Build Back Better Act Will Permanently Change America

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to spend some time addressing the Chair and America on the American Rescue Plan or, actually, on the Build Back Better Act, which is kind of a follow-up on the American Rescue Plan.

We know the result of that original big-spending, government-printing act was a big increase in inflation in the United States, apparent to one and all. This is a follow-up bill to that, which will further require the Federal Reserve to print more money, driving up the cost of gas, of food, of housing everywhere we look.

But I am not going to address just the cost of this bill tonight. I am going to address the way I believe it will permanently change America and the vision the Democratic Party apparently has for America in the future.

In this bill, we are adding 87,000 IRS agents. For quite a while, when I would give talks about this bill, I would talk about 8,700 because when my staff told me it was 87,000, I felt I had to correct them. Nobody would want to add 87,000 IRS agents. But I stand corrected. I was wrong.

In this bill, we are adding 87,000 IRS agents, enough to fill up a massive American football stadium. Being from Wisconsin, I think of Camp Randall Stadium, where the University of Wisconsin plays. I think of Lambeau Field, where the Packers play. Somebody wants to hire that many IRS agents.

It is not in the bill, but it is in conjunction with a proposal I think the Biden administration has, to monitor every $600 transfer of funds. What type of country would have this many IRS agents and want to know if you spend $600 on who knows what--giving to the politically incorrect church; giving to a politically incorrect nonprofit; giving money to a fringe, eccentric sibling; whatever.

It sounds like something more you would think of in East Germany when East Germany was around rather than the United States. But that is apparently the vision of the party that put together the Build Back Better Act.

As was just mentioned in this bill, we are adding money for more low- income apartments. Now, that sounds good. President Biden also recently increased the food stamp allowance.

There is an author of mine that I suggest Americans read by the name of Theodore Dalrymple, an English author who was a doctor dealing both with English prisons and English slums.

He talked about the empty lives that people who live what I will refer to as the welfare lifestyle that England had. He attributed that empty life to the fact that in England--and maybe they backed off this by now, but at least England 15 years ago, no matter how irresponsible you were, you always got a free apartment; you always got free food; and you always got free medical care. In other words, there was no responsibility when you got up in the morning to really accomplish anything because you would always be able to exist.

We are close to that right now, but I am afraid the majority party wants to go all the way there when I look at this proposal. I hope the majority party stops and thinks in addition to the cost, more importantly, psychologically what will it do to the people of America if, when you graduate from high school or don't graduate from high school, if you want to, particularly if you have a child, you can live a lifestyle in which you can be completely irresponsible. You will always be able to eat and always be able to have a nice air- conditioned, heated apartment, which will probably have more square feet per person than the average housing in Europe, much less around the world.

This will, again, change America for the worse. Psychologically, it will give people nothing to live for. By the way, since it is usually targeted at people with children, it also will create a sad situation we have already created in this country in which men will have less responsibility for taking care of their children.

When you have no other responsibilities in life, it can lead to, first, an empty, depressed life; and, secondly, it can lead to--what?-- idle hands are the Devil's workshop.

There are other things in this bill that will also change America. We are aiming for universal 3- or 4-year-old kindergarten, I guess you would call it. As a sidelight, this bill says that the people in these daycares, which is kind of what they are, need a college degree. That is a little bit of snobbery that we should put an end to, the idea that if I have a college degree, I am always better off than somebody who doesn't have a college degree.

If you are applying for a job, we treat the hardworking, intelligent, commonsense person without a college degree as being, for some reason, less worthy of a higher paycheck than the lack of commonsense person who may not have a strong work ethic who does get a college degree. That is just a sidelight. A bad provision there.

But another provision about this that is bad is you are taking the care of the 3- and 4-year-olds out of the parents and giving it exclusively to the government. Now, a given number of parents may prefer it, but I think throughout most of this country, the raising of the children has been primarily the responsibility of the family.

I know the Marxist element in the other party does not want parents and, in particular, fathers too involved in their children's upbringing. But I feel this will again permanently change America.

I should point out, if you look at the studies, American schools sometimes have bad test scores. But our test scores are pretty good in the fourth grade. In other words, our problem in this country isn't that the children are doing poorly when the parents take care of them. Those test scores for children in American schools are falling in middle school and high school. So the problem is later on. It is not with the 3- and 4-year-olds when the parents have responsibility.

I should also point out that we are, in this bill, increasing Pell grants. Now, there are two problems there. Pell grants are grants going toward what we will refer to as low-income people, but they don't go to middle-class people.

I am already getting complaints in my district from Pell grants in the past as couples, married couples who thought they were being responsible in raising their children, they find out their children might be going $30,000 or $40,000 in debt to get a college degree. But if the parents hadn't been working or hadn't been working as hard, those parents' children are eligible for free college.

I know I am sure it always feels good to give more away, but put yourself in the place of the middle-class American family that is working to raise their child, a married couple, and you see somebody else next door not working very hard, and as a bonus, their children get free college, where the responsible middle-class kid winds up $30,000 or $40,000 in debt. Another example here of complete unfairness and perverse incentives.

When I go back home, one of the major concerns of businesses is they can't find anybody to work. Now, I would hope everybody sometimes tours their businesses and is familiar with that. Obviously, hiring 87,000 new IRS agents is going to take 87,000 people away from the private sector.

But another interesting proposal in this bill is we have a new expanded civilian conservation corps. In other words, we are taking more people away from the factories, the construction sites, the retail outlets that they so desperately need to hire them for the government, make them dependent on the government, but above all make sure they are not available for the private sector. Another big mistake.

I mentioned the Pell grants and the fact that in a way they are a little bit of an insult to the middle-class kids who have to go further and further in debt. But another interesting provision about these Pell grants and another way that they clearly want to change America in this bill is you are eligible for the Pell grants if you are here illegally. This is not a mistake. I am not making this up.

I am on both the Education and Labor Committee and the Budget Committee, where we tried to take this provision out, and the Democrats on those committees proudly defended the provision. They really believe that if you come here, you are entitled to free college, whereas if you are a member of a middle-class American working family, your children should go $30,000 to $50,000 in debt to get a college degree. I mean, it is almost beyond belief, but that is another one of the features of this bill and one of the reasons why I really hope it fails.

Another feature of this bill, be it natural gas or methane, is increasing taxes, driving up the cost of energy in the United States. The environmentalists in this country may be interested to know that already the high cost of energy in the United States, and even more Europe, is causing more and more foundries, and I assume other factories as well, to go up in India, which is a much, much, much bigger pollution problem than the United States.

So when you drive up the cost of energy, which is so very important for American factories in general and our foundries in particular, what this bill would do is ship more American manufacturing jobs abroad and increase the overall pollution in the United States as we have energy production go from the new, clean power plants in America to the much dirtier power plants in India, China, and from around the world.

Other things in this bill that are a little bit irritating: After much effort, the Republicans, when they were in charge, required Social Security numbers for the child tax credits. Why did we require Social Security numbers? To make sure people are not filling out tax returns and getting tax refunds they aren't entitled to. I don't know why anybody would not want Social Security numbers so we can check to see if somebody says they have five children, they really have five children and get the money back.

For whatever motivation--I can't even imagine what the motivation would be--in this bill the wonderful Democratic Party is saying, no, you don't need Social Security numbers to get refunds for your child tax credit, which will not just increase a form of welfare. This will increase a form of welfare cheating. Why you would do this, again I can't imagine.

One other provision in this bill, not a fiscal provision, the Democrat Party is trying to allow, I would say, 8 to 11 million people currently here illegally to become legal.

First of all, you are rewarding people who broke the law to come into this country. And secondly, when you make 8 to 11 million people legal who were previously illegal it is like putting a sign on the United States, which the drug cartels who are involved in all this illegal immigration, will show around the world: Come to the United States. We are not enforcing our immigration laws.

Perhaps the majority party is not aware that already the drug gangs in both Central America and Brazil are taking out TV ads inviting people to come into the United States.

Why do they do that? Because if you're in Central America, they may charge you 5 to $7,000 to come here. In Brazil they may charge you $10,000 to come here. And because there is money to be made for the drug gangs, they advertise, encouraging people to come here.

Now, when we do something like, in essence, legalize people who are already here illegally, don't you think the drug gangs are going to educate the people in Central America as to what we are doing? Of course they are.

So not only are you inviting people or creating people who are illegal or who were previously illegal, but, worse, you are giving a green light to anybody hanging out in other countries, now is the time to come to America.

By the way, when I am down on the border, another thing I hear is the cooperation from the Mexican Government has been less and less over the 6 or 8 months as we try to control our border, not only to keep illegal people out but to keep the drugs out, as well.

Our Border Patrol notices a little less cooperation from the Mexicans, and I can see why. They believe they are getting less cooperation because if the United States itself doesn't care about its own border, why should Mexican law enforcement risk their lives protecting the border and protecting the integrity of the border if the United States itself doesn't care?

So here we have another provision which advertises the United States doesn't care about their immigration laws. I am sure the Mexican Border Patrol, the Mexican military is aware of it, and what will they think of it? Why should I risk my butt preventing people from coming here if the United States itself doesn't care?

So, again, I encourage America to wake up. We are permanently changing the type of country that this is if this bill passes as is.

So I encourage Americans to contact their legislators. Please don't pass this bill.

Now, I will make two more brief comments for the press corps, if they are even paying attention to this.

Like all Congressmen, I frequently get contacted on issues and asked whether I can look into it. Of course, agencies don't like to respond to requests from individual Congressmen, particularly Congressmen in the minority, but I think the press corps, which is so incredibly powerful, more powerful than they imagine, can get answers from bureaucratic agencies the way perhaps Congressmen cannot. And I am going to mention two requests here.

I had requests from people of both parties, both Republicans and Democrats, as to what is in the videos when we had the attacks on this building on January 6. For whatever reason, those videos have not been made public. People would like to know what was going on. I would hope the press corps would apply a little bit of pressure to the appropriate authorities and make those videos public. Because from what I can tell, in my district both the on-the-ball Republicans and the on-the-ball Democrats wish we could see those videos. And I think if the press applied a little bit of pressure, we would see those videos.

The other thing I am hearing from my constituents back home is they wonder about the apparent use of ivermectin in India. If you look at the popular Worldometer website, they will show a dramatic drop in fatalities in India over the last few months, just a shocking drop.

People claim it is from ivermectin. I don't know if it is true or not. But the American news media ought to wake up and cover the story and find out if it is.

If it is not from ivermectin, the American public should know it because then they have been sold a bill of goods.

If it is from ivermectin, the American public should know that because maybe we have a way to greatly reduce the number of fatalities.

So those are two requests that I have of our sometimes slumbering press corps.

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