Chip Roy: “I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I wish him well and a very Merry Christmas with his family, and save travels home.…”

“I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I wish him well and a very Merry Christmas with his family, and save travels home. I too share his affinity for wanting to work across the aisle. I have done so on numerous occasions. I am fairly well known for speaking my mind on the House floor. But I am happy to work across the aisle, and also an equal opportunity basher of both sides when I disagree. But I wish we would have vigorous debate here on the floor of the House. A lot of things that the gentleman from Texas talked about, I agree wholeheartedly. The immigrants he discussed wanting to come to the United States; I would like them to have safe passage under our rules and under our laws. Right now we have a broken system that is endangering lives; lives of immigrants and endangering lives of Americans. We talked about the ideals and the values of this country, and I share those ideals and values. I would ask and inquire of my colleagues in the body broadly, how can we maintain those ideals if we are bankrupt? How can we maintain those ideals if we are writing checks we can't cash? I can give speech after speech after speech about this topic, but unless we change our ways on both sides of the aisle, this country will not survive. I don't know what it is going to take to get the people who are entrusted to run this country--and that starts in this Chamber, the power of the purse, entrusted to the people's House, we are abusing it.…”