Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said the last few days about the horrible assassination of Charlie Kirk.

I was able to attend two ceremonies over the weekend in which people gathered to memorialize him.

I hear a lot of people talking about Charlie Kirk exercising his right to political free speech, and we have to respect people's ability to engage in political speech.

I think if you look at some of his videos, and certainly if you attended these ceremonies, Charlie Kirk was a much more religious person than a political person. I think that is lost on a lot of people, lost on a lot of political commentators.

I think particularly in this era of declining church attendance, a time when so many young people are raised in families that don't even go to church, I think his speaking about Christianity and his faith and the importance to carry on his mission is more important than his political statements.

Mr. Speaker, on Roll Call No. 171, I am not recorded because I was held up in an important meeting. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 171.

Mr. Speaker, we are going to follow up with a theme that has been talked about earlier within our Conference.

Frequently, Republicans have to go home and explain why they aren't getting done what they want to get done. It is because the rules in the Senate require 60 votes to break a filibuster, which means that you need Chuck Schumer to sign off in order to get almost anything done in the Senate.

However, three times in this 2-year period, through the process called reconciliation, we are able to pass a bill out of the Senate with 50 votes or 51 votes with the Vice President. There are Republicans here who do not want to put us in that position.

Mr. Speaker, 8 years ago in Donald Trump's first term, some of these same Republicans, when we also had three votes--we used one vote for the tax cut, one vote to try and failed to do something on healthcare reform, and a third vote that the Senators didn't want to use. They wanted to restrict the floor votes to votes in which Chuck Schumer signed off.

We are now at the same position this time, and I hope that our talk radio and mouthpieces will wake up and demand that the Republicans use all three reconciliation votes this biennium.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that all conservative opinion makers be aware of one of the controversies that is going on here right now.

The United States is over $37 trillion in debt. You may hear from your local Congressman that all sorts of things can't be done because we have a 60-vote rule in the U.S. Senate, and we can't pass many bills without the 60 votes, including the big appropriation bills that have to pass every year.

However, once a year, and due to a quirk, three times in the 2 years that this body is elected, we will have a chance to pass a bill with only 51 votes in the Senate. That is what we just did with regard to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Obviously, there should be more changes to this government. There are people right now in this building who would like to have us not take advantage of the provision to pass any bill with 51 votes for the next year and 4 months. That is horrible.

I hope conservative commentators are all over this. I hope they are asking any Congressmen if they really think we should waste the opportunities to pass bills with 51 percent or with 51 votes.

Mr. Speaker, I am unwell today, so I am going to make this speech short. I am going to cover three short topics.

The first topic is, 5 years ago yesterday, there was a horrific incident that happened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Bernell Trammell, who was holding a Donald Trump sign, was assassinated.

Somebody came out on a bicycle with a mask over his head. We don't even know if he was a Black man or a White man, but he had a mask over his head. He saw a guy named Bernell Trammell holding a sign for Trump, and that person came up and killed Bernell Trammell.

Bernell Trammell was kind of an iconoclast. Bernell Trammell was a Rastafarian. He was for Black Lives Matter and frequently endorsed Democrat politicians, but for whatever reason, Bernell Trammell was in the very liberal east side of Milwaukee or the Riverwest neighborhood in Milwaukee, very, very leftwing. Bernell Trammell swam upstream and decided to carry a Donald Trump sign, and he was assassinated.

This is the type of thing that, as we see America decline, we ought to be talking more about. It is the type of thing that happens in Mexico. It is the type of thing that happens in Honduras where during elections you can expect that somebody will be assassinated. You wouldn't think it was happening in the United States, Mr. Speaker.

One of the things we have to take into account when we look at this situation is it is not only something you would expect to happen in a Third World country, Mr. Speaker, but I felt at the time the liberal establishment in Milwaukee didn't treat it differently from any other murder. When we begin to shoot people for carrying a yard sign of people we don't like, then we are in new territory, but shot he was.

I went down and saw his neighborhood. We cannot allow this to go on. We cannot allow these people to do such a thing. I don't like talking or describing people as Black or White, but, in my opinion, at that time in 2020, the Democratic Party was afraid of some Black people voting for Trump. I wondered if that is one of the reasons why they decided to target Bernell Trammell.

They shot him dead. The establishment in Milwaukee at that time implied that perhaps the reason he was shot had nothing to do with politics. We don't know his politics, just because he was carrying a Trump sign doesn't mean that he was shot for carrying a Trump sign. Of course, he was shot for carrying a Trump sign in this very liberal neighborhood. They have pictures of it. The guy came up on a bicycle.

Mr. Speaker, you hear about people being shot when somebody shoots out of a car, but here he was shot by somebody on a bicycle, so it had to be somebody in the neighborhood.

I will say this: There was a time when Republicans stepped up and put up a given amount for available people if somebody could turn in the person who shot Bernell Trammell. I will say right now, I intend to, tomorrow and next Monday, find some people to put together and put out a $30,000 bonus to anybody who can do something that leads to the conviction of the person who shot Bernell Trammell. I am contacting the Milwaukee Police Department there. I am told sometimes in cold cases people could be making a little more progress if $30,000 was thrown out there.

I expect that, hopefully, we will make some sort of a difference. Like I said, this is a guy on a bicycle. It is not like somebody did a drive-by out of a car and was gone right after. Apparently, this guy lived within a few blocks of where Bernell was shot.

Bernell Trammell, by the way, owned a print shop, so he had a commercial property there that people were aware of. Somebody has to know more. Somebody had to see where this bicyclist went.

Presumably somebody told the bicyclist: We have to kill this guy. We can't have him elevating the number of people who are voting for Donald Trump in this radical, liberal area that 15 to 20 percent saw.

In any event, let's not forget about it. The Republican Party should never forget about Bernell Trammell.

The next thing I want talk about here that kind of bothers me is when I think of the conservative Republican movement, of which I consider myself one, which aims so low below the target.

A couple of weeks ago we had a newspaper article dealing with the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing parents to opt their children out of graphic LGBTQ books in Montgomery County, Maryland.

This was supposed to be a great conservative victory that a second grade child did not have to read books that were clearly designed to promote a sexual lifestyle, and Republicans considered this a great victory.

It really bothers me that Republicans consider this a great victory.

Was this a great victory?

Because of the Supreme Court decision, we wind up having maybe, I don't know, maybe 1 out of 20 parents who are on the ball enough to say that parents are not going to be forced into a situation in which their children have to read LGBTQ books.

That is preposterous. It never should have happened in the first place, but, instead, they are pretending that this is a great victory.

Another thing about this so-called great victory is that three of the nine Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this was no big deal and that, in fact, parents shouldn't be able to object to their children reading books of a sexual nature in first or second grade or up to fifth grade, apparently.

That is almost beyond belief how far down we have come as a society. The conservative news media, FOX News, that type of thing, thought this was a victory.

Mr. Speaker, can you believe that?

We are handing out LGBTQ books to first and second graders, and the Supreme Court rules, with three Justices dissenting, that we don't have to have children go here, and if 5 percent or 4 percent of the parents opt out, that is a great victory?

Is that what America has come down to?

I would hope the comatose clergy in this country would wake up and demand that schools not do any of this stuff and begin to put elementary

schools back where they were when I was a child, talking about reading and writing, not talking about LGBTQ and not saying it is a great victory if 1 out of 20 parents say that they don't have to give this to their kids.

So let's dial it up, America.

Let's dial it up, conservative news media.

This was a horrific sign that three Supreme Court Justices would have the nerve to say that parents shouldn't be able to object to this, much less the idea it is even in the schools in the first place, to be objected to or otherwise.

So there is your second issue of the day, Mr. Speaker.

The conservatives should wake up.

The comatose people should wake up.

The comatose clergy should say: We do not have to have LGBTQ books in fifth grade, fourth grade, third grade, and down to second grade.

Now, my third topic tonight is that we passed a great big, beautiful bill. I voted for the great big, beautiful bill. There were a lot of things in the great big, beautiful bill, and there were things that were highly questioned.

There is no question the number one defeat that I had in the great big, beautiful bill was spending money on what they call low-income housing tax credits in which a property developer was, with some conditions, given tax credits equal to 70 percent of the cost of a building.

In other words, he got to build the building, but the government would pay for 70 percent of the building. That is preposterous.

Prior to us increasing the amount of credits, I felt that I was in good shape. We had the Heritage Foundation editorialize against it. The Wall Street Journal editorialized against it. The Cato Institute editorialized against it. I thought it was all just completely common sense. Not to mention, the average Congressman should say it is not up to the government to pay 70 percent of a private citizen's building.

But that is what we have. The Republicans--when the bill left the House at that point about $12 billion a year was spent on this. The Republicans--and we were told and given pep talks about how we are going to cut spending: Man, we are going to cut spending. Wow, this is historic. Actually, increased spending on low-income housing tax credits in the House. That is preposterous.

Then we sent it over to the Senate, and I was hoping that a couple buddies over there were on my side so that at least we would go back to where we started in the Senate. But no, in the Senate, the free- spending Republicans went up again. It is something we ought to spend a little bit more time looking at, how this was able to happen here. With all the conservative think tank types explaining this train wreck why-- anybody with an ounce of common sense realizes it is a train wreck--the Republicans went ahead and upped spending on this program first in the House and then in the Senate.

I hope the press corps is not going to forget about this program and hope they continue to follow it. The Washington Post, of all newspapers, pointed out, looking at about four or five different projects in the Washington, D.C., area they found that the cost of some of these was over $1.2 million a unit. Is that possible that at the time we had this supposedly tight budget we are going to spend over $1.2 million per unit? It is just unbelievable.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to give you a bonus on something I noticed when I was back home. My good friend from Ohio decided to talk a little bit about all the wonderful things we could do with gambling proceeds.

When I was first involved in politics gambling was considered a sin, and it was against the law because we knew we were taking money from the poorest people. Now, at least in Wisconsin we have gone from I believe one small casino to it has to be 15 casinos, including some huge casinos. In Wisconsin they have separate slot machines in many bars. And in helpful Wisconsin, they sell scratch-offs in gas stations throughout the district.

The reason it was brought up to me is because I notice that in some of these convenience stores they are now selling $50 scratch-offs. Can you believe the horrible State of Wisconsin is selling $50 scratch- offs? My goodness, they are just shameful, the way they take advantage of the poor and the dumb. It is just horrible. I don't think we would have put up with that when I first got into politics, but apparently Tony Evers thinks it is a great way to get more State money and to take advantage of people who are buying $50 lottery tickets.

In any event, it is not maybe the biggest problem in America, but the number of people who are losing money at these slot machines and scratch-offs is not a small number. It is not something we should be proud of. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the Democratic Party feels it is a great way to increase funding for schools and take advantage of people, but I don't think it is a good thing. I wish my brothers and sisters in the State legislatures would get rid of some of these ridiculous machines and ridiculous scratch-offs and stop taking advantage of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Mr. Speaker, there are four different topics for you to remember. We covered the increased gambling pushed by State governments, as they want to have government play a bigger and bigger role in life.

We covered the ridiculous Republicans who think it is a victory that three Supreme Court judges ruled that you have to allow LGBTQ books in second and third grade.

We covered Bernell Trammell, the poor guy who was assassinated for carrying a Trump sign 5 years ago yesterday.

And we covered the low-income housing tax credits, which is I think the most questionable program in our Internal Revenue Code and probably in Federal law all together.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank President Trump and his Department of Labor for stopping an administrative rule that was going to get rid of 14(c) certificates, which are so vital for the lives of our disabled citizens as they pursue good lives of work and self-esteem.

Mr. Speaker, 14(c) certificates are used by people who work in work centers. They may have spina bifida. They may have Down syndrome. That doesn't mean that they can't lead productive lives doing packaging and light manufacturing. I have several facilities in my district, such as Green Valley Enterprises in Beaver Dam and RCS Empowers in Sheboygan, that provide these opportunities for people with different abilities.

Not only does this give them an opportunity to interact with other people who have disabilities, but it also provides them with a little extra money to supplement their SSI income, from which they can buy clothes, buy gifts, and go out to eat from time to time.

In order to allow these folks to work, some of them have to be paid less than minimum wage. Mr. Speaker, if you have never seen one of these work centers, I encourage you to go to the work centers, where you will see people with different abilities at work.

Everybody who works there that I can see is happy to be there and is working there because it is their choice. Nevertheless, I think arrogant people in the Biden Department of Labor had decided that they would get rid of the 14(c) certificates and tell these people, in essence, that they no longer can work, that they can go to a day center and watch television, but they are not allowed to work like their siblings work. They would not be allowed to get out and about in the community where they would get to know people other than their immediate relatives.

Fortunately, Trump's Department of Labor stepped up and said that they are not going to change the rules and continue to allow work centers to exist. Maybe they are making $4 or $5 an hour to supplement their SSI, but if they want to choose, they can still work there. Hopefully, we will expand the use of work centers so that people begin to work there when they are 18 or 19 years old, like they used to.

One of the great things, like I said, about work centers is that not only do they give disabled Americans a little bit more independence, but they give them the ability to form a lot more friendships, both with other people whose abilities are similar to their own and the management staff at these facilities.

The Democratic Party has tried to prevent people from working there, saying that they are being taken advantage of, which is preposterous. Anybody who looks at these packaging or light manufacturing facilities will see immediately why you have to pay some people under minimum wage.

Secondly, my Democratic colleagues claim that people are being isolated among other people with different abilities. Again, there are people with a wide variety of abilities in these places.

There is an opportunity to form lifetime bonds with people in these facilities. I think of The Threshold in West Bend, RCS Empowers in Sheboygan, Green Valley in Beaver Dam, and Ascend Services in Manitowoc.

I think of the lifelong friends that these people form when their parents and guardians frequently worry after the parents are no longer here, what will these people do for socialization? Where will these people find friends? They find friends in the work centers, and it is horrific for the Biden Department of Labor to try to shut these places down.

In any event, one more time: I thank President Trump for preserving the work centers. I hope his Department of Labor continues to look for more opportunities in these facilities for people at a younger and younger age, reminding you all that this is only if these folks choose to work in the work centers. Everybody else can work wherever they want, but they want these folks stuck perhaps in a place where they are just watching TV or playing games all day.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to tour the work centers. If they do tour the work centers, I think they, too, will become fans of them.

Mr. Speaker, when Congress is in session, there are always interesting articles in the paper that I think demand a little bit more attention.

Over the weekend, or late last week, there was an article that said that the United Kingdom, in a few years, is going to begin having 16- year-olds vote. Since frequently problems in America happen in Great Britain first, I think it is something we should pay a great deal of attention to.

About 6 years ago, in this body, an amendment was offered allowing 16-year-olds to vote in Federal elections. Well over half the Democrats voted in favor of 16-year-olds. Why would one want to do that?

Mr. Speaker, 16-year-olds have nowhere near the wisdom and experience to make decisions as to who to vote for in elections. The only way you would want to do it is if you want to manipulate these young minds in the schools across the country.

I, like I think many other people, would have voted entirely differently when I was 16 than when I was 26.

We have to be on the alert, and our comatose press corps should be asking the Democrats now where they stand on the 16-year-old voting age.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 42 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, July 22, 2025, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, as we leave the Capitol for the weekend, I want to leave the body here with a little bit of thought. I am going to quote from a book called ``The Tragedy of American Compassion,'' by Marvin Olasky. It is now a 30-year-old book.

It is an interesting book in that it deals with what we have today called welfare. At the time that was all privatized. I am going to quote from the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism of the City of New York on what they felt was the cause of pauperism at the time and what had to be done to end it.

It listed 10 causes of pauperism. People in the 1820s were brighter than the people today. They listed ignorance, idleness, intemperance, which I take to mean drunkenness, want of economy, imprudent and hasty marriages--you don't hear that one anymore, but they

thought it was one of the top 10--lotteries, pawnbrokers, brothels, gambling houses, and the most interesting one, the vice of charities that gave away money too freely.

When we return next week, let's remember the wisdom from the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism and not give away charity too easily.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 1 o'clock and 1 minute a.m.), on Friday, July 18, 2025, (legislative day of Thursday, July 17, 2025), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, July 21, 2025, at noon for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to be back in Congress after a little break being home. We look at the news back home, and in Milwaukee we had another tragedy. For the fourth time this year, a city of Milwaukee police officer was shot. This time, sadly, it was fatal. When Officer Kendall Corder was killed, we suffered another savage murder in Milwaukee.

When I was a child, Milwaukee was the safest of the 25 biggest cities in this country. We have gone a long way from that. I hope this House addresses the root causes of why we have so much more crime in our major cities than we did 25 years ago.

Also while I was at home, I ran into somebody who is in a low-income housing unit that receives the low-income housing tax credits. This person was being asked to confirm that they did not get any raise in the last year.

This is a horrible program. It is an embarrassment. The Republicans extended it in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and I hope we immediately do something to stop this program, which discourages people from working and improving their lives.

Mr. Speaker, there are good days and bad days in this building. Today, we have a little bit of a happy day and sad day in the Grothman office.

John Nagle, part of my policy shop, is leaving today. He is a great guy. He is the pride of Poway, California. While it is our loss, it is going to be the gain of the Pacific Legal Foundation.

I will say one more time, I thank John for all the help he has given me. He is welcome to come back to our office again and again when he is on the Hill.

I was not notified of the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 178.

Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of weekends, I have attended two events of the Hmong Americans who populate Wisconsin. Wisconsin has the third highest Hmong population in the country.

I always love to talk about the Hmong because they came here not knowing a word of English, or many of them did not know a word of English. Nevertheless, they have largely succeeded.

I like to have conversations with somebody maybe in their sixties or seventies, and I ask them how many children they have. Then, I ask them how many grandchildren they have, how many brothers and sisters they have, and how many nieces and nephews they have.

The Hmong came here with big families, like recent immigrants frequently do, so they might be here with 40 or 50 children or grandchildren plus nieces and nephews. Then, I ask them how they are doing.

How many of all of these children did not graduate from high school? None.

How many of these 40 grandchildren or nieces or nephews had any problems with the law? None.

How many of the young gals got pregnant out of wedlock? None.

They all seem to be succeeding, despite the fact that they came here with all of these supposed disadvantages.

I would like to, one more time, salute the Hmong, who prove that anybody who comes here and works hard can succeed.

Mr. Speaker, I spent the weekend back in Wisconsin,

and what does a weekend in Wisconsin in June mean? It means National Dairy Month.

I was at breakfast on the farm in Manitowoc County. I will tell you that June has been National Dairy Month since 1937. When I think of June, I think of cream cheese. I think of cottage cheese. I think of yogurt. I think of raw milk. I think of pasteurized milk. I think of Colby cheese, cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, and provolone cheese.

I think of the fact that, whenever you tour your factories in Wisconsin, they say they don't have workers like they used to have workers because they used to have workers who were raised on a dairy farm, and there is nobody who knows the value of hard work more than somebody on a dairy farm.

I will tell you that, more recently, other groups have weighed in since 1937 and said June is their month. It is not their month. June is the dairy industry's month, and I hope everybody spends next weekend going home to buy themselves a brick of cheese.