Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, America has been through a tough time the last few weeks due to serious incidents that happened in Buffalo and in Texas. But last week, I was down at the Mexican border, and I talked to some Border Patrol guys, who, because we were Congressmen, brought up what happens when we make it as difficult as possible for law-abiding people to own guns.

Right now, if you compare Mexico and the United States, Mexico has-- per capita--about five times as many murders as they do in the U.S. Not 5 percent more, not 50 percent more, five times as many. I am sure the Mexican elected officials who passed those laws making it so difficult to get a gun thought they were going to have a peaceful paradise down there.

Right now, many people are running all over each other to say: Let's pass law. Let's pass this law. Let's take a look and see what happened in Mexico and whether the sole answer is more laws.

Meanwhile, I have a bill making it more difficult to bring guns into schools, and right now, that bill is not moving. I think that would have a good impact.

Mr. Speaker, there are a variety of topics that I think have not been discussed enough lately but I think should be addressed on the floor.

We have been gone for 2 weeks prior to reconvening this week, and in that time I took one more trip to the southern border. I took the trip to the border because other than arguably the threat of an absolute catastrophe over the Ukraine, it is easily the biggest cause for concern in this country at this time.

I went down to McAllen, Texas, with 11 other Congressmen. Rather than having a trip of twelve which, as I understand, is the biggest group that has been at the border since COVID, we should have had 80 or 90 people there to see what is going on.

Prior to talking about things that I saw on the trip, I will talk about the size of the problem, because the numbers tell the story. In the most recent April, we let 183,000 people in the country.

Frequently, the press, for whatever reason, and some politicians, talk about the number of people who have contact with the Border Patrol. 183,000 is the number who actually came in the country. A year ago in April, that number was 66,000. And 2 years ago it was 6,000. So we have gone from 6,000 let in the country in April of 2020, April of 2021, 66,000 and, most recently, 183,000.

These numbers are staggering. The press should be reporting every monthly number with banner headlines. Perhaps, because the story seems old, they get tired of reporting it. But it is a more significant story every month.

Of those 183,000, about 60,000 are what we refer to as gotaways; that is, not people who checked in at the Border Patrol and got a cursory review. They are people who did not touch the Border Patrol at all. We don't know whether they were sneaking in this country with drugs. We don't know whether they had diseases. We don't know whether they have criminal background problems. We don't know.

So from 6,000 to 66,000 to 183,000. Who knows what it is going to be by this time next year. Obviously, it is changing America dramatically.

We do have ways to come in this country legally. We like to make sure that the future America is people who have proved themselves, law- abiding, hardworking. Here we have no idea who we are getting.

I point out that one of the reasons more people are sneaking across the border is that, as we have approximately 120,000 people who check in with the Border Patrol, the Border Patrol has to spend more of their time doing paperwork and not doing what they want to do, which is guard the border. That is why we are having a much more significant number of people come here without any contact whatsoever.

The Biden administration says they inherited a mess. They inherited 6,000 a month; and now we are at 183,000 a month.

As far as other observations along the Rio Grande, the heartlessness of the Mexican drug cartels continues to be shown. When they want to get drugs here, because they know the Border Patrol is understaffed, what they do is they send a group of people across the river, and they know the Border Patrol will be obligated to deal with that group of people. And then they send another group of people, say, a mile or 2 miles further on down or further up river, where they know they can get across with their drugs.

They also know the cartels are so brutal and heartless that they will throw a young child overboard in the Rio Grande because they know our ethical Border Patrol will save that child, rather than deal with the people who are sneaking across, perhaps sneaking across with drugs.

For the first time since I have been at the border--I have been down there several times, in part, due to my subcommittee assignment, the fact that I am a ranking member. The people who showed me the Rio Grande pointed out at the bend of a river, here is where we have a lot of Chinese come across.

Again, I think people are under the impression these are largely Mexican, Central American folks. I was surprised to hear from my guide that they pointed out this is the bend where we see a lot of Chinese coming across; which is, by the way, typical of what I have seen in other regions. This is people from all around the world.

They also pointed out that one of the reasons so many people are coming here, they come here because the drug cartels are making money off them and advertising on social media all around the world, be it Central America, be it Brazil, be it Peru, be it India, or Pakistan, or Bangladesh, the drug cartels are making money on these folks.

The further you come, the more they make per person. Maybe they are getting six or $7,000 for Mexican, maybe 9 or 10,000 for Central American, maybe 15 or $20,000 from Asia.

One more time--and I repeat things up here I find almost hard to believe. But one more time, I was told by the Border Patrol that right now the Mexican drug cartels make more money smuggling people across the border than drugs, and that is really saying something.

So, in addition to the other problems, we are strengthening the financial hold the drug cartels have on Mexico and, to a lesser degree, on the United States.

It is not rocket science how to stop this. You stop it by going back to the migrant protection protocol in which people coming here were held in Mexico pending a hearing.

When I talk about the non getaways, about 120,000 a month, these folks are let in the United States and told to show up for a hearing at some time. They rarely show up.

When people are paying 10 or $15,000 to get this far, they would not come here in the first place if they were on the Mexican side of the border. People are not going to pay $15,000 to sit in Mexico and hope a hearing goes their way.

So we should go back to the common sense provisions we had just a year and a half ago, and we would quickly get back down to the six or 10 or 15,000 a month, rather than the massive amount that is coming across the border.

Another benefit of not having so many people cross the border, is we would decrease the number, the horrifically high number of drug overdoses we have in America. These numbers have been repeated, but it is another story that I think the press is dropping the ball on because they think because it is an old story it is not an important story.

When I was elected to this job 7 years ago, about 47,000 Americans were dying every year of drug overdoses. That is now over 110,000. By comparison, 57,000 American troops died in Vietnam. Over

twice as many Americans die every year from drug overdoses in this country as died in 12 years in Vietnam.

The apathy of the Biden administration on these numbers and, quite frankly, the apathy from the people in this Chamber is stunning. 110,000 people are dying. Not only does that, by itself, mean we have to do a lot more at the border, we should greatly increase the penalties for people who smuggle fentanyl or sell fentanyl in this country.

Think about that. 110,000 people. Think about their parents. Think about their children. Think about their siblings as, for the rest of their life, they are going to carry that death with them.

And what do we get from this administration? Nothing. The border is not a priority. We don't care how much fentanyl comes here.

So again, my request to this body and the request from the Biden administration, show a little bit of sympathy for the families, where the people who use these drugs die, and care a little bit about the future of America.

In some years, over 800,000 people are sworn in as new citizens. Nobody complains. They have been in the country 5 or 6 years. They have proven they are not going to go on welfare. They have proven they are not going to commit crimes. I have attended their ceremonies. They make one feel very good about being an American. I don't know why we wouldn't want to have everybody come here under those circumstances, rather than this massive increase of people coming across the border.

The next topic which should be discussed, and every Congressman who didn't spend the last 2 weeks in their house heard about it, is the dramatic amount of inflation that is out here.

One thing that bothers me, and it bothers me about my own party, is I don't think we spend enough time talking about where the inflation came from. It came from excessive government spending and the need of the Federal Reserve to, in essence, print money to deal with that spending.

I point out that this was not a surprise. I personally--I could say who am I--personally pointed out at the time the original stimulus package that President Biden signed almost immediately upon getting-- coming into office, the $1.9 trillion stimulus package, predictably caused this dramatic increase in cost of food, cost of oil, certainly, cost of housing.

I remind people that Larry Summers, key economist, key economic adviser to Barack Obama, said at the time that this was the least responsible economic policy in 40 years. That is what Barack Obama's economic adviser said.

But, instead, we got from the other side of the aisle, they ignored Mr. Summers' concerns. They ignored the concerns of Republicans. And upon President Biden taking office, whoosh, a new $1.9 trillion stimulus package.

Soon thereafter, they added to that an over $1 trillion infrastructure bill which was bipartisan because they got a few irresponsible Republican Senators to vote for it. But, again, outside of regular budget process, these massive bills.

And predictably, what happened is what Larry Summers and, quite frankly, me and many Republicans said was going to happen, dramatic increase in inflation; huge increases in the money supply; increases in the money supply even greater than what we saw in the 1970s under the Carter inflation.

It is such a dangerous path we are taking. And I think, in the future, as President Biden continues to ask for more spending, and I think the level of spending he asked for in the regular budget is excessive in its own right; over 12 percent increase in nondefense spending there. It would be good if not just the Republicans, because we are in the minority, but the Democrats as well would stand up to President Biden and say no.

We cannot have any more inflation. Inflation used to be known--and what it is is a regressive tax on the public. The average person spends more on gas--the average middle-class person spends more on gas than the wildly well-off person. They spend more on housing. They spend more on food.

This is a policy that harms the middle class and harms the poor, quite frankly, far more than the billionaires which have such influence politically and get so involved in the last election.

I know there were times where Republicans stood up to President Trump when he wanted to issue new checks on some of this COVID bills and voted ``no.'' It would be refreshing in the future if we had some Democrats stand up and say, I voted for you President Biden, but this spending was just irresponsible and out of control, and I cannot stand with you.

I would love it, in the appropriation bills, if we pass--in the current fiscal year, had no increase at all. That is not a dramatic thing. They should be cut dramatically. But it would be good if both the Republicans and Democrats got together and said we are going to go back to sequester sort of increases; things that we saw under Barack Obama even, and try to hold the increases into under 1 percent, or perhaps nothing, because it is going to take quite a while to recover for the excessive COVID spending, as well as the huge stimulus package that President Biden led off with.

This is not something that was a surprise. It was not something that was caused by Ukraine. It was something that every middle schooler should know. You cannot just print money and not have a huge impact on inflation.

The next thing we are going to look at here tonight is, quite frankly, the reason I ran for the job, and what I thought was the major problem in America, and still believe, other than the border, which maybe is nudged by it, or the threat of some catastrophic war in Europe, and that is the role that the Federal government has played in the breakdown of the American family.

The number of children born without a father in the home was under 5 percent before World War II, and kind of in the golden age of America, that is what was the norm.

It is hard to believe anybody would not want the nuclear family to be the standard that American children grow up in.

However, we do know that Karl Marx--and there is this romance with socialism that permeates part of the Democrat Party, permeates a lot of our academic institutions. Karl Marx felt that we had to destroy the American family.

As I have said many times before, Black Lives Matter, on their website around the time of the last campaign, said that they wanted to get rid of the Western-proscribed nuclear family.

First of all, it is an insult to the rest of the world because families with mothers and fathers at home are common in Asia, common in Africa, common everywhere.

But in any event, it is apparent that the powerful Black Lives Matter at least said they wanted to get rid of the nuclear family. Karl Marx wanted to get rid of the nuclear family.

What happened in America that we went from very few children not having a mom and dad at home to working our way to 40 percent of the children born in America without mom and dad at home?

It didn't just happen. It happened because this institution, beginning with who I think is the worst President in the country's history until now, Lyndon Johnson, began a war on the family. I guess he called it a war on poverty. He really should have called it a war on the family.

He began to put the government in a position in which they would take care of the children instead of both parents--traditionally, the father. So, in other words, they substituted the government for the father in the home.

Quickly, we reached the point where it ramped up from the middle sixties to the nineties, then dipped a little with welfare reform in the sixties, and now is on the upward climb. Forty percent of children go home to one parent.

There are some parents who are able to swing it and do a good job, but let's face it: It is much more difficult to raise kids in that circumstance, and the statistics show it.

So, how has this body responded? It has responded by increasing the incentives to not form a nuclear family. Right now, all the government transfer payments, be it medical care, be it food stamps, be it low- income housing, be it the earned income tax payment, be it the TANF payments, are all conditioned upon families being in poverty.

A lot of people considered in poverty I don't think we would consider in poverty. They maybe have an air-conditioned apartment. They may have iPhones. They may have cars. But you are considered in poverty if you are not earning a great deal of money. And the bag of things you are getting can, in many cases, exceed that of what a working parent, frequently a father, in the home can provide.

The government says provided you don't get married to a guy with an income or much of an income, we are going to give you a free apartment, frequently a nicer apartment than people who are not in the system yet. We are going to give you free food.

When I talk to the clerks at the grocery stores and such, they frequently say the food one gets is more expensive than the clerks who work at the grocery stores can afford.

When you give free healthcare, when you give additional checks of some basis, TANF checks, you can quickly wind up in a situation in which, like I said, you are better off financially not getting married.

This was, I think, the biggest policy mistake we have seen in America, perhaps in hundreds of years, the decision in the 1960s to, in essence, have the government replace the husband.

I think so many of the problems in America today, including the crime problems that we addressed or tried to address in the gun bills that were passed earlier today, actually wouldn't be anywhere near the problem they are had we not done what we could to destroy the American family as Karl Marx wanted.

It is the bag of things one gets. Efforts have been made throughout the last year and a half, some successful, some not, to push more and more money in the system for people or for single parents--could be a man, could be a woman--who are not married to someone with much of an income, the efforts made to increase the earned income tax credit, the increases in the food stamps, the efforts made to put more low-income housing out there.

I remember, too, as I mentioned, I talked to some of the admittedly more liberal people who administer the low-income housing. I asked them: What about the program don't you like?

Well, it is a good program I am glad to be part of here, but these people are getting nicer housing than I am getting.

It kind of reminds me like when you talk to the clerk at the grocery store. The people in the system are getting nicer groceries than the people not. The people getting the low-income housing, once they get off the waiting list, are sometimes getting better accommodations than people who are off on their own, particularly couples starting out.

In any event, I think if there is one thing I would like to have the Republican Party do, if we ever do get both Houses and the Presidency again, is to make a concerted effort to change these welfare programs so never again will the United States be in the business of encouraging families without both parents, particularly encouraging families without a father at home.

The results of Lyndon Johnson's policies have been written about for 50 years now. Whether we are talking about Daniel Moynihan or George Gilder or Robert Rector, everybody points it out.

This breakdown in the family, which everybody knows is ruining America or is largely responsible for causing the moral decline in America, it didn't just happen. It happened because the U.S. Government and people in this body wanted to take money and give it to people living a certain lifestyle and take it from the tax dollars of people living the nuclear family lifestyle.

I strongly encourage people in this body, including Republican leadership, if we take control of this House 2 years from now with the Presidency, to make their number one priority flipping around these welfare programs which have done so much to lead to the moral decline that we have in America today.

I realize it means standing up to the media. It is standing up to--a former Democrat mayor of Milwaukee used to refer to the poverty pimps. I don't know whether they use that word anymore.

It will take standing up to the poverty pimps and finally getting the strength of the American family back where it was in the 1960s, back where it was in the 1950s where our schools seemed to be doing a better job, where it didn't seem like the crime was anywhere near as great as today.

By the way, things like the murder rate should be falling precipitously because of improved medical care, but we still have a higher murder rate today, last year, than we did in the fifties, which is just preposterous but one of the effects of Lyndon Johnson's war on the family.

I leave that goal for both the Republicans and Democrats, to stop and think what they can do to get the American family back where it was 60 years ago.

Those are some of what I consider the major issues in America, issues that should be talked about today and are, quite frankly, of more significance than some of the things that the media talks about.

I hope when we get done taking our break near the end of June that we do something to address the border, or President Biden would address it immediately, that we do something to address the huge number of drug overdoses and all the broken hearts out there of the people who died because of this problem.

I hope we begin to address the breakdown of the family that didn't just happen. It happened almost by design of the government. I hope we do something about the excessive spending, which results in this inflation that makes it difficult for people at all ages of life. But I think it must make it so difficult for the youngest people as they look forward: Can we buy a home? Can we have children?

Well, Madam Speaker, one more time I will make my weekly statement with regard to Vitamin D.

The COVID epidemic is on the downslide but, in the most recent week, we still had 1,600 Americans die.

I call America's attention, and the subcommittee dealing with COVID, to the fantastic benefits of Vitamin D.

Israeli studies show people who have inadequate Vitamin D levels, under 20 nanograms per milliliter, are 11 times more likely to die of the COVID. And we have known about this for 2 years now.

I beg the public health establishment to spend a little bit of time talking about Vitamin D. I beg the public health establishment to check for Vitamin D levels when people come in. I have found people with levels as low as 16 or 4. By taking Vitamin D supplements, it may save their life.

I point out to the medical establishment that when I talk to the American people back home and they wonder why this isn't being talked about, they believe it is because there is no money to be made in giving a supplement that can cost 12 or 13 bucks at Walgreens. And it is a sad state of affairs when the American public believes that is the reason they haven't been educated on this lifesaving supplement.

Madam Speaker, the good news is the COVID pandemic is kind of under control. Nevertheless, we still have about 250 people a day who die of COVID and over 1 million people have died in this country.

I think one of the failures of the public health establishment and the medical establishment is the failure to educate the public about the benefits of vitamin D. Researchers found that if you have inadequate vitamin D levels, defined as under 200 nanograms per milliliter, you are 11 times as likely to die of the disease.

Can you imagine how many lives would have been saved if we tested for vitamin D and everybody had adequate vitamin D in their blood?

The public health establishment failed us by not educating the public enough on vitamin D, and it is time we stepped it up, even though it looks like we are near the end of the pandemic. And the medical establishment ought to always test for vitamin D with people who are at risk for this disease, particularly people with darker skin, and particularly people who are a little heavy. It is very important to test for vitamin D.

I know the medical establishment feels that they might not get reimbursed quite enough from the insurance companies, but I will tell you, people in the medical establishment, and I am talking about the administrators, in particular, who are making these judgments, ought to put profit aside for a second and make sure that we get these tests on people, because if they come under 20 nanograms, they are greatly at risk for dying.

Madam Speaker, it was a big day a couple of days ago because the new immigration figures

came out for the month of April, and it is something that ought to be banner headlines in all the newspapers. I will report them.

In April, 185,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States. Sometimes people talk about the number of contacts we have; some of the people turned around. Madam Speaker, 185,000, that is up from 152,000 in March. It is 185,000 this April; 66,000 last April; and two Aprils ago, under a different administration, it was under 6,000.

Let me repeat: In April 2020, 5,700 people entered the country, and we didn't know exactly who they were; last April, 66,000; now, 185,000.

In there, we have 8,600 unaccompanied children. People want to worry about families being broken up, that they will send them somewhere in the United States. But 8,600 children entered the country unaccompanied.

In any event, if we have any newspaper people listening, they ought to report this as the banner headline tomorrow.

Madam Speaker, I will make some comments on the reauthorization bill. This is one of these big bills that is 268 pages. I don't have time to go through all of the problems with the bill, but I am just going to touch on some highlights, or low lights.

In this area of high inflation, with a bill like this, the first thing I look at is the cost. The cost of this bill--right now, we are spending about $9.9 billion on this topic. Over the next 6 years, they expect it to increase to $16.2 billion. You are looking at a 63 percent increase in spending on this area at a time where we really don't have any money to increase anything. So I want the American public to understand there is a big spending increase here.

Secondly, I will talk about a very important population to me, though a population that is not talked about enough, and that is the fact that we are continuing to allow a provision in law which I think is damaging to people born with different abilities. Right now, they are not able to work at work centers, which is one of these places that sometimes pays under minimum wage, until they are at least 24 years old. We would never tell anybody of other abilities that you are not allowed to work until you are age 24. But by making it--I won't say impossible, but very difficult to work at a work center until age 24, I think you stunt the people's growth.

I was really hoping we would use this opportunity to allow people with different abilities to begin to work at 18 or 19 years old. Anybody who tours these work centers cannot help but be touched by how proud these folks are to work there. I wish they could work there at age 18 instead of 24.

The next thing I will point out is a clear feature of this bill is to dramatically expand Job Corps; in other words, government jobs that are a steppingstone, I guess, if you can't find another job. There has never been a time, I think, in American history in which they are looking for more people to work. So as I go around my district, be it the service industry, agriculture, light manufacturing, they are begging for employees. What is Congress going to do? They are going to go in there and say, no, we are not going to let you work at the local restaurant; we are going to have you work for Job Corps. I think that is a mistake.

The fourth thing I will point out is this obsession with racial biases and gender identity. There is a bill right now that the majority party has that is called the LGBT Data Inclusion Act, in which they expect everybody, I guess, to tell their employer what their sexual preferences are. I have been doing this job in politics for a long time. I have never had a discussion about sexual preferences with any of my employees. I would feel embarrassed to ask them. But this bill clearly implies a world in which when you apply for a job, let's talk about our sexual identity.

The fifth thing I point out is we have a big problem in this country at our southern border. In this bill, in committee, we tried to have E- Verify to apply to all of these jobs; in other words, to make sure that if we are going to have such a program, at least it is American citizens who take advantage of the program. That amendment was shot down in committee.

What does that tell me? It tells me that one more time, along with free medical care, along with Pell grants, the majority party wants to help out people who are coming here who shouldn't be here. E-Verify really should have been part of the bill. I don't think the American public wants another government program designed, at least in part, to benefit people who are here illegally.

Those are some of the greatest hits of the bill.

Madam Speaker, we just got back from our home districts, and we all heard different things, but I am sure I talked to dozens, maybe over 100, people over the weekend. The number one topic of concern is inflation.

In particular, I ran across someone whose house sold for probably 50 percent more than I would have thought that house would sell for a year-and-a-half ago. I am sure it was good for the person who sold the house, but I feel so sorry for young people today.

Now, why is the cost of housing up so much? The same reason the cost of gas is up and the same reason the cost of food is up. It is because we have a greatly increased money supply.

I encourage all Americans to get on your computers, look at M2 and M1, measure of the monetary supply. That is not something that has anything whatsoever to do with the war in Ukraine. It is simply overspending on the part of this Congress.

The American Rescue Plan Act, the first big spending act of the new administration, is one of the most fiscally irresponsible things I have ever seen.

But I encourage all Americans, when you talk to your Congressman, tell them: ``Government is big enough. Please don't spend any more.''

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, there are certainly many concerns over this bill. The one that I would like to highlight today is that they are greatly increasing the expansion of eligibility for the bill.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean the bill is going to make things more expensive, but you know very well if we are going to bring a whole lot of new areas into the bill, if we don't increase the spending, the areas that are currently part of the community services block grant are going to go down.

I don't believe the majority party is going to let anybody go down, which means this bill anticipates a significant increase in spending on this program. This is one of many programs that I would argue, under the Constitution, really even should not be a Federal concern. It should be a local concern.

To double the eligibility to 200 percent and make that permanent is resulting at a time when our spending is just completely out of control, setting up a situation in which there will be dramatic spending on another government program.

Mr. Speaker, as we break for the weekend, I remind the other Members of this body that when we come back, there is no greater crisis this country faces than the crisis at the border.

I leave Members with just a few numbers that we want to turn around quickly: first of all, the number of people coming here who are not appropriately vetted who are sometimes referred to as illegal aliens; two Marches ago there were 11,000; one March ago 63,000; and the most recent March Border Patrol puts at 150,000.

Think of that: in 2 years from 11,000, 63,000, 153,000 per month. And the Cabinet Secretary in charge of this says that he inherited a mess. He inherited great laws including the Migrant Protection Protocol, and now we have a true mess.

The second number: 110 deaths in the past year in this country from fentanyl, a horrific drug, almost all of which comes across the southern border. By comparison, 57,000 Americans died in the Vietnam war. Twice as many people die every year in this country from illegal drug overdoses as died in 12 years in the Vietnam war.

I sincerely hope this body will deal with the southern border and make it a priority when we come back.

Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said in the last 48 hours on this floor with regard to the Ukraine-Russian conflict; however, I think there are some things that should be added that maybe can be talked about a little bit more as we try to find the end here. And I hope the Biden administration does not give up at all on trying to negotiate some sort of peace.

First of all, I am going to address Russia. Russia has a very low birthrate now of 1.5. In addition to that, people right now are leaving Russia. I was on the San Diego border about 8 months ago, and at that time just in that region--one of 10 regions along the Mexican border-- the second biggest nationality to cross was Russian. It was recently reported that in the 6-month period ending January, 8,600 Russians entered this country. I would bet because of the war Russian immigration has only increased.

With regard to Ukraine, its birthrate is even lower. Of approximately 180 countries of size in the world, Ukraine has the second-lowest birthrate to South Korea at 1.1 percent. It has recently been reported the United States will accept up to 100,000 Ukrainians in our country. While it is certainly the intent that they return, we all know that many of them don't.

Madam Speaker, yesterday, upon returning to my office, I heard testimony from Secretary Mayorkas from Homeland Security saying that he inherited a mess at the border and that he is doing the best he can.

The American public ought to know what the numbers are. Two Marches ago, between got-aways who weren't vetted by the Border Patrol and people who were vetted by the Border Patrol, about 11,000 people a month were coming here. A year ago in March, it was around 60,000. We are right now at 153,000.

When you inherit a March with 11,000 and 2 years later you are at 153,000, you have not been doing the best you can.

This is threatening the end of America. It signals that America is very weak. I have felt all along the policies at the southern border are one of the reasons we have to deal with Ukraine right now, because no normal leader would allow this many people to cross the border.

In any event, I urge my colleagues, anybody who has the ear of Secretary Mayorkas or the President, to point out that when you go from 11,000 to 153,000 people a month in 2 years crossing the border, you have failed and something has to be done.

Mr. Speaker, I don't like to consider myself an overly partisan Congressman, so I will lead off my speech by quoting two Democrats kind of as a background for the rest of this speech.

In Politico--so you know it is true--an unnamed Democrat quotes Barack Obama as saying don't underestimate Joe's ability to blank things up. Former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that Joe Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the last four decades. I want my Democrat friends to think about that.

Now, I am not an expert on foreign policy, but it seems the goal in the Ukrainian-Russian war should be to end hostilities. On the internet, you can find numbers from 2,000 to 20,000 civilians that have died so far. Of course, it appears as though tens of thousands of military personnel have passed away as well. Every day, the number of Ukrainian and military deaths continues to go up.

I will point out that Ukraine has the second-lowest birth rate of the 100 largest countries in the world, and Russia also has a low birth rate. When I happened to be in San Diego about a year ago, in that sector at that time--just that sector and that time--the second most common nationality to enter the United States was Russian. In other words, both Russia and Ukraine should be desperate to hold onto the young people that they have.

We have helped Ukraine, and fortunately Ukraine has staved off this inexcusable aggression. Every day that there are good reports from Ukraine, we should be glad for the successes that Ukraine has had.

However, obviously, a goal should be to end this war, and we should be working towards the end of the war to save the lives and to save the economic devastation that we will leave behind in Ukraine.

President Biden and Defense Secretary Austin should stop and think whether their statements are more or less likely to bring Russia to the negotiating table. I encourage my Democrat friends to give a little bit of guidance to this administration as to how to end this war.

Well, Mr. Speaker, while we were on break for the last 2 weeks, I spent some time at the southern border in three sectors, the San Diego sector, the El Centro sector, and the Yuma sector. And I think it is important that we try to educate the Chair of what is going down there.

I will start off by just talking about raw numbers that were recently released. And so our listeners understand, when you talk about the border, there are two groups: There are people who want to find the Border Patrol and check in and get a future date for a hearing as they ask for asylum; and there are people who sneak across, which we refer to as gotaways.

For certain reasons that I will soon address, the number of gotaways recently went up dramatically. And the number of gotaways is always an estimate because we don't catch them, we don't interview them. They are people who got away into the interior of the United States.

But we believe right now, or the Border Patrol believes, that in March, there were 62,000 gotaways; people who were not interviewed; people who we don't know who they are, who snuck in the country.

We also believe in March there were 90,000 people let in the country by the Border Patrol, usually asking for an asylum claim.

When we combine these two numbers--and by the way, there are other people who are turned around, and that is why you sometimes hear people say there were 220,000 contacts in March, which is true, but not all of those people were let in the country.

We do believe 152,000 people were let in the country. At least in the last 3 years, and as far as I know, forever, that is the highest number of people who have been let in the United States in 1 month. By way of comparison, a year ago, in March, we were at 63,000. So we went up from 63,000 to 153,000.

And if you go before March 2021, March 2020, coincidentally, a different President, we were at 11,000. So we have gone from 11,000 in March of 2020, to 63,000, to 152,000. That is a crisis by any standard.

Now, you might say, why are there so many more gotaways? Because when so many people are turning themselves in at the border--and by the way, there are about 10,000 unaccompanied minors who were let in this March as well, and it takes the Border Patrol a longer period of time to process the minors.

When there are so many people that have to be processed, the Border Patrol spends all their time doing paperwork and not guarding the border. There was a time when the Border Patrol reported to work and they guarded the border. Now, we were told in the sectors that I was at that 70 percent of the Border Patrol, when they show up at work, start doing paperwork. By the time their shift is over, 90 percent of the Border Patrol is doing paperwork, which is one of the reasons why so many more people are sneaking across the border.

By the way, if you wanted to take illegal drugs into the country, how would do you it? Would you turn yourself into the Border Patrol or would you try to sneak across? Which is why, right now, we believe, there are many more illegal drugs, including fentanyl, coming into the country now than there were in the past.

There are less drugs being confiscated, way less drugs being confiscated, and for the same reason. If the Border Patrol is not guarding the border, more people sneak across with the drugs and less people are caught.

So, in any event, that by itself is enough that should just alarm the people of this body, as well as the American public is saying, what is going on,

from 11,000 2 years ago to 63,000 a year ago, to 153,000 today.

We also want to talk, like I did, about the number of drugs. When I got this job, which seems just like yesterday, but it was 7 years ago, there were about 47,000 Americans who died every year of illegal drugs, and that was a big number.

All of us politicians were supposed to say something and have a plan because what are we going to do? 47,000 Americans dying every year of illegal drugs. And we passed more money, and we passed things out for treatment.

And 7 years later, we have gone from 47,000--by way of comparison, 57,000 Americans died in the Vietnam war--we are now at 110,000, 110,000 people. For people my age, that is twice as many as the number of people, combat troops, that died Vietnam in a 12-year period. That was 57,000; protests in the street. We have got to stop this. 57,000 Americans have died.

Now, every year, 110,000 Americans are dying of illegal drug overdoses. What should we be doing?

We could use more technology, so when people do come in and try to sneak in drugs, where the Border Patrol is monitoring things, they are more likely to catch the drugs.

I personally love the dogs. The dogs do a tremendous job at the border when people try to sneak across the San Diego sector and put fentanyl or drugs in a truck or a car, those are things that should be unquestionably in the budget. And if we would do that sort of thing, maybe it would put a little bit of brakes on the illegal drugs.

Another thing we learned down at the border is the increasing variety of countries that are coming here. You have to ask yourselves why that is.

Two Monday nights ago, I was at the border and we saw two groups of people in a relatively short period of time come into Yuma; groups of 70 or 80 people. Where are they from?

I think the average American thinks Cuba, Guatemala. No, from Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Bangladesh, India, Uzbekistan. Okay, from all around the globe.

Now, you might say why are people coming here from all around the globe? Well, first of all, why would anybody not like to be an American?

But secondly, because the Mexican drug cartels, I am told, and have been told by every Border Patrol agent in every sector over the last year and a half, the Mexican drug cartels are right now making more money smuggling people across the border than drugs across the border.

That is because, depending upon where you are coming from, $8,000, $9,000, $15,000--I am told, from Asia, $20,000--to get somebody in here. When you are making that kind of money, it is not surprising that they would be educating the whole world that now is the time to come into the United States.

They have pointed out to me that these are not necessarily poor, desperate people, by the standards of their home countries. In fact, some of them appear to the Border Patrol to be relatively well-off. They do not look poorly fed. The Border Patrol estimates 90 to 95 percent of them have a cell phone. There was a time in the not-too- distant past that that meant you were well-off.

I am not good at judging clothes, but we are told that the shoes or the purses or whatever, the Border Patrol can tell, are a sign that these are not necessarily poor people. They are just people who realize they are better off in the United States than in their home country.

There are a lot of Cubans coming across. A lot of these Cubans, even though they are saying they want asylum from Cuba, they have thrown away their identification from Chile or Colombia or wherever. They had fled Cuba to Chile, and now the word is out: Now is the time to come to the United States.

They aren't fleeing oppression in Chile. They are just coming to the United States because it is better off. Why wouldn't they?

But we have to realize that if we are going to continue with the current policy, an unlimited number of people would come here. Look around the globe. China, Indonesia, Brazil, large countries, almost everybody would be better off in America, which is why tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands from some of these countries, are going to continue to flow here unless we begin to put the brakes on the current policies.

One other thing of interest we found. When these got-aways sneak across the southern border in Arizona, they will pay young people, kids, over $1,000 to come up and get them at the border and drive them to Phoenix, which is kind of interesting, isn't it?

Another thing for people back home to remember, if they think the current hodgepodge system is humanitarian, is the day we were in the San Diego sector, where you have a wall that goes, I am guessing, maybe a hundred yards into the Pacific Ocean, they found two people on the American side had drowned trying to get around there.

I guess the ocean is a lot more difficult to get around than people think. They look out a hundred yards, and they figure that they can swim out there, that they can get around. They can't get around, or they get in a boat that is not as seaworthy as they think it is. So, many people drown in the ocean trying to come here.

The Mexican Government tells us that more people wind up washing up on the Mexican shore than on the American shore because their boats sink before they even get around to the American side.

Of course, it is not just in the ocean that you see people die coming here. In the Arizona sector, it is not unusual to have people dehydrate to death in the summer sun. Americans, good-natured as we are, sometimes put out gallons of water in the desert, hoping that people who are dehydrating to death find the gallons of water. But frequently, they don't.

As you get further down the border, in the past, when I have been on the Rio Grande border, it is, again, not unusual to have people drown in the Rio Grande. It looks like a shallow river, and they don't realize the undertow and that sort of thing, and they wind up dying.

Women who try to come across, particularly women who try to be with groups that are got-aways and sneak across, the sheriff of one of the counties--and this is another number I find hard to believe, but it is the sheriff. He tells me, one of the sheriffs in Arizona, that he believes 80 percent of the women who are part of these groups that try to be got-aways and sneak across without checking at the Border Patrol, 80 percent are raped. Isn't that kind of a horrible thing?

But the word is out around the world: Now is the time to come across. And that is what happens.

In any event, I encourage the American public and encourage people of all parties here, and especially the Biden administration, to get them going a little, to realize, right now, it is 150,000 people a month. If they change the policy in June like they are talking, the Border Patrol believes that you are going to be working your way up to, like, 400,000, 500,000 a month, which, again, I find hard to believe, but you have to figure the Border Patrol are the experts on this sort of thing.

It shouldn't be that difficult to find a good system, and no other country would stand for this. I made the point about a year ago, and it may be tardy now, but I do think to allow unlimited people to come here makes the American Government and the current administration look weak.

I think as far as what happened to Ukraine and what may happen someday in Taiwan, when they look at the United States and say we have a President who is allowing 150,000 people a month to come here and doing nothing about it, I just think it screams America is no longer the leader in the world.

In any event, I hope steps are taken. Hire more Border Patrol, hire more dogs, complete the wall, which would be a big step in the right direction as well, and go back to the policy of allowing people to be held on the Mexican side of the border prior to coming across here because people are not going to pay the Mexican drug cartels $10,000 or $15,000 to sit on the Mexican side of the border and hope that the hearing goes their way.

Again, to emphasize the number, 2 years ago, 11,000 a month; now, 152,000 a month. People shrug their shoulders and say: What could we do? Well, we could adopt the policies we had when we were at 11,000 a month. That would be a good start. In any event, this is

what we learned on the border 2 weeks ago.

Earlier today, we addressed the Ukraine situation, and I am continually disappointed in the media in this country for not addressing the Ukrainian famine of 90 years ago. I don't know how you can report on this war between Ukraine and Russia and not talk about, depending on who is doing the counting, the 5 to 10 million Ukrainians who were starved to death by the Communist governments in 1932.

Even, at the time, the American press was shameless. We were in a situation in which a reporter for The New York Times, Walter Duranty, hid this great starvation from the American public and the Western world.

As a result, without the West being able to weigh in or the world being able to weigh in, about 5 to 15 million people, I am guessing more like 5 or 6 million, starved to death.

When we talk about why the Ukrainians are fighting so hard, how can you talk about that without talking about the history between the then- Communist Government of Russia and also the communists, quite frankly, who ran Ukraine at the time and the civilians who wound up starving to death?

You read first-person accounts of all the people dying. You realize how, 90 years later, that must still be something that everybody learns about in that country.

Like I said, one of the great disappointments is the mainstream media has not talked about it. Why don't they talk about it?

Is it because they didn't talk about it in 1932 because their reporters were so left of left, they apparently didn't want to embarrass the Soviet Union with what was going on? Is it because our reporters today are so left of left and so in love with leftwing governments that they don't want to embarrass them by pointing out the mass murder that they were responsible for 90 years ago?

In any event, I encourage all Americans to Google the Ukrainian famine and read some first-person accounts of what was going on down there. I encourage any members of the media who sometimes, I think, spend time on nonissues to educate the American public a little bit on what was going on between Russia and Ukraine 90 years ago this year.

Now, the final issue which we have to talk about, and I think is the most important issue of America under normal circumstances when our country is not being overrun at the southern border and when we are not facing world war in Ukraine, and that is the continuous policy, encouraged more by the Biden administration in their Build Back Better bill, another thing he is doing, to have a means-tested welfare program that discourages work and encourages the breakdown of the family.

Understand the qualifications, and there are over 80 means-tested programs, some of them more well-known. One is food stamps; TANF, which is a cash grant; public housing; earned income tax credit; Pell grants. All of these programs are based on whether or not you are considered to be in poverty.

If you have a married couple in which both are working or one has a somewhat middle-class job, you will not be considered in poverty, and you are not eligible for these programs. But if you have a single parent who is not working or working a little bit, the government considers you in poverty.

Once you are in poverty, food stamps, TANF, public housing, which is a big one--I think they underestimate the draw that public housing has, and I can talk about that in a second. The earned income tax credit can easily be a check of $6,000, $7,000, or $8,000 coming in every tax season. Pell grants, the opportunity for almost free college, something else that the average person doesn't get, but if you adopt that lifestyle, you get it.

It is not surprising that we have had, going back 70 years, such a shift in the way we raise children in this country, a shift from almost uniformly a mom and dad at home to a much higher percentage all the time without a dad.

I realize there are a few people out there who don't want a dad at home. I will mention one more time Black Lives Matter. On their website, when they were riding high about a year and a half ago, they were against the traditional nuclear family. Of course, the Marxists, Karl Marx himself, did not like the traditional family.

People sometimes think this has been a coincidence in which we have had a breakdown of the traditional family. In part, we have to remember that there are people who outright don't like the family.

In any event, I encourage this body, before they pass any more significant legislation, and I encourage the Republicans, if they ever get back in the majority again, to look at these programs and see, in a country in which we try to treat everybody equally, why we have these programs that, in essence, take money from the traditional family and send it to the nonnuclear family.

I have been approached by women a few times in my district wondering why their children have to take out big student loans and go 30 or 40 grand in debt, or maybe they had a sister without a husband in the house, and they get free college. I really can't understand why we are so prejudiced against the nuclear family.

But that is what we are in America today, and there is a lot of talk about equity or equality. We should talk about the degree to which we discriminate against nuclear families in this society and see what we can do about trying to put people more on an equitable basis.

That would be a good thing for the Republican Party to work on if they ever do get the majority back, and I hope they do. I think they will.

In any event, I would also hope our conservative think tanks, our conservative groups, do more to publicize the prejudice that is going on in this society against the nuclear family.

Mr. Speaker, I believe some fine Congressmen behind me are anxious to speak. I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to report on what I did during my time off. I spent time at the Mexican border, both in San Diego and Yuma, and received a further shock, if that is possible, on what I think is the most important story facing America today. Indeed, every reporter or every major news organization ought to have somebody making daily reports on the border.

Two weeks ago tonight, in Yuma, I saw two groups--about 80 people-- crossing the border. So you understand, those people were from Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Cuba, Bangladesh, India, and Uzbekistan. In other words, the whole world is coming here.

Because of the huge amount of paperwork, the average Border Patrol agent reports to work, and unlike immediately guarding the border, like they should, 70 percent of them are doing paperwork. At the end of their shift, 90 percent are doing paperwork.

For that reason, it is not surprising the confiscation of drugs is going down--not because there are less drugs coming into our country and killing 100,000 people a year. The reason so few drugs are being confiscated is we have a shortage of Border Patrol agents and they have got to spend all their time doing paperwork.

Madam Speaker, I beg the rest of my colleagues to go to the border and learn about this.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Fleischmann).

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good) for the purpose of a colloquy.

Madam Speaker, I would now like to address several issues today and maybe give it a little bit of a different spin or a little bit of different observations than people are getting from some of the other congressmen.

I was glad today to vote to suspend normal trade relations with Russia and, hopefully, reduce the number of oil imports we are getting from that country.

Every day, you cannot help but be touched by the reports from Ukraine and what is happening to the civilians there.

Nevertheless, I am a little bit concerned about the public statements coming out of Washington. I believe we should all be working to end this war and wind up with a free Ukraine.

Nevertheless, to end this war, we will eventually have to get to the bargaining table, and I am afraid that statements being made by both sides will make it more difficult to reach an end result. The sooner the war ends, the more lives of Ukrainian troops will be saved, the more lives of Ukrainian civilians will be saved, and, quite frankly, the more lives of Russian troops will be saved.

To negotiate a final deal, both sides must realize and respect that deal, and both sides must feel that they came out of the negotiation with something.

I sure hope we are not in the current position we are right now 3 or 4 months from now. I would encourage all of my colleagues, and also the President of the United States, when they make public statements, to ask themselves: Are we getting closer to ending this war by my statements, or are we not getting closer to ending this war?

I suppose politicians always think about politics. But I sometimes think statements are made for political effect rather than reaching the serious goal of ending this conflict.

I would also like to follow up on what is going on on the border and the danger that we may soon end title 42. I think for the future of the United States, the most important thing going on--what is going on in Ukraine is important. The most important thing is what goes on at the border.

We all know that around the time President Biden took office, about 20,000 people a month, and sometimes well under 20,000 people a month, were crossing the border, for a variety of reasons. The major one is, I think the current administration isn't really thrilled about enforcing our laws. We have gone from having under 20,000 to 80,000 or 100,000 people a month cross our southern border, people who are not vetted, people who we, in many cases, would not want here under any circumstances.

There is a danger that in May, that 80,000 to 100,000 figure is going to jump to 400,000 or 500,000 people a month. People are not being vetted, and people are coming from all around the globe.

I will be there next week. When you get down there and you talk to the Border Patrol, you will find people not only coming from Mexico but more people from Central America, people from the Caribbean, people from South America, people from sub-Saharan Africa, people from eastern Europe, people from countries that are currently hostile to us are being waved through after they get a minimal amount of paperwork. We do not need to increase that to 300,000 or 400,000 or 500,000 people a month.

The last time I was down there, I noticed that there were a lot of photo IDs of people from Central America and South America being thrown away before they checked in. What does that tell you? It means people don't want us to know about their past. They are running away from their past as they enter our country.

I remember the statement of John Adams: ``Our Constitution is only fit for a moral and religious people.'' We have to make sure we are getting a moral group of people crossing our southern border, not to mention we have to make sure we are getting people who respect our laws.

We, right now, swear in over 800,000 people from around the world every year. That is fine. They are appropriately vetted. I encourage all citizens to watch as people come here legally and are sworn in.

Our economy cannot accept another 400,000, and we know a given number of these people, perhaps, have a criminal background and are not going to help our country.

Not to mention, no country as successful as ours, can accept an unlimited number of people. We are not prepared for them. They have not been adequately trained in the way of the American ideals, the importance of our Constitution, why we have our Constitution.

Furthermore, having been down there, the more people you let in, the more it strengthens the Mexican drug gangs, and those gangs make $3,000 or $5,000 or $9,000 or $20,000 per person who comes across here. We are strengthening their power. We are making them wealthy. Why would we want to expand the current fiasco south of the border?

Last time I was down there, the Border Patrol told me about fights between Mexican and Chinese gangs on our side of the border. How do these people from these gangs get here? They cross the border illegally. Is it helpful for the United States to have open warfare between Chinese and Mexican gangs? That is what we are getting more and more.

Our poor, underappreciated Border Patrol, more shots directly at them. And what does the administration do? Rather than strengthen the border, we propose legislation giving them free college, college that American citizens have to go $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000 in debt to get.

Rather than hire more Border Patrol to enforce the border, we hire more people to investigate the Border Patrol. I am not sure what psychological problem we have going on here. It is the same psychological problem that looks at, say, a city like Milwaukee that is approaching 200 homicides a year, and saying we have to investigate the police, or we have to make it easier to sue the police.

That same mindset at the southern border says we have 100,000 people here who shouldn't come here every month? I know what we will do, we will hire more people to investigate the Border Patrol and make sure they are not doing anything wrong. They think the Border Patrol are the bad people.

Another problem, and I don't know whether this has occurred to President Biden's advisers, I don't know whether you wanted a war in Ukraine, but I don't believe that war would have started if we wouldn't have had an open borders policy. What do you think countries like Iran or China, or Russia make of us having an open border and not enforcing our border laws? Normal countries don't do that. They think it is because we have such a weak President who will never do anything. It invites trouble.

I have felt for a year-and-a-half or 2 years that the open borders policy was inviting mischief; and that is what we have now, mischief that I don't believe would have happened had we tried to enforce our border laws.

Please, Mr. President, keep title 42. Fire the Vice President from her position as border czar. That is another problem we have.

As mentioned, next week I will go and tour part of the border in San Diego and Yuma. I have been in many other parts in the past. But I go down there to learn more directly from the Border Patrol. As is common from all agencies, you learn a lot more from the people doing the work than the bureaucrats at the top, and I look forward to coming back and reporting whatever grim statistics I gather from talking about the Border Patrol and their suggestions to save our country.

I hope all Americans listening and paying attention are contacting their Representatives and Senators about what is going on on the border. I personally believe one of the reasons that President Biden is threatening to remove title 42 is because the news is dominated with what is going on in Ukraine, and now is the time you could get away with really opening the floodgates. But if we are going to save our country, we have to enforce the borders like we would in any normal country.

By the way, an excuse for removing title 42 is saying that they feel that COVID is no longer a threat. If you look, over 500 people a day on most days are dying of COVID. It is still a problem. Right now, or at least the last time I was down there, they didn't even feel they had the legal ability to test people as to whether or not they had COVID. As long as that situation is out there, I beg you to keep title 42 in place. It is bad enough having 80,000 to 100,000 people crossing here every month who we have not vetted.

The next crisis that I would like to address today is an ongoing crisis. It has been a problem in this country for 50 years, but I think things keep getting worse. And that is the decline in which Black Lives Matter would refer to as the Western traditional family. Again and again, bills are introduced

around here to provide benefits, and the traditional nuclear family is left out of those benefits; be it an increase in the earned income tax credit or flooding more money into low-income housing, increases in food share, increases in Pell grants, increases in childcare.

All of these programs an average married couple are not eligible for because in the traditional family, usually at least one parent and sometimes two are working. In order to be eligible for these programs, you have to put yourself in a position in which you are considered in poverty, and if you are in poverty, you are eligible for governmental assistance.

I had a woman in my district who had two children who were both $30,000, $40,000 in debt from going to college complain why did her sister's kids get free college while her own kids are stuck paying off their debt? She was proud of her children; she was proud they were current on their student loans, but it didn't seem right to her that her niece, who was raised in a nontraditional family, or what Black Lives Matter would consider a traditional family, her niece got free college paid for by the government, whereas her kids had to work to pay off the student loans.

I hope in the future, as we dole more money out of this place, we stop discriminating against and showing hatred for the traditional family. I will point out, that I think over time more and more Americans are catching on to the idea that materially they can get benefits that they wouldn't get if they didn't get married.

I will point out some statistics on SNAP benefits. Between 1996 and 2016, a 20-year gap--and these are both years in which the economy is doing well, so I am comparing apples to apples--the number of people on SNAP jumped up from about 25,000 to 44,000. Taking those two years, about a 50 to 60 percent increase in the number of people on SNAP.

Now, we have to make sure people can eat. I realize all people can go through a tough time in their lives, where there are some people who may have mental problems or such, that makes it very difficult to hold a job, but when you have a 50 to 60 percent increase in 20 years on the number of people who have arranged their life that they are eligible for SNAP, people better wake up because we are destroying the traditional family in America.

I hope in the future the majority party, as they put together more budgets, or if the Republicans ever get the majority, when they get the majority, that they would begin to look at this problem. It is not a new problem that gets press like a surge at the border will get press or a disaster in Kyiv will get press, but it is an ongoing problem as we eat away at the traditional nuclear family of this country, and it is being eaten away by the programs that are passed by this Congress. I hope if the Republicans take control, even though it is not a sexy issue because it is an ongoing issue, I hope they do something about this hatred or discrimination against the traditional family.

Now, I will make one more point, I make it as much as I can, before I leave this podium today. One more time I am going to talk about vitamin D. In part I am going to talk about it because there was an expert in vitamin D who I ran into last night from Maryland who, again, brought up that he felt he had a cocktail which was about 100 percent successful in curing people from COVID if they get it.

If any of the Speaker's office is paying attention, I would be happy to give them the name of this individual. Maybe it is something that should be given to the Speaker.

But the new cocktail, in part, is based on substantial amounts of vitamin D. A week and a half ago I talked to Dr. Dror of Israel who commented on the importance of being vitamin D sufficient. In his Israeli study, with a small number of people, he found that people who were vitamin D deficient were 11 times as likely to die of COVID if they were hospitalized as people who were not vitamin D deficient. He was using a very low threshold, 20 nanograms per milliliter. Eleven times more likely to die if you were vitamin D deficient.

I don't know what is wrong with our Department of Health and Human Services on this. I talked to Secretary Becerra. It is something that the American public should have been educated on 18 months ago. I personally have known nine people who have died of COVID. I always wonder how many of those would still be alive today if they had done half as much to push vitamin D as they did with all the other advertising, pushing masks, pushing social distancing, what have you.

But with 500 people dying a day, it is still something that should be publicized. I have written a letter to Secretary Becerra; and 14 times less likely to wind up with serious COVID once hospitalized. Among people hospitalized, of the people who didn't have enough vitamin D-- under 20 nanograms--25 percent died. If they had over 20 nanograms, 2.3 percent died who wound up hospitalized in Israel. Kind of dramatic numbers. News you can use.

Those are some of the comments or issues of the day that I think the press should be paying attention to. I thank the indulgence of staff for giving us the hour. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.