Self-Inflicted Crises
Floor Speech
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Mr. MOONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address an issue of great importance to all of our constituents: their economic livelihoods. It has only been 6 months since President Biden took office and already our country is moving in the wrong direction.
Under President Trump we saw unparalleled economic growth. Now under President Biden, we are faced with more and more government spending, fewer and fewer people going back to work, and skyrocketing inflation, which devalues your money. You can see here, a picture is worth a thousand words. 4.2 less percent value to your dollar today after all the spending the government has been doing here lately.
By the end of 2020, the economy was resurgent. And since the economy was crippled by the initial lock-downs in March and April of 2020, there had been an improvement in the unemployment rate each month, until this spring. After 11 months of significant job growth, the unemployment rate increased this past April for the first time since last year.
More Americans are getting vaccinated every day and COVID-19 restrictions are being lifted around the country. This should be a time when the recovery reaches new heights. There were 9.3 million jobs openings in April. That is more job openings than any other time in the last year. But those jobs may not get filled any time soon, due to President Biden and many of my Democrat colleagues' and friends' decision here in this Chamber to continue an unsustainable level of Federal unemployment benefits. Some workers can make more money on unemployment than going back to work.
Commonsense dictates that if you pay people not to work, they will take you up on it. Most people will not act against their own economic interests by working if they can make more money staying home.
The failure of the Biden administration has forced some Governors to act on their own. So far, 25 States have announced plans to wind down the extra $300 a week in Federal unemployment benefits.
Governor Jim Justice in my State of West Virginia announced that our State will join that group here this month, in June. So when Federal leadership fails, Governors must step up and make the best decisions for their States.
West Virginia has had a particular problem with worker shortages for years now. Gil White, who is our State Director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, was asked on WV MetroNews about the worker shortage, and he responded, ``That is not a myth; it's a reality. I don't care if it's large business or small business employers. I think there is a common theme that finding workers is very challenging, to say the least.''
After a tumultuous year with government shutdowns and strict capacity limits, the last thing small businesses need is a worker shortage that leaves them unprepared to meet the demands of a reopening economy.
President Biden's solution to this problem, along with every other problem, seems to be more spending of your hard-earned taxpayer dollars. But with our budget deficit at an alarming level, and you see it here how it is just skyrocketing, our budget deficit, more spending will bring about more problems.
Our debt is currently $28 trillion, and our deficits have grown substantially larger in the past year due to spending increases in response to COVID-19. And, yet, President Biden is currently pushing for more than $4 trillion in new spending. $4 trillion.
President Biden has proposed to build hundreds of thousands of electric vehicle charging stations, retrofit buildings across America, to make them greener, and a laundry list of other progressive priorities.
Despite his sometimes moderate demeanor, President Biden's platform is far left. President Biden made a long list of promises to the left wing of his party, like when he said he would ``get rid of fossil fuels.'' It should come as no surprise that his administration is shaping up to be the most liberal in recent memory.
We should not keep borrowing money from China in order to spend money that we don't have here in America. There is a simple solution, unwind these expensive government programs, continue opening up the economy, and let people earn a living again. That is our country's path forward.
Mr. Speaker, I have a couple more comments I would like to make on a separate issue.
I rise today to address the crisis at the southern border. These images here show children being dropped over the border fence, and show migrants nearly drowning trying to cross the river on the border.
Ladies and gentlemen, dumping children across a fence like this into the wilderness is not an immigration policy. That is child abuse. That is not how we are supposed to do this. It is an outrage. If President Trump had done that, he would be attacked everywhere.
The border crisis is a humanitarian crisis. Even the President of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, blamed the Biden administration's open border messaging calling it ``lukewarm'' and ``confusing.''
He explained this messaging actually increases the number of unaccompanied minors that are sent out on the journey and are subsequently trafficked by coyotes and cartels.
Data shows that Customs and Border Patrol agents stopped over 180,000 illegal border crossings in the month of May alone, the highest in over 20 years. Look, we can have our own opinions, but we are not entitled to our own facts.
This is a crisis, ladies and gentlemen. It is time for America's border czar, Vice President Kamala Harris, to do her job and address the humanitarian crisis at the border to protect to lives of these young children.
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