Republicans Have Delivered in 2025

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, I will one more time point out what should be the most important issue facing this body in 2026. I have talked before about the huge marriage penalties that we build into our income transfer programs, also known as welfare programs.

When you add up the penalties that you have to endure if, say, a single mom marries a husband with an income, and we look at the food stamps, the low-income housing, the earned income tax credit, the TANF check, and the Pell grants, you can easily wind up in a situation in which you are penalized $25,000 a year if you get married.

This is the primary reason why, in the 1950s, we only had about 4 percent of the newborn children in this country born without a mother and father at home, and now, we are over 40 percent.

It is not difficult if people in this body would meet with some average people rather than the lobbyists or the big campaign contributors. It is very easy to find young people today who are not getting married specifically because they find that the Federal Government has almost a policy of punishing people who get married.

Even the Republican Party in its big, beautiful bill has, as I count--maybe there are more--three programs in which we are penalizing married couples. I found out today on the tuition credits for private schools that we are supposed to brag about, there is a big marriage penalty there, as we punish people who want to go to private school who are married.

We also increased the low-income housing tax credit so that more and more Americans are in housing in which they are discouraged from getting married.

They are also, by the way, discouraged from working harder because in all these programs, in addition to being penalized for getting married, there comes a point where if you take on overtime or get a raise, they begin to take the benefits away from you.

That is what they do in the low-income housing tax credit. If you are paying so much in rent and decide to work overtime or decide to get a second job, the housing development will have to say: Sorry, you are working harder, so we have to raise your rent. That is another thing we should be looking at and trying to change.

Madam Speaker, a third penalty comes in a mild increase in Pell grants with regard to technical schools. In order to get it, a Pell grant is another one of those programs where a person can't work that hard and can't be married to somebody with an income.

In any event, I implore my colleagues and implore my leadership team to see what they can do in the year 2026 by not penalizing Americans for getting married and not penalizing Americans for working too hard so we try to work our way back.

There was a time with stronger families--I realize all families can succeed, and I know all sorts of families who do succeed by being very conscientious with their children. Nevertheless, I think we would all agree America would be better off if we worked our way back from the 42 percent of children born without a mother and father at home back down to the 6 percent or 5 percent or 4 percent that it was in the 1950s or 1960s.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source