EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE

On 2025-03-26, Representative Glenn Grothman (R-WI-6) delivered a floor speech titled "EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE" in the House. The speech addressed immigration and also covered healthcare, taxes.

EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 55 (Wednesday, March 26, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 55 (Wednesday, March 26, 2025)] [House] [Pages H1295-H1297] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] EDUCATING YOUNG PEOPLE (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr. Grothman of Wisconsin was recognized for 30 minutes.) Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to hear from legislators on the experiences they had before this week as they toured their district and as they talked to normal people to see whether their concerns and observations squared with those of the people in this building. Donald Trump has done a great job of trying to remove the diversity, equity, and inclusion from our government, including our military. We have, to a degree, gotten rid of some of the bureaucrats who pushed this odious ideology in our businesses and our schools. Nevertheless, these bureaucrats everywhere are waiting to gain a foothold in America again as soon as we have another administration, and it is important to educate the young people in this country as to the degree to which America is really a broken system, a racist system, and whether white supremacy is a major problem, as Joe Biden said. {time} 1530 While I was back home, I had an opportunity to speak to a mosque of Ahmadiyya Muslims. Ahmadiyya Muslims have a little bit different theology than Muslims in general. They are persecuted by those members of Islam who live in Pakistan, and many of them have had to flee Pakistan even with regards to their own personal safety. Nevertheless, when I met with the Ahmadiyya Muslims, there were two things that hit me: First of all, they were all successful, at least the ones I met. I asked them whether they knew of any of them that were having children out of wedlock. They knew nobody like that. They all seemed to be working hard and succeeding in America. This, of course, is at complete odds with the DEI ideology in which people who are not Europeans are struggling or can't succeed in America. Indeed, the Ahmadiyya Muslims are one more example of a group of people who are succeeding in this land of opportunity. Actually, they were very thrilled to praise America. They praised us not only as being a much better place to live than Pakistan, but they pointed out we are a much better place to live than Europe. They laughed at Europe, which they referred to as a ``socialist continent'' and one in which there was [[Page H1296]] no room for people who wanted to work hard and get ahead. One more time, we have an example of foreigners who come here from other places who seem to appreciate America more than the native born and certainly appreciate America more than the average college professor. I would like to point out that another, I guess you would call, minority that is very common in my district is the Hmong, who came here from Laos. They as well are achieving, doing well, having strong families, succeeding in the realm of education, and all seem to have jobs. This despite the fact that when they came here from Laos, again, many of them didn't know the language. It, again, shows it is a lie for any of these DEI professionals--be they in business, government, or education--to say that America is not a place where people can succeed. As a practical matter, while I don't think the Hmong are a large enough minority to have statistics on how well they are doing economically, it is apparent subjectively that they are probably doing better than the average American who was born here and, indeed, larger minorities for which we have statistics. I remind everybody that people who come here from India, who are the most successful minority, Philippines, China, Japan, Cuba, the coast of western Africa all are succeeding wildly in America. All it takes is hard work and strong families, and all these groups have strong families. I encourage our educators and all our policymakers to educate the people back home on all the groups from all around the world who are doing a fantastic job. I think they are doing, in part, a fantastic job because they don't listen to the naysayers who want to run down America and apparently say that if you are not succeeding and things aren't going right, it is because of prejudice. The next thing I would like to point out is immigration is still in the news. There are some people who complain about Donald Trump doing what he so desperately has to do, and that is to remove the people who snuck into this country illegally. I want to point out to everyone that, again, in the last year we had many new Americans who were naturalized. There are people who say about the people who are being removed: Why can't we let them stay? We have a system in this country to make sure that we are getting the best people, the law-abiding, the self-reliant people, which is all we should need here. We took in 850,000 last year on a rolling 3-year average. I still believe we are at the all-time high of even more than that. We should be reminding anybody who says we are mean or not doing our share of taking in people who would rather live here that, in fact, we took in 850,000 naturalized citizens; those are new citizens. That is not including the approximately 10 million people who are here on student visas, work visas, or tourist visas. As far as people who want to spend a short time here, particularly to work, we are even more generous that way. I have heard of no strong efforts being made to greatly reduce these numbers. Again, we have to remind our young people, our constituents, not to put up with this anti-American rhetoric of why are we kicking these people out. We have to remind people every year that in this country we wind up swearing in about 850,000 new people legally. I think if you think about that number for a little bit, something that is far higher than the historical average in this country, you will realize it is ridiculous to say this country is in any way xenophobic. As I mentioned, one of the strong predictors of success in this country for everybody--for women, men, and children--is that of strong families. I think we have to spend some time pondering why it seems to be that people who are used to the American culture seem to have weaker family ties than those people who are coming here from other countries. It is my personal belief that the reason we have weak families in America--and one of the reasons why our American children cannot do as well as children whose ancestors come from Pakistan or India or Philippines--is that we have such strong incentives in America, through a horrible broken welfare system, to discourage mothers and fathers to stay together with their children. This began in the 1960s under Lyndon Johnson, who I felt, before Joe Biden, was the worst President in this country's history. In the 1950s, we only had about 4 percent of American children born without a mother and father at home. We now have over 40 percent who are born without a mother and father at home. This doesn't mean there aren't wonderful single parents. I know some single parents, particularly emotionally strong single parents, who have done a fantastic job of raising their children. Anybody would be proud of them. However, the statistics make it obvious that overall children would be better off if they had a mother and father at home. Almost every program in what would be referred to as ``the welfare state'' has incentives to discourage there from being a mother and father at home. This is because eligibility for almost every program is based upon percent of poverty. If you are a single parent and don't have a job or are working part time, you are eligible for many other programs. I think probably the most damaging is that of low-income housing where if, say, a single parent has a child, even when they are a minor without another parent at home, you are eligible for low-income housing, which means almost no rent and the ability to get away from your parents. Other programs that also discourage marriage, programs that you would lose eligibility for if both parents were working and had a child are the food-share programs, the Medicaid programs, the earned income tax credit, the Pell grants. Indeed, I could go on. There are about 90 different programs in America which are designed to go to a single- parent family, but if you have a two-parent family making a decent income, they are considered not in poverty and, therefore, they are not eligible for a program. This is why, anecdotally, if you get out in your district, away from the fundraisers and such, you find so many stories of single parents who may even live with the other parent--sometimes illegally--but they don't want to get married because they lose all this money. Nobody is eligible for all 90 programs at once, but I don't think it is difficult to find hypotheticals in which a parent alone is eligible for maybe $25,000 or $30,000 that they would lose if they were married to the other parent. In other words, it seems like the policy of the United States is to try to discourage the strong families, which are one of the reasons why so many immigrants--be it the Ahmadiyya Muslims or the Cubans or the Mexicans or the Filipinos--seem to do so well in America, indeed frequently better than so many of the native born. We are soon going to pass a reconciliation bill, and that reconciliation bill will be a tremendous bill, a revolutionary bill. The bill, I think, is going to try to get America back to its roots. Certainly, one of the goals of this bill has to be to get rid of the huge marriage penalty, which has such an impact on causing there to be many fewer children with a mother and father at home than are necessary. I think it is important to look at all the programs I just named off, as well as a few others, particularly any low-income housing programs, because it is not right that a you