Bill Huizenga: “I say to my friend from California that I appreciate his work and this overall bill. I know there are a lot of…”

“I say to my friend from California that I appreciate his work and this overall bill. I know there are a lot of challenges that confront any of those decisions that the appropriators have, but I find that it is necessary that I offer my amendment to call attention to a problem and an issue and to hopefully gain some time to solve that problem. My amendment, Mr. Chair, is rather simple. It eliminates funding for the Congressional Office for International Leadership, also known as COIL. Our national debt is $34 trillion. I have been working on that in a bipartisan manner, trying to attempt to bring that down and find solutions. Yet, we all know, and our constituents know, that whether it is at the grocery store or gas at the pump, American families are feeling the full impact of inflation. In the midst of this spending and affordability crisis, the American people may not be realizing that Congress is funding an office called COIL, which has been inappropriately used to host social justice themed adventures for foreign delegations on the U.S. taxpayer dime. This is the U.S. taxpayer funding trips of foreigners to come into the United States to ostensibly learn about our system. After uncovering this office's priorities earlier this year, we did a little more digging only to find at least 13 other trips occurred in 2023 and 2024 with themes involving social advocacy, or diversity, equity, and inclusion programming exclusively.…”