[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 100 (Monday, June 13, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H5482-H5485]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) until 10 p.m.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, we heard a little bit about inflation, 
and we are going to talk about the economy a little bit more.
  As has been widely reported, inflation is at a 40-year high, the 
worst it has been since 1981. Over 8 percent. However, I feel that we 
are doing a disservice to the current situation to pretend that 
inflation is only 8.3 percent.
  In the official figures they talk about housing going up 5\1/2\ 
percent. Does anybody think the cost of housing has only gone up 5\1/2\ 
percent in the last year? I

[[Page H5483]]

know somebody who builds houses; the cost of a new house that he sells 
has gone up over 25 percent in the last year.
  We look at interest which has to be eaten by landlords or a person 
buying a house that has gone up from 2\1/2\ percent on a house to 4\1/
2\ percent in a year. That doesn't sound like any 5\1/2\ percent to me.
  You look at, anecdotally, how much rent has gone up. You look at 
assessments, how much they have gone up on property taxes. In 
Wisconsin, I am told it is not unusual to find 10 to 20 percent 
increases in assessments.
  When politicians talk about this 8.3 figure, I think it is really a 
lot higher than that. There is no way the cost of housing and rentals 
in this country has only gone up 5\1/2\ percent in the last year.
  I also had the pleasure in the last few days to talk to people in the 
automobile industry. The official numbers say used cars have gone up 
16.1 percent in the last year. Where are you going to find that? People 
I know in the automotive retail industry talk about used cars going up 
30 or 40 percent in the last year.
  First of all, we ought to be honest with the American people. When we 
talk about inflation at 8.3 percent, it is a lot higher than that.
  Now, in order to correct it, we have to look at the cause. What is 
the cause?
  We can start with the American Rescue Plan, one of the first things 
President Biden did. Larry Summers, an economist for President Obama 
called it the ``least responsible'' macroeconomic policy in the last 40 
years. So they had advanced warning. The expert who worked under Barack 
Obama told them this was going to be irresponsible, but what did they 
do? They charged ahead anyway, spending another $1.9 trillion the 
taxpayers didn't have.

                              {time}  2140

  And not long after that we got the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 
Act. Nice sounding, wasn't it? American Rescue and Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act. I always think it is kind of interesting the 
way they come up with names of irresponsible bills under here. That was 
another $1.2 trillion.
  Between these two bills--at a time where it was so important that 
Congress stop spending money--we hit the gas for another $3 trillion. 
If it weren't for our friends, the Senators from Arizona and West 
Virginia, they would have doubled that with a Build Back Better bill 
for another $4 trillion. I beg you all, please stop spending.
  In any event, the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure 
Investment and Jobs Act, I think, are more than anything responsible 
for the out-of-control inflation. I believe they are artificially 
holding down the numbers to only 8.3 percent.
  When I talk to people back home, particularly on housing, 
particularly on used cars, to a certain extent on food, I think those 
numbers are artificially low. I think it is higher than that.
  People say: What can we do to get things back to where they should 
be? We just have to work our way back from that level of 
irresponsibility. Right now we are working on the budget for calendar 
year 2023. In that budget we have a 13.5 percent increase in nondefense 
discretionary spending. The days of 13.5 percent increases have got to 
be over. That number has to be reduced to zero, and I mean zero for 
defense as well.
  We all know there are things in the defense budget that--at least 
rumors are--that are done more to benefit the people who are making the 
equipment than are actually going to be helpful in an all-out war.
  My suggestion is for both sides to agree that inflation is out of 
control. To recognize the only way to get it under control is to stop 
having the Fed print money and to show the rest of the world that we 
can contain things by committing ourselves to a zero percent increase 
in discretionary spending for 2023.
  Part of the problem here, too, by the way, is the press corps. I 
don't know if the press corps ever listens to us here. If the press 
corps wants to make a name for itself--as people with journalism 
degrees used to--they can do some poking around on that 8.3 percent and 
do their own research by talking to car dealers, by talking to people 
who build housing, and by talking to landlords. They can find out, is 
that 5.5 percent housing cost up in the last year, is that accurate, or 
is the government trying to pull somebody's leg? I know the answer, and 
it is time the press corps stops allowing people to get away with it.
  Madam Speaker, the second issue that I think has been underreported 
is what is going on in Ukraine. We last had a briefing, for Congress 
collectively on Ukraine, on March 30, 2022. I want to know, and I would 
like to request right now of the majority party another briefing, by 
that I mean representatives from the Department of Defense and 
representatives from the State Department, to see how exactly we are 
going to get out of this.
  I voted for more money for the plan because I felt that it is 
important for America to appear united, and in that vote, we knew it 
was going to pass. We know the majority party wanted a commitment to 
make sure that Ukraine was not short of munitions.
  However, I think it is important for the majority party to bring 
representatives of the key departments before Congress as a whole. The 
reason I would like to talk to them is I don't think enough has been 
talked about this. Are they working toward ending this war or not?
  We all know there are people in this building who, for whatever 
reason, seem to want to heighten the tensions in the war and get more 
American troops over there. There are the responsible people--of which 
I will classify myself as one--in which they want to work toward some 
sort of peace treaty here before things get even more out of control.
  We are dealing with a country, Russia, that has the ability to create 
economic havoc all over Western Europe, and, quite frankly, economic 
and human dislocations in the United States.
  We should be briefed to see where the administration is on this 
topic. These are confidential briefings. In the past, I have sometimes 
gotten answers I like, and sometimes I have gotten answers I don't 
like. It would be good if the administration would hear from Congress 
and see what they want.
  Do they want this war heightened--tensions heightened? Do they want 
the United States to provide troops as backup here? Do they want the 
administration to be working toward an end to the war?
  As I said before, we are dealing with two countries who have 
problems. Their birth rates are low. Ukraine has the second lowest 
birth rate of the 100 largest countries in the world. Russia's birth 
rate is not that high either. Both countries have people leaving their 
countries, sometimes to the United States and sometimes other places.
  In any event, I would like to make a request to the majority party 
that we, one more time, be briefed collectively to see what is going 
on. I think, by the way, that is something that our incurious press 
corps ought to be looking at as well.
  Madam Speaker, the next thing I would like to address--not one of my 
top 20 topics--but for the mainstream media, they feel what happened 
January 6, 2021, is very important. It is important. We are having a 
committee on it.
  I don't think I would rather spend my time on the committee. I would 
rather spend my time fighting inflation, trying to find solutions to 
the Ukraine problem, trying to find solutions to the border, trying to 
do something about the huge number of people who are dying of drug 
overdoses in this country.
  Nevertheless, it is in the news that a committee is looking into what 
happened on January 6. I feel it is important to put all the cards on 
the table, and it is important that America know exactly all we have 
available to determine what happened on January 6.

  A considerable time ago, me and two congressmen--8 months ago--
myself, Congressman Norman from South Carolina, and Congressman Gohmert 
from Texas wrote a letter to Merrick Garland and asked the Department 
of Justice to release any footage of tapes as far as what went on here 
that day. Unless it is going to be released, we really don't know all 
we should know.
  I am sure there are both Democrats and Republicans who would like to

[[Page H5484]]

know all we have as far as what actually happened that day. What tapes 
were available because they are taking picture of us all the time from 
this building.
  To my dismay, 8 months later, the Department of Justice has still not 
answered our plea for these tapes. Eventually it gets beyond the idea 
of just we want everything to be available, people begin to think that 
the Department of Justice is hiding something.
  Madam Speaker, I will make the request verbally and eventually follow 
up with some sort of written document asking the Department of Justice 
to release all the video footage of what happened in and around this 
building on January 6. I think until it is released there are going to 
be members of the public who believe that something is being hidden 
that day. Right now it is part of this country's history, but I see no 
reason to continue this game of not allowing the American public to 
know what the Justice Department must already know about what happened 
that day.
  By the way, I also feel if Congresswoman Cheney wants to be a little 
bit of an asset on that committee because she has a bigger mouthpiece 
than myself, she could demand and create a little bit of a raucous on 
that committee and demand to see all these tapes, so we know who really 
was behind things and what to make of various theories that are out 
there.

                              {time}  2150

  That is another issue that the press corps back in the good old days, 
where they liked to report on what is going on in this country, would 
routinely be against secrecy in government and would demand that those 
tapes be released. I do not know where the press corps is. They have 
the potential to improve this country, but they don't like to get out 
there and apparently inform the people. And they are not adequately 
skeptical of people in power.
  Now I will address another issue that I think the press corps ought 
to be picking up and the American public ought to know more about. I 
have addressed COVID many times. Over 1 million people have died. When 
COVID broke, several briefings were held for all Congressmen and others 
for the Oversight and Reform Committee on which I serve. I would bet in 
the first 3 months of the COVID crisis I must have attended five or six 
hearings in which I had a chance to talk to the relative experts, 
Anthony Fauci and others, about COVID.
  Then we switched to an isolated, small subcommittee where only a 
small fraction of the people in this Congress got a chance to ask 
questions. And at that time, with the rest of us left out, I think 
there are a lot of topics that the press should be looking into that we 
would have a chance to ask questions about but are not being asked.
  As I said, when over 1 million Americans have died, I would think the 
press would express an interest. I, many times before, have stood at 
this microphone and talked about the benefits of vitamin D, and experts 
beginning two Septembers ago, well before the vaccine was even 
released, were putting papers out there saying how much vitamin D could 
prevent deaths. Now people who don't like to push vitamin D will say 
that the studies out there only show correlation, not causation. But 
the same thing could be said about other things that clearly are 
connected with COVID deaths.
  Recently, Dr. Amiel Dror of Israel found that people with vitamin D 
levels under 20 nanograms per milliliter were 11 times more likely to 
die than people who weren't.
  Isn't that something interesting?
  Can you imagine, Madam Speaker, how many less people would have died 
if the public health establishment and the medical establishment had 
pushed vitamin D initially?
  This study is interesting and consistent with prior studies.
  Where is the medical establishment?
  Where is the public health establishment in either pushing vitamin D 
or apologizing for not pushing it in the past?
  By the way, when calculating vitamin D deficiency--which they are 
calculating at 20 nanograms per milliliter, not very much--84 percent--
I don't like talking about race; I don't think America is this horrible 
racist country that some people on the other side of the aisle claim--
but when calculating vitamin D deficiency, about 84 percent of Blacks 
in the country are vitamin D deficient compared to 35 percent of 
Whites. Blacks are 70 percent more likely to die of COVID. Every expert 
I have talked to believes the reason of heightened deaths in the Black 
community is the result of a lack of vitamin D.
  By the way, it is even higher among Native Americans.
  I do not know why the public health establishment and the politicians 
have not gone out of their way to share these numbers with people of 
color. All Americans should have been alerted to the benefit of vitamin 
D. All people over age 60 should have been given a vitamin D test to 
see if they were under that 20 nanograms threshold. I think anyone of 
color regardless of age should be given the test. But for whatever 
reason, no money was put into this, not a lot was publicized.
  One million Americans died. Black Americans were 70 percent more 
likely to die than White Americans, and nothing was done. I think that 
is a scandal. I think we ought to have more hearings before Congress 
collectively so we can have a chance to ask the public health 
establishment why they were dropping the ball here.
  I think the American press corps--which was asleep at the switch 
here--should have been publicizing these numbers a lot more. And the 
American press corps should have been out there asking questions to 
Anthony Fauci and the other bureaucrats as to why it was not more 
publicized and why didn't they specifically highlight the increased 
number of deaths among people of color.
  I personally believe if it was the other way around, they might have 
been a little bit more forthright in explaining what is going on and 
the degree to which a lack of vitamin D correlated with additional 
deaths from COVID.
  One other thing for the subcommittee to look at, if they get done 
talking about vitamin D, now that COVID is a lot less likely to lead to 
death, recently a new drug called Paxlovid was introduced. You can get 
a 5-day dosage of that drug, which is recommended, for $530. It is not 
cheap. Pfizer right now, I am told, expects to earn $27 billion dollars 
in sales from Paxlovid--$27 billion. That is a lot of money. They made 
a lot of money on other things as well on the COVID. When you are 
talking about making $27 billion on a drug, just a few little pills, a 
5-day dosage, $530, I would think the subcommittee would want to look 
into that and see if there is an excessive amount of money being 
charged for that drug. I would think the slumbering press ought to be 
looking into it as well.
  Twenty-seven billion dollars in sales?
  That is what it says.
  So if anybody out there wants to find something to talk about rather 
than some of the trivial issues that dominate our newspapers, they can 
look into the rich and powerful one more time and see whether the 
payment for Paxlovid are a little bit excessive.
  The final topic tonight is a topic that is no secret but right now 
people are planning for the next session and seeing what problems in 
America we should address.
  I personally have been outspoken. I think one problem that needs 
immediate attention is what is going on at the border. We also have to 
do something to make sure that we don't wind up in a more serious war 
with Ukraine or a war with China. These are vitally important.

  But in the long run, the future of America comes down to its moral 
fiber. This country has since the mid 1960s strongly subsidized or 
strongly discriminated against the American nuclear family.
  We know that Karl Marx--and there are a surprising number of 
academics in America who are drawn to socialism--Karl Marx felt in 
order for socialism to exist, you had to get rid of the family. We all 
know that in the last election Black Lives Matter was a powerful group 
and that Blacks Lives Matter, the founders anyway, were opposed to the 
traditional American nuclear family--or as they describe it, the 
Western prescribed nuclear family, which is a lie by the way. We have 
nuclear families in countries that are not Western countries. There are 
nuclear

[[Page H5485]]

families all over Latin America, sub-Sahara Africa, and Asia. But, in 
any event, it is apparent that powerful groups in this country want to 
destroy the nuclear family. And probably no policy did more to aid in 
the destruction of the American family than Lyndon Johnson's war on the 
family. I think he called it the War on Poverty, but it was really the 
war on the family is what it amounted to.
  I hope after almost 60 years or approaching 60 years after the war on 
the family and the huge expansion of the welfare state that this 
Congress would begin to address the discrimination against the 
traditional family.
  Madam Speaker, if you look at the welfare programs--whichever program 
that you look at, be it health insurance, be it SNAP, but be it WIC, be 
it the earned income tax credit--which was a very anti-marriage program 
which was actually initiated by a Republican--all low-income housing, 
daycare, TANF, Pell grants, and other provisions--program after program 
after program--are designed to take tax dollars from the traditional 
family and give it more to other families. It is no problem to help 
everybody, but I think when you clearly set up programs designed not to 
go to the nuclear family, you are discriminating against them.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________