Ralph Norman Slams Jim McGovern: ‘What About The Seriousness Of The Border?’

4 months ago

On Monday, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-GA) discussed the proposed legislation related to house appliances during a House Rules Committee hearing.

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Transcript

00:00 You know, I'm going to agree with Mr. McGovern, and we seldom agree, Mr. McGovern, but

00:04 the fact this is silly and the fact that the seriousness, why don't we get serious?

00:14 This is a silly attempt by the Biden administration to make the American consumer

00:22 buy something. Jeff said it just right, at what cost? And I sat through a previous,

00:30 we shouldn't even be having to deal with letting government bureaucrats tell consumers what they

00:36 want. And the fact that, now you mentioned getting serious, what about getting, and you mentioned

00:42 the deaths in Ukraine, what about the seriousness at the border? What about the deaths of Americans

00:46 through fentanyl? What about the crime that's running that this administration is promoting?

00:51 What about that? And you talk about the Constitution, I think it's we the people

00:56 decide, not bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. And Jeff, you hit it just right, at what cost? You

01:03 know, you can make, I was talking to a liberal not long ago, and they wanted to make a car so

01:08 no one gets killed in it. You can do that at what cost? These electric vehicles are a joke.

01:15 Roger Williams is burying it. He's literally burying a car because no one wants it.

01:20 You can try to force government down the throats of the American people. That's why they're sick

01:27 and tired of this administration doing this. It's an assault on our very freedoms. It is about

01:32 freedom. And it's being taken from us. And God only help us if we have to stand another four

01:40 years of this insanity. That's what it is. To think, I would have never in my wildest dreams

01:48 would think the government was, and you, Mr. Plonk, you quote trillions of dollars.

01:52 You let the American people decide, pick what they want. That's freedom. And, you know,

02:00 the bureaucrats that are saying this is so wise, that's not their expertise. People want government

02:06 out of their lives, out of the way, and get back to the basics, which is why his approval,

02:12 this Biden administration approval numbers have not hit rock bottom yet. They're sick of it.

02:18 So they even have to deal with this. The Biden administration is making us deal with it. And

02:23 thank God we're fighting it. I yield to Jeff. I think Mr. Norman is exactly right. Mr. McGovern,

02:29 when Republicans talk about freedom and liberty, we talk about it in the spirit of our founding

02:34 fathers. And that's true liberty and freedom. Freedom to choose, freedom to innovate, freedom to

02:44 be entrepreneurs, freedom from big government. And what we see now in the United States of America

02:55 is a far cry from what our founding fathers envisioned. They envisioned a small central

03:02 federal government handling 17 enumerated powers defined in the Constitution of the United States.

03:07 We're way beyond 17 enumerated powers in the United States government now. A government

03:13 which is telling American consumers and manufacturers what they can buy and what

03:18 they can manufacture. Because big brother thinks best. Big brother knows best. We're from the

03:23 government and we're here to help. That's not what the founding fathers envisioned.

03:27 They envisioned a very limited federal government. And we have a free market capitalist society.

03:36 Regardless of what the socialists around this country and around this town want to believe,

03:41 we still have a free market capitalist society. And innovators and entrepreneurs are building

03:46 the products that American consumers want. But yet we see a continued push by big government

03:52 down on the American people, telling them what kind of cars they have to drive,

03:57 telling them what kind of appliances they can buy, the only appliances they can buy.

04:01 Telling them they can't catch rainwater off their own roof for use in their homes. That's what too

04:07 much government gets you. We get situations like this where big government has said you can't have

04:15 a gas stove. Even though gas is very efficient for cooking. Ask every restaurateur out there,

04:21 they would rather have a gas stove cooking the meals that we eat in those restaurants.

04:25 Consumers would rather have a gas stove in their home to cook on and would rather have something

04:30 that they can rely on in the dead of winter when the electricity has gone out because snow has

04:35 taken down a power line, they still have a gas appliance in there to help heat their home. Whether

04:40 it's a gas HVA system or whether it's a gas logs in the fireplace that they can rely on.

04:47 And natural gas is affordable and we're blessed in this country with an abundance of it. But yet

04:52 we see big government continued to tamp down the fossil fuel industry because of some sort of

04:58 political agenda embracing climate change. And it's time to get the big government off the throat

05:04 of the American people and the American manufacturing. That's too much government.

05:08 And I'll tell you again, when we talk about freedom and liberty, we talk about it in the

05:12 spirit of our founding fathers and that's a limited central government, not what we're seeing today.

05:17 And I thank the gentleman for yielding. And will the gentleman yield? Sure.

05:22 Yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to recall my history when I, where Thomas Jefferson or any of the

05:27 founders talked about freedom for refrigerators or liberty in laundry. No, they talked about freedom

05:32 and liberty. The gentleman talked earlier about the low approval rating of the current president.

05:39 You know what the approval rating of Congress is? It's something like 15%.

05:44 It should be lower than that. Right. Well, you guys are in charge. It should be lower than that.

05:47 I agree with you. I agree with you. But I just point that out because I'm not sure how low

05:52 anybody can go. We're leading, you guys are leading that way. So anyway, thank you, the

05:57 gentleman for yielding and I yield back. Well, all I'll say is freedom is a, is quickly being eroded

06:04 by this administration. If I have to get asked one more time, gas appliances came up. Why are gas

06:10 prices where they are now? Why are we having to fight for everything? There's been no savings on

06:16 anything. Everything under this administration is up. And Americans, the only good news is they're

06:21 sick and tired of it. And to cap it all off at the end of this month, the World Health Organization,

06:28 this administration will lock us down if he gets by with it. We'll lose our sovereignty over,

06:36 give it to countries that are controlled by China. It's a joke. And if it'd be so serious,

06:42 it would be a joke if it wasn't so serious. So that's, we'll fight. And the good news is,

06:46 there's a number of us here that are going to fight this. And it's a growing number of Americans

06:52 who are sick and tired of government. Thank you for both of you for being here and I yield back.

Ralph Norman Slams Jim McGovern: ‘What About The Seriousness Of The Border?’

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