[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 46 (Friday, March 10, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H1274-H1277]
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 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to discuss three issues. Some 
have gotten attention, and some have not this week, but all of them are 
important, and I would say none of them got the attention they deserve.
  The first issue to talk about is the size of our Federal debt.
  Now, I know, ever since I was a child, people have talked about 
deficit spending and the amount of the Federal debt that someday the 
children or grandchildren will have to pay off.
  I think it is important to look, though, that this time things really 
are different. The only time the Federal debt ever got to the total 
gross national product in this country--which is one way to compare 
debt at different times in our country's history--was when it actually 
hit 100 percent at the end of World War II. That is not surprising.
  If you know people who lived during World War II, Mr. Speaker, the 
entire economy was devoted to munitions, a huge percent of our 
population was in the armed services, and we hit 100 percent.
  However--unlike now--when the war ended, it was easy to reduce 
Federal spending. Hundreds of thousands of troops were, in essence, 
laid off and sent back to work in the private sector, we stopped 
building the ships, planes, and tanks we needed during the war, and as 
a result, over the next 30 years, the amount of the Federal debt 
dropped from 100 percent of GDP down to around 30 percent. It bounced 
back and forth around that level, maybe 40 percent, all the way to 
about 1995.
  Even then that was too big, and people commented at the time, but the 
debt was about 30 to 45 percent of GDP.
  Then, beginning with around 2010, things began to shoot up, and in 
COVID they shot up even more. We are now--or within a couple years will 
be--where we were at the end of World War II. But there are no tank 
factories or ship factories to shut down, and we can't lay off hundreds 
of thousands of troops.
  Indeed, any Congressman knows that basically our day is spent 
attending meetings in our offices when we are here with various groups 
asking for spending increases and saying that they absolutely need 
them.
  So this time, we really are in a crisis.
  Not only are we in a situation in which we are approaching 100 
percent of our debt equaling 100 percent of GDP, but because interest 
rates are going up and the huge increase in debt the last 2 years, the 
amount we are paying in interest is skyrocketing.
  We cannot reduce the interest. If we had interest on our debt--which 
we anticipate will go up in the next year from $640 billion a year to 
$740 billion a year--that is a $100 billion spending increase that we 
have no control over.
  As the debt continues to go up and as the Federal Reserve feels--and 
I was in a committee hearing yesterday both the Republican witnesses 
and Democrat witnesses felt given what inflation was going on, as the 
Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates, the amount of 
interest that we have to pay every year goes up.
  Think about that, Mr. Speaker. We have got about a $100 billion 
increase in the difference between what we are going to pay in interest 
in 2023 and 2024 before we look at anything else.
  So the fact that this budget proposal contains more spending is, by 
itself, deeply concerning. It shows that the basic numbers have not 
gotten through the heads of the Biden administration, or maybe they 
feel that by the time we finally hit the wall and the value of the 
dollar will have a hard time paying off our debt, that he will be in a 
retirement home and other people will have to deal with it.
  But the American public should know that for the first time since 
World War II, we are approaching having the total debt equal to 100 
percent of our GDP--a complete crisis.
  The next thing to look at is if we must spend more, then where does 
President Biden feel it has to be spent?
  One place it is not going to be spent, one place that we actually 
have a reduction here, is homeland security. The biggest crisis we have 
in this country is people streaming across our southern border. But we 
can find over a 10 percent increase for the Department of Commerce, we 
can find almost a 10 percent increase for the Department of the 
Interior, an 11 percent increase for the Department of Labor, and a 19 
percent increase for the Environmental Protection Agency, but when it 
comes down to the one thing that you turn on the TV every night and 
say, wow, we have to spend more money there, on the Department of 
Homeland Security there is a 1 percent reduction.
  This is where our President is.
  We are going to continue to have increased spending across the 
board--some of which is necessary--but the one place we don't have an 
increase is homeland security. That and transportation. I take that to 
be because we just had the huge infrastructure bill and, therefore, we 
don't need an increase in the spending on transportation.
  The other thing I would like to point out, as you dig deeper into the 
budget, with regard to any agency you look at, Mr. Speaker, you have 
more money for bureaucrats devoted to dividing America by race: We have 
to do more to favor this race or that race or this gender or that 
gender.
  That is so offensive and un-American. I am going to address it a lot 
more in a few minutes. But it is interesting that at the time we are 
getting the highest amount of debt as a percentage of GDP in my 
lifetime, the President responds by saying that the one area that we 
absolutely have to have more in is hiring bureaucrats whose job depends 
on telling America we have a racist problem and we have to identify 
people by race. That is a big problem.
  So I encourage the American public to pay attention to the budget, 
pay attention to the fact that we are hitting in our lifetimes the 
greatest debt ever, and pay attention to the fact that even before we 
argue and quibble about how much the Department of Education should go 
up or down or how much we should spend more or less on defense, we are 
going to have a $100 billion increase in the amount of interest we pay 
next year.

  The next area to look at--and I mentioned that the Biden 
administration actually feels we can reduce the total amount we are 
spending on homeland security--is I wish the press would spend more 
time seeing what is happening with the children at our southern border.
  There was, in retrospect, a relatively small number of children who 
had to be separated from their parents who had

[[Page H1275]]

broken the law, and by court order those children were returned to 
their parents in either 15 or 30 days. It was a relatively small 
number.
  Now you look, Mr. Speaker, and it varies from month to month, but it 
is not unusual to have 8,000 to 10,000 unaccompanied children enter 
this country every month.
  Where are all of these people who, a few years ago, were alarmed that 
some young people would have to spend 2 weeks without their parents, 
and now we have 8,000 to 10,000 kids a month entering America?
  We don't spin them back around and say: Go back to your parents where 
they belong.
  Instead, we look at an address that perhaps is attached to their 
shirt that says 123 Elm Street, Portland, Oregon, and the Border Patrol 
or the agencies, like Catholic Social Services, find some way to 
deliver that child where it says on the address.
  Does anybody feel that is outlandish?
  I know the individual Border Patrol agencies think how horrible that 
is.
  We do know that sometimes when children come with people who they 
believe are their parents, the Border Patrol gets suspicious and does 
DNA tests. It is not unusual to find that people try to bring children 
across and say that they are their children, you do a DNA test, and you 
find out they are not. So we already realize there are sketchy things 
going on down there.
  What becomes of these children whom their parents send across the 
southern border?
  Some of them have to go to work. The New York Times had an 
interesting article about that recently. When parents send their 
children to work then the children perhaps are supposed to send money 
back to Central America and to South America.

                              {time}  1245

  We know that people who are crossing the southern border--depending 
upon where they are from--the drug gangs are taking advantage of the 
open border policy by President Biden, and the drug kings are demanding 
payment, perhaps payment coming back from America. Is it right that a 
young child without their parents gets shipped somewhere in America and 
has to work in some factory, and some of the money is sent to the drug 
cartels, other money is sent back home to the parents? Is that good? Is 
that what America wants to encourage? America is responsible for 
allowing this system to continue. And what do the kids do?
  At least The New York Times says they work in factories--maybe there 
can be safer factories--but they work in factories. How many are 
working, for example, in the sex trade? Who knows? This is something 
the press ought to be paying more attention to. I intend to have a 
hearing on this topic sometime within the next 6 weeks, and hopefully 
we can find out a little bit more about what happens to these 
individual kids.
  If the people, including the media, who is so alarmed that the kids 
of parents who have broken the law had to spend a couple weeks apart 
from their parents, if this media would wake up a little bit, they 
would find a lot more kids are being permanently separated from their 
parents or at least separated from them for years and years at the 
border. If the press would wake up, they would be able to apply the 
pressure that we need to get these children back to their parents.
  I will give another example along the lines of keeping families 
together. I know that there are devotees of Black Lives Matter who 
don't believe in the traditional family, they would rather have 
families without a dad at home, but I still believe that is best. What 
happens when a child shows up at the southern border with only one 
parent?
  Now, we know in the United States in our court system if the parents 
are separated, frequently there are court orders. Both mom and dad have 
to stay relatively close to the child. We don't let one parent grab the 
child without the other parent signing off and run to a different part 
of the country.
  Nevertheless, the Border Patrol is worried--and they are on the 
ground--they are worried when they see children show up with one parent 
and not the other parent. Has anybody adjudicated this? Have any social 
workers determined this is okay or is it just one parent who doesn't 
care about the other parent bringing their children here? The United 
States apparently takes no interest as families are being torn apart.
  Again, this is something that my subcommittee will look at, but it 
shouldn't take that long. It should be the comatose American press 
corps who right now is paying attention and saying where is the legal 
documentation that allows you to show up with your parents and the 
other parent be gone? This desire to get rid of the nuclear family or 
deprive children from south of the border of their mom or dad is 
offensive, and the United States is part of it.
  I hope that the Biden administration does something about it, and I 
hope when we ever get around to an immigration bill or that a new 
President gets in office that the policy is such that we are not going 
to take one child unless we know where both parents are.
  Now, the third issue is an issue that is so dear to President Biden's 
administration. When he was sworn in as President--I actually attended 
his inaugural speech, being the bipartisan guy that I am--President 
Biden addressed racism four times and white supremacy once. I think it 
is unusual when we obsess over racism in this country. We are obviously 
about the least racist country that existed, right? People come here 
from all around the world. People back in the eastern hemisphere fight 
Tribe against Tribe in Africa. They fight country against country in 
Europe. Different states or different religions fight and kill each 
other in India, but they all come here to America, and they get along 
just fine.
  Nevertheless, Joe Biden is obsessed with the idea that we have a 
horrible racist country, and we have to weigh in and perhaps give 
preferences to people one way or the other. So we get the drum beat of 
racism, racism, racism. We heard it again in his State of the Union 
speech. In his State of the Union speech, Joe Biden couldn't resist but 
go after the police in this country and say that Black parents have to 
tell their children to look out for the horrible police. Even the 
studies that are now years old show that when adjusted for criminal 
behavior, adjusted for arrest, there is no greater danger of Black 
people in the population as a whole in confrontation with police, but 
Joe Biden, I can only assume because he wants to tear apart America, 
keeps getting up on the platform saying we have got this racist 
problem, we have got to look out for the police. It is not true. What 
is the result of this mindset that we have this horrible racial problem 
and we have to do something about it?
  Joe Biden obviously wants this narrative to continue. The first thing 
he wants to do is hire a bunch of bureaucrats--more certainly in his 
proposed budget--hire bureaucrats throughout the Federal agencies to 
deal with the supposed racial problem and dive in looking for the 
people you hire, the people you deal with. Let's look at it through the 
racial prism.
  As it so happens--and I think this should be more publicized--America 
has had a policy of affirmative action since 1965 in this country. That 
is when President Lyndon Johnson, I think in part in response to the 
Jim Crow era which had just ended in the south, began a policy of 
affirmative action. Today, every American business with at least 100 
employees or any business with at least 50 employees that does $50,000 
worth of contracting with the government is affected by the affirmative 
action order that was begun by Lyndon Johnson over 50 years ago.
  Obviously, the purpose of affirmative action is to put the thumb on 
the scale when a company does hiring, when they do promoting, when they 
do firing. The stated purpose of this massive bureaucracy is to give 
what was a practical matter amongst the preferences to Americans 
who basically descend from anywhere around the world other than 
northern Africa and Europe. I should point out recently President Biden 
wanted to--or gave notice--that he wants at least people to fill out 
forms differently. Right now you are considered, I guess, what we will 
refer to as ``white'' if you are from north Africa, but President Biden 
wants to take people from Egypt and Syria, whatever, and give them a 
new place on the form. I would assume--I am not sure but I would 
assume--that means more affirmative action for people in that part of 
the world, as well.

  Insofar as companies change their policies to make these forms come 
up

[[Page H1276]]

better or more what they like, it means that you are giving preferences 
to one group over another group. Even more absurdly, frequently the 
group you are giving preferences to are immigrants who weren't even 
here in the United States. I wish we would have hearings on this topic, 
and I wish the press would delve into this topic and ask: Why if you 
move here from, wherever, Peru, Pakistan, Philippines, wherever, why in 
the world should you be treated differently or should a company feel 
that they have to go out of the way to give preferences to these groups 
when they have never been subject to any discrimination in this country 
at all, much less slavery? Why when it comes to African Americans--
assuming that we should do this sort of thing, and I am not sure it is 
right at all, but if we are going to have to do this sort of thing at 
all, why if somebody moves here from Jamaica or Bahamas or Nigeria or 
somewhere, comes here for a better life in America when a company hires 
you or when an American governmental entity hires you, why do these 
diversity people feel you should be given preference over people who 
are already here? Does anybody think that is a little bit odd? I think 
it is something they particular ought to look into because President 
Biden wants to get so many more people here, including illegally. As a 
practical matter right now there are a lot of big businesses who feel 
it will help them in the eyes of the government if they hire people who 
just immigrated here, maybe people who just immigrated here illegally 
as opposed to some of the native born.
  I will give an anecdote that I repeated in committee the other day. I 
spoke to a gentleman whose son worked for a major American cabinet 
department. He was happy with his job. He went to school for the job he 
got. After 8 or 9 years he wondered why he wasn't moving up, why he 
wasn't promoted. He was doing a good job. Well, he was told: ``You are 
a white guy who is not a veteran.'' Of course we give preferences to 
veterans, too. Now, is that right? If it is right, if people feel from 
here on out that is the way it is going to be in the United States, 
shouldn't the agencies that behave this way at least be required to 
post something saying that if you are going to be held back because you 
are not a veteran, if you are going to be held back by your race that 
you should know this before you accept this job? I would think at a 
minimum we should at least alert the public. It is kind of unusual that 
we have this problem, but I do feel that some committee or the press, 
if they want to educate the public about what is going on, ought to 
delve into this issue a little bit more. These are questions that I 
think the press ought to ask.
  When we embark on this affirmative action policy in which we are 
picking people by background, does this affect the quality of life in 
America? Okay. If when we determine admissions to medical schools or 
admissions to schools of engineering or something like pilots, when the 
Biden administration says we have to run all these through the bean 
counters, do we wind up with perhaps some people who are not as 
qualified? Does that affect the quality of life in America?
  When is a minority entitled to a preference? Is it somebody who is 
half from a different country, is it a quarter, is it an eighth? Right 
now you self-identify. Elizabeth Warren was something like 1/64th or 
128th Native American, and she claimed to be Native American, used it 
to become a law professor at Harvard. Good for her. Is that right? How 
about a quarter? Is that right? Half? An eighth? I'm not sure. Is it 
right that if you move here directly from Spain you are European. If 
your ancestors came from Spain and spent a few generations in Mexico 
you are somebody in need of protection? Does that make any sense? I 
think the press ought to ask that question.
  Again, in this country I believe affirmative action was--or we were 
led to believe--was to a certain extent making up for Jim Crow or even 
slavery, but if you are somebody who comes here of African descent, 
from Nigeria or Jamaica, you didn't experience Jim Crow, you didn't 
experience slavery. Is it right that preferences be given to groups 
like this?
  A lot of times people say it is about diversity. Well, there is such 
a thing as diversity in background, and maybe we learn different things 
with different backgrounds, but this is all--or frequently--race 
related. If I grow up next to somebody who is a quarter Mexican, and we 
have had the exact same experiences and are best friends and played 
together on the football team and graduated together from high school, 
is there really diversity in hiring one of us instead of the other of 
us or letting one of us in school compared to the other school? That is 
ridiculous, but that is what the law is currently right now. Of course, 
I think there are a lot of people that have a vested interest in 
keeping this going. There are people who, I think, want to destroy 
America by trying to set people from one area up against another area. 
There are people that want to protect their jobs, and these could be 
very good-paying jobs, monitoring this diversity stuff from company to 
company, and now in order to protect their jobs these programs have to 
continue to keep on going. They are good-paying jobs, and they are 
consultants who make well into the six figures whose jobs depend upon 
this diversity stuff. I hope the press looks into that, sees how much 
people are making.
  The diversity program can favor women, as well. Right now in America, 
single women under 30 actually make more than single men under 30. Do 
we need all this paperwork and experts to delve into things to protect 
the women? I don't know.
  I will give a little anecdote. I know a woman, she is retired now, 
but she was a human resources person for a manufacturing firm that did 
business with the government. They had over 100 employees.

                              {time}  1300

  There were two anecdotes that bothered her and caused her to search 
me out. One was the company she was with wanted to hire a new engineer. 
Like many companies do, they hired an independent firm to administer 
their affirmative action program because they didn't want to get in 
trouble with the Federal Government.
  The affirmative action group told them--although some people say they 
shouldn't have told them. You want to go from hiring five engineers to 
six engineers? Well, right now, all five engineers in your company are 
men. The sixth engineer better be a woman. It doesn't have to be a 
woman, but if it is not a woman, you have to be prepared to be audited 
and prove you did all you could to try to hire a woman in that sixth 
slot.
  She didn't really like that. She thought that was wrong. Is that 
right?
  The same thing happened in management. There were four members of 
what was classified as management. They wanted to hire a fifth. They 
were told by the experts, who they were paying, in this field: You 
better look for a minority for that fifth management position. It 
doesn't have to be a minority, but if the Federal Government audits 
you, you could get in trouble. You better be able to prove you did all 
you could to try to hire a minority.
  I was back home a few weeks ago and talked to a woman who brought 
this up on her own. She worked for a financial institution. She said 
that an opening for a position had been going on for months, but they 
couldn't hire anybody because all the applicants were White men. 
Interesting.
  Is that right in America? I guess the bank felt you don't want to get 
on the wrong side of the Federal Government.
  In any event, these are three topics that I don't feel the press has 
paid enough attention to, but I hope they do a better job in the future 
of alerting the American public to the fact that we are approaching 100 
percent of GDP in our debt, the highest since World War II. Unlike 
World War II, we are not going to lay off or shut down tons of 
factories making tanks and ships. It is going to be much more difficult 
this time.
  I hope the American public also decides to weigh in when we do have 
an increase in spending. Is it right? One of only two agencies--at 
least on this summary; three agencies on this summary of all the 
agencies we have. Homeland Security, which is in charge of the border, 
is one of the few that is actually getting a cut.
  Does the American public think that is the one agency that is 
overstaffed and bloated? I am not sure.

[[Page H1277]]

  I hope the American public and the press corps, which really 
determines our agenda, pay a little bit more attention to all the 
unaccompanied minors streaming across the southern border without 
parents, maybe never to see their parents again.
  Who knows what people are doing with them, human trafficked or 
whatever, but that is what we do right now. Johnny shows up with a note 
on his shirt: Deliver me to 123 Elm Street, Portland, Oregon.
  Yes, sir. We don't ask where your parents are. We are going to 
deliver him wherever you want. I hope the American public is concerned 
about that.
  Finally, I think, particularly in the days of Joe Biden, where he is 
trying to hire so many more bureaucrats to administer affirmative 
action sort of programs, why don't we ask some questions about this, 
about this program? Who benefits? Do they benefit? Does it affect the 
overall quality of work in some areas in America?
  I think we ought to have that discussion. I know the Supreme Court is 
having that discussion, but it affects, like I said, a lot more than 
admissions to school. It affects hiring, both in the private sector and 
public sector, and it affects government contracting, as well.
  Three topics for the press if they are paying attention.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________