NDAA, Disabled Work Barriers, Working Families Tax Cuts Anniversary, State Funds

Ready. Good afternoon. The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Today the rules committee is convening to consider three measures, H R eighty eight hundred, H R eighty eight eighty four, and H res thirteen eighty three. First, we turn to H. Rez thirteen eighty-three, a resolution highlighting the success of common sense tax policies that have made an overwhelmingly positive impact upon the lives of hard-working Americans and their families. It was almost one year ago, here in this very room where we spent almost twenty-one hours discussing one of the most transformational pieces of legislation in a generation. H R one. These are the policies that our Republican majority has championed and continued to champion. Almost one year ago, every single Democrat in the House voted to raise taxes on the American people. House Republicans did not. Instead, House Republicans passed legislation to permanently increase the standard deduction, eliminate taxes on tips and overtime, permanently increase the child tax credit, create and fund Trump accounts to help children begin saving for their future, and much, much more. Some were very quick to write off the successes and the prosperity that was unleashed, thanks to the working family's tax cuts act. But the fact of the matter is that Americans are reaping the benefits as they should be. Ninety-seven percent of tax filers received a tax cut this year. Working families making between fifteen and thirty thousand dollars are seeing a twenty-one percent tax cut, the largest of any income group. And an American family of four generally will not have any federal income tax liability on the first seventy-three thousand dollars they earn. I look forward to hearing about the additional benefits from the transformational legislation. from our panel today. Next, H R eighty-eight hundred, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year twenty twenty-seven is the keystone of Congress's mandate to provide for the common defense of the nation. Our panel from the Armed Services Committee will speak about this momentarily im- mom- monumentally important legislation at length, and I'm going to highlight a few portions that are particularly pertinent at the outside. On waste, fraud and abuse, the leg- this legislation builds upon the strides made in fiscal year twenty twenty-six to streamline operations and cut nearly thirty billion dollars in wasteful programs that spend taxpayer dollars in a very haphazard manner. Further, it creates a new task force and provides new authorities to eliminate fraudulent payments and achieve a full and clean audit within twenty-four months. H. R. eighty-eight hundred provides our nation's service members with a five to seven percent pay raise and couples that with increase couples that increase with improved and strengthened benefits for military families that relate to housing, education, and access to child care. It also allocates the resources necessary to main a strong posture of defense and deterrence against our nation's adversaries and the continued threats that they pose to the United States. The need for this legislation could not be greater. I look forward to our colleagues from the Armed Services Committee sharing their thoughts and insights with us here today on why this is the case. H. R. eighty-eight eighty-four, the Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled Americans Act, Mister Scott's bill would amend title two of the Social Security Act to reauthorize demonstration authority for the disability insurance program. This legislation works to empower Americans with disabilities by restoring the Social Security Administration's authority to run voluntary pilot programs to test policies that reward work instead of punishing it. It would ensure that no individual who is disabled and has a desire to work, who participates in these programs, will see a reduction in their personal income as a result of attempting to better their lives. Those who are disabled and want to join or remain in the workforce should have the opportunity to do so with having without having to worry about whether their disability benefits will just disappear. This legislation is about upholding fairness and opening the door to opportunity. It's certainly well intentioned and I believe will make a positive impact upon many Americans. With that, I look forward to the conversations we'll have today here in the Rules Committee, and I now yield to the ranking member for any comments that he wishes to

well thank you madam chair well i wanna begin by uh first of all wishing you a happy birthday

thank you sir

um and i i i i would i would sing but have you ever heard me sing it would clear this room in a nanosecond so i i'll spare you

so you gonna be much nicer today

the i i am i am i am i will be i promise you i wanna be as succinct as i possibly can so that you can go out and celebrate tonight that is that is the goal for us to get you out of here at a at a decent hour but uh but having said that i don't envy you today

ok

Uh, because cleaning up the mess Republicans left last week cannot be easy. You know, we had a bipartisan housing bill ready to be signed, a rare, overwhelmingly popular bill that might actually help people afford a place to live. Republican leaders, republically taking a victory lap on TV just as Donald Trump blew the whole thing up, saying he would refuse to sign the bill unless Congress also changes the rules on voting so that Republicans can legally kick registered voters off the rolls. I mean, they are holding affordability hostage so they can try to rig the next election. Are you kidding me? Imagine explaining that back home. Sorry, your rent is too high. You can't afford a mortgage. Congress did pass something that might help. But Donald Trump feels his power matters more than your housing costs. I mean, you can't make this BS up. Business stalled in the house. The rule got pulled. The floor shut down. Members were sent home early. And once again the American people got a front row seat to Republican dysfunction. You guys control the House. You control the Senate and the White House and the Supreme Court. And you still can't govern. Which brings us to today. We are meeting on a defense bill with a trillion dollar price tag, a bad social security disability bill, and yet another resolution celebrating Republicans for their big ugly bill. Not bills to lower costs or raise wages or make life easier, But a trillion dollar defense bill, a dangerous social security bill, and a Republican self-esteem exercise. On NDAA, I will say that better pay for service members matters, better housing matters, better support for military families matters. But this bill authorizes more than one trillion dollars for defense in wars at a time when Donald Trump has made it clear that he is perfectly happy to start an illegal war to kill thirteen American service members. I think giving that much money to Pete Hegseth is nuts. Then there is H. R. eight eight eight four. This bill ha- has brought authority over over social security, disability, insurance to an administration that has already shown us exactly how it treats programs wor- uh working people rely on. Speaker Johnson has said social security, Medicare and Medicaid need to be adjusted and fixed. We all know what that means. It means cuts. And we see that in the big ugly bill. If anything, we ought to be expanding social security disability insurance so that the so that the millions of Americans that depend on it can survive the high cost of the Trump economy. And then we have the second resolution this year that celebrates Republicans' big ugly bill. Who's for who who who's for this? Nobody in America is sitting at their kitchen table now saying, you know what would really help? If Republicans in Congress spent more time congratulating themselves. Republicans want applause for a bill that cut food assistance. It cut food assistance. It kicked people off of health care. It exploded the debt and handed more tax breaks to rich people and big corporations. Meanwhile, um, uh, the American people are getting screwed. And all Republicans offer them is a lousy resolution congratulating themselves, and more Trump drama. People need this place to get serious. Instead of, instead, Republicans have us here again, cleaning up after another meltdown and pretending that this is business as usual. It is not. It is embarrassing, and the American people deserve a hell of a lot better. And again, I will end as I began, promising the General Lady that we will be as succinct and to the point as as p- as possible because it is your birthday and we I think you deserve a, a nice night.

Thank you.

With that, I yield back.

Thank you, Mister McCoverty. Um, without objection, any prepared statements that our witnesses may have will be included in the record. I now welcome our panel, Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith from the House Committee on Armed Services. Your full statements will be submitted for the record. We ask you summarize your statement in five minutes. Chairman Rogers, I welcome your testimony.

Thank you, uh, Chairwoman Fox and Ranking Member McGovern, uh, for having us here today, and I want to thank you and your staff for helping us get the fy twenty-seven NDA to the floor. Your staff's been great to work with. I also want to thank uh ranking member Smith, who's been an awesome partner in this process. Uh, I'm very proud of the work we did to put this bill together and report it out in a bipartisan manner again this year. Throughout our committee's budget hearings this year, we've heard a consistent theme, that being that the defense industrial base, the foundation of our military power, is in deep trouble. Over the last thirty years, the defense industrial base has atrophied significantly. In the nineteen nineties, we had fifty-one prime defense contractors. Today there are only six remaining. Our global munition stockpiles are low, and we no longer have the surge capacity to rapidly replenish them. Our supply chains are too reliant on our adversaries, particularly China, and we have very little industrial capacity to mine, refine, or process critical minerals we need for our defense. And our skilled workforce is shrunk. All of this is happening as our country faces the most challenging threat environment since World War Two. Our adversaries are working together to build modernized forces focused on undermining our security and influence around the world. We are being outpaced in shipbuilding, hypersonics, and autonomous systems. We must take action to address these problems before American deterrence erodes any further. The FY twenty-seven NDA takes action. This bill's uh this year's bill is focused on revitalizing the defense industrial base. We're giving industry the certainty it needs to invest, expand, and produce faster. We're cutting needless regulations that prevent innovative businesses from working with the Pentagon. And we're creating new jobs and helping Americans build advanced technical skills. In addition to revitalizing the defense industrial base, the NDA meets other critical needs. We are raising pay for service members and improving housing, education, and child care for military families. We're strengthening our nuclear deterrence and missile defense while maintaining a strong posture to deter adversaries, and we're prioritizing the development of innovative technologies that will give our war fighters the edge in future conflicts. To support these policies, we're authorizing a one point one five trillion in discretionary funds, which man matches the President's historic budget request. For the first time in forty years, we've been presented with a budget that accounts for the true cost of American deterrence. This top-line begins to reverse the damage caused by decades of underinvestment in the U. S. military. But We understand with this historic investment comes an even more urgent need to guard against waste, fraud, and abuse. The bill this bill does so by cutting nearly thirty billion in wasteful spending, reducing fraudulent payments, and providing new authorities to ensure the Pentagon achieves a full and clean audit within twenty-four months. Peace through strength doesn't begin on the battlefield, it begins in our factories, our depots, and our shipyards. This bill reflects our commitment to rebuilding that foundation. This is a strong bipartisan bill that puts our warfighters first and I r- urge all of our members to support it. And now you'll back.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, you're recognized.

Uh, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and uh happy birthday. Um, hope hope it's a good one. Um, well, first of all, I want to thank Chairman Rogers uh for his leadership of the committee. I have no complaints the process that led us to this point. Um, we had, gosh, over a thousand amendments submitted, uh, we had robust debates over many of them, and we put together what was a, you know, a pretty fair bipartisan product out of committee. Um, there is one big but, which I'll get to in a minute, uh, but I think the chairman outlined a lot of the strengths of this bill. Certainly focusing on getting an audit, getting after, you know, waste, fraud and abuse so we can have a more efficient and effective Pentagon, uh, is enormously important. This bill continues to do that. Bill also builds off of last year's um acquisition reform, which was the the greatest acquisition reform that has ever been done by Congress. What does acquisition reform mean? It basically means innovate faster at scale, uh be able to buy equipment that we need in a in a quicker fashion so that we can get the new and improved equipment that we need in in a better and more effective way. And we've certainly built on that. Um there's strong support for the troops in here, as a number of people have noted. Uh, we also on a number of occasions note how important it is to maintain partnerships and alliances, uh, with NATO certainly, but partners elsewhere. Uh, there were a couple of amendments that were added that I also think really strengthened this bill. One is to restore collective bargaining for Department of Defense employees. And another one was to go back to honoring what the base renaming commission did, in terms of renaming bases that had previously been named for white supremacist Southern generals. So there's a lot that's good. The one big but is the one point one five trillion. It's actually more than a trillion. Um, it's one point one five trillion, and that's just the base. As we have heard, Republicans plan to add a three hundred and fifty billion dollars to that through a reconciliation package though as Mister McGovern notes, don't seem to be able to pass much of anything, so I'm not sure that's going to happen. But then you've got also the supplemental, which is asking for eighty billion dollars. You throw all of that together and what we're talking about is a one point six trillion dollar defense budget. That is an over fifty percent increase in last year's budget. Now, I think the chairman makes a fair point. You know, we we face an incredibly complex threat environment. Um, China is rapidly building up their military. Russia is increasingly aggressive, not just in Ukraine but throughout Europe. We've seen what Iran and terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are doing in the Middle East. North Korea is still crazy and they still have a nuclear weapon. There's a lot to deal with out there. But our budget has to fit within some sort of fiscally responsible package. If you ask the average person, you know, sorry, if you ask an economist what the greatest threat to US national security is right now, they would say our fiscal picture. Forty trillion dollars in debt, that is becoming very difficult to sustain as interest on the debt increases year by year. We cannot afford a one point six trillion dollar defense budget. We just can't. We need a national security policy that reflects what we can actually spend money on. And I think we can do that. Uh, we've got partners and allies that can help us meet those challenges. We can also invest in equipment that gives us an asymmetric advantage. We're seeing this on the battlefield, Ukraine being the best example. By the way, this bill also speaks out loudly in support of Ukraine, uh, its right to defend itself in the support of their - their war with Russia, which I think is incredibly important. But Ukraine has developed very cheap technologies that has enabled them to stop in its tracks a vastly larger military. We need to develop that instead of thinking we can just buy absolutely everything as the solution to meet our national security needs. And it's also deeply ironic uh that the thr- of the three bills you have here, we have our, you know, like I said, one point six trillion when you add it all up, defense budget, and the Republicans praising all of the tax cuts. And I don't disagree, the chairwoman's right. Pretty much everyone did get a tax cut. All right? But if you're not gonna raise the revenue, you can't have a one point six trillion dollar defense budget. I mean, I I think one of the most hilarious things that happened in last year's, uh, Republican Congress, and that's saying something, is you passed an increase to the debt of four trillion plus dollars with all the tax cuts. And then shortly thereafter, you passed a balanced budget amendment, which is absolutely hysterical if you stop and think about it. It's like uh, we just we just wanna act like we're being fiscally responsible? You know, i- if we're gonna have all those tax cuts, we're gonna have to spend less money everywhere, and that includes defense. So, a- as good as the overall bill is, I'm deeply concerned about the amount of money and the fiscal picture. Combining this with massive tax cuts, um, not to mention all of the other needs that we have, I think puts us on an unsustainable pass, path which will then jeopardize our national security, um, in ways that go beyond just whether or not we can deter

Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. I'll defer my questions for a little bit. Uh, Miss Fischbach, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for bringing the bill forward. Um, I appreciate it because I think this bill includes many wins, not only for our national security, but for the people that defend it. And I think that's important to point out. Um, it's been mentioned a couple Ooh. it's been mentioned a couple of times um about the increase in pay and i just so i just wanna be clear that a vote against this bill is a vote against the increased pay for our service members and um i think it and maybe you just wanna expand on that a little bit and explain what's going uh what what's really happening with that

yeah in this bill we um support the president's request for five to seven percent pay increase seven percent for junior enlisted uh six percent for senior enlisted personnel and five percent for senior officers uh we also expand bonuses and special pays that we've been using to try to recruit more and keep more of our service members and we increase their housing allowance, their special needs allowance we also authorize one point eight billion for new barracks and family housing and increase housing allowance for high cost areas um and set deadlines uh for contractors to resolve housing complaints for service members. Yeah, definitely. So this is a really family-friendly bill.

Well, and I'm glad you mentioned the the housing, there's twenty five billion for uh military construction and family housing, and I know you've probably been on more tours than I have when you take a look at at the housing conditions and what's going on, and um I think it's important that we are recognizing that now, because it hasn't been for years, uh really recognizing that we need to um we need to improve that for our service members. So not only the pay increase but making sure they have the housing decent housing that they need and the kind of level that they want um uh and i know that this bill also strengthens medical care for our troops and it require and it requires the dod to focus on skills when hiring rather than just education levels on a resume um and it's uh increasing access to jobs and supplemental uh education and it's doing so much it also includes helping advance small business participation within the uh defense industrial base. And so there's so much good, good going on in this bill, um, that I, it would, it, it's sad to see that people are opposing it, because it's really about making sure that, uh, you know, there's, we're doing the right things for not only our servicemen but for the defense, uh, department in general, making sure we're advancing things. So, yes, it does, it, it does increase, uh, ship building. Uh, it provides funding for ship building and terrorists. eliminating terrorists and developing new technology but i think most important about this is we are really recognizing those service members and making sure that we support them not just saying it but doing it and making sure we're back have their backs and making sure that they have housing they need and the pay they need and so i thank you for bringing this forward and with that i yield back thank you miss fishbot mr mcgovern you're recognized

well thank you uh madam chair so one point six trillion dollars trillion with a t i mean

if you add it all up

yeah

that's the one point one five that's in the base the three point uh the three hundred and fifty billion that they want in reconciliation and the eighty billion dollar supplemental

right right right but one point six trillion dollars um even doctor strange love is impressed with that figure um that that that is huge unprecedented and you know when we talk about national security by the way it it it's more than the number of bombs we have um i mean people right now in this country are worried about may whether they can afford groceries um at the supermarket you know they're worried about whether they can afford to fill their gas tank up they're worried about you know um you know whether they can afford to send their kids to school or whether they can retire um and um you know and they're worried about the cost of housing uh you know i wanna read you a direct quote from president trump a reporter asked asked him um what are your plans for the housing bill because as you know we were supposed to take that up and trump's response was i don't know i think it's so unimportant compared to the save america act so just to be clear he thinks that a housing affordability bill is quote unimportant compared to his election rigging bill i mean i i i mean i i what am i missing here i mean

well that's a separate subject outside of the national defense area but i i will certainly say that it shows a sense of misplaced priorities and When you look at what Americans are dealing with, the high cost of living, housing, education, food, um, energy, all of these things are major problem. Every single policy the Trump administration has put in place has been to drive the costs up.

Right.

The - the - the tariffs, the war in Iran certainly has driven costs up, uh, canceling energy projects all over the country so that we have less energy, uh, cuz he doesn't like wind turbines apparently. So there is a lack of a focus on affordability, without question.

And I think we all agree, I think there's unanimity that um, if it, you know, when it comes to making sure that those who serve in our military, those who who work for our military get a good, decent pay, they could, you know, raise a family, we're all for that.

Yeah, and let me be clear on this, uh, spending money helps people.

Right.

Yeah, which is not, not terribly surprising.

Right. Right.

Um, but if you're gonna spend this much money, you better be prepared to raise the revenue, so you're not just sending us massive money.

Right. Well, and also understanding that, you know,

Yeah.

increasing people's salaries while housing costs are going through the roof while gas prices are going through the roof while food prices are going through the roof uh it doesn't necessarily make their life more affordable uh and and and allow them to address some of the the um the challenges that our constituents face i mean i um you know um uh uh ranky member smith what is the deal with this proposed trump class battleship i mean i mean he wants a ballroom he wants an arch now he wants a battleship i mean is this a good use of resources or is this an another vanity project

um well i think it's another vanity well it's partially a vanity project and also then it's just a mistake we're talking about building the largest battleship ever constructed now we stopped building battleships near the end of world war two because they proved ineffective in world war two uh which was some eighty years ago now um their big targets relatively slow moving you know, they bring firepower, but at great risk. And now Trump wants to build a battleship that is the largest ever. It's gonna cost over twenty billion dollars to build. And that's if we can build it. Let's keep in mind that, you know, we have struggled to build a frigate, um, on two occasions. We struggled to build the littoral combat ship. And now we're gonna build something roughly fifteen, twenty times larger. It's highly questionable whether or not we're gonna build it. And when you see the cost estimates, twenty two billion dollars as I always joke, take the over, and I'm pretty sure you're you're you're gonna be be easy money, but it gets more to the point of what I was talking about earlier, how can we meet our national security needs in a more cost effective way? Iran was able to create an asymmetric advantage over us by placing the straight of her moves at risk. And they didn't need, they don't need a lot to do that. They don't need a twenty two billion dollar battleship, okay, we need to be looking for those types of asymmetric advantages against our adversaries so that we can cost effectively deter them. Part of that is building cheaper munitions. And I'll give you some good news. There's a lot of private investment right now in developing new munitions that are cheaper than the ones we have right now. Um, counter drone measures, and all of that gets us to a more cost-effective way to meet our national security needs. A battleship does not.

Right.

Do you know how many drones we could buy, how many missiles we could buy with twenty-five billion dollars?

Right.

I- i- it's staggering. So I think it's a huge mistake.

Hey, just one final quick question, Mister Rogers. I mean, uh, uh, Do you have assurances that Republicans are will bring this to the floor? I mean, we went through a similar exercise last week and then it got pulled at the last minute because some of your members are are are voting against I guess everything until um they can, you know, get this election bill passed that they've been pushing. Do do we do we do we have assurances that after we meet here and report this rule out that this will actually indeed come up tomorrow?

Uh, my conversation with the speaker is that he intends to put this bill on the floor this week. Yes, sir.

All right. I thank you both and I yield back.

Thank you very much, Mister McGovern. Uh, Mister Scott, you're recognized.

Thank, thank you Madam Chair. Uh, first of all, I have the privilege privilege of serving on the armed services committee with these two men. They both do a fine job. It is a committee that functions the way it is supposed to. And so I wanna thank you for that. I know we've got staff here from both sides and um uh i wish every committee functioned the way the armed services committee does and i know that there were a lot of debates um in there and i know the the vote was still a strong bipartisan vote not as strong as it has um maybe historically been but i wanna focus on one issue if i can chairman rogers to explain to the american citizens why the revitalization of the defense industrial base is so important. And, um, any general that you meet with will tell you that, um, if you don't win in space, you lose the war today. Is that a fair statement?

Absolutely.

And, uh, up to and until twenty twenty-two, the United States of America, our citizens and our security, uh, every satellite launch that we had done in a decade prior to that, my understanding is, happened with an r d one eighty, a russian rocket. Is that correct?

That's correct.

And up to and until twenty twenty four, because we bought some additional rockets, because the leadership of the committee in a bipartisan manner saw this coming, and so we front loaded the amount of rockets that we had, um, until the US Industrial base could develop rockets so that we could launch our own satellites and no longer be dependent on the enemy of the United States to launch satellites. Is that a fair statement?

We saw it coming and we energized our launch capacity and now we have uh multiple sources uh for launch and we are no longer relying on the Russian produced RD one eighty.

I uh, I think we're all concerned about the amount of money that we're having to spend for national security, but I will tell you the bigger it is not waking up secure. And, uh, what the the rebuilding of the defense industrial base is is not an option. It it has to be done. And I think that, uh, what we have done here, and and and again, I give I give both sides credit for this, in a in in a bipartisan manner, is to is to give the defense industrial base, um, the signal that they need to bring uh the manufacturing of of the supply chain, the whole supply chain, uh back, if not to the United States, at least to allied and treaty nations. Uh, so, Mister Rogers, I'm not gonna go a whole lot further. I do want to give you the opportunity to uh say a few words, if you'd like to, about any of the any of the other key provisions of the bill, but again, I appreciate both you and mister smith for the way you run the committee and uh it's my privilege to serve with both of you on that committee

right thank you uh i just want to emphasize the bill that we have before you today and that we'll be voting on this week is not for one point six trillion it's for one point one five trillion um there will be a supplemental request in the appropriations bill there will be a reconciliation request i expect Uh, those may or may not happen. What we're talking about here is baseline funding and, uh, it needs to happen. The whole point of peace through strength is to stay out of wars, is to deter aggression, and we can't help but recognize that we have lost the industrial strength that we need to maintain, uh, that capability. Uh, we won World War Two because of our industrial might. We won the Cold War because of our industrial might. We are going to stay out of World War Three if we can rebuild our industrial might. And this bill goes a long way toward ensuring that. That's what this is all about, trying to make sure we build the capacity to deter aggression from China in particular, but also for other from others. We can't help but acknowledge that our adversaries, all four of them, have formed an axis of evil and they are working together they are helping each other we have got to meet the moment and this bill does that thank you

thank you mr. chairman and the the the r d one eighty is just one example of how we had become dependent on people that are are our enemies there there are other examples out there where we are dependent on china for certain chemicals and uh uh materials that we have to have precious minerals and so i look forward to continuing to work with the two of you to make sure that we are not

Thank you, Mister Scott. Miss Scanlon, you're recognized.

I wanna join my colleagues in wishing you a happy birthday as well. I wore blue in your honor.

Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you.

Um, so Chairman Rogers and and Ranking Member Smith, I appreciate the bipartisan work that went into this NDAA. I I would have to disagree with a little bit of the testimony. I think some would argue that strategic intelligence and proper use of our industrial base may be just as important as having that industrial base because mite alone isn't going to win the conflicts around the world as I think we're seeing on a daily basis. Um there are a number of provisions in this bill that are long overdue. It expands access to contraception through tricare. Um it broadens coverage of assisted reproductive technologies for service members and their families, it protects the collective. bargaining rights of our civilian defense employees. It also includes investments that are important in my district, um, including funding for seven C H forty-seven F block two Chinook helicopters, uh, manufactured very proudly in southeastern Pennsylvania. And these are all worthwhile investments. The problem with this bill is not all of the provisions, but certainly some of the misplaced priorities that have been loaded into it. Um. we've already had ex extended discussion about the fact that this is a massive amount of money, one point one five trillion dollars with an additional uh uh supplemental bill, possibly a reconciliation bill, adding up to one point six trillion dollars in spending, just a massive, massive increase in defense spending, which, am I correct, ranking member, that's discretionary spending.

All defense spending is discretionary spending, yes.

All term. OK. Um, other than social security and some of our mandatory spending.

Well, sure, yeah. That's but all defense spending is discretionary spending,

OK. Right,

yes.

that's so we do have a lot of discretion about how much and how we spend it.

Mm-hmm.

Well, not to get overly technical here, but to a certain degree it is all discretionary in the sense that if the the

OK.

entitlements are simply locked in if we wanna change the policy, we can change the policy. Uh, so it's a technical difference between discretionary

OK.

and mandatory that isn't worth getting into,

I'm just so used to hearing about cuts to discretionary spending.

but the

I just wanted to make sure we we're talking about the same thing here.

Yeah.

Um, so that is concerning. That's a lot of money towards defense and and some of it, um, this battleship, a billion dollars I think in this bill for the battle two billion for the battleship that is supposed to cost maybe twenty-ish once we get there, but in the descriptions we're seeing of it the terms i'm seeing are it's an obsolete vulnerable kind of a proposition the military is not asking for this um it requires um unproven technology um can you talk a little bit about this it feels

sure we we don't a hundred percent know what it is because it's on the drawing board right now and it's something that

mmm mmm

we've never come close uh nobody's ever come close to building before the contemplation is it will be this massive power center and you'll be able to move energy around and have this massive battleship with all kinds of munitions on it.

Kind of like the Death Star in Star Wars?

Yeah, well, um, I'll go there, but, yeah, kind of. Um, in in in a similar way, and and and I can understand that, but when you look at what's going on in the battlefield right now, i- and I mentioned Ukraine and the way they've been been able to make Russia vulnerable with drones.

Mm-hmm.

with very low cost drones.

Mm-hmm.

Hesbala, regrettably, is starting to have success with similar low cost drones. This is what gives you an asymmetric advantage, um, and because those weapons are cheap and effective.

Mm-hmm.

So that's the way the whole world is going,

Mm-hmm.

and we decide we wanna build the world's largest ship ever.

Mm-hmm.

Um, that seems to be polar opposite, it's polar opposite of actually what we worked on in terms of acquisition reform. A lot of the acquisition reform is focused on, as I said, on innovative new technologies.

Mm-hmm.

how can you get a more cost-effective missile, a more cost-effective missile defense system,

Mm-hmm.

or drone defense system, or drones. So to put all of that money into one place,

Mm-hmm.

um, is extraordinarily risky, and that assumes that we'll be capable of building it. Um, you know, we have major ship building challenges right now just meeting our traditional needs,

Where?

which we, this bill helps address. Um, and, you know, there's a amendment I know, um, the ships act. which would take it a little bit further, which I am supportive of. Uh, but it just seems to me like bigger and more expensive is the exact opposite of where we need to be going with our weapons systems right now.

Well, I mean, it feels like there's a little bit of an analogy as we're approaching at the end of the week our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the country where the Brits, in part, were routed by asymmetric warfare. They came in with their large, massive, um, troop movements and the US nibbled around the edges and uh they lost a thirteen state advantage in that war so

yeah

um it feels like hewing to um outmoded ways isn't so great and then there's the um the cost aspect of it some of our experts are saying that this is going to cannibalize our defense budget with just directing so much funding to um this boondoggle of a battleship um uh we're already seeing some of these vanity projects cannibalize other budgets like the national park service etcetera so um i do think we should be very concerned about that but i appreciate all the work you've put into this and i'll yield back

thank you um very much uh i'm gonna keep deferring my comments and recognize miss leger fernandez for her comments and questions

thank you uh madam chair and i will refrain from singing to you because we wanna make it nice and short maybe short and sweet or short and sour but feliz cumpleaños uh chairman rogers uh what was the uh ndaa budget when you first came into office

i couldn't i don't remember it was twenty four years ago

yeah but do you have an estimate

i don't know i have no idea

i actually looked it up because all told the idea of one point six trillion right when we add everything up it was four hundred billion four hundred billion so you are now asking us to approve an NDA that is four times higher than what it was back then right

i am

you are

i am proudly asking for it

uh and you and you're you're really happy about that at here

i'm very happy about it i i just hate that it's not more

you're yeah you're saying

we we are spending less than any of our four adversaries as a percentage of g d p on defense and if we don't stop this madness we're gonna wind up in a war

but and and uh well we are in a war you said we're gonna end up in a war we are in a war

but

but there is a war that is ongoing do you deny that there is a war ongoing

i'm not denying it

ok so there is a war ongoing uh started by trump who said he was going to uh make sure we didn't get involved in foreign wars and i i take it you are

i am for strong defense spending

oh but you're fine with uh increasing the country's deficit

if we have to spend in deficit to do strong defense spending then that's what we have to do

right and and in fact uh uh since you've come into office every republican president has increased the deficit through deficit spending a lot of that on war Are you

I think every president has done that since I've been in office.

Every actually every Republican president has increased the deficit,

I don't I don't I don't doubt that.

and every Democrat president has decreased the deficit. It's actually true. Uh, and I'll I can hand you this, uh, chart if you like, but I

I have no doubt you're telling it just like it is.

OK, we're telling it just like it is. Every Republican president has increased the deficit. Now, I think it's interesting, this idea that you mentioned earlier about how we won World War Two. the reality is i just finished uh reading and i'm not you know i uh i i just finished reading a wonderful book doris kearns goodwin book about uh the uh presidency uh under during world war two and what was key there was president during world war two got the support of the american people do you know what the support is of the american people for the iran war

I do not.

It is the majority of Americans, about sixty percent, oppose that war that Trump started, that we are spending one to two billion dollars a day on. Do you know, um, has have you ever, uh, what's fascinating to me is this battleship that can cost billions. Has there ever been an instance where we've had a president choose to name a class of battleships after himself? are you aware of that happenings

i'm not aware of one

that uh uh ranking member smith uh what what do you make of a president who wants to spend taxpayer dollars

hmm

that our children and grandchildren and and and we will have to pay for in the future cause it's deficit spending where he is naming it after himself there is something kind of cringy and corrupt about that in my mind.

Yeah, well there's two separate points which I wanna make here. One, President Trump's focus on, you know, basically his name, his likeness, his power is authoritarian in a way that is deeply troubling to me. I think it undermines our representative democracy, and I think there's no question he is governing much more like an authoritarian dictator than like a democratically elected president of a constitutional republic. and we could walk down a thousand different roads on that one, um, which aren't directly related to the defense bill, I do wanna get back to the spending issue, cuz I think it's important for people to understand the context here. The chairman is right. As a percentage of GDP, we are actually spending less now on defense than we have at any point since the end of World War Two. I think it is important to remember that. Now, what has changed? Well, in the fifties, forties, fifties, sixties, there was no Medicare. there was no Medicaid, we have massively increased spending in other areas, and as well we should. OK, I don't think the chairman or anyone wants to get rid of Medicare or Medicaid, I certainly don't, or a lot of the programs that we expanded. It's more a matter of recognizing where we are. It is not the nineteen sixties anymore. OK? We are not the sole dominant power in the world economically and militarily. We have a lot more competition and we have a lot more needs. So we have to be smarter about how we spend that money. And, yeah, look, I mean, I don't know what the, the total budget's like, seven trillion, something like that. Um, you know, defense would be twelve, fifteen percent of that. So there's certainly other aspects to this. I keep harping on revenue. We're all very happy about cutting taxes, cutting taxes, cutting taxes. And we j- we keep spending the money. OK, to me, those two things have to add up. If you love tax cuts, then you shouldn't love a one point one six, one point one five trillion dollar defense budget, OK? The two things shouldn't go together, but we've all decided that we're gonna suspend reality

Uh, Uh, thank you very much, thank you very much, Uh, thank you very much, and I will point out that Democrat support, and I would point out that and I will point out that Democrat support, the increases, the increases, the, the, uh, uh, pay and what we're doing with regards to our service members as uh the representative for cannon air force base i'm very appreciative of many aspects in this bill but not the concept of one point six trillion dollar defense budget that's deficit spending that doesn't have the cause we've been keeping part right where we have discretionary uh uh spending on other matters as well as on defense and this is not the case and with that madam chair i yield back

Thank you very much. Uh, Mister Langworthy, you're recognized.

Uh, I have no questions at this time. I'd thank the witnesses for appearing.

Thank you very much. Um, I I do wanna ask a couple of questions and make a couple of comments. Um, Mister Smith, you've talked a lot about our cutting taxes, but we know in every instance in the history of this country from i think john f kennedy when we cut taxes revenues go up

that's completely false

it is not false

no it's completely false look it doesn't go down by as much as you would have expected it to but it simply i i heard that argument over and over again and it simply doesn't play out we cut taxes in two thousand and one ok significantly and yes as the overall growth i mean it grows just in general even if you didn't do anything, but it grew by less than it would have if we hadn't cut taxes. If cutting taxes reduced, uh, or sorry, increased revenue, then the most effective tax rate would be zero, and we would have the easiest job in the world. OK, you can't tell me that cutting taxes increases revenue because it doesn't.

Right. OK, well, we're gonna disagree on this. I think I'm right. So, uh, I'm gonna move on. Um. Mister Chairman, um, as you've I believe, and I don't know if you believe this, that the number one role of the federal government is the defense of this nation.

I can't believe you. That's really good.

We are celebrating our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. And that is about our becoming a nation. And it's about our becoming a group of states who join together to become the United States and to gain our freedom. And ever since then, we've worked on the defense of this nation. That's what we have done. And we emphasize the word " defense", because that's basically what we do. So, I do think we can spend too much money on defense. I appreciate very much the acquisition reform that you mentioned, Mister Smith, that was in our last year's budget. I worked a lot on that with people in my district who were, um, were providing, uh, services to the armed forces. That came to my attention many years ago. I worked hard on acquisition reform. And I was very pleased that we got acquisition reform. And I think we can do more. I agree with you, Mister Smith, on that. But, Um, I think that we need to spend, as you have indicated, what it takes to keep us a strong nation. I think Ronald Reagan was right. Uh, the best, the, the, we will remain a free country if we remain a strong country. That's the role of the federal government. And so, I don't think one point one five is too much to be spending. And I always get very frustrated with our Democrat colleagues when they speculate about what's going to happen. We hear a lot of speculation in the Rules Committee. So, yes, there may be more spending in a reconciliation three point O, and I frankly think there probably should be. But that's the role of the federal government. Most of the money that we're spending is on automatic pilot on programs that could be supported by the states and the localities without the role without the federal government involved, without the federal government wasting a lot of money by being involved in it. And so, I think we're moving in the right direction. Let me um, let me ask you to talk a little bit more about the domestic industrial base, which you mentioned before. I have understood that too. You mentioned going from fifty prime firms to as few as six. Competition's waned, innovation has been impacted. Um, but most concerningly, these dynamics are happening at a time of increasing kinetic engagements and hot conflicts involving the United States. As you said, this isn't the nineteen nineties. You mentioned that yourself. Our allies are at the doorstep of invasion from our chief adversaries. United States isn't facing attacks from proxies backed by Iran alone. So, we now have the Iranian regime itself. So, can you speak to how This bill offers the potential to jumpstart increased competition in the defense industrial base, um, provide the certainty they need to bring increased investment in market players, you alluded to it briefly, and then secure our supply chains against unprecedented pressure against them.

I will. And I do want to remind, uh, the the committee that, uh, what my friend, the ranking member mentioned, and that is defense spending is just twelve percent. of our federal spending. And if we don't get it right, none of the rest matters, because we won't be free and safe, we won't have a country. Uh, but to your point, uh, yeah, the, what we found in in trying to help Ukraine, and I am as fierce a supporter of Ukraine as you'll find in Congress from the aggression from Russia, is that China, Iran, and North Korea have all been helping Russia in that effort, as we have tried to help uh Ukraine push back against that aggression. But it was during that period when we were taking old stockpiles of munitions to send to Ukraine that we really realized that we didn't have the ability to replenish those aged weapons uh munitions with new ones. And that's what kind of started us down this path. But what we have done, as you mentioned, we're down to just six prime defense contractors now. Uh, to in order to help them recapitalize, we have guaranteed them seven-year contracts. for production. We did that with the reconciliation bill that we passed in the current fiscal year. To send a demand signal to the markets, you can loan them money to make investments in new plant and equipment to help us build. Uh, but we've also got to start working on the supply chain, and that's what we do in this bill. Uh, we have got to have more capacity to supply these primes and hopefully invite more companies into the to the ecosystem. We also have to re-shore onshore mining and processing of critical minerals and elements that we need for this stuff we have a whole plethora of things that have to be done to grow the defense industrial base and that's what this bill does you couldn't do it in just one year and we're not going to get it done in this year but we are sending demand signal with this authorization that we are serious about ref- reinvigorating the defense industrial base so that the market will rise to the occasion.

Um, a lot's been, again, a lot's been being said about how much we are spending on, uh, defense this year, one point, one point five trillion in this. I don't know of a single thing to help the defense of this country that came out of the six trillion dollars spent during the Biden administration. nothing to help the defense of this nation. They are expressions for what happened to that six trillion dollars. Suffice it to say, most of it was wasted, and wasted very unceremoniously. Thank you very much, uh, mister

If I might, Madam Chairwoman.

Norman.

Madam Chair- Jeez. Just so people know, you're talking about the six trillion that was spent during COVID. There were a variety different, it wasn't it wasn't oil or anything.

I I I guess, yes, Mr. Smith.

So, so

I think people understand that, that it was spent

Well, some of some of that was spent in the Trump, at the end of the Trump administration with the CARES Act,

Well, it w-

I think. So it was both that were involved.

It was uh, it was six trillion under the Biden administration.

It was.

Mister Norman, you're recognized.

Thank thank both of you for testifying today. We're the thirty billion that was cut waste for all interviews where did that come from and what was the the increase from last year to the one point one trillion am i right on that bottom number what was that total defense money

well yeah it gets a little confusing

yeah i was about to say the baseline discretionary spending was not increased last year it was flatlined we put one hundred and fifty billion reconciliation one time money on top of the baseline of eight eighty-six which we took from twenty tw- twenty four into twenty twenty five so baseline spending has been level for two years if we raise it with this bill it will be the first time in three years it's been increased we had one time reconciliation money that was passed last year to try to jump start the defense industrial base and that's part of what we uh did what i talked about the seven year guaranteed contracts is using part of that money for that but also re replenishing uh munition stockpiles that we have depleted uh from recent endeavors.

Oh, with Iran.

No, that was really more Ukraine. We that's perspective,

Right.

what you're talking about with Iran.

OK, and the and the reduction on the to six main suppliers?

That just is occurred over decades of reduced defense spending. The market responds to what we're spending and we were

Well, there's also a lot of consolidation.

And there was consolidation.

So those the six remaining gobbled up a lot of the fifties. Some of them went under, but some of them were gobbled up. Just to to understand the the numbers. So last year I thought it was eight ninety-six, but eight eighty-six, whatever the base budget was.

Well, that's including energy.

Energy, right, right.

Yeah, I was thinking about that.

And then we added a hundred and fifty six billion in reconciliation. So last year's total defense spending would have been right around a trillion.

Little over a trillion.

Um, yeah, a little over a trillion because of that. And now this is one point one five trillion. So even that's like a ten, little over a ten percent increase, um, from last year, and then we don't know what's gonna happen with reconciliation or the supplemental.

Well, I agree with Chairman Fox. You know, the, if we don't have a strong military, we don't have a strong country. But if we've got a broke country that cannot afford and adds to the uh, it continues to add to our debt, then we're we're pretty well sunk anyway. Um. But I'm glad the uh, on the timing of resupplying the things that we need, are we on track for that.

We can get this spending, we will. We we've got the the thing that I'm trying to convey to everybody is we don't have the physical capability of building munitions and systems fast enough to meet our challenges. And if we don't correct this, this is dangerous territory we're in.

Right. Well, thank you. Appreciate it. Not further questions. Thank you. I yield back.

Thank you. I want to follow up with one quick question about World War Two. How many ships were we building? One every four days? Did I read that the other day?

It was something like that.

Do you remember that?

I mean, they weren't the kind of ships we build now, but, yeah, we were building them at an enormous cr- But that's a a wonderful example of what we demonstrated a nation we can do when we have to.

We can do. Yeah, but but we did have an industrial base at that time.

We well, we swelled up and created one, yes, ma'am.

Right. Mister Jack, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mister Chairman, for testifying. And for your team and yourself working with me throughout this process has been very uh helpful so I'm gracial uh grate gracious for that and grateful for that. So my question is when we look back to last year, ninety-four Democrats voted against final passage of the NDA, if I'm not mistaken. Um could you frame for this committee what a vote against this wi- this week's version of the NDA is? What does that constitute?

Obviously I think it's malfeasance when we know that we're in a recklessly dangerous circumstance as far as our ability to to defend ourselves in the res to to build munitions and weapons systems that will deter aggression, I think it's irresponsible. Otherwise I wouldn't be here promoting it.

Wonderful. Well, with that, I think you've answered many of the questions of this committee throughout the hearing, so I will yield back to Dr. Lomans.

Um, Mister Jack, would you rec- uh, w- yield a moment?

Absolutely yield to you.

I believe the Chairman pointed out earlier it's a it's a slap in the face of ours military people because there's a big race in here for them. So if you vote no, you're voting against those who are serving.

I'm sorry, I get to speak up here. That that's utter nonsense, OK? And I, there have been situations where

Mr. Smith,

I'm sorry.

thank you very much.

Yeah, uh

Thank you very much.

to to

Thank you very much for your answer.

OK, so you can just accuse members of being Republicans have voted against the defense budget too. Are they slapping, you know, the the armed services members in the face? We have a responsibility to make a decision one way or the other. I voted for the bill many times and voted against it. I don't think we should accuse any member who votes against the defense bill of slapping our troops in the face. I think that is just out of order.

Thank you, Mister Smith. I need a note for the uh questions. I wish you could ask me any questions. I'm sorry, I'm late.

alright i welcome our next panel representative van duin and representative moore from the house ways and means committee give us just a minute All right. Uh, we're gonna go ahead and start in just a second, but your full statements will be submitted for the record and we ask that you summarize your statement in five minutes. We do ask that your statement cover all legislation in your committee's jurisdiction. Representative Van Duin, we're gonna go ahead and start with you and, uh, welcome you, uh, for your testimony. You're now recognized for five minutes.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman and Ranking Member McGovern, for this opportunity to testify on the removing barriers to work for disabled Americans. Act that was introduced by Representative Scott as well as my resolution celebrating the historic results of the Working Families Tax Cuts. Hey, Gwen. How are you, honey?

Hey, hey.

The Removing Barriers to Work for Disabled Americans Act empowers Americans receiving disability insurance who want to work by addressing shortcomings in the Social Security disability insurance program. Today, less than one percent of disability insurance beneficiaries leave that program each year because of a successful return to the workforce. despite the fact that sixty percent of beneficiaries say they would like to work. Whether it is a fear of receiving overpayments, hitting a benefit cliff, or being unable to navigate confusing rules and regulations, Americans with disabilities face barriers to work. During a ways and means subcommittee hearing we heard about these bureaucratic roadblocks we also heard from a disability advocate that if work had not been an option, um, he would have graduated into, uh, graduated to the couch. Instead, his work has given him real purpose. and a different outlook on life. Under this bill, the Social Security Administration can deploy demonstration projects to test policies to improve outcomes for disability insurance beneficiaries. The SSA previously had such authority, but it expired in twenty twenty-two. This bill reauthorizes it for five years, and it ensures that participation in pilot programs is completely voluntary. And let me repeat that. Participation in this program is completely voluntary. Also, any new work uh, any new return to work policy cannot cause a reduction in the income of any participating beneficiary. Representative Scott has long been a champion for purple heart veterans, many of whom are eager to return to work, but they can't afford the severe restrictions placed on their work status. I commend Mister Scott for expanding his bill to allow demonstration authority for so many affected groups including blind Americans. This legislation received bipartisan support in the Ways and Means Committee, in which they all agree that empowering Americans to experience the the dignity of work is a worthy cause. Turning to the working families' tax cuts. President Trump and Republicans in Congress deliver tax relief to working class Americans like waitresses, linemen, seniors, moms and dads, farmers, and small businesses, so they can keep more of their hard-earned money. When my Democrat colleagues talk about this bill, all we hear about is the benefit of billionaires. Look, I've never met a billionaire who's earned tips or worked overtime or worked for overtime. I've never met a billionaire who relied on Social Security or who needed a more than double child tax credit or that benefited from a simpler tax code that more than doubles their standard deduction. Pro-worker, pro-family tax cuts like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, a larger child tax credit, the enhanced standard deduction led to hos- historic tax refunds that were up more than eleven percent on average, and the total amount refunded up more than eighteen percent. In fact, ninety-seven percent of Americans got a tax cut. Meanwhile, the share of income tax the top one percent are paying rises from thirty-seven to forty percent under the working families' tax cuts. We've made it easier to afford health care, child care, education and adoption. We invested in the financial future of Americans' children. Starting on the fourth of July, Treasury will deposit a thousand dollars into Trump accounts for children born during the trump administration the ways and means committee has heard numerous stories of how americans benefited a texas tail worker is using no tax on overtime to start a family a waiter in arizona used no tax on tips to start law school a teacher from texas to the refundable adoption tax credit will help his family adopt their second child for rural america republicans made the double death tax exemption permanent so two million family farms can pass their legacy to the next generation as as rural opportunity zones help a hundred billion dollars investment to small towns. The permanent small business deduction helps thirty six million small businesses grow and hire. Pro-growth permanent tax policy is sparking a stronger economy. In the last three months, manufacturers added twenty two thousand jobs and private businesses created four hundred and ninety nine thousand, net new jobs. Businesses in foreign countries are investing trillions in new facilities and reviving forgotten communities. Manufacturing grew at the fastest level, years and capital expenditures are up seventeen percent overall. Democrats still refuse to acknowledge how the working families tax cuts helped Americans including their constituents. They don't want to admit that they voted for a twenty-two percent tax hike on every single American. But that tracks with Democrats' record on affordability. When Democrats controlled Washington, working class folks got a twenty-one percent inflation spike from Democrats' ten trillion dollars uh spending spree. Instead of helping working families, They're rewarded wealthy environmentalists with green new scam tax breaks. Billionaires were the beneficiaries of Democrat corporate welfare. On Republicans, relief goes to working class families. Thank you for your time and I look forward to your questions.

Jen Leidy yields back and now I recognize Representative Moore for her five minute opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, uh I um I I have calm and sad remarks. uh regarding the uh one year anniversary of the working families tax uh cuts but also on the um the uh hr eight eight four the removing barriers to work for disabled americans act so what what would you like to do at this point in time

oh we're here on on the uh this this disabled americans act

ok thank you so much well i i i'm here

or both or both

five minutes ok

mmm

Reality. The Trump administration's track record and its goals are clear. President Trump and his administration have proposed massive benefit cuts to Social Security disability benefits. They have slashed Social Security's customer services and they act as if laws protecting the privacy of Social Security data don't apply to them. As evidence, let me remind everyone that during his first term, President Trump proposed using Social Security's demonstration authority to slash disability benefits by fifty billion dollars over ten years, fifty billion dollars, fifty billion dollars over ten years. Let me say it again, fifty billion dollars over ten years, the first Trump administration wanted to use the demonstration authority that we're being asked today to reauthorize to slash fifty billion dollars of earned benefits. Just last year the Trump administration wanted to enact one of the biggest cuts, to disability benefits ever by changing the rules for disability claims. This change could have resulted in hundreds of thousands of older, severely disabled people being denied benefits. And after we spoke up, they backed down from this disastrous plan. And now our Republican colleagues want to grant the Trump administration the very demonstration authority to gut SSDI that President Trump has been begging for. And just to further exacerbate that Trump created customer service crisis at SSA, this Republican bill would strip millions from SSA's operating funds to pay for it. Um, um, uh, the Trump administration has blatantly disregarded some of our most sacred privacy laws that protect American's sensitive social security data, so it's hard to imagine that this administration wouldn't try to skirt some of the other requirements for demonstration projects. For example, current law requires that SSA must obtain the voluntary written consent of anyone who participates in a demonstration but it's entirely up to the administration to determine what it looks like uh is this a trump administration really, trying to spell out all the risks. Um, I am going to move on because my time is limited and I'll talk about uh the one year anniversary to the one big beautiful bill. Um, uh, again, I want to thank you all for hearing me out. Uh, when I heard that we were going to do a resolution, um, commemorating this, I wondered why my republican colleagues were just, uh, gifting Democrats with another opportunity to talk about this deeply flawed and unpopular signature bill. Uh, American workers and families are reeling from a senseless cost of living crisis, higher cost of groceries, electricity, health care, every product. But as President Trump himself has declared, he doesn't care about the financial situation of Americans. And I suppose I'll join you in wishing a happy birthday tax cut for billionaires. You can't really hide from the numbers, Mister Chairman, the average twenty twenty-seven tax cuts for taxpayers are made over million dollars per year will be ninety-six thousand four hundred dollars, while the average twenty-twenty-seven tax cut for taxpayers who make under fifty thousand dollars per year will be two hundred forty-seven dollars a year. That's sixty-eight cents a day. That's right. Republicans gave millionaires a tax cut that is three hundred ninety times the size of what they gave to workers and families making less than fifty thousand dollars. Crumbs. crumbs from the master's table. Uh, and while you pat we pat ourselves on the back for doling out these meager tax cuts to working families, um, you know, like tax on tips for some workers temporarily, no tax on overtime for some people who are breaking their backs working extra hours and still struggling to make ends meet again, temporarily. Even the temporary tax cuts for the elderly have contributed to further deterioration Social Security finances, according to the lady latest uh trustee's report. People are suffering. And unless you're wealthy, uh if you were well off before the OBBBA, you're certainly better off now. And under the guise of tackling the favorite triplets, the boogeymen, waste, fraud and abuse, we have taken food out of the mouths of the hungry, including over eight hundred thousand children. We've cut access to health care for millions.

And and she may step back in uh in a minute, but she had to take care of something. Uh,

Okay.

that said, appreciate it, the gentle lady yields back, now recognize the gentleman from uh south carolina do you have any questions uh

uh i have no question

mr. norman

thank you

alright

no sir no problem

you're back

recognize the gentleman from massachusetts mr. mcgowrie

yeah and i just wanna stay for the record that when i was chair of this committee i never cut anybody off um who testified um so i mean i know things are different but just so you know um so uh you know uh the idea that we're gonna have uh uh have a uh resolution you know uh to celebrate the big ugly bill is is is beyond me uh and uh i don't know miss vendayen i i mean uh i mean if you go to a grocery store prices are up you go to a gas station prices are still too high you go everywhere the the the price of everything is too high but i but but i i just wanna read to you a couple of of testimonies from people in this country who basically can't afford their healthcare anymore because of uh this administration and because of this congress sharon dunham from grand rapids michigan a two time cancer survivor she went without insurance this year after her premium would have risen to about nine hundred and eighty dollars a month from six hundred and fourteen and is paying out of pocket for tests and visit until she turns sixty five mmm and qualifies for medicare quote it is definitely terrifying she said aronna east from harrisburg pennsylvania aronna and her partner and her twenty year old son no longer have health insurance because it's too expensive Through her work, a family plan would cost her uh eight hundred dollars per pay period, and a state marketplace plan with a h- with a with a high deductible will cost about six hundred fifty a month, he said. "Right now, I'm not able to pay for the m- uh marketplace insurance because it's just astronomical", she said. Adding to the cost has kept her from getting care uh for premenopause symptoms. Um, Eric and Lisa Frankenfeld from Point Pleasant, New Jersey a chiropractor and his wife is an office manager their premium was set to skyrocket to one thousand nine hundred and twenty eight dollars a month for three hundred and forty dollars so they decided to go without coverage for twenty twenty six quote we are healthcare providers who cannot afford benefits oh the irony uh she said i can go on and on and on i ask you name's consent to insert this into the record uh mister uh chairman

uh and what is this It's just a list of it, but

Yeah, these are te- these are testimonies of people who can't afford their health care anymore because of the policies of this.

That, that you've collected.

No, this is, uh, co- this is collected by Protect Our Care organization.

Alright. And it's dated

It's current.

It's current, alright.

Yeah, right, OK, alright.

I'm happy to read it for you. Yeah, without a break.

Yeah, what?

I'm happy to keep reading them.

Well, yeah, I, I, I, I mean, I'd be here all day reading it for you. I'm pretty sure that's what we're what we're in the midst of that just But I'm right. Right, yeah, yeah. It's real life stories where, real life stories which we should be, we should be care about. Look, we all support um, helping disabled Americans who wanna return to work, but as we've seen time and time again, when you give the Trump administration an inch, they take a mile. The Trump administration has provided zero information on how it would use this s- authority. In fact, when asked in Markup if the administration has shared any details of its plans, Republican counsel stated he was quote " not aware", end quote. So, Ms. Van Duyn, um, if you want the Social Security Administration, uh, to do these demos, why don't you authorize any specific demos in statute? Why why leave it leave it open-ended?

Well, I think, I mean, you you're you're talking about the potential to be able to cut disability benefits. The bill specifically stipulates the demonstration project may not reduce beneficiaries' total income and this is a new beneficiary protection that was not included by the way in the previous authorization the s. s. a.'s disability insurance demonstration authority.

Yeah. But why not authorize specific demos in the statute?

You you can this is basically a reauthorization but with stronger ethics.

Right. Well, well,

But I do want I mean you you you use you hit on gas prices.

well

So gas prices just by the way have fallen for the last six weeks. Average gas price right now under Trump under President Trump is sixteen cents lower than it was under President Biden. So if you want lower gas prices, thankful be thankful Trump is in office and we don't have a a Democrat in there.

Yeah, I I I'm I'm I'm not I'm not. But the last time we did something

about affordability you talked about healthcare i'm happy to answer the question

similar the the the the the the the the the the the matter is the fact of the matter is last time we uh reauthorized uh something similar we actually

as opposed to just kinda just staring at you

included uh demo projects but in addition to the bill that we are considering today my colleague and i i don't know and and he may not want me to say this but i actually uh representative of us has got actually has a bipartisan bill hr seventy one twenty that would make several specific s s d i program changes to help combat disabled purple heart veterans uh to who to to help combat disabled purple heart veterans who wanna return to work would you support allowing the house of representatives to also have an up or down vote on the floor for rep austin scott's bill uh to help purple uh heart veterans on ssdi who wanna return to work

i think what this is you're seeing all this put into one bill i think it's important this also allows a lot more flexibility

i i didn't see that in in in the bill

no what i'm saying is we're we're wrapping this up and we're working with with with uh congressman

but it's not an right so i'm i'm just simply saying

this would allow an opportunity this gives a lot more flexibility if they we wanted to have that in there

the i have you know but you know for some of us quite frankly and you know i'm i'm i i have some my political differences with this white house but you know i i'm i get the flexibility part i i just wanna be assured

yeah

that this stuff is gonna happen um so saying that they have the flexibility to do this is different than saying they have to do this that's all i'm saying

well and i think the bill includes it includes the guardrails that prevent any of the beneficiaries from being worse off which i think is one of your concerns in our demonstration no beneficiary will see a decrease as we mentioned before in income because they participate in the project it also includes more congressional oversight which i think is what you're asking than any other prior authorization so it requires social security administration notify congress of their plans a hundred and twenty days which we didn't have before

wait yeah but but no no guarantee that austin

uh

bill will be done and i can't believe i'm agreeing with him on something he's done but uh we actually we actually agree on this um i know i'd just feel a hell of a lot better if in fact it were

it's

in you know in this legislation or that we had an up or down vote on it and then i could be assured that it would be happening so that we don't have to wait another year and then come back and say well it didn't happen why not

all of that is part of the congressional appropriations uh uh efforts as you know

yeah well um in any event i i i i would um it is not in in in this bill i i would feel a lot better if it was maybe we can address that um you know

so i understand she would then you would you would vote for this if if that was in this bill

no i i want i would vote for austin scott's bill

ok

you know i i i and um and again i uh you know um and again people's healthcare prices are going to the roof and i could go i could read for hours and hours and hours about people

and i would love to be able to go hours and hours and hours toe-to-toe on what the one big beautiful bill did for people's affordability for for for prices and for allowing people to get more

what yeah and and that's why some people that that's why so many that's why so many people in this country referred to it as a big ugly bill

mmm

because for for the majority of people in this country um it didn't help it hurt them and again losing your healthcare uh is nothing worse than not being able to afford your healthcare and we uh i gave you an example of a of a healthcare provider they couldn't afford their healthcare so anyway uh we have to get back to focusing in on you know regular people and their inability to afford you know the cost of living i don't know miss moore do you wanna add anything or

you know it it it really is really it's really interesting to see how people see the same thing in different ways and when i when i think about the four million people who have already lost healthcare uh and we haven't even really phased in all of the cuts to medicaid uh yet four million people have lost their healthcare already when i think about the hundred and eighty seven billion dollars loss in snack

yeah

when i think uh about um about the increased inflation on groceries and stuff it's just very difficult to see how people are

mmm

measuring this a cave street economy where stocks are going up and people are doing so badly it's reminiscent of nineteen twenty nine

right

uh when when the stocks were doing well and everybody was doing very poorly poorly oh i'm sorry and so uh it is reminiscent of a a case shaped economy and i think that's why people see it very differently

well and i and i appreciate that i guess we we just have a different interpretation of uh you know where our priorities ought to be we live in the richest country in the history of the world right now and we've got forty eight million americans who are food insecure uh we should be ashamed of that and we should be doing something about it but having said that i thank you for being here i yield back

gentleman yields back now i recognize the gentleman from georgia i apologize that i got out of order earlier and recognize the gentleman from

from georgia mr. scott to hear from that not not a problem and um i appreciate mr. mcgovern mentioning my legislation and i want um you to know that i do think it is the intent of the administration to do uh carry out the intent of the public freedom to work act if we're able to pass this and so i would just tell you the way this came about and i've worked on this for almost a decade i was taking a young man hunting a young man, a young marine, he, um, stepped on a pressure plate, lost both legs, and I won't call him by name, uh, but if we do get to sign the bill, I hope the president will allow him to be there for the signing. Uh, I'm on four four seventy-five in Georgia. I'm taking him hunting, uh, at a friend's place, and he says, I work at O'Reilly's Auto Parts, but if I make more than and at the time it was about eleven hundred dollars a month i lose my social security benefits so i have to be very careful not to work more than x numbers of hours a week or my family is backing up and literally has less money because he worked more and um i actually couldn't believe it i said you know that doesn't sound right but uh i'm gonna go to d. c. i'm gonna meet with the lawyers and i came up here and i met with social security lawyers and they told me that i was absolutely right or that he was absolutely correct. So I wrote the legislation. It's, it was very narrowly tailored, purple heart, which means it's combat wounded, total impermanent, which means it is obviously a total and a permanent disability. Uh, I I intentionally narrowly tailored it because I wanted to make sure that it could work. And if it can work, then hopefully it could be expanded to other people that wanna go back to work as well. But I'm a firm believer that the number one thing that you can do for somebody, especially if they have been one of our people, that's been at the tip of the spear and has a combat injury, is to is to get them back to work. And their paychecks should not be penalized if they work an extra hour or two. So we wrote the bill, Purple Heart Freedom, in work. It's had broad bipartisan support,

Mm-hmm.

have not been able to move it, whether the Democrats or the Republicans have been in charge of Congress. Working with Chairman Smith, This was the suggestion that he had for the fastest way to make this happen. And as you know, if we write the perfect piece of legislation in the House of Representatives and it goes to the Senate, they're gonna turn around and put take their sweet time with it, and then maybe it doesn't get done. But, Purple Heart Day is August seventh, I believe. Um, I think there is broad agreement that if somebody is combat wounded, total and permanent, that they should be allowed to go back to work. and they shouldn't have less money at the end of the month for going back to work

can i can i just can i very rarely say this but i agree with you

hang on does the gentleman yield

i i will yield

yeah

yeah i very rarely say this but i agree with you

gentleman yields to the gentleman from s. jesus

uh and that's why you know i can't i i it it troubles me cause it would have been easy just to include your legislation in this but i get it but uh well i hope you're right

it and and with respect mr. governor we have had that legislation whether the democrats have controlled or the republicans have controlled it not this legislation here this legislation here if you look at this this authority has existed since nineteen eighty it was reauthorized in eighty nine it was reauthorized again in ninety nine uh it was reauthorized again in two thousand and fifteen is my understanding and it has now expired and so i've i have every belief in the world that if we're able to pass this that the president will do something similar to similar to and i don't trust me i don't i don't speak for president trump but i have talked to the administration and i do believe that they will do something very similar to the purple heart freedom to work act if we're able to get this this through

and if they don't i'll happy to work with the gentleman to see get over the finish line

thank thank you very much for that and with that

uh uh you're better

uh but that but that it that is the intent of that is that is the origin of the legislation and and that is this is the fastest way to get this done for our veterans and with that mister chairman i yield

chairman yields back now recognize our lady of pennsylvania miss ganlin for her time

thank you mister chairman um i i wanna speak first to the removing barriers to work for disabled americans act Congress has repeatedly given the Social Security Administration limited authority to test new approaches that help beneficiaries transition back to work. And some of those demonstrations have improved health outcomes, increased employment, and raised earnings for participants. But as the ranking members suggested, times have changed, and those demonstration projects have always come with careful oversight. This bill is a sharp departure from that. This legislation would give the Trump administration open-ended authority to shape programs impacting Americans with disabilities even though this administration has repeatedly proposed slashing disability programs and benefits including special education programs for children with disabilities just this month, the Department of Ej- uh the Department of Justice issued a legal opinion which completely undermines the right to live in community. for people with disabilities. It's an open attempt to overturn decades of disability rights laws, including the Olmsted decision from the Supreme Court. I don't think this is a point in time when we can give unlimited discretion to shape disability policy to an administration that's openly advocating for a return to institutionalization for our disabled family members and neighbors. Now, the second bill is just as hard to to justify. This is the second time this year that Republicans have wasted time and tax dollars to pass a bill that does nothing more than congratulate themselves for passing their reconciliation bill last July. Uh, this is a bill that was so deeply unpopular with the American public that they had to change the name of their one big, beautiful bill. But changing the name of that travesty of a bill doesn't change what it did or make it any more popular. It cut one trillion dollars from Medicaid and Medicare, and that has already led four million Americans to lose their health coverage. It enacted the largest snap cut in our nation's history, causing seven hundred and seventy thousand children to lose SNAP benefits. And it rescinded community investments in renewable energy. And it delivered enormous tax breaks to corporations and billionaires, adding over four trillion with a T to our national debt. So when I talk to my constituents, they don't say, " Gosh, I wish you could go to Congress and say, " Atta boy, guys, thanks for thanks for passing that one big ugly bill." Um, they're asking us to lower costs, strengthen social security, and make government work better for the people, not for the billionaires. And unfortunately, neither of the bills before us here do that. Um, Ranking member Moore, during your committee mark-up, Democrats offered amendments to require public notice and comment, preserve existing beneficiary protections, and give Congress greater oversight on these social security demonstration projects. Um, Republicans rejected this amendment unanimously. Why are these kind of guardrails important?

These guardrails are really important. They're revealed to the most vulnerable population.

And, you know, if they if you know, we need to determine if people want to return to work.

to work. Um, but we do know that they're very vulnerable.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, uh, and we don't want them we need guardrails so that there'll be ways for them to back out of unsustainable, uh, events. We have we we have typically, as a caucus, the Democrats have always appreciated efforts to get people back into the workforce. Why not? But we have seen from the past uh behavior of this administration that they have tried to cut fifty billion dollars over ten years out of programs for disabled people. And one of our our uh senior members, Danny Davis, Doctor Danny Davis, uh quoted uh um um Ma- uh Maya Angelou, and who said that when people when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time

mmm

and so we have seen this administration time and again trying to cut disability benefits and so we are unwilling and unready to do that at this moment

yeah it it is a matter of context and i know i worked with primarily with children with disabilities in the special ed context but we i'm i'm hearing a lot from our community with really grave concern about the cuts that are happening to those programs Particularly the removal of guardrails, things like the OSERS and Office of Civil Rights programs which have been gutted, so there aren't the guardrails that we would have had in the past, and and I think that's raising even more concern.

I- i- it is that they're that they're taking the this out of the jurisdiction of the Office of Civil Rights and educational departments there, are disaggregating these protections, and it's a it's a very frightening thing for disability rights across the board for children and adults

thank you and for veterans i know there's been concerns among veterans that the um

and veterans

veterans with disabilities have not been treated with the same respect that they deserve so thank you for your work on the bill i yield back

thank you

generally yields the gentlelady yields back now i have recognized myself for such time as i may consume and would uh ask miss van duyn uh are there comments that you wanna make uh in response to the things that have been said or that you've heard

i i

i appreciate that opportunity uh when we talk about the some of the impacts that the uh the working families tax cut bill has had i i i have listened to the criticisms i we have listened about affordability we have listened about not being able to pay for healthcare the fact is that ninety six percent of filers receiving a tax credit earn less than two hundred thousand dollars anyway that's an average savings of eight hundred and fifteen to twelve hundred and fifty dollars these are not billionaires these are people who are making less than two hundred thousand that supported the creation of it the economic impact of of the uh working families tax cut support the creation of six point one million new full-time jobs versus higher and also higher higher capital investment and business expansion. It delivered up to seventy six hundred dollars in higher wages per worker through increased productivity in capital stock. It provided up to ten thousand nine hundred dollars more in annual take-home pay for a median family with two children and an overtime worker. It prevented a scheduled twenty-two percent tax hike which by democrat friends supported a twenty two percent tax hike on average tax payers and the bill delivered an additional thirteen hundred dollars tax cut per family versus current law it made a small business uh small business deduction permanent creating over a million new main street jobs annually and it generated seven hundred and fifty billion dollars in economic growth for small businesses not for massive corporations not for businesses not for s- for for for billionaires but for small business owners. It allowed over seven point five million filers to claim no tax on tip with an average deduction of seventy seven hundred dollars. These are for working families. It allowed over twenty nine million filers to claim no tax on overtime with an average deduction of over thirty one hundred dollars. Again, these are not for billionaires. These are for working class working families. working families in America. It also boosts the child tax credit to twenty-two hundred dollars. So if we really wanna talk about how we are helping, you know, the working families in this country be able to pay for health care, first of all, if you wanna talk about what a disaster Obamacare was, let's look at how much it's increased, the premiums. Eighty percent. Why? Because it was a horrible deal to begin with. So, so giving us options that we don't have to pick,

Are you saying

Obamacare,

Are you saying

would be one.

Are you saying, Representative Van Duyn, that The Affordable Care Act was not affordable. You know what you think?

I'm saying that's exactly right. We we we hear these words and if we're really wanting to to allow Americans to be able to have more of their money to be able to take more of a home let's tax them less. And let's allow businesses to thrive. Let's protect the small businesses and protect the working families.

Now, I I know where the numbers come from, but I think the folks back home who might be watching this sometime later in the middle of the night not necessarily right now but on the replays on Cspan they may not understand this twenty two percent tax hike cause that was a very real possibility was it not and isn't it accurate that that

yes

twenty two percent tax hike would come in because the tax deductions or the the tax benefits that were in the first trump administration were set to expire a lot of things that people had uh gotten used to having is that not correct

absolutely all those things would have expired january first of this year had we now passed this bill ok and what were some of those can you can you tell So, for example, this, the, the deductions for small businesses, the R and D, all of those things that small businesses dependent on to be able to be able to reinvest

And the,

was about to do.

and am I not correct that that also included the, uh, accelerated depreciation so that if you went out and you bought a new photocopier for your small law practice on Main Street in Salem, Virginia, uh, y- you used to have to take that out over a period of years. You didn't get the deduction in the first year. it was a number of years and then under the first trump administration and a republican house they reduced that and you could take it all in the first year is that not correct

that's absolutely correct yeah

and that helps lots of small businesses stay in business they have one good year they can then buy new equipment isn't that correct

not only did we were we able to make these these tax cuts so that we didn't have them expire at the end of the next year but they were also made permanent so because the twenty seventeen on on on tax cuts and jobs act was expected to only last you know certain number of years it's estimated that about eight hundred billion dollars of potential investment didn't wasn't actually made because of the that expiration with the the permanency expect all of that plus more plus the foreign investment in our country that we're seeing

and if we didn't pass the reconciliation bill then that would have meant a tax increase for all those main street businesses whether it be salem virginia or Texas or Georgia or South Carolina. Or Massachusetts.

In addition to being on the Ways and Means committee, I'm also on small business. And we had small business after small business come and testify that if those, those those tax relief were allowed to expire, they would have to shut down their business.

Oh, yeah. Would have hurt a lot of Main Street businesses across the country. Anything else you want to add?

No, you've been great.

All right. Well, I appreciate it, and I now yield back and recognize the gentlelady uh mrs. Leder Fernandez from new mexico

thank you so very much um you know i'm uh representative and i knew uh lauded the fact that the uh one big beautiful bill and you referred to it that i mean i think it is hilarious that you have to change the name of your bill because it is so unpopular but let's not uh spend too much time on that but the you said that it was

we changed we we we changed affordable carrot to unaffordable carrot several times

it was a two yeah yeah you had to change the name

i so i understand

you you changed the name of the bill because it was it's it's so improper it was two to one uh two to one people opposed this bill right uh when you were enacting it and now they still don't like it you said there was this great thing that you had a two thousand five hundred dollar child tax credit what was the uh democrats when democrats were in control what was the child tax credit back then twenty hundred twenty hundred

mmm

you don't know it was three thousand six hundred dollars a month refund paid out so what the republicans did was enact a child tax credit which was worse than the democrats so i wouldn't brag about that one too much um now do you know what amazon's uh uh miss van duin do you know what amazon's uh how their taxes went up or down after your one big beautiful bill

we're looking at small businesses i'm sorry you're asking me about amazon's tax i i i don't work for amazon i'm sorry

your big beautiful bill Okay, well, you would just say, the

And and I'm not a tax attorney for Amazon, so I I don't have their books in front of me.

You're not a tax attorney? Well, it's it's general knowledge that this big beautiful bill benefited the wealthiest corporations.

Mm-hmm.

We we can also prove that it benefited small businesses over across the country.

Amazon's tax bill, Amazon's, Amazon's, Amazon's tax bill went down by nine billion dollars.

Per per tax dollar.

By nine billion dollars. So the wealthiest corporations in America, their tax bill went down because of your one big beautiful bill now i wanna go back to this issue of what what

and yet they're paying more in taxes now than they ever have before

i wanna go back i didn't ask you a question i'm gonna go back to the question of whether you know the middle income the working families uh the tax cuts could have been extended now uh representative moore were there amendments proposed in ways and means that would have extended those tax cuts But not given all of this giveaway to the biggest corporations. Now, were there were there those amendments made in ways and means?

Absolutely, they were amendments to try to extend the Affordable Care Act. They were amendments to try to make the child tax credit refundable, to try to extend some of the expiring tax cuts that would benefit lower, uh, income people. We've heard, uh, Representative Van Duyn wax on about the, uh, efforts and help that we gave small businesses through the one ninety nine a but as you've pointed out uh that benefit uh was not to people who were buying a a printer for their office uh but they were getting millions of dollars in tax benefits through this giant loophole we had amendment after amendment that would have focused on providing tax breaks uh for lower uh income families i think miss van duyn is uh sort of conflating uh the tax benefits that went to lower income people as i have indicated before you make fifty thousand dollars a year your tax break was two hundred and forty seven dollars a month

right and americans have had to spend three thousand one hundred dollars more on everyday items thank god

on every on on healthcare uh we have people now in the medicaid program i know of one constituent who makes a hundred and twenty-five social security benefit is one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month over the poverty level so they're gonna have to pay fifteen hundred dollars a year to qualify for medicaid and so this is this is this is uh where we have placed people they they are uh the one point two trillion dollar cut in medicaid uh the uh hundred and eighty the eighty the billions of dollars in cuts in snap all of these things have not been compensatory for the two hundred and forty seven dollar tax break that they may have gotten through the one big beautiful bill

uh what's amazing is that um usually you know you show up in your community you have town halls i take it representative moire you have in person town halls

absolutely

right and where uh representative van duin do you have in person town halls

what we found is we actually have thousands of people who come to our uh our town halls online

but you you have in person town halls

so people who who have children people who who

yeah i have i have marvelous in-person as well as online town halls do you have uh in-person town halls

we have online town halls and we have found that that is actually that is much more

you have online good wonderful

responsive to the needs of our constituents i can't speak to the needs of your constituents

but so what what what's what happens when you have in-person town halls and anybody can come and anybody can ask questions is you you hear from people it's unfiltered you you don't you know filter and express

we we we have people who ask questions in our town halls all the time that everyone can hear

and what what what what is interesting is that you know republicans don't seem to wanna have in person town halls and i think they don't have in person town halls cause when they do people show up and express their opinion about their bills and their policies and the these tax cuts and whether the economy is doing well and uh it is not for working families, for for farmers, we have an increase in bankruptcies, a forty five percent increase in bankruptcies.

Mm-hmm.

Forty five percent increase in bankruptcies. I think that's the correct number, right? So people are suffering. And it takes showing up and listening to people to know where they're feeling. But instead of doing that, what we have is we have resolutions. The second resolution, this the second resolution that republicans are bringing to pat themselves on the back uh representative moore is there anything else you wanna add to this uh we didn't really get to talk about the disabilities but one of the issues that concerns me is that we have a president who's made fun he's mocked people with disabilities he has issued uh opinions to strip people of disabilities of their civil rights he has take an action that is negative to families with disabilities from medicaid funding uh to his mocking to his stripping of their rights and that's why something like this reauthorization is so concerning but uh i wanted to just give you the last word representative

yeah i i thank you so much for that representative and and one of the things i'm concerned about is not just that people might lose their disability benefits but they lose access to healthcare as well you know in an administration where the thrust seems to be to cut people's healthcare benefits as well as cut an amount of monies that they receive i think it is very risky to give the administration the authority to do both of those things and give them a two-edged sword to be able to do that and so democrats of the ways and means committee have been very empathetic the idea of creating more employment opportunities for everybody, but we don't want it to do it at the expense of people being able to have a decent standard of living.

Right. Thank you very much, and uh I've uh I did ask whether it was a forty-five percent increase in uh uh foreign bankruptcy. It's a forty-six percent, so a little higher. But basically, uh this one big beautiful bill uh did not make the kind of difference uh for rural america it's hurting it we have rural health centers rural hospitals closing because of this big beautiful bill and we could all be in pain

and and suicide rates i'm from wisconsin and we have seen a really uptick in suicide rates among farmers very very concerning um uh about the rural america uh even though i represent milwaukee wisconsin is a rural state so i'm very mindful of what

Thank you. Thank you very much, and I yield back.

Thank you, Miss Ledger-Fernandez.

It's Dan's birthday, uh, next year.

Thank you, Miss Moore. Thank you very much. We are classmates. So. Um. Uh, I, I think I'm the last person here, so I, I'm going to, um, ask some questions. Um, Representative Van Duyn, our Democrat friends claim that h. r. eighty-eight eighty-four removing barriers to work for disabled americans act will hurt beneficiaries in that president trump wants to reduce or eliminate disability insurance benefits does this bill actually prevent income from being reduced or eliminated for those beneficiaries who choose to participate in a demonstration program

it absolutely does uh the bill explicitly states that the social security administration may not conduct a demonstration project that would reduce a participant's total income. This is a new beneficiary protection that was not included in any previous authorization of the SSA's disability insurance demonstration authority and further participation in a demonstration is completely voluntary requiring the commission to obtain an individual's informed written consent, which a participate may then revoke at any time.

Thank you very much. Um, one more question, well, maybe. couple of part- a question with several parts. Um, so, Representative Van- uh, Van Duyn, on, um, HRI- HRIS thirteen eighty-three, your bill on commemorating the one year anniversary of the enactment of the Working Families Tax Cuts Act. Um, our Democrat friends like to characterize these tax cuts as " giving tax relief to the richest Americans at the expense of hard-working Americans." Is it true that families of four making under seventy-three thousand dollars will generally face zero federal income tax liability due to the working family's tax cut?

Yes. A family of four making seventy-three thousand dollars owes Uncle Sam zero dollars in federal income tax and that's thanks to a bigger standard deduction in a child tax credit increase to twenty-two.

thank you very much i i to me that is that is a huge statement for the american people to understand uh and this would effect

uh

a lot of people in my district because I think the average income in my in my district's about sixty-three thousand dollars. So a lot of people are gonna pay no taxes um on this. And North Carolina's done a wonderful job of offering uh real benefits to North- to people in North Carolina too. So there'll be a lot of working families who won't have to pay federal or state taxes in North Carolina. So, another question or another part, have Americans whose income is in the bottom forty percent of all taxpayers seen a fifteen percent reduction in their taxes?

Um, yeah, the bottom, uh, forty percent got a fifteen percent tax cut, which is the biggest cut by percentage of any income group. That's thanks to no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, a larger standard deduction, and a bigger child tax credit. Republicans' targeted at the Americans whose paychecks had been stretched thin by Democrat inflation. And the data confirms that. Uh, Republicans actually delivered.

And the l- is the largest percentage reduction going to the bottom twenty percent of working people?

Uh, the bottom twenty percent, absolutely. Um, that is exactly who this bill was meant to help, this is exactly where those dollars have been going and they're getting the biggest benefit of it.

So we keep hearing that it's the wealthiest people who are benefiting from this. But this is my understanding. Tell me if you agree. Has the share of total income taxes paid by Americans whose income is in the top one percent increased to over forty percent as a result of the working family's tax cuts, meaning the wealthiest people are paying more and the share paid by Americans in the remaining ninety-nine percent decreased to sixty percent.

Yes, absolutely. It's it's an inconvenient fact that I think a lot of Democrats, they don't want to talk about, but the very rich are paying more, and that was my point, uh, I made a moment ago, but they are paying more of a tab, um, after the working family's tax cuts than they were before. There aren't a whole lot of billionaires who are taking advantage of no tax on tips, who are taking advantage of no tax, and overtime. Uh, the Republicans wrote this people for the wrote this bill for the people that do.

Thank you very much. I appreciate both of you all being here.

Madam Chair,

Mister McGovern.

it's because I said that Democrats don't want to talk about it, I'm happy to talk about it, if if you want me to engage.

That's OK, Mister McGovern.

Alright.

Ma- Madam Chair,

I believe I believe I asked you,

Madam

you you said you'd done your questioning. So thank you very much.

Madam Madam Chair, I I I really appreciate just think about the more uh twenty percentile of taxpayers we could put like thirteen million children behind by not providing them with budget tax benefits. Um you say that they That oh i'm so sorry. That people in the lower uh quintile don't pay any taxes but they also don't benefit from our tax code. uh in in ways that would that that would help the child tax credit

would if you if they're not paying taxes then they're benefiting from the tax code

that's right right

they're benefiting from the tax code

they're they're they're they're not paying taxes but they're also not benefiting from refundable the refundable tax credit that they had been that really took fifty percent of children out of poverty

well well what what you're what you're talking about is they're not getting welfare in addition in addition to they're not paying taxes so if they're gonna get more money than they're paying in in taxes then that's welfare

well it's not well and it's not fair

that's that's welfare and they're they're they're getting money from other people who are working more

the well i'd i i just i just wanted to be clear that when we start talking about how well off the lower twenty percent are

thank you

um that you are making a distinction because those people are really poor uh they don't pay taxes and they also do not get um um many of the benefits they they we uh

miss moore miss moore

yes yes yes

you're talking to probably the person who grew up the poorest of any person in this congress you need to know that you need to know that there is probably no other person in this congress who grew up as poor as i did and so don't talk to me about poverty because i know it better than anybody here

well i ma'am i i will not talk to you about poverty i just wanted to set the record straight that while we're talking about how well families are off that there are children who are hungry they don't have health care

what i'm saying is they're better off than the before this bill passed thank

as a result

oh

no no they're not

oh

thank you all very much

and and let's talk about the health care going to the corporations

we appreciate your coming you're dismissed thank you we obviously have a lot of interest today um as soon as our witnesses for this panel are away, we would invite Mister Nutt, Mister Sessions, Mister Herodopolis, Miss Houlihan, Mister Moylan, and Pete Stauber's in the house, Mister Stauber. That's a little inside joke between Mister Stauber and me. We're taking people in the order in which they came in. Yeah, sure. So, okay, not Sessions, if you guys can take a seat. Not Sessions, Heredopolis, Houlihan, Moylan, and Stalber. Yeah, yeah, maybe move down a little bit to let people squeeze in there.

We have a few things to say.

Either place.

No, we never won any competition.

Yeah.

We just made a, yeah, we we just made a mistake.

Yes, sir. We normally have eight seats, but today we've got seven. I guess somebody figured out we could do the panels. OK, I'm gonna call on you in the order in which I called your name, not Sessions, Herodopolis, Houlihan. moilin' and stobber.

And then, Chair, may I just step up for a second, please? Thank

Yes, sir.

you. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Before we get s-

My colleague from North Carolina, Mister Knott.

Before we get started, I'd be remiss if I did not wish you a very happy birthday on the record.

Thank you very much.

Um, I hope it's been a good day for you and we're thrilled to be here.

It'll be better.

Mister Ranking Member, good to see you, and today it's my privilege to speak about two of my amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act for this year. Immigration security, as you all know, is pivotal is pivotal for national security. Without secure borders, we do not have any hope or possibility for a secure nation. Both of the amendments I am offering have previously passed the House with strong bipartisan support. The first amendment deals with the national security threat that is unique to the criminal group Trin de Aragua. Trin de Aragua started out as a prison gang from the Venezuelan state of Aragua that has since grown into a sprawling pretty much without any exception throughout the Western hemisphere, including the United States and Canada. TDA's criminal activities include, but are not limited to, kidnapping, human trafficking, smuggling, sale of dangerous drugs, money laundering, organized retail crime, murder, and violent extortion of small business owners. TDA is not in any way an average criminal organization. This is a sophisticated and international enterprises that terrorizes America. We've seen numerous examples of this all over our country. Accordingly, the President correctly issued executive order fourteen one fifty-seven to designate TDA as a foreign terrorist organization. My amendment builds on the President's actions by requiring the Department of Homeland Security and the Intelligence Committee, excuse me, uh the Intelligence Community to collaborate on a detailed border threat assessment regarding threats posed by TDA members. DHS would also be required to develop a strategy for countering TDA within a year. The second amendment I have today deals with another pressing issue, and one that I am very well familiar with based off of my experience prior to Congress. The purpose of the amendment is quite simple. It's - it's to prevent and to disincentivize the illegal re-entrance from coming back into the country and it's to prevent and disincentivize illegal immigrants who were already here from committing crimes. To achieve these goals, it would, first, again, to deter illegal re-entry from any illegal alien who has been deported. And stated differently, it would encourage anyone who has been deported to come back to this country legally, if at all. The second goal is to deter criminal activity from any illegal immigrant who is in this country. Whether it is fraud, terrorism, driving while intoxicated, assault, drug trafficking, human trafficking, violent crime of all sorts, all are greatly disincentivized by this amendment because it streamlines and makes more efficient their charging and convictions. I want to reiterate that immigration security is national security. I believe that my two amendments will build on the good work that has already been done in this administration to secure the boards and to combat dangerous criminal organizations. Again, I want to thank the chairwoman and the ranking member today for having us, and I urge inclusion of these two amendments in the rule. I yield back.

Thank you very much. I forgot to mention earlier that we would ask you to en- to uh s- summarize your statement uh in five minutes or less and the whole statement would be entered into the record, and you did great. Mister Sessions, the former chairman of the committee. um is here recognized

madam chairman thank you very much mr. McGovern good to see you on the committee it's good to be with you uh as a matter of fact i did spend virginia twenty years up here and enjoyed every single minute

thank you

uh so it's a great opportunity to be back before you today i lay before the uh committee uh i what i think is a very important bill it is actually NDA a amendment number one one O two This amendment is very important, it's what's called the Independent Investment Fund Act. And I come to you today representing a bipartisan uh uh caucus that is called the Biotech Caucus, represented by also Chris- Christy Houlihan and Stephanie Beitz. The interest of this bipartisan caucus is to have America be better positioned in biotech against the leaders uh around the world that oppose the united states not only in marketplaces but in the reliability of their products and what they do we could specifically say china and so i could say china and and mean that because i do but what's happened is several years ago the united states senate formed what is called an formed what is called the national security commission on emerging technology And this was the Congress's attempt to begin looking at how important biotech companies are medicine the development of IPOs the development of AI drugs the development of a whole lot of things that would keep the United States of America and our friends and allies in the lead against others who perhaps would use this biotech area against the best interest of not only consumers but perhaps the United States and our friends. I bring this to you today, I dropped the bill, we dropped the bill a full year ago, but feel like that today that this independent fund that could be easily added into NDA NDA would fit very reasonably because the United States of America finds itself on the backside of being able to adapt itself and adjust including the government as they learn things uh about biotech as they learn things about maybe things that they see in the marketplace we've been aware of this the cia has been through this for a long time that they needed to know more about the things that they encounter so this is very simply put an opportunity for uh dod which is in this uh department of war bill to be able to deal with the treasury department and other agencies have a fund that would be available to immediately begin the investigation and the bringing together of ideas to support national security issues as they develop. And this is done through this commission and it would be done with a cross-government. And I believe that it would be the right thing to do. And so, I come to the rules committee today to ask for your gracious consideration.

Thank you, Mister Sessions. Mister Herodopolis.

Madam Chair,

You're recognized.

Ranking Member, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify and ask for the committee's support on my bipartisan amendment on to the NDAIA. The amendment authorizes NASA to conduct a pilot program through twenty thirty-one allowing the agency to accept private contributions for infrastructure improvements at NASA's ten centers. This is a common sense proposal in my opinion that gives NASA an additional tool to address critical infrastructure needs without costing the tax. additional dollars. Rather than appropriating new uh federal dollars, this authority simply allows private companies to invest their own resources in projects that directly support NASA operations. While this authority would apply across all the ten centers, it is especially clear in Florida's Kennedy Space Center. As launch activity continues to accelerate, many of the nation's national security missions rely on Kennedy's infrastructure. Heavy launch vehicles routinely damage the roadways used to transport rockets and critical equipment throughout the center, thus delaying uh the flights and increasing costs. The companies using these facilities have requested this authority because they are willing to pay for the infrastructure improvements. They understand that repairing damaged roadways quickly means getting the national security mission on track. This bipartisan amendment, Congressman Whitesides and I are working on this together, uh has the support of nasa leadership nasa administrator jared isekman and provides the fiscal responsibility necessary to meet this growing challenge i have also been working with senator moody on this amendment and it has the support of the commercial industry the senate commerce committee and the house science committee as well it is strengthened the it will strengthen the infrastructure that supports american civil and national security and space missions while preserving taxpayer needs. As our global competitors continue investing heavily in space capabilities America cannot afford unnecessary delays, especially as we look to win the race to the moon. This amendment helps ensure NASA facilities remain ready to support the defense of our nation and America's continued leadership in space. I respectfully uh request the committee to make this amendment in order, and thank you very much for your consideration. And I yield back.

Thank you, Mr. Herodopoulos. Miss Houlan, you're recognized.

Chair and ranking member and members of the committee, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. I'm here to ask today that several of my amendments be made in order, and allowed a vote, because they all advance one simple goal, which is keeping America's military ready to fight and win, and come back home. Our military is strongest when decisions are driven by evidence, by our professionalism, and by mission, and not by politics or ideology. Every amendment that I'm offering today is about protecting our readiness, strengthening accountability, and ensuring that the Department of Defense remains focused on the threats we actually face. First, amendment number sixty-nine protects a simple principle, that military service should be based on whether you can meet a standard, not whether you are a man or a woman. For years we have built a force where standards determine qualification and mission determines the assignment, and that has only made us stronger. And we should not throw that away. Secretary Hegseth's effort to impose the so-called highest male standard is not grounded in military necessity. It is driven instead by ideology. And every time that we tell a qualified American who can meet the standard that they cannot serve we make our military smaller. weaker and less ready. Second, my amendment number one O five reaffirms re- religious neutrality at the Department of Defense. Religious freedom is one of our nation's most fundamental values. Protecting it requires government neutrality. Every service member has the right to practice their faith, or not practice a faith, with p- without pressure from their chain of command. That's not anti-religion; it is indeed the Constitution. This amendment protects every service member's freedom of conscience, and strengthens this trust and cohesion in our that our military depends on. Third, amendment two hundred would fence or stop the implementation of this bill until such time as there is new leadership at the Department of Defense. This is not about politics. It is about doing our jobs and protecting the institution we are entrusted to oversee. Congress has a constitutional responsibility not only to authorize policy, but to ensure that it is carried out faithfully. Secretary Hegseth has repeatedly demonstrated that he cannot be trusted to full and faithfully execute the authorities that Congress entrusts in him. The greatest threat to our military readiness is leadership that mistakes political loyalty for our military excellence. A secretary of defense who spends more time fighting culture wars than preparing for real wars is weakening this force that he swore to lead. He has purged experienced military leaders for political reasons. He has pursued ideological crusades inside the Pentagon. He has sidelined military expertise and injected instability into an institution whose very discep- ic- success depends on discipline, on professionalism, and on trust. Congress should not provide a hand-sweeping new authority to a secretary whose own actions have repletely undermined confidence in his ability to lead. Oversight is not obstruction; indeed, it is our constitutional If the committee is not willing to adopt a full imp- implementation fence, I urge you at a minimum to require meaningful guardrails or certification before these provisions are taken effect. Fourth, Amendment eleven ninety-three restores the annual influenza vaccin- vaccine while preserving medical waivers. Readiness begins, starts, and ends with healthy troops. We have already seen the consequences of abandoning long-standing military health policy, Since this policy was enacted, nearly three hundred influenza cases have been reported at Lackland Air Force Base alone, and these numbers only continue to grow. Now the Pentagon is scrambling to create exceptions to their ban on vaccines, and work-arounds to restore protections it never should have abandoned in the first place. Instead of this confusing patchwork, restore the very straightforward policy that protected our force for decades, and ensure that every recruit Enter service healthy and ready. And finally, my amendment thirteen thirty-six establishes a commission we already spoke about, uh, with my colleague, Mister Sessions, of emerging technology. As he mentioned, China is not slowing down in AI and biotech, in autonomous systems, or advanced manufacturing, and neither should we. Congress needs a bipartisan independent mechanism to identify where we are falling behind where we need to invest and how we preserve our technological edge, before our competitors gain. Every amendment, every last amendment that I propose here today comes down to one question and one question only. Will this NDAA make our military stronger and more ready to fight and win tonight? If it makes our military stronger, we should adopt it. If it advances ideology instead of readiness, we should reject it. I respectfully urge that the committee make these amendments in order. I thank you and I yield back.

Thank you, Jenelle. Jenelle yields back now. Recognize uh, Mister Moylan for his time.

Uh, Chairman, Ranking Member McGovern, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. While I respectively ask the committee makes all my amendments in order, I would like just to focus on two during this limited time. Amendment, first amendment four thirty-two and the second, one one three. Amendment four thirty-two removes language in the bill which would require the war department to deploy and operate a transportable nuclear micro-reactor in indo-pecom by january first, twenty thirty this is a policy the pacific islands community has nearly unanimously opposed and my amendment is cosponsored by members of hawaii the northern mariana islands and america's samoa pacific communities agree we should not assume the risk of testing new technologies before the rest of the country is willing to assume similar risk. Our voices cannot be an afterthought. They need to be included throughout the process. Speaking as Guam's representative, the Guam Power Authority, GPA, must be consulted prior to the new energy policies. Unfortunately, what we see today is GPA is being directed what to do from thousands of miles away, if not sidelined entirely. I want to thank Congresswoman Tukuda from Hawaii for her partnership on this amendment. She has constantly worked with me on issues of shared concern for Guam and Hawaii, and I know this is an amendment she is u- uniquely passionate about. As she mentioned during the mark-up, the status of force agreements in Indo-Pacom would mean that micro-reactors would be deployed on American soil in the Pacific, in other words, one of our islands. I support a strong military, robust supply chains, and national security strategy designed for us to win. But I have never backed down from my position that the military build-up in Guam must not come at the cost of our island. It must be done right. Policies that deny our people the right to object or properly such huge decisions do not happen with us. They happen to us. So I respectfully urge the committee to make this amendment in order, and allow the full house to consider the merits of such a proposed program. For the second amendment, uh, I also ask the committee to make one one three in order, which would establish a first look period for businesses in the joint regional Mariana area of operations to bid on local contracts. Too often, defense contracts in Guam and Northern Mariana Islands are snatched by large national-wide nationwide contractors who are very good at bidding for contracts, but very bad in performing work in the Western Pacific themselves. These companies scrape their profits off the top and subcontract to local businesses. The result is taxpayers are left holding the bag while mainline companies get richer and do little to none of the work. This problem extends even to sometimes as simple as catering. A company better at bidding wins and contract, and then, simply subcontracts the entire job to a local company. Talk about broken. Now, my amendment takes a simple approach to fix this problem. Let the people actually doing the work get the contract. If we do so, it cuts the middleman, invests directly into local economies and workforce, and cuts bloated contracts. That means more funding for war fighters, improving their quality of life, or doing more for less, and strengthening our national security. I look forward to answering any questions. Thank the committee. That, the committee may have. Thank you, Mister Chair.

Thank you, and now recognize Mister Stalber for his time.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member McGovern, I want to start by thanking the committee for your consideration on my amendment, amendment number seven sixty-one to the National Defense Authorization Act. I also want to thank Representative Begich for his support on this amendment. My amendment addresses a concerning reality that is one of the greatest threats to our national security Communist China's chokehold on our strategic supply chains, including for critical minerals. Currently, Communist China controls roughly eighty percent of our critical mineral supply chains. we are net import reliant on china for rough roughly thirty one critical minerals and the ccp has taken advantage of this reality over the past several years by banning the export of certain certain minerals to the united states that are used in key defense technologies and our equipment

mmm

this is a direct attack on us national security and our defense posture on the world stage there is no doubt that china will continue to exploit this vulnerability which would be devastating to america's security across the world That is why it is critical that we begin to invest in domestic capabilities to unravel ourselves from this dangerous web. My amendment is simple. It requires the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of War, along with several other agencies, to identify all supply chains in which Communist China maintains a global market share exceeding fifty percent of global production or processing ca- capacity for the relevant material, component or product. Further, these entities must develop a plan to diversify, Each supply chain they identify, which will help inform the United States and our allies as to what steps and which investments we must make to retake control of these supply chains. The reality is that we have off-shore critical defense and manufacturing capabilities to unfriendly unfriendly nations for too long. But it doesn't have to be this way. American can can control its own destiny if we begin to invest in our domestic workforce and industries including the domestic mining sector. And that includes responsibly developing the vast mineral resources our country is blessed with including the Duluth complex in northern Minnesota. It's a win-win across the board. We can develop these minerals domestically under the strictest labor and environmental standards, support domestic jobs and our economy, and lessen China's grip on America's national security. And a great first step is by taking full inventory of our supply chain dependence to Communist China and developing an an actionable plan to ensure our

Gentleman yields back, uh indicated indications from Ms. Hauschins that she has no questions, so I now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mister McGovern.

Yeah, I wanna thank you all for being here. I hope your amendments are made in order. It's great to see Mister Sessions again. Mr. Suleyhan, I thank you for all of your amendments as well, um and um again i hope to make it in order and i have no questions so you're back

and now recognize miss scanlon pennsylvania

i would associate myself with the ranking members remarks thank you

now recognize miss uh ledger fernandez

thank you i just wanted to take a moment uh to address uh representative Moreland's bipartisan amendment it also has representative cuda uh i come from a place where we tested uh the nuclear bomb uh and we tested it in the pacific island And to mandate, mandate that there be nuclear reactors, uh, before we know whether they're safe, before we are willing to do it on our own uh mainland, I think is wrong. I think having encouraging it, incentivizing it, those are different things, but to mandate it. So I'm very particularly sensitive, uh, because I've been to the Pacific Islands and they've raised this issue, they've suffered the pain. Uh, we have a, uh, multi-billion dollar compensation fund going because we didn't take care before we started doing nuclear testing. So we should not repeat the mistakes of the past. Uh, so thank you very much, Representative Morland, and, uh, Representative, well, had you you put it precisely correct. Will this make us safer? And refusing to grant promotions, refusing to treat women and black Americans and others with the same merit and respect does not make us safer. Thank you for bringing that.

Channel A is back. Uh, joined by Mister Scott, Mister Scott has no questions. Thank the witnesses for being present, and thank you for being ready to answer questions. Um. We'll give them time to clear out. Our next panel will be, um, Mister Luttrell, Miss Garcia, Mister McDowell, Mister Smith, Mister Turner, And Mister Goldman. Forgive them a minute to come up and take a seat.

there is a a couple of the residents that have requested that company.

Patrell, Garcia, McDowell, Smith, Turner, Goldman.

Yep.

OK. We'll start with uh Mister Luttrell. Morgan? It's always good to have one Morgan recognize another Morgan.

And I'm and I and there's three of us in Congress, oddly enough, I've never met another male Morgan in my entire life till I got here, so always been a pleasure to work with you and Mister McGarvey. Uh so thank you Mister Chairman, Mister Ranking Member, McGar- McGarvan, uh and the rest of the members on the um committee for this opportunity to talk about my amendments that I would like to add to the National Defense Authorization Act, first of which is amendment eighty-one that extends a currently authorized Walter Reed trial studying psychedelic assisted therapies on traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress, through September twenty-thri- twenty-thirty-three. And then amendment seven one four, initiating biomedical outcomes to garner advancements into innovative efficacy. And a better part of fifteen years, I would say. Thousands and thousands of our veterans have been traveling outside of our country for psychedelic assisted therapies for a myriad of issues, whether it's post-traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, cognitive motion instabilities, or addiction, whether that's alcohol or drug related. And for the past fifteen years, we've been begging and pleading with uh us, ourselves, to support this, because currently, the studies that are being conducted inside the United States are small in places like Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University. The state of Texas, the state of Mississippi, and the state of Kentucky, amongst some other states, they're trying to pass legislation individually to support these medications is great. But I often ask myself, why can't we do this? Why is it the United States government coming in to support our veteran community? And the results that we're seeing in these studies are profound. And this medication when given under very resh under very resh under very restrictive guardrails is absolute. And you can't argue that. I've gone through the journey myself, the treatment, excuse me, my brother has gone through the treatment, my wife has gone through the treatment, and it's been life-changing. And these amendments allow the Department of Veterans Affairs with FTA and HHS to start moving the needle forward so we don't have to talk about the six thousand plus veterans we lose a year, the hundred thou- to suicide, the hundred thousand civilians we use we lose to suicide because of opioids and SSRI addictions. And I haven't been here in Congress that long, but my research before I showed up says that this is a move that we should absolutely take. So, sitting at the table today, I will not drop to a knee and beg and plead with you to do this, but as a veteran myself, I ask us to stop looking down the around the corner and kicking the can down the road, and do something profound for our veteran community. Madam Chairwoman, thank you and happy birthday.

Thank you, Mister Luttrell. I'm sorry, you're not going to be staying in Congress. You know that. I feel that way.

Thank you, yes ma'am, and I i don't know if i should say how happy i am that i'm leaving but i appreciate it

miss goodlander would you like to join us since miss garcia had had left and she her name was called you're taking her place

wonderful thank you madame

thank you so much is that better

yes ma'am

thank you and happy birthday

thank you

um my first two amendments really go to the core of how we in congress must insure These one point five trillion taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly and transparents transparently. That's why I'm supporting amendment one thousand six, a straightforward amendment that says no funds will be expended from under this, under this authorization to fund the president's war of choice in Iran, unless Congress has declared war or authorized that war. We have learned the lessons of recent history when we write a blank check, for a war of choice, it has cost us gravely in American lives and in taxpayer dollars. So this common sense amendment will will bring power under our constitution back where it belongs here in the people's house. I have a separate amendment, amendment nine fifty-five, that would likewise go to the core of the first amendment protections that are so urgent for our national security and public safety. Uh, not a single taxpayer dollar should be used by the Department of Defense to restrict the free and independent press. What we have learned in the last year and a half is that when the leadership of the Pentagon goes to war with the free press, our jobs in Congress become infinitely harder. We need to ensure that the independent press is able to do their important work at the Department of Defense. This goes to the core of oversight and transparency, upon which all public trust depends. So I urge this committee to rule these amendments in order, um, and to allow them to be debated on the floor. I'll just add three more areas where I believe taxpayer dollars must go. The first is to pay our troops. And amendment ten fifty-seven would adopt the Pay Our Troops Act into this National Defense Authorization Act. Not a single service member of this country should ever be forced to work without a paycheck. And that is what our our bill would correct this wrong and ensure that moving forward our service members are not at the whims of congressional debates that when they do they raise their right hand to serve this country they will be paid for their service in the middle of an affordability crisis our men and women in uniform should never be asked to work without a pay check, and and our bipartisan amendment would write this wrong. I'll conclude um by urging your support for amendment three twenty seven This would close gaping loopholes that have prevented our public safety officers, the survivors of fallen officers, and injured officers who have put their lives on the line and been killed or injured in the line of duty. Um, last year we made some very important steps forward to make sure that the public safety officer benefit program operates as it should. This amendment three twenty-seven would close loopholes and right wrongs that have stood in the way of our fallen heroes and their family members from receiving the benefits that they have earned. So I urge your support on that, and I urge all of our colleagues to support the Major Richard Starr Act. It is on the floor of the House right now as a discharge petition, it's the most bipartisan bill before the Congress right now, and it would right an important wrong by ensuring that we pay our combat injured veterans. uh who have been forced to make an outrageous choice between the benefits that they've earned and their retirement pay. This bipartisan bill would write that wrong. We can get it done even before we get the NDAA done. Um and with that I yield back Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Goodlander. Mister McDowell, you're recognized.

Thank you Madam Chair and happy birthday to you. I have seven amendments that are under consideration to the uh NDAA. And wanna thank the committee for their consideration for each of them. But given the limited time, I'd like to briefly discuss two of my amendments. I'm proud to say that both those stand-alone bills uh have bipartisan support. Amendment seven fifty-eight would add the text of my bill, the preventing rogue equipment for synthetic substances act, or the Press Act, to the NDAA. I'm especially proud to have worked closely with the DEA to craft the Press Act, which will address an issue that's deeply personal to me. I lost my younger brother Luke uh to the fentanyl crisis, and I vowed to do everything that I could to help end this epidemic in our communities. And the Press Act targets one of the key tools that foreign drug traffickers rely on to manufacture counterfeit pills, pill press and tabling machines. By stopping the importation of illegal pill press machines, we can disrupt the production of fentanyl-based narcotics before they ever reach our streets. We must strengthen federal law to target the equipment the cartels use to mass produce these deadly counterfeit drugs. This is a national security issue. Many of these machines are smuggled across our border by our global adversaries. It is like a slow drip nuclear weapon that is taking out men and women that are eighteen to forty-five our our military age men and women uh at a incredible clip. Fighting this poison, it goes beyond party lines, and we must insure law enforcement has the tools that they to stop illicit drug manufacturing and save our lives. The other amendment I'd like to highlight is Amendment seven forty-five, adding the text of my bill, the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act, to address the flood of foreign scam calls that so many in my district receive. By providing the resources needed to strengthen inter-agency coordination and build on the TRACE Act, we can better combat illegal robocalls originating overseas. These bad actors target millions of Americans every month, attempting

thank you very much mister smith you're recognized

thank you madam chair it'll be very brief my two have seven amendments so i'll just highlight three very quickly the first is the stopped forced organ harvesting act one of the atrocities that's occurring in this world today especially in china is a young people are having their inner organs stolen by the government uh in the case of china it's sixty thousand to to a hundred thousand organs per year mostly from the falun gong and the uighurs uh but the military is absolutely involved in this in china there is an estimation that forty three military hospitals uh are engaged in these illegal transplants they strap a guy down or a woman equally divided between male and female they take out at least two organs per victim uh and and if you're in the military and you need uh an organ you'll get it from one of the people that you're that is now the the subject of a genocide like the Uighurs it's outrageous the Taliban are involved in all of this and other places around the world there's definitely a military connection it passed four O six to one last year and the year before that it passed with a similar margin and as mister scott said earlier today so much of what we do goes over the to the senate and just dies in languages this has an opportunity to save a lot of lives i'll go into detail if you like then there's the trafficking victims protection act which we named after frederick douglass that passed in two congresses back to back never went anywhere in the senate and i would point out that twenty six years ago i authored the trafficking victims protection act uh and when we did it it's a comprehensive to stop sex and labor trafficking. It has made a major difference. But we found within the first reauthorization that many militaries are involved, peacekeepers are involved. I went to GOMA and then held a series of hearings and did some work to try to stop the UN peacekeepers from raping little children. Uh, so it it there's definitely a connection uh for this bill. Finally, the third one is to stop support for UNRWA, the UN W- uh, relief works um agency. In the last Congress, i chaired four hearings on unra and anti-semitism bottom line they have aided and abetted hamas like no one else and many have died uh you know people say well what are you gonna do for those who are suffering in gaza well the administration has made sure uh that the world food program for example got an obligation of two hundred and fifty million dollars and there is other obligations as well we need to get it to a non-anti-semitic organization. And again, UNRRA has aided and abetted all of this, all of this, these crimes for a year. Seventy individuals were just fired by UNRRA at the tip of the iceberg. I hope that you'll make that one in order as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Smith. Mister Turner, I said I would distribute these notebooks. I w- I would have distributed them.

I'm I'm I'm sorry, I was on a I

Okay. Thank thank you, Mister Turner.

didn't

You're recognized.

Madam Chair, happy birthday. Um, I'd the the the books that I just distributed I I just read because they're part of my, what my testimony is. That's that's why we've we've done that.

Good.

I apologize. Um, and to the uh, who's ever serving as as ranking member, members of the Rules Committee, I'm here to testify in support of this the amendment number seven thirty to the fiscal year twenty twenty seven National Defense Authorization Act that would restore the pension benefits of the def Delphi salary retirees. And I respectfully ask this committee to allow it to be attached to the NDA. This amendment would sup- has the support of the President, the Speaker, and the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. In two thousand and nine, as part of the taxpayer-funded GM bankruptcy, more than twenty thousand Delphi salary retirees and employees had their earned health and pension benefits terminated. For many, their pensions were cut dramatically. in some cases by as much as seventy percent. There is no precedent for what happened. The government terminated their pensions as part of a TARP, government-funded, government-led GM bankruptcy and bailout. The government only terminated their pensions. Everyone else had their pensions restored. Many members of Congress have worked with the Delphi salary retirees to right this wrong. The Special Inspector General for the Trouble Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP, was asked to examine Treasurer's decision-making related to Delphi. The findings were deeply troubling, and that's the binders that you just have. If you go to the first tab in your binder, you'll see that SIGTARP, the IG, uh, reviewed the decision-making and found that there is and there were hearings on this in the oversight committee. The f- that found that, um, there was a, that the, uh, Delphite salary retirees were found to have had no political leverage or no leverage. Sigtart found that while other workers' pensions were topped up, the Delphite salary retirees' pensions that had been fully funded prior to the bankruptcy, were treated differently because they had no political or bargaining leverage. We highlighted for each of you the, the, uh, the language that was there. This is the heart of the issue. This was not a private pension planned failing on its own. This was the federal government making decisions that picked winners and losers among workers at the same company. Never before sensed as the government caused the termination of pension benefits for one group of workers, especially when those pensions were more than funded, simply because those workers lacked political leverage. This is why it's wrong to call a fix for these retirees a pension bailout. It's not a bailout, it's a remedy, it's It is Congress correcting a wrong caused by government action. There is no precedent for the government doing this. This is an injustice. After the pension termination, the delphi salary retirees pursued every avenue available to them. They went to court but were unsuccessful. Then they turned to the executive branch. In October, twenty twenty, President Trump issued a presidential memorandum, that's item number two in your binders. In that, uh, memorandum, he directed the secretaries of treasury, commerce, and labor to examine what actions could be taken to make these, In twenty twenty-two, the executive branch determined that legislative action would be necessary. That means Congress is now the last and only path for restoration. Most recently, this legislation has also earned the support of the White House and was included in the administration's supplemental appropriations request. That's number three in your tabs. With bipartisan support in the House, support from members of this committee, and support from President Trump, now is the time to finally right this wrong. This bill was previously passed to this House. has been amended to reflect changes to address concerns faced in the Senate. I ask the committee to allow this fix to move forward. I ask you to stand with the workers who kept their promises and deserve to have their promises made to them kept as well. I also ask you to give these retirees the opportunity to finally receive the retirement benefits that they earned. These are grandmothers and grandfathers that can't pay their bills, where government is the fault, not theirs. Um, many on this committee has have voted for this in the past. Again, President Trump campaigned on this three times, he's asked this committee, he's asked and he has the full support of this speaker and of the author of this bill, uh, for this to be added, uh, into, uh, this bill. Uh, President Biden also campaigned on this, uh, I ask you to add this to this bill. Thank you, Madam Chair, and happy birthday.

Thank you, Mr. Turner. Thank you. Mr. Goldman, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Happy birthday, thank you,

Thank you.

member McGovern, members of the committee. Today I speak in support of my amendment number thirteen O six, which seeks to expand on the successful and bipartisan work of the Abraham Accords. In the FY twenty-four National Defense Authorize Authorization Act, Congress took a significant step to establish a special presidential envoy for the Abraham Accords. A Senate-confirmed ambassador-level position focused on expanding and deepening the normalization agreements between Israel and the neighboring states. My straightforward amendment updates the special envoy's mandate to include Central Asia and the South Caucasus States including Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. My amendment doesn't re- require any new funding. It explicitly requires the envoy to use existing programs and authorizes already on the books. This amendment is about directing diplomatic energy where we are already paying for toward a broader strategic opportunity. I'll also note that this policy has strong bipartisan support. My underlying bill, H. R. ninety-one forty-seven, the Abraham Accords Expansion Act, is supported by every co-chair of the bipartisan House Abraham Accords caucus, including Rep- Representative Wagner, um, Schneider, and Wasserman Schultz. The Abraham Accords are critical to promoting greater peace in the Middle East. This amendment gives us the l- the tools to ext- extend that vision further, building directly on a foundation Congress itself created. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mister Goleman. Does uh any Republican wish to ask any member of the panel any question? Miss Halchun, you're recognized.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Um Congressman Luttrell, I wanted to uh commend you for your amendments um and ask you a couple of questions about um the potential for the therapies to help us transition away from some of the more costly and long-term um medications that we're currently using for drug addiction in america most notably methadone treatment and how psychedelics in your experience might be able to be a shorter term but longer longer term shorter term uh solution but a longer term fix for this issue is question one and then uh you mentioned the states are starting to in a engage in um trying to uh advance um psychedelic brain therapies um but that it is important that there are very restrictive guardrails around uh this use of therapy. Um and so second question is wouldn't it make more sense from a federal's standpoint from a safety perspective for the patients who are engaging in the the therapies for the federal government to play a role in setting these guardrails and and setting a framework for to make this accessible versus uh having a fifty s- fifty different ways to do it in the states.

there's always yes ma'am thank you for the question and such there's always fifty different problems and fifty different solutions i think the federal government and the states themselves need to run in parallel with this i think educated conversations from our brilliant scientists neuroscientists clinicians The countries outside the continent of the United States have been doing this for a while, and I think conversations with them here and Texas was very open about those conversations, and I I think that they're in a really good place. Uh, I I would I hate to say, can we get there, I hope so. You know, this place is this place, and the states are the states. As far as results when it comes to highly addictive drugs, um, I'll speak specifically on heroin. Um, there's now longitudinal studies that say treatments with Ibogaine, uh, those that are addicted to heroin, um, it is an eighty-five percent success rate with the first dose of medication, and then over a ninety percent success rate if there's a second dose given, which sometimes is not needed. And that is a single dose. This isn't a methadone prescription. Uh, and the the institutes of higher learning and education and then the scientists abroad are are taking a very hard look at at that. And I hope that one day if we can align ourselves and all the all the government institutions and states aside to see what this is doing and pay attention to it, that we will we'll absolutely get to where we need to go. Thank you for the question.

Yeah, I really um commend you for the work that you're doing on it and talking about your own experience and that of your family in in successfully um, undergoing the treatment. Um, I also uh, would love to see us move away from and h- really actually help people get their lives back, uh, than to just put them on another medication that they have to take long-term. So, thank you for your work on this and um, I'll be supporting your amendments.

Yes ma'am, thank you.

Mister.

Thank you for being here and I hope your amendments are made in order, I yield back.

Thank you. Anyone uh, Mister Langworthy.

I I just wanna salute Mister Turner for bringing uh forward the cause of the Delphi salaried uh um employees that were so uh terribly treated uh in the restructuring of General Motors. I mean many live in my district and um this has been a uh sadly almost a decades long fight now. Uh so thank you for continuing to work for them.

Thank you so much, if I may. The um so this comes to you with the President's support. to be in this bill uh the um uh the president's legislative team has been working with this committee uh the speaker supports it being in this bill as does uh the the chairman uh of the armed services committee um and in in the past you have voted for it thank you for your support Alston Scott has has voted for it and is of course um a um sponsor of the amendment um the ranking member has voted for it Eleanor Fernandez has voted for it um this is um this is one of those issues where there is no precedent of the uh there has never been a situation where a a decision in the white house has solely singled out a group of workers in a a company and had their their pensions terminated and taken away um their pensions thank you

thank you

thank you mr. turner thank you mr. langworthy miss galen no questions mr. scott

no i'm i uh thank you all for coming mister turner and i have worked together on this issue there was a a battery plant in fitzgerald georgia where the salaried employees lost their pension um and i'm certainly supportive of the amendment and mister luttrell uh hope this isn't your last meeting before the rules committee but i hope it is successful uh either way um i know a couple of people who have actually um left the country to go seek um treatment if that's the right word for it and have been uh very well served by um by that and with that i yield

thank you miss scott miss lindsay fernandez no questions miss thank you mister oops sorry mister griffith look mister jess

just wanna uh commend my freshman colleagues craig goldman and alison mcdowell for your testimony today look forward to supporting yield back

um mister turner are you aware that your amendment has a point of order against it and the rules committee does not waive points of order on amendments

yes we're looking forward to you considering waiving the the point of order uh with the uh support of the speaker in it being waived and the uh president um having supported it being on this you have uh both the

that's a that

may ma'am ma'am if i may you ask me the question if you have the you have the author of the bill in front of you you have

that's thank you mr. turner

the speaker who appoints this committee and you have the president who will be signing the bill all asking for it to be in this bill

anyone else have a comment the committee stands in recess until immediately following call for the last vote thank you all ok the committee will reconvene thank you all very much for being so patient. So, Mister Whitesides, Mister Carter, Mister Underwood, Mister Burleson, and Mister Mast. And Mister Mast told me unfortunately he could not come back because he's on the floor.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Warrant, Mister Davidson. Join us, please. So, um, I think you all know the drill. Your, uh, full statements will be put into the record. But we ask you to keep your verbal comments to five minutes. I will call you out in order that I called your name before. Um, and the committee looks forward to your comments. Mister Whitesides.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and happy birthday.

Thank you.

I'm here to today to talk about my bipartisan amendment that supports DOD efforts to protect our military installations by tracking changes in conditions of natural resources that may threaten the infrastructure of bases across the country. We saw this at the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Southern California when three wildfires burned over fifteen percent of the base, posed a risk to our service members and disrupted Marines' ability to operate and train. Wildfires like the one at Pendleton and Vandenberg are a year-round national crisis and a threat to military installations everywhere, including in and around my district. If we can use existing technology to collect better data and identify trends, we can protect more installations from natural disasters like wildfires. My amendment does not propose a new program. The department is already doing this work through its natural resources program. That program is actively working to preserve military readiness by improving ecological conditions, and I applaud these efforts. My amendment encourages the department to enhance this work by simply standardizing their metrics and promoting the use of cutting-edge technologies which would allow us to work alongside inter-agency partners and appropriate state agencies to get better, regular, and consistent data on military installations. That information would then be used to identify and address risks that will benefit military installations across the country. Importantly, this data will also allow the department to demonstrate when conditions on an installation are moving in the right direction which will allow us to then reward that performance with less paperwork faster approvals and more efficient reviews I urge this committee to support this amendment and include it in the NDA thank you and I yield back.

Thank you very much, Mister Whiteside. I said, " Mister Carter," but he's not here. Miss Underwood.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member McGovern. Um, I'm grateful th- for this opportunity to talk about my bipartisan amendment, which is co-led by Congressman Fi- Fitzpatrick. The text of our amendment is identical to the NIH Improve Act, which recently passed the Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously. The United States has the highest pregnancy related death rate of any high income country and black women are dying at the highest rate of all. And the crisis is only getting worse. Over the past two decades, maternal mortality rates have doubled, uh, more than doubled, and disparities have worsened. What's both frustrating and promising is that over eighty percent of these deaths are preventable. That's why I have long advocated for and for focused and robust funding for maternal health research. This has led to the creation of the implementing a Maternal Health and Pregnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone, or IMPROVE initiative at NIH. Since twenty nineteen, Congress has increased funding for Improve nine-fold. Improve has so far invested more than two hundred million dollars in life-saving research that will help end our nation's maternal health crisis. Right now, this critical research program lacks a sustained funding source, which threatens its mission to save lives. My bipartisan amendment, the NIH Improve Act would authorize consistent funding for this existing program for the next six years providing NIH with the support and resources it to understand and address the root causes of America's maternal mortality crisis. Friends, we have an opportunity today to actually solve a problem. We have a chance to prevent maternal deaths and improve

Mm.

health outcomes for women before, during, and after pregnancy. This legislation is common sense, it's bipartisan, it's part of the momnibus, and most importantly, it would save lives. If we wanna make real strides to end our nation's devastating maternal mortality crisis, we need to pass it now. Thank you again for the opportunity to work together on this urgent issue. american moms need our help let's get this done i yield back

thank you miss underwood mister i think we can include you in this panel if you would like to come up mister burleson you're recognized

thank you madam chair and happy birthday

thank you very much

um i'm here to present to this committee for your consideration um a a bill that is extremely bipartisan. Um, that is amendment amendment uh ten forty four.

Is your mike on?

It is.

Okay, fine.

I I'll try to speak to more directly into The amendment ten forty four. The American people deserve nothing less than full transparency on unidentified anomalous phenomenon. Through President Trump's leadership and initiatives such as the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP encounters, otherwise called Pursue, the President has signaled the era of secrecy must end. What was once dismissed is now the subject of serious congressional and executive attention. This amendment before us, the unidentified anomalous phenomenon disclosure act, is a comprehensive bill that's in the style of the bill that Congress passed, the JFK records release act. It is built upon that framework that will finally bring accountability. Members of this committee, the UAP information belongs to the American people, and transparency is a simple t- step towards restoring public trust. For too long, records concerning UAPs have been scattered across agencies, shielded by contractors, or lost to time. The president has changed this. He has championed historic progress toward genuine disclosure de-classification and transparency. Congress needs to support those me- measures now. And my amendment does so by strengthening the national collections at the National Archives for one simple reason. We will make the records open source and available for public inspection. This is not optional, is a direct commitment to it ending fragmented control and giving the American people one clear trustworthy repository. The amendment before us creates mandatory timelines. Every federal office must identify, organize, and transmit its UAP records within three hundred days. No records may be destroyed or altered. Previous disclosure, disclosed records cannot be reclassified or redacted. This is the kind of decisive action that the American people have demanded. Concrete steps that close loopholes and move us from rhetoric to results. The amendment before us embodies the principle that uh has been established by this president. It requires agencies to conduct thorough reviews, create identification aids, and transmit records with clear documentation of any postponement. From our investigation that we have already conducted, we have found that meaningful transparency requires us to look beyond our traditional government channels. Significant UAP related information resides with private contractors, specifically the federally funded research and development centers. And this disclosure act explicitly includes contractor held materials and closes the oversight gaps that have frustrated many previous efforts. It, this amendment creates strong safeguards as well. It establishes an independent UAP records review board, a nine-member body appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate with full subpoena power, and access to all records and facilities and the authority to conduct hearings. Um, again, the American people deserve the truth, and with this amendment we can deliver it, and I urge your support for this amendment. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I welcome your questions.

Thank you, Mister Burleson, Mister Davidson, you're recognized.

Um, thank you, Chairwoman and members of the Rules Committee, uh, and happy birthday, Chairwoman. Um, I, I appreciate the chance to emphasize one amendment, uh, I'm offering in particular. Uh, it's it's, uh, an amendment, uh, one two two three. It is also known as H R four twenty five, which is titled the Repealing Big Brother Overreach Act. It repeals the Corporate Transparency Act, which was enacted i- in the FY twenty twenty one in DAA in order to combat illicit finance. But it was written too broadly. It requires millions of Americans to, uh, small business owners to report the beneficial ownership of their, their companies. And it's sweeping. So, uh, this this Congress as chairman of the subcommittee for national security and illicit finance, we've had extensive hearings on this. The courts have already issued injunctions pausing it because just today the Supreme Court held that a geo-fencing uh location for your uh geo-location data from your phone was too broad. And so they said you have to get a warrant. This is far broader. The presumption is if you own a business, you must be engaged in illicit finance. So it's had problems in the court, and for that reason, the Trump administration uh halted the application of the previous administration's rule and they said we're gonna n- more narrowly apply it to foreign ownership interests. And that's what this does. The Trump administration um codifies that policy so that Fin can FinCEN can focus on genuine national security concerns. This was brought into this world through the NDAA, and it's fitting that we bring it out through the NDAA. This bill has, uh, forty, uh, forty cosponsors on the amendment and a hundred and ninety-three cosponsors on the act. Massively, uh, supported the, this reform, including from the Trump administration. So, along with all the amendments I've offered, I would, I would plead with the Rules Committee to give us a vote on this amendment. And I yield.

Thank you, Mr. Davidson. Mr. Garamendi, you're recognized.

I need a radical. Uh, happy birthday. Thank you. I've got a a sh- Cuddle up to the. Let's see if I can get this straight. Uh, there are several uh issues that are going to be in the NDAA that are out there. First of all, the ships act, which I'm sure Mister Trent Kelly has uh brought to your attention. uh, it is an significant national security issue. To be able to, uh, put that into the, uh, National Defense Authorization Act would very significantly strengthen uh the various elements that are already in it. Uh, beyond that, um, I want to speak to you about a couple of other things. The, um, Titus has an amendment forty, and that's the, for nuclear testing. Uh, there's been increasing discussion that we really need to, uh, light up some nukes and, uh, let them explode so that we understand all of the ins and outs of it. Not necessary and really a very, very bad, uh, thing for us to do. Therefore, the Titus Amendment forty. Um, and I would also bring to your attention Delusional's Amendment six three four. Uh, he and I dealing with stock buybacks. Uh, this lines up with President Tou- Trump's about the uh defense industry spending uh a good deal of its money buying back stocks, rather than investing in uh plant equipment and uh personnel. Uh also uh in the NDAA there's the um uh m- one of my amendments, nine seven five, uh dealing with the uh nuclear na- national nuclear security agencies and the cost overruns. Uh this uh moves it closer uh to the uh method that we presently have uh within the uh defense industry when there are cost overruns it sets up a uh special system to review why that's happening uh this would uh go almost as far but not quite as far as that system. And finally amendment thirteen fifty-one uh which would uh prohibit the NDAA funds to reconstruct or to use in any way the demolition and the eventual uh ballroom on the east wing of the White House. There's some talk that uh the president's looking for ways to pay for it. We think that uh the use of military funding for that is inappropriate. So those are the uh amendments I wanted to bring to your attention. Uh the NNSA, cost overruns, the NDAA uh prohib prohibition on funds for the east wing, uh ballroom, the ships act, uh and uh the nuclear testing and finally uh, defense contractor stock buybacks, I find myself in alignment with Trump, which is an uncomfortable position, but it is the right position. So with that, uh, thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Anyone on our side have any questions? Mister Norman?

Uh, well, it's on identifying the ownership of companies. foreign companies. Is this what your bill does, what your amendment does?

Well, that's what the President's executive order does. And so, w- the Corporate Transparency Act, we had a case where someone said, I'm the president of a homeowners association, and they're telling me I gotta fill out this form and comply with this reporting rule, uh, which is overly broad. And so, this eliminates the overly broad application of the Corporate Transparency Act, uh, from the Biden administration. So then what would remain is the President's executive order.

OK. Now, once it What are the consequences as, let me give you an example of TikTok. That was a, that was a hot rage a while back. It had foreign ownership. Some magically it disappeared. Uh, they were supposed to sell it, get a new board of directors. No consequences. Once in your, your amendment, and I, I get this in executive order, what happens when you identify foreign actors. Is it like TikTok? It just goes away.

No, this is uh, this goes back to um, years ago, the FinCEN, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, came out with a customer due diligence rule. You know, banks basically spy on their customers and for that they get to be banks. If they don't, they don't get to stay banks, right? And so one of the things that they have is know your customer rules. And they were uh directed by FinCEN in a rule making process to be able to disclosed to the government upon request without a warrant who are the beneficial owners of this corporation. So if Acme Corporation, uh, is there, they said, well, you gotta gotta disclose, uh, who who would be the beneficial owners. They had drafted that rule in such a broad way that it said not even a d- defined percentage of the company it was anyone who's exerts significant influence over the company I'm like, so i- you know, if - if, uh, an author of a book was guiding the business model, and the people that run the business never met him, is he a beneficial owner under that? That's how ridiculous it was. Well, uh, Democrats had a long-standing, uh, kind of coalition around disclosing the beneficial owners, regardless of privacy concerns. And so they passed this bill and - that - that would make every business disclosed. Well the Chamber of Commerce didn't like that, and the banks wanted to monkey off their back, so uh they said well if the business has twenty or fewer employees, well then we'll assume that those are the kind of shell companies that launder money.

Yeah Warren, that whole bill was uh was uh couldn't keep up with the counting class.

So so this is what the, this is what this is. It's it's just that, it's like if if if you look at who's the beneficial owner of IBM, they're publicly traded, you would know. If you wanna look at who's the beneficial owner of you know, a a privately held business, um, it's harder to know but not impossible, you get a warrant. Um, they wanna be able to do it without getting a warrant, and that's problematic for the courts, but they don't even wanna do it to all businesses, they just wanna do it if you're small. And and that's where the National Federation of Independent Businesses have pushed this to say, look, you're really targeting our members, the smallest, least sophisticated businesses. You're talking like plumbers, uh, painters, HVAC companies,

Yeah.

uh, that's who they're targeting with this.

Yeah, that was off the charts. You couldn't keep, you couldn't pay the accounting bill to get the material to do that. Uh, so bottom line is yours, as far as the consequences

It gets rid of that burden, and right now if they don't comply, you could go to jail, uh, and be fined up to ten thousand dollars for not filling out this form with FinCEN, which is an agency most people don't even know exists.

Yeah. OK.

And there's there's other lower uh burdens to be able to comply with the government's interest in knowing who the beneficial uh ownerships of companies are and all those things have been proposed and so this just gets back to what started out as um as an executive agency rule making to where the president uh his executive order would be the effective order and we'd nullify uh this this burdensome approach.

OK. I yield back.

Thank you, Mister Nor- Mister McGovern.

I just thank you for your thoughtful amendments. I hope they're made in order. And uh, Madam Chair, I wanna ask UNM's consent to insert into the record written testimony from Representative Kaptur in support of amendment ten sixty-five to H R eighty-eight, hundred. And I also wanna ask UNM's consent to insert into the record written testimony from Representative Cohen in support of amendments four nine nine, two three one, uh, to H R eight eight zero zero.

Without objection, and I will um ask unanimous consent to submit written statements from representative baird, representative weber, representative hill, representative king, Heinz, representative clients, representative mast. Miss Kenwood.

Just wanna thank everyone for their testimony, in particular, representative Underwood, who has been such a champion on the issue of maternal mortality and doing what we need to do to get the US rate of maternal mortality down it's an absolute crime that it's three to four times the rest of as greater than the rest of the developed world. So we really appreciate your continued work. Thank you. I yield back.

Just a second. M- Mister Griffith, do you have any questions? No questions. Mister Gierbande.

Uh, a question if I might. Uh, t- Mister Perry introduced an amendment dealing with the appropriation for the um state department. And among those he eliminated the soft uh, uh, organizations like the Peace Corps, Millennium Challenge, and so forth. It's not clear if that amendment, past this committee, if it's on the floor, where it is, if it is still before the com- this committee,

Mm-hmm.

I would be happy to speak to it. If it is not, then we'll let it go.

Thank you. Um, anyone else seeking to testify on today's agenda? Seeing none, This closes the hearing portion of our meeting and you all are allowed to leave.

Okay. And that's the end of the meeting. I'm really sorry. I have to go.

Oh, sorry buddy, we just closed.

Sorry, buddy. Sorry.

Uh, if, if you'll give me your statement, I'll put it in the record.

OK.

Without objection, um, I'd like to, um, enter the comments from Mister Carter into the record. how late was my last about three minutes two minutes meeting three minutes ago oh well and y'all anyway you missed it great without objection the committee stands in recess will be in receipt of a motion from the gentleman from georgia minister scott

madam chair i move the committee grant hr eight eight hundred the national defense authorization act for fiscal year twenty twenty seven a structured rule that rules waves all points of order against consideration of the bill the rule provides one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on armed services or their respective designees. The rule provides that in lieu of the amendment in the nature of substitute recommended by the committee on armed services now printed in the bill, an amendment in the nature of substitute consisting of the text of rules committee print one one nine dash three three shall be considered as adopted and the bill as amended shall be considered as read. The rule waives all points of order against provisions and the bill as amended. As amended, the rule makes in order only those amendments printed in part A of the rules committee report amendments in block described in section three and pro forma amendments described in section four each amendment shall be considered only in the order printed in the report may be offered only by a member designated in the report shall be considered as read shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section four of the rule and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question the rule waives all points of order against the amendment printed in part a of the rules committee report are amendments in block described in section three of the rule. Rule provides that the chair of the committee on armed services or his designee may offer amendments in block consisting of further amendments printed in part A of the rule committee report not earlier disposed of. Amendments in block shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for forty minutes, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on armed services or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section four of the rule, shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question, The rule provides that the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Armed Services or their respective designees may offer up to ten pro forma amendments each at any point for the purpose of debate the rule provides one motion to recommit the rule rule further provides for consideration of H R eighty five ninety five the National Security Department of State and Related Programs Appropriations Act twenty twenty seven under a structured rule the rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill. The rule provides one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on with their respective designees. The rule provides that the bill shall be considered as read. The rule waives all points of order against provisions in the bill for failure to comply with clause two or clause five A of rule twenty-one. The rule makes in order only those amendments printed in part B of the Rules Committee report amendments end block described in section eight and pro forma amendments described in section nine. Each amendment shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, may be offered only by a member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report, equally divided in control by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section nine of the rule, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question. The rule waives all points of order against the amendment printed in part B of the rules committee report or amendments end block described in section eight of the rule. Rule provides that the chair of the committee on appropriations or his designee may offer amendments end block consisting of amendments printed in part B Of the rules committee report not earlier disposed of amendments end block shall be considered as read, shall be debated for twenty minutes equally divided, and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on appropriations or their respective designees, shall not be subject to amendment except as provided by section nine of the rule, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question. The rule provides that the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on appropriations or their respective designees may offer up to ten pro forma amendments each at any point for the purpose of debate. Rule provides one motion to recommit. The rule further provides for consideration of H R eighty eight eighty four, the removing barriers to work for disabled Americans act under a closed rule, the rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill. The rule provides that in lieu of the amendment in the nature of substitute recommended by the committee on ways and means now printed in the bill, an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of rules committee print one one nine dash three four shall be considered as adopted and the bill as amended shall be considered as read the rule waives all points of order against provisions and the bill as amended. The rule provides one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on ways and means or other respective designees. The rule provides one motion to recommit. The rule further provides for consideration of HRE HREs thirteen eighty-three commemorating the one year anniversary of the enactment of the working family's tax cuts under a closed rule. The rule provides that upon adoption of the resolution it shall be in order without intervention of any point of order to consider HREs thirteen eighty-three the rule provides that the amendment that the preamble printed in part c of the rules committee report shall be considered as adopted in hrs thirteen eighty three as admitted shall be considered as read the rule provides one hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on ways and means or their respective designees the rule further provides that hrs thirteen seventy seven shall be laid on the table finally the rule provides that in the engrossment of hr eighty eight hundred the clerk shall add the text of s thirteen eighty three as passed by the house as new matter at the end of hr assign appropriate designations to provisions within the engrossment, conform cross-references and provisions for short titles within the engrossment, and be authorized to make technical corrections to include corrections in spelling punctuation page and line numbering, section numbering, and insertion of appropriate headings.

uh you've heard the um recommendation from the gentleman from georgia Thank you. Thank you, mister. Uh, Scott, is there any discussion or amendment to the rule?

Yeah, ma- yes, ma'am, sure.

Mister McGovern.

First of all, I just wanna set the record straight about this rule. Um, in this rule, House Republicans blocked over one thousand amendments submitted to the Rules Committee. This rule blocks over three quarters of amendments. Over ninety percent of democratic amendments were blocked. more than eight in ten bipartisan amendments were blocked. Even members of the majority have a bad deal here. Nearly sixty percent of Republican amendments are being blocked. So that's what that's what this rule is about. But I do have an amendment, um, Madam Chair, I I, uh, I I moved that the committee strike section fourteen of the rule, which provides that, uh, in the engrossment of H. R. eighty-eight hundred, the clerk shall add the text of the Save America Act as passed by the house. Madam Chair, it looks like the reason we had a recess and come back here uh is this section, which connects the save act to the NDAA before sending it to the Senate. Let's be clear, let's be honest here, um I think that the save act is an awful, awful, terrible bill. It's not about election security, it's about relitigating Donald Trump's loss in twenty twenty. His feelings were hurt. So he had a meltdown. You guys keep saying we need this bill because our elections are not secure. Trump says the twenty twenty election was rigged. Many of you in this room won your elections in twenty twenty. You were elected in that election. Was your election rigged? Um, you know, uh, I mean, th- the save act is just insane and, and you know it, uh, enough already. I mean, Trump won in twenty twenty four. Was that election rigged? I mean, I, I couldn't believe that People voted for him, but so maybe it was rigged under under his uh under his mindset. I also want to speak directly to Congresswoman Luna. And anyone who thinks that this scheme has accomplished anything, it has not. It's just been a big waste of time. So let me be clear, the Senate will just strip the Save Act out. They've already said that.

Yeah.

Merving it with the NDAA bill doesn't prevent that. Nothing in this rule will prevent that. Hell, Leader Thune, four days ago, already filed cloture on the Senate's own version of the NDAA, and their version does not include the Save Act. There is a zero percent chance save ends up in the NDAA because of this rule today. You know, so this is a a cover-your-behind maneuver, if you will. And to my Republican colleagues who want this NDAA to advance, you should also reject this rule because all you're doing by supporting this shell game is giving false hope to those like representative luna who think that this will do something down the line it will not make a difference at all and with that i yield back

thank you mr. mcgovern um is there any further discussion on the amendment from mr. mcgovern hearing none the questions on the amendment all those in favor signify by saying aye

aye aye

those opposed say no

no

no in the opinion chair of the no's

we have a a roll call madam chair

the mister mcgovern requests a roll call the clerk will call the roll

mrs. fishbach mrs. fishbach no mister mcgovern mister norman

no

mister norman no mister roy missus Hodgkin mister langworthy

no

mister langworthy no mister scott

no

mister scott no mister griffith

no

mister griffith no mister jack

no

mister jack no mister mcgovern

aye

mister mcgovern no i am miss Galen

aye

miss Galen i am mr. Nguz

aye

mr. Nguz i am miss ledger fernandez

aye

it's ledger fernandez i am madam chair

No.

Madam Chair, no.

The clerk will report the total.

Four yeas, seven nays.

The no's have it, the amendment's not agreed to, is there further discussion on the motion?

Madam Chair, I have an amendment to the rule. I move the committee make an order, an amendment to H R eighty eight hundred, consisting of the text of Chairwoman Fox's amendment five twelve to the FY twenty twenty three NDA A as adopted on the floor with appropriate conforming changes to create an inspector general for the office of management and budget. to bring transparency and accountability to the agency. Last week I asked my Republican colleagues what they would do to stop the Trump administration and his Office of Management and Budget from illegally transferring taxpayer funds that Congress appropriated for the Secret Service into a separate account in order to make security upgrades as part of the ballroom construction project. Republicans could not give me an answer. Well, I have an idea, and I would expect that my Republican colleagues, uh, should would would support this idea. Um, in twenty twenty two, Chairwoman Fox submitted an amendment to the NDA to create an Inspector General at the Office of the Management and Budget. Her amendment was made in order and subsequently passed on the House floor with both myself and Chairwoman Fox voting for it. Um, unfortunately her thoughtful proposal never became law, but let's not give up hope. Uh, on her birthday, let's give, let's, let's help her on her, you know, let's give her a gift. And I believe that a strong majority in the House would support this amendment. Um, it was a good idea then, it's a good idea now. And I urge a yes vote on my motion to ensure that Chairwoman Fox's proposal gets an up or down vote on the floor and I yield back.

The amendment proposed is completely outside the jurisdiction of the House Armed Services Committee and lacks an appropriate nexus to the Department of War. This amendment process is consistent with those of the last three defense authorizations. Any amendment made in order should be tightly wound to our national security and the appropriate jurisdiction in the house. Clever try.

Well, but didn't you offer it to the NDAA in the past, and it was made in order?

Nuh-uh.

Under democrat control.

Under democrat control.

Well, that's good. Well, I mean, I look at how Look at how nice we are. Uh, I I I think it's a good idea. Let's uh I I would re- Yes, but

nice try mcgovern

um i so i i urge a yes vote

is there further discussion on the amendment all those in favor say aye

aye

aye

all those opposed say no

no

no and the opinion of the chair knows heaven

i asked for a roll call

mister mcgovern requests a roll call vote the clerk will call the roll

miss fishbach

no

miss fishbach no mr. Norman

no

mister norman no mister roy mrs. Halton mr. langworthy

no

mr. langworthy no mr. scott

no

mr. scott no mr. griffith

no

mr. griffith no mr. jack

no

mr. jack no mr. mcgovern

aye

mr. mcgovern aye miss scanlon

aye

miss scanlon aye mr. neguse

aye

mr. neguse aye miss ledger fernandez

aye

miss ledger fernandez aye madam chair

no

madam chair no

clerk will report the total

forty eight seven eight

the no's have it the amendment's not agreed to

I uh I have another amendment to the rule, I move the committee add a new section to the rule providing immediate consideration of H R seven one two zero the bipartisan Purple Heart uh Freedom to Work Act introduced by Representatives Scott and Panetta under a closed rule, debatable for one hour, equally divided between the chair and ranking member of the committee on ways and means this bill would modify certain rules under the Social Security Disability Insurance program to help combat disabled Purple Heart veterans who want to uh return to work. My republican colleagues have pointed to the purple heart freedom to

Okay.

work act as an example of what could be tested if we reauthorize the social security, uh disability uh insurance demonstration authority. But if both democrats and republicans support this specific proposal to help purple heart veterans um why aren't my republican colleagues putting it in their bill? Or putting it on the floor for a vote? Um and I urge a yes vote on this motion to ensure that rep scott's proposal to help veterans and s s d i get the up or down vote it deserves appreciate his leadership and i yield back

is there further discussion on the amendment

yes ma'am madam chair i appreciate i appreciate the

yes please talk

newfound support of the purple heart freedom to work act uh now that we have language that would that would actually accomplish this that is a little different from the language that's written in my language that that Uh, I'm happy to have you co-sponsor and perhaps we can pass it too. But this this language is what we were able to get through the Ways and Means Committee. And as I said before, when the Democrats were in charge of the Ways and Means committee, I was unable to move the legislation. When the Republicans have been in charge, uh, I was able to move some legislation and and and I feel very good about the language that we have today but uh I'm happy to come back again with the Purple for Heart Freedom to Work Act as I said it's been a passion of mine for many, many years. and uh i'm i'm glad we're having the discussion about it and hope

yeah

hope maybe he maybe he can move through ways and means as well

what well i i'm happy to work with him but there's nothing in the bill uh that uh mentions purple heart um veterans that would that that's and again we're not ways and means we're the rules committee

that's right

so we can amend things and add things and and i think this would be a nice thing to add and um you know i'm i'm trying to have your back i'm trying to have

well uh

chair fox's back i'm trying to have your back too and

Yeah?

I mean

With with a knife or an ax or what?

Friendly friendly

I mean,

friendly support.

how do you want it? I mean, I know you don't like guns, Jim.

That that that that's probably correct.

So I'm assuming it's a knife or an ax. But it's a um Look, I mean, wha- what I would ask that you do is is that you support you, you know, when when I'm I you support eighty eight eighty four when it comes across. Help me get the Dems and the Senate to support it. and we'll get purple heart freedom to work um you know the the concept of it signed signed by the president uh purple heart day is august seventh or eighth seventh i believe that would be a wonderful day for the president to sign it hopefully you can join us at the white house with president trump you're president of the united states

if if if you vote with me i will cosponsor your bill

i you already you you already agreed to cosponsor my bill but um

i already gave you a vote yeah i will

um uh look i i appreciate your support for my legislation I I do, you know, this this eighty eight eighty four is going to accomplish what what we're trying to accomplish with the Purple Heart Freedom to Work Act, and with that, Madam Chair, I yield.

And we respectfully disagree on that,

Is there f-

but I uh yes, Robert.

Is there further discussion on the amendment from Mister McGovern? Hearing none, the question is on the amendment. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye. Those opposed say no. No. in the opinion chair that knows how to Mr. McGovern request a roll call the clerk will call the roll

no roll call

Mrs. Fischbach Mrs. Fischbach no Mr. Norman Mr. Norman no Mr. Roy

no no

Mrs. Houchin Mr. Langworthy Mr. Langworthy no Mr. Scott

no no

Mr. Scott no Mr. Griffith

no

Mr. Griffith no Mr. Jack

no no

Mr. Jack no Mr. McGovern Mr. McGovern aye Miss Ganlin

aye

Miss Ganlin aye Mr. Neguse

aye

Mr. Neguse aye Miss Ledger-Fernandez

aye

Miss Ledger-Fernandez aye Madam Chair

No.

Madam Chair, no.

The clerk will report the total.

Four yeas, seven ayes.

The no's have it. The amendments not agreed to. Are there further discussion on the motion from the gentlemen from Georgia?

Uh, ju- I know, I have another amendment. Yeah, OK.

No.

Yeah, OK. Um, uh, I have an amendment to the rule, I move to the committee make an order amendment number thir- thirteen fifty-one to H R eight eight zero zero offered by representative Garimendi which prohibits the use of funds for the east wing modernization project madam chair for months the president swore his grand ballroom was gonna be built with only private money no taxpayer dollars well then he tried to sneak a a billion dollars into the most recent reconciliation bill reports are that he is still trying to use taxpayer dollars for his gaudy ballroom vanity project all while americans struggle to afford gas and groceries the congress has the power of the purse we decide how taxpayer money is spent we should vote to ensure that taxpayer money does not go to this project and and the president funds it with private money like he said he would do so from the very beginning i urge a yes vote, and i yield back

uh thank you mister mcgovern is there further discussion on the amendment from mister mcgovern hearing none the question is on the amendment all those in favor signify by saying aye

aye

aye

those opposed say no

no

in the opinion chair of the no's have it the amendment

as for role

mister mcgovern requests a roll call vote the clerk will call the roll

mrs. fischbach

no

mrs. fischbach no mr. norman

no

mr. norman no mr. roy mrs. Haljan mr. langworthy

no

mr. langworthy no mr. scott

no

mr. scott no mr. griffith

no

mr. griffith no mr. jack

no

mr. jack no mr. mcgovern mr. mcgovern aye miss galin

aye

miss galin aye mr. neguse

aye

mr. neguse aye miss ledger fernandez

aye

Ms. Letra Fernandez. Aye, Madam Chair.

No.

Madam Chair, no.

Or report the total.

Four yeas, seven nays.

The amendment is not the no's have it, the amendment is not agreed to.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment to the rule.

Mister McGovern.

I move the committee make an order, amendment number nine six one to H R eighty eight hundred, offered by myself, which restricts certain security assistance to Pakistan, unless the secretary of state, in consultation with the secretary of defense, certifies that the government of Pakistan has taken measures to prevent human rights violations. Madam Chair, in Pakistan the military has always loomed over the shoulder of civilian institution. As the Trump administration pursues closer ties to the Pakis- the Pakistani government and its military leadership, we cannot ignore continuing concerns about human rights violations, not least because US funds can be used to train Pakistani military officers. Last week, a court sentenced Doctor uh Marang Balok to life imprisonment. Doctor Belloc is a thirty-three year old physician and the leader of a peaceful civil rights movement demanding an end to enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings her trial was held inside a prison her lawyers didn't know who the judge was who who the who the witnesses were or where the proceedings were taking place this is not an isolated case in January of this year human rights lawyer Iman Mazari and her husband Hadi Ali Chatta were violently dragged from their car by police and sentenced to seventeen years in prison for tweets criticizing the military's role in enforced disappearances. And behind these names are thousands more. Balak activists, opposition party workers, journalists, lawyers, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, um Imran Khan, and his wife, uh uh Bushra Bibi, all rotting in Pakistani jails without any due process. US assistance should not be given unconditionally. We uphold American values and credibility when we insist that security cooperation aligns with the rights of for fundamental freedoms and human rights. A member, Amendment six ninety-one would require the Secretary of State, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, to certify that that Pakistan is actively taking steps to prevent human rights abuses before its military may receive U S security assistance. Accountability strengthens, not undermines our partnerships. And again, I I don't understand why we can't even have a vote on this, but I urge a yes vote and I yield back my time.

Is Is there further discussion on the amendment from Mr. McGovern? Hearing none, the question's on the amendment. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say no. No,

No. No.

in the opinion shared, the no's have it, the amendment's not agreed to.

Yes, we'll roll call, ma'am.

Mr. McGovern requests a roll call. The clerk will call the roll.

mrs. fishbaugh

no

mrs. fishbaugh no mr. norman

no

mr. norman no mr. roy

no

mrs. Houchin mr. langworthy

no

mr. langworthy no mr. scott

no

mr. scott no mr. griffith

no

mr. griffith no mr. jack

no

mr. jack no mr. mcgovern

aye

mr. mcgovern i'm miss ganlin

hi

miss ganlin i'm mr. neguse

hi

mr. neguse i am miss ledger fernandez

hi

miss ledger fernandez i am madam chair

no

madam chair no

the clerk will report the total

forty eight seven eight

The amendment is not agreed to. Is there further discussion?

Madam Chair, I have an amendment to the rule I move to the committee make an order of amendment number five eleven to H R eighty eight hundred, offered by Representative Moulton, which reduces the total amount authorized to be uh to be appropriated for the FY twenty-seven NDA A by a hundred and fifty billion dollars. No reductions may be made to military personnel accounts, MILK, uh, CON, or the defense uh health uh program. Madam Chair, the Department of Defense needs to become more innovative and efficient in terms of developing capabilities to meet our national security needs in a more cost-effective manner. Uh, that's what this amendment is about. I urge a yes vote. I yield back.

Um, is there further discussion on the amendment? Hearing none, the question is on the amendment. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, say no. No. In the opinion

Uh, no.

chair the no's have it the amendment's not agreed to. mr. mcgovern requests a roll call clerk will call the roll

mrs. fischbach

no

mrs. fischbach no mr. norman

no

mr. norman no mr. roy mrs. Saljan mr. langworthy

no

mr. langworthy no mr. scott

no

mr. scott no mr. griffith

no

mr. griffith no mr. jack

no

mr. jack no mr. mcgovern

aye

mr. mcgovern aye miss scantlin

aye

miss scantlin aye mr. neguse

aye

mr. neguse aye miss leger fernandez

aye

miss leger fernandez aye madam chair

no

madam chair no

Clerk will court the total.

Forty eights, seven eights.

Uh, the um amendment is not agreed to. Is there further discussion?

Madam Chair, I have an amendment to the rule. I move the committee make an order of amendment number one zero zero six to H R eighty eight hundred, offered by Representative Ryan, which prohibits the use of F Y twenty twenty seven DOD funds for military action in or against Iran, unless explicitly authorized by Congress. Madam Chair, both chambers of Congress have now voted to end President Trump's illegal war in Iran. It's cost billions of dollars and thirteen American lives. Another dollar should not go to this illegal war unless and until it is explicitly authorized by Congress. We ought to bring this to the floor and debate it, and I urge a yes vote.

Is there any further discussion on the amendment by the by Mister McGovern? Hearing none, the questions on the amendment, all those in favor signify by saying aye?

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say no. No,

No.

and the opinion of the chair of the no's have it the amendment's not agreed to.

Yes.

mr. mcgovern requests a roll call the clerk will call the roll

mrs. fishbug

no

mrs. fishbug no mr. norman mr. norman no mr. roy mrs. haljan mr. langworthy

no

mr. langworthy no mr. scott

no

mr. scott no mr. griffith

no

mr. griffith no mr. jack

no

mr. jack no mr. mcgovern

aye

mr. mcgovern i am miss ganlin

aye

miss ganlin i am mr. neguse miss neguse i am miss ledger fernandez

aye

miss ledger fernandez i am madam chair

no

madam chair no

clerk report the total

forty eight seven eight

the the amendment is not agreed to is there further discussion

yes uh madam chair i i know that the uh there's a few other amendments uh here but i just have one final one that i wanna offer and that's an amendment to the rule i move the committee make an order remember number nine seven four to hr eight eight zero zero offered by myself which prohibits the use of the of department of defense funds to transport individuals to countries in which they would be at risk of being subjected to torture. Madam Chair, in February of twenty twenty five, Secretary of State Rubio condemned Thailand's forced return of at least forty Uighurs to China, where they could face persecution, forced labor, and torture and death. And he was right to do so. Secretary Rubio cited Thailand's obligations under the UN convention against torture, which prohibits the deportation or extradition of a person to a country where there are s- of substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. The United States is also a party to the torture convention, which along with section two forty-one of the Immigration and Nationality Act, prohibits the US from deporting people to a country where they might be tortured. We have deported individuals to China, Russia, Iran, and other places with a record of torture. It's shameful. It is illegal under our law. My amendment is simple. It simply reaffirms this law of the land. Let us not be like China. Let us be better than China. Let us abide by the law. Let us not abet abet torture. I urge a yes vote, and I yield back.

Is there further discussion on the amendment? Hearing none, the question is on the amendment. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say no. No. And the opinion chair of the no's have it the amendment's not agreed to.

No.

I asked for a roll call on that one.

the clerk will call the roll

mrs. Fischbach

no

mrs. Fischbach no mr. Norman

hello

mr. Norman no mr. Roy mrs. Saljan mr. Langworthy

no

mr. Langworthy no mr. Scott

no

mr. Scott no mr. Griffith

no no

mr. Griffith no mr. Jack

no

mr. Jack no mr. McGovern

hi

mr. McGovern i'm miss ganlin

hi

miss ganlin i'm mr. neguse

hi hi

mr. neguse i'm miss ledger fernandez

hi

miss ledger fernandez i'm madam chair

no

madam chair no

work report to turn

forty eight seven eight

And the amendment is not agreed to. Further discussion or amendments. Miss Ganley?

Yes, thank you. I have an amendment to the rule. I move the committee make in order amendment eleven ninety-six to HR eighty-eight hundred offered by Representative Brownlee which ensures access to abortion care abortion counseling and related services and medication for veterans our veterans rely on the VA for the health care they earn through their service to our country but the Trump administration has reversed long-standing policy and eliminated access to abortion counseling and related medications through the VA, even in cases of rape or incest. Women are the fastest growing population of veterans and hundreds of thousands of women rely on the VA for their health care. Veterans answered our nation's call to service. They shouldn't have to fight their own government for access to medically necessary legal care when they return home. This amendment would restore access to abortion services, abortion counseling and related medications through the VA, ensuring that veterans can receive the comprehensive, medically appropriate care they've earned free from partisan political interference. Our obligation to veterans does not end when they complete their service. I urge a yes vote on this amendment and I yield back.

Is there further discussion on the amendment from Miss Ganlin? Hearing none, uh the question is on the amendment all those in favor signify by saying aye

aye

those opposed say no no and the opinion chair

madam chair

the no's have it mr. Handler requests a recorded vote the clerk will call the roll

i request

Mrs. Fischbach

no

Mrs. Fischbach, no Mr. Norman Mr. Norman, no Mr. Roy Mrs. Houchin, Mrs. Houchin, no Mr. Langworthy, no Mr. Scott

no

Mr. Scott, no Mr. Griffith

no

Mr. Griffith, no Mr. Jack

no

Mr. Jack, no Mr. McGovern

aye

mister mcgovern i'm a scalin

aye

miss scalin i'm mr. neguse mister neguse i'm miss ledger fernandez

aye

it's ledger fernandez i am madam chair

no

madam chair no

clerk will report pardon me clerk reports a total

four yeas eight nays

and the uh amendment is not agreed to the no's have it uh further discussion miss scalin

yes thank you madam chair i have another amendment to the rule involving veteran benefits I move the committee make an order amendment number nine forty seven to H R eighty eight hundred offered by representative Bill Arrakis which would add the major Richard Starr act to the bill as we know from last week's debate uh this bill is a priority for our veterans groups and it has three hundred and thirty uh co-sponsors so it should be an easy passage here this bill would allow combat injured veterans fewer than twenty years of service to receive their full DOD, retirement and disability disability pay so that combat injured veterans are not penalized for being seriously injured while in combat. So I think this is something we owe to our veterans. It's it's very popular with the veteran community, and I would urge a yes vote. I yield back.

Thank you, Miss Gatlin. This amend- the amendment proposed by this motion retains a point of order against it. As the minority is aware, this committee has not made in order amendments that are exposed to a point of order. This has been true under both Democrat and Republican majorities.

Understood.

Is there further discussion on the amendment? Hearing none, the question's on the amendment. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye. Aye.

those opposed say no no in the opinion of the chair the no's have it an like request for a as can request a recorded vote the clerk will call the roll

Mrs. Fischbach

no

Mrs. Fischbach no Mr. Norman

no

Mr. Norman no Mr. Roy Mrs. Houchin Mrs. Houchin no Mr. Langworthy Mr. Langworthy no Mr. Scott Mr. Scott no Mr. Griffith

no

Mr. Griffith no Mr. Jack

no

Mr. Jack no Mr. McGovern Mr. McGovern aye Miss Ganlin Miss Ganlin aye Mr. Nguz Mr. Nguz aye Miss Lettre Fernandez

aye

miss ledger fernandez aye madam chair

no

madam chair no

clerk will report the total

forty a's eight no's

the amendment is not agreed to further discussion ok hearing no further discussion the question is on the motion from the gentleman from georgia all those in favor signify by saying aye

uh-huh

aye those opposed say no

no

in the opinion interior the ayes have it the motion is agreed to

we have we ask for a roll call manager please

certainly clerk will call the roll

Mrs. Fischbach

yes

Mrs. Fischbach aye Mr. Norman

uh

Mr. Norman aye Mr. Roy Mrs. Houchen Mrs. Houchen aye

aye

Mr. Langworthy

aye

Mr. Langworthy aye Mr. Scott

aye

Mr. Scott aye Mr. Griffith

uh

Mr. Griffith aye Mr. Jack

aye

Mr. Jack aye Mr. McGovern

no

Mr. McGovern no Miss Scantlin

no

miss ganlin no mr. neguse

no

mr. neguse no miss ledger-fernandez

no

miss ledger-fernandez no madam chair

aye

madam chair aye

clerk reports a total

eight yeas four nays

uh the ayes have it um the um rule will be handled by for the majority by mister scott um

and by me

and by mr. Mcgovern for the minority without objection the committee is adjourned