The Pandemic Response Report

What's Important

Cuomo Cover-Up Continues: Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's top advisors successfully pressured state health officials to remove seniors who had died at hospitals after becoming sick in nursing homes from its report. The initial version of the report said nearly 10,000 nursing home residents had died but then the censored report said 6,432 residents died. When will Congressional Democrats hold hearings?

School Closures Harming Most Vulnerable: Top Republicans have sounded the alarmabout the impacts school closures are having on students with disabilities and have called for a bipartisan investigation to ensure state and local compliance with federal special education requirements.

DeSantis Targeted for Vaccinating the Most Vulnerable: The Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services last week called on the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis to investigate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for providing seniors, the most vulnerable to COVID-19, with accessible vaccination sites. Why do Democrats continue to target Governor DeSantis, who is working to protect seniors, when governors like Cuomo implemented policies that endangered them?

Relief Radar

Senate Democrats Pass Pelosi Payoff Along Party Lines: Over the weekend, Senate Democrats passed their $1.9 trillion liberal wish-list spending package along party lines under the guise of COVID relief, but only 9% of the funding in the bill actually goes toward pandemic relief and getting shots in people's arms. Additionally, 95% of the funding for schools won't even be spent this year. Senate Republicans offered numerous amendments to improve the bill, such as holding states accountable for nursing home deaths, tying school funding to in-person learning, and preventing prisoners and illegal immigrants from receiving stimulus checks, but Democrats opposed them. Some of the most egregious provisions in the Pelosi Payoff to Progressives are:

• $350 billion to bail out locked-down blue states
• $570 million to provide additional paid leave for federal workers to watch their children Zoom into school
• $50 million in environmental justice grants
• $50 million for Planned Parenthood
• Taxpayer-funded healthcare subsidies for illegal immigrants

Reminder: One trillion in previous COVID relief funding remains to be spent, and the Congressional Budget Office is projecting a stronger economy and 3.7 real GDP growth for 2021 without additional stimulus. The Democrats' goal isn't COVID relief—it's to spend trillions of dollars on progressive pet projects and expand the welfare state.

Crisis Corner

School Closures Adversely Impact Students with Disabilities: Earlier today, Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.), House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.), House Education and Labor Committee Ranking Member Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), and House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) called for a bipartisan investigation into the effects school closures are having on children with disabilities, and state and local compliance with federal special education requirements. The Republicans lawmakers are hearing heartbreaking accounts from parents across the country whose children with disabilities are bearing the greatest burden as schools remain closed.

Teenagers' Mental Health Claims Doubled Last Spring: New analysis from FAIR Healthshows teenagers' demand for mental health services skyrocketed during the pandemic. School closures and subsequent isolation have increase depression, anxiety, and adjustment disorders. How many more stories like this does President Biden need to see before he stops siding with the unions and starts following the science so students can get back in classrooms and stop suffering?

Democrat Hypocrisy Alert

Democrats Go After DeSantis for Vaccinating Seniors but Give Cuomo a Pass: The Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services last week called on the Select Subcommittee to investigate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for providing seniors with accessible vaccination sites. Meanwhile, many Democrats continue to give New York Governor Andrew Cuomo a pass for endangering seniors with his order sending COVID-positive patients to nursing homes and long-term care facilities. House Committee on Oversight and Reform Republicans have called on Chairwoman Maloney to subpoena Governor Cuomo, but she has not responded to the request. Democrats' approach to the pandemic is all about following politics, not the science.

Biden Blunders

Biden Administration Allows Shelters for Unaccompanied Migrants to Operate at 100% Capacity, but Won't Reopen Schools: Since the first day of his presidency, President Biden has sought to unravel President Trump's commonsense immigration and border enforcement policies. The result? Chaos at our nation's border and an increasing number of unaccompanied alien children crossing the border. The CDC is now permitting shelters holding these unaccompanied children to operate at 100 percent capacity. Meanwhile, President Biden continues to cave to the teachers unions' unscientific demands and won't reopen schools to in-person learning. President Biden is doing more for migrant children than America's public school students.

This Week in SSOCC

Republican Leaders Renew Request for Hearing on New York Nursing Home Deaths, Data Cover-Up: With new revelations that political aides to New York Governor Cuomo deliberately interfered with state public health officials in order to mask the true magnitude of COVID-19 nursing home deaths in the state, Republican Congressional leaders urged their House Democrat counterparts to hold a joint hearing regarding the undercounting of COVID-19 deaths in New York nursing homes. The letter was signed by Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.), Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.), Ways and Means Ranking Member Kevin Brady (R-Texas), Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), and Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee Ranking Member Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.). The revelations appeared in reporting by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times late on March 4, 2020.

Select Subcommittee Republicans Call for Investigation into Cuomo, Not DeSantis: Last week, the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services sought to politicize Governor Ron DeSantis' efforts to ensure seniors have access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.)pointed out Governor DeSantis is rightly prioritizing seniors for vaccination since they are the most vulnerable to COVID-19, but Democrats shamefully slander his efforts because they only see the pandemic through the lens of politics. Governor DeSantis' efforts led to almost 50 percent of all Florida seniors to be vaccinated. Instead of attacking governors like DeSantis who chose to prioritize senior safety, Scalise called on Select Subcommittee Democrats to investigate Governor Cuomo, who purposefully put seniors in danger.

What They're Saying

Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths (WSJ)
"The July report, which examined the factors that led to the spread of the virus in nursing homes, focused only on residents who died inside long-term-care facilities, leaving out those who had died in hospitals after becoming sick in nursing homes. As a result, the report said 6,432 nursing-home residents had died—a significant undercount of the death toll attributed to the state's most vulnerable population, the people said. The initial version of the report said nearly 10,000 nursing-home residents had died in New York by July last year, one of the people said. The changes Mr. Cuomo's aides and health officials made to the nursing-home report, which haven't been previously disclosed, reveal that the state possessed a fuller accounting of out-of-facility nursing-home deaths as early as the summer. The Health Department resisted calls by state and federal lawmakers, media outlets and others to release the data for another eight months."

Operation Warp Speed's Triumph (WSJ Editorial Board)
"Critics scoffed when President Trump set a target of having a vaccine approved by the end of 2020, and Kamala Harris suggested she might not take a shot recommended by the Trump Administration. … Mr. Biden ought to give the vaccine credit where it is due—to U.S. drug companies and Operation Warp Speed."

Humiliated Democrats Want to Launch an 'Investigation' into Ron DeSantis (Townhall)
"As Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis continues to make Democrats look even more incompetent for their handling of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, the target on his back is getting bigger. Despite handling the pandemic more effectively than any blue state governor and prioritizing vaccinations for elderly populations, Democrats want to launch an investigation into his handling of the vaccine rollout."

Vindication for Ron DeSantis (WSJ Opinion)
"In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed strict lockdown policies—many still in place—and became the media's golden boy … Gov. Ron DeSantis took a different approach and was pilloried. He was among the first to lift his state lockdown, adopting something resembling Sweden's strategy of protecting the vulnerable while keeping businesses and schools open … A year after the virus hit the U.S., Mr. Cuomo's luster has faded, and Mr. DeSantis can claim vindication. The Sunshine State appears to have weathered the pandemic better than others like New York and California, which stayed locked down harder and longer."

The Covid Welfare State (WSJ Editorial Board)
"Only a small part of what Democrats passed is for pandemic or economic relief. It's mainly a way station on their high-speed train to a cradle-to-grave welfare-entitlement state. Most of the $1.9 trillion will flow to government unions or supposedly temporary income transfers that Democrats intend to make permanent later this year.… All of this arrives when the Covid vaccine rollout is accelerating, the economy is recovering at a rapid pace, and the national jobless rate is already down to 6.2%. The goal of this Democratic program isn't Covid relief. The point is to expand and solidify the role of government as the guarantor of every American's income unlinked to any obligation to work."

Member Mention

Representative Tom Reed (R-N.Y.)calls on Congressional Democrats to hold a joint hearing on Governor Cuomo's deadly order and subsequent cover-up.

The House Oversight Committee Republicansurge a joint congressional hearing on Governor Cuomo manipulating nursing home fatality data.

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)blasts Governor Cuomo for cooking the books.

Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.)calls on the Justice Department to hold Governor Cuomo accountable.

Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)calls on everyone to work together to address the mental health crisis affecting children as a result of school closures.

Education and Labor Committee Ranking Member Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.)debunksPresident Biden's false claim that the latest round of COVID-19 relief funds is necessary to reopen schools.

Steve Scaliseblasts Democrats' partisan attacks against Governor DeSantis.