Crisis At the Southern Border

Floor Speech

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for the time and for bringing up what we know is wrong, what we clearly know is wrong.

Our finest and the absolute healthiest population, by the way, in the United States of America is in the military. We are down to less than half a percent of Americans who even serve in uniform. And recruiters, even before the pandemic, were telling us they were concerned about what they were looking forward to because the population really just couldn't meet the recruiting goals because people were either criminals, overweight, or what have you.

So we already have a problem, and then you get this vaccine mandate. It is experimental, and they force the best of the best to leave the service. Meanwhile, we can't defend ourselves. China is on the rise, Madam Speaker, you have got Russia threatening nuclear war, and the President declares the pandemic over while we are kicking our finest people, people who said: Put me on the front line, I will sign the blank check and give everything, including my life, in defense of our country.

And we say, no, thank you. Unless you get this jab and bend the knee--and bend the knee--your service here is not wanted.

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Mr. PERRY. How about this: anybody who has served, anybody who has worn the uniform knows that as important as recruiting is, to replace those who are retiring after spending the best years, their most productive years, and their most healthy years of their lives in uniform, the most important thing is retention. It is how you treat the people who are going into battle. We are not interested in retaining anybody, apparently, unless they bend the knee.

So we are going to kick someone out after the American taxpayer has spent a boatload of money training someone.

Madam Speaker, do you know what the cost of training an F-18 pilot is or an AH-64 pilot or the ultimate weapon, the American infantryman? Do you know what the cost of that is, Madam Speaker?

After 18 years of service, the best years of their life, right before they are ready to retire because they won't take the jab, we say that we are not interested in retaining you, even knowing that we can't meet our recruiting goals.

This is a complete dereliction of duty, and it is inviting to the enemies of the United States. This weakness is provocative, and you are seeing it all around the globe. This is all done by the Biden administration and leftwing Democrats who somehow think that the control that comes from the emergency pandemic order is better than securing our Nation. And even under the circumstance where the President himself said the pandemic is over, yet as my good friend from Texas just said, while we stand here at this very moment, while the pandemic is over, we are processing people out of the military at this moment.

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, in Pennsylvania, of course, we stand on top of hundreds and hundreds of years of our natural resources that are abundant and readily available. They are cleaner than any other place on the planet, and we have got an administration that says: Keep it in the ground, don't use it.

Madam Speaker, half of Pennsylvania if you had gone back 20 years ago looked like the 1950s, maybe not half of Pennsylvania, but a good portion of the north central portion of Pennsylvania because there were no jobs. The leftist policies, of course, in Pennsylvania chased all the opportunity away, and families were struggling to hold on to their farms. Then horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing came into favor, and these farms and these communities were saved and brought into the 21st century.

The Obama administration and this administration has come in and said, oh, no. Back to poverty for you. You are not going to be able to afford to heat your home.

And if you are, guess what?

You are going to be making a choice between heating your home this winter and feeding your family, all by design, all on purpose, and all intentional by this administration.

It is unacceptable, and as my good friend from Texas said, we are being asked in the next few days here, whenever they come up with whatever they come up with, to keep funding this and to keep funding that kind of policy.

Why would we provide one vote for it?

There is not one Republican vote. Quite honestly, not one Democrat should vote for it if they love their country, if they love the people in their communities, and if they care about the people who are suffering and struggling to pay their bills.

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, this is what we have. We are not the executive branch. We don't enforce the laws. But when the executive branch governs against the will of the people--and ladies and gentlemen, what we hear all day around this place is, oh, they are trying to destroy democracy because they have a disagreement, they have a political disagreement, they are trying to destroy democracy.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a Republic. Madam Speaker, this is a Republic. And the power of the purse, the power of taking from the people a portion of what they earn and distributing it through the Federal Government through its policies resides right here, right here in this House of Representatives. It is the only thing we have.

We can't arrest people. We can't prosecute people. We can say enough is enough. You are governing against the will of the American people. You are governing against the best interest of your country. We are not going to help. We signed up not to help. You are not going to get our vote.

If you want to do it, you can own it. You can go explain to the American people why they can't afford their bills; why they can't find things on the grocery shelves; and why their police aren't on the streets; and why they are worried about when they step out somebody from some other country who doesn't belong here is going to kill their children or abduct them or rob their store. You can explain it because we are not going to because we are not going to vote to continue this charade, this assault on the American taxpayer and American citizens.

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, what my good friend from Texas who joins me in the Freedom Caucus is alluding to is we are being asked to fund a government for a period of time in which the election will occur. We are going to run out of money here in 9 days, and we are being asked to fund the government, and all things that my good friend from Texas has already outlined, all those atrocities, but not until the rest of the year, just until sometime in December after the election when people have lost their election and there is no accountability.

You know what they are going to do then? They are going to waltz right in here, and say: Oh, you know what? We are running out of money again. We got to do it again. You know what? I don't have to stand for election. So if you think this one is bad, if you think all the things that Mr. Roy has outlined that are in this one, more money for COVID when there is no more pandemic--so says the President of the United States--if you think that is bad, just wait until these folks don't have to stand for election in December.

We are saying, if we are going to fund a package, first of all, it has to fix these things. First of all, it has to fix these things. Second of all, send it into the next term so that the people's voice can be heard after November's election. But that is not going to happen. That is not going to happen.

There is no way--as my good friend from Texas says, not one more penny. Not one more penny to support these failed policies, these policies that go against the people that are governed by this town.

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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, I thank the good gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for bringing this to light. He is absolutely right. We didn't come here, none of us came here on either side of the aisle, because we thought Washington was perfect. We came here because we know it is broken.

If you know something is broken, why do you keep doing the exact same things that have broken it? Yet, we are being asked, once again, when we come here--well, this is what we always do. We are running out of money. We have to pass this. I remind everybody, we are, what, $32-, $31-, $30-something trillion in debt. They don't even print this money anymore; they just digitally create it.

We don't have the money to do this. Not one more penny to rule against the consent of the govern is what I say.

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