[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 119 (Tuesday, July 19, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H6878-H6880]
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) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I will talk about a variety of issues 
tonight. I will start one more time. I direct this talk not only to the 
Chair, not only to my colleagues in the legislature, but also the press 
corps that normally doesn't cover this because I think I am going to 
touch on some stories that ought to appear in the press corps but for 
whatever reason they don't.
  The first thing, and I have addressed it several times from this 
microphone, is what is our goal in Ukraine, okay?
  It would seem to me a good goal would be to end the war. We have a 
lot of Ukrainian troops who have died; we have a lot of Russian troops 
who have died; we have a lot of Ukrainian civilians who have died; and 
it seems to me that every week or month that the war goes by, those 
numbers get greater and greater.
  Not only that, but particularly Russia is also a country with access 
to horrific weapons, and every week or month that goes by, the chances 
that eventually some horrific weapons will have to be used goes up.

                              {time}  2015

  I will also point out with regard to these two countries, not that 
losing any young life isn't a tragedy, but it would seem to me there 
would be special tragedies in these countries because both countries 
have low birth rates and declining numbers of young people. For two 
countries that have been around--I believe Ukraine has been--for 
millennia, we would kind of like to see these countries continue to 
exist into the future.
  Of sizable countries around the world, Ukraine has the second lowest 
birthrate, trailing only South Korea. There are also people who 
emigrate from Ukraine. In any event, I would think one of the primary 
goals of Ukraine is to make sure that they hang onto the young people 
they have left.
  Russia is in a similar situation. They also have a low birthrate. I 
repeated this story about 7 months ago before this war began. I was at 
the San Diego sector of our southern border, and San Diego is only one 
tiny sector of a large border, and it was only talking about the week 
or month that I was there, but in any event, at that time, the second 
biggest nationality crossing our border came from Russia, which kind of 
surprised me.
  So not only do they have a low birthrate in Russia, we have a lot of 
people emigrating. It would seem to me a primary goal of the 
governments of both Russia and Ukraine is to make sure the few young 
people they have left don't die in a war.
  Now, I do not know what President Biden's goal here is in this war. I 
try to talk to some Democrat colleagues; I try to talk to people who 
should know President Biden. I think he himself may be a little bit 
mixed on the situation, but the press corps ought to be calling upon 
him and saying: What is your goal in this war? Is our goal to end the 
war and perhaps give President Putin an off-ramp; give Mr. Zelenskyy an 
off-ramp; find a way for both to declare some sort of victory and stop 
the carnage? Or is our goal to continue on for another 6 months or year 
or 2 years, and we don't care if another 5,000 or 10,000 or 15,000 
Russian or 15,000 Ukrainian troops die; not to mention the monetary 
damages that take place when you have a war in your country?
  I would like to know where President Biden stands on this. We 
collectively have not had a decent briefing for congressional Members 
since March 31. And given that we have been asked to give tens of 
millions of dollars to Ukraine--this week we were asked to affirm or 
accede in the policy of adding Sweden and Finland to NATO--I don't 
think it is too much to ask that the administration invite its key 
Cabinet members over here, as they did in February and March, and let 
us know where the Biden administration stands on this war.
  I don't think we have such a great relationship right now with Russia 
that we can moderate a conclusion to the war, but I think perhaps 
Israel, perhaps Turkey, perhaps some other country should do that, and 
perhaps we could grease the skids a little bit.
  I mean, I realize back home right now everybody is focusing on 
inflation, but I will tell you if something bad happens in Ukraine, 
people are going to be focusing on that very, very quickly.
  It would be a lot better if we wrapped up this war. I know there are 
hard feelings that will probably last for generations, but nevertheless 
I think the United States had very good relations with Russia only a 
few months ago. It would be good if we were able to wrap up this war, 
and it would be good if President Biden, if it was clear that we knew 
that his administration was working his way toward that.
  So, again, I ask the press corps to kind of lean in a little bit on 
President Biden, find out where he is. I ask my Democratic colleagues 
in particular, insofar as they have access to the administration, to 
point out that it would be good to end this war, good to find countries 
that would mediate ending this war, and insofar as people on that side 
of the aisle get to see President Biden, carry that message to him.


                          Vitamin D and COVID

  Mr. GROTHMAN. Another topic that I have addressed before from this 
microphone but haven't talked about for a couple months, so I am going 
to bring up again is that of vitamin D. People know I have talked about 
it before, but it bothers me that the House Select Subcommittee on the 
Coronavirus Crisis has not really addressed this issue.
  The most recent study that came out was that done by an Israeli 
researcher, and in that study, it indicated that if you had inadequate 
amounts of vitamin D, which I believe he described as 20 nanograms per 
milliliter, that you were 11 times more likely to die of COVID than if 
you had adequate amounts.
  If you break it down by race--and I don't like it when we break 
things out by race, but I am going to do it for these purposes--it is 
even scarier in that studies show that 35 percent of the White 
population is inadequate in vitamin D, 57 percent Hispanic, and 85 
percent Black, which means having an adequate amount of vitamin D in 
your system should be a huge priority for people of color.

  I think the COVID committee ought to have a hearing solely on vitamin 
D. We ought to find out, given the trillions of dollars we have thrown 
at COVID and billions of dollars we have thrown at trying to solve this 
problem, why the public health establishment has not talked about 
vitamin D like they should. They may say we don't know whether this is 
a matter of causation or a matter of correlation, but if

[[Page H6879]]

that is so, we should certainly be doing more studies on this matter, 
because I think it is possible that hundreds of thousands of lives 
could have been saved if we began to promote vitamin D when it appeared 
to be the cure, as it appeared before the vaccines were even invented. 
Nevertheless, to this day, it is not discussed.
  The next question that the committee ought to look at is why are we 
not routinely testing people who are at risk for vitamin D deficiency? 
I would think anytime anybody over 65 went to a doctor today, they 
should be tested for vitamin D. Now, some people say you can take 
vitamin D without getting a test, which is true, but my personal 
experience in telling people about vitamin D is if they take a test 
right now, say the low level of adequate is about 20 nanograms per 
milliliter, if somebody goes and takes a test and they wind up being a 
12 or 8 or 7, they immediately go out and take vitamin D because they 
have the result of the test that says you have got big trouble coming 
if you don't take more vitamin D. Having the test specific to that 
individual is much more relevant than just a doctor saying it wouldn't 
be a bad idea to take vitamin D.
  I do believe we would save a lot of lives if that was done. As I 
understand it, you can get an online vitamin D test for about $40, so 
it shouldn't be a cost-prohibitive thing. Given the trillions of 
dollars we put at it, we should even be paying for the test. But if we 
don't, individuals should be encouraged at getting those tests.
  I do believe vitamin D is good for other things. It is good for bone 
health, another reason why people should be taking it. There is really 
no downside. Again, people back home that I know or even experts in the 
field begin to wonder if the reason we don't push vitamin D is because 
you can pay $20 for a bottle from Walgreens or CVS and there is not a 
lot of money to be made, and they seem to be more in favor of trying 
antidotes that will make money for somebody--there have been 
billionaires made on this disease--rather than focusing on vitamin D.
  I really beg the committee to look into it a little bit more, get 
some experts there. Even though this pandemic seems to be on the 
downside, hopefully we will be ready for a different sort of pandemic 
in the future. So I encourage the COVID committee to spend a little 
time looking at vitamin D because they could have cut the number of 
people who died maybe in half.


                     Crisis at the Southern Border

  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, the next issue that maybe has bored the 
press by now, but they shouldn't stop reporting on it, is what is going 
on on the southern border.
  We recently got the estimated number of migrants remaining in the 
interior who crossed the southern border for June. The good news is it 
is down a little bit from May and April, and it is expected to be down 
because June is such a hot month, fewer people cross our border.
  But if you look at June of this year, about 142,000 migrants remained 
in the interior. Of those 142,000, 50,000 are what they call got-aways, 
which means the Border Patrol didn't even touch them. We didn't even 
have a perfunctory interview with them. They just came across the 
border, which should be particularly scary.
  What I want to point out, though, is that almost 150,000 from this 
June is compared to 79,000 last June. So we have gone from 79,000, 
which was a crisis at the time, to 142,000. Two Junes ago, under 
another administration, we were around 9,000. So when we go from 9,000 
people a month to 79,000 people a month to 142,000 people a month, that 
should be a banner headline in every newspaper around the country.
  Now, I know the newspapers don't like to do anything that would make 
the current administration look bad, but there is a reason why people 
don't subscribe to newspapers anymore or don't listen to the news at 
night, and that is they caught onto the idea that you are not going to 
be well informed if you read the local newspaper or turn on the news at 
night.
  Again, I will repeat those numbers: 9,000 people in June of 2020 
migrants crossing the border. We go from 9,000 to 79,000 to 142,000. 
Massive increases. In addition to that, as we know, almost all these 
people who cross the border paid $5,000 or $10,000 or $20,000 to the 
Mexican drug cartels. I have been at the border about eight times. 
Every time I am down there, the Border Patrol tells me they think the 
Mexican drug cartels are making more money letting people across the 
border than they are selling drugs.
  This brings another thing which hasn't been brought up enough, our 
poor neighbor to the south, Mexico, is right now in very, very bad 
shape due to the strength of the drug cartels, and part of that is our 
inability to close our border. We are making the Mexican drug cartels 
wealthier and wealthier and wealthier with all their crime, with all 
their corruption. I think the United States, just as we refuse to 
enforce our border, we refuse to stop taking illegal drugs crossing the 
southern border, and as a result we are making Mexico a complete mess.
  I beg my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to express some 
interest in the flood of people coming here. I beg our newspapers to 
begin to report these monthly numbers with the banner headlines that 
they deserve so America can know what is really going on here.


                       Drug Overdoses in America

  Mr. GROTHMAN. Related to the border, speaking of numbers, every year 
we come out with new numbers of the number of people who die of drug 
overdoses in this country, and that is something that has been 
underpublicized.

  When I first got this job 7 years ago, about 57,000 people died every 
year of drug overdoses. We are now at 107,000. Twice as many people die 
of drug overdoses every year as died in 12 years in Vietnam. That is 
another story that should be banner headlines, and every newspaper 
reporter in this country or cable news reporter ought to be asking 
politicians: What are you going to do? Why is Congress not doing 
something to save the 107,000 lives a year?
  It is a huge national problem. And, again, I don't like to talk about 
race, but if you look at the last 4 years, particularly the number of 
Black men who die of drug overdoses is just going through the roof. I 
mean, normally we are always, particularly the Democratic Party, are 
always so eager to point out if there is a difference in statistics 
from one race to the other. Here there is a significant difference. 
They don't even talk about it. I am not sure what causes it. Normally 
they would attribute prejudice. I don't think that is it. I think to a 
certain extent it is police being less active than they have in the 
past, the judicial system not putting drug dealers in prison because we 
are all antiprison right now.
  But in any event, when you have 107,000 people die every year, isn't 
it something we ought to be talking about, both in this Chamber and on 
the nightly news?


                          Spending in Congress

  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, the next issue we should be talking about 
more is the overall level of spending that is going on in this 
institution. I think it was very predicted when the first bills passed 
when President Biden took office--and then we had the infrastructure 
bill; between those two bills we are looking at, I believe, over $3 
trillion--that it would lead to inflation.
  But, again, the press corps, maybe because the press corps doesn't 
like to talk about numbers, does not like to talk about the size of the 
increase in spending. Now, it is a lot easier to break an economy than 
it is to put it back together.
  Since the inflation was caused by excessive spending, I think the 
only way to get a handle on things is to not spend so much.
  We will, this week, be voting on a variety of bills to fund the 
government, beginning October 1. I have not seen the press corps report 
what I think is enough on the size of the increase in those bills. It 
would seem to me we should go back to the days of sequester where 
routinely you were seeing these bills go up by 0 percent, 1 percent, 2 
percent.
  What do we have in the bills we are going to vote on this week? We 
have a transportation and housing bill, up 12 percent. We have an 
agriculture and rural development bill up 8 percent. We have an energy 
and water bill up 6.4 percent. Financial services up 17 percent. 
Interior and the environment, up 18 percent. Military construction and 
VA up 18 percent.

[[Page H6880]]

  


                              {time}  2030

  Again and again, what we are seeing here is just fiscal 
irresponsibility. It is just throwing more gasoline on the fire of 
inflation.
  I think the press corps, if they were responsible, should be asking 
Congress whether these numbers could be closer to 1 or 2 percent, which 
is where we should work toward.
  I think, quite frankly, Republicans during appropriations should be 
coming forth and saying that we would like to see these numbers at 1 or 
2 percent. If we are ever going to get our economy back, we can't 
continue down this path of excessive spending or the amount of 
inflation is just going to continue to go up and up.
  The final spending vote we had today was on the National Park 
Foundation. I love the national parks. It wasn't a huge spending bill 
by the standards of what we do around here, but it was a 300 percent 
increase. Almost everybody in this body voted for it because who wants 
to be against the national parks. Think about that, a 300 percent 
increase.
  I hope the press corps wakes up a little and decides to report on the 
individual lines of these budgets, how much the spending is going up 
line by line and the overall increases in spending in each of the 
packages.
  I will deal with one more issue here tonight that I think ought to be 
covered constantly but is covered nowhere near as much.
  I think so many of the problems that we deal with in society, or at 
least the people back home feel are part of the problem, are caused by 
the breakdown of the family. I think America used to have very strong 
families in the forties, fifties, and early sixties. The breakup in the 
family did not just happen. It happened because we began with a welfare 
system in the 1960s that, quite frankly, put nonnuclear families in a 
position that sometimes was better off than a married couple, depending 
upon their situation.
  In any event, we went from a situation in which the people born 
without a mom and dad at home rocketed up between the early sixties to 
about 40 percent, went down a little, and has gone back up to 40 
percent since the welfare reform of the 1990s.
  I find a lot of people in my age bracket think it is going to be very 
tough for the next generation, and when they talk about being tough on 
the next generation, above all, they talk about the breakdown of the 
family.
  I have pointed out before that Black Lives Matter--an organization 
that people should run from but apparently has been embraced by too 
many people in the majority party and some people in the minority 
party--originally came out saying they wanted to disrupt the 
traditional nuclear family. I would be very concerned when an 
organization that claims on their website that they want to disrupt the 
traditional nuclear family is received positively around here.
  I know some people will say that Black Lives Matter is a diffuse 
organization, and just because the founders say they want to disrupt 
the nuclear family doesn't mean every segment of Black Lives Matter 
wants to disrupt the nuclear family. But I would feel better if more 
people came down to the well and boldly said: I am in favor of 
strengthening the nuclear family; I don't care if I happen to have my 
picture taken next to Black Lives Matter. I haven't seen that happen.
  You might say, what is the nature of the marriage penalty? I will 
tell you where to begin to look. I would look at some of my local 
administrators of low-income housing. I think particularly 42 housing, 
which is newer housing, is frequently superior to other housing. I 
would ask people about that in your neighborhoods, my colleagues, and 
see what type of incentives we have when we have new housing, new 
apartments going up, some of them quite lavish, better than the old 
apartments that other people have to rent. Is that a good or bad thing?
  I would ask the clerks in grocery stores, as far as the expensive 
food that people are buying, if they are more being provided for by the 
government than provided for within the family.
  I would ask tax accountants about the earned income tax credit and 
some of the perverse incentives that are involved in the earned income 
tax credit. I would also ask the tax accountants what people are doing 
with the earned income tax credits when they get that $6,000, $7,000, 
or $9,000 check once a year.
  I think when we get done asking these questions, we can ask ourselves 
if we want to continue programs that prevent children from having both 
parents, particularly a dad, at home. I think there are so many 
problems in our society that would, to a certain extent, be improved if 
only we got back to what we would call old-fashioned, traditional 
family values.
  In any event, those are some of the issues that I think the press 
corps ought to be covering but aren't covering and some of the issues 
that I think our body ought to be addressing that we are not 
addressing.

  Mr. Speaker, I thank the wonderful staff for being here so late, and 
I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________