Monday on FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) voiced his criticism of the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.
After highlighting that less than 10% of the massive bill is directed at “health-related items,” Scalise called the bill a “national disgrace” being pushed by the “far-left.”
“Less than 10% of the money in this massive $1.9 trillion bill is for health-related items,” Scalise lamented. “I thought this was supposed to be about recovering from COVID. Start with the biggest item: $350 billion to bail out failed states. Look, California just announced a surplus of $10 billion, and they’re going to get probably tens more billion from this bill. New York State — we had an amendment to require New York to report the nursing home deaths data that Governor Cuomo has been covering up, the major scandal in New York, do you know that every Democrat, including the Democrats from New York, voted against requiring that Cuomo has to disclose the nursing home death data to get tens of billions of dollars for New York — this is in the bill. Minimum wage, you mentioned the $15 minimum wage. What does that have to do with COVID relief? In fact, for small businesses who are dying on the vine … those small businesses are going to have an even harder time coming back when you go to a $15 minimum wage. These things have nothing to do with COVID.”
He continued, “The school bill. This should be about helping schools safely reopen so kids can be learning in the classroom. We have seen the studies. The damage that is being long-term to the children in this country, millions of kids when only 40% are back in the classroom learning every day. Every single student should be and can be learning. The president’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, on a news show, admitted that the money doesn’t have to be used to reopen schools. Over $100 billion to go to schools — not to reopen. In fact, 95% of that money can’t even be spent until 2022. Do you really want to wait until 2022 to start having your kid go back in school? This bill actually will delay school reopening. This is crazy.”
Co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked, “How did that $15 minimum wage get back in there? Because remember a few weeks ago, even Bernie Sanders said this is not the right time to do it.”
“Well, Bernie Sanders and the far left have been wanting to do this for a long time. It’s been a big cause of AOC — who helped write this bill. Again, this is where the socialist left and the unions have literally driven this bill. This bill should be about helping kids get back in school. Instead, it’s about bowing to the teachers’ unions who don’t want kids to be back in school when all the science and the CDC director said get the kids back in the classroom. It’s important for their mental health, suicides are up, depression is up. Kids aren’t learning as well, but they are going to keep holding the millions of kids behind in this bill. It’s a national crisis, and it’s national disgrace,” he concluded.
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