Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, as has just been said, I think the first year of this administration has been about as disastrous as it could possibly be.

I will focus on the COVID pandemic. Over 300,000 people had died when President Biden took office, nevertheless, things in a way were looking up. Donald Trump had been given a combination of monoclonal antibodies and several other things in a cocktail in which he was cured just a few months before President Biden took office.

One would have thought all one had to do was follow down the path of treatment that Donald Trump received and it would be the end of the pandemic. Instead, we are over a year after him taking office, and at least in Wisconsin we don't have enough monoclonal antibodies to deal with the people who are sick today.

Even though ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have also shown promise, the CDC and NIH under President Biden have not shown a leadership role and encouraged more doctors to use them. Vitamin D can do a tremendous job in reducing the number of people who succumb to this disease, but again, a complete lack of leadership out of Washington, some people feel a complete lack of leadership because there is not enough money to be made in Vitamin D by the drug companies.

We recently had calcifediol imported into this country from other countries, and it has not been anywhere near publicized as it should be. It is time for President Biden to step up, to make sure monoclonal antibodies are available to everybody and put an end to the pandemic. I have had my own staffer use monoclonal antibodies, and it turned him around from being quite ill within 24 hours just fine.

Madam Speaker, it is time to look at things other than just making money for the drug companies. It is time to solve this problem.

Madam Speaker, it was a very disappointing recess. I knew at least three more people who passed away because of the COVID.

For that reason, I was very disappointed in President Biden's comments earlier today on television, in that I think he could have brought up things that would have prevented some of these unnecessary deaths.

First of all, President Trump's COVID was cured by monoclonal antibodies 16 months ago. Nevertheless, in my district, we have a shortage of monoclonal antibodies. I have doctors or clinics calling me wondering where they are. It is a good question.

They were available for the President of the United States 16 months ago. But, for some reason, President Biden and his team have shortages of monoclonal antibodies in my district that I am convinced would have saved some of these lives.

The next thing I will point out is that my doctors tell me that people are better off if they are taking vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, quercetin. All these things would save people's lives if they were taking them up front before they got the virus.

But again, President Biden gives a big speech. No comments on this; just let people die.

Madam Speaker, as the Congress prepares to break for Christmas, it is important to review one more time what we can do to deal with the coronavirus.

While vaccines unquestionably have a role here, I am a little bit appalled at the lack of information coming from the public health establishment regarding vitamin D. Tests show that adequate levels of vitamin D can reduce the amount of COVID cases by up to 75 percent, which is good, including for people who have taken the vaccine.

Right now, Madam Speaker, experts feel you should have at least 30 nanograms per milliliter to have adequate amounts of vitamin D. Right now, 65 percent of our White population, 87 percent of our Hispanic population, and 96 percent of our Black population do not have adequate vitamin D levels.

The public health establishment has to be asked: Why is this not publicized? Why do we not give routine vitamin D tests to people coming in for their annual checkups? And why, if you show up at the hospital with COVID, are not vitamin D tests automatic?

I ask public health establishments to please familiarize themselves with the benefits of vitamin D and the role it plays.

Mr. Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 401.

personal explanation

Madam Speaker, I think after next week we are going to spend about 3 weeks back in the district. It would be nice if people would go down to the southern border, as I did, and look at the path into Yuma, Texas, in which all the photo IDs are being thrown aside by the people who want to forget their past and start a new life in America.

I also hope when people go back home, they spend some time with the farmers and with the manufacturers that make our country run. They will find that the cost of metals used in manufacturing--and I have a big manufacturing district--are sometimes going up five or six times. Not 5 or 6 percent, five or six times.

They will find that mucking around with the free market of trucking in California has resulted in huge shortages of various different things that we need, including chemicals needed for agriculture, for things like planting soybeans and corn. Some farmers are afraid that sometime in the next year we are going to have a food shortage.

They will find out that the goal of taking away fossil fuels is going to result in significant increases in heating oil, which is particularly a problem in northern Wisconsin.

Madam Speaker, we could talk forever about this Build Back Better bill, but I am going to shine a light on an underpublicized provision in there.

I believe in the last month, for the first time, we hit $29 trillion in debt. So one would figure on any spending bill that goes through this House, we should be really conservative when it comes to spending more money.

AmeriCorps is a program that right now we spend about $1 billion a year on. In this bill, we are going from $1 billion a year to $4 billion a year. We are quadrupling the amount of money spent on a program that is fraught with fraud, people taking large amounts of money out of the program. Also, people are falsifying timesheets to get benefits they aren't entitled to. Meanwhile, the inspector general cannot do an appropriate job of investigating fraud because they aren't even turning over records from the past.

If there is one program that ought to be looked at carefully, it would be this. Instead of paying more attention to fraud in the program, we are quadrupling the size of the program, not to mention it is hurting people.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

As was just said, the United States today is one of only seven countries around the world with such extreme pro-abortion laws. It is a little bit unusual, of all countries, this country, which John Adams said was formed only for moral and religious people, would have somehow gotten all turned around and wrapped around the axle so that we have now become, along with countries like Red China or North Korea, countries known around the world for barbarity, as a country that is that extreme.

In the United States, the vast majority of people lived in areas in which abortion was illegal since before the Civil War. We had a decision, Roe v. Wade, typical of the extreme decisions of people who, I guess, spent too much time learning in law school, who felt that in our Constitution we found something that virtually every church at the time would have considered barbaric.

By the way, abortion was illegal before the days of the ultrasound. Now, with the ultrasound it is so obvious that we have got something precious, created by God that we are destroying. But even before the ultrasound, the average American understood how barbaric this was, and virtually every State barred abortion.

We can only hope that the arguments across the street are the beginning of the march back of the United States towards the God- fearing Nation it was intended to be.

Madam Speaker, John Adams said that the Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people and totally unfit for any other kind.

How are we to know what John Adams meant by a ``moral and religious people''?

In the 1600s, Massachusetts school children were required to study the Bible. I don't think this was unusual for people who lived prior to the time of the Revolution.

I am going to quote a little bit here from three of our Founders to see what they felt about the Bible.

George Washington, ``It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all of the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters.''

John Jay, the original Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. I wonder if the Chief Justice would say this today. ``The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the Word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts.''

I will go back to John Adams one more time. ``Suppose a Nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God . . . What a Eutopia, what a paradise would this region be.''

It is primarily important to read the Bible to understand the history of the world, the commandments we are to live by, and also the life of Jesus Christ.

I may also point out, in particular, we should pay attention to the books of the Old Testament in learning lessons that God taught Israel.

We cannot understand our Constitution without a thorough reading of the Bible, and, therefore, I don't think you can be a decent congressman without a thorough reading of the Bible, which is why we have National Bible Week today. I hope as many Members as possible read the Bible themselves.

Madam Speaker, prior to talking about the reconciliation bill that passed last time we were here, I want to spend just a second to talk about possible shortages in the food chain that have been brought to my attention. I am not sure the administration is doing enough to deal with the problem.

As with so many other things in today's world economy, critical ingredients, including glucosaminide, are produced abroad in China and Europe. These chemicals, including other things such as potash fertilizer, are sitting in ships and not available for the United States.

Our farmers only have one time a year to plant their crops. It is not like a factory when something is not available, you can just start up the factory again in 3 months. And we have real problems out there that I think have some farmers very concerned and some feed co-ops very concerned. I have not heard about this a lot. Though, whenever I tour my manufacturers, I hear the same thing.

It is not unusual that some of these chemicals, which are very important to today's agriculture, have gone up five times over what they were this time last year. Well, you can see what that is going to do to the cost of food, even if we get stuff. But I strongly encourage the Biden administration to educate themselves on shortages, which are hurting agriculture right now, to do something at the docks, to see if he could bring Congress in to maybe change the laws or do something about the draconian new laws they passed in California, making it more difficult to get these chemicals on trucks.

But I do this just to warn people, in case anybody is listening from the Biden administration, and we will send them letters as well, if you want to avoid possible food shortages, dramatic increases in the cost of food, you have got to act now because farmers who are producing the corn and producing the soybeans are getting worried. And as far as I can see, rightfully so.

Vitamin D

Madam Speaker, the next issue that I am going to bring up is concerning vitamin D.

I haven't talked about vitamin D from this platform for quite a while. I know some people are worried that if you talk about it, it might discourage people from getting a vaccine, but I know somebody else who passed away in the last few weeks and I don't believe they were taking the amount of vitamin D that is recommended.

Vitamin D is very important for a variety of things: Bone health, preventing a variety of diseases. But the evidence suggests it could be very important in reducing both the severity and the amount of COVID. The number of Americans who are vitamin D deficient is very high. I don't normally like to talk about racial things, but I want to read some statistics that some people back home can take.

Right now, there is disagreement as to the appropriate amount of vitamin D a person should have in their system, the number of nanograms per milliliter. Some people feel it is 20. Some people feel it is 30. But let's assume, for the sake of an argument, that it should be 30. Right now, 65 percent of the White population of this country would be considered vitamin D deficient; 80 percent of the Hispanic population would be considered vitamin D deficient; and 96 percent of the Black population would be considered vitamin D deficient.

It is my opinion, and the opinion of the experts, that one reason certain groups have more people dying of this horrible disease is because of the much-elevated vitamin D deficiency. The way to handle it is simple: You should be taking vitamin D on a daily basis. We are told that Anthony Fauci takes 6,000 units a day. I don't know if that is true or not. I wish he would talk about it a lot more, if he does.

But you have to remember, when you begin to take vitamin D, it doesn't get in your system right away. If you begin to take vitamin D today, it may get in your system 4 weeks from now. It may not get in your system until 30 weeks from now.

There is a more expensive form of vitamin D called calcifediol, which works in hours, not weeks or months. Unfortunately, that formula, which is readily available, I am told, in Australia, is quite expensive. I would encourage people who are interested in it to familiarize themselves with how to get ahold of it and educate their own doctors as to how to get ahold of it, because if you do get COVID, a lot of times doctors now are prescribing vitamin D for people. But despite prescribing it for people, if they give them like 5,000 units a day, you are not going to have that kick in for a month. So you should familiarize yourself with how to get this fast-acting vitamin D, which will help people quite a bit quicker.

There are a couple things I will point out to the public health establishment that the experts in vitamin D can't understand. First of all, if you come in for an annual checkup, particularly an older person, you ought to be tested for vitamin D to find out whether you are deficient or not. It is not that expensive. It is something that should be done automatically. And if you are diagnosed with COVID, again, you should right away be tested for vitamin D deficiency, because if you are deficient, things can be done. People suggest taking as many as 50,000 units in a week if it is determined you are vitamin D deficient.

But in any event, I would strongly encourage the CDC and NIH to do more research regarding vitamin D. Again, I would strongly encourage them to make a vitamin D test both in the annual checkup and it is something all hospitals should be doing if people come in and they find out they are COVID positive.

I will also point out, we do not know yet whether this omicron variant, there are indications that it is going to be a little bit more difficult to be taken care of with a vaccine. And it is another reason why people ought to be paying more attention to vitamin D.

It is my personal opinion--nobody knows the amount of lives that can be saved, but depending upon who the experts are that you are talking to, to guess maybe on the low side, maybe 25 percent; on the high side, over 50 percent. And the fact that this relatively cheap vitamin has been out there for 2 years and has been left relatively untouched by the public health establishment is, I think, a scandal. But I would strongly encourage anybody that is listening today to familiarize yourself with vitamin D, talk it over with your doctor, and get a vitamin D test.

Reconciliation Bill

Now, the reason I originally asked to speak today was with regard to the reconciliation bill. I think it is something that Americans should be paying attention to, not because of the cost, though the cost is horrific, and it is going to result in still more inflation and still more destruction of the value of the dollar. I think there are three areas that would permanently change America. I hope it is something that the public can bring up prior to the Senate taking up the bill.

The number one issue is immigration. We are at a time where, depending on the month, over 100,000 people can come cross our southern border. The bill responds by changing the law and making up to 7 million people who

are currently in this country illegally, setting them on a path to citizenship. It is changing things so it will be more difficult to deport felons, even felons who have committed felonies.

My goodness, if you are not going to deport a felon who has committed a felony, who are you going to deport? You are taking away the flexibility as to whether you can deport them or not.

In this bill, we are giving free Pell grants, which are the grants we give to people to go to college. We are giving these away to illegal immigrants. I think this is such a bizarre decision because it is not difficult to find Americans who are $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 in debt because they are regular, middle-class, hardworking families, but we are giving the people who come here illegally free college.

I just think that it is such a bizarre decision, but it goes to the apparent attempt of the Biden administration and the majority party to do all they can to get as many people here as possible. I will point out, in this bill there was no money for new Border Patrol agents, which is another green light to have more people come here.

Right now, the drug gangs will use this information, perhaps on ads on Central American television, to tell people now is the time to give the drug gangs $3,000, $5,000, $8,000 to come to the United States.

A couple other comments on what is going on at the border: Last time I was down there, I saw on the path leading to this country, thrown- away identifications--like driver's licenses being thrown away.

You have to ask yourselves, if people are coming to this country and throwing away their identification from Honduras, from Venezuela, from Brazil, wherever, why are they doing that? Why do you not want people to know what name you operated under in your prior country is? I can only think because you are running away from something in the past. This is common among the people that are coming here now.

There are two other things I am going to point out for America, one is: They should weigh in with Congress on this significant bill. We are having the government take care of all the three- and four-year-olds.

As I said before, insofar as we have flaws in our education system, it is more in the middle-school area, not the preschool area. Traditionally, in this country we are supposed to be a country of strong families in which parents raise their children. It is a fundamental change, I think, in the role of government for Congress to pass a law saying from here on out it is up to the government to take care of the three- and four-year-olds.

The other thing I want America to look out for is 85,000 IRS agents. That is such a massive amount. I used to do taxes. I am somewhat familiar with audits. It is not going to be pleasant for Americans, and at a time when every business I can think of--manufacturing, tourism, agriculture, medical field--everybody is short of people to work.

And how are we responding? Let's take 85,000 people and have them work for the IRS. Manufacturing needs those people. Hospitals need those people. Why in the world, 85,000 IRS agents? And, of course, the amount of jobs that will be necessary is multiplied because if you have more IRS agents poking around the businesses, you have to hire more accountants to deal with the IRS agents.

So that is a very strange decision. But to me, it shows that this administration wants to be the surveillance administration. And that is another fundamental change in the way I think our forefathers imagined this country or the way this country should be.

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

Madam Speaker, we got horrible news yesterday; for the first time in the United States, over 100,000 people died from illegal drugs. When I got here 6 years ago, that number was 47,000. By comparison, in 12 years, only 58,000 died in the Vietnam War. Almost twice as many people die in this country every year from illegal drug overdose than died in the entire 12-year period of the Vietnam War.

Today, we look at a major bill, the Build Back Better Act, and we look at what is the effect of the Build Back Better Act on 100,000 deaths. In this bill, we are encouraging more illegal immigration; we are taking more Border Patrol agents off the border and processing young people. And finally, in this bill we are encouraging more people to come here, which inevitably means more fentanyl, more deaths.

Madam Speaker, I ask the majority party to please step back, change the bill to add a few more Border Patrol agents, and change the bill to get out the carrots that are going to encourage more fentanyl and more deaths.

Madam Speaker, I think I can find something I agree with my Democrat colleagues on. This bill is a transformational bill. It is a bill made up by people who think America is fundamentally broken and that we have to make big changes. That is what we are going to get.

I will focus quickly on five areas.

One, illegal immigration. Under this bill, we are adding no new Border Patrol agents, but we are making it more difficult to deport people who have committed serious crimes here. We are using an additional carrot to get people here in that we are giving away free college to match the free healthcare we are already giving.

One way that this bill would transform America is you get a lot more illegal immigrants. Since yesterday, for the first time, we topped 100,000 illegal drug deaths in this country. I think this bill ensures that number is going to continue to go up. That is an undersold story.

Secondly, I have always felt the biggest problem in America right now is an out-of-control welfare system that

destroys families. That system becomes more generous in this bill, be it through much more low-income housing or an earned income tax credit provision that increases the marriage penalty or Pell grants.

This is a transformative bill, and I strongly wish my colleagues would vote against it.

Madam Speaker, I haven't seen the Vice President at the border lately. I was down there about a month ago, and I just want to share a few things that I learned down there that maybe somebody else can pass on to her.

First of all, when you're at the Yuma center, when you walk along the path the people walk to get in this country, it is littered with photo IDs. Obviously, people do not want the United States Government or Border Patrol to know who they are. So this is a sign we are getting people in this country who have a lot to hide.

The second thing to point out that I was not aware of until I talked to the Border Patrol, is they feel they don't have the right to test somebody for COVID. We know that some people who are testing positive are already let in the country. I was not aware until I went down there that it is the current policy if you say, I want to test you for COVID, and you refuse, they just let you in.

The third thing I want to point out is that apparently they are advertising on Central American TV for people to come here.

Obviously, if we had a better relationship with those Central American countries, this wouldn't be going on, but if you wonder why so many people are coming here, it is because the drug gangs are advertising on TV.

Madam Speaker, I would like one more time to address the reconciliation package. We know that it is a very large spending package and will result in more welfare and, inevitably, we will have to have more taxes which will put a damper on the economy.

But let's look at the type of vision that the Democratic Party has for our country given what they are spending the money on. We know we have a big, illegal immigration crisis in this country--everybody knows 8,000 people in the country last July, 105,000 this July.

What are we going to do with it?

We have record amounts of fentanyl coming across the southern border. We respond with a provision giving 7 million people a path to amnesty which is a magnet to get more people here. We make it more difficult to remove people from the country if they commit crimes, including sex offenses and firearm convictions without any discretion from DHS. So, Madam Speaker, you want to make it more difficult to get even the criminal element out of the country.

But, finally, we promised anybody coming into the country free college. Pell grants that are designed for poor Americans are going to go to people who come here illegally. We want the average American to sit there at home paying $30,000 or $40,000 tuition, in debt until they are 30 or 40 years old, but if you come here illegally, boom, free college.

The second thing we get out of here is a new welfare problem in this country. We are encouraging people not to work. We are encouraging people not to get married.

How do they respond?

Look at the recent increase in food stamp benefits, the massive amount of money going to low-income housing, the increase in the earned income tax credit, and the larger Pell grants. Everywhere you look in this bill, Madam Speaker, is more money for people of a certain lifestyle at the expense of the person who is getting married and working harder.

Race preferences are throughout this bill. It seems like they are incapable of doing a program that benefits all Americans. It is always targeting somebody from this race or that race or this gender or that gender. It is a very divisive bill.

There is a great increase in government's role in raising children. It is the government that pays for all the 3- and 4-year-old kids. It is kind of the opposite of what America is supposed to be where the child's upbringing is family centered. Now we want to make the child's upbringing government centered.

Finally, it creates more of a surveillance state. There are 87,000 new IRS agents.

What could they possibly do?

But, obviously, Madam Speaker, you can see where we are headed as a country. At a time when our factories and farms can't find anybody to work, we are going to take unemployed people and make them IRS agents.

In any event, I urge Americans to pay attention to where the money is going in this bill because it is the type of America our forefathers never would have imagined.

Madam Speaker, like all other Congressmen, I am sure, my office has received many calls from people objecting to the OSHA rules and the CMS rules related to employees of hospitals.

It amazes me, the number of articulate doctors and nurses and other employees out there who have good reasons not to take the vaccine. Whether their doctors have told them don't take it because you already have antibodies, you have too many antibodies, the vaccine is going to make you sick; whether it is doctors who tell their patients you better not take the vaccine, your cancer is in remission, the vaccine can weaken you and bring it back.

Again and again, it appalls me that doctor Biden decides to weigh in and knows better for these people than what their own doctors do, not to mention there are plenty of things on the internet--which may be true even though they try to take them down and keep us in the dark-- indicating that some very articulate people believe the vaccines are not for you anyway, and there are other ways to deal with the problem.

It is such a gross grab of power to think you can tell other people what they have to do with their own bodies. I sure hope America stands up and says no to this kind of hatred and arrogance.

Madam Speaker, I would like to use this time to speak for a half hour on a variety of issues, primarily the Build Back Better bill.

But first, I would like to address today National Apprenticeship Week. Apprenticeships are a very good way to begin your working career. Rather than working your way into debt as you go to school, you are making money while you go to school, and there is no better preparation for a job than doing the job itself.

Be it in construction, be it in manufacturing, be it in healthcare, there is a strong need in America for skills, and apprenticeship is a way to get those skills and ensure that you hit the ground running and get a good-paying job immediately.

I strongly encourage all Americans, particularly young Americans, who are looking for a job to look at apprenticeship and encourage administrators of secondary schools to present apprenticeships as options for young people.

Now I would like to address the Build Back Better bill. A lot has been written and talked about the Build Back Better bill from this very microphone, and a lot has been focused on the additional taxes that will be needed to pay for it and the overall level of spending resulting in more inflation.

All that is true, but I think the most dangerous thing about the bill is what the money is being spent for. I am going to address five areas in general tonight for the American public to remember.

Right now, I think the biggest problem in America deals with illegal immigration. The numbers are well known. In July, a year ago, 8,000 people came into this country. This July it was 105,000 people. This October we hit

the all-time high number of people processed for any October at the southern border.

The drug gangs are making lots of money down there. Some people tell me the drug gangs are making more money bringing people in the country than they did selling drugs. Seven years ago, when I first got this job, 45,000 Americans a year were dying of illegal drug overdoses. We are now at 93,000, more than double.

When I first got here, we talked about the number of people dying of illegal drug overdoses approaching the number of soldiers who died in Vietnam. Now we are approaching twice the number of soldiers who died in Vietnam.

We talk about the humanitarian mess down there. In July, 15,000 minors were left alone and coming into the country. Last year we hit another all-time record, 557 deaths of people trying to get in the country, be it from dehydrating in the desert, drowning in the Rio Grande, or falling off the wall.

What are we doing with this crisis in this bill? What vision do they have for America? First of all, they are going to take about 7 million people who have snuck into the country illegally in the past and give them amnesty. In addition to the unfairness of having some people skip ahead of other people, that is an invitation to bring still more people into the country.

Secondly, they are going to make it more difficult to kick people out of the country. More parole for people with sex offenses, people with firearm offenses, and this parole is mandatory. It is not something that can be revoked at the discretion of DHS.

In this bill, as a further inducement to come here, we are going to give away free Pell grants, which is to say free college scholarships to people coming here illegally. Hard as it is to believe, while Americans are spending $20 thousand, $30 thousand, $40 thousand, $50,000 in debt for a college diploma, in the Build Back Better bill, we are going to give away free college to people who are here illegally.

Furthermore, in this bill, a bill spending trillions of dollars, about the only thing they are not spending more money on is the Border Patrol. We all know that as more children come here, the Border Patrol has to spend more time on paperwork caring for children, so they need more people at the border. But as the border is left open, the one thing the Democrat Party sadly feels is not a priority is more Border Patrol agents.

So again, to repeat, in the Build Back Better bill, 7 million more people given amnesty, requiring more parole for people who have committed serious crimes so that they are not kicked out of the country, and free Pell grants, which fits nicely with the free healthcare we give away as well.

I want to mention that free healthcare. The average American is sitting there worrying about their deductible, should we go to the doctor, should we not? What does the majority party want to do? Well, we have got to give illegals free healthcare. It is the only fair thing to do.

The second big problem I think in this country is what I will call a growing number of Americans adapting to the welfare lifestyle.

Beginning in the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson--in my opinion, the worst President in this country until this time--started a massive welfare state, the result of which was causing people to work less and to make sure they didn't get married because it was hard to take advantage of the welfare system if you were married. In other words, the goal was to discourage marriage, discourage work.

Since that time, the number of people with particularly a father in the family has decreased considerably since the early sixties in response to the Great Society, which discouraged--gave financial inducements not to have a male in the family.

How does the Build Back Better bill deal with the American crisis of the breakdown of the family? Wherever you look, they are putting more money into these programs, the programs that in the past were created for people who didn't make much money and were created for people who weren't married to somebody making money: food share; low-income housing; Medicaid; daycare; earned income tax credit that you had to earn something to get, but if you began to make over $15,000 or $20,000, they took that away from you; TANF funds, cash to people also adopting that lifestyle.

So how does the majority party respond to the crisis of a welfare system that discourages work and discourages marriage? We have a larger earned income tax credit, which goes up, again, if you are not married to somebody making a decent income. We are building a lot more low- income housing.

Low-income housing sounds all very good, but I talked to a woman who administers low-income housing. I asked her where people are coming from when they get off the waiting list for low-income housing. Well, a lot of them were living with their parents. Okay. So we are going to take a parent and the child and give them their own apartment, as opposed to having them live with grandparents. Is that a good thing, to move out of mom's house? I don't think so.

We are increasing, or the Biden administration itself, before we get to the bill, increased the amount of food stamps you are getting. We are adding more money in Pell grants, which is, again, a situation if you are a middle-class family and you are working, you aren't eligible for Pell grants. But if you are adopting a certain lifestyle, you are eligible for free college.

So it seems wherever you look, this program is encouraging that lifestyle, which I think is unfortunate for America.

There are wonderful people who are parents in all sorts of situations, but undeniably in this country we are right now penalizing what I will call the old-fashioned family. And I will point out that it is something, as we started this session and Black Lives Matter weighed in strongly in the last election to who would win, Black Lives Matter itself, their founders, quoted Karl Marx, the fact that they did not believe in the traditional family.

When I look here, it seems that that is a motivating factor behind putting this bill together, and we are going to penalize the traditional family.

The third ideal that flows through the Build Back Better Act is to identify people by racial background. Whether you are talking about money for small businesses, money for teacher preparation, money for community restoration, faculty of colleges of medicine, equity in the Department of Agriculture, or behavioral health, wherever you look, it is not like the programs are for all Americans. The programs are designed for certain Americans.

I was reading some statements by Yuri Bezmenov, who was a Russian defector in the 1960s. At the time, he talked about how the Marxists planned to take over America. He said the majority of money spent in the United States was not spent on subversive or covert activities. It was spent openly to try to demoralize Americans to think that America was not a great country. A quote from him is that ``racial and ethnic interrelations is one of the most vulnerable areas for demoralization'' of Americans.

Now, one would think his observation as someone who had been around the world is that there is no better place to live than America. But right now, it seems as though the majority party is doing the work that the Soviets wanted to accomplish in the twenties. They want to tell everybody that we ought to have racial animus, that we ought to pit one group against another group.

When you look around the world, one of the reasons nations fail, nations based on elections, is that those elections become contests between ethnic groups.

I never felt Canada was quite as successful as America because, to a degree, their elections pitted the French speakers against the English speakers. You look at elections in the Middle East, and it is the Sunnis against the Shiites. You look at elections in Africa, and it is one tribe against another tribe.

In other words, when they go to the polls, they don't say what is the appropriate money to spend on national defense or what is our roads policy or what should be appropriate criminal justice policy or the length of jail sentences. No, in these countries that fail, the elections are a contest of one ethnic group against another.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the people who want America to fail would set

up programs designed to benefit one group against the other.

We have seen this earlier this session when we had a program forgiving agriculture debts only for so-called people of color. We also saw it earlier this session when we had a program that ran out of money for restauranteurs, and the people at the bottom of the list were people who happened to be White.

A guy came up to me in my district who would have gotten, he claims, tens of thousands of dollars if he were of a different ethnic background. He wondered why he was left behind. Well, it is because we have a party here that likes to set one group against another group.

That is the third way or the third vision that the majority party has for America. They want to pit one group against the other. They want people to always view themselves rather than as an American. They want to view themselves as a Hispanic American or an Asian American or an African American.

The fourth way they want to change America in this bill, which also has not been talked about enough, is they want to provide universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds. Not only that, they want to make sure that the preschools not be run by religious entities--kind of letting the cat out of the bag. They want to make sure that, insofar as the 3- and 4-year-olds were taught anything, it not be any religious values.

Again, in America, the raising of the children is supposed to be something done by the parents. The family is supposed to be preeminent in raising the children. Even in my lifetime, the kindergartners have gone from, at least in Wisconsin, half-day 5-year-old kindergarten to all-day 5-year-old kindergarten to half-day 4-year-old kindergarten.

We now are, in one fell swoop, having the Federal Government, which under the Constitution should have nothing to do with this whatsoever anyway, going all the way down to the government raising the 3- and 4- year-olds.

It is a fundamental change in how much influence the parents have on their children and should be resisted, not resisted for the cost, although the cost is a good reason to resist it, but resisted because it is contrary to the profamily values that our ancestors felt we would have.

The fifth thing that I would like to talk about in this bill is it is apparent the authors want a lot more government surveillance of what people are doing.

President Biden on his own recently proposed monitoring every $600 transfer. Eventually, he had to back off under public criticism. He is now at $10,000. But you know if he could get back down to 600 bucks, he would do it in a heartbeat.

Why would the government care if I cashed a $600 check? I can imagine in today's world why they would care. Maybe they want to monitor me. Maybe they want to see what type of church I am contributing money to. Maybe they want to see if I am purchasing a firearm. Maybe they want to see if I am giving money to a magazine or giving money to a political party, maybe a magazine espousing politically incorrect beliefs. Maybe they want to look at whether I give any money to a political party that may be out of favor in a few years.

I think it is appalling that anybody would think that it is up to the government to see exactly where I am spending my money. We all know it is going for only bad purposes.

But in this bill, there is another item that hasn't been talked about enough, and that is the majority party wants to hire another 85,000 IRS agents--85,000. I think that is bigger than the average NFL stadium. It is about one of the big college stadiums. I went to the University of Wisconsin. It is about the size of filling up Camp Randall, 85,000 agents.

Of course, what is the purpose of those agents? To go around and monitor people's tax returns, to poke around, look for receipts, make adjustments, make guesses to what your income actually should be. It is clearly a different sort of country if you have 85,000. I wouldn't bring this up if it was 1,000 new agents, but 85,000 new IRS agents.

It sounds like proportionately we are headed, again, toward more of a surveillance state, toward less of a free state. It is the vision, sadly, of the majority party.

I want to review them one more time. I hope the American public, when they look at this bill, does pay attention to the bottom line. There is going to be more inflation, higher costs on the heat bill, no question about it. But regardless of the amount of money, this is a document put together by people who want to encourage illegal immigration all the way down to giving free college to people who come here. It is a party that wants to increase welfare benefits, benefits that are conditioned upon not working too much and certainly not marrying a person with a respectable income. It is a party that wants to further entrench in the American psyche the idea that we have to have different programs based on sex, different programs based on race, and people ought to ask what you are going give me because I am from this group or what you are going to give me because I am a woman, rather than treating all Americans the same.

It is a bill that is put out with an ideal of the government raising the children instead of the parents, more responsibility for raising the children instead of the parents--again, something that I think would have stunned our forefathers.

Finally, it is a bill put together by people who want to hire a lot of new government employees to monitor what is going on.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote against the bill, and I strongly encourage the American public to familiarize themselves with not only the size of the cost of the bill but the degree to which we are fundamentally changing the way Americans live.

Now, I am going to speak one more time on an issue which I will try to highlight later this week or next week. We have a big COVID problem in this country, and obviously, a lot of money is being spent on vaccines and a lot of money is going to educating people.

It is my opinion that not enough attention has been paid to what we can do to cure COVID if you get COVID, be it vaccinated or unvaccinated.

Months, maybe even a year ago now, some Israeli researchers discovered that fenofibrate, a generic drug that has been used to treat high cholesterol, has tremendous potential success in curing COVID.

More recently, they found 15 people who not only had had COVID but had pneumonia and were on oxygen. I would say if somebody had COVID with pneumonia and was on oxygen, they were in bad shape. They gave them this generic drug, which was freely used for over 40 years in this country for high cholesterol, and 14 of the 15 patients were out of the hospital in 4 days. The other guy was out in 2 weeks. In other words, it sounds like a cure.

I have been trying to get the CDC to push--they put a little money into it--but push more money into this program for research to see whether or not we would have a cure. I have been told by the researchers to this day that the CDC would try a little bit harder, and there is a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania looking into this. But if you really want to say it is successful, you want to find at least 700 subjects or patients. It is hard to find that many people without help from the CDC, particularly if you don't have the big money of the drug companies behind you.

Right now, our researcher at the University of Pennsylvania has about 350 people. He likes to believe that, by the end of March, he will be able to make a definitive statement that fenofibrate would be able to cure COVID for under 50 cents a day.

Wouldn't that be wonderful. And not only does it cure COVID, but if you get COVID it will be much less serious. And right now, long-term COVID, even if you are cured, can result in long-term health problems otherwise.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to encourage the Center for Disease Control to look at COVID, see what they can do about coming up with another 300 or 400 people for a definitive study and then rush--if the study winds up as well as we think it will--rush out and educate these doctors to prescribe it because it is entirely possible it will greatly reduce the number of people with long-term COVID and the number of people dying.

Again, if anybody at the CDC is listening, I hope you take advantage of

this tip. And otherwise, me and my colleagues will sign a letter including a little more action from the CDC, because if we found a cure for COVID we wouldn't have to worry about all the other controversial issues that are so damaging to our country and taking away our freedoms.

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