Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, we heard a little bit about inflation, and we are going to talk about the economy a little bit more.

As has been widely reported, inflation is at a 40-year high, the worst it has been since 1981. Over 8 percent. However, I feel that we are doing a disservice to the current situation to pretend that inflation is only 8.3 percent.

In the official figures they talk about housing going up 5\1/2\ percent. Does anybody think the cost of housing has only gone up 5\1/2\ percent in the last year? I know somebody who builds houses; the cost of a new house that he sells has gone up over 25 percent in the last year.

We look at interest which has to be eaten by landlords or a person buying a house that has gone up from 2\1/2\ percent on a house to 4\1/ 2\ percent in a year. That doesn't sound like any 5\1/2\ percent to me.

You look at, anecdotally, how much rent has gone up. You look at assessments, how much they have gone up on property taxes. In Wisconsin, I am told it is not unusual to find 10 to 20 percent increases in assessments.

When politicians talk about this 8.3 figure, I think it is really a lot higher than that. There is no way the cost of housing and rentals in this country has only gone up 5\1/2\ percent in the last year.

I also had the pleasure in the last few days to talk to people in the automobile industry. The official numbers say used cars have gone up 16.1 percent in the last year. Where are you going to find that? People I know in the automotive retail industry talk about used cars going up 30 or 40 percent in the last year.

First of all, we ought to be honest with the American people. When we talk about inflation at 8.3 percent, it is a lot higher than that.

Now, in order to correct it, we have to look at the cause. What is the cause?

We can start with the American Rescue Plan, one of the first things President Biden did. Larry Summers, an economist for President Obama called it the ``least responsible'' macroeconomic policy in the last 40 years. So they had advanced warning. The expert who worked under Barack Obama told them this was going to be irresponsible, but what did they do? They charged ahead anyway, spending another $1.9 trillion the taxpayers didn't have.

And not long after that we got the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Nice sounding, wasn't it? American Rescue and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. I always think it is kind of interesting the way they come up with names of irresponsible bills under here. That was another $1.2 trillion.

Between these two bills--at a time where it was so important that Congress stop spending money--we hit the gas for another $3 trillion. If it weren't for our friends, the Senators from Arizona and West Virginia, they would have doubled that with a Build Back Better bill for another $4 trillion. I beg you all, please stop spending.

In any event, the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, I think, are more than anything responsible for the out-of-control inflation. I believe they are artificially holding down the numbers to only 8.3 percent.

When I talk to people back home, particularly on housing, particularly on used cars, to a certain extent on food, I think those numbers are artificially low. I think it is higher than that.

People say: What can we do to get things back to where they should be? We just have to work our way back from that level of irresponsibility. Right now we are working on the budget for calendar year 2023. In that budget we have a 13.5 percent increase in nondefense discretionary spending. The days of 13.5 percent increases have got to be over. That number has to be reduced to zero, and I mean zero for defense as well.

We all know there are things in the defense budget that--at least rumors are--that are done more to benefit the people who are making the equipment than are actually going to be helpful in an all-out war.

My suggestion is for both sides to agree that inflation is out of control. To recognize the only way to get it under control is to stop having the Fed print money and to show the rest of the world that we can contain things by committing ourselves to a zero percent increase in discretionary spending for 2023.

Part of the problem here, too, by the way, is the press corps. I don't know if the press corps ever listens to us here. If the press corps wants to make a name for itself--as people with journalism degrees used to--they can do some poking around on that 8.3 percent and do their own research by talking to car dealers, by talking to people who build housing, and by talking to landlords. They can find out, is that 5.5 percent housing cost up in the last year, is that accurate, or is the government trying to pull somebody's leg? I know the answer, and it is time the press corps stops allowing people to get away with it.

Madam Speaker, the second issue that I think has been underreported is what is going on in Ukraine. We last had a briefing, for Congress collectively on Ukraine, on March 30, 2022. I want to know, and I would like to request right now of the majority party another briefing, by that I mean representatives from the Department of Defense and representatives from the State Department, to see how exactly we are going to get out of this.

I voted for more money for the plan because I felt that it is important for America to appear united, and in that vote, we knew it was going to pass. We know the majority party wanted a commitment to make sure that Ukraine was not short of munitions.

However, I think it is important for the majority party to bring representatives of the key departments before Congress as a whole. The reason I would like to talk to them is I don't think enough has been talked about this. Are they working toward ending this war or not?

We all know there are people in this building who, for whatever reason, seem to want to heighten the tensions in the war and get more American troops over there. There are the responsible people--of which I will classify myself as one--in which they want to work toward some sort of peace treaty here before things get even more out of control.

We are dealing with a country, Russia, that has the ability to create economic havoc all over Western Europe, and, quite frankly, economic and human dislocations in the United States.

We should be briefed to see where the administration is on this topic. These are confidential briefings. In the past, I have sometimes gotten answers I like, and sometimes I have gotten answers I don't like. It would be good if the administration would hear from Congress and see what they want.

Do they want this war heightened--tensions heightened? Do they want the United States to provide troops as backup here? Do they want the administration to be working toward an end to the war?

As I said before, we are dealing with two countries who have problems. Their birth rates are low. Ukraine has the second lowest birth rate of the 100 largest countries in the world. Russia's birth rate is not that high either. Both countries have people leaving their countries, sometimes to the United States and sometimes other places.

In any event, I would like to make a request to the majority party that we, one more time, be briefed collectively to see what is going on. I think, by the way, that is something that our incurious press corps ought to be looking at as well.

Madam Speaker, the next thing I would like to address--not one of my top 20 topics--but for the mainstream media, they feel what happened January 6, 2021, is very important. It is important. We are having a committee on it.

I don't think I would rather spend my time on the committee. I would rather spend my time fighting inflation, trying to find solutions to the Ukraine problem, trying to find solutions to the border, trying to do something about the huge number of people who are dying of drug overdoses in this country.

Nevertheless, it is in the news that a committee is looking into what happened on January 6. I feel it is important to put all the cards on the table, and it is important that America know exactly all we have available to determine what happened on January 6.

A considerable time ago, me and two congressmen--8 months ago-- myself, Congressman Norman from South Carolina, and Congressman Gohmert from Texas wrote a letter to Merrick Garland and asked the Department of Justice to release any footage of tapes as far as what went on here that day. Unless it is going to be released, we really don't know all we should know.

I am sure there are both Democrats and Republicans who would like to know all we have as far as what actually happened that day. What tapes were available because they are taking picture of us all the time from this building.

To my dismay, 8 months later, the Department of Justice has still not answered our plea for these tapes. Eventually it gets beyond the idea of just we want everything to be available, people begin to think that the Department of Justice is hiding something.

Madam Speaker, I will make the request verbally and eventually follow up with some sort of written document asking the Department of Justice to release all the video footage of what happened in and around this building on January 6. I think until it is released there are going to be members of the public who believe that something is being hidden that day. Right now it is part of this country's history, but I see no reason to continue this game of not allowing the American public to know what the Justice Department must already know about what happened that day.

By the way, I also feel if Congresswoman Cheney wants to be a little bit of an asset on that committee because she has a bigger mouthpiece than myself, she could demand and create a little bit of a raucous on that committee and demand to see all these tapes, so we know who really was behind things and what to make of various theories that are out there.

That is another issue that the press corps back in the good old days, where they liked to report on what is going on in this country, would routinely be against secrecy in government and would demand that those tapes be released. I do not know where the press corps is. They have the potential to improve this country, but they don't like to get out there and apparently inform the people. And they are not adequately skeptical of people in power.

Now I will address another issue that I think the press corps ought to be picking up and the American public ought to know more about. I have addressed COVID many times. Over 1 million people have died. When COVID broke, several briefings were held for all Congressmen and others for the Oversight and Reform Committee on which I serve. I would bet in the first 3 months of the COVID crisis I must have attended five or six hearings in which I had a chance to talk to the relative experts, Anthony Fauci and others, about COVID.

Then we switched to an isolated, small subcommittee where only a small fraction of the people in this Congress got a chance to ask questions. And at that time, with the rest of us left out, I think there are a lot of topics that the press should be looking into that we would have a chance to ask questions about but are not being asked.

As I said, when over 1 million Americans have died, I would think the press would express an interest. I, many times before, have stood at this microphone and talked about the benefits of vitamin D, and experts beginning two Septembers ago, well before the vaccine was even released, were putting papers out there saying how much vitamin D could prevent deaths. Now people who don't like to push vitamin D will say that the studies out there only show correlation, not causation. But the same thing could be said about other things that clearly are connected with COVID deaths.

Recently, Dr. Amiel Dror of Israel found that people with vitamin D levels under 20 nanograms per milliliter were 11 times more likely to die than people who weren't.

Isn't that something interesting?

Can you imagine, Madam Speaker, how many less people would have died if the public health establishment and the medical establishment had pushed vitamin D initially?

This study is interesting and consistent with prior studies.

Where is the medical establishment?

Where is the public health establishment in either pushing vitamin D or apologizing for not pushing it in the past?

By the way, when calculating vitamin D deficiency--which they are calculating at 20 nanograms per milliliter, not very much--84 percent-- I don't like talking about race; I don't think America is this horrible racist country that some people on the other side of the aisle claim-- but when calculating vitamin D deficiency, about 84 percent of Blacks in the country are vitamin D deficient compared to 35 percent of Whites. Blacks are 70 percent more likely to die of COVID. Every expert I have talked to believes the reason of heightened deaths in the Black community is the result of a lack of vitamin D.

By the way, it is even higher among Native Americans.

I do not know why the public health establishment and the politicians have not gone out of their way to share these numbers with people of color. All Americans should have been alerted to the benefit of vitamin D. All people over age 60 should have been given a vitamin D test to see if they were under that 20 nanograms threshold. I think anyone of color regardless of age should be given the test. But for whatever reason, no money was put into this, not a lot was publicized.

One million Americans died. Black Americans were 70 percent more likely to die than White Americans, and nothing was done. I think that is a scandal. I think we ought to have more hearings before Congress collectively so we can have a chance to ask the public health establishment why they were dropping the ball here.

I think the American press corps--which was asleep at the switch here--should have been publicizing these numbers a lot more. And the American press corps should have been out there asking questions to Anthony Fauci and the other bureaucrats as to why it was not more publicized and why didn't they specifically highlight the increased number of deaths among people of color.

I personally believe if it was the other way around, they might have been a little bit more forthright in explaining what is going on and the degree to which a lack of vitamin D correlated with additional deaths from COVID.

One other thing for the subcommittee to look at, if they get done talking about vitamin D, now that COVID is a lot less likely to lead to death, recently a new drug called Paxlovid was introduced. You can get a 5-day dosage of that drug, which is recommended, for $530. It is not cheap. Pfizer right now, I am told, expects to earn $27 billion dollars in sales from Paxlovid--$27 billion. That is a lot of money. They made a lot of money on other things as well on the COVID. When you are talking about making $27 billion on a drug, just a few little pills, a 5-day dosage, $530, I would think the subcommittee would want to look into that and see if there is an excessive amount of money being charged for that drug. I would think the slumbering press ought to be looking into it as well.

Twenty-seven billion dollars in sales?

That is what it says.

So if anybody out there wants to find something to talk about rather than some of the trivial issues that dominate our newspapers, they can look into the rich and powerful one more time and see whether the payment for Paxlovid are a little bit excessive.

The final topic tonight is a topic that is no secret but right now people are planning for the next session and seeing what problems in America we should address.

I personally have been outspoken. I think one problem that needs immediate attention is what is going on at the border. We also have to do something to make sure that we don't wind up in a more serious war with Ukraine or a war with China. These are vitally important.

But in the long run, the future of America comes down to its moral fiber. This country has since the mid 1960s strongly subsidized or strongly discriminated against the American nuclear family.

We know that Karl Marx--and there are a surprising number of academics in America who are drawn to socialism--Karl Marx felt in order for socialism to exist, you had to get rid of the family. We all know that in the last election Black Lives Matter was a powerful group and that Blacks Lives Matter, the founders anyway, were opposed to the traditional American nuclear family--or as they describe it, the Western prescribed nuclear family, which is a lie by the way. We have nuclear families in countries that are not Western countries. There are nuclear families all over Latin America, sub-Sahara Africa, and Asia. But, in any event, it is apparent that powerful groups in this country want to destroy the nuclear family. And probably no policy did more to aid in the destruction of the American family than Lyndon Johnson's war on the family. I think he called it the War on Poverty, but it was really the war on the family is what it amounted to.

I hope after almost 60 years or approaching 60 years after the war on the family and the huge expansion of the welfare state that this Congress would begin to address the discrimination against the traditional family.

Madam Speaker, if you look at the welfare programs--whichever program that you look at, be it health insurance, be it SNAP, but be it WIC, be it the earned income tax credit--which was a very anti-marriage program which was actually initiated by a Republican--all low-income housing, daycare, TANF, Pell grants, and other provisions--program after program after program--are designed to take tax dollars from the traditional family and give it more to other families. It is no problem to help everybody, but I think when you clearly set up programs designed not to go to the nuclear family, you are discriminating against them.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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