[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 142 (Thursday, September 12, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H5225-H5226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1230
                        MAJOR 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. Well, it has been about 6 weeks now since Congress last 
met, and I think it is time to review some of the major issues of the 
day that I do not feel the mainstream press is doing an adequate job of 
covering.
  We continue to have people stream across our southern border. The 
Biden administration has made some changes after 3\1/2\ years mildly 
reducing the amount. Nevertheless, in the most recent month available, 
we still have an estimated 145,000 people crossing the southern border 
per month.
  It is not difficult to go back to the prior administration and find 
monthly numbers 4 years ago of about 8,000 people a month. You can say 
that is due to COVID, but if you go back even before COVID, you would 
have monthly figures of about 11,000 people crossing the southern 
border, so we go from 11,000 to 145,000. That is despite the fact that 
we are pausing, waiting for another 30,000 a month to cross as they 
redo their parole program, so we will have an extra 30,000 from Cuba, 
Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. In addition to that, we have another 
6,000 to 7,000 a month in another program coming across from 
Afghanistan.
  Why do we not talk more about this, the scope of the problem that we 
have--even after the reduction--10 or 12 times as many people crossing 
the southern border compared to the last administration? And that is 
just the numbers coming here.
  In addition to that, we have the human tragedy of people coming here, 
the people drowning in the Rio Grande which they don't report, the 
people drowning in the Pacific Ocean, which they don't report, the 
people dehydrating in the Arizona desert, which they don't report.
  The last time I was down there I asked one more time the woman who 
was in charge of vetting, or meeting the new people crossing the 
southern border, and she admitted a high number of women were being 
sexually assaulted as they came north, north through the lands that are 
controlled by the Mexican drug cartels.
  Where is the party that purports to be the party of women as these 
women are being sexually molested?
  These are issues that should be covered daily in the newspapers in 
this country, but the scope of the problem is not covered. There is no 
reason why this 140,000 a month, 150,000 a month should not be reduced 
down to 10 or 11,000 a month as it was 4 years ago.
  I would like to see a little bit more coverage about that in the 
newspapers.
  The next thing that should be talked about is while we were out, Mark 
Zuckerberg talked about the degree to which he was leaned on to 
restrict speech in his business.
  Freedom of speech is something a lot of us have taken for granted, 
although I am a little bit afraid that the average American is 
beginning to waver on their commitment to free speech. Nevertheless, it 
is something that should be brought up as we head toward the elections 
in November.
  Is it appropriate that Mark Zuckerberg's huge company, one of the 
wealthiest people in America, should be leaned on by the Federal 
Government to restrict the free flow of information?
  And, by the way, the more this happens, the more the American public 
begins to accept it, which is really scary. The share of U.S. adults 
that say the Federal Government should restrict false information--and, 
of course, who is going to determine what false information is?--has 
gone up from 40 percent to 55 percent. Over half of Americans think the 
Federal Government ought to weigh in on restricting false information.
  I think this is particularly a problem, sadly, with the Democratic 
Party. When I was a child, the Democratic Party prided itself on 
unfettered free speech, and they got into things like pornography and 
that sort of thing. Now, it becomes the Democratic Party who is more in 
favor of restricting speech compared to Republicans, 70 percent to 40 
percent.
  Americans have to wonder: Do we want to turn this country into a 
country more similar to the Soviet Union or Maoist China in which the 
government decides what is truth and what is not truth?
  This is one of the things that makes America unique, one of the 
reasons why we are proud to be Americans, and now people are beginning 
to say that this is perhaps not a good idea at all.
  But now I will deal with the third issue that I think is incredibly 
important, maybe other than the southern border, the most important 
issue facing America today, and that is the breakdown of the family.
  There have always been people--people that say mom and apple pie is 
everybody's favorite, they are profamily and wish they could have a mom 
and a dad at home. In fact, there have always been powerful people in 
history beginning with the radical leftists in the mid-1800s who felt 
the family was restricting and felt that it is something that we should 
break away from, destroy. This is one of the things that began to come 
out of the French Revolution in the 1780s, and to this day, some people 
view the French Revolution as something that should be looked upon 
favorably.
  In 1848, Karl Marx--and many people read Karl Marx to this day--
believed there was a need to abolish the family. He put that in ``The 
Communist Manifesto.''
  Mr. Speaker, 50 years later with the rise of the feminist movement, 
or 100 years later, radical feminist, Kate Millett, said that 
destroying the American family was necessary to bring about the 
cultural revolution that she wanted. Powerful feminists in the 1960s, a 
time of upheaval in America, a time when changes were made in America, 
the radical feminists wanted to weaken the American family.
  A lot of times people aren't that outspoken about it because I 
believe the majority of Americans believe strong families are good, but 
there is a small minority, a very powerful minority, who wants to break 
down the family.

  Angela Davis, a powerful radical, well respected by the hard left, in 
the sixties, seventies, and eighties came out against the traditional 
family.
  Later on, Black Lives Matter, which exploded on the scene about 5 
years ago, called for an end of the western-prescribed nuclear-family 
structure. Think about all the businesses that gave money to Black 
Lives Matter. Think of all the prominent politicians--many of them in 
this room. Now, they may say, oh, I wasn't for that part of their 
program. Think about that, people wanted to get rid of the ``western-
prescribed nuclear family.'' Black Lives Matter were all on board and 
presented it to be a positive thing.
  Now, to what degree has this institution, the American Government and 
the U.S. Congress played in weakening the American family?
  Beginning in the 1960s with the Great Society, Lyndon Johnson--who I 
think was the worst President we ever had certainly until now--began a 
program in which an ever-expanding number of entitlements were doled 
out almost conditioned upon not having two parents, usually not a 
father, in the household.
  George Gilder in the late seventies wrote a book ``Wealth and 
Poverty'' about this program. And what he pointed out is that certain 
segments of society felt it was great when somebody got pregnant out of 
wedlock because they would be eligible for all sorts of government 
benefits, be it food stamps, in particular; be it the low-income 
housing tax credits, which also benefited the very rich; be it the 
earned income tax credit, which is much easier to get if both parents 
are

[[Page H5226]]

not living together; be it the TANF grants, which also seem to be 
disproportionately doled out to families in which they get the man out 
of the picture. If you add up all these programs--I am told there are 
over 70 programs which, in essence, penalize couples who decide to get 
married. It varies from person to person, obviously, how many different 
programs they take advantage of, but it certainly is not unusual to 
have people suffer a $20,000 penalty if a couple who have had a child 
get married rather than living apart. Perhaps in the first couple years 
of these programs people were not aware of the effect of them, but they 
have unquestionably, over the next 30 to 40 years, greatly reduced the 
number of children without a mother and father at home.
  There was some progress made during the Clinton administration when 
Newt Gingrich forced Bill Clinton reluctantly to pare back some of 
these programs, but the programs are taking off again. Again, in his 
proposed budget, President Biden, and presumably, certainly Kamala 
Harris, have tried to grow these programs which are kind of conditioned 
upon not having two working adults in the home.
  I hope the press talks about this marriage penalty and forces our 
candidates to take a side one way or the other as to whether this is a 
good thing or a bad thing. In any event, it has fundamentally changed 
the American family. I think in many ways it has made America a less 
livable place since these programs went into effect, since the Great 
Society went into effect, and the question is: Should Congress, when 
they return in January, consider the fact that we are spending so much 
money to try to destroy the nuclear family as the great feminists 
thought we should, as Karl Marx thought we should, as the French 
revolutionaries thought we should, or should we step back from these 
programs, try to tailor them a little bit more to not display the hate 
for the old-fashioned American, westernized, nuclear family?
  I would hope that we would get some commitments that we are going to 
look at these programs.
  One more thing I want to address here for the American public that I 
think we have not dealt with to the degree to which we should is a lot 
has been said about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. For whatever 
reason, as we write the history of the last 4 years in this building, 
we have focused on the Inflation Reduction Act but not on other acts 
that also passed during that time period that are responsible for the 
huge amount of inflation that Americans are dealing with--inflation 
that I think is weakening American families because in an old-
fashioned, American family you would have a house with backyard for the 
children to play in. Now it has become increasingly difficult to afford 
a house, much less even afford food.
  So we have to remember there were actually three programs that were 
passed. Under normal circumstances every year in this institution we 
pass a regular appropriation bill or what people back home would refer 
to as a budget bill of about $1.7 trillion. That is really too much 
because we keep driving our country more and more into debt. But in 
addition to the regular $1.7 trillion program, there were three other 
bills that were passed: an American Rescue Plan of $1.8 trillion; an 
infrastructure bill--and a few irresponsible Republicans voted for that 
as well--of $1.2 trillion; and an Inflation Reduction Act of another 
$1.2 trillion.
  What is not reported on and should be reported on is as outlandish as 
these spending bills were, the Inflation Reduction Act was originally 
called the Build Back Better Act, and that asked for $3.5 trillion. If 
it weren't for the Democrat Senator from West Virginia paring that $3.5 
trillion down to $1.2 trillion, it would have been literally $2 
trillion more.
  I think our slumbering press corps ought to be asking the people in 
this building: Do you wish that that act which started out at $3.5 
trillion and was reduced to $1.2 trillion, should we be adding another 
$2 trillion to that figure or not?
  Do you think it was a good or bad thing that Senator Manchin wound up 
weighing in and reducing that act to a still irresponsible $1.2 
trillion?
  I think it is important for the American public to know there was not 
reticence among the Democrat Party in passing it. They wanted a 
significantly higher spending amount, and I can't imagine what the cost 
of a house or the cost of a dozen eggs or whatever would have been had 
they gotten that $3.5 trillion that they all seemed to want at that 
time.
  In any event, we have covered five issues that all candidates should 
be asked to respond to, issues that the press corps should be bringing 
forth so that they force Congress here to deal with these issues.

                              {time}  1245

  I think when our forefathers wanted a free press, they anticipated 
the press doing a little bit of work on their own. So we hope when we 
return next week we read a little bit more on the difference in 
immigration laws for immigrants coming across our southern border 
between today and where we were at 4\1/2\ years ago.
  I wish we would have more discussion as to whether penalizing people 
over $20,000 per couple for getting married is good public policy.
  I think we should be asking people if they come back here next 
January: Are they going to want to add the other $2 trillion that 
Senator Manchin pulled out of the Inflation Reduction Act or Build Back 
Better Act?
  Is there concern that a growing number of Americans, including, by 
the way, the Biden administration, have apparently leaned on Mark 
Zuckerberg to restrict free speech?
  Additionally, are we going to see any more of this from those 
politicians who get re-elected and are returned here in January?
  Hopefully, over the weekend some of these members of the press corps 
can wake up and cover these issues.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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