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VISION FOR AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, I guess the major topic of the week, and should be the major topic of the week, is the infrastructure bill--I am sorry, the reconciliation bill.
It is tempting when talking about the reconciliation bill to just talk about the huge amount of spending which inevitably is going to be paid for by the Federal Reserve printing more money and is inevitably going to result in an increase in inflation, be it in housing, be it in food, or, in addition to housing and food, be it in energy costs.
I hope the American public realizes what is going on and they are prepared to pay, at least in the northern part of the country, their heating bills that are going to arrive in December and January or February because it is going to be a shocker.
But I am a little bit afraid, as we spend so much time focusing on the inevitable inflation, we don't talk enough about the way that the authors of this bill want to permanently change America, I feel, for the worst.
First of all, they want a lot more intrusive government. In this bill, we have a provision for hiring over 80,000 IRS agents.
In Wisconsin, when I think of 80,000, I think of our big stadiums where the University of Wisconsin plays. I think it is more than you would fit in the stadium where the Green Bay Packers play. And I think, who would want to hire this many government agents to monitor the American citizens?
It is kind of a scary thing. What vision for America do we have here?
We just got done, outside of the infrastructure bill, the Biden administration, trying to monitor transfers of $600 from account to account. Why would you do that?
I mean, I can only imagine we want to monitor what charities you give money to, what politicians you want to give money to. You want to monitor if it is the type of church that maybe isn't favored by the current administration.
Now, finally, they knocked that back up to $10,000, but you can see the type of country that this administration wants.
At a time when, whether you are in construction, whether you are in manufacturing, whether you are in the service industries, everybody is screaming for more people to work, not only are we going to take 80,000 people out of the work pool and have them work for the government monitoring their fellow citizens, we have a new civilian climate corps, again, to take people out of the workforce, not have them working for, I guess I would say, the more productive segments of society but, instead, a new program.
We have free community college. Now, I am somebody who is in favor of technical school. I am as big a fan of technical schools as there is. But when you give something away for free, you are, in essence, telling the 19- and 20-year-olds that you ought to spend time taking this thing for free and maybe do that instead of working, maybe do that instead of joining the military, maybe do that instead of getting a job where the employer trains you to do something or other.
It is another shift in the power that the government has in our country.
The next area that I think there is going to be a big change is you want to get parents out of their children's lives. I particularly don't like the idea of having the government care for all 3- and 4-year-olds.
First of all, it is not effective. Studies will show that you can teach a 3-year-old to read or a 5-year-old to read but, either way, by the time they are 8 or 9, they are all the same.
We do have a problem on international test scores with other countries, but the problem isn't that our kids are not doing a good job of learning when they are 4 or 5 going into elementary school. Our test scores compared to other countries are actually very good for fourth graders. It is in middle school that our students fall behind other countries.
In other words, it is kind of we are in worse and worse shape the more time we spend in the schools.
But in any event, I don't like the idea of the government taking care of 3- or 4-year-olds. Right now, there are still many stay-at-home parents. Not only that, even when parents don't stay home, a lot of times kids stay with their grandparents or other relatives. This is a big shift in saying the government should take care of the 3- and 4-
year-olds.
In part, I think, given what we have seen in the rest of this bill, one of the reasons the government wants to take care of these kids is to instill government values in those children, which is not something that we want.
The next thing about the bill that I think is a shift that we won't like is we started off this session talking a little bit about Black Lives Matter and things they had that they took off their website in which they don't like an old-fashioned family.
But right now, most income transfer payments or welfare payments are based on a certain definition of poverty in which it is very difficult to get this money if you are married, particularly if you are married to someone who has an income.
It seems, in this bill, we are going to put more money into programs in which you cannot get that money unless you are not working full time and certainly very difficult to get that money if you are married to somebody. So, in other words, it is a disincentive to be part of an old-fashioned nuclear family.
I quote here from the Black Lives Matter website that was taken down: We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure. So that is not what they want. And, therefore, it is not surprising that we are putting a lot more money into programs conditioned upon adapting a lifestyle other than the traditional nuclear family.
Recently, outside of the bill, President Biden upped the amount of money going into the food stamp program. Right now in America, if you looked at the difference between 2006 and 2018, both years in which the economy was going very well, the number of people on food stamps in this country increased by 40 percent.
I mean, I would think the goal of an antipoverty program would be to get less people in poverty. But, instead, in that 12-year period, a strong economy in 2006, a strong economy in 2018, we have a 40 percent increase in the number of people on food stamps, which means, I think, that the people who design the program are successful by their own measurement. They are getting more and more people not to work full time, and they are getting more and more people not to live in a traditional nuclear family structure.
In this program, there is a lot of money for low-income housing. Low-
income housing is one of those programs that, again, it is fine if it is for the elderly and disabled. But of course, otherwise, it is one of these programs that is designed for people living there if they aren't part of a nuclear family. I think it is a mistake to put another program along those lines.
It is very easy to find situations in which people would lose
$20,000, over $20,000 a year, if they got married to someone who did have a job.
There was an author, an English author that I like to quote, talking about the problem of the welfare system in England. I think there the system was more expansive than even here in the United States. When he looked at the dysfunction of the British families in the 1990s and early 2000s, he looked at the British system and said there was almost nothing you could do that would deprive you of the right to get free housing, free food, and medical care.
In other words, you could live a completely irresponsible life if you wanted to. Of course, an irresponsible life frequently means being not the best parent. It can mean, obviously, not working, so being a bad role model in that way, and spending time doing things like drugs and such--in other words, living a lifestyle that is not advisable.
{time} 1830
But between getting rid of the work requirements for food stamps in this bill, between the massive increases in low-income housing--and I will point out, a lot of times this low-income housing, at least in Wisconsin, is better off than the housing that is not low-income housing, as far as rental units are concerned--you are going to further incentivize a certain lifestyle and further discourage the nuclear family.
I will give you the exact numbers here so you can check. In 2006, we had 26 million people on food stamps. In 2019, we had 36 million people. I realize that there are people that go through a tough time. I have no problem helping out people going through a tough time. But when you have a 40 percent increase in a 13-year period, it is time to step back and look and see whether your programs are accomplishing what you want to accomplish. Maybe if you want more people living the welfare lifestyle, you are getting what you want.
The next area that I would like to look at is what type of vision you have for America as far as future Americans. Here, we look at our southern border, clearly another way in which this administration is even dramatically different than, I would say, the Obama administration.
In this bill, first of all, we have mass amnesty, which, in addition to being wrong, because you are having people who kind of skip the line to come in here ahead of people who are coming here appropriately, it is a problem in that you are getting people to come in this country who we do not know what the background is. We want people in this country who are hardworking. We want people who are law-abiding.
When you put such a massive carrot out there that you are encouraging people to come into the country, regardless of being appropriately vetted, you are going to inevitably make a big step towards destroying America.
Another provision, in addition to the mass amnesty, in the bill that I think shows a green light, encouraging people from other countries to come here, is they in this bill specifically give free college, via Pell grants, to illegal immigrants. I mean, if you want to send the message to people in other countries we want you to come here by obeying the law, by waiting in line, by filling out the forms, why in the world would you put a program in saying if you come here illegally you get free college. But that is another one of the interesting provisions in this bill.
I will point out one more time. Last time I was at the border, you could look at all the identification cards of people coming across strewn on the ground before they checked in with the Border Patrol. Why do people get rid of their identification cards before they check in with the Border Patrol? Because they don't want people checking into their background. So to quote President Trump: ``They are not sending their best.''
The only thing not in this bill is, miraculously, there is no more money for the Border Patrol. So at a time where we can come up with
$3.5 trillion, one of the very few places we need to spend more money in this country, there is no more money for the Border Patrol.
The next area that I think shows the type of change that this administration envisions is, again and again and again, we focus on equity. We look at people by where their ancestors came from or that sort of thing. Again and again, whether it is education programs, whether it is security programs, whether it is tuition assistance programs, we are going to keep track of people by race and religion and sexual orientation. We are not going to judge people as individuals.
One of the reasons I feel that other countries fail, that are based on elections, is these countries view elections as contests between different ethnic groups. Whether you read about elections in the Middle East or read about elections in Africa, the elections are contests between different tribes, different ethnic groups. When you go to the polls, you don't say how much should we spend on defense or how much should we spend on transportation or what should our policy be on pro-
life issues. You go in and vote for your tribe.
That is clearly the type of America that this administration wants. They want people identified by an ethnic background, and we will decide whether or not you are promoted or get a grant or what-have-you based on ethnic background.
It is a dangerous change in the way America has traditionally been. In America, it was always supposed to be e pluribus unum. But, instead, we have a new vision, which is a very dangerous vision for America. Quite frankly, if we go down this path, this is another way in which America is going to be ruined.
So I want Americans, as they follow what is going on here, to ask themselves:
Do we really have a problem that we need the government raising a lot more of the children?
Do we really have a problem in which we have to dole out benefits based on where your great-great-grandparents lived rather than based on individuals?
Do we really have to change this country so that everybody can come here from around the world and be given free benefits, rather than doing it like we do traditionally, where you get in line, fill out the forms, and we know that the new Americans we are getting are law-
abiding and hardworking?
Do we really want a new country in which government surveillance is such a bigger part of our fabric, 87,000 new IRS agents poking around, seeing what you are doing in your life? It got beaten back now, but you know it is going to be back in the future, going all the way down into looking at every $600 check and wondering whether you are sending it somewhere that the government would approve.
Of course, outside of the bill, we already have the problem we have with our technology websites in which we already are monitoring what you are permitted to read and monitoring what you are permitted to put on your website.
It is a brave new world for America, and the American public had better wake up. Because unless you want a fundamentally different America than the America I grew up in, in any event, you are going to get a different America unless you fight to keep what we have traditionally had.
I think in addition to the outlandish spending levels of this bill, you ought to be looking at exactly where that spending is going.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 188
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