America is Not Racist

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, as we head out for a recess for Memorial Day, I think it is important to address a few issues that have to be countered because the normal mainstream press will not address them.

Today, attending a hearing in the Committee on Education and Workforce, we one more time had it brought up that America was racist. We hear this again and again and again. I think sometimes people are stuck for what to say about that charge. As a result, they think it is just going to go away because, for some reason, the type of people who angrily scream about racism all the time would just give up.

Of course, one of the chief people who likes to run down America and call it racist is former President Joe Biden, who talked about white supremacy as being a big threat. Of course, most of us just roll our eyes when we hear that and move on to the next topic. But, in fact, I think he does damage to the fabric of America, and it is obvious these people who are claiming that racism is a big problem in America are doing it to divide America and hurt America.

I suggest Americans read Christopher Rufo's book, ``America's Cultural Revolution,'' in which he points out that the hard left, the borderline communist left in America, one of their ways to try to destroy America is by convincing people to divide themselves and be angry over racial identity.

The person who thought this up was a guy by the name of Herbert Marcuse in the 1970s.

The hard left had tried to destroy America in the 1960s by trying to set people up against the wealthy. Americans are not naturally a jealous people. They failed to destroy America by trying to create a revolution based on income level, so they moved on to race.

Now, I am going to point out a couple of things about this. First of all, I would like to point out all the people coming to this country, which is relevant in both discussing immigration and the so-called racial problem. I have to always call to get these statistics, which should be routinely published in the paper. They are not.

Every year in this country, around 800,000 people are naturalized. Let's look at the countries where people come here because they would rather live in America: 1, Mexico; 2, India; 3, Philippines; 4, Dominican Republic; 5, Cuba; 6, Vietnam; 7, China; 8, El Salvador; 9, Jamaica; and 10, Colombia.

Does anybody notice anything about all the people who are trying to come here from around the world? The first thing that I notice is that, of these 10 countries, there is no country here which at least the Democratic Party would consider a European country. That is something I think all Americans should be familiar with. These statistics are published every year, and Americans should be made aware of the statistics.

Obviously, the fact that the 10 nationalities most likely to try to become American are not so-called people of color is hardcore evidence that America does not have a serious racial problem.

There is one other thing I would like to point out here. In the list of countries, there are five that we would refer to as Latin American countries: Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia.

Many of these people from these countries, of course, are primarily of European descent because their ancestors were from Spain, then they came to Colombia, and then they came here. You could say they are of European descent, but the DEI establishment does not like people to point that out.

I have never been able to figure out why, if my ancestors came from Spain and came here, they are considered European. If they spent two generations in Cuba and came here, they are not.

In any event, the thing that we have to take out of this is: People from all around the globe are trying to get here. That is a strong piece of evidence that America is not a racist nation.

The next thing I would like to point out is with regard to the immigration issue. We are, again and again, told we must ignore our immigration laws because we have to be kind to people around the world and allow other people to come to America.

I want to point out some statistics here, as well. Right now in America, every year, if you look at a rolling average, about 800,000 people are sworn in as new American citizens. We let in about half a million people on work visas and half a million people on student visas. We do not have to apologize to anybody for not being nice and not letting other people in this country.

Right now, in America, about one-sixth of the people are foreign- born. Think about that: In America, one-sixth of the people that you see walking down the street--my guess is that in Washington, D.C., it is greater--were not born in America. That is the greatest it has been, at least back into the 1880s. Even during the big immigration waves of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, we never had a time in which one-sixth of the country was foreign-born. That is something else that ought to be talked about a little bit when we discuss the immigration issue.

Another issue that is sadly rearing its head and may come up when we are dealing with our constituents back in our districts during the Memorial Day recess: For the first time in my life, over the last year, I have had people talk to me negatively about Israel--not many of them, thankfully. Just like when they run down America for being racist, there is this idea out here that somehow Israel is treating some of its citizens unfairly, and talking about Israel negatively when they look at this.

There is something that hasn't been talked about near enough, which kind of cuts through the ridiculous anti-Israel rhetoric, just as we cut through the anti-USA rhetoric a second ago. It is not known enough that the huge number of people who are in Israel today who are not Jewish and come from around the rest of the world to work in Israel, a country that supposedly is treating people who are not Jewish poorly.

Let us look at the primary nationalities of people who come to Israel to work, rather than stay in their own country, sometimes coming halfway around the world for the enjoyment of working in Israel. The single biggest group is people from India. You work your way down: Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, China, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Malawi, Kenya, and Ecuador. Again, people from Southeast Asia, the Indian area, Africa, and Latin America are all lining up to work in Israel.

Nevertheless, there are Americans who have sympathy for the Arab populations in a land controlled by Israel because they feel they are mistreated. Look at the statistics. If people were being mistreated in Israel because they weren't Jewish, why do we have people from around the whole world trying to get into Israel for an opportunity to work there?

They work in a variety of economic sectors: active in construction, agriculture, home care, retail, food services, and car repair. Wherever you look in the Israeli economy, there are people from around the globe.

Not long ago, I read an article--I don't know how many they got--a significant number of people from Ecuador, hoping that an agreement could be reached so they would have the pleasures of working in Israel.

Of course, more people over time are working in Israel because of what is referred to sometimes as the Palestinian population kind of rose up against Israel and killed people. As a result, understandably, Israel was going to look elsewhere for people who would enjoy the pleasures of becoming part of the Israeli economy.

I encourage all of my colleagues, as they are back in the districts over the Memorial Day weekend, if they ever have anybody come up to them and complain about Israel, which, for the first time in my life, I am getting a little bit of, you can talk about all the people from all around the globe who would happily work in Israel, people who don't speak the native language, like I said, coming from the other hemisphere. Still, they realize how fortunate they are to work in Israel.

Hopefully, they will have a little bit less sympathy for these Palestinians who have had a tough time, admittedly, in the area. They have a hard time voting for people who are not crooked, on the take, and that sort of thing. In any event, it is something we ought to remember. Income Transfer Programs

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, the next issue which I would like to deal with is one I have dealt with many times before. It is one that I personally consider to be the biggest issue which America has to deal with today and which we are not dealing with. Hopefully, we will address it when we return from the recess.

Right now, America has over 70 income transfer programs which are designed to help the so-called poor in America. I believe every one of these programs, be it food stamps, be it Pell grants, be it low-income housing, be it TANF payments--I believe every one of these programs has a strong marriage penalty associated with them.

In other words, the way that the qualifications work, if you have a family income below a certain amount--maybe $30,000, maybe $20,000, maybe $15,000--you are eligible for government benefits. If a single person with children marries--usually marries a man with an average income, all of a sudden, you are no longer considered in poverty, and they take these benefits away from you.

So what happens is--and Americans have figured this out--you may, by getting married, lose $20,000, $25,000, or $30,000 in tax-free benefits.

What is the result of this? Well, just like everything else in the tax code, it has an effect on people's behavior.

Since the government really began declaring war on married couples-- particularly married couples with children--in the 1960s under Lyndon Johnson, we have gone from, in the 1950s, about 4 percent of the children born with a mother and father at home, to over 40 percent born without a mother and father at home.

Now, I am the first one to say that I certainly know many single parents who have done a fantastic job. There is no question about it. But the statistics would indicate it is also a much more difficult thing to raise children in that environment. Statistics would also show that men, in particular, seem to thrive more when they are responsible for the breadwinning in a family with children than when they are not.

So we have a situation in which both the children and, in particular, the fathers, are paying a price--and the mothers, as well--all paying a price for the current policy of the American Government of trying to discourage married couples from having children.

I have asked the President and the Speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate to put together some sort of committee or commission to deal with this problem. I can't think of any Americans, or they are few and far between, who think it is good public policy to penalize people $25,000 for getting married when they have children.

It will be a difficult problem to address, but it is a problem that has to be addressed, and whether we talk about crime, whether we talk about drug abuse, whether we talk about depression, I think all of these problems would, to a certain extent, be lessened if we had a situation of more married couples.

George Gilder wrote about this problem about 40 years ago and did a very good job of pointing out that when it came to men, almost all or way disproportionately, when you are dealing with drug abuse, when you are dealing with crime, the men who are involved in these antisocial activities are very rarely married in a family with children. This is something that almost exclusively is a problem of the current American policy of trying to discourage having men in a household with children.

I should point out that we have had many conservative groups--and I want to rattle them off right now--I would even call them President Trump's base--who are saying, let us address this problem: The American Principles Project, Heritage Action for America, Center for Urban Renewal and Education, Advancing American Freedom, AdvanceUSA, Capability Consulting, Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Coalition for Jewish Values, Faith & Liberty in the Nation's Capital, the Family Policy Alliance, Faith and Freedom Coalition, Family Watch International, the Eagle Forum, Phyllis Schlafly's old group--man, Phyllis Schlafly was great--and the Independent Women's Forum.

All of these groups are begging this institution and the executive branch to take action so we no longer penalize people for getting married, particularly penalize them for getting married when they have children.

Hopefully, next week or the week after that, when we return, we will hear a little bit more from our President and my Speaker when they have to consider what the people who elected, particularly elected Republicans have to deal with. That is to stop the breakdown of the family, which is, by the way, an agenda item. Sometimes people think this just happened or that people are less religious or something.

You have to remember Karl Marx, who I think to this day has an influence on the hard leftwing of the Democratic Party. He certainly was antifamily.

Kate Millett, who I think some people would describe as the founder of the powerful women's studies departments on college campuses in the 1960s, made it clear that she was opposed to old-fashioned, nuclear families.

So, like I said, I hope that this issue will be tackled to a degree between now and the election. There are certainly groups that see the perverse effects of the policies put in place in the 1960s and would like to see changes. Overprescribing Mood Disorder Drugs

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, the final topic that I hope we take up deals with the, perhaps, over-obsession with the mental health establishment in this country.

There recently was a book put out with regard to what I will describe as the overprescribing of antidepressant drugs or other drugs related to so-called mental illnesses among the very young.

The number of these medications has gone up dramatically in the last 20 years. I know the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Bobby Kennedy is working on this, but I think it is important, collectively, that action be taken by Congress and by the President that we do what we can do to reduce the dramatic increase in depression in very young people.

I was not aware until I got involved in this issue that these antidepressants are addictive. So right now, our mental health establishment is putting millions and millions--we have a statistic here of 27 million U.S. adults receiving mental health treatment. Millions of Americans are on addictive medicines because of so-called depression.

I recently read a book on this topic called ``Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance,'' in which the author described being on these medications for about 15 years, from the time she was 14 years old on, unaware that the problems which she was suffering, the behavioral problems, were not cured by the drugs. They were caused by the drugs.

Right now, the combination of the mental health establishment and the pharmaceutical industry have combined to, I think, damage a lot of people's health. Particularly because they are addicting, I think a lot of these people are going to be hurt by these drugs for the rest of their life.

Those are five issues that I hope I have clarified in how to respond regarding them. At least the last two issues, issues that should be taken up by this Congress when we return from Memorial Day break.

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