Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am unwell today, so I am going to make this speech short. I am going to cover three short topics.

The first topic is, 5 years ago yesterday, there was a horrific incident that happened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Bernell Trammell, who was holding a Donald Trump sign, was assassinated.

Somebody came out on a bicycle with a mask over his head. We don't even know if he was a Black man or a White man, but he had a mask over his head. He saw a guy named Bernell Trammell holding a sign for Trump, and that person came up and killed Bernell Trammell.

Bernell Trammell was kind of an iconoclast. Bernell Trammell was a Rastafarian. He was for Black Lives Matter and frequently endorsed Democrat politicians, but for whatever reason, Bernell Trammell was in the very liberal east side of Milwaukee or the Riverwest neighborhood in Milwaukee, very, very leftwing. Bernell Trammell swam upstream and decided to carry a Donald Trump sign, and he was assassinated.

This is the type of thing that, as we see America decline, we ought to be talking more about. It is the type of thing that happens in Mexico. It is the type of thing that happens in Honduras where during elections you can expect that somebody will be assassinated. You wouldn't think it was happening in the United States, Mr. Speaker.

One of the things we have to take into account when we look at this situation is it is not only something you would expect to happen in a Third World country, Mr. Speaker, but I felt at the time the liberal establishment in Milwaukee didn't treat it differently from any other murder. When we begin to shoot people for carrying a yard sign of people we don't like, then we are in new territory, but shot he was.

I went down and saw his neighborhood. We cannot allow this to go on. We cannot allow these people to do such a thing. I don't like talking or describing people as Black or White, but, in my opinion, at that time in 2020, the Democratic Party was afraid of some Black people voting for Trump. I wondered if that is one of the reasons why they decided to target Bernell Trammell.

They shot him dead. The establishment in Milwaukee at that time implied that perhaps the reason he was shot had nothing to do with politics. We don't know his politics, just because he was carrying a Trump sign doesn't mean that he was shot for carrying a Trump sign. Of course, he was shot for carrying a Trump sign in this very liberal neighborhood. They have pictures of it. The guy came up on a bicycle.

Mr. Speaker, you hear about people being shot when somebody shoots out of a car, but here he was shot by somebody on a bicycle, so it had to be somebody in the neighborhood.

I will say this: There was a time when Republicans stepped up and put up a given amount for available people if somebody could turn in the person who shot Bernell Trammell. I will say right now, I intend to, tomorrow and next Monday, find some people to put together and put out a $30,000 bonus to anybody who can do something that leads to the conviction of the person who shot Bernell Trammell. I am contacting the Milwaukee Police Department there. I am told sometimes in cold cases people could be making a little more progress if $30,000 was thrown out there.

I expect that, hopefully, we will make some sort of a difference. Like I said, this is a guy on a bicycle. It is not like somebody did a drive-by out of a car and was gone right after. Apparently, this guy lived within a few blocks of where Bernell was shot.

Bernell Trammell, by the way, owned a print shop, so he had a commercial property there that people were aware of. Somebody has to know more. Somebody had to see where this bicyclist went.

Presumably somebody told the bicyclist: We have to kill this guy. We can't have him elevating the number of people who are voting for Donald Trump in this radical, liberal area that 15 to 20 percent saw.

In any event, let's not forget about it. The Republican Party should never forget about Bernell Trammell.

The next thing I want talk about here that kind of bothers me is when I think of the conservative Republican movement, of which I consider myself one, which aims so low below the target.

A couple of weeks ago we had a newspaper article dealing with the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing parents to opt their children out of graphic LGBTQ books in Montgomery County, Maryland.

This was supposed to be a great conservative victory that a second grade child did not have to read books that were clearly designed to promote a sexual lifestyle, and Republicans considered this a great victory.

It really bothers me that Republicans consider this a great victory.

Was this a great victory?

Because of the Supreme Court decision, we wind up having maybe, I don't know, maybe 1 out of 20 parents who are on the ball enough to say that parents are not going to be forced into a situation in which their children have to read LGBTQ books.

That is preposterous. It never should have happened in the first place, but, instead, they are pretending that this is a great victory.

Another thing about this so-called great victory is that three of the nine Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this was no big deal and that, in fact, parents shouldn't be able to object to their children reading books of a sexual nature in first or second grade or up to fifth grade, apparently.

That is almost beyond belief how far down we have come as a society. The conservative news media, FOX News, that type of thing, thought this was a victory.

Mr. Speaker, can you believe that?

We are handing out LGBTQ books to first and second graders, and the Supreme Court rules, with three Justices dissenting, that we don't have to have children go here, and if 5 percent or 4 percent of the parents opt out, that is a great victory?

Is that what America has come down to?

I would hope the comatose clergy in this country would wake up and demand that schools not do any of this stuff and begin to put elementary schools back where they were when I was a child, talking about reading and writing, not talking about LGBTQ and not saying it is a great victory if 1 out of 20 parents say that they don't have to give this to their kids.

So let's dial it up, America.

Let's dial it up, conservative news media.

This was a horrific sign that three Supreme Court Justices would have the nerve to say that parents shouldn't be able to object to this, much less the idea it is even in the schools in the first place, to be objected to or otherwise.

So there is your second issue of the day, Mr. Speaker.

The conservatives should wake up.

The comatose people should wake up.

The comatose clergy should say: We do not have to have LGBTQ books in fifth grade, fourth grade, third grade, and down to second grade.

Now, my third topic tonight is that we passed a great big, beautiful bill. I voted for the great big, beautiful bill. There were a lot of things in the great big, beautiful bill, and there were things that were highly questioned.

There is no question the number one defeat that I had in the great big, beautiful bill was spending money on what they call low-income housing tax credits in which a property developer was, with some conditions, given tax credits equal to 70 percent of the cost of a building.

In other words, he got to build the building, but the government would pay for 70 percent of the building. That is preposterous.

Prior to us increasing the amount of credits, I felt that I was in good shape. We had the Heritage Foundation editorialize against it. The Wall Street Journal editorialized against it. The Cato Institute editorialized against it. I thought it was all just completely common sense. Not to mention, the average Congressman should say it is not up to the government to pay 70 percent of a private citizen's building.

But that is what we have. The Republicans--when the bill left the House at that point about $12 billion a year was spent on this. The Republicans--and we were told and given pep talks about how we are going to cut spending: Man, we are going to cut spending. Wow, this is historic. Actually, increased spending on low-income housing tax credits in the House. That is preposterous.

Then we sent it over to the Senate, and I was hoping that a couple buddies over there were on my side so that at least we would go back to where we started in the Senate. But no, in the Senate, the free- spending Republicans went up again. It is something we ought to spend a little bit more time looking at, how this was able to happen here. With all the conservative think tank types explaining this train wreck why-- anybody with an ounce of common sense realizes it is a train wreck--the Republicans went ahead and upped spending on this program first in the House and then in the Senate.

I hope the press corps is not going to forget about this program and hope they continue to follow it. The Washington Post, of all newspapers, pointed out, looking at about four or five different projects in the Washington, D.C., area they found that the cost of some of these was over $1.2 million a unit. Is that possible that at the time we had this supposedly tight budget we are going to spend over $1.2 million per unit? It is just unbelievable.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to give you a bonus on something I noticed when I was back home. My good friend from Ohio decided to talk a little bit about all the wonderful things we could do with gambling proceeds.

When I was first involved in politics gambling was considered a sin, and it was against the law because we knew we were taking money from the poorest people. Now, at least in Wisconsin we have gone from I believe one small casino to it has to be 15 casinos, including some huge casinos. In Wisconsin they have separate slot machines in many bars. And in helpful Wisconsin, they sell scratch-offs in gas stations throughout the district.

The reason it was brought up to me is because I notice that in some of these convenience stores they are now selling $50 scratch-offs. Can you believe the horrible State of Wisconsin is selling $50 scratch- offs? My goodness, they are just shameful, the way they take advantage of the poor and the dumb. It is just horrible. I don't think we would have put up with that when I first got into politics, but apparently Tony Evers thinks it is a great way to get more State money and to take advantage of people who are buying $50 lottery tickets.

In any event, it is not maybe the biggest problem in America, but the number of people who are losing money at these slot machines and scratch-offs is not a small number. It is not something we should be proud of. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the Democratic Party feels it is a great way to increase funding for schools and take advantage of people, but I don't think it is a good thing. I wish my brothers and sisters in the State legislatures would get rid of some of these ridiculous machines and ridiculous scratch-offs and stop taking advantage of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Mr. Speaker, there are four different topics for you to remember. We covered the increased gambling pushed by State governments, as they want to have government play a bigger and bigger role in life.

We covered the ridiculous Republicans who think it is a victory that three Supreme Court judges ruled that you have to allow LGBTQ books in second and third grade.

We covered Bernell Trammell, the poor guy who was assassinated for carrying a Trump sign 5 years ago yesterday.

And we covered the low-income housing tax credits, which is I think the most questionable program in our Internal Revenue Code and probably in Federal law all together.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source