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[Page H1366]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATE OF THE UNION CELEBRATED WHAT IS GREAT ABOUT AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
California (Mr. LaMalfa) for 5 minutes.
Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, last night, in this very Chamber, we heard
a lot about what has made America the strong country it is: the ideals,
the founding ideals, and the strength of which, when the people are
able to put their will, their way behind it, has made us the greatest
country in the world.
What the President outlined were many important things. We have to
keep coming back to the situation at our border.
Now, interestingly, polls taken last night by CBS and CNN--not the
bastions of conservatism or the supporters of President Trump that you
would expect--both of these polls, the people's voice across this
country added up to 76 percent somewhat support or strongly support the
measures the President had talked about in securing our border.
We can get into the semantics, if you want to call it a wall or call
it a fence, whatever it is. ``A strong fence makes for good
neighbors''--an old cowboy saying.
The President laid out a plan that he wants to work with this
Congress to get to a resolution on that, not an executive order. But in
the time since we came up with this temporary solution here for 3
weeks, the negotiations from that side of the aisle have been zip.
Is that what people see as this Chamber, that this process is
supposed to be? No. They want us at the table coming up with solutions.
The President has reached out with an olive branch, saying: We will
give you 3 more weeks on this. Let's get the government reopened and
get a solution on this.
Instead, gridlock.
What the President talked about was greatness instead of gridlock.
That is what this Nation is about. That is what we need.
Instead, we hear around here that the crisis isn't something at our
border, isn't something with the immigration problem we have. We hear
about climate change. Climate change, climate change--a manufactured
problem, a manufactured crisis.
Indeed, the United States is leading the way of all the westernized
countries, all the industrialized countries, of lowering its
CO2 numbers, leading the way by things we are already doing
and innovating. Yet that is the first thing, that the religion of
climate change can be tapped around here to stop the progress we have
when we can make more progress by being a thriving, strong economy. The
crisis isn't that. It would be much more so our crushing national debt
and our border situation.
If we don't provide for our own security as a nation, then we don't
really have much. So let's solve these issues. As we prosper, as we do
better, we can even improve more on doing things environmentally more
strongly.
I come from northern California, where the climate has been pretty
tough with the drought. The climate is pretty tough where our forest
burns around us and amongst us, like in the town of Paradise, the town
of Redding, and other areas of the district that are so negatively
affected by that.
The crisis doesn't lie in the religion of climate change. The crisis
lies in us doing whatever we can to protect our citizens at the border,
from the crushing national debt, and from the threatened export of our
jobs that we should be employing our own people here.
Mr. Speaker, there is room for a lot of optimism. We heard that
message of optimism last night from the President, again, right in this
Chamber, when he mentioned our great heroes from World War II who were
here last night and one of the people he liberated from those camps
where the Germans held the Jewish people and executed so many of them
and abused so many more.
What a great story of optimism and what America is about, liberating
and preserving freedom in this country and around the world, and one of
the highlights in my time here in this U.S. House of Representatives to
see those people come together so many years later and celebrating what
is great about America and how it exports that freedom and opportunity
to the rest of the world.
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