[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 27 (Thursday, February 9, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H806-H808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATE OF OUR UNION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Grothman) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be able to be the last
Congressman to speak in this historic State of the Union week here in
Congress.
There are several comments that have to be made about the State of
the Union because if you are just going to listen to what President
Biden had to say, you would have a very warped and distorted view of
what is going on in America today.
I think the most harmful thing he said is he one more time talked
about the talk and implied that America's police force is a racist
police force and a stain on America's reputation. That is a lie. It is
a lie. It has been disproven year after year, study after study.
Nevertheless, President Biden, I think in an effort to scare Black
Americans into voting for him, claims that we have a horrible racist
society in general and a racist police problem in particular.
I will mention two articles which came out right after the
unfortunate
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events, the tragic events, the horrific events that happened in
Minneapolis 2 years ago, for those of you back home to google. One
article is by a very perceptive gal by the name of Heather Mac Donald,
appearing in The Wall Street Journal, and one is by a gentleman, who
happens to be Black, appearing in the City Journal at that time.
They both looked not at the number of people who died across the
board but looked at a percent of people who committed felonies, a
percent of people who committed crimes who wound up in a confrontation
with police and wound up passing away. In both instances, they found
that, if anything, Black Americans were less likely to die in a
confrontation with police.
Again, I will mention these articles, ``The Myth of Systemic Police
Racism,'' Heather Mac Donald in The Wall Street Journal in June 2020,
and ``Stories and Data,'' Coleman Hughes, in the City Journal of June
2020.
This is something that is a stain on America. Joe Biden is doing all
he can to divide America by using his State of the Union Address to
claim that the police are racists.
Does this have an effect? It has an effect. It has an effect twice.
First of all, I think it has an effect in that it causes some people
to believe him. After all, we have a White President. Why would he be
lying and telling us we have all these racist police if we don't? And
the effect is that it is causing, sadly, some anger in the Black
community, which is resulting in more and more deaths of police.
I thought of this when, earlier this week, I think maybe on the exact
day that we had the State of the Union, if not the day earlier, one
more policeman, who happened to be White, was murdered in Milwaukee.
Is this myth that is going out there, talking about racist police,
racist police, racist police, causing more police to die? I don't know,
but it is something to look at.
I think it also causes the police, understandably, to be less
aggressive and less effective because they are always afraid of being
called out for being racist.
If President Biden is lying and telling everybody that we have all
these racist police, it is surprising that the police themselves are a
little more afraid to be aggressive or engage in I guess what I will
call traditional policing.
Last year, in Milwaukee, a city which is just adjacent to my
district, the number of murders went up I think about 25, to an all-
time high. It was the third year in a row that we had an all-time high
number of murders in Milwaukee, and that is despite the fact that the
population is drifting down. Why are we at an all-time high number of
murders in Milwaukee?
Generally, I think the police, first of all, are not adequately
funded. To a certain extent, they are not adequately funded because
politicians like Joe Biden get out there and tell us how horrible and
racist the police are. Is it any surprise that the Milwaukee City
Council would not want to hire many police?
Secondly, the Milwaukee police are afraid to go into certain
neighborhoods, sometimes high-crime neighborhoods where they are
especially used because they are afraid if they do confront the
criminal element, they will get labeled as racist. Rather than worry
about some cheap politician like Joe Biden calling them racist over
time, why not just stand back, not be aggressive, and not get labeled?
In any event, I felt of all the lies of President Biden, his drumbeat
of racism in society in general and racism with regard to police is the
most damaging.
Mr. Speaker, the next thing that I thought was very scary for the
country as a whole, I think probably the biggest crisis that has
developed in the last 2 years, is the crisis at the border. Admittedly,
if you don't live in Arizona or don't live in Texas, you might not see
the full import of the crisis.
President Biden implied that this is, at best, something that just
miraculously happened out of nowhere and, at worst, was happening
because the Republicans aren't doing enough to help him close the
border.
I would like to leave America with some numbers. These are both
numbers from December. In December 2020, a grand total of 21,000 people
crossed the border. In December 2022, 2 years into the Biden
Presidency, 238,000 people crossed the border, an increase of 11 times.
This is not something that just happened. It was a problem when we
had 28,000 people crossing the border under the Trump administration.
When it goes up by a factor of 11, it is not because the Republicans
aren't negotiating. There are all sorts of things we negotiate whenever
we put together the annual budget, and a given number of Republicans
vote for it.
No, it is because Joe Biden changed the policy at the border. He is
making it much easier for immigrants to cross the border. For whatever
reason, he wants to apparently change America by entering in the people
who receive no instruction, no education on our Constitution and the
values that you are supposed to adapt if you are an American citizen.
As a result, we are over 11 times as many people crossing the border as
2 years ago.
{time} 1245
He didn't mention at all the number of people that are deported for
committing crimes. The number of people we are deporting right now is
about one quarter the number of people who were deported when President
Trump was in office, as well.
Now, President Trump wasn't a perfect man, but I will tell you, even
at the time, a lot of people were not being deported. What we have is,
we have a President who, even after people prove themselves unfit to
become Americans by committing crimes, they are not deported.
I want the American public to ponder those numbers. We have gone from
20,000 a month to 238,000 a month.
I also want to point out the huge number of unaccompanied minors
coming across the border. There was a time when the mainstream media
felt it was horrific if, even for a few days while their parents were
being processed, children were without their parents.
We have gone in the last 2 years from around 2,000 to around 8,000
every month of unaccompanied minors crossing into our border.
Where are their parents?
We apparently don't care. We are told: we find sponsors for these
young people.
I am told by the Border Patrol that particularly the Central American
countries do not like the current policy of the United States of taking
in unaccompanied minors here. After all, they believe that is the
future of their countries. They do not like us grabbing all their
minors.
Where are the advocates?
We let over 8,000 young children into the country every year and we
may have no idea whatsoever where their parents are.
Do their parents know where the new sponsors are?
Do we know if these children are being human trafficked?
What do we know? Nothing.
There are 8,000 children, not without their parents for 2 or 3 days,
but could be without their parents for the rest of their lives.
I hope America takes away the moral stain on our Nation of allowing
the separation of 8,000 or 9,000 minors every month from their parents.
I hope the American public does not fawn to the idea that somehow the
reason we have 230,000 people every month crossing the border is
because of Republican inaction.
Good grief, in the last 2 years, we didn't have the House, we didn't
have the Senate, and we sure didn't have the Presidency. The reason for
that is because he has changed policy from what it was 2 years ago.
It is not rocket science to get back down to 20,000. You just have to
go back to what the laws were 2 years ago, but President Biden clearly
doesn't want to do that. He wants as many people coming here as
possible. Like I said, the clearest evidence of that is not only
letting everybody here, but he is not even deporting people who break
the law.
In any event, that is, I think, what we have to look at when we look
at the southern border and the policies that are going on down there.
The next thing that I don't think he spent anywhere near enough time
on--but it should be required to be addressed by, quite frankly, every
politician, in part, because of his inaction at
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the southern border and, in part, because of his hatred of the police
or as labeling police as racist--we now have over 100,000 fentanyl
deaths in this country every month. As I have said before, we have more
people dying of illegal drug use in this country every month, twice as
many people as died in the Vietnam war collectively.
Now, I am old enough to remember the Vietnam war. I remember the
media pounding, pounding, pounding that we had to get out of Vietnam
because, by the time it was over, 57,000 Americans had lost their
lives.
We are now at 180,000 deaths from illegal drugs each year and what do
we get?
We get less focused on the border than ever before, we get attacks on
the police for fear of being called racist, and, as a result, that
number keeps going up and up and up.
When I think of all the parents who have lost children, people who
have lost their siblings, people who have lost their parents because of
these drug overdoses--frequently people who are taking drugs don't know
fentanyl is in the drugs--I think, why isn't the government doing
anything?
To be honest, it kind of stumps me.
Why does the Biden administration not care that over 100,00 people
are dying?
Why doesn't the news media make that a banner headline? Wouldn't you
think?
Over 9,000 people are dying every month of illegal drug overdose,
most of it fentanyl, the press doesn't report about it.
I am more than appalled that President Biden didn't spend more time
talking about the huge drug problems we have in America and the huge
number of deaths rather than focusing on, what I would consider in some
cases, rather minor issues.
The final thing to talk about is President Biden mentioned Ukraine.
He did not talk about what we are going to do to end that war. And as
more people die over there, admittedly not Americans, but as more
people die, one would hope that the Western nations, and the United
States in particular--who didn't seem that concerned when the war
began, after all, it was predicted that next month Russia is going to
invade, blah, blah, blah--but President Biden didn't seem to care that
the war was starting.
Then the war started, and we really haven't made much of an effort to
end the war. At the end of every war, unless there is complete victory
on one side or the other, usually every side gets something and loses
something, and has to sell the fact that all these people died for a
reason or for a purpose.
The United States is not, from what I can see, making an effort to
end this war. Again, we are told thousands of soldiers are dying every
month. We know Russia is a very powerful country with regard to
nuclear weapons, but also tactical nuclear weapons, the ability to shut
down electricity, the ability to use hypersonic missiles.
Nevertheless, it seems as though the Biden administration would be
perfectly happy if this war were going on another 2 years from now.
That is just intolerable.
As I said, it is a human disaster for Russia and Ukraine, and the
possibility that this war will bleed into the United States--or, even
more likely, bleed into Poland and bleed into Germany--is something
that should concern us all.
But for whatever motivation--and one can only guess at motivations,
this is where conspiracy theories come in--the powers that be in the
United States--the one-world-government types--don't seem to be
bothered by this war at all.
It is something that demands more speculation, and the next time
President Biden wanders into some microphones, he should be asked a
little bit more: Do you have a plan for wrapping this up?
The answer to which appears to me right now is that, no, he does not.
There are a few issues that I think we should have spent more time on
addressing, or that President Biden should have spent more time on
addressing. I hope just because it is not a State of the Union Address
doesn't mean he can't give speeches. He runs around the country.
First of all, I would call upon President Biden to apologize to the
police of the country and admit that the studies that are out here in
The Wall Street Journal and in the City Journal are accurate and the
police are not racist.
Please, President Biden, stop lying to the American public and tell
the American public that Black people are not disproportionately being
harmed by the police.
I hope President Biden does something on the border. Above all, he
has got to change his policy and send more people back to Mexico,
although more Border Patrol agents wouldn't hurt. If he cared about
drugs, more drug-sniffing dogs wouldn't hurt.
But, please, President Biden, pay a little attention to what is going
on at the border before we lose this country.
I ask you to spend a little time seriously focusing on the fentanyl
crisis. We should not be losing over 100,000 citizens every month.
Please, I realize we can't do it, but you can allow Israel or Turkey
or France--push them a little bit--to work towards some sort of final
agreement with Russia. I think it is obvious Russia probably regrets
invading Ukraine given the huge number of people whom they have had
die. I can't help but think Ukraine, being the smaller country, the
number of people who die is a bigger proportion of their population.
Plus I believe they have had tens of millions--or at least they claim--
a significant number of civilians who have died in the war.
I think economically it is going to take both Russia and, in
particular, Ukraine quite a while to recover from this. It would be
nice if President Biden displayed a little bit of humanity. He didn't
try to stop the war right before it started. His intelligence agencies
predicted it. There were things he could have done. He didn't do them,
but I wish now he would step forward and display a little humanity
there.
Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for this time to speak, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from
engaging in personalities toward the President. Members are further
reminded to direct their remarks to the Chair and not a perceived
viewing audience.
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