'Much Of This Has To Do With The Republican Obsession With DEI': Clyburn Rips GOP's Smithsonian Cuts

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During a House Appropriations Committee hearing in July, Rep. Jim Clyburn (R-SC) spoke about the proposed cuts to the Smithsonian Museum.

Transcript

00:00The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Clyburn, is recognized for remarks on the bill.

00:06Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

00:08I want to thank you, Chairman Simpkins, ranking members DeLauro and Pingree, for bringing

00:15forth this legislation, which I regretfully cannot support.

00:21I am particularly disheartened by the focus on the cutting of 62 percent of the funding

00:31for water systems in our great country.

00:36These water systems are of tremendous benefit to rural communities, and in my home state

00:43of South Carolina, tourism and transportation are my state's number one and two industries.

00:54And heritage tourism is the fastest growing of all tourism, and it is of tremendous benefit

01:05to rural communities because they help to attract investments in these states.

01:13There are 63 national parks in the country, and they invest around $55.6 billion in these

01:27communities, mostly rural, supporting 400,000 jobs.

01:32This bill cuts more than $213 million from the National Park Service operational budget on

01:42top of the cuts of the big, ugly bill that took away more than $267 million from Bureau of

01:51Land Management that Congress had previously approved.

01:54And if that's not enough, this bill cuts $129 million from the Smithsonian Museums.

02:04Much of this has to do with the Republican obsession with DEI initiatives, which is reflected in

02:15several harmful riders to this bill, sections 440, 441, all add up to an awareness, undermining awarenesses

02:34of civil rights principles.

02:38Now, Mr. Chairman, I was serving in this Congress back in 1993 when General Jimmy Doolittle passed

02:55away.

02:56He was one of the most celebrated aeronautics people in our country.

03:06And our schools all over the country celebrate him.

03:12I remember him in the textbooks when I was a public school teacher.

03:18But in the name of DEI, we are now saying that it's okay for school systems for states to invest

03:29in Jimmy Doolittle, but you cannot invest in teaching by General Daniel Chappie James.

03:40Both of them served in World War II.

03:43Both of them were outstanding pilots, one white, the other one black.

03:51And we are now saying that the black guy, if you put anything in the textbooks about him,

03:57it violates a principle.

04:00You can write all you want about Jimmy Doolittle and nothing is amiss.

04:06There is a shame in all of this.

04:11Both of these men gave great contributions to winning that war in World War II.

04:19They made a movie about Chappie James and the other Tuskegee Airmen.

04:24That's all right.

04:27But the state, the nation, cannot honor them.

04:34There's something wrong with that.

04:36Now, Mr. Chairman, there's much more I would like to say about this bill, but I know my

04:39time is running out.

04:40But I'm going to just close with this.

04:43I represent Charleston, South Carolina.

04:48A lot of y'all call that a great city.

04:50I love the city.

04:52Keep a home there.

04:54Charleston, the entire peninsula, is in my congressional district.

05:00Charleston is where over 40% of the African Americans that came into this country.

05:04It came through Gaston Wolf.

05:08All of you know the Gaston flag, though you've appropriated something, many people have appropriated

05:15something different to it.

05:16You know, the yellow flag with the snake on it, named after Gaston, who owned Gaston Wolf.

05:25That flag we celebrated in South Carolina.

05:28It was a good thing.

05:29But all of a sudden, people have made a bad thing out of it.

05:33We have museums to celebrate the goodness of America.

05:39The National African American Museum, the International African American Museum.

05:44These are the goodnesses of our great country that we ought to celebrate.

05:49We ought not be denigrating them with an appropriations bill like this one we're bringing forward.

05:55I apologize, Mr. Chair, for exceeding my time, and I'll yield back.

06:00But thank you so much for allowing me to express my feelings on this bad bill.

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