone's life also will be empowered by this to ignore any contract to do otherwise. a rape on campus is a retracted defamatory rolling stone magazine article written by sabrina and published on november 19, 2014 that describes a group sexual assault at the university of virginia in shar clotsville -- charlottesville. rolling stone retracted the story in its entirety on april 5, 2015. it claimed that a u.v.a. student, jackie, had been taken to a party hosted by u.v.a.'s phi kappa sigh fraternity by a fellow seunt. at the party jackie alleged in the article her date led her to a bedroom where she was gang raped by several fraternity members as part of an initiation ritual. her account generated much media attention. and u.v.a. president sullivan suspended all fraternities. after other journalists investigated the article's claims and found the significant discrepancies, rolling tone issued multiple apologies for the story. it has since been reported that jackie may have invented portions of the story in an unsuccessful attempt to win the affections of a fellow student in whom she had a romantic interest. in her deposition given in 2016, jackie stated that she believed her story at the time. on january 12, 2015, charlottesville police officials told u.v.a. that an investigation had failed to find any evidence confirming the events in the rolling stone article. u.v.a. president sullivan acknowledged that the story was discredited. charlottesville police officially suspended their four-month investigation on march 23, 2015 based on lack of credible evidence. the columbia university graduate school of jeurmism audited the editorial process that is culminated in the article being published. on april 5, 2015, rolling stone retracted the article and published the independent report on the publication's history. and so forth. everyone remembers the duke lacrosse incident in durham, north carolina. everyone remembers the lives destroyed by these and other false allegations. they do happen. the balance that we brought to the law by ensuring that every victim of sexual assault or harassment could come forward and sue. if it is a suit against a public figure or against someone notorious or against someone rich or powerful, i got to tell you that will get publicity. but it also is a system that has balance. people are subjected to discovery as to their motives. you have tools to find out and test the veracity of each side's views. each side's story. this bill gives the green light to the false accuser. this bill says resume speed. it's a resume speed sign to those who would make false accusations. we brought balance to the law with the participation of republicans and democrats. i grant you that that was a great bill. i congratulate you on bringing forward that bill, which i joined and voted for. this one is unfair and unbalanced. it goes too far. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: madam speaker, this bill goes so far the gentleman from north carolina tells us, this bill goes too far, it goes so far, in fact, that every republican member of the senate voted for it. what a bunch of radicals. madam speaker, i now yield 3 1/2 minutes to the gentleman from rhode island, mr. cicilline. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr.cies lynnliney: -- mr. cicilline: i begin by saying this bill is proof of the extraordinary leadership of chairman nadler on the judiciary committee. he has led our committee in a principleled, determined way and i think as a result of his leadership, the judiciary committee has been the most productive, impactful, and effective committee in the congress. while my colleague on the other side of the aisle look forward to a different chairman, i want to acknowledge the extraordinary leadership of our current chairman. madam speaker, i rise today in strong support of s. 4524, the speak out act. i want to applaud the sponsor, ms. frankel, mr. buck, and all the other bipartisan leaders who are part of this, including you, madam speaker, this commonsense legislation will prevent the enforcement of predisputed -- without fear of judicially enforced reprisals can do so. in fact it's unthinkable, i hope to all of us, that widespread sexual misconduct can be covered up and swept under the rug because of n.d.a.s snuck into these take it or leave it contracts. it's well beyond time for this abusive practice to end. . this will bring sunlight and transparency to a system that relies on shadows to hide horrific conduct. it will end the culture of silence that allowed predators to evade accountability. i look forward to sending this bill to the president's desk and taking another step in our critical work to eliminate the forced silence that prevents survivors of sexual misconduct from having their voices heard. before closing i want to address the argument raised by some of my republican colleagues that the speak out act interferes with state's rights to set their own laws on the issue. they're missing the point. this protectance american value. by defending the freedom of survivors to tell their own stories. this baseline freedom should not vary from state to state. finally i want to say that the speak out act creates a floor for the basic protection of survive years rights to speak out, not a ceiling. states remain free do enact stronger protections for survivors. according to report15rbgs states have done just that with some states like california banning the use of n.d.a.'s entirely. but federal legislation is still necessary because survivors should not have to rely on a patchwork of varying states, uncertain which might apply to them. finally i want to end by noting i'm a little confused and to be honest disappointed by the opposition i've heard from my colleagues. during consideration of legislation that prohibited the enforcement of forced arbitration clauses in the same kinds of cases, mr. jordan, the ranking member of the judiciary committee said, and i quote, victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment must always have their claims heard. they must never be silenced or intimidated into silence, end quote. the speak out act provides precisely that protection. i strongly urge my colleagues to support this legislation, this bipartisan legislation that was passed unanimously in the senate, that builds ponte gate work of you, madam speaker, on 4*r 4445, so once and for all we can no long brother vied protection to predators an abusers. they're acting with impunity in workplace cross america. with that, madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from ohio. mr. jordan: i yield three minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. mcclintock. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. mcclintock: what a strange world the woke are creating. their open borders policy produced an epidemic of child sex trafficking they use taxpayer dollars to transport unaccompanied minors across the country. these children are delivered to those who claim to be friends or family and then abandoned. the biden administration has lost track of 45,000 children that it has tushed other to so-called sponsors in this matter. the democrats won't even discuss the sex trafficking crisis they've created, let alone do anything about it, because to condemn it is to acknowledge it and they won't even do that. yet they bring a bill to the floor today to virtue signal their opposition to sexual harassment in the workplace. specifically this voids certain confidential clauses in cases involving sexual harassment. let's be clear. no civilized person condone such as may haver. several states have passed laws similar to the measure before us today. that's where the constitution rightly places such questions work the states. federalism allows a state to pry try something out. if it works, other states copy it. if it doesn't they can avoid. this bill imposes the same standards across the country. what could possibly go long? first it references a study that includes among the definitions of sexual harassment, a microa gretion, i believe that's the word the woke use, such as misjeaneddering. the mere allegation of sexual harassment, without the necessity of any kind of proof, invalidates the nondisclosure agreement with the parties reach their adwreement before the dispute arose. this bill doesn't define dispute so we don't know when it'll apply. if an employee refer it is a colleague by a pronoun that has just changed, should this really be grounds for publicly pillorying the employer for sexual harassment? the woke excel at targeting those they disagree with in such a manner. this headaches it possible for them to do so under a wide range of circumstances. second, if the mere allegation of sexual harassment can void a nondisclosure agreement, would someone simply throw in such an allegation to air their real grievance in this bill voids the confidentiality entirely even though that can cover information unrelated to sexual misconduct. third, where does such confidentiality carveout stop? are references in the workplace to political ideology, religious beliefs or culture preferences, already branded as microaggressions by the week, to be added one-by-one? we know this bill is just the begin, the white house said as much this week. perhaps these are questions best left to the states. perhaps our time is best devoted to protecting the countless children the crime cartels are sexually exploit with the active assistance of the deems open border policies. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: i yield two minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from washington, a member of the committee, ms. jayapal. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. jayapal: i rise in strong support of this bipartisan, bicameral speak out act and i want to thank representative frankel for her leadership and the chairman. this bill bans non-- forced nondisclosure agreements in assault and harassment disputes and preserves the right of survivors to use their voice. women across the country have been told for a long time what constitutes appropriate bhaior what constitutes sexual harassment, what doesn't. let me tell you, it is time to let them speak up and shine a light on exactly what is happening. the reality is that estimates are that a third of employees in the united states are covered by these n.d.a.'s and last year, we heard stories of exactly this situation in the judiciary committee. last year, tatiana bravely testified under the protection of a friendly subpoena about the harassment and abuse she endured frommer h boss and former c.e.o., zia chisty. previously tatiana had been bound by a gag order that silenced her and prevented accountable for her abuser. madam speaker, after her moving testimony, after bringing light and being able to talk about the horror she experienced, chisty was finally fired. he was finally held accountable. in fact, the former british prime minister resigned from the company's advisory board after that happened. but why should she have been silenced in the first place? why should she have been raped or any other woman been raped and bound to silence because of a nondois closure agreement that was forced, in many cases in order for these women to be able to actually employment? that is absolutely wrong. why should women be forced to feel alone, feel like somehow this is their fault, somehow they're crazy, they should be able to talk about what's happen and bring light to the situation. the reality is, madam speaker, this is about power. this is about how who holds the power and how it is held and that is why we need the speak out act to be passed, it is why it is the only way to make sure that we bring transparency and light to this. mr. ad leer: i yield 30 seconds to the gentlelady. ms. eye pal: thank you, madam speaker, thank you, mr. chairman. for millions of survivors across the country who deserve to have their voices heard, vote yes on h.r. 8227 and i thank those people on the other side of the aisle who agree with us and know that this is the right thing to do. thank you, madam speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. jordan: thank you, madam speaker. i yield three minutes to the gentleman from colorado, mr. buck. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. buck: i thank the gentleman for yielding. madam speaker, this bill is very simple. it removes a muzzle from employees if they have been raped or harassed in the workplace. by allowing women to expose predators in the workplace, this legislation further protects future victims. it also puts employers on notice that they must be more careful in performing due diligence, in doing background checks on applicants. finally, this bill is limited to cases of rape and sexual harassment. this bill doesn't stop a worker from waiving their constitutional right to free speech in any other circumstance. if you have trade secrets, you may be subjected to a nondisclosure agreement. if you object to the management practices of your employer, you may be subjected to a nondisclosure agreement. if you are raped, you may not be muzzled. this legislation gives us a choice. we can protect rapists, predators, perverts in the workplace. or we can give voice to victims, survivor, and the most vulnerable among us. we can assure americans that our pliers will only hire those employees who respect others in the workplace. this bill received unanimous support in the senate and has bipartisan support in the house. the reason is simple. we all had mothers. who faced antiquated attitudes in the workplace. and we don't want our daughters and our granddaughters to face those same attitudes. i encourage my colleagues to vote for this commonsense legislation. i very much appreciate the speaker and representative frankel's leadership on this issue. i hope that republicans step up and do the right thing. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: i yield one minute to the distinguished gentleman from california, a member of the committee, mr. correa. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. correa: madam speaker, this is not a democrat or republican issue. this is about stopping sexual predators. for decades, larry nassar abused young girls on the u.s. women's national gym gnattics team. at least 265 young women and girls, 265 victims, were targeted and sexually abused by nassar. it was all due to a nondisdis closure statement that protected nassar from justice. allowing sexual predators to hide behind nondisclosure agreements is wrong and is a crime. but today, here, we have the power, today, to stop sexual predators from hurting our loved ones. i ask my colleagues, both democrats and republicans, today, vote for these -- for the speak out act. thank you very much and i yield. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. jordan: madam speaker, we reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: i now yield two minutes to the gentlelady from california, ms. speier. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. speier: thank you, madam speaker. thank you to my great caucus co-chair and good friend, congresswoman lois frankel, for this bill. i thank the chairman for bringing it to the floor. i also thank the speaker for her extraordinary work in this area. you know, i sit here and i think to myself, are we living on two different planets? why would any of you on the other side of the aisle want to prevent a woman or a man from speaking up if they were raped by someone in the office? why would we allow nears n.d.a.'s? sexual harassment is an abuse of power made worse by the indignity of being silenced and gagged about your experience. we've heard this morning that a third of american work force is bound by n.d.a.'s. now they were used originally to protect trade secrets. we appreciate that. we get that. but they have now been extended to be a weapon of choice for abusers and those orchestrating coverups. let's talk about the washington commanders owner, dan snyder. at the nfl. snyder assured his fans that he knew nothing about rampant and reprehensible harassment suffered by his employees. from women staffers forced to endure harassment and attempted assault. some testified before the committee on oversight and reform that they were told to avoid him at all costs. and other predatory employees. snyder even had cheerleaders videotaped without their consent and some without their knowledge for a calendar photo shoot. the women posed topless, using only their hands and arms or body paint to cover their breasts. snyder knew they would have to change outfits and be exposed at times and he made sure that he got the video. to watch and share with his cronies. and surprise, snyder used pre-dispute n.d.a.'s with many of those women staffers. abusers like snyder, wine tyne -- wine steyn, rog -- weinstein, roger aalst at fox, should not be allowed to be the predators they are in the work force. and women w and men who are victims should be allowed to call them out. it's time to end this practice of silencing survivors. it's time for workers of the freedom to speak out. for those who say this should be a states' rights issue, remind me. isn'tn't it your party that -- isn't it your party that wants to ban abortions across the country and not leave it to the states? i yield back. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. members are reminded to direct their remarks to the chair. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. jordan: ready to close? we reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: madam speaker, i now yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentlelady from north carolina, ms. manning. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. ms. manning: thank you, mr. chairman. madam speaker, i rise in strong support of the bipartisan speak out act. one in three women in our country experiences sexual harassment in the workplace at some point in her career. this appalling behavior is unacceptable, but it will not stop if -- unless survivors -- it will not stop if survivors are silenced. let me be clear, any person who experiences sexual assault in the workplace or otherwise should be able to speak out and seek justice. n.d.a.'s and nondispairnlg clauses have been used for far too long to silence survivors of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace and instead shield abusers and the companies that enable them. the speak out act helps to fix this flawed system and restores survivors' voices. and contrary to some of the comments made by my colleagues across the aisle, this is a reasonable act that explicitly protects trade see rest and other proprietary information. it is carefully designed to remove the protection of predators. that's something we should all be in favor of. i urge my colleagues across the aisle to join me in supporting this critically important legislation so that those who wish to do so can hold perpetrators accountable and share their stories. this is something that should be important to all of us. thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from ohio reserves. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: i now yield two minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from illinois, mrs. bustos. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. bustos: thank you, madam speaker. i rise to strongly support the speak out act. carried by my dear friend and colleague, congresswoman lois frankel. i want to talk to you about why this is so important. eight months ago i stood in this chamber to speak about my bill to expand the rights of sexual assault and sexual harassment survivors to seek justice. i wrote a bill that is now law after reading the haunting stories of the thousands of women from a company called sterling incorporated, the parent company of jared jewelers. each story was more disturbing than the one before t managers demanding sexual acts in exchange for employment ben benefits. company events where women were expected to undress publicly. one story a former employee attended an overnight meeting where she woke up with her underwear pushed to her ankles and her manager raping her. and all of this stayed quiet, in secret, for years. all because of a few words that are hidden away in legal language, filed alongside other forms and filled out as part of employment paperwork. the women at sterling incorporated were silenced by forced arbitration clause that is prevented them from seeking justice in a court of law. but we know that these aren't the first nightmare stories that we have heard. they won't be the last. for way too long the sinister culture of silence has protected predators and shamed survivors. but as the saying goes, sunshine is the best disinfectant. and the only way to dismantle this culture of silence is to let the voices and the stories of the survivors be heard because those stories are powerful. survivor stories launched the me too movement. survivor inspired my bill to end forced arbitration. and today's bill. it will be those stories that will continue to bring change. i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand on the right side of history and support the speak out act. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new york reserves. the gentleman from ohio is recognized. mr. jord kran: -- mr. jordan: for the reason we said. opposition. we yield back our time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from new york is recognized. mr. nadler: madam speaker, some have argued that the bill is not necessary because the courts may already choose not to enforce n.d.a.'s in certain cases. but this argument overlooks the reality that this scattershot approach to forced n.d.a.'s in sexual assault cases leaves survivors uncertain of their ability to tell their own stories without fear of reprisal. and continues to allow n.d.a.'s to be used as an intimidation tactic by powerful corporations and abusers, or coercive requirement for employment or everyday services. without a clear message from congress that forced n.d.a.'s will no longer be enforceable in court, forced n.d.a.'s in employment and consumer contracts are likely to contin to have a chilling effect on survivors speaking out. these contracts of silence limit the ability of millions of americans to come forward in the first place. they contain sweeping prohibitions against any future negative statements about an employer. standard language in these terms limits the survivors' ability to communicate by virtually any means regardless of the truthfulness of the communication in perpetuity. in many cases confidentiality clauses cover the existence of an n.d.a. itself. meaning even discussing the fact one is bound by an n.d.a. could constitute a violation of a contract. there are cases which survivors choose to waive their right to speak about their case. that is a decision for survivors to make for themselves based on the circumstances, not something that should be forced upon them by their abusers or their enablers. last year in a hearing that none of us will forget, the judiciary committee heard from four survivors of shocking workplace sexual harassment and assault. as they explained after enduring horrific abuse at the hands of their perpetrators, confidentiality clauses, and routine contracts prevented them from reporting and publicly disclosing their abuse. the speak out act ends this outrageous practice once and for all. importantly it does not prevent survivors from voluntarily entering into settlement agreements that include n.d.a.'s. instead it simply clarifies that these clauses cannot be enforced unless a survivor chooses to agree to the clause after the dispute arises. the biden-harris administration has issued a statement strongly supporting this legislation. noting that prohibiting the use of predispute m.d.'s and nondisparagement clause also increase access to justice and make the workplace safer for everyone. the united states senate has unanimously passed this legislation. i have heard the argument from some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that we should leave this to the states. that the national legislation impinges on states' rights somehow. this from the same people who urge a national ban on abortion. i urge my colleagues to send this critical message to the president's desk. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. all time for debate has expired. pursuant to house resolution 1464, the previous question is ordered. the question is on third reading of the bill. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. third reading. the clerk: an act to limit the judicial enforceability of predispute nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses relating to disputes involving sexual assault and sexual harassment. the speaker pro tempore: the question son pass act bill. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the bill is passed. for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio seek recognition. mr. jordan: ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman ask for the yeas and nays. mr. jordan: yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this is a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from new york seek recognition? >> as the member designated by representative morelle, i inform the house that he will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from alabama seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. bus of 05. he will vote no. mr. brooks of alabama will vote no the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. jacobs of new york, i inform the house that mr. jacobs will vote yea on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from tennessee seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. mark green of tennessee and mr. long of missouri i inform the house that mr. green and mr. long will both vote nay on s. 4524. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recog recognition? for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by congress members newman, vicente gonzalez, and mike thompson i inform the house that these members will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from arizona seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mr. gay yaigo, sphows that mr. gallego will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does does -- for what purpose does the gentlewoman seek recognition? >> as the member designated by chairwoman eddie bernice johnson, i inform the house that ms. johnson will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from -- the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mr. cawthorn of north carolina, i inform the house that mr. tau cawthorn will vote no on the measure. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from california seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mr. tom rice of south carolina, pursuant to house resolution 8, i inform the house that mr. rice will vote yes on s. 4524. as the member designated by mr. michael waltz of florida, pursuant to house resolution 8, i inform the house that mr. waltz will vote yes on senate bill 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado seek recognition? >> thank you, madam speaker. as the member designated by mr. joe courtney of connecticut's second district, i inform the house that mr. courtney will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new hampshire seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. o'halleran of arizona, i inform the house that mr. o'halleran will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new jersey seek recognition? mr. pallone: madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. donald payne, ms. ann kirkpatrick and ms. mikie sherrill, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mr. jim hymes of connecticut, i inform the house that mr. hymes will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida seek recognition? >> thank you, madam speaker. as the member designated by mr. palazzo from the state of mississippi, i inform the house that mr. palazzo will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from maryland seek recognition? >> thank you, madam speaker. as the member designated by mr. mceachin of virginia, i inform the house that mr. mceachin will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from illinois seek recognition? >> as the member designated by mrs. demings of florida, i inform the house that mrs. demings will vote yes on s. 4 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from rhode island seek recognition? mr. cicilline: as the member designated by ms. wilson of florida, ms. bass of california, ms. wild of pennsylvania, i inform the house that these members will vote yes on s. 452. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by ms. porter, i inform the house that ms. porter will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from missouri seek recognition? for what purpose does the gentlewoman from missouri seek recognition? >> as the member designated by ms. pressley, i inform the house that ms. pressley will vote yes on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida seek recognition? >> madam speaker, as the member designated by mr. lawson and mrm the house that -- mr. lawson and mr. soto of florida, i inform the house that these members will vote yea on s. 4524. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida seek recognition? ms. wasserman schultz, but wait, there's more. i inform the house that mrs. murphy of florida, as the member designated by her, will vote yea on s. 4524 as well. the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 315 and the nays are 109. the bill is passed. without objection, a motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i ask to be considered as primary sponsor of h.r. 4130. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the speaker pro tempore: the chair will now entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from oregon seek recognition? >> i seek recognition for one minute to address the house. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to celebrate national apprenticeship week and to highlight the importance of registered apprenticeships in building a diverse and talented work force, expanding economic opportunity, and growing a more inclusive and resilient economy. registered apprenticeships allow workers to earn and learn a -- learn and earn a living wage within their industry of choice. workers who go through apprenticeships start with an average salary of $70 thawrks,000, a salary that provides social mobility and economic security. ms. bonamici: this congress we have passed legislation to shore up manufacturing and combat climate change. the laws we passed created the needs for thousands of well-prepare and compensated workers. during this enable apprenticeship week i urge all of you to join me in expanding the opportunity to get more people, include manager women and people of color, on the path to a good job by investing in registered apprenticeships. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: member, can we take our conversations off the floor, please. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from new jersey seek recognition? >> unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i rise today to celebrate one of the unsung zivic heroes of our time. last month i attended a dedicatione ceremony of laura wooten hall at princeton university. wooten hall houses sprynesston center for human values and it is only fitting that it was name forward woman who devoted her life to something greater than herself. for nearly 0 years, laura wooten served as a pollworker ensuring that the people of new jersey could exercise their sacred right to vote. her service earned her the honor of being the longest continuously serving pollworker in united states history. mrs. watson coleman: despite living through the jim crow era to our current attack on human rights, her dedication never waiverred. may she be an inspiration to all of you. thank you and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlewoman from texas seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute and revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentlewoman from texas is recognized for one minute. ms. garcia: mr. speaker, i rise to recognize how critical it is for the senate to protect the daca program and the more than 800,000 dreamers in america. brought here as children through no fault of their own, dreamers have gone to our schools, grown up in our neighborhoods, have served on the front lines of the pandemic, and are just as american as all of us in this room. yet, the daca program hangs by a thread because of right-wing politicians and judges. 75% of americans already support dreamers obtaining a path to legal citizenship. so i call on the senate to act. america wants action. we must pass legislation this congress or our dreamers will suffer. we must put people over politics. dreamers over rhetoric. it is now or never for america's dreamers. we must act. thank you, mr. speaker, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. >> thank you, madam speaker. today i rise to honor the life and legacy of the legendary reverend dr. calvin o.budd iii. the pastor for over 50 years, he understood his role as a leader went beyond the faith community. witnessing the racial strife of the late 1960's, he became an ardent protector of harlem, particularly the black community, and often pushed projects and policies that would increase access to dire needs like housing and education. he led projects that include raising and investing $1 billion in housing and commercial developments in harlem through the development corporation and creating the thurgood marshall academy for learning and social change. mr. espaillat: he preached faith and education and he motivated us to be an active and uplifting communities through engaging in social reform. a dear friend. may his legacy be cherished and never forgotten. keep the faith. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the gentleman from texas, mr. green, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. green: thank you, madam speaker. as my friends are assisting me, i shall start by thanking the leadership for the opportunity to give this message today. i believe this is a message long overdue. in fact, it is hundreds of years overdue. excuse me for a moment, please. excuse, please, for the slight delay. i want to thank the persons assisting me. they have done an outstanding job. i thank all of the persons associated with this body for making it possible for me to have this opportunity to speak today on a matter of vital importance, an issue that's hundreds of years overdue. an issue that can make a difference in the life of our country. i am al green, member of congress from texas, and still i rise, madam speaker, and still i rise today to call to the attention of the congress that i will be asking for a congressional gold medal, a congressional gold medal for the many persons who toiled and slaved in this country such that our country is the economic and, quite frankly, the world -- the world powerhouse that it is when it comes to all of the things that can make a country great as it relates to its economic standing. this is the message that i would have my colleagues take note of. the message that i hope they will give consideration to. the message, confederate soldiers were awarded the congressional gold medal in 1956. when some people hear this, they have what we call a double take because it is difficult for them to believe that confederate soldiers were awarded a congressional gold medal. some things bear repeating. a confederate soldier, more than one, were awarded a congressional gold medal in 1956. what congress did for the soldier and slavers it should do for the enslaved. and i'm asking colleagues to support the historic congressional gold medal for america's economic foundational mothers, fathers, and children. i say children because in this country, persons of african ancestry early on were born into slavery, lived in slavery, and died in slavery. this was the status of things in the united states of america at one point, and when the country was known as the colonies at another point. the enslaved people made a difference in the lives of those who were living here as persons other than slaves. the deadline for this document, this monumental piece of legislation, this bill requesting a congressional gold medal will be february 1 of 2023. this will be the first day of black history month. black history month has been chosen, madam speaker, because the history of africans in america has not been told. there are many aspects of it that have been deleted from history. and i believe that it is time for us to clear the record. madam speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. members will take their conversations off the floor. mr. green: thank you, madam speaker. as i was indicating, the deadline will be february 1, 2023, the first day of black history month. this date was chosen because black history has not been told. it is one of the greatest stories never told and we're still trying to complete it. this will be a part of that process, to let people know more about the enslaved people in this country contributed to the country. and some people would say to me -- i had one person say to me, do you really believe that congress will accord a congressional gold medal to the slaves, and my answer is, yes, i believe congress will do it. i believe congress will do it because i remember what the father of juneteenth suffered in his effort to get juneteenth as a holiday in texas. i remember how he was called names and cast gaited -- castigated. i remember when people felt that it was too rustic for intellectual society to embrace. but he fought and he won. the honorable al edwards is now the father of juneteenth. at the time he introduced it, he was thought of as a person who would never succeed in the house of representatives. but he served well. and he showed and demonstrated to us that persistence can make a difference. so we plan to be persistent with this legislation. and we plan to make sure that we continue until we get the legislation passed. the letter that i will send to my colleague reads -- continuing to read it -- on july 18, 1956, congress -- this would be the house and the senate -- awarded a congressional gold medal to confederate soldier and slavers. however, till this day, congress has never awarded a congressional gold medal to the over 10 million enslaved men, women, and children. i have to pause. 10 million men, women, and children. who can imagine that a country would have a process by which a person is born into slavery, live his or her entire life in slavery, die in slavery? this was the status of this country at one time. the country has never awarded a congressional gold medal to the over 10 million enslaved men, women, and children who toiled for over 240 years to build the economy and the infrastructure, the foundation, if you will, of the wealthiest nation to ever exist on the planet earth. these foundational mothers and fathers of our country labored arduously, constructing our roads, our bridges, wells, and cities. they laboriously planted as well as harvested the food that fed our nation. how ungrateful can we be to people who made such a sacrifice for this country? to still till this day see them as less thanes. to this day not accord them some degree of honor and dignity for the suffering that they endured for some 200-plus years. they were the de facto producers of the cash crops that fueled our nation's foundational wealth. america is the wealthy powerhouse that it is today because of black people, people from africa who were enslaved, brought to this country, and made to work their entire lives, many of them so that america could be the economic powerhouse that it was then and has continued to be until this day. these enslaved human beings of african ancestry toiled as slaves without remuneration or reco recompence. they have not given any emolument. and they did not have any respect for what they did to make this country great. their humble hands were relied on for the erection of some of our nation's most renowned edifices and monuments, including the white house, the capitol building -- this is the capitol building, for those who may be unaware, and the washington monument. humble hands forced to do the bidding of those who lived lives of luxury, many of them. made america great. built the capitol. humble hands. the washington monument. in truth, their sacrificed lives provided the genesis of our nation's economic preeminence. these sacrificed human beings, men, women, and children, were the greatest contributors to the foundational economy whose contributions are almost universally forgotten, underrecognized, ignored, overlooked, and/or undervalued. many of the things that i read to you tonight i will repeat. they have not been said before. they should be heard multiple times. and some things just bear repeating. so let me these sacrificed human beings, men, women and children, with the emphasis on children were the greatest contributors so the american foundational economy whose contributions are almost universally forgotten, unrecognized, overlooked and undervalued. and for these and other justifications, i'm be seething the congress to award the gold medal collectively to the human beings who are the mothers, and fathers and children without compensation for their unparalleled contribution to the economic development of the nation that we enjoy today. awarding a congressional gold medal of groups to individuals is not unprecedented. as the congressional gold medal was awarded to confederate enslavers. i think this bears some sidebar commentary. confederate enslavers, the people who fought to maintain slavery have been awarded a congressional gold medal. the people who sought to maintain the institution that prevented people from having the freedom that they had have received a congressional gold medal. what is wrong with us? what mindset could we have had in 1956 when this house decided that it would accord congressional gold medals to confederate soldiers? i cannot understand how we would ever do this, but then to add additional insult to injury, to never consider the people who helped build the country, the people who made it the economic power house that it was then and is now. what is wrong with us? is racism such a disease that it infects our minds to the effect we cannot see and concentrate with the agree of clarity to make righteous decisions. this was the saddest days in congress when it voted to give a congressional gold medal to confederate soldiers. redemption is at hand and here is the means by which you can redeem yourself members. give these persons who toiled and slavery, lived and died in slavery and give them the same level of respect that you gave the people who sought to enslave them. some of them died in their effort to keep them in chains, in bondage, subject to the whims of their masters and their whims were many times things that are unacceptable in decent society. awarding a congressional medal to groups of individuals is not unprecedented as congressional gold medals were awarded to the enslavers. and the tuscagee airmen, to the navajo code talkers and to the servicemembers who perished in afghanistan in august 26, 2021. friends, the point to be made here is you can't make the argument that we can't do it because it's a group of people. we have done it for other groups. you can't make the argument that we have not done it because they are no longer alive. there no no other argument that you don't believe that persons who toiled all of their lives that they deserve respect and recognition. this is what this is about, respect and recognition. i'm bringing this to your attention so you can give consideration to it. we won't ask for signatures until the next congress, because to ask for them in this congress with the short period of time left would be futile and i believe we should wait and wait until february 1 of next year to do it during black history month. it is my belief that men, women and children who suffered a great crime against humanity, and this was a crime against humanity, slavery was a crime against humanity, one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated on humanity. it is my belief that men, women and children who suffered a great crime against humanity toiling unenumerated as slaves for their entire work lives are more deserving of a congressional gold medal than those who soldiered to slavery. it's my belief that those who were enslaved have a greater entitlement to a congressional gold medal than the soldiers who fought to maintain slavery. the mood, the spirit, our time, is this historic legislation. and i'm going to ask if members wish to be recognize as a courageous historic original co-sponsor, they should contact my office and honor requests that are made early, but officially, we'll start in the next congress. and we will have this historic legislation made available on >> and his email address is readily available for those who would like to contact him and call his office and we will be more than pleased to speak to you. i want to close by talking about a couple of pictures that i have here. it is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. this is a depiction of the arrival of the first 20 or so persons. bosm bomb in what is now the -- united states of america. 1619. and if you can see this, you can see a representation of persons who are standing around. this is purported to be the white lion, the ship that brought them here. and these persons standing around, you can see they have on on clothing that would protect them from the weather. it appears to be a weather -- the weather was not kind. but if you look at the persons who are enslaved, shackled, to say that they are scantily is a gross understatement and it would be an insulting euphaism but this picture speaks about slavery. people who were thought of as less than human. didn't have to treat them fairly, didn't have to keep them warm if you chose not to, didn't have to keep them alive. one insult could cost a person his or her life. pictures worth a thousand words. these people, well clothed, looking on, some of them possibly contemplating what they will do with these human beings. i plan to go to norfolk, virginia point comfort, if you will. i want to see this place. it's identifiable. i want to see it and say i was there, i want to say i stood on the soil where human beings were first introduced by many accounts and there may be some discrepancy, but by most accounts, this is where it happened. i'm going to go to. here's another rendition. this one shows a baby, a baby. looks like the baby is with a female, possibly the mother. in clothing that i would consider more acceptable for the weather than in the other. there are many renditions, but we still have the white lion, and we still have persons standing around talking about these human beings, contemplating their fate, is my speculation. what kind of person enslaves a baby? what kind of person enslaves a baby. what kind of person -- what kind of person would see a child and see labor that can be the benefit of having this human being survive and child grow up and deny the child the opportunity to get an aeducation. and grow up and just understand the world by virtue of being able to read. there are still places on the planet where young girls can get. i'm opposed to the people who do that. i have good reason to be opposed. here's one. i understand what's happened. what kind of person keeps people in ignorance intentionally, the kind of person who would want to make sure that this person never has a life but only an existence. they didn't have a life. they just existed. to serve their masters. anybody who believed that this piece of legislation is inappropriate. -- is a person that doesn't understand this. and i'm being kind by saying what i just said. there are many other ways, many adjectives. when i first examined these photos, i had tears well in my eyes because i realized who they were. not only were they human beings, these were my relatives. these are the people on whose shoulders i stand. more than 2 40r years they suffered. these are the people that this country ought to honor and appreciate. and these are the people that deserve what we have given to the enslavers. i won't give up, friends. i will not. these are my people. i am not ashamed to say that i am a proud descendant of the enslaved people who made america. i'm not ashamed of it. so my dear brothers and sisters, my dear friends, i beg that you give consideration to the legislation. it would be no surprise to anyone now, those who want to have further -- who want to talk to me, i'll be on the floor. it will be no surprise. my thought was, we'll wait and introduce it and start asking for signatures. but no, i want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to read it, atper use it -- peruse it, dissect it, analyze it. once we file it, i'll come back to this floor and i am going to announce and thank the persons who have signed onto the legislation. anybody that signs onto this legislation deserves a word of gratitude, and i will be one of the many, hopefully, who will give these expressions of gratitude. so i will come to the floor and say thank you for supporting this legislation. and my hope is we will get the signatures necessary for the benefit of the public at large. you cannot get this legislation passed in the house with a majority of votes. it will take 290 votes -- assuming that -- well, 290 votes. or more. and i see the parliamentarian looking in my direction. if i am incorrect, madam parliamentarian, will you give me a nod as if i am correct or incorrect? she indicates i am correct. now you heard it from me and you heard it echoed from the parliamentarian. 290 votes we'll need. not 289. 290. people of goodwill who have the courage to recognize the people who made america great. others have done things to make america great. i don't mean to minimize the efforts of any others. i just mean to maximize the efforts that have been ignored, that have been quite frankly with intentionality pushed aside. there are people who are ashamed to acknowledge that they are the proud descendents of the enslaved people who built this country. i'm not one of them, of course. but there are still people who are. they're ashamed. we've got to change that. i'm going to do everything i can to bring about that change. and i'll return to al edwards, the father of juneteenth. i remember what he went through. he was my friend. i saw him suffer. i know about his fight to rid south africa of apartheid, how he went to jail in that struggle. so i'm prepared to do whatever it takes, however long it takes as long as i am in congress. madam speaker of the house of representatives, i thank you for this time. i thank the majority leader. i thank all of the persons who are associated with leadership. and i will be asking for additional time to have additional commentary about this subject. and i assure you that those who take this seriously will be doing the righteous thing, not just the right thing but the righteous thing. again, i will close with maya angelou, some very powerful words. she reminded us that we were persons of my ilk, if you will. we are bringing the gifts our ancestors gave. we are the hope and dreams of the slave. i plan to fulfill their dreams. i thank you. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. gohmert: thank you, madam speaker. and i do appreciate my friend, congressman al green. we are friends and people have said, what do you have in common with al green? well, actually, he is my brother. we are christian brothers. and he adds significantly to this body. and i'm proud to be his brother. slavery does shock the conscience. i agree, it is really a crime against humanity. i remember after -- and it's still going on. it's happening across our southern border. it's horrendous what's happening to some of the people that are being sex trafficked. we saw it in nigeria after the 250-plus girls were kidnapped by boko haram, from a christian girl school, and handcuffed to beds, according to some of the stories that girls escaped, repeatedly raped day after day. just horrendous conditions. i have been asked to fly over and meet with some of the parents of girls -- of the girls that were kidnaped. and we had to go out a few hours from a city to a safe house. met with -- turned out no fathers. all mothers. and i asked the pastor that was there with them, during a break in our meeting, where are all the fathers? and he said that's part of the tragedy. the fathers don't feel like they did their job as a father since their daughter was abducted and they knew was being made to perform actions, chained, handcuffed to beds, being raped every day repeatedly. the fathers didn't feel like they had done their job. that they deserve to have a home and a bed so they went out into the bush and, as i understand -- understood later on, many of them had died out there. it was tragic. that's a form of slavery. horrendous. to think that's still going on -- i was totally shocked. i thought humanity had advanced so far, and yet, during the latter years of the obama administration, we learned that in the world today there are currently more slaves than ever in the history of the world. over 40 million people in slavery. while the united states was a superpower. and president obama -- i know from the people in nigeria, they told me they had word from the obama administration if nigeria would legalize same-sex marriage and would provide abortions, legal them and provide abortions then the united states would help nigeria defeat boko haram. but as a very scrupulous, caring catholic bishop in nigeria said, our christian beliefs are not for sale to the united states, to president obama, or to john kerry. we're not selling our christian beliefs. that seemed pretty tragic, too, that we would basically try to compel people to go against their biblical beliefs so that they could get help removing children from slavery, sex slavery. i was surprised many years ago to find out, as a history major, i was with the army four years. i was going there. so i loved math. was good at it. biology, very interesting. not as much to me botany. but i loved history and i majored in it. but it turned out that when the horrendous mistake, crime against humanity, whatever you want to call it -- it was horrendous, that first ship that brought slaves to america, it turned out they weren't the first slaves to north america. there were numerous cases of indian tribes that would war with another tribe, they would kill many of the braves, the males and often take women and children as slaves. it's something for which mankind should not be proud at all. there are references in the bible to people selling children to pay off their debts. just tragic. so hopefully in days ahead we can do more to alleviate this crime against humanity that has grown substantially in the world today. i saw this article from the washington times, d.h.s. released unvaccinated afghans while threatening to fire unvaccinated border patrol. that seems grossly unfair to american law enforcement. kind of a war against law enforcement. we're going to force you, regardless of -- we know the vaccinations don't actually prevent the spread of covid. that's science now. that should be clear. even fauci and president biden have admitted that what they thought was originally true was not. it doesn't prevent people from getting covid. we're told, oh, it keeps it from being as serious unless you happen to have -- get myocarditis or some of the other side effects that may occur. and then we have secretary mayorkas maintaining that the border is secure. and while he's saying the border is secure, we have had millions of people come across illegally just since president biden's been in office. then, big headline recently has been the big democrat donor sam bankment freed, s.b.f., some calling, the founder of x.t.f., democratic action committee, they've gone -- the company he founded dealing in cryptocurrency, f.t.x., it's gone bankrupt. he's gone out of business. but i have a letter that was prepared by one of our republican colleagues to secretary blinken. and it points out, it comes to my attention that millions of taxpayer dollars sent to ukraine to assist with their war efforts were potentially invested in a crypto exchange that then made massive donations to democrats in the united states during the 2022 midterm elections. in march, 2022, the ukrainian government -- the ukrainian government officially and for the first time partnered with crypto exchange f.t.x. trading limited to launch a crypto donations website, aid for ukraine, it was called, within days of president joe biden pledging billions of tax dollars to assist the country with war efforts against the russian invasion. . the ukranian government invested positioner ses of the $54 billion of u.s. economic assistance and invested that in f.t.x. also that helped keep democrats in power they retained. but any way, this is just incredibly outrageous. so there are answers being demanded, answers that secretary blinken will have to respond and will be called as a witness shortly after the first of the year. i hate to think that with all the suffering going on in ukraine that some of that money intended to help them ended up helping f.t.x. before it went broke and some of the money went to democrat campaigns. so we'll see what's going on there. i have made a dear friend since i have been in congress and he has been co-chair of the thursday morning prayer breakfast and he is a friend and a fine person, and i will yield such time as suozzi will use. swawz swawz i wanted to enter a poem by an american poet who lived in my district in the 1800's and was brought to my attention by miss tear. and in this poem, walt whitman talked about america's choosing day and in 1884, there were grace divisions in this division less than 20 years after the civil war and political parties and i want to read the poem into the record and great guidance for all of us for today. if i should need to name o western world your powerful seen and show, it would not be you niagra and limitless prairies or huge rifts of canyons, colorado, nor you yosemite or yellowstone with the spas milk geysers and appearing and oregon's white cones or heron or mississippi stream. this is humanity as now i now i name the still small voice vibrating, america's choosing day. the heart of it not in the chosen, the act itself, the main, the quadrennial choosing, the stretch of north and south aroused, seaboard and england, texas, maine, vermont, virginia, california, the final ballot shower from east to west. the paradocks and conflict and countless snowflakes falling yet all of rome's wars of old and modern napoleons, the peaceful choice of all. welcoming the darker odds that draws foams and ferments the wine, it serves to purify while the heart pants life glows. these stormy and swelled washington's jefferson's lincoln's sails. america's choosing day. the act itself. i thank the gentleman from texas and i yield back. mr. gohmert: my apologies if calling you my friend gets you in children. thank you. he is a friend. article in "epic times" by joseph hammond. judge's latest refusal to grant bail looms large for january 6 defendant. having been a felony judge in texas handling i don't know how many thousands of felony cases, nobody gets more incensed than i do when judges abuse their position. i found out that during rec recesses, he was trash mouthing and talking terrible to people that i was sentencing. and when i found out, i called him in and said look, i am sentencing these people to prison. we are supposed to show the example of civility. when you trash talk somebody when they come into court, it builds up hatred and anger and they during the time they're in prison and it makes them more likely to come back and recividate. we are going to treat them fairly and make sure they are not abused, not physically. and yet, i see federal judges who seem to have the attitude that gee, i am confirmed for life, so once i'm confirmed, i will do as i'm pleased and think as i can get away with on appeal, and it's outrageous. i'm encouraging my friends on the judiciary committee that there is such abuse by federal judges, there is such abuse by the d.o.j. and by the f.b.i. adopting gestapo tactics. they didn't used to act like that. f.b.i. agents told me, you remember when it was in 1980's or 1990's. we didn't break down doors if we told them when and where. we didn't do it in the middle of the night and scare families and drag them out in their underwear and alert the media to be there to humiliate them. and yet, it has been going on. and people say january 6 and think that justifies the worst criminality by the department of justice and even federal judges, because i do believe it is a breach of a federal judge's oath when they ignore due process requirements and they take the position, i'm not going to do anything about somebody that's being abused in jail until i am told to by an appellate court. so i'm hoping that the judiciary committee will even be subpoenaing judges to find out no the labor-specific cases, but to find out what their judicial philosophy is that allows them to avoid due process and to allow prisoners to be punished in pretrial confinement against the constitutional rights they have, what allows and provokes a federal judge to act like a dictator in their room. here's an example. i would not know u.s. district judge emmet sullivan if he was here in the room but i have read and heard firsthand from people who have had to deal with some of the gin justice of him. and i know the federal judge that refused to recuse himself so he could sentence dr. similar own gold, even though he dated her and she wouldn't date him anymore. so he looked forward to abusing his position to sentence her as the first woman with no criminal record and only guilty of a misdemeanor trespass, he got to sentence the girl that quit going out with him, the brilliant lawyer and m.d., to a maximum security facility down in miami. he needs to come in and answer about recusal and who he thinks he is above the law. it's in the law that a judge must recuse himself or herself if there is even an indication there might be some impartiality there. we got a lot of cleaning up in the federal system to do and i am glad that republicans will be able to do that. the article points out despite audio and video evidence showing former tennessee sheriff's deputy ronald colton mcabeee did not assault an police officer. a federal umg judge refused to release him from the district of columbia defendant. it took on when he was twice assaulted with chemical spray by a guard in the district of columbia jail for not wearing a covid mask. his wife sarah told us. this is just inhumane and doesn't even matter what your political beliefs, you shouldn't treat somebody that way. are we living in the same universe. it's not the america i once new. he is charged with seven, assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer, two counts of federal disorder and deadly dangerous weapon and grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon engaging in physical vial nens a restricted or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon and committing an charge of violence. that sounds horrible. but when you find out that actually if you listen to the audio as you watch the video, he was helping a capitol policeman who was down. and yet this judge has the audacity we are not listening to the audio so he could hear that evidence. why wouldn't you listen to the evidence as well as watch a video that gives a false impression? and then to chastise this guy and punish him even more because he was law enforcement. he should have known better than to assault a police officer, but he wasn't. well, the judge doesn't want the facts to get in the way. he is too busy being a tyrant and punishing january 6 defendants while they are in pretrial and punishing them with pretrial. people need to answer for the tyranny of our justice system as its become and i have no problem and i didn't as a judge punishing people who deserved the punishment and people on january 6 who deserved to be punished. but sounds like that corruption continues to grow in the d.o.j., f.b.i. and even in our judicial courts, federal courts. tragic. he had been pepper sprayed in the jail, twice. and was not allowed to clean it all off. that threat to his health. and oh, by the way, this sat in front of the judge the request for bail 1717 days. in our state courts, we make sure somebody has a hearing, used to, i'm sure they still do within 48 hours. and if they had other evidence to bring in, we would set a hearing and have that. but this judge had this matter sitting in front of him for 117 days while the prisoner was being abused in the d.c. jail where there was a deputy warden that had tweeted out, f the supporters of trump. she made sure what she tweeted was being done at the jail. so judge sullivan took 69 days after the hearing to issue a ruling on whether somebody should stay in jail or not. what kind of judge is that? . is that? and then he dismissed the new audio and video evidence calling it ambiguity that the court could not resolve. well, apparently, the only reason why he had the hearing in the first place is because the u.s. court of appeals had -- was going to require it if he didn't do it. so he did it begrudgingly. but this matter had gone before u.s. magistrate in the middle district of tennessee and he heard the evidence, saw the evidence, and he ordered mack abee to be release -- macabee to be released after a hearing in september, 2021. that judge said, quote, i do not believe that he poses a future danger to the community if he were to be released between now and the time that he resolves his case. and the government, despite my request that they provide me any evidence that he's presented any sort of a danger to the community have been able to point to absolutely nothing beyond the events around and during january 6. well, prosecutors knew they had to get that matter away from the judge in tennessee where there was more evidence of who he really was to the corps. so they got it up here to judge sullivan who immediately rescinded that order and kept him in jail as punishment despite requirement by the u.s. constitution. it really is outrageous. if a judge were deciding whether judge sullivan breached his sworn oath, that judge could say exactly what judge sullivan said to mcabee. judge sullivan said, someone tasked with enforcing the law has shirked that responsibility, and that's why they're dangerous. well, it sounds kind of like that's where judge sullivan is. he's shirked his responsibility to the law and the constitution, and that's why he's a dangerous judge. and i hope they'll have hearings and get to the bottom of what his problems are with following the constitution. now, last summer -- well, there were a number of times i have met pastor tommy nelson of denton bible church in denton, texas. i listened years ago to hours and hours of bible study he did. i am very impressed with him. i love the fact that he loves history so much. and he uses that as he speaks. and i'd heard him online doing sermons to his church, and he would kid and say, and i'm going to include that when i get to speak to congress someday. so i talked to tommy and i said, look, you're not going to be able to talk to congress as tommy nelson but i can pass on your messages. we quote people all the time. put together what you think would be good to have congress hear and i'll deliver that. and tommy provided me this information. his father was born in 1914. and these were tommy's words. if you asked my father if one should steal, kill, cheat on his taxes, commit adultery or lie, he would say, absolutely not. if you'd ask him, why not, and his father would have said, because it's wrong. if you responded, says who, he would have said, god. if you said, where does god say it's wrong, he would have said, the bible. if you asked for an explanation, how do you know it's true, he could not have given much of a defense of biblical authority. but in his world view, like most of his generation, it was that of a western or judeo-christian world view. he connected all the dots of diversity within the unity of an infinite personal god who had spoken truly to all mankind through his word, the bible, and had intersected man through the bible's chief idea, the incarnation of god in his son jesus christ. the god we speak of actually i'm glad to say is one mentioned right up there, in god we trust, because we used to. tommy said if you had said to any of that greatest generation truth is something relative to what you want it to be or there is no final truth, not only would there be wonderment at you but anger. they would have seen you as a threat to their day. wisdom, to that generation and every generation of americans before them, was to know the truth and to follow the will of god as truth was not simply the way that was true but the way that was best. truth that carried them through the hardest century of our history. now, that former view is seen as antiquated as though greater minds have progressed beyond that. that former view is now seen as that which holds back the growth of society. but the belief in oughtness in moral truth is the marvelous byproduct of belief in the true god. it was plato who said in life we must seek the best opinions of men and hold to them as to aboat a storm unless we have a more certain word from god. the idea of god, the bible, christ the redeemer, is the highest dream of the hopes of men. we can know what must be known to truly be mankind. morality, marriage, the home, the dignity of man, the meaning of love, right and wrong, all are revealed on that which was the foundation of our civilization, the bible. it brought a world view which was light and salt to our culture and our country. it brought law and order and dignity. it served as a point of integration to which all answered. our only problem was our refusal to live in keeping with it. but our day has cut off the limb upon which we were sitting in our rejection of god, banning school prayer, permitting the murder of children in the womb and abolishing traditional marriage. modernism is the belief that god can be rejected and yet be replaced by the reasoning and science of man. postmodernism is the recognition that modernism will not work because postmodernism states that there is no such thing as absolute truth and with god refused, society as we have known it, disintegrates, the earthquake beneath our feet began in the country's shift in the 1960's. the tsunamis followed with each year more and more devastating. we are now worse than in the jungle. the jungle has natural law which governs it, but the law that governs man is god. man as in god's image chooses. he can be angelic or demonic based on those choices. without god and his word to guide man his fallen nature is unleashed. and unlike nature, man has become more and more immoral, violent, ignorant, and cruel. and that's the horror that is sweeping our country day by day. and as it has laid waste to europe, it is about to eliminate the greatest culture in the history of mankind. the western culture. the judeo-christian world view that sees all of life through the perspective of the god of the bible. which we, the leaders of the united states as a body, have too often renounced. washington's last words to us, george washington's last words to us would be to be aware of a path of europe, a path that began in the exaltation of reason and the science of enlightenment. we have not heeded his words and now europe's inhumanities of the 20th century have become ours. i need not spend much time on the violence, contempt of authority, breakdown of the home, violence in our cities, decay of our educational system, the division of our leaders and citizens, pornography, s.t.d.'s. 65 million dead through abortion. gender confusion. illegal immigration. drug addiction. opioids. loss of constitutional freedoms. the homeless. the increased of mental illnesses. pedophilia, gun control, racial tensions. not to the speak of the economy and covid. and yet in all this plethora of dysfunction, the terms, god, righteousness, sin, repentantness, the bible, salvation are forbidden terms. we cry over what ain't right and yet offer nothing but band-aids and tuourniquets. man must be changed. his heart must be changed at the deepest level. he must have a new birth. he must be born again as a child of god. he must in the days of jonah repent and heed the warning of god that destruction awaits. our country and its leaders must humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways that god may hear our prayer, forgive our sins and heal our land. we must be reconciled to him who is our life and being. it starts with us, the god ordained leaders but sadly repentens cannot be legislated. it begins in revival. it begins in the yearning of individuals who cast off the blinders of modern man and faced the truth that there can be no truth, right, love, or life without the unique personal god of the bible. tommy nelson referenced, quote, from alexis, i want to provide some with thanks to william fedder's research and publication. there's much to be learned from alexis. he was born july 29, 1805. he was a french social scientist. he traveled the united states in 1831 and wrote a two-part work, democracy in america, 1835. and the second in 1840. which has been described as, quote, the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in america that has ever been written. in it he said, upon my arrival in the united states, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention. and the longer i stayed, the more i perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things. to which i was unaccustomed. in france, i'd almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. but in america, i found they were intimate lieu nighted -- intimately united and they reigned in common over the same country. he also said, they brought with them a form of christianity which i cannot better describe than by styling it as a democratic and republican religion. from the earliest settlement of the immigrants, politics and religion contracted with an alliance which has never been dissolved. that was alax is -- alexis's note back in the 1800's. he said religion in america must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. this opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or party but it belongs to the whole nation. he says, the sex that insists in the united states -- that's sects, are enumerable. they differ in the worship due to the creator but they all agree and respect to the duties which are due from man-to-man. each sect adores the dayity in its -- deity in all its peculiar manner but all the sects preach the same moral law in the same of god. moreover, as the sects of the united states are comprised within the great unionity of christianity and christian morality is everywhere the same. . it also said, in the united states the sovereign authority is religious. there's no country in the whole world where the christian religion retains a greater influence than in america. inserting parenthetically, that drove and led to the civil war. there were so many people that are going, wait a minute, we can't treat brothers and sisters with chains and bondage. and, yes, i understand some fought for states' rights. but let's face it. it was about slavery. for most. he said, in the united states religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people. christianity therefore reigns without obstacle by universal consent. he's talking about america. he said -- and rather than to live. in book got, it has therefore -- in the united states, without an infinite reference point by which all things are judged, all singular points are meaningless, without god, all of life disingrates. -- disintegrates. the american constitution, though not uniquely christian, reflected the historic christian world view of, quote, nature's god and the, quote, inalienable right of life and liberty. it gave birth to a culture that france honored in their sending us the statue of liberty. because of our country being so successful. not because of our revolution, but because of our constitution. revolutions are relatively easy. they're simply tearing down. what is difficult is rebuilding. the french had their revolution, but. it collapsed into a socialistic blood bath that prompted a new term. guillotine. all of europe would follow and by 1848 the year of revolution, all monarchies were gone. but in france, without the god of truth, their replacement failed, only to be concurred by a dictator -- conquered by a dictator to bring order, nepal on, who plunged europe into darkness. i agree with historians that have said, the major difference between the u.s., the american revolution and the french revolution, was the american revolution, like tommy nelson points out, it was about liberty that stemmed from biblical belief. whereas the french revolution was about revenge. and we see how that worked out. but the same would happen in russia, who exchanged the church for the communism of marx and lenin and finally the horror of stalin. tens of millions killed. germany had hitler. china had mao. cuba had castro. but as a russian pastor has said, russia is a nation of darkness looking for the light. america is a country of the light searching for the darkness. our search has sadly been successful. the christian philosopher and author said, where there is no absolute to governed society, society is absolute. there's nothing magic about democracy or government of the people, by the people and for people. it assumes that the majority of the voting public has the wisdom and character, society over time bain doned -- abandoned the historic world view and adopt a modern one where truth is shaped by individual opinions, or should that society reject god and enthrone man? then absolute divine law will erode with each generation until the tyranny of the majority removes the freedom enjoyed by the past. and considering the influence of modern media, the majority will be controlled by the few. and the america of history will be just that, past history. to abandon god is to disintegrate. imagine, if you will, a great metal machine operated by man. the parts are sharp and pointed, moving with great speed and perfect synchronization. anything that would get caught in the machine would be ground into noggins within -- nothingness within seconds. as long as the man operating the machine is careful to stay outside of the machine, he's safe. but should he catch a shirt sleeving in the gear, he will soon disintegrate. such is man and the universe. and he stands unique in god's image outside of nature. man can observe the machine, use it and marvel at it, but should he become -- part of the impersonal, infinitely distinct from it as in the image of god. as distinct from the impersonal machine, man maintains his glory, but to be merely part of nature, allege of the glory of man, mind, reason, conscience, soul and will merely become biological phenomenon. the loftiness and magic of man is lost in the machine of nature. king david wrote, when i consider the heavens and the works of the hands, what is mantha thou art mindful? -- man that thoru art mindful of him? thomann has made lower than angels that does crown him with glory and imaginiest and thou -- majesty. these are the hands that america's rejected. a man without god is a cosmic orph with no hope of redemption or life after death. there is no way, truth or life without god. john 3: 16 evaporates in that circumstance. for god so loved world he gave his only begotten son, that who sofer believes in him -- whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. man may act atheistic, but he cannot act as an atheist. as soon as he is sinned against, he becomes a pure tanf longing for -- puritan longing for absolute retrory beution. without god the only thing man can feel guilty about is guilt. guilt assumes transgression and transgression assumes law that assumes god. without god, there can be no final law, guilt or true government, no civility to build a civilization, no consult or religious rules to build culture. we cannot legislate a return to truth. 150 years of governmental, academic, artistic, scientific, philosophic, moral, domestic, medical, education and judicial denial cannot be naturally fixed. we are beyond hope for a return. we are too stubborn and too proud, too self-centered, too indulged. our only hope is the devine reprieve of the day of jonah. a prophet who rose from the dead, promised life or destruction in 40 days upon their response to his prophecy of destruction. from the king to the people and even to the animals, a fast was called for and all wore sack cloth. the disaster was averted and so it is now. prophets who rise from the dead after three days and nights are not to be disregarded. if indeed man has judged rightly for 20 centuries that there is an infinite and personal god who has revealed himself in the bible, the foundation of history's greatest culture, who raised his son from the dead to offer man repen tens and salvation, if he is indeed a god of wrath upon those countries who hold him in contempt, then our country revels today in the shadow of have a seuivous -- v acuvius. moab will be destroyed from bag people because he's magnified himself against the lord. ic ris may fly high with his wings of wax, but should human s carry him too high, his wings will melt, his feathers fly to the wind, and he shall come to a violent end. may those who have ears to hear take heed, repent, reform accordingly. you know, tommy nelson had profound truth that he has provided. that's because it comes from truth beyond him. which he readily acknowledges. you know, i had not seen a quote before it was used in the gulag archipelago. dovskieski was taking on the crazy ideas of this nut named marx. a sad man. sad family. who couldn't even foresee the formation of unions. and dovskievski said the big problem with marxism is not economic. obviously that's a prorks they always go broke -- problem, they always go broke eventually. the problem with marxism is atheism. and hear some of my colleagues talk about how wonderful progressivism is, that's the new term for marxism. how great it will be when everybody shares and shares alike. but as cruise chevy found when he set up a commission to come up with a plan of how you move to true communism, whether where there's no government and everybody shares and shares alike, he ended up disbanding the commission because there's no way to ever get to a place until the messiah comes, it won't happen because you've got to have a totalitarian government that takes away everybody's rights and tells them what they will be allowed to do and not do and that government becomes the god. and that's what he was saying. so i won't be back next year. i'll be back in two weeks and the week after that. , mr. speaker. but i continue to have hope that springs eternal in the human breast that we won't lose the greatest freedom, the greatest country, greatest gift of a country any people has ever received, that it will not be our generation that sees it lost. and with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 2021, the chair recognizes the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. kind, for 30 minutes. mr. kind: thank you, madam speaker. i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. kind: madam speaker, on a lighter note, this will be one of the last opportunities that i will have to address this chamber as representative of the people of the third congressional district of western and north central wisconsin. it has truly been the honor of my life but tawny and i decided last summer it shouldn't be the honor for our entire lives so we decided to make this our last term after 26 years of serving the people back home. as a kid growing up on the north side of la crosse, madam speaker, if someone would have told me as a son of a telephone pole repairman i would serve in congress i thought they would be crazy. i thought the politically connected, the kennedys, rockefellers, those with great wealth coming to. i guess i am a great example if you want to serve your nation there are still opportunities to do so at all levels. i had a chance to cut my political teeth as a college undergrad with one of my political icons and heroes back home, senator bill proximmeier. i learned fiscal responsibility, something i tried to practice each year in congress, tried to instill in my colleagues the need for us to balance our books. i was a big advocate back in the 1990's when i joined in pay as you go concept. if you will have a spending increase or tax cut you have to find an offset in order to maintain that balance. then if you're able to hit the sweet spot with strong economic growth, increased worker productivity and with that comes increased revenue to the treasury, you can actually not only balance budgets but run some surpluses. something that the second term of the clinton administration demonstrated with four consecutive years of budget surpluses where we were paying down the national debt rather than adding to it. but in my humble opinion, madam speaker, i believe i represented the most beautiful congressional district in the nation. throughout western wisconsin and of area called the driftless area where the glaciers missed we have beautiful natural resources. i have more miles that bothered the mississippi than any other congressional district in the nation. so i took it upon myself as a particular duty and responsibility to do what i could to better protect and preserve the mississippi river and the watershed basin for future generations. it's a huge source of tourism, of outdoor recreation and commercial navigation, which is vital to the economy and the quality of life in the upper midwest. i'm proud when i first got here back in 1997 i helped form the first bipartisan mississippi river caucus. we were able to do some good work, republicans, democrats working together to manage river issues and make sure that we approached it as one continuous ecosystem rather than just a northern and a southern mississippi area. and we have a lot of rivers, a lot of lakes, beautiful bluffs and hills and coollies that people enjoy back home, but more importantly, it's been such an honor to represent the people of the district. good, honest, hardworking, salt of the earth. i've seen time and time again over those last 26 years when the community got hit with a natural disaster, for us in western wisconsin it was typically bad flooding that hit communities and flooded homes and businesses, i saw people rally. and there weren't labels. it wasn't democrats, republicans, independents, whatever. it was, hey, we need to help our neighbor and get through this. it was demonstrated time and time again. and i also saw through the years how communities rally for our fallen heroes on the battlefield. people over the last year knowing that i was going to be stepping down at the end of this term have asked me, what was the most difficult part of your job serving in congress? besides the obvious, the amount of time you have to be away from and sacrifice from your family, and those missed opportunities, clearly the most difficult part of this job is receiving that phone call from the pentagon and then having to deliver that message to the family back home that their loved one has just fallen on the field of battle. and how absolutely soul crushing that is to have to deliver that message. and hear the family's reaction to it and go to that soldier's funeral in the community. but it was also inspiring seeing how the community rallied around that family and truly honored that fallen hero at the time. 27 of them, unfortunately, in my congressional district alone from the deployments in iraq and afghanistan. but on the other hand, people have asked me, what's been one of my prouder accomplishments as a member of congress, and i tell them it wasn't anything particular i did, a piece of legislation i may have drafted and passed or some tiype of project back home i was able to help complete. it was more the opportunity i had as a member of congress and representing the people back home to go and travel and be with our troops in the field. and seeing what our fine young men and women in uniform do for us each and every day. you know, we send them off in these far-away battlefields with strange sounding names and weird histories and conflicts that are centuries old and we ask them to perform incredibly dangerous and difficult missions and they do it. they are so well-trained. they are so well-motivated. they are the best our nation has to offer. and it's just inspiring being in their presence, especially the five times i went to iraq, the six times i was in afghanistan, the one time i went to kosovo at the height of that air war in the late 1990's. and seeing the job they do for us. there's no other nation in the world that can do what our military does. and they do it with decency and they do it by abiding the geneva convention and that's something the world expects of us. and while we have well-trained and well-motivated women and won securing our liberties and advancing the freedom throughout the world. i wish people could go and see what i did and meeting with troops in the field. that clearly is the proudest moment. i've never been prouder to be an american than during those opportunities to be with them. i've enjoyed the committee assignments that i had through the years. initially when i came to congress was assigned to the natural resources committee. of course, with all the work we were doing for the mississippi river. i've bun one of the co- -- i've been one of the co-chairs of the national park caucus. truly one of america's greatest idea. the democratizing principle we created in the national park system, just because we are citizens of this great nation, all of us are co-owners of some of the most beautiful and expensive real estate in the entire world, our national parks, and they're calling us to visit. there are beautiful places. i fell in love with them as a kid and i wanted to pass that on to my family and my children. so every august during our recess here in congress, i take the family to a different national park where we can meet with the superintendents and park personnel and get a briefing and go to the back country and go backpacking. we started that when the boys were just toddlers and they could barely carry their own sleeping bag. as they got older and stronger, tawny and i tended to load down their backpacks more and more and made that backpacking a lot easier on us. i encourage our citizens to take advantage of the great national parks we have, the national wildlife refuges that we have. i also helped form and co-chaired the refuge caucus having three of the most beautiful ones in my congressional district as well. they're objects of splendor meant for us to enjoy and to utilize. i also served on the education and workforce committee. i represent six of the 11 state universities in wisconsin. four of the greatest technical schools that we have. i made it a priority to focus on access to the affordability of higher education. making sure that those doors remain open to all of our kids, regardless of their socioeconomic background. i was one of the champions on the need-based financial aid programs because i benefited from that myself. again, as a kid of a telephone repairman, i was the first generation to go on to school. you know, my family didn't have the resources to seasnd me to college, let alone a technical school. i qualified for a pell grant being a low-income student. i was able to make it work financially. in fact, i still think i hold the undergraduate career for the most toilets cleaned in a four-year span. it was the most disgusting job on campus but it paid the best through work study. i was willing to do that two hours a day every year while i was still trying to play college football and all the other stuff i wanted to do and wanted to make sure those programs were continued and strengthened for the next generation. i didn't want to be one of those representatives that pulls the ladder up behind me and tell the next generation, tough luck. you're on your own. it's one of the wisest investments we can make, in our youth, and expanding those educational opportunities. because the truth is, the jobs of the future will put a premium on higher education learning. that's just the way the world, gl global economy today. we have to expand that access. and the work we did on committee, too, for workforce development and worker safety issues. very proud of that. served on the budget committee for a number of years. i had a short stint on the agriculture committee. i was one of the leading voices on farm bill reform. i tried to move away from the huge taxpayer subsidies that were going to a few but have you large agribusinesses very much to the expense of our family farmers. i've been proud to be able to represent a large rural area in wisconsin where farming, family farming is a key component of our economy. wisconsin, the dairy state, cheese. everyone is kind of familiar with that. we wear that label proudly. and it's been really neat throughout the years to go out on the family farms and visit with those farm families and seeing the incredible work they do for us to enable our food security. you know, something that we as americans kind of take for granted and yet we shouldn't. because farming is tough. the ups and downs with commodity prices. the expenses, the fixed costs they face. the last year or so has been particularly difficult with the increase in fuel and fertilizer that they have. without a corresponding increase in commodity prices, it's a hard business. especially if you're a dairy farmer because that's 24/7. cows have to be milked every day. you don't have the luxury of stepping away a few days at a time. i know challenges that i tried to understand and tried to address in my role as representative of one of the larger dairy producing districts in the nation. but i especially enjoyed my time as a member of the ways and means committee. over the last 16 years. it's the only committee that's constitutionally mandated. and in the early years of our republic, it was the only committee that congress had and then finally it was starting to get piecemealed and torn apart. we still have incredible jurisdiction over most of the economic issues. obviously, the tax code, trade policy. social security and medicare. health care policy. and it's been fun, you know, working in that committee and working with my colleagues to try to develop good policy that makes sense for our country. the work i especially focused on health care reform, trying to implement a value-based system so that we're actually paying for the quality of care that's given to us and not the volume of care and not the test and procedures and things that are done to us without any results but making sure that we're getting value out of the dollars that are spent. i still believe it's going to be one of the keys to health care reform in our country is moving to that value, that quality-based outcome system that we need. and i benefited from having some of the best health care providers in the world operating in my congressional district. from the gunnarsson health system, to mayo health system. i think i still have more mayo doctors in my congressional district throughout western wisconsin than they even do in minnesota or other places in the country. you know, the marsh fields and the auroras and theta cares. we're very lucky in the state of wisconsin to have such quality providers. health care is too expensive. we need to bring those costs down and make sure it is accessible for all of our citizens. i was proud in being able to create the veterans history project. this is an attempt to record our veteran stories before it's too late and they pass away because i believe it's an important part of american history that needs to be preserved. so i teamed up with a republican friend back when. he was a marine and we introduced the legislation on the house side. we teamed up with max cleland and chuck hagel on the senator side. we have the shortest period of time when a bill was introduced and signed into law by bill clinton. at the time it was the world war ii generation that was passing away like 2,000 a day. and we wanted to get this program up and going to start capturing their stories and archiving it at the world's greatest library, the library of congress, and they've done a tremendous job of handling that program and collecting all these stories, the distinguished gentleman from advertising them -- digitalizing them now and making it available for everyone to access, but especially our younger generation. what gave me the reason to start the veteran history program and we have thousands collected nationwide and now we're focusing on the vietnam generation because they're starting to pass away because they're getting up in age. i was at the picnic table with my dad, my, uncle, my brother donny who flew in the second world war and for the first time they started talking to me about their experience and i go, holy cow. i stopped them to stop and got the family video camera and came out and set it up because my two boys were just toddlers at the time and i wanted them when they were old enough to appreciate it to be able to hear it from their grandfather and their great-uncle and then i came back to washington that next week and said, you know, given the technology that's available today, we need to be doing this nationwide. . we quickly drafted legislation and moved it through both chambers and got it implemented into law and it's been a lot of fun. not only interviews our veterans but seeing this program grow and history that we're preserving. so future generations never forget the type of service and sacrifice that came before them. did a lot of work on the veterans front. obviously. trying to ease their transition from iraq, afghanistan, to back home. we had two million of them coming home with special needs. physical and mental. that needs to still be addressed. a v.a. hospital in my district, i spent a lot of time making sure we had better coordination of care and better outcome of care for our veterans. and more needs to be done on that front. it's a promise our nation has to live up to given the type of service and sacrifice that these men and women do for us. i was also co-chairing the rural health care caucus. obviously as a representative of a lot of rural providers in my district, teamed up with cathy mcmorris rodgers for a number of years, to make sure that our rural providers had a voice when it came to health care proil. give -- policy. given the unique challenges they face with recruitment, retention and just those rural settings generally, and the type of objection kls that we have to overcome -- obstacles that we have to overcome. in many cases rural hospitals is the anchor of these rowrl communities and if they lose -- rural communities and if they lose it, it has a huge economic impact and it makes it very difficult for people in that region to access the type of quality health care that they need. i also helped when i first got here, helped form the new democratic coalition. it was back in 1997 with others who felt we needed to try to restore the sensible center in congress, with a pragmatic group of house members who would get together on a weekly basis and figure out how we can compli the each other's work -- compliment each other's work but also figure out ways of building bridges rather than tearing them down around here. form those crucial bipartisan relationships to get things done. working closely with the clinton administration initially and then subsequent administrations. i got the honor of chairing the new dem coalition for four yeerms. today i think we're -- years. today we're close to 100 members in the democratic caucus. hardworking, earnest. those trying to build bridges and get things done around here. i think that group has a lot of hope and promise in the coming congress now of finding the relevancy and fighting those -- finding those crucial relationships across the aisle that we need, in order to advance the issues and the policies that benefit our nation. and i know i'm leaving that new dem coalition in very good hands with the young, bright, talented leadership that has come up now and taken over the reins. also i had some good mentors as i was growing up. i mentioned my senator who had a chance to intern for. many of his speeches about the need for the senate to ratify the anti-genocide treaty. but he was one of the first that was sounding the alarm about fiscal irresponsibility. and how we have a responsibility as representatives to be a good steward of the dollar. and also senator nelson from wisconsin, one of my heroes, one of the great conservationists of all time, not just in congress, but for the country and for the world. and here's a guy that grew up in are a 400 -- in a 400-person town called clear lake and laker -- later bake governor of -- later became governor of wisconsin, senator of wisconsin, and father of earth day. a day we commemorate every year. the need to protect our vital natural resources across the globe. celebrated in 144 nations today. a great story of how one person can make a difference. especially a smalltown kid from northern wisconsin and the impact that he left behind with his legacy. and so obviously you can't do all this. this job is too big for one individual and everyone here, all of my colleagues know that -- the truth and statement that you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with. and i've been so blessed and so lucky throughout the years to have the best staff that any member could hope for, whether it was here in washington or back home in my district offices. these are incredible individuals. typically young. hardworking. smart. just trying to do the best they can in servicing people back home. whether it's the legislation that we worked on together here, the case work that my district office staff members would do, nothing brought me greater joy than traveling around the congressional district having people come up and say, ron, i got to thank you and your office because of what you did for me or a family member. whether it was a veteran issue or a lost social security check or some farm program, a family farm was trying to access. the list goes on and on and on and i give all of the credit and all of the laurels to my staff for the job that they did throughout the years. wonderful chiefs of staff, from cindy and eric, travis, mike, hanna, alex, who ran a tight ship, and just created a great atmosphere for all of us to work in. they were true partners through all this. two wonderful district directors back home. lauren who i recruited as a principal out of a catholic high school to be my district office manager way back when. and then later karrie, being able to manage those offices and the outreach we ask our staff to do. and to report back to us. so that we stay in constant touch and communication, if we're not on the road ourselves, meeting with people back in the community. the committee staff is just tremendous. the work that they put in, how helpful they are to us as individual members, but also to our staff people. the people we have serving here on the floor, i mean, they're the ones that are behind the scenes, but they try to bring some function to the dysfunction that occurs too often in this place. and we couldn't do it without. and kind of the seamless energy they bring to make the trains run on time and just doing the basics for us to be able to do our job. we have an official reporter now taking down my words. they never get to say a word when they're here, but i know how important their job is, the guardian of the public record. somehow they do it so well. even when we're yelling over each other and heated debates and trying to get all that down, it's not an easy job. and i know this personally because my wife is an official court reporter for a judge back home and i know the type of skill that it takes to perform these duties. i just want to thank them for their service to our nation. and the capitol hill police. obviously january 6 is going to go down as a dark mark in american history. it was our capitol hill police that were the true van guard of making sure that it didn't get uglier or deadlier than it did that day. i mention these -- kind of the ancillary personnel that makes capitol hill run because through the years, and for me, 26 years, you get to know these people as individuals. and as human beings. and develop those friendships. and it's something that i will truly miss. bob and rose in our cloakroom that keeps us so well informed of what's happening all the time and what the schedule is and what we should anticipate. those type of relationships, you're never going to forget. i also benefited throughout the years in one of those competitive swing districts, and i love the fact that my district was 50-50. we have too few of those districts today with jerry manderring, whether it's overwhelmingly republican or overwhelmingly democrat. that wasn't the case in my district. my district throughout the years has always been about 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 in registration. and that foarlsed me to -- force node play it down the middle and to -- forced me to play it down the middle and understand that i would be taking you incoming from the far left and far left and i reminded my staff, don't worry about that. because that's not where our district is. in fact, if i wasn't taking incoming from the far left and far right, i probably wasn't doing a good job of adequately representing the people in the district that i had. it was such a joy because they did place their trust and confidence in me to make good decisions on their behalf, even though a lot of them will tell you, they had disagreements with me throughout the years. but i think they saw the hard work we put in and the honesty and the civility that i tried to bring to this job. it's been a great congressional district to represent. but i couldn't have gotten here without the help of my campaign staff. campaign managers throughout the years, to the staff, the field work, the volunteers, the supporters, the friends. people like wally camper, paul, bob, nancy johnson, vickie burton, margaret wood. i mean, these are the ones that have enough belief and trust in you that they're willing to give you one of the most precious things that we own as human beings, and that's our own time. and they time and again, campaign after campaign, were always there helping out and pitching out. that's true for thousands of people back home who supported me throughout the years. not only made it possible for me to win in a very competitive district, but also made it fun. because as candidates going through tough campaigns, it means a lot knowing that you got a lot of friends, a lot of supporters that have your back. and care but and care about the outcome of our democracy. and they've been terrific. but most of all, i want to thank my family. it starts there, it ends there. especially my soulmate, my partner in all of this, my wife. i don't know how she did it. when we first ran, our first son, johnny, was born just a few days before our primary. the first congressional campaign, everything swirling around, suddenly we have a little boy in our arms. and, boy, you talk about a life moment that just brings it down to the basics and at that point when he was delivered, nothing else mattered. we win, we lose, it didn't matter. we had this beautiful little boy in our arms. he was such a stabilizing force. then two years later came matt. and how she did it all those years with me running back and forth every weekend, back to the district, coming out here for my duties in washington. at home, representing a 19-county large rural area, constantly on the road, getting out into the communities that i represent. so most of this fell on her. to raise two beautiful sons who are doing incredible things right now and she and i couldn't be more proud of johnny and matt. they were born into this racket. i mean, it's kind of weird for them knowing that dad's stepping down because this life of me serving in congress is all they've known. in fact, for a while when they were little guys andtony would drop -- anden toy would drop me -- and tonnie would drop me at the airport, they thought my job was flying overhead and landing. every time they saw a plane go by, there's dady. then they started tuning in to c-span and smeeg engaged in debates on -- me en-- seeing me eng engaged in debates on the floor and they started figuring it out. couldn't have done it without tonnie's support, partnership and the kids. so many times i had to be away from them but they're also fun -- there were also fun family events i could do. parades, we lost count of at about 1,500. i started losing the boys when they became teenagers after about 1,200 parades they did. but county facer, the great dairy protect fast that we have back home in wisconsin during the summer time. we visit dairy families, have great breakfast, community event, everyone coming together. so there were a lot of fun, enjoyable things we could do as a family that overlapped with my official duties. and they never complained. even though it probably would have been more fun for them to be doing something else or hanging out with their friendses. now i'm proud to say that johnny, after playing college football, is with an engineering firm in lacross doing great work there. couldn't be prouder. and our son, matt, after graduating harvard, immediately signed up for officer candidate school at quanlt he could and now he's an infantry commander for the marines at camp lejeune. yes, they fixed the water problem at camp lejeune, after seeing all those ads on tv lately. and yeah, so that's what they've been able to do. tonnie and i are very, very lucky to have those two sons and the type of young men and citizens they've become. i would also be remiss if i didn't mention our quote-unquote third son, who we didn't adopt but oscar. an exchange student who came and lived with us and lived with us throughout his high school years, going to school with our boys. went to madison, u.w. working at epic now, applying toed me school. he's -- to medvedev school. he's from china -- med school. he's from china. just a great kid. he's home for the holidays with us and does family vacations with us, goes backpacking with us. that's been a lot of fun too. so it's been quite the ride. and obviously many, many people made this happen. i feel very blessed and very fortunate for having the opportunity to be able to represent such a neat, beautiful area, great people and families back home in wisconsin. we are looking forward to the next chapter. don't know what that is yet. no final decisions have been made. but tonnie and i are going to be looking for new ways to be able to contribute to the community, being able to support our democracy and as i leave here today, just a note of caution. the type of polarization that we're experiencing right now in this country, hyperpartisanship, it's not healthy. the key to the survival of any democracy is the ability to compromise. it's the give and take. it's being able to reach out across the aisle, with my good friend, dave schweikert, and find issueses we can work oning together to try to advance. that's the only way this place is going to survive. it's the only way our country and democracy is going to be able to survive. and unfortunately in recent years people getting involved is to be destroyed and these campaigns are getting ugly and the division is growing and leading to events like we had here on capitol hill on january 6. this can't continue. one of my prouder achievements, i have been ranked as one of the most bipartisan members in congress through the surveys that are taken, the bills we introduced and legislation i have introduced. and i wear that as a badge of honor. not something to be ashamed of. but too many colleagues fear if they are working with a democrat or republican, that would be the kiss of death for them in their primary. that's not the way this place was set up to function. we have to fight through this bad era of american politics and remind ourselves we are all americans with a commonality that can't separate us. we cannot be enemies and need to heal that division and the partisanship that has poisoned our politics and the alternate relates that are being created today. if you don't have that, there is no way you will be able to reach agreement on some of the tough issues facing our country. the separation will be too great. i didn't mean to lecture my colleagues here, but it's an issue we have to stay focused on. i appreciate the recognition and honor of being able to address this chamber one of my last times and thank the people of the 3rd congressional district and the people they placed in me. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. the chair will receive a message. the messenger: a message from the senate. the secretary: i have been directed by the secretary to innorsigian that the senate has passed s.3804. in which concurrence of the house is requested. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 4, 202 1-rbgs the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona, for 30 minutes. mr. schweikert: ron, you are one of the good guys. for those of us who are blessed to be on the ways and means committee, many times, it's one of those committees where you have to do adult stuff that affects this country and the world and having people you can talk to and work it through. you are going to be missed. thank you for being one of the good guys. madam speaker pro tempore, this is a two-parter. i will come back in two weeks and provide solutions, but right now i need to define the problem. and as you know, around the capitol complex, we have dozens and dozens of new members and new staffers and trying to find their office and which way is up and where the bathrooms, all the things we go through here and my fear is no one is telling these members that are new and even talking to the members that have been here for a while, the truth. and the truth is the math and the math always wins. and we are in real trouble. and what scares me with some of the things going on in the economy right now and interest rates look like they are going and inflation becoming structural, it's potentially just devastating to the individuals out there, our brothers and sisters in the country, the affordability to afford a house or food and let's walk through and some of this is big boy math and going to be complex, but there are a couple of punch lines in here i want to be remembered. i'm not going to take you back to 1965. but last year's budget cycle. over 71% of all of our spending is on auto pilot. the fact of the matter is, this is what we call mandatory. 13% was defense. 16% was discretionary what we debate and what we fight over, but this mandatory here, you see red, your government functionally is an insurance company with an army. this is health, medicare, social security and other benefits, pensions for military, for government workers, those sorts of things. this is mandatory. and it's on auto pilot. i don't think there is a member here who has ever utility p matily vote odd this red portion. it's a formula. , you turn 65 you get certain benefits. it's auto pilot. defense, well, that, we debate and work through, but the fact of the matter is defense stays within a certain mean of the g.d.p. and then domestic domestic issues will be flat. so where's all this debt coming from and growth coming from. and i'm going to give you an answer and make people unhappy. you have to tunes that just last year's borrowing, does anyone understand how big it was? so, we borrowed $1.375 trillion. how much is that? $114 billion a month. it's $26 billion a week. it's $3.7 billion a day. it's $159 million an hour. $2.6 million a minute. but here's the minute we are told, how do you get it so it is understandable. if i came to you and said how much last year did your government borrow every second? turns out it was $43,000 600 a second. we board -- borrowed every second last year. as long as we are handing out goodies and people who will vote to us, the world is good. where is all this debt coming from. brian rendell, manhattan institute put out a series of slides and o.m.b. office to look at it and say, what is driving the debt. today we hold $131 trillion borrowing from trust funds but that is the total debt. but today for the next 30 years based on a previous interest rate calculation -- and haven't plugged in the higher interest rates that we are borrowing money on, anyone want to guess from today to the future? we are going to spend -- borough -- borrow $114 trillion shortfall. the interesting thing, remember on that previous slide, i was saying, here is mandatory and discretionary. we calculate it today to have a $1.9 trillion surplus over the next 30 years. so where is $1 14-r trillion of borrowing coming from? and this is really uncomfortable and i will tell you, i believe the democrats did something really crappy during the election. i accept the knives come out and all about winning, but when you had campaigns out there, they are going to cut your medicare. you can't even have a honest conversation of what's going on. the shortfall in medicare and add in the interest costs is $80 trillion. the shortfall in social security is $35.8 trillion. the entire borrowing is social security and medicare. we get old. the fact of the matter is this was a thing called baby boomers. and you get the clown show around here, we'll do medicare for all. that was a financing bill. obamacare, who gets subsidized. the republican alternative was a financing bill. you need a revolution in what we pay, not in who pays it. but that is more uncomfortable here than having a debate over raising taxes or doing entitlement reform and actual discussion of should we legalize technology and the things that create disruptions to provide our brothers and sisters that we as a society made a deal? we are going to keep it on social security and medicare. in a decade because of the new cola increase and shortened the trust fund by a year. you have a decade and our brothers and sisters are headed towards a 25% cut. what is this place going to do? medicare is unsustainable. stunning amount to finance our brothers and sisters, our promise to finance and basically consumes every dollar, every dl air of -- dollar of this government. it's math and the reality. how many of you had an honest debate, anyone willing to talk about this. really dangerous because the other side will run nasty ads about not dealing with it. you are sentencing our seniors to misery. what is going on, why am i more dour imright now? it's inflation, the cost of everything, the affordability in society, but crushing people and we are going to walk through a little bit of that. and i'm going to focus on the interest rates and what it actually means to everyone in this country, what we are doing to you and so many of our brothers and sisters that you don't understand -- i'm sorry, it is a high-level economic term and how screwed you are. we were i building bughtsdz a year ago on the u.s. sovereign debt and did the two years, five years, plended interest rates was all these fun calculations and interesting stuff. we were originally about 1.78 would be our mean interest rate. and last, march or may, we recalculated because of this thing called inflation and up to 2.10. and the reality is we ended up at a recalculation of how the u.s. mean is headed towards 2.85 and under 10 years. we have some economists around us saying it's going higher, it's going higher. and i'm going to show you a couple things here of what happens to us as a country if the way the federal reserve has to stop inflation is raising, raising, raising interest rates and breaking the labor market, even though there is this delay effect, that means what you and i have to pay the interest back on all of the borrowing and the biggest part of the borrowing cycle hasn't hit us yet because we are getting ready for the huge spike in costs because of our demographics. the baby boomers is moving into their retirement benefits and as they get slightly older and little bit older, the medicare costs start to go up and we haven't hit that financing cycle. it's coming, what happens if we have to finance that at the higher interest rates. so you start looking at this, three months, t-bill, back in march, .2 and that was our biden administration estimate. the actual three year right now, 1.75. what is the difference between .20 and 1.75? can anyone say a whole lot? this is money that your taxes are going to be paying back. so here's the punch line an i'm so here's the punch line. what if this inflationary cycle stuck with us? what if instead of that, what was it, 1.78% or even the 2.3% interest rate on u.s. sovereign date, what if it were two points higher? just 2% higher? which functionally 15 years ago, that's where we're at. remember, we actually had a reprieve, completely fake economic reprieve for a decade, with artificially low interest rates. so we were borrowing, borrowing, borrowing, the federal reserve kept interest rates lower, particularly since 2008. and now we're about to pate cost of it. so what would -- pay the cost of it. so what would happen if we paid that 2% higher? functionally at the end, and my math is a little bit less, the end of 30 years, 100% of all tax receipts, of all taxes, all tariffs, all -- everything that comes into the government, 100% goes just to pay interest you have to understand how sensitive we are -- interest. you have to understand how sensitive we are, how fragile we've had made ourselves, because structurally we're going to borrow another, what, $1.3, $1.4 trillion this year, we're never paying anything off. we're borrowing and it gets worse and worse and worse and worse because our demographics as we get older, unless we crash the price of health care. so that's going to be two weeks from now, we're going to talk about things we could do to accomplish that. but are you prepared to live in a country that if our mean interest rate goes up, 2% stays there? all tax receipts go just to cover our interest. there's no more government. there's no more military. there's no more benefits. there's no more social security. there's no more medicare. this is why it's so crucial around here to have an honest conversation where people put batteries in their calculator. instead, this place is living on theater. oh, monetary policy, we can spend all the money we want and, look, nothing happens. didn't work. and in many ways i can show you right now the largest tax increase in modern history has happened in the last year. if the fact of the matter is you live in my phoenix area and you are working -- a working person, you're a hardworking taxpayer, and you have not had a pay hike, do you realize you've lost six weeks, maybe more, of your labor? we're still at 12.1% inflation in my community. you've lost six weeks of your labor. if i walked in and said, hey, i'm going take a month and a half of your salary and that's going to be my next tax hike, would you have lost your mind -- would you have lost your mind. but if we do it through this thing called inflation, where we strip the affordability of your groceries and gasoline and everything else in your life, did you notice it? well, you knew there was a problem. you know life has gotten much harder. you know sometimes you get to the checkout stand and you're taking things back because the price just doesn't work on your budget. and the perverse thing, you're going to see a chart here, my next one, where actually there's going to be this little drop in sort of the debt to g.d.p., those things. and that's because that inflation actually has been a tax. we lowered the value of your income, we lowered the value of your savings, but at the same time we lowered the value of all this debt. because we're going to pay it back with what we call inflated dollars. which is wonderful. up until the next year or two when we have to refinance that debt and refinance the debt and refinance the new spending at the higher interest rates and then that little benefit of taxing you through inflation goes away, and we're off to the races and it becomes hell. and remember, this has brought down other countries for hundreds of years. and it's right in front of us. and no one seems to come behind these microphones and, a, talk about it, educate about it, and for the last couple of years, i've come here behind these microphones and tried to show solutions and they try to lobby us out of our minds. so let's take a look at this. let's see if i can make this make work. this is deficits during the biden administration. fiscal year 2023 budget baseline versus a 1% rise in interest. do we all agree that we've had at least a 1% rise in interest rates? yes. so do you see this one little bit of a fall right there? this orange is what happens when you tack on the additional interest. that little fall is functionally the fact that we devalued your dollar. that's our little benefit from taxing you with the way you didn't know. but then boom. functionally the budget cycle we're about to work on is the 2024 budget psych. you're basically going to have -- budget cycle. you're basically going to have a budget of $1.4 trillion. then, boom, $1.5 trillion. you get out a couple more years, you're heading toward $1.75 trillion. in less than a decade you're well over $2 trillion a year in just borrowing. and this chart explodes if we go beyond that 1% rise in interest rates. structurally, even if i remove, saying, hey, we're going to go back to living in that world or that fantasy, artificially low interest rate, we're still heading toward $2 trillion a year borrowing. it just takes 10 years. this is insane. functionally right in here, interest will be just the basic borrowing, all of defense, a whole bunch of discretionary and other things will all live on that money. and here -- and look, most people have no idea what the concept of debt to g.d.p. is. it's the concept of,ing heres the size of comie -- of, here's the size of my economy. and, yes, we're borrowing all this money, but look how big my economy is and that economy's ability to finance, just like your income finances your credit cards. and as long as your income keeps going up, faster than the debt on your credit cards, you can live. you're going to be ok. what happens when your economy isn't growing, your income isn't growing as fast as your borrowing on those credit cards? at a certain point it comes to an end. we're heading toward a time where if we add -- this is our baseline. if we start adding a little bit of higher interest rates because of -- we have to finance the debt, we've got to sell our bonds, the bond markets are expecting higher interest rates because of inflation, you start seeing the chart, you're hitting a world where -- i know this is a 30-year projection, but remember, we're selling 30-year bonds. baseline. the baseline number is 185% of debt to g.d.p. that means the debt will be 85% bigger than the entire economy. if we had 3% higher interest rates, the debt is functionally 245% bigger than entire economy. do you think we ever get anywhere? because this is what we're doing to ourselves. this is already baked in the cake. if these interest rates go up. but this down here, the base c.b.o. assumption, remember, we're already over 1%, so right now our borrowing is already substantially big than the entire size of our economy. it's why growth is moral, but it's also necessary. because if we don't start growing this economy and we're continuing just the borrowing, because, remember, what was the primary driver of our borrowing? medicare and social security. we got old. it's demographics. getting old isn't republican or democrat. it's just who we are. that's driving most of our borrowing. and we're not adopting policies that just maximize growth at every opportunity. we're destroying the future. and i need my brothers and sisters on left to at least embrace some basic truths. 2007, very -- the very end of 2017, we did tax reform. tax receipts. 2022, tax receipts, the highest in u.s. history by far. and this is under the new tax system. you're going to demagogue us for doing tax reform, trying to bring back businesses back to the united states and get them to domicile and manufacture and do things here in the country, you can at least pull out a chart and showing where the revenue has disappeared, because they didn't, but right here, we brought in $4.8 trillion in tax receipts last year. and we're still borrowing $1.3 trillion. the spending has just exploded around here and now we hit our instructs ral deficits -- structural deficits because of our demographics. it gets uglier and uglier and uglier and we've made ourselves incredibly fragile. god forbid we ever have a failed bond option or an undersubscribed one and interest rates start to spike. do you understand what happens to the entire world, let alone your savings? we don't need to do this to ourselves. there are solutions. but this body is incapable of having that debate. and, dear god, please with the republican majority, no matter how thin it is, maybe we'll actually try doing something honest and adult with calculators. and you keep looking at the charts and there's charts out there, it's not revenues. revenues, you know, there's this whole line of thought out there that's been worked on by the left and the right that we raise taxes, somehow we stay within a certain mean of the size of the economy. when we've lowered taxes, somehow the revenues come back up, taxes always seem to come in just right about here. so this is 20% of g.d.p., you raise the taxes, the economy seems to shrink, the growth shrinks, we fall back to the mean. you lower taxes, the economy grows, the revenues come back. it's just -- i mean, you know, you have decades and decades and decades of data. and you look at the charts and it's pretty darn clear. we're going to take in 19.1% to 20%, sometimes we fall down to 18% of the economy in revenues, in receipts, in taxes. so the art here is design a tax code, design a regulatory code, adopt, embracing of technology and other things that maximize growth. so the ultimate solution is grow, grow, grow and then adopt, disruptive technologies that disrupt prices so affordability -- imagine if you had a society once again that was growing. your wages were going up, but inflation wasn't. where your health care costs were actually going down. where your savings, your investments, your plan for retirement, your ability to help your kids go to college, got better. we can do that. we did that in 2017, 2018, 2019, even the first quarter of 2020 before the pandemic. there's a model to do it. and all that progress, all that closing income inequality, making the poor less poor, the hardworking tax paying m middle class, making them more prosperous, it's all gone. the democrats succeeded in 18 months of crushing the people of this country by really crappy policy. you know, great virtue signaling. incredibly good virtue signaling. really crappy policy. and once again i need my brothers and sisters on the left to buy a calculator and understand, if you came in and said, i'm going take every dime, you make small businesses, rich people, high income earners, if i take every dime, you make $500,000 and the next dollar we just take everything, you've heard this, rich people aren't -- take every dime, you functionally don't get anywhere. so this is -- would you get maybe -- and this is assuming that they stop, you know, -- they continue to work as hard, they make the same amount of money, they don't change their behavior at all. it's a math experiment. you get about $5.-- 5.1% of g.d.p. in taxes. the problem is, our borrowing is already about to hit 6% and in a couple more decades we're over 12%. it's a fantasy. and look, the republicans have their sin too. we will often say, well, waste and fraud. foreign aid. that's just almost a rounding error. you remember a little while ago, $40,000 a second borrowing. scale of the problem is ahead of us. it's both terrifying and it's no longer getting postponed to the future. i've gotten in front of audiences and, a, they'll boo when you try to explain them the truth of the math. but, b, well, i was told this 10 years ago. yeah, we had 10 years of artificial floriday low interest rates -- artificially low interest rates that allowed congress to engage in really crappy policy. what is that chickens coming home to roost. but it's time. it's here. will this newspaper congress with a

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