Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, as we adjourn for the weekend, I would like to address three issues which affect Americans, these are issues I don't think have been discussed quite as much as we ought to.

The first issue concerns this transgender situation. We spend a lot of time talking about guys in girls' sports. This is a problem that ought to be dealt with. I think it polls very well.

Of even more significant concern is that of our out of control psychiatric profession treating this as a genetic problem in which people should have to have surgeries to deal with this.

They have surgeries on young people, people as young as 16 or 15 or 14 years old. These are surgeries that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Just as bad, they give puberty blockers to these young people, not knowing what the long-term effects will be.

Recently, new information that should have come as a surprise to no one--but perhaps will come as a surprise to the mainstream media--a new study came out showing that the number of young adults identifying as transgender plunged by nearly \1/2\ half in 2 years. It exposed what a lot of us knew all along. It was largely a social contagion. It was not a genetic disease that required surgeries or permanently changing people's lives.

As I pointed out before, this does not only affect the people themselves who may have puberty blockers and surgeries but it affects the parents. It affects the parents who will never have grandchildren because their children were roped into this by the liberal news media, by the liberal psychiatric and psychological associations, and by hospitals who made money off of this deal.

I am really afraid this is something, since it is a nationwide problem, that should be dealt with in Congress--and I think it will be dealt with soon--in which we begin to refuse this sort of treatment and, even more, refuse these surgeries to people under the age of 21.

Can we honestly say that we would advise someone who is 20 or 19 years old to have surgery, permanently altering their body for the rest of their life? Think how our ideas on life have changed. Think how our opinions on life have changed between when we were 18 or 19 or 20 years old and when we are 45 or 50 years old.

The know-it-alls in the psychiatric and psychological profession are encouraging people to have surgeries. They are giving people puberty blockers. I am afraid the U.S. Congress will have to step forward and say ``no.''

I hope our leadership team in the near future puts something forward that says--and it really should be greater than that. A person can't be a Congressman until age 25--it should at least go to age 21. We need to put an end to this and stand up to the psychiatric and psychological associations. That is one issue I think we ought to deal with.

Mr. Speaker, I will now deal with another issue, and this kind of deals with Social Security. Right now, there are older people who make the mistake of retiring and getting Social Security. All of a sudden, they would like to go back to work and make more money, but they are unable to.

Earlier this session we played around with the Social Security trust fund in which--or at the end of the last session in which way too many people voted for giving more Social Security dollars to some governmental employees; it was about $24 billion a year.

Rather than encouraging more people to retire, if our leadership team wants to encourage more people to work, which we should, we should increase the amount of money that a senior can make before their Social Security is taken away.

Right now, if a person makes more than $19,500 a year in Social Security, when they get to that point, the government begins to take away a person's Social Security check. Right now, we are in the business of trying to discourage people from working if they are 68 or 69 or 70.

Let's pass the Senior Independence Act which increases that amount from $19,500 to $30,000 so that the older people who need a little bit more money can earn it. Even more, it is good for people to work. If these older people want to get out of the house and get a little more social stimulation by working, then they are not penalized for doing so.

I strongly encourage our leadership team. I realize that they will say that it will encourage more people to retire early and might cost the government a little bit of money, but we had plenty of money to give people who were retired to encourage people to retire last January.

Let's encourage and free up older people and let them work a little bit more.

Of course, we have a labor shortage problem. It will also be good for our economy as we see a few more people going to work, maybe working 30 hours a week instead of working 20 hours a week. As I said, we want to boost our economy a little. There are so many businesses who so desperately looking for some more labor, particularly the retail outlets out there and there are some factories, as well. We are particularly finding now that we are kicking people out of this country who are here illegally and were working, it would be great to have more 60 to 69-year-olds working. I hope our leadership will find a way to pass the Senior Independence Act and allow seniors to make $30,000 a year.

Now, the third issue I want to deal with comes under 14(c), which is the provision which allows people who are having some physical problems, spina bifida, Down syndrome, and other problems, sometimes paraplegics, to work.

Given the current situation, in order to make it financially viable to have them work, they have to work for under minimum wage. Nobody ever forces people to do this, but they do it to earn a little additional money. Most of these people are on SSI. They don't need the money to pay the mortgage or pay the rent, but they would like to have a little bit more money to buy some of their own clothes, perhaps buy gifts for parents, what have you.

There are really misguided people out there who are trying to get rid of 14(c) certificates, and, in essence, make it against the law to pay somebody $4 or $5 or $6 to work because of problems that are out there. I have right now formed a caucus called the Congressional Disability Employment Caucus, which is dedicated to the preservation of the 14(c) program. It will provide a little bit of structure to the effort to continue to allow people with differing abilities to have the freedom to work for a little bit smaller amount.

I think it is just horrible that some people want to take away this freedom. I believe in counties in which this freedom has been taken away. What happens is people who, right now, are working for $4 or $5 an hour wind up in what they call day services, and they sit around and watch television or maybe they are taken on a trip somewhere, but they miss out on the enjoyment of work. They miss out on being like their siblings in which they are able to work today and some, to a degree, support themselves.

I think it is just tragic when this is done and they are deprived of the freedom to work. I will encourage all of my colleagues to track down 14(c) employers in their district and see how meaningful it is for these people with differing abilities to be able to work and to be able to earn their own money.

It is not just an economic decision, it is a social decision, as well. One of the things that scares parents or guardians who are dealing with people in this situation is: What is going to happen to them when the parents are gone? Are they going to have any friends? Are they going to have any social structure?

Moreover, even more than people in other jobs, the social structure provided by people and employers that use 14(c) certificates does provide these folks with friends. We all to a certain extent socialize with the people we work with, but especially for these people, it is important to have friends outside their immediate family.

When you begin to shut down these employers, Mr. Speaker, you are depriving these people of the friendships that they will form in employers who give 14(c).

First of all, I beg my colleagues--we all like to get reelected--I beg my colleagues to tour facilities with 14(c) certificates, and see how happy the people are who work there. See how important both economically as well as socially it is for these folks to have the freedom to work in these facilities. I hope Congress stands up to the freedom haters who want to deny these folks the ability to work in a little bit different setting that they want to do.

There are three issues that I ask Congress to take up and consider. I want Congress to pass whatever legislation is necessary to make sure we always protect the 14(c) certificates. I ask Congress to take up raising the amount of money a senior can make before we take away their Social Security, both for the good of the overall economy, as well as the financial and social health and social assistance of our senior citizens.

Finally, I ask Congress to do something to make sure these out-of- control, lack of commonsense psychologists, psychiatrists are not able to give puberty blockers or surgeries on people under the age of 21.

As I said, we should ban it, even above that age. I have certainly sat and heard people talk about how they regret their surgeries. It seems in our society when it comes down to drinking and when it comes down to smoking, age 21 is the limit in which we allow people to do more. If any of my colleagues would want to introduce an amendment to age 25, our forefathers didn't feel we were qualified to be Congressmen until we were age 25, I would be happy to go for an age 25 limit, as well. I would like to be debating that in conference next week.

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