America in Crisis
Floor Speech
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, during my time this afternoon, my colleagues and I will address the burning issues that are on the hearts and minds of all our constituents back home--really, all Americans--and that is the numerous self-inflicted crises of the Biden administration and the House Democrats' increasingly radical leftwing legislative agenda.
Madam Speaker, Democrats may narrowly control the House, the Senate, and the White House, but over the past several weeks, it has become abundantly clear that they just cannot govern.
America is in crisis. Everybody knows that, and everybody can feel it in so many areas.
Today, the White House spends its days doing damage control on all these multiple crises of their own making.
Just think of what we are facing right now. We have an economic crisis where jobs remain unfilled, prices for basic goods continue to rise, and the shelves sit empty.
We have got an energy crisis that has led to the highest gasoline crisis since 2007, and we know the projections for warming our homes in the winter are off the charts.
We have multiple foreign policy crises, and we have on the southern border humanitarian, national security, and public health crises like we have never seen before.
These really are existential kinds of threats to the country. I know our colleagues like to throw that word around, but it really does apply here. And while all Presidents confront crises beyond their control, that is not what is happening here. These crises--the things we are talking about today--are the direct result of this administration's own actions.
We know that inflation is rising because Democrats are flooding the economy with money and supply is down because of labor shortages caused by the Democrats' so-called pandemic policies. Gas prices are up thanks to a steady assault on our energy producers by the Biden administration. Our foreign policy is in crisis because of the Biden debacle in Afghanistan and all the other fumbles that they have made.
The border problem is simple. They opened the border. They put a welcome mat there and told everybody around the world to come on in. The Democrats opened it, and so we should not be surprised or shocked at the result of that invitation.
Here in Congress the picture is no better. If you think about this, the Democrats have a mere three-seat majority in this House. We have a fifty-fifty deadlock in the Senate. There is no objective person in this country who could look at those numbers and say that the Democrats have any mandate to ram through the most partisan and most expensive legislative package in the history of this Nation using the slimmest majority possible.
If you ask the Democrats what is in the bill, Madam Speaker, they can't tell you because they don't know.
Is amnesty in it?
Well, the House certainly worked to add it.
Taxpayer funded abortion? A carbon tax? A tax on prescription drugs?
They have been working very hard to include all those things. The one thing they do know for sure is that they are deadlocked. They are insistent that they want to spend $5.5 trillion of hardworking Americans' tax money while inflation goes through the roof and while we are trying to recover from a pandemic. This is the worst possible time to be doing what they are doing.
The American people expected competence in the White House. They wanted bipartisanship in Congress. They have received instead the most incompetent White House of our lifetimes and a Democrat-led Congress trying to push the most extreme agenda in our history.
This is not hyperbole; these are facts. And my colleagues are going to lay out many of the reasons, many of the facts, and much of the evidence that proves what every American now knows intuitively. If House Democrats drop their radical, dangerous agenda right now, I promise you, Madam Speaker, they would find so many Members of this party on our side of the aisle who would be ready to work with them in a bipartisan fashion tomorrow. We have so many challenges facing the country. But they won't do that. They are dug in. And their votes prove over and over now that they are determined to be Big Government socialists and not the Democratic Party of our parents' generation.
This afternoon we will highlight what this agenda is doing to our country.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, this is such an important issue in Louisiana, my home State. We are a big energy State. We were so excited to have achieved not just energy independence under the Trump administration but energy dominance. We were a net exporter, and, of course, all that has been reversed, as my friend just explained.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rose).
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's effort, and I thank him for sharing his insights this afternoon.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the great gentleman from the big State of Texas (Mr. Sessions).
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for his comments, and that clarity and conviction is so necessary right now. I love how the gentleman is articulating the stark differences between the two competing visions for this country right now. The chasm is so wide between the Republican and Democratic Parties, and we say that without any pleasure at all.
It is a sad development in our politics that this is not--listen to us at home--this is not your parents' and your grandparents' Democratic Party.
Madam Speaker, I am delighted to move from Texas and move over to Alabama.
I yield to the gentleman from a Alabama (Mr. Carl), a good friend of mine.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend and appreciate him being here tonight and articulating that so well.
I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Clyde).
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for those insights.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Burchett).
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my always friend. The gentleman's metaphor paints a real picture. We are headed for a crash if we don't change course.
Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Owens), my good friend and Super Bowl champion.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. The gentleman is right. It does appear to be purposeful. The chaos, there is just too much of it, and that is what people back home say. This has to be intentional.
There is no way that we could have these many dilemmas piled upon each other this quickly unless there were some ulterior motive. It is a rhetorical question, I suppose, for the American people.
Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew).
Mr. VAN DREW. Madam Speaker, I thank Chairman Johnson, my always friend, for yielding.
Madam Speaker, our country is experiencing an unbelievable crisis at our southern border. In August alone, the United States Customs and Border Protection encountered over 200,000 migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border which was a 317 percent increase from August of last year. Let me repeat that one more time: a 317 percent increase from just one single year ago.
President Biden has prioritized reversing effective Trump-era border policies such as the Remain in Mexico Policy and most notably, the border wall. They were working. We literally have tons of building materials, all of which have been bought and paid for by the hardworking men and women American taxpayers, sitting in the desert collecting dust because President Biden cares more about trying to be politically stylish than he does implementing policies to protect and strengthen our America which we love so much.
Is President Biden requiring these migrants to show proof of vaccination? The answer is no. Are they being tested for COVID-19? The answer is no. Are they being tested for other deadly viruses? The answer is no.
Americans are still unable to return to their normal ways of life but hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants are allowed to breach and break through the border and infect our Nation. How does that make sense? How can any one individual American make any sense or understand that?
Drug cartels are recruiting and using children as drug mules, they are sexually abusing women, and they are responsible for bringing enough fentanyl into America to kill every man, woman, and child, at least 10 times over, and we read it in the headlines. This is unlike anything we have ever seen before in our America, yet this administration continues to leave this border wide open. Again, how does it make sense? How can we understand it? How can we believe it?
The Border Patrol is on track to encounter more migrants this year than it has in any year prior. In fiscal year 2021, roughly 10,000 migrants with criminal records were detained at the southern border. This is no joke. This is a real tragedy for America. The former Border Patrol chief has also stated that our Border Patrol is encountering known and suspected terrorists at ``a level that we have never seen before.'' This is no joke. This is the real world which we live in now in America.
There are serious shortages among Border Patrol agents, and somehow congressional Democrats and the administration are making zero efforts to address them. They fail to recognize the severity of the issue or even admit that there is an issue to begin with.
Again, it is no joke. These men and women are putting their lives in danger. Half the time they don't even have the backup that they should. I remember when I went to the border and saw them encountering all types of dangerous situations. Not a single backup sometimes. How can we do that to our American men and women in law enforcement?
Make no mistake about it. I don't want anyone to think otherwise. Make no mistake--this is the worst border crisis that we have ever experienced in America. President Biden is actively destroying our country and our way of life by not taking this crisis seriously at all. But he should. I will say it again. This is no joke. It is the real thing.
Madam Speaker, God help us all. We must save our country.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for doing all he does to save this country, and we have a lot of work still to do.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser), who is my good friend.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for that really good explanation of what we are facing right now. People back home are scratching their heads, how can it come to this? Well, you see, it is the result of policies that are being implemented by this administration.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen), also my good friend.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, it is nonsense indeed.
Madam Speaker, as they say, everything in Texas is bigger, including the representatives.
I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Pfluger), also my good friend.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, Mr. Pfluger said it so well. We feel this acutely in energy States like Texas and my home State of Louisiana, the Permian Basin and Haynesville Shale, but all across this Nation. We benefit from domestic energy production. It is not only the cleanest and the most efficient, it benefits us here at home. It is that America first idea that this administration is abandoning too quickly.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte).
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those insights. It is so important that people recognize what is happening here.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman).
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend. He is right. We better wake up.
Just by way of a quick reminder, over 1.2 million illegal immigrants have been apprehended at the border since February alone. We know that number is grossly undercounted because of all the got-aways and people who came totally undetected across the totally open border.
Madam Speaker, I yield next to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), my good friend.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, Mr. LaMalfa is exactly right. It has been only 9 months. It is only going to get worse.
Madam Speaker, what you have heard tonight is a quick summary from a number of our friends. We could go on for hours if we had the time, but I know we are almost out of time.
We talked about the economic crisis, energy crisis, foreign policy crisis, border crisis. It goes on and on and on. I will summarize and close with this: We have two competing visions for America. It is now very clear: It is free-market capitalism v. Big Government socialism.
I think the American people see the results of the latter. I hope we have an opportunity very soon in the next election cycle to get back to the former.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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