At Monday's House Rules Committee hearing, Rep. Val Hoyle (D-OR) slammed the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
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00:00Thank you, and I yield back.
00:02Thank you. Representative Hoyle, you're recognized.
00:05Thank you, Chair Fox and members of the committee.
00:09I'd like to wish everybody a happy Cinco de Mayo.
00:12We could be celebrating the victory of the Mexican Army over the French,
00:17but we're here renaming a body of water.
00:22And let's be clear, this is a waste of taxpayer dollars.
00:27When we change the name of Fort Bragg numbers of times and back to Fort Bragg,
00:35it costs $6 million, but who is going to pay for the maps, for the books,
00:41for the signs that municipalities, schools, and libraries have to replace?
00:45Who pays for that? We do as taxpayers.
00:47So this is a waste of taxpayer dollars, and this is not what the American people want.
00:54My phone isn't ringing off the hook with people saying,
00:57please rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
01:02Over 70% of Americans oppose this bill and spending time on this.
01:10My phone's ringing off the hook with seniors who can't get through to Social Security,
01:14are on the phone waiting four, six, eight hours, and then getting disconnected,
01:18with veterans who can't access services, with private citizens and elected officials
01:24whose grants have been frozen, grants that we, with Congress, with the power of the purse,
01:30said should be spent, and projects are dying.
01:35And we are getting lots of calls from manufacturers and farmers and small business people
01:42who are being devastated by onerous and erratic tariffs.
01:47That's what people are talking about when they're calling our office.
01:54The founders of this country set up our democratic republic with three separate and equal branches of government,
02:03specifically so that the United States would never have a king, never be ruled by one person.
02:10We took an oath to obey the Constitution, not to bend the knee to the president,
02:15no matter what party they're in.
02:18And yet, here we are, again, wasting taxpayer dollars.
02:23This was proposed in 2010 by Stephen Colbert, a comedian.
02:29When he was making fun of actions like this, and now here we are, it has become a reality.
02:38Went from a comedy show, and now we here are in Congress, with everything else going on focused on this.
02:44I'm going to read a quote from a Guardian editorial, because I think it says everything.
02:53Why stop here?
02:55How about declaring by fiat that the Washington Monument is now to be called the Trump Monument?
03:01Why not chisel another presidential face onto Mount Rushmore and call it Mount Donald?
03:05The great renaming has begun, and George Orwell would understand exactly what's going on.
03:11I urge my colleagues to reject this bill and get back to work on things that benefit our constituents and the taxpayers of America.
03:20Thank you very much, and with that, I yield my time.
03:23Thank you very much, Ms. Fischbach.
03:27I'm sorry.
03:28Mr. Griffith, you're recognized.