[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 185 (Thursday, October 21, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H5787-H5789]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         BUILD BACK BETTER ACT WILL PERMANENTLY CHANGE 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. Mr. Speaker, I would like to spend some time addressing 
the Chair and America on the American Rescue Plan or, actually, on the 
Build Back Better Act, which is kind of a follow-up on the American 
Rescue Plan.
  We know the result of that original big-spending, government-printing 
act was a big increase in inflation in the United States, apparent to 
one and all. This is a follow-up bill to that, which will further 
require the Federal Reserve to print more money, driving up the cost of 
gas, of food, of housing everywhere we look.
  But I am not going to address just the cost of this bill tonight. I 
am going to address the way I believe it will permanently change 
America and the vision the Democratic Party apparently has for America 
in the future.
  In this bill, we are adding 87,000 IRS agents. For quite a while, 
when I would give talks about this bill, I would talk about 8,700 
because when my staff told me it was 87,000, I felt I had to correct 
them. Nobody would want to add 87,000 IRS agents. But I stand 
corrected. I was wrong.
  In this bill, we are adding 87,000 IRS agents, enough to fill up a 
massive American football stadium. Being from Wisconsin, I think of 
Camp Randall Stadium, where the University of Wisconsin plays. I think 
of Lambeau Field, where the Packers play. Somebody wants to hire that 
many IRS agents.
  It is not in the bill, but it is in conjunction with a proposal I 
think the Biden administration has, to monitor every $600 transfer of 
funds. What type of country would have this many IRS agents and want to 
know if you spend $600 on who knows what--giving to the politically 
incorrect church; giving to a politically incorrect nonprofit; giving 
money to a fringe, eccentric sibling; whatever.
  It sounds like something more you would think of in East Germany when 
East Germany was around rather than the United States. But that is 
apparently the vision of the party that put together the Build Back 
Better Act.
  As was just mentioned in this bill, we are adding money for more low-
income apartments. Now, that sounds good. President Biden also recently 
increased the food stamp allowance.
  There is an author of mine that I suggest Americans read by the name 
of Theodore Dalrymple, an English author who was a doctor dealing both 
with English prisons and English slums.
  He talked about the empty lives that people who live what I will 
refer to as the welfare lifestyle that England had. He attributed that 
empty life to the fact that in England--and maybe they backed off this 
by now, but at least England 15 years ago, no matter how irresponsible 
you were, you always got a free apartment; you always got free food; 
and you always got free medical care. In other words, there was no 
responsibility when you got up in the morning to really accomplish 
anything because you would always be able to exist.
  We are close to that right now, but I am afraid the majority party 
wants to go all the way there when I look at this proposal. I hope the 
majority party stops and thinks in addition to the cost, more 
importantly, psychologically what will it do to the people of America 
if, when you graduate from high school or don't graduate from high 
school, if you want to, particularly if you have a child, you can live 
a lifestyle in which you can be completely irresponsible. You will 
always be able to eat and always be able to have a nice air-
conditioned, heated apartment, which will probably have more square 
feet per person than the average housing in Europe, much less around 
the world.
  This will, again, change America for the worse. Psychologically, it 
will give people nothing to live for. By the way, since it is usually 
targeted at people with children, it also will create a sad situation 
we have already created in this country in which men will have less 
responsibility for taking care of their children.
  When you have no other responsibilities in life, it can lead to, 
first, an empty, depressed life; and, secondly, it can lead to--what?--
idle hands are the Devil's workshop.
  There are other things in this bill that will also change America. We 
are aiming for universal 3- or 4-year-old kindergarten, I guess you 
would call it. As a sidelight, this bill says that the people in these 
daycares, which is kind of what they are, need a college degree. That 
is a little bit of snobbery that we should put an end to, the idea that 
if I have a college degree, I am always better off than somebody who 
doesn't have a college degree.
  If you are applying for a job, we treat the hardworking, intelligent, 
commonsense person without a college degree as being, for some reason, 
less worthy of a higher paycheck than the lack of commonsense person 
who may not have a strong work ethic who does get a college degree. 
That is just a sidelight. A bad provision there.
  But another provision about this that is bad is you are taking the 
care of the 3- and 4-year-olds out of the parents and giving it 
exclusively to the government. Now, a given number of parents may 
prefer it, but I think throughout most of this country, the raising of 
the children has been primarily the responsibility of the family.
  I know the Marxist element in the other party does not want parents 
and, in particular, fathers too involved in their children's 
upbringing. But I feel this will again permanently change America.
  I should point out, if you look at the studies, American schools 
sometimes have bad test scores. But our test scores are pretty good in 
the fourth grade. In other words, our problem in this country isn't 
that the children are doing poorly when the parents take care of them. 
Those test scores for children in American schools are falling in 
middle school and high school. So the problem is later on. It is not 
with the 3- and 4-year-olds when the parents have responsibility.

  I should also point out that we are, in this bill, increasing Pell 
grants. Now, there are two problems there. Pell grants are grants going 
toward what we will refer to as low-income people, but they don't go to 
middle-class people.
  I am already getting complaints in my district from Pell grants in 
the past as couples, married couples who thought they were being 
responsible in raising their children, they find out their children 
might be going $30,000 or

[[Page H5788]]

$40,000 in debt to get a college degree. But if the parents hadn't been 
working or hadn't been working as hard, those parents' children are 
eligible for free college.
  I know I am sure it always feels good to give more away, but put 
yourself in the place of the middle-class American family that is 
working to raise their child, a married couple, and you see somebody 
else next door not working very hard, and as a bonus, their children 
get free college, where the responsible middle-class kid winds up 
$30,000 or $40,000 in debt. Another example here of complete unfairness 
and perverse incentives.
  When I go back home, one of the major concerns of businesses is they 
can't find anybody to work. Now, I would hope everybody sometimes tours 
their businesses and is familiar with that. Obviously, hiring 87,000 
new IRS agents is going to take 87,000 people away from the private 
sector.
  But another interesting proposal in this bill is we have a new 
expanded civilian conservation corps. In other words, we are taking 
more people away from the factories, the construction sites, the retail 
outlets that they so desperately need to hire them for the government, 
make them dependent on the government, but above all make sure they are 
not available for the private sector. Another big mistake.
  I mentioned the Pell grants and the fact that in a way they are a 
little bit of an insult to the middle-class kids who have to go further 
and further in debt. But another interesting provision about these Pell 
grants and another way that they clearly want to change America in this 
bill is you are eligible for the Pell grants if you are here illegally. 
This is not a mistake. I am not making this up.
  I am on both the Education and Labor Committee and the Budget 
Committee, where we tried to take this provision out, and the Democrats 
on those committees proudly defended the provision. They really believe 
that if you come here, you are entitled to free college, whereas if you 
are a member of a middle-class American working family, your children 
should go $30,000 to $50,000 in debt to get a college degree. I mean, 
it is almost beyond belief, but that is another one of the features of 
this bill and one of the reasons why I really hope it fails.
  Another feature of this bill, be it natural gas or methane, is 
increasing taxes, driving up the cost of energy in the United States. 
The environmentalists in this country may be interested to know that 
already the high cost of energy in the United States, and even more 
Europe, is causing more and more foundries, and I assume other 
factories as well, to go up in India, which is a much, much, much 
bigger pollution problem than the United States.
  So when you drive up the cost of energy, which is so very important 
for American factories in general and our foundries in particular, what 
this bill would do is ship more American manufacturing jobs abroad and 
increase the overall pollution in the United States as we have energy 
production go from the new, clean power plants in America to the much 
dirtier power plants in India, China, and from around the world.
  Other things in this bill that are a little bit irritating: After 
much effort, the Republicans, when they were in charge, required Social 
Security numbers for the child tax credits. Why did we require Social 
Security numbers? To make sure people are not filling out tax returns 
and getting tax refunds they aren't entitled to. I don't know why 
anybody would not want Social Security numbers so we can check to see 
if somebody says they have five children, they really have five 
children and get the money back.
  For whatever motivation--I can't even imagine what the motivation 
would be--in this bill the wonderful Democratic Party is saying, no, 
you don't need Social Security numbers to get refunds for your child 
tax credit, which will not just increase a form of welfare. This will 
increase a form of welfare cheating. Why you would do this, again I 
can't imagine.

                              {time}  1915

  One other provision in this bill, not a fiscal provision, the 
Democrat Party is trying to allow, I would say, 8 to 11 million people 
currently here illegally to become legal.
  First of all, you are rewarding people who broke the law to come into 
this country. And secondly, when you make 8 to 11 million people legal 
who were previously illegal it is like putting a sign on the United 
States, which the drug cartels who are involved in all this illegal 
immigration, will show around the world: Come to the United States. We 
are not enforcing our immigration laws.
  Perhaps the majority party is not aware that already the drug gangs 
in both Central America and Brazil are taking out TV ads inviting 
people to come into the United States.
  Why do they do that? Because if you're in Central America, they may 
charge you 5 to $7,000 to come here. In Brazil they may charge you 
$10,000 to come here. And because there is money to be made for the 
drug gangs, they advertise, encouraging people to come here.
  Now, when we do something like, in essence, legalize people who are 
already here illegally, don't you think the drug gangs are going to 
educate the people in Central America as to what we are doing? Of 
course they are.
  So not only are you inviting people or creating people who are 
illegal or who were previously illegal, but, worse, you are giving a 
green light to anybody hanging out in other countries, now is the time 
to come to America.
  By the way, when I am down on the border, another thing I hear is the 
cooperation from the Mexican Government has been less and less over the 
6 or 8 months as we try to control our border, not only to keep illegal 
people out but to keep the drugs out, as well.
  Our Border Patrol notices a little less cooperation from the 
Mexicans, and I can see why. They believe they are getting less 
cooperation because if the United States itself doesn't care about its 
own border, why should Mexican law enforcement risk their lives 
protecting the border and protecting the integrity of the border if the 
United States itself doesn't care?
  So here we have another provision which advertises the United States 
doesn't care about their immigration laws. I am sure the Mexican Border 
Patrol, the Mexican military is aware of it, and what will they think 
of it? Why should I risk my butt preventing people from coming here if 
the United States itself doesn't care?
  So, again, I encourage America to wake up. We are permanently 
changing the type of country that this is if this bill passes as is.
  So I encourage Americans to contact their legislators. Please don't 
pass this bill.
  Now, I will make two more brief comments for the press corps, if they 
are even paying attention to this.
  Like all Congressmen, I frequently get contacted on issues and asked 
whether I can look into it. Of course, agencies don't like to respond 
to requests from individual Congressmen, particularly Congressmen in 
the minority, but I think the press corps, which is so incredibly 
powerful, more powerful than they imagine, can get answers from 
bureaucratic agencies the way perhaps Congressmen cannot. And I am 
going to mention two requests here.
  I had requests from people of both parties, both Republicans and 
Democrats, as to what is in the videos when we had the attacks on this 
building on January 6. For whatever reason, those videos have not been 
made public. People would like to know what was going on. I would hope 
the press corps would apply a little bit of pressure to the appropriate 
authorities and make those videos public. Because from what I can tell, 
in my district both the on-the-ball Republicans and the on-the-ball 
Democrats wish we could see those videos. And I think if the press 
applied a little bit of pressure, we would see those videos.
  The other thing I am hearing from my constituents back home is they 
wonder about the apparent use of ivermectin in India. If you look at 
the popular Worldometer website, they will show a dramatic drop in 
fatalities in India over the last few months, just a shocking drop.
  People claim it is from ivermectin. I don't know if it is true or 
not. But the American news media ought to wake up and cover the story 
and find out if it is.

[[Page H5789]]

  If it is not from ivermectin, the American public should know it 
because then they have been sold a bill of goods.
  If it is from ivermectin, the American public should know that 
because maybe we have a way to greatly reduce the number of fatalities.
  So those are two requests that I have of our sometimes slumbering 
press corps.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________