Speeches

Before we took a wrecking ball to our economy last year, we were enjoying one of the greatest expansions of economic opportunity in our lifetimes. Unemployment was at its lowest rate in 50 years, the poverty rate was at its lowest rate in 60 years. Wage growth was the strongest in 40 years. The wage gap was narrowing for the first time in many years, as blue-collar wages increased dramatically. The unemployment rate for women was the lowest in 70 years. For African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans, veterans and disabled Americans, and those without a high school diploma, unemployment was the lowest ever recorded. The labor participation rate began to increase after years of decline as workers who had given up hope of work began seizing opportunities. The participation rate for men aged 25-34 grew for the first time since 1962.

We are now nearly a year into the most self-destructive social experiment in the recorded history of human civilization. On this day a year ago, we enjoyed the greatest economic expansion in our lifetimes. The poverty rate was the lowest in 60 years. The unemployment rate was the lowest in 50 years. Wage growth was the strongest in 40 years. The wage gap was narrowing, with blue collar wages growing the fastest. Unemployment rates for minority groups and women was the lowest ever recorded. And then, over a course of just a few catastrophic weeks, our government took a wrecking ball to it all. In the second quarter, GDP plunged by a third – the worst decline in productivity ever recorded. Unemployment exploded to its highest levels since the great depression. Tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs. Trillions of dollars of the nation’s wealth were squandered.

Two Trillion dollars in revenues. Six trillion dollars in spending. This is madness. This is how countries commit fiscal suicide: force the economy to shut down and then hand out government checks. The problem, of course, is that government does not finance the economy. It is the economy that finances the government. And when you wantonly destroy millions of jobs by forcing small businesses to shutter, by cancelling construction and energy production across the country; when you flood the labor market with millions of illegal immigrants (all at a time when millions of Americans are out of work), you shut down the economy and you shut down the tax revenues that the economy produces and that the government spends.

I cannot think of a more petty, vindictive and gratuitous act than to impeach an already defeated President a week before he is to leave office. President-elect Biden’s promise to heal the nation becomes a hollow mockery in the harsh reality of this unconstitutional act.

What a sad and ominous way to begin the 117th Congress! Hasn’t this body done enough in the last session to divide our country and abuse our Constitution without carrying that damage into the new session?

Let’s get this straight: the small shopkeeper who’s just lost their entire savings because of the lockdowns will get the same $2,000 grant as the government bureaucrat who’s been enjoying a steady paycheck at home for the past ten months...

Every American needs to see Angela Marsden’s tearful video as she pours out her frustrations as a small restaurant owner in Los Angeles. Forced to drastically curtail her business during California’s brutal shutdowns, she took out an $80,000 loan to meet all the expensive requirements to move her dining outside and salvage what was left of her life’s work. Instead, authorities arbitrarily changed the rules, and shut her down again – a death sentence for her ten-year-old restaurant. Yet the same authorities permitted a film production company to offer the very same outdoor dining across the very same parking lot the day she had to close her business.

Governor Newsom made a truly stunning discovery regarding Covid-19 last week. Apparently, it has learned to tell time. This is why, acting under the strictest of scientific standards, he has used his galactic powers to order Californians to run home before 10 pm, lock their doors and hide from this insidious virus until daybreak. Unfortunately, Covid doesn’t seem to be following the curfew, so Newsom is now threatening a “hard lockdown” of virtually the entire state throughout the Christmas season. Don we now our plague apparel. There’s just one nagging question the Governor hasn’t bothered to answer: if these lockdowns are so successful, why do we need to keep having them?