Lauren Boebert To House Colleagues: 'It Is Immoral For Us' To Do This

Forbes Breaking News

At today's House Rules Committee hearing, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) slammed high government spending and passing spending bills in an omnibus version.

Transcript

00:00 to you next. Comment on any amendments you care to address. Thank you Mr.

00:04 Chairman. I also have many amendments that I hope that the committee seeks

00:09 favorable views on and approves, but I too am here to testify in favor of this

00:15 rule. I'm very grateful to each and every one of you who are here staying in

00:21 Washington DC over the weekend, even after many members have gone back to

00:26 their districts for various reasons, namely being they were told they could,

00:30 but we are here to ensure that we are all working together to avoid a

00:36 government shutdown. That is the last thing that I want. I am here to serve my

00:41 constituents in Colorado's 3rd District. I am here to fight for our veterans, for

00:46 our service members. I want to ensure that agencies are functioning, that

00:50 paychecks are issued, and that I am able to do my job to better serve them back

00:57 at home. That's why I'm here this weekend. There's plenty of events that

01:00 all of us could have run off to, whether they be official or unofficial,

01:05 but we're here to do the hard work of governing. Unfortunately, we have

01:10 wasted many months and now we are here at this critical deadline of

01:16 government funding running out and us on the brink of a shutdown. But this shows a

01:23 lot of good faith, us being here dedicated, talking about this rule. My

01:28 colleagues and I, we're fighting to fund the government. We're fighting to uphold

01:33 the promises that we made to the American people back in January. We took

01:37 that speaker's race very, very seriously, not because of a person, but because of

01:43 the policy, because of the procedure. We wanted to ensure that we were making

01:48 fundamental changes to the way Congress operates. When I go back home, people

01:54 don't speak favorably of Congress and the way that we do things here. And we

01:58 wanted to make sure that we had an impact to redirecting the House of

02:03 Representatives back to the original intent that our founders had, that we

02:07 would actually do the work of the people, rather than just having these straight

02:10 up and down votes where you have to pick and choose what's worse than the bill,

02:15 what's better in the bill, to actually get a final vote on passage or not. I was

02:22 very excited that the days of having to pass a bill to find out what was in it

02:26 were gone. We've implemented 72 hours to actually read a bill

02:31 before we pass it. And we promised the American people that we would no longer

02:35 govern by omnibus bills. And now we're at the brink of a continuing resolution,

02:41 which is very much the same. And we promised them 12 individual, single

02:47 subject bills to fund the federal government. We are here to prevent the

02:54 continuation of swampy status quo that we all see each and every day

03:01 up here. Commitments were made earlier this year to rein in reckless spending

03:06 and business as usual in Washington, D.C. And we expect those commitments to be

03:12 honored. There are thousands of unauthorized programs that continue to

03:18 be funded without oversight, congressional hearings, or even a

03:24 reauthorization vote. This is absolutely unacceptable to have thousands of

03:29 unauthorized programs that we are continuing to fund without even having a

03:33 discussion of how we are spending the American tax dollar. The American people

03:38 deserve better than the previous majority's way of governing. Nancy

03:44 Pelosi and Joe Biden bloated the budget. And now we're seeking to

03:50 continue that same budget. Some want this continuing resolution past September

03:56 30th. And I believe that that's completely unacceptable, especially now

03:59 that Republicans have the majority here in the House. The American people voted

04:05 for this majority to do things differently and fund the government in a

04:10 new way that is not weaponized against them. We voted against the omnibus

04:17 bill back in December. So why would anyone, any one of my colleagues on my

04:21 side of the aisle, vote to continue that past September 30th? Before the August

04:26 District Workweek, the House passed just one of the 12 appropriations bills to

04:33 fund the government. And we were promised that progress would be made over the six

04:37 weeks that we were all back in district working with, hearing from, and serving

04:41 our constituents, and that a plan would be in place when we got back. But

04:46 instead when we came back, you know, we welcomed 33 trillion dollars in debt.

04:51 We're looking at spending seven trillion dollars and only receiving five

04:55 trillion, a two trillion dollar annual deficit that we were all just very

05:02 distraught over. I'm a mom of four boys, I got a grandchildren. It is immoral for

05:06 us to have a deficit this high. We have got to get the spending under control.

05:12 And while there are disagreements on both sides of the aisle and we're stuck

05:16 at a crossroads here, there is a path forward. I'm so proud of the work that my

05:20 colleagues have done. We have moderate Republicans and the most conservative

05:25 Republicans working together to actually pass these bills individually. And the

05:30 House should not go home this week once we begin voting without voting on these

05:37 single-subject bills that reduce bloated federal spending and show the American

05:42 people that the Republicans, the majority that they voted for, can govern. It's not

05:48 just a campaign slogan, but we actually get here, roll up our sleeves, and do the

05:53 work that we promised the American people that we would do. And now is

05:57 absolutely not the time to quit. We cannot risk a government shutdown and

06:02 this is why we're all here to do this job. We need to pay our brave service

06:08 members. This is of the utmost importance. I've heard it mentioned in this committee

06:12 today. They will be required to work in the event of a shutdown and the same

06:17 service members who have been subject to wokening and weakening of our

06:23 military under this current regime and Joe Biden, Secretary Lloyd Austin,

06:30 they're suffering already and to withhold their pay in the midst of that

06:37 is also something that is very immoral and not our best. So I want to do

06:42 this by passing the the DOD bill that will fund the military to win every

06:49 battle that we face in our upcoming future as the greatest nation. They need

06:55 to have preparedness, military readiness, not just more focus on celebrating Pride

07:03 Month. We also need to pay our brave border security officers. These Border

07:09 Patrol officers, as you've heard today, they have been

07:12 demoralized. I've talked to these Border Patrol agents who I've asked them what

07:17 can I do? What can I do to help you? And you know they tell me we don't

07:23 necessarily need more personnel because they're just processing agents at that

07:28 point. We don't need more infrastructure at this moment. We don't even need more

07:32 resources at this moment. We need the policy that allows us to do our job.

07:37 Right now we have a president that is ignoring the rule of law, our nation's

07:43 immigration laws, and he is impacting the very men and women who risk their lives

07:49 each and every day to secure our country. But they are there to stop the complete

07:55 and total invasion taking place at the southern border and that is infiltrating

08:00 all of our states, making every state a border state, making this an issue in

08:04 each one of our homes. In the last 30 months Joe Biden and Secretary Mayorkas

08:11 have been in control of the southern border. There have been 6.9 million CBP

08:15 encounters and 1.7 million known gotaways. Let's do this by passing a

08:22 strong DHS funding bill with strong policy writers to secure the border and

08:27 I applaud my colleague Congressman Chip Royce's comments saying that this will

08:33 get done. In funding the federal government we will provide a solution to

08:38 securing the southern border, to stopping or at least tremendously slowing down

08:43 this flow of fentanyl, the tens of thousands of children that have gone

08:48 missing, the deaths that have taken place, the innocent lives that have been lost

08:53 because of these reckless policies. And also in the midst of a government

08:57 shutdown we cannot risk even the closure of our national parks, pausing

09:02 passport and visa applications, grant applications, IRS verifications, mortgage

09:07 approvals, new veteran benefits and Social Security and Medicare

09:12 applications. So thank you again for putting in this work. I ask you to

09:16 continue to put in this work so we can avoid a government shutdown. We can get

09:22 in this together, work together, put aside differences and find a real solution for

09:27 the people who are counting on us and are losing faith in us back home. Let's

09:31 prove to them that we have their best interests at heart, that we aren't up

09:35 here wasting time, that we care about their future, their children and their

09:39 children's children's future as well. Let's pass all 12 appropriations bills

09:44 individually, single subject, through the People's House before September 30th and

09:50 we can keep the government open, we can stay here and do that work that we were

09:54 elected to do. I'm here to do it, my colleagues are here to do it and I'm

09:58 proud to stand with you all today for the American people doing this work.

10:02 Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for the time.

Category

Transcript

Recommended