Providing for Consideration of H.R. Ukraine Security Assistance and Oversight Supplemental Appropriations Act, Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. Department of Defense Appropriations Act, and Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this rule. It concerns me that my friend, the chairman of the Rules Committee--and I believe that I say this correctly--described this as part of the normal democratic process. If that is true, then that is the new normal and it is more evidence of dysfunction and the inability to govern than it is anything else.
A few years ago, Fiona Hill said that polarization in this country is now a national security threat because it shows the rest of the world that we can't function, we can't govern. No one outside this body is going to see this rule and this tactic as anything other than at least an attempt to defund the efforts to help Ukraine.
I get it. The Speaker has the sword of Damocles over his head because of a few Members in the far right that have disproportionate control. We are not talking about the tail wagging the dog, it is the tip of the dog's tail. The rest of the world is watching this, understanding the underlying reasons why this so matters.
Ukraine's fight is the reason we fought the Second World War. It is the reason we formed NATO, and it is the reason we formed the United Nations. We simply cannot let a sovereign democratic country get wiped off the face of the Earth. We grew up hearing and believing ``Never again.'' Yet, as I stood in Bucha in Ukraine and saw the mass grave and heard the horrors there, it made me think that it will happen on a more massive scale if we don't act.
To quote FDR in his last, shortest inaugural address: ``We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away.'' He was right then and he is right now.
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