Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2022
Floor Speech
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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Oklahoma for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, the distinguished leader was exactly right in his comments, but I would just like people to think about something.
Every single problem we face today globally emanated right here, from this same floor. Tax policy, regulation policy, drove most of these businesses offshore. They didn't leave because they didn't like America. They left because it looked like America didn't like them.
We have seen the erosion of so much of what it is that we are, all because of policy that emanated right from this same floor. Now, we are trying to do something to correct bad policy in the past.
I am in the automobile business. We can't finish building cars because we don't have the product necessary to finish them. Most of the people we talk to said we didn't leave America by choice. We were forced offshore by policy. The Speaker and I know this because we are big fans of the steel business.
The only thing I would ask my friends on this side and my colleagues on the other side, there are consequences for past performance. This bill in no way is perfect, and Mr. Hoyer is exactly correct about that. But the question is: What is it that we are trying to fix, and whose problem is it? The answer is: It is our problem because it is happening in real time on our watch. We have to do something. Doing nothing is not the answer to how we fix this bad situation.
But we can't do everything from the House. We have to rely on the Senate to participate. Then, we look at what we had initially started and say: What did they do to the piece that we were trying to get done?
Listen, I know the debate can get heated. We can talk about how patriotic we are, and we can talk about what the future is not only for ourselves but for our children and our grandchildren and our great- grandchildren.
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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I suggest that all of us need to take a good long look in the mirror and see who it is that can change the future.
There is no sense in talking about what happened in the past. The past is the past, and we cannot reclaim it. We can just deal with it.
We have a huge problem on our hands today because we have allowed the technology to leave; we have allowed the production to leave; we have allowed the product to leave; and then we come back and say now we have to do something to get it back.
This may be the bill that does that. I don't know. I know from certain States, this is a must-have for some of our colleagues. It is a must-have for us to remain competitive. We are in a global economy.
I can tell you this: I wish this was the same bill that we had proposed back when General Motors was facing bankruptcy because we know this body--not us, we weren't here--lent them the money to stay alive, and they paid it all back in full with interest.
This is not that same process, and that is why we are so caught, trying to figure out what we should do to face this part of the business. What can we do here?
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Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, it comes down to this: We are not Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, or Independents in this House. We are truly the American people. It is up to us to fix problems that are bad, even if we started them ourselves.
I just hope that all of our colleagues sit back and take a long look at what is being proposed today and try to figure out, not for themselves but for the people they represent--and most of us represent three-quarters of a million people--what is in the best interest of the people you represent, what is in the best interest of the Nation that you live in, and what is in the best interest of the future of America.
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