Scalise: We Owe It to Our Children to Safely Reopen Schools
July 21, 2020
WASHINGTON, D.C.—House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), and House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Kay Granger (R-Texas) at today's leadership press stakeout to discuss Speaker Pelosi's decision to bring partisan legislation to the House Floor that jeopardizes Americans' safety in the midst of a global pandemic instead of working with Republicans on bipartisan solutions.
Whip Scalise also outlined the urgent need to listen to medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, and find a solution to get students back in classrooms this fall.
Click here or on the image above to view his remarks.
On Speaker Pelosi's partisan legislative approach:
"As [Ranking Member Kay Granger] pointed out, if you look at the appropriations bills that Nancy Pelosi is bringing to the Floor this week, it follows a pattern that she's had as Speaker – and that is this go at it alone, my way or the highway approach to everything, where she just brings partisan bills to the Floor, breaking agreements to work with both sides and just continuing to limit the President's ability to keep Americans safe. It boggles the mind when you look at some of the other bills that she's bringing to the Floor this week, and I'll reference the No Ban Act, another bill that's going to be on the Floor this week. And you think about this, we're in the middle of a global pandemic and President Trump, one of his first actions was to stop flights from coming in from China when we found out after the Chinese Communist Party was lying to the United States and the rest of the world and in fact, corrupted the World Health Organization to also regurgitate those same lies – that it wasn't spread by human contact, that it wasn't as big of a deal as it really was, while they were hoarding PPE and other vital supplies.
"And so, when you think about that, President Trump said we're going to stop flights from coming into China. And that saved lives in America. It probably saved thousands of lives in America by President Trump taking that decisive action which ironically, he was criticized by people like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi for, but now everyone understands that that helped keep Americans safe. They're bringing a bill to the Floor this week that would block the President's ability to take that kind of decisive action by passing the No Ban Act. Again, this is something that would undermine America's national security, it would make Americans less safe, but Nancy Pelosi wants to go my way or the highway as opposed to working with Republicans, people on both sides, to try to tackle the problems that our country faces."
On rising to the challenge of safely reopening schools:
"And that brings us to another issue, and that is as we work to safely reopen and safely help people get back to their way of life. You have a very healthy debate across the country right now about schools and whether or not schools should reopen. I was with Vice President Pence last week and his top Coronavirus Crisis Task Force, including Dr. Birx, where we had a roundtable. We had the head of LSU; we had the head of Southern University, the entire Southern System, and we talked about how to safely reopen schools. In fact, they were already planning to reopen our schools and LSU will be reopened, all the Southern University campuses, all of Louisiana's higher ed institutions will be reopened with students in the classroom using all of the safety protocols. And we need to do this in K-12 as well. Our children, there are over 50 million children in America who are counting on us to get this right, and it would be a cop out to say it's too difficult to do. You know, they said it was too difficult to put a man on the moon, but they knew it could be done and they went and got it done and look at how much better America is because we rose to that challenge."
On focusing on the science of reopening schools this fall to protect the health and well-being of students and children:
"This is a challenge, but there are many medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, who put out very strong guidance for how to safely reopen schools. Again, it's not a question of whether or not you can safely reopen. The guidelines are there of how to do it and now it's a question, do we have the will to do the work? And we owe it to those 50 plus million children all across this country who are counting on us to get this right, counting on local governments and local school systems to get this right. In their report, the American Academy of Pediatrics starts talking about a goal of having students physically present – physically present. ‘The importance of in-person learning is well documented,' the American Academy of Pediatrics says. They go on to talk about the dangers of lengthy time away from school. This results in so many problems to children. And so, all of that needs to be part of the discussion. We owe it to our children to safely reopen schools. There's money still out there, the 150 billion dollars that Congress already spent. Before anybody talks about spending more money, there's still money out there. Not one state has spent all of their money. That money can be spent to help schools safely reopen. Whether its buying sanitizers, buying PPE, masks, other equipment, all of that's available, but don't let anybody tell you it's a trade-off between whether or not to safely reopen. You absolutely can."
[…]
"Again, Dr. Birx was at the roundtable we had last week and was very clear about how you can safely do it, and schools are showing how to safely do it. All of our schools need to meet that challenge, and if there's ever been a stronger argument for school choice, it's this debate we're having right now. Because if there are school systems that don't want to safely reopen, but still want to take the hard-earned taxpayer dollars of families across America. There are schools that are willing to safely reopen, shouldn't the money be able to follow the child? If a parent wants to send their kid to a school that's safely reopening instead of sending their tax dollars to a school that won't safely reopen, I think that needs to be part of the debate. It's why you should have the choice for parents to send their kids to a school that's willing to help educate their kids safely in person. It can be done; it has to be done. These are the kind of debates we ought to be having and working through these issues, not on a Speaker Pelosi my way or the highway partisan approach, but people coming together, working together to get results for the families all across this country who are counting on us."
"As [Ranking Member Kay Granger] pointed out, if you look at the appropriations bills that Nancy Pelosi is bringing to the Floor this week, it follows a pattern that she's had as Speaker – and that is this go at it alone, my way or the highway approach to everything, where she just brings partisan bills to the Floor, breaking agreements to work with both sides and just continuing to limit the President's ability to keep Americans safe. It boggles the mind when you look at some of the other bills that she's bringing to the Floor this week, and I'll reference the No Ban Act, another bill that's going to be on the Floor this week. And you think about this, we're in the middle of a global pandemic and President Trump, one of his first actions was to stop flights from coming in from China when we found out after the Chinese Communist Party was lying to the United States and the rest of the world and in fact, corrupted the World Health Organization to also regurgitate those same lies – that it wasn't spread by human contact, that it wasn't as big of a deal as it really was, while they were hoarding PPE and other vital supplies.
"And so, when you think about that, President Trump said we're going to stop flights from coming into China. And that saved lives in America. It probably saved thousands of lives in America by President Trump taking that decisive action which ironically, he was criticized by people like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi for, but now everyone understands that that helped keep Americans safe. They're bringing a bill to the Floor this week that would block the President's ability to take that kind of decisive action by passing the No Ban Act. Again, this is something that would undermine America's national security, it would make Americans less safe, but Nancy Pelosi wants to go my way or the highway as opposed to working with Republicans, people on both sides, to try to tackle the problems that our country faces."
On rising to the challenge of safely reopening schools:
"And that brings us to another issue, and that is as we work to safely reopen and safely help people get back to their way of life. You have a very healthy debate across the country right now about schools and whether or not schools should reopen. I was with Vice President Pence last week and his top Coronavirus Crisis Task Force, including Dr. Birx, where we had a roundtable. We had the head of LSU; we had the head of Southern University, the entire Southern System, and we talked about how to safely reopen schools. In fact, they were already planning to reopen our schools and LSU will be reopened, all the Southern University campuses, all of Louisiana's higher ed institutions will be reopened with students in the classroom using all of the safety protocols. And we need to do this in K-12 as well. Our children, there are over 50 million children in America who are counting on us to get this right, and it would be a cop out to say it's too difficult to do. You know, they said it was too difficult to put a man on the moon, but they knew it could be done and they went and got it done and look at how much better America is because we rose to that challenge."
On focusing on the science of reopening schools this fall to protect the health and well-being of students and children:
"This is a challenge, but there are many medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, who put out very strong guidance for how to safely reopen schools. Again, it's not a question of whether or not you can safely reopen. The guidelines are there of how to do it and now it's a question, do we have the will to do the work? And we owe it to those 50 plus million children all across this country who are counting on us to get this right, counting on local governments and local school systems to get this right. In their report, the American Academy of Pediatrics starts talking about a goal of having students physically present – physically present. ‘The importance of in-person learning is well documented,' the American Academy of Pediatrics says. They go on to talk about the dangers of lengthy time away from school. This results in so many problems to children. And so, all of that needs to be part of the discussion. We owe it to our children to safely reopen schools. There's money still out there, the 150 billion dollars that Congress already spent. Before anybody talks about spending more money, there's still money out there. Not one state has spent all of their money. That money can be spent to help schools safely reopen. Whether its buying sanitizers, buying PPE, masks, other equipment, all of that's available, but don't let anybody tell you it's a trade-off between whether or not to safely reopen. You absolutely can."
[…]
"Again, Dr. Birx was at the roundtable we had last week and was very clear about how you can safely do it, and schools are showing how to safely do it. All of our schools need to meet that challenge, and if there's ever been a stronger argument for school choice, it's this debate we're having right now. Because if there are school systems that don't want to safely reopen, but still want to take the hard-earned taxpayer dollars of families across America. There are schools that are willing to safely reopen, shouldn't the money be able to follow the child? If a parent wants to send their kid to a school that's safely reopening instead of sending their tax dollars to a school that won't safely reopen, I think that needs to be part of the debate. It's why you should have the choice for parents to send their kids to a school that's willing to help educate their kids safely in person. It can be done; it has to be done. These are the kind of debates we ought to be having and working through these issues, not on a Speaker Pelosi my way or the highway partisan approach, but people coming together, working together to get results for the families all across this country who are counting on us."