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THE BIDEN BORDER CRISIS AND SO-CALLED INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson) for 60 minutes.
General Leave
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Louisiana?
There was no objection.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, during my Special Order tonight, my colleagues and I will address the inaction by the Biden administration and House Democrats to address this major crisis that we see on our southern border, this humanitarian crisis. And, yes, that is the right word. It is a crisis by any objective measure.
We are also going to address tonight the President's so-called infrastructure plan. That is a lot for us to talk about. So we will squeeze it into this hour.
When President Biden was inaugurated, the American people will remember, Madam Speaker, that he called for unity. He promised to work across the aisle, to work with Republicans in Congress. But so far those words have been completely empty promises.
Everyone can acknowledge and everyone can see on television that there is a real crisis at the southern border, and it is a crisis of the administration's creation.
President Biden has stopped construction of the border wall. He reimplemented the catch-and-release policy of the Obama administration. He reversed the remain in Mexico policy of the Trump administration. And he selectively is enforcing immigration laws.
The results are not surprising. Our Border Patrol is now completely overwhelmed, and the southwest border encounters have reached a 15-year high. I want you to look at these numbers, Madam Speaker. This is the border crisis. The first column here is January of this year. We had 78,323 southwest border encounters. The next month, in February, it goes up to 100,441. Last month, in March, it was 171,700. This is a crisis. We all know the numbers for April are going to be staggering.
I know that there are Members on both sides of the aisle here--I know there are Members, our Democrat colleagues, who want to join us to take action to fix this. But we can't do it without the administration.
Look, here are five simple steps that we can take that would help end the border crisis:
Number one, finish the wall;
Number two, reinstate the remain in Mexico policy;
Number three, turn away high-risk individuals at our border. These are dangerous folks, some of them, coming across, and we know that.
Number four, require negative COVID tests before releasing migrants, illegal immigrants, into the U.S.;
Number five, let's send a clear message to the whole world to discourage illegal immigration.
What a concept. These aren't difficult things. The Trump administration had it all figured out, but now politics has gotten in the way of good policy.
In addition to finally solving the border crisis, there is another item in the news that Americans desperately want us to address, and that is the need for an infrastructure package. That could be a bipartisan solution that we could all work on together. It should be nonpartisan, but because it impacts every single congressional district in every State, all of us, every American, wants this to happen.
But the plan that the White House introduced isn't really about infrastructure at all. In fact, only 6 percent of the $2.5 trillion proposal would go towards bridges, highways, and roads. The rest goes to fund Democrat Big Government priorities, like the Green New Deal, and payoffs to liberal special interest groups. What an outrage.
The facts are that the House majority is the slimmest of any House majority since World War II, and the Senate is divided 50/50. Given these facts, we just want our Democratic colleagues and President Biden to end this partisan agenda for the sake of the American people.
I look forward, Madam Speaker, to hearing from my Republican colleagues tonight about both of these issues.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Grothman), who represents the Sixth Congressional District of Wisconsin.
Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, I would like to address the Chair with regard to the upcoming infrastructure bill. I am going to talk about some numbers. I don't mean to bore you with numbers.
When you put together a bill, you don't want to be an outlier. I am going to address two areas in which I think this bill makes this an outlier in very, very serious ways.
The first one is, you have changes in the tax law. And when you look at the taxes that a business pays in this country, a corporation, you have to look at kind of a double taxation. They will tax you at a corporate rate when the business earns the money; and when the business gives the money to its shareholders, you will be taxed at a dividend rate.
There is a graph here comparing all of the OECD countries around the world as to where they stand on this combined tax rate. The lowest countries, the Baltic countries, Latvia and Estonia, are 20 percent.
Right now, the United States, even after the last tax cut, at 47 percent, is middle of the pack. Actually, a little bit higher. If the tax hikes are put in effect that are published right now, you are going up to 62.7 percent. In other words, of the over 20 countries here, the United States will have the highest combined dividend, plus corporate tax rate. That is an outlier and a dangerous place to be an outlier.
There are a lot of things that go into a decision as to where you put a manufacturing facility, but taxes is certainly one of them. And given one of our goals should be to bring manufacturing back to the country, it is a bad place to be as the highest combined corporate tax rate, plus dividends.
The next area I am going to address is the money supply. To a certain extent, because of previous bills passed during the COVID crisis, we have had a rather dramatic increase in the money supply.
I would suggest you google ``M1.'' You will see that, in the last 6 months, the amount of dollars floating around has gone through the roof. Some people, including me, would say M2 would be a better measurement. But even if you look at M2, we have a 27 percent increase in the money supply over the past year. That is just screaming we are going to have a lot of inflation in the very near future.
It is certainly not the only reason, but we already see the rapid increase in the cost of housing construction. We see an increase in food prices and an increase in energy prices. This is given what we have already done.
Now, you are going to tell us--or some people are going to say that we are going to raise enough taxes to pay for this spending. But we are going to be raising enough taxes over the next 10 or 15 years. We know around here that when we say we are going to make a pay-for the next 10 or 15 years, a lot of times that pay-for never materializes.
So I am afraid we are going to have another big increase in the money supply when we have already had a 27 percent increase in the last year, and this is going to come back and cause serious concern. I beg the majority to look at a graph of the combined tax rates, us compared to the other OECD countries, and I beg them to look at the money supply and don't make us any more of an outlier on either.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for that dire warning. I guess if you subscribe to modern monetary theory, none of this is a concern, but it is for those of us who live in the real world.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Fallon), who represents the Fourth Congressional District of Texas.
Mr. FALLON. Madam Speaker, the Biden infrastructure plan is another classic example of the old bait-and-switch. Much like the COVID relief bill, where only 9 percent of the $1.9 trillion price tag actually went to COVID relief, this plan has very little to do with infrastructure.
The definition of the word in the Cambridge Dictionary is: The basic system and services, such as transport and power supplies, that a country or organization uses in order to work effectively.
So we know what it really means: roads, bridges; and, in the 21st century, broadband internet would qualify.
How much of the $2.2 trillion is actually going to infrastructure?
$115 billion is set aside for bridges, roads, and highways; just 5 percent. And under a more broad definition, if we include public transportation and broadband, the total grows to $405 billion, which is still just 18 percent of the new spending.
So where does the other 82 percent go?
Democrats across the country have said their definition of infrastructure includes universal pre-K, climate action, climate justice, eradicating right-to-work environments, caregiving, affordable housing, police accountability, and paid leave.
This ain't infrastructure.
So we all know what this is: The largest corporate welfare slush fund in American history.
Joe Biden will have virtual carte blanche to nepotistically dole out hundreds of billions of dollars to curry favor with allies, supporters, friends, and family.
This isn't the hallmark of innovation, but it will ensure that the D.C. swamp continues to be a festering pool of corruption.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman from Texas.
We came here to drain the swamp, but it is really difficult during the current administration. We will get back to it soon, though, I am confident of that.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), who represents the Fifth District.
Mr. LATTA. I thank my friend for yielding and hosting tonight's Special Order.
Quite a few of us have gone down to the border in the last several weeks, and, Madam Speaker, we do have a crisis at the border. When I say, a crisis, I mean an unmitigated crisis at the border.
We were at McAllen and going in to see the border crossing that night and the people streaming across, the Border Patrol was probably going to process over a thousand people that night. A thousand people.
The next morning, we were able to go to the Donna facility. And the Donna facility, the best way to describe it, it is a canvas building, you might say, a very nice building. It has air conditioning and all, but it was only built to hold 250 people. The day we were there, there were 3,500 people being housed there, the vast majority being kids.
We went into the pods they have. These pods are only supposed to hold 33 children. One held 412. Another had 450. And the week before there were over 600 in one.
There is a problem; it is a crisis. But it is not being seen as a crisis down at the White House. I implore the President and the Vice President to go down there and see what is happening. It is absolutely essential, because these children that are being held there, according to what they say, they are supposed to only be there for 72 hours. Some are being held for 3 weeks. One little girl was there for over 28 days.
So we do have a crisis at the border. It has got to be noted, and the President and Vice President have to know it. It is absolutely essential.
Let me just finish with this: The other thing that is happening, when you take 40 percent of our Border Patrol offline and put them into the facilities and also in processing, we have got drugs flowing across the border. Last year we had 88,000 people in this country die of overdoses. That is going up exponentially.
So let's get something done down there, Mr. President. It is essential. We have got to do it today.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. I thank my friend for that compelling eyewitness account. Anyone who is looking at the evidence cannot deny this is a problem.
I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko). Being from a border State, she knows a whole lot about this.
Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, there is a border crisis. Let's just face it. President Biden even slipped over the weekend and said it was a crisis. Then the White House had to pull it back. When thousands of people are crossing the border each and every day, it is a humanitarian crisis, it is a health crisis, and it is a national security crisis because we now know that at least a couple of the people that they caught were on the terrorist watch list.
Just yesterday, the Governor of Arizona declared a State emergency and sent National Guard to help our law enforcement in our border communities. You know what the Customs and Border Patrol did under the Biden administration? They dropped off 16 people, including kids, in the middle of a park in a small community 80 miles north of the border, Gila Bend, Arizona.
They don't have a shelter; they don't have a hospital there. They have nothing. The mayor and his wife had to borrow a van to transport these people to a Phoenix shelter. Now, what kind of President does that?
If this happened, if these unaccompanied children were just left to be handled by cartels, by a U.S. citizen, that U.S. citizen would be charged with child abuse and be in prison right now. This is unconscionable, and it needs to stop now.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. I thank the gentlewoman for that passion. She is right, she has been there, and she sees it herself.
I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Nehls), who represents the 22nd Congressional District and will bring another border State perspective. He also knows a lot about law enforcement.
Mr. NEHLS. Madam Speaker, for weeks now our country has witnessed the never-ending horrific images and stories from our southern border. We have heard from Border Patrol that they don't have enough agents to secure the southern border and babysit--yes, babysit--the tens of thousands of migrant children flooding across our southern border. As a result, criminal illegal aliens are slipping through undetected.
We are a nation of laws and law and order, or at least we used to be. Ever since this current administration assumed control of the White House, there has been an outright refusal--yes, refusal--to put the American people first and address the crisis at our southern border.
The administration's inactions will cost American lives, will cost billions of taxpayer dollars, and once again put the responsibility of the Federal Government on individual States.
I know this. I dealt with it firsthand as a sheriff in Fort Bend County, Texas. I had to tell dozens of residents in my home county whose homes were burglarized by a ring of illegal aliens from Honduras and Colombia that many of the illegal aliens had been deported multiple times.
In January of 2020, in my office, I had to sit and tell a son whose mother was killed in a hit and run that the illegal alien that ran his mother over had been deported six--yes, six--times prior. That fellow right there.
Madam Speaker, enough is enough. End this crisis. Put the American people first and secure our southern border.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. I am so grateful for those comments and for the gentleman's expertise. This passion that you see, Madam Speaker, is deserved. We are so concerned that the President doesn't share it, and that is what you are hearing echoed over and over tonight.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Taylor), who represents the Third District.
Mr. TAYLOR. Madam Speaker, as I walked through rows and rows of children who had just made a long and dangerous journey to Texas' southern border sitting on cots in a crowded room three times the size of the room that we are in right now, it has never been more clear to me than right there that illegal immigration benefits no one.
I have witnessed the heartbreaking conditions inside these emergency intake sites. In the words of one facility commander, the volunteers and staff that were working there tirelessly, they were operating under a crisis level of care. A crisis level of care. There is no doubt that we are facing a humanitarian crisis, a health crisis, and a national security crisis, all of great proportions.
We didn't get here overnight. The Biden-Harris administration made a reckless decision, choosing to overturn policies implemented by President Trump. But those policies were working, and the Biden-Harris administration had no replacement policy, no strategy, no plan to replace it.
During my visit to this facility in north Texas, I listened to the stories of cartels and coyotes advertising that they could get your children across the U.S. border on television. That is right. The cartels are advertising on television that they can get children smuggled across our southern border.
By stopping construction and the strategic importance of the border wall and rescinding the remain in Mexico policy, President Biden and Vice President Harris are sending a clear message: If you come to the United States, we will let you in.
Currently, as cartels are exploiting this administration's irresponsible open border policies, the cartels are raking in roughly
$14 million a day. That is right, you heard me correctly. $14 million a day going straight into the hands of criminals because of the reckless policy decisions of the Biden administration.
If that statistic isn't enough on its own, DHS is projecting 117,000 children without their parents will arrive at the border this year alone. That is a 45 percent increase over the highest we have ever had.
Madam Speaker, this is a crisis, and this administration and Democrats in Congress need to call it just that and fix it.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman for that perspective from Texas again. So we've got Texas and Arizona. Madam Speaker, we are going to move a little further west, all the way west to California.
I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Garcia), who represents the 25th District there.
Mr. GARCIA of California. I thank Mr. Johnson for hosting this very important Special Order hour.
I rise today to share my concerns about our crisis at the southern border. As a first-generation American, I understand the opportunities that this Nation provides and why every human being on this planet should want to come to the United States. I am a product of the American Dream, but I also value the law. I value law and order.
The first step in fixing our broken immigration system must be securing our border. In March we saw over 172,000 migrants attempt to illegally cross our border. That is a 71 percent increase in just one month.
The Biden administration continues to fail to address this crisis. This is no doubt a product of the Biden administration's policy, but make no mistake, this is now our collective problem. It is affecting our local neighborhoods, it is affecting our governments, it is affecting those who have come here legally, who are now being cut in front of by folks who are breaking the law to come here.
Communities in border towns are stretched thin and running low on local resources as more migrants flood their communities. This isn't just about the border. The crisis impacts all of us across America, including my district, the beautiful 25th District, where we see a rise in crime tied to illegal immigration and human trafficking. This is being aggravated by the defund the police movement.
The crisis at our border is about security. It is about safety, and it is about humanity. No human being should be experiencing in their entire lifetime what hundreds of thousands of humans are experiencing right now at our own southern border.
Let me be clear. We can be a welcoming nation, but we can also be a nation that abides by its own laws and enforces them simultaneously. We need to secure the border, provide the resources to our Border Patrol agents, and stop incentivizing people to come here illegally. When we do those things, we can address the rest of our problems.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. I thank the gentleman for that compelling testimony from a first-generation American. That is meaningful. We prize immigration, the legal kind. We believe in the rule of law, and that is what maintains order.
I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Cawthorn), the youngest Member of Congress, but he is wise beyond his years.
Mr. CAWTHORN. Madam Speaker, if Americans like what Democrats did for Baltimore, then they will love what Democrats will do for the planet.
The Biden infrastructure bill and the stimulus bill before it shows that Democrats are more interested in transforming our Nation's definitions of words than they are our physical infrastructure of roads and bridges. We need to cut government waste, not create more.
And now the left wants to drag the Green New Deal through America's back door without any regard for the wishes of millions of Americans. Make no mistake, this infrastructure proposal is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is a Socialist wish list disguised as a roads and bridges initiative.
This is exactly what Democrats have been doing since the day I was sworn in. They know that America is in desperate need of infrastructure reform, and they know that Republicans and Americans nationwide would vote for a commonsense infrastructure proposal, but have they proposed such an initiative? Absolutely not.
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They will pretend that this legislation deals with infrastructure, and then they will stand on the steps of their multimillion-dollar mansions and decry any votes against their Trojan horse of a bill.
Americans are fed up. Why aren't we passing legislation that does what it claims to be doing? Why are my colleagues on the left so excited to pretend critical race theory is the same as critically needed roads?
Let's dispense between this false equivalency. Let's build bridges, not just the physical but actual bipartisan bridges here in Congress. Why aren't we working together on the pitifully few issues that we still happen to agree on these days?
I am wondering. My constituents are wondering. America is wondering.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Cawthorn for that perspective.
Madam Speaker, I will move briskly because we have a lot of Members, as you can see, who are passionate about these issues and want to weigh in tonight.
I yield to the gentleman from the First District of the great State of Alabama (Mr. Carl), who will take the podium here.
Mr. CARL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to express my concern for the unprecedented crisis at our southern border because of the Biden administration's reckless open-border policy and failure to enforce our Nation's immigration laws.
We are seeing thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the border every single day, and there is no sign of letting up. The President and the Vice President are nowhere to be found.
That is not leadership. We need leadership. We have a crisis at the border, and leadership, we are making a call for help, please.
The Vice President was appointed as the border czar weeks ago and has yet to take a single trip to the southern border. That is unacceptable.
We must have strong border protection for the health, safety, and security of American citizens. It is time for this administration and the far left to put America first by enforcing our immigration laws and putting an end to this horrific crisis at our southern border.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).
Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louisiana for yielding and for holding this Special Order tonight.
The American people are frightened by what they are seeing unfold at the southern border. That fear is real, and it is only amplified by an administration that has chosen to sit back and do absolutely nothing.
For months, the Biden administration has struggled to decide what to call this situation, often scrambling to find the newest and less severe synonym to the word ``crisis.'' The word ``crisis'' suits this situation perfectly, but apparently, that word is too harsh, according to the White House.
Pretty soon, this administration won't have any words left to use, and they will accept the reality that they need to own up to the crisis they created.
Republicans are not interested in letting complacency take hold while the country we love is left open and vulnerable and changed forever. We will continue to call out this administration for its failures, and we will continue to fight to protect America and its citizens.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for her remarks, and we do call out the administration. That is what this Special Order is all about.
I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee's Second District (Mr. Burchett).
Mr. BURCHETT. Madam Speaker, I thank Vice Chairman Johnson for yielding.
Madam Speaker, the crisis at the southern border is a problem of the Biden administration's own creation. As soon as they took office, the Biden administration slapped an ``open for business'' sign on our southern border. They scrapped commonsense immigration policies that were keeping our country secure. Now, our southern border is overwhelmed with immigrants who expect to enter the country without proper vetting.
Hiding among those massive crowds of people are drug smugglers, child traffickers, and terrorists who have no intention of positively impacting American communities.
We need to know who is coming into our country and why, for the sake of national security.
Ironically, even though Joe Biden and Kamala Harris decried this practice, children are still being packed into overcrowded detention facilities and sleeping in cages. They were outraged about this back when they were campaigning for President, but now they are actually silent on the issue.
We need to get back to the successful border security policies of the Trump administration, including construction of our border wall. I am an original cosponsor of the Finish the Wall Act, which would resume construction of the border wall and make it more difficult for folks, especially the bad actors, to cross the southern border illegally.
House Republicans are ready to secure the border, and I am proud to join my colleagues on the floor this evening to call out the Biden administration's ongoing inaction. If President Biden is not physically or mentally capable of addressing this problem, he should step down.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for those bold words, and he is right. I think that expresses the sentiment of a lot of Americans.
I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Gimenez), who knows a lot about immigration as well as infrastructure because he is a former fire chief and mayor and now a Member of Congress.
Mr. GIMENEZ. Madam Speaker, over the past several weeks, I have joined Leader McCarthy and House Homeland Security Committee Republicans on two separate trips to our southern border. What I saw on the ground is heartbreaking: countless unaccompanied minors, often very young girls, left at the hands of international cartels, many of them violated; migrants packed into cramped processing facilities; and seizures of illicit narcotics being trafficked into the United States.
Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris White House has drastically shifted from the previous administration's policies on immigration and border security through executive order. At no point during the crafting of these executive orders were congressional Republicans consulted, nor have Republicans had a proper venue for input on plans from the White House. The result? Day by day, the crisis along our southern border is getting worse.
It has been a month since President Biden named our Vice President, Kamala Harris, as the border czar. What have we seen so far? Zero media appearances about the border, no press conferences, no trips to the border, radio silence for the Vice President.
She said she is going to the Northern Triangle to meet with Guatemalans and Hondurans. She doesn't need to. She can come to the southern border and talk directly to Guatemalans and Hondurans, and migrants from many other countries, while they are illegally crossing the border.
While she is at it, Vice President Harris should speak with Customs and Border Protection agents who are on the ground handling the situation instead of Federal bureaucrats sitting in their offices in Washington.
As an immigrant, I call on Vice President Harris to do her job and fix this crisis.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for speaking with such authority.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania's Ninth District (Mr. Meuser).
Mr. MEUSER. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Louisiana, Vice Chair Mike Johnson, for yielding.
Madam Speaker, we can all agree our Nation's transportation and infrastructure system is in need of investment to improve our quality of life and economic competitiveness. Very unfortunately, the Biden administration has thus far chosen a go-it-alone approach in solving this problem with a $2.3 trillion proposal, whereby less than 8 percent would go toward improving our Nation's roads, bridges, highways, airports, ports, and waterways, traditional infrastructure.
The rest is filled with provisions that have nothing to do with traditional T&I as we all know it, including $173 billion for electric cars and car electrical ports for powering; $400 billion to expand Medicaid programs, which is not infrastructure; and hundreds of billions of dollars to implement provisions of the Green New Deal.
As a means to pay for it, the Biden administration and Democratic leadership plan to raise taxes by over $2 trillion. At a time when our economy is in recovery, and we are supposed to be on the side of American manufacturing and repatriating jobs, bringing these companies back to America, the idea of significant tax increases is another upside-down policy and will certainly not attract business but only export them.
Additionally, our infrastructure plan needs to be supplemented by private capital investment. That is where accountability comes from. That is why I plan to introduce the Infrastructure Bank for America Act, which would add to existing government funding with private investment, increasing access to capital for worthy infrastructure projects that deliver on R&I and deliver value to the American people at a fraction of the cost to the taxpayer.
Contrary to the Biden infrastructure plan, IBA investments would not be restricted and would help finance surface transportation projects, grid security, broadband, and revitalization of cities and towns across America and my district.
Thus far, the Biden administration has failed to reach across the aisle in a meaningful way to accomplish anything. We should unite to fix our roads, bridges, highways, airports, and other gateways to growth and innovation, not exploit this opportunity and pass a $2 trillion liberal wish list that will raise taxes, impose Green New Deal mandates, and add trillions to our national debt.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for mentioning just one of the many Republican ideas we have. And as he said, we are not there at the table.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee's Sixth District (Mr. Rose).
Mr. ROSE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to call attention to a critical need for infrastructure for all of America, and especially in my home State of Tennessee.
I believe it is past time that we build new transportation systems and refurbish structures to accommodate our modern economy and our growing workforce. I am a strong proponent of fixing our crumbling roads and bridges and expanding access to broadband internet in unserved areas.
In Tennessee, over half a million residents only have access to one internet service provider, and 274,000 Tennesseans still have no access at their place of residence. These are real infrastructure projects that desperately need our attention.
Unfortunately, President Biden's most recent multitrillion-dollar giveaway has little to do with actual infrastructure, with only 6 percent of this bill going to projects that fund roads, bridges, or highways.
Even if we use the most expanded definition of infrastructure, which might include upgrading wastewater and drinking water systems, expanding high-speed broadband internet service to 100 percent of the Nation, modernizing the electric grid, and improving infrastructure resilience, infrastructure in this plan is only 24 percent of its total cost.
President Biden is attempting to redefine infrastructure to include all of the Democratic Party's pet projects and extreme priorities. In this case, it means enacting Green New Deal-style programs and implementing job-killing tax hikes on Americans and their businesses.
Since this proposal has little to do with infrastructure and grossly inflates the number of jobs it would actually create, we should call this proposal what it really is, a con job.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, it is a con job, indeed.
Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Louisiana has 32 minutes remaining.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan's First District (Mr. Bergman), who is the highest ranked military officer ever elected to the United States Congress and also my dear friend and classmate.
Mr. BERGMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Johnson for yielding. It is an honor to be here on the floor with him tonight.
Our country recognizes leadership at all levels, regardless of party ideology, and I see here on the floor real leadership, committed leadership.
I rise today to express deep concern for the state of our Nation's southern border. Words matter, and it is time we start calling this situation what it really is: a crisis. In simple words, it is what it is. Don't try to paint it in many different ways.
President Biden has invited this crisis through his words and in his executive actions, including terminating construction of the wall on our southern border.
We need real leadership now. Now is not the time to be hiding. We need the leaders to step out and step up. It is time to put up and put out the political gamesmanship, put that all behind us and take a serious look at what is happening on the southern border. When I say a serious look, I mean that literally.
Vice President Harris, let alone President Biden, has yet to visit the border since being charged with addressing the crisis there. The United States is and must always remain a free and welcoming Nation.
We are all immigrants. We are immigrants by generations who came here for one of two reasons, for an opportunity or fleeing persecution. That hasn't changed.
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We are also, and by all standards measured, a Nation of law and order, and our laws must be followed.
Madam Speaker, I urge Congress to take up critical legislation, such as Representative Andy Biggs' Stopping Border Surges Act and Representative Jeff Duncan's H.R. 88, Build up Illegal Line Defenses with Assets Lawfully Lifted Act of 2021. These bills will begin to address the root cause of our immigration issues.
In addition, the bureaucracies here in D.C. can play a positive role, such as Department of Labor and DHS. They can help. Because when you look at those who seek to come here legally and work as guest workers, we can bring good people from around the world here through the H2B and H2A programs. They do not seek permanent status; they come here to work, and they go home. The bureaucracies can get involved to help good, legal immigration occur after you separate out the guest worker programs.
Madam Speaker, we can secure our border, protect those wishing to come here legally, and crack down on those who wish to do us harm--and I mean, crack down on those who wish to do us harm. It is time this body gets to work to address this critical issue immediately.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the general. I appreciate that so much.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Baird), Fourth District, another American hero, another hero of mine, a gentleman who sacrificially served his country and deserves to speak here tonight and has great insight for us.
Mr. BAIRD. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louisiana for yielding. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Madam Speaker, this evening I really rise to voice my concerns over the President's $2 trillion infrastructure plan.
One concern is the steep price tag, but a bigger concern is what the administration is trying to classify as infrastructure. These attempts from some on the other side of the aisle to classify their partisan priorities as infrastructure, is inexcusable and it is irresponsible.
The President is asking American taxpayers to fork over $2 trillion. If the President is asking Americans to make a substantial investment, it is Congress' responsibility to ensure that these tax dollars are spent wisely.
Unfortunately, the President's proposed bill doesn't do this. How can it be infrastructure legislation when less than 6 percent goes to roads and bridges and less than 5 percent goes to broadband infrastructure?
There is a true need for infrastructure. For instance, in my district, our rural communities need help getting their last mile of broadband. This pandemic has proven that high speed broadband must be addressed.
Madam Speaker, I hope we can remove the partisan approach to this bill and solve the real infrastructure challenges of our country.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend. It is so sad that broadband needs are not being met because politics are in the way.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).
Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I rise today with serious reservations about the proposed infrastructure policies coming before this body.
Every Member in Congress represents a district with infrastructure needs. Urban or rural, conservative or liberal, we all represent communities that have dire infrastructure needs we should be addressing.
That is why President Biden's recent discussion about infrastructure, along with his comments about wanting to establish a bipartisan legislative effort were encouraging.
Unfortunately, none of this would come to fruition. We didn't see a bipartisan push. We didn't see significant input taken from Members and Senators on our side of the aisle. We didn't see a willingness to want to work together.
The $2.2 trillion plan wasn't released after significant back-and-
forth discussions. No, it was released after development by the White House and then pushed out in a media blitz.
As anticipated, the package was a partisan exercise. Just 5 percent goes to repairing roads and bridges. As the core definition of infrastructure, there is very little attention shown. Only 1 percent goes to airports. Other countries around the world continue to build state-of-the-art airports, as airports here in the United States struggle to keep up with demand. Ports and inland waterways, an issue important to me as the representative of two major seaports, is even more astounding. Just one percent of this bill goes to ports and inland waterways. Ridiculous.
Now is the time for real infrastructure investments, but this isn't the plan Americans need.
I urge my colleagues to start from scratch and focus on the real issue here: Our Nation's infrastructure needs.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much for that.
Madam Speaker, I am delighted to go back across the country again to the great State of California's Eighth District. I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte).
Mr. OBERNOLTE. Madam Speaker, infrastructure is a bipartisan issue. We all agree that one of the primary functions of government is to provide for the people collectively what they are unable to individually provide for themselves. I am talking about things like highways and roads and dams and harbors and airports. Things that represent long-term investments in the future of our country.
Unfortunately, the infrastructure package we are currently considering only devotes 12 percent of the over $2 trillion of spending to infrastructure projects like those.
To give you some egregious examples, the proposed infrastructure package devotes substantially more money to subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles than it does to building the roads and the highways that those vehicles would drive on.
The proposed infrastructure package devotes over ten times as much money to expansion of Medicaid than it does to the construction of water infrastructure, of dams and of airports put together.
It is not to say that these other projects are without merit, but the problem is that almost every dollar of this spending contributes to our national debt. That means that we need to consider only the projects that represent a true, long-term investment in our country.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pare this package down to the projects that accomplish exactly that.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that California perspective.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), the Republican leader of the House Agriculture Committee.
Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss the Democrat's infrastructure bill.
We have seen a lot in the news over the last few weeks about President Biden's not-so-much infrastructure plan. There is so much unrelated pork in this bill that even Washington reporters are hesitant to call it an infrastructure plan.
When we think of the word ``infrastructure,'' we think roads, bridges, highways. We can expand further and think of ports, waterways, and airports. Democrats so-called infrastructure plan is not really about infrastructure--6 percent is allocated to roads, bridges, and highways, and a mere 2 percent for airways, waterways, and ports. Together, we are just barely getting to 8 percent of the $2.3 trillion plan to focus on infrastructure.
But what is the rest focused on? Well, it is a wish list of Progressive policies and it is an excuse for Democrats to give $600 billion--over half a trillion dollars--to the Green New Deal.
While I believe there is an opportunity for bipartisanship--a successful infrastructure bill must be bipartisan--the majority must be willing to make reasonable concessions to address our reasonable concerns. If we do this right, it should look like a bill that we wrote together.
This bill has the chance to fix our infrastructure, provide jobs, and jump-start our economy following COVID-19, but it will only succeed if Democrats choose to include Republicans and bring us to the table.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. That went so well, I think we will stay in the State of Pennsylvania, going to the 12th District.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller).
Mr. KELLER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for yielding.
Madam Speaker, improving America's infrastructure should be bipartisan. Revitalizing our Nation's roads and bridges, delivering broadband to rural America, and working together to build a more connected society are all things we can and should strive to accomplish.
The Biden administration's so-called infrastructure plan is not infrastructure, and it is definitely not bipartisan. Less than 2 months removed from the last multi-trillion-dollar bill, the American people are about to be saddled with another massive tax-and-spend package--
this time with a price tag of $2.3 trillion and a bag of empty promises.
With only a fraction of the $2.3 trillion going toward things like roads, bridges, waterways, dams, airports, and broadband, the majority of the plan is instead filled with non-infrastructure items.
Case in point: Joe Biden spends 74 percent more of your money on subsidies for electric vehicles than it allocates for rural broadband. It is ironic that Washington Democrats talk about improving infrastructure while simultaneously working to dismantle and eliminate American energy jobs. Make no mistake, it takes American energy to build American infrastructure.
While Washington Democrats talk about improvements to American infrastructure, they fail to recognize that Biden's $2.3 trillion plan is not the answer. Instead, we must embrace America's domestic energy industry, which has made greater strides in investing in our Nation's infrastructure than Joe Biden's wasteful spending plans ever could.
If Joe Biden truly believes this is an infrastructure package, it is evidence that he has been in Washington, D.C., for far too long.
Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. And he has indeed been in Washington too long.
Madam Speaker, there is a common denominator tonight. The crisis at the border and the problems with the infrastructure package were both entirely created by the Biden administration.
They were both thus completely avoidable, completely predictable, and they have done and are doing an extraordinary disservice and real damage to the American people.
We ask, again, of all of our Democrat colleagues and President Biden and his administration, please, please, for the sake of our country, put the partisanship aside. Let's govern with common sense, let's fix these problems before they become so great that we are unable to do so.
Madam Speaker, we end the Special Order, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 69
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