Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding.

I note that we have only really had now two people speak in opposition to the bill out of the 40 minutes it has been on the floor, and that is just the reality of what we deal with here.

The fact of the matter is all of this is a shell game. Last year, Republicans were presented with a bill. It was supposed to cap spending at $1.59 trillion. Now, we have legislation that will do no such thing.

Republicans will go around and talk about how they scored major wins, how they somehow delivered for the American people. The fact of the matter is we did no such thing.

We signed up for caps at $1.59 trillion. We could have had $1.56 trillion if we would have passed a CR this year that would have triggered the caps.

The Limit, Save, Grow Act that we passed is 1.471 trillion, but we are not doing that. We are going to blow the lid off of caps of $1.66 trillion. That is what we are actually going to do, while my Republican colleagues are going to run around and say that they somehow delivered cuts by saying $24 billion of cuts off of a CR that not one Member of this body could come down to the floor and explain.

I would take that challenge. If any Member of the body can come down and explain to the American people in terms that they can understand, explain it. Explain exactly what the cuts look like.

What you will get are things like, oh, we cut 7 percent out of the FBI. What they won't tell you is 95 percent of that cut is eliminating an earmark from Richard Shelby because Richard Shelby is no longer here to defend his pet project building back in Alabama.

They are going to say, oh, look, we are cutting the Department of Justice and the FBI. The truth of the matter is, we didn't get any of the major wins that we worked all last year to get--all of these things like defunding the sanctuary cities refusing to report criminal aliens. That is gone. All of these measures are not in the bill.

I rise in opposition to this legislation. I hope my Republican colleagues will oppose it. We deserve to deliver for the American people the way we said we would to cut spending and secure the border of the United States.

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