[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 23 (Wednesday, February 6, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H1366]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       STATE OF THE UNION CELEBRATED WHAT IS GREAT ABOUT AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, last night, in this very Chamber, we heard 
a lot about what has made America the strong country it is: the ideals, 
the founding ideals, and the strength of which, when the people are 
able to put their will, their way behind it, has made us the greatest 
country in the world.
  What the President outlined were many important things. We have to 
keep coming back to the situation at our border.
  Now, interestingly, polls taken last night by CBS and CNN--not the 
bastions of conservatism or the supporters of President Trump that you 
would expect--both of these polls, the people's voice across this 
country added up to 76 percent somewhat support or strongly support the 
measures the President had talked about in securing our border.
  We can get into the semantics, if you want to call it a wall or call 
it a fence, whatever it is. ``A strong fence makes for good 
neighbors''--an old cowboy saying.
  The President laid out a plan that he wants to work with this 
Congress to get to a resolution on that, not an executive order. But in 
the time since we came up with this temporary solution here for 3 
weeks, the negotiations from that side of the aisle have been zip.
  Is that what people see as this Chamber, that this process is 
supposed to be? No. They want us at the table coming up with solutions.
  The President has reached out with an olive branch, saying: We will 
give you 3 more weeks on this. Let's get the government reopened and 
get a solution on this.
  Instead, gridlock.
  What the President talked about was greatness instead of gridlock. 
That is what this Nation is about. That is what we need.
  Instead, we hear around here that the crisis isn't something at our 
border, isn't something with the immigration problem we have. We hear 
about climate change. Climate change, climate change--a manufactured 
problem, a manufactured crisis.
  Indeed, the United States is leading the way of all the westernized 
countries, all the industrialized countries, of lowering its 
CO2 numbers, leading the way by things we are already doing 
and innovating. Yet that is the first thing, that the religion of 
climate change can be tapped around here to stop the progress we have 
when we can make more progress by being a thriving, strong economy. The 
crisis isn't that. It would be much more so our crushing national debt 
and our border situation.
  If we don't provide for our own security as a nation, then we don't 
really have much. So let's solve these issues. As we prosper, as we do 
better, we can even improve more on doing things environmentally more 
strongly.
  I come from northern California, where the climate has been pretty 
tough with the drought. The climate is pretty tough where our forest 
burns around us and amongst us, like in the town of Paradise, the town 
of Redding, and other areas of the district that are so negatively 
affected by that.
  The crisis doesn't lie in the religion of climate change. The crisis 
lies in us doing whatever we can to protect our citizens at the border, 
from the crushing national debt, and from the threatened export of our 
jobs that we should be employing our own people here.
  Mr. Speaker, there is room for a lot of optimism. We heard that 
message of optimism last night from the President, again, right in this 
Chamber, when he mentioned our great heroes from World War II who were 
here last night and one of the people he liberated from those camps 
where the Germans held the Jewish people and executed so many of them 
and abused so many more.
  What a great story of optimism and what America is about, liberating 
and preserving freedom in this country and around the world, and one of 
the highlights in my time here in this U.S. House of Representatives to 
see those people come together so many years later and celebrating what 
is great about America and how it exports that freedom and opportunity 
to the rest of the world.

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