[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 9 (Thursday, January 13, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H175-H180]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
(Mr. SCALISE asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of
the majority leader the schedule for next week.
Madam Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Hoyer), the majority leader of the House.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank Mr. Scalise for yielding.
Madam Speaker, on Tuesday the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning
hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed, as
usual, until 6:30 p.m.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning
hour and 12 p.m. for legislative business.
And again, as usual, on Friday the House will meet at 9 a.m. for
legislative business.
The House, Madam Speaker, will consider Senate 2959, the Supplemental
Impact Aid Flexibility Act under suspension of the rules. This bill
passed the Senate unanimously. It is on suspension in the House. It is
coauthored by Representative Joe Courtney of the House.
This bipartisan legislation allows local educational agencies
participating in the Impact Aid Program to use the student count or
Federal property valuation data from their fiscal year 2022 program
applications for their fiscal year 2023 applications.
This, Madam Speaker, will prevent schools from losing substantial
funding upon which they have relied to address COVID-19 learning loss
by giving them more flexibility to use prepandemic data to calculate
funding needs.
The House may consider other bills under suspension of the rules. The
complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of
business tomorrow.
The House will also consider H.R. 4673, the EVEST Act sponsored by
Chairman Mark Takano of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, the rule for
which we adopted this week.
This legislation would automatically enroll eligible veterans into
the VA healthcare system so that no veterans are left behind when it
comes to receiving quality, affordable healthcare.
Lastly, Madam Speaker, the House stands ready to act on the Build
Back Better Act, as well as the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act
should the Senate amend them and send them back to us.
Additional legislative items, of course, are possible.
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, on the school bill, I know one of the big
concerns many people have been raising is trying to get schools open
again.
Last week it was reported that 5,200 different schools were closed
last week. And I know this Congress has sent billions of dollars to
school systems across the country. The intent was that that money be
used to get schools opened, and yet, there are some schools taking the
money and staying closed, which goes against all the medical science
out there. We know the damage this is doing to our young children,
learning, depression, and so many other challenges that it creates for
them.
Will there be any part of that legislation that helps require that in
order to get money schools have to be open?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, because I don't have it in front of me, and
I haven't read it as carefully as perhaps I should have, I don't know
the specific answer to that question.
What I do want to say, however, is that we need to have kids in
school. Everybody says that the learning experience is substantially
compromised by virtual learning. It is better than nothing, and it has
been pursued very vigorously and with great positive effect.
But having said that, we all think that young people ought to be back
in schools. But I don't know whether this bill, which passed the Senate
unanimously, deals with that particular aspect that the gentleman asked
about. But let me say this: I think that every school system has
adopted the premise that in school is better.
Clearly, we have been assaulted by a virus whose transmissibility is
substantially more than the previous virus, the delta variant. The
omicron variant, as we know, one of the problems is it is easily caught
and easily transmitted.
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The good news is if you have taken a vaccination and had a booster,
the likelihood of you going to the hospital is much smaller, and if you
go to the hospital, you are much less sick. But having said that, we
continue to have a challenge to get this under control. And the
administration, properly so, and the overwhelming majority of the
medical community, properly so, and the overwhelming majority of
scientists are recommending that we wear a mask, that we wear a KN95 or
N95 mask because they are much better than the surgical masks or the
cloth masks, that we continue to wash our hands regularly, and we
continue to keep our distance.
But the gentleman and I agree that we need to ensure that--to the
extent that it is possible and that parents will send their children to
school because of being dissuaded by the transmissibility of this
disease--we need to have kids in school.
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I appreciate that. Maybe we can work on
something that would ensure that as tax dollars are going to school
systems that it is going to keep the schools open, not to allow them to
then shut down on the kids because, as we know, the science is very
clear that kids are much better off in school, safer in school than not
being in school, and that the learning experience is dramatically less
if they are not in school, as well as the mental conditions, the social
development that is not occurring if they are not in the classroom.
Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I think everybody is concerned about this.
Certainly, every parent in my district and your district is concerned
about this, and anybody who is concerned about the welfare of our
children is concerned about it.
But I think it would be appropriate for me to say that the teachers
of America--and my wife was a teacher, and I happen to believe that
teachers are the most important people in any society because they
educate the leadership and the citizens of tomorrow--have been put to
an extraordinary challenge.
And I have a granddaughter who has four children, so I have four
great-grandchildren, three of whom are in school and were in school in
2020 and 2021. And Judy, my granddaughter, who is named after my wife,
has told me on numerous occasions what extraordinary ends her
children's teachers--there were three different teachers at different
levels in the school system--went to make sure that while they were
home, while they were learning virtually that they had a positive,
productive experience. But all of them felt, I think, it is a lot
easier to have kids in school if they can do so safely. I think that
bears saying.
Like medical personnel, teachers have been put through extraordinary
stress, as have parents generally have been put through stress.
So I think the gentleman's concern is rightfully placed, and we need
to do everything we can to make sure kids get back in school and have a
learning experience like you and I had in the classroom.
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, our teachers have been true heroes
through this, our frontline hospital workers, people that work at
grocery stores; we have seen so many people rising up to the challenge,
and even where governments failed their ability to do their job.
I know one challenge that, hopefully, we see resolved in the United
States Supreme Court--it won't be today; we were expecting it maybe
this week, but, hopefully, early next week we see the Supreme Court
resolve these challenges where there were mandates on vaccines that
required people to get fired from their job if they chose a healthcare
decision on vaccinations.
I have been vaccinated. I know the gentleman from Maryland has too,
but for those who haven't, whether they are frontline hospital workers
or teachers, people shouldn't be forced to lose their job based on that
choice they make. But the Supreme Court will, hopefully, address that
and resolve that next week. It is something that is out of our hands
now, but it is in the court's hands at the highest level.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I understand the gentleman's position,
which is held by a number of people.
My own view is that employers make a reasonable decision when they
say to an employee--for the sake, not only of the employee but for
everybody else in the workplace with whom they work--that you are
required to be vaccinated because we believe that science and medical
personnel tell us that is a much safer route. But I understand there is
a difference on that.
But even then, I know Governors who have been against vaccines are
not necessarily against the employer requiring that as an employee
requirement as opposed to a governmental requirement.
Mr. SCALISE. And I would hope the government would drop that mandate,
but if not, it is hopeful that the Court would make it clear that the
government doesn't have the authority to require that people get fired
if they don't get vaccinated, encourage people to follow the science.
If they have questions or concerns, that is a conversation they should
have with their doctor, not a government mandate.
But as the gentleman knows, we may have disagreement on that, but
fortunately for us, it will get resolved at the Supreme Court,
hopefully, early next week.
I wanted to ask the gentleman since, we are looking at the schedule
for next week, I didn't notice any of the bills that we have
highlighted in the past that would address some of the many crises our
country is facing, whether it is inflation, whether it is high gas
prices, whether it is the border crisis--all that are running out of
control--the empty shelves that we are seeing at so many stores.
Will the gentleman commit to working with us to bring some of the
bills to the floor to address the real crises that are hurting
hardworking families like the ones I just mentioned?
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, first of all, let me say inflation is a
serious challenge confronting American families, particularly working
families in this country.
I live alone, and because I am just one person, I buy relatively
small amounts of food at the grocery store. And I go to the grocery
store nowadays and whether it is the price of bacon, which is at $12 a
pound for Hormel or another meat packing, it is high, and I think to
myself how a family not doing as well as I am doing and with kids to
feed, how tough it is on them. So this inflation is very tough.
It is a worldwide phenomenon. It is a phenomenon that is caused
obviously by a pent-up demand asking for a lot of goods and chasing a
lot of goods. And elementary economics, that any of us took in college,
is that there are a lot of resources chasing few resources, i.e., a lot
of money chasing a short supply of goods, and you have that demand so
that it drives prices up.
This pandemic has had a global effect on the supply chain. The supply
chain has been substantially affected. This was not the fault of,
frankly, either Biden or his predecessor in terms of what happened to
the supply chain. In Singapore they shut down companies, as you know,
for months at a time. They just shut them down, which is one of the
things that has led to this chip shortage, which has had ramifications.
So I want to assure the gentleman that the administration, our side
of the aisle--I know your side of the aisle is very concerned about the
inflationary pressure that is putting such a stress on America's
families. This pandemic has caused extraordinary, historic things to
happen. That is the bad news.
The good news is we have created more jobs in the last year and 2
months than were created--of course, net we lost jobs for the previous
4 years; over 2 million jobs net lost. So the good news is that we have
a number of economic statistics that are, in fact, positive. However,
having said that, we do need to be very concerned about inflation. The
administration has expressed their concern.
We believe that the infrastructure bill will have a positive impact
on inflation, assuming the Build Back Better Act passes, which I assume
at some point it will.
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I think that is going to have a very positive affect on inflation
because it will help the supply chain, help the
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health of the people, the employees, it will make people more able to
get out. Childcare. It is going to help people get back to work, which
will have a positive impact on the supply chain and on the availability
of goods and services. So I think we are moving in the right direction.
Unemployment, as the gentleman knows, which is down 3.9 percent. So
while inflation is up and unacceptably high, historically high, over
the last 4 years, we need to get it down. And we see this phenomena
happening all over the world. This is not the fault of the President or
the Congress, it is the fault of an extraordinary, invasive, and
widespread disease that has caused extraordinary disruptions within our
society and economy.
But we need to get a handle on it. We need to take action. So I will
talk to the gentleman about what issues he believes would be helpful in
that regard.
Mr. SCALISE. Clearly, some of those bills that have been discussed
and offered up in the past to address the inflationary problems but
also the policies of this administration that have caused that. And as
we know from the energy crisis, it is not pandemic related that gas
prices are so high. This President made a decision starting on day one
of his administration to shut down American energy production, to shut
down pipelines in America, green lighting pipelines in other countries,
begging foreign countries to make more oil, but shutting off and making
it harder to make energy in America.
Clearly, that self-imposed supply shortage has created higher prices
that we would love to see addressed. We might disagree philosophically
on how to get there, but I don't think there is much disagreement from
people who spend over $100 filling their car up that it needs to
change. But if you look at the workforce challenges, and every small
business owner I talk to--I would imagine all of us could share similar
stories--our small business owners are telling us they can't find
workers. Somebody might want to go to their favorite restaurant but
they are waiting an hour and a half and wondering why a third of the
tables are empty, because they can't get people to work.
And so as some might want to look at the unemployment number, clearly
the number of people that are not even in the workforce that just
stopped working because they can get paid, right now large amounts of
money, to stay at home is a challenge that we should confront here in
this Congress to help encourage people to get back into the workforce,
not to be paying people not to work. And the enhanced unemployment
benefits were, one, part of that problem, but there were many other
parts of that problem.
But it is the idea that there are too many dollars, as the gentleman
said, chasing too few goods is the driver of inflation, but the biggest
driver of that is all of the money that has been spent in Washington.
And if you look at about $6 trillion that has been spent on various
relief packages--some of it was targeted to COVID, which we all
supported, very bipartisan, some of it had nothing to do with COVID
which, unfortunately, has created higher inflation--there is talk right
now that the administration--and I am not sure if the Democratic
leadership is having serious conversations on this--is looking at yet
another bill, potentially over a trillion dollars of additional
spending.
I would ask the gentleman, is that something that is anticipated to
be brought to the floor? I would urge, if that is being looked at, to
not do it because there is about $800 billion remaining from other
relief packages that are unspent. And hopefully we stop the spending in
Washington that is driving inflation and try to encourage the economy
to get opened at a more rapid pace. And if people need additional help,
to look to the money that is sitting there, the $800 billion that is
unspent, rather than trillions more dollars that would be put into a
marketplace that is already oversaturated with Federal spending that is
driving this inflation.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Of course, as you
know better than probably anybody, the Speaker appointed a task force
to look exactly at that issue of the $800 billion and what has been
done, what has been spent to make sure that it has been properly spent,
because you are the ranking member on the committee headed up by Jim
Clyburn that is looking at those issues. I know you had a hearing this
past week.
Yes, we have a difference of opinion. The difference of opinion, you
call it spending, I call it investment. We are investing in our
children. We are investing in our families. We are investing in small
businesses. We are investing in growth and opportunity. And we are
investing in the ability of those folks that you talk about that are
not in the workforce, the restaurant can't hire. Why can't they hire
them? Because they are not paying sufficient amount to justify a mom
getting childcare because childcare is so expensive. Or she is caught--
or a single dad--is caught in the catch-22 situation. If I go to work,
I will earn money but I will pay it all to childcare. If I am going to
pay it all to childcare, it is much better for me as a parent to be
with my child, if the net result is going to be pretty much a wash.
We are investing in that. We are investing in childcare in the Build
Back Better Act. We are investing in early childhood education, three-
and four-year-olds. We believe that is investment. And it also is very
important for that small business so that that mom or dad who has that
child who is then going to go and be in a preschool environment can
have time to themselves so that they can, in fact, pursue employment
without simply putting it from one pocket to another pocket, none of
which is their pocket.
So the difference, I think, really is you look at it as spending, we
look at it as investment. We think it will have big, big return for our
country. And that is what Build Back Better is about. The building back
better you say it was not related to the pandemic. It clearly was
related to the pandemic. The pandemic hit us in the gut. It hit
everybody throughout the world in the gut. We have recovered better
than anybody else in the world. And that is because we invested,
sometimes in a bipartisan way, and sometimes in a partisan way, but we
invested in our people, in our children, in our families, in our
businesses, and in our health, generally of our country and indeed
trying to help other parts of the world as well because this is a
global pandemic that affects us all.
But I think the real difference is, we perceive this as an
investment. We think it will help grow America. I am sure you have
heard me talk about, from time to time, the Make It In America agenda.
Our investment in both the infrastructure bill and the Build Back
Better will have a positive effect on Make It In America.
So we see it, Mr. Whip, as investment. We think it will have a
positive effect. We think it is having a positive effect. And as I say,
unemployment is down below 4 percent and jobs are up over 6 million
over the last 11 months. So that is a good accomplishment. Is it
enough? Do we still have people who aren't working for a varied number
of reasons, many of which are related to COVID-19?
So we see it as an investment, and I am hopeful the Build Back Better
Act will pass and I hope that will have a positive effect not only on,
as the President says, the next 5 years, but on the next five
generations. So we are continuing to pursue that.
But inflation, which is how we started this discussion, is a problem
and we need to deal with it. I would be glad to talk to the gentleman
about what he thinks will be helpful to do that. I know part of that is
stop spending money. I think if we stop investing money, our country
will not get to where it wants to be and where it is now with respect
to the rest of the world, leading the rest of the world in terms of
economic recovery from the pandemic. We are not there yet but we are
going to get there
Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman, and clearly we have a difference
on----
Mr. HOYER. Right.
Mr. SCALISE. What the effects of spending trillions of dollars would
have. And Build Back Better, as the gentleman brought up, would be
about $4.5 trillion of higher taxes, additional spending, things that,
by many accounts, would increase inflation even higher; but we will see
where the Senate goes on that bill. I am not sure if the gentleman is
anticipating bringing
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other legislation, the bipartisan bills that we did, to do things like
create Operation Warp Speed, which was maybe one of the most successful
things government did in reaction to a pandemic in the history of the
world, to come up with not one, not two, but now three proven and
effective vaccines in less than a year to a virus no one even knew
about. It never happened in the history of the world but something that
we came together, Republicans and Democrats with President Trump, to
achieve a great achievement, something we would sure urge President
Biden to build on.
Because President Biden did run with a promise that he would, ``shut
down the virus.'' Clearly, he has failed at that. We have asked through
a number of different means to have hearings on some of the things we
have heard concerns about. And I would start with testing. There was an
article recently that the President was presented with a plan in
October to come up with about 750 million tests that people could have
for COVID at home that would be readily available by Christmas where
they, in October, anticipated a resurgence of COVID by December.
It has been reported that the President rejected that plan. We have
asked for a hearing into that. For whatever reason, the majority has
not agreed to that. Here is a letter I sent to Mr. Clyburn and Mrs.
Maloney through the Select Subcommittee on Coronavirus, as well as
through the Committee on Oversight and Reform. Myself and Ranking
Member Comer asked to have a hearing into some of these things, the
testing failures that were reported. If they are true, we ought to hear
about them. If they are false, the administration ought to be pointing
that out. They have not, which tells me they must be true. But then why
in October would the President have rejected a testing plan that could
have prevented us from getting to the place we are at right now with
this resurgence?
What about some of the national plans that the President said he had
as a candidate that then he later told Governors recently he doesn't
have a national plan on COVID. The mixed messaging coming from the
administration is causing tremendous confusion across America, and we
have asked that we have hearings to clarify, give the administration a
chance to state their plan or the lack thereof, state whether or not
they rejected a massive testing plan for the Nation in October that
would have prevented what happened in December.
The lack of desire by the administration to be transparent about any
of this is creating tremendous confusion across the country. This
Congress could address that by holding hearings to get the facts out. I
know we are going to continue to press for those kinds of hearings. I
would hope we have them, but so far we have not gotten any response to
the affirmative on that.
I don't know if the gentleman has anything to add. Maybe the
gentleman would agree that we would have these kind of hearings to get
some of these facts out or get some of these issues addressed.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
would say at the outset, I believe the committee on which he serves
with Mr. Clyburn is one of the committees, among many, who ought to be
looking at those facts.
But let me say this, because in stating the facts, as you just did,
the appearance is that substantial progress has not been made. I don't
think that premise is correct. Let me read you some statistics.
Last year, the first year the President came into office, testing in
America was molecular in at-home tests per day. The beginning of last
year, 1.7 million per day. Today, 11.7 million tests per day are being
conducted.
So to imply that somehow there has not been substantial progress,
that is a 10-fold increase in the testing available to Americans every
day. And when Biden took office, zero at-home rapid tests were
available to consumers--zero. Today, 300 million at-home rapid tests
are on the market each month.
Enough? No. Are more coming? Yes.
Has the government used the Defense Production Act to accomplish
greater production? They have. The administration started using, as I
said, the Defense Production Act. The Biden administration is
increasing places people can get free tests, for instance.
You talk about a plan. When Biden took office, there were only 2,500
pharmacies offering free testing. Today, there are 20,000 sites, an 8-
fold increase. The administration is purchasing 500 million at-home
rapid tests to be distributed for free to Americans who want them, with
initial delivery starting this month.
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The administration is distributing up to 50 million free at-home
self-tests to community health centers and rural health clinics. In
addition to already covering PCR tests, the administration is requiring
private insurance plans to cover at-home tests starting on January 15,
just a couple of days from today. A lot is happening.
Is enough happening? Enough is not happening until everybody has
immediate availability. ``Immediate'' may overstate it, but easy
access. The fact is that some people are having problems finding the
at-home tests now, and we need to work on that.
Those statistics show you that extraordinary increases have occurred
under the Biden administration, and that is their plan, to make sure
that these tests are available, because we know that testing will make
a difference. If you find out you are sick, you quarantine.
I suggest to the gentleman that the Biden administration has made an
extraordinary difference. Is the situation where we want it to be?
Absolutely, it is not.
Do we have a new variant that apparently came out of South Africa or
was first identified in South Africa that spiked up?
I talked to Dr. Monahan yesterday, and apparently, just in recent
days, we have had a fall-off in disease recognized. I hope that is the
case. I hope it keeps going down because we are perhaps now using the
KN-95 or N-95 masks and keeping our distance a little more
conscientiously. Let's hope all of that works for the people, for the
country, and for the globe.
Mr. SCALISE. The problem with President Biden's plan is that it has
been reactionary and not visionary. When he was presented with a plan
in October to make sure that every American that needed a test would
have it in December, when they in October said there will probably be a
real uptick in December, the President said no to that.
So if today he says let's go and order 500 million tests, that sounds
fine and well, except that he said no to that in October when he could
have staved off what we see, and that is hours-long lines of people to
get tested. People shouldn't have to be waiting 5 hours in a line to
get tested when the President in October was presented with a plan.
Again, if he wasn't, as it has been reported, he should come out
publicly and say that. The report has been out for weeks now, and he
hasn't done that.
We should be having hearings on this to find out what was the plan
that was presented and who was involved, by the way, in rejecting that
plan. Was the CDC involved? Was NIH involved? Was HHS involved in
rejecting a forward-thinking plan in October that predicted what
inevitably did happen this Christmas?
Who was involved in the rejection of that plan, and why did they do
it? Is it that the administration doesn't want accountability? I don't
know, but we have asked those questions, and we have asked for a
hearing on that.
We have been told that it is not going to happen. I hope the
gentleman would help push to get this to happen, to find this out so we
don't play catch-up every time something happens, when there were there
people saying: Let's try to stop something before it becomes a problem.
If there are people in the White House who said, no, we are not going
to do it until it is a problem for families, those people ought to be
removed from the White House. And they shouldn't be involved in the
decisionmaking chain because their decisions caused maybe more death,
surely caused a dramatic increase in ills that people are facing right
now because it could have been staved off, and it wasn't. We don't
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have that information from an administration who promised to be
transparent.
We did have a hearing a few days ago in the select subcommittee. It
was a private hearing; it wasn't open to the public. I didn't agree
with that, but that was the decision made by the majority. We have to
start having transparency, as was promised to the people.
People deserve transparency. They deserve to have these questions
answered and, frankly, to have a more forward-thinking plan, not a
reactionary plan when forward-thinking was presented and rejected.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, this has been a calm discussion so far. Let me remind
the gentleman that the previous President said in February or March of
2020 that this is going to go away in about 30 days: Don't worry about
it. It will go away.
A lot of your Members said we don't need a mask; we don't need to
keep distance; we don't need to wash our hands; this is going to go
away. It is here today and gone tomorrow. That was the previous
administration's plan.
I agree with you. The science community, the private-sector
community, and government on Operation Warp Speed did a good job--
extraordinary work in the private sector, extraordinary work around the
world. Because of the computer age in which we live, they were able to
share information instantaneously, in real time, and say that this
alternative doesn't work, which accelerated greatly the ability to get,
within a year, an extraordinary accomplishment, largely from our
scientific and medical community but facilitated by Warp Speed. No
doubt about that. Give credit where credit is due.
Very frankly, the leader--unlike President Biden, who said this is a
problem; we have to be careful; we have to pursue it; we have to
invest--said no problem. The gentleman conveniently forgets that.
He also ignores the statistics I just gave where we have had a
tenfold, eightfold increase in the availability of testing and
pharmaceutical access for literally millions of people. This is per day
that we are talking about, 11.7 million people per day.
It doesn't take too long at that rate that the whole country, all 330
million people, in about a month and a few days has been taken care of.
When you say we have to make progress, we have made extraordinary
progress.
Our view is--and I know we differ on this--we have made investments
in the American Rescue Plan Act to deal with the pandemic crisis; in
the infrastructure bill to create jobs, additional manufacturing
capacity, and training and apprenticeships for our people; in the Build
Back Better bill to make sure that our families can keep their heads
above water and can, in fact, have childcare that they can rely on and
feel their children are safe so they can take a job, be productive
citizens, and add to the growth of our economy.
We believe we are doing that. Are we doing it perfectly? None of us
do it perfectly. Perhaps we need to do more, as the gentleman implies,
and have hearings.
The gentleman says he was in a hearing. Private or public, I presume
the gentleman had an opportunity to ask questions. I don't know who the
witnesses were, so I don't know what expertise they have.
I can't believe that if you requested of Mr. Clyburn that you have
relevant witnesses to come by and that you want to question about the
progress that either has been made or you think ought to be made or
further things that could be done, I can't believe that he wouldn't
agree to do that.
In any event, great progress is being made, but the entire world--not
the Biden world, not America--the entire world is confronting a crisis
and is having a tough time getting ahold of it. We have done it better
than anybody else in terms of growing our economy and keeping our
people's heads above water. That is to be applauded.
Do we still have a challenge? We do. Are we still working on it? We
are. Do we need to continue? Yes.
Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, under President Trump, when he created
Operation Warp Speed, the one thing he did say is that we are going to
move red tape so we can focus the entire scientific community, both the
Federal agencies but also the private sector, in working together in
removing the red tape so they can focus on getting a vaccine. He didn't
say three, but he said let's at least get them the ability, all of
these great companies, many that are American companies, to go put
their innovation to work and get bureaucracy and red tape out of the
way and follow science but expedite so that we can get there quicker
when many scientists, including some who still testify at committees
today, said it was going to take years to get a vaccine.
In less than a year, we had three. President Biden inherited that
when he walked in the door and took the oath of office. He had three
proven vaccines.
I know the gentleman talks about statistics. Look at COVID deaths.
During the campaign, President Biden not only said he would crush the
virus, but he said that anybody who presided over that many deaths--
that was months before the election--doesn't deserve to be President of
the United States. I thought that was an inappropriate statement.
More people have died under President Biden's watch from COVID than
under President Trump's. It was an unfair standard that President Biden
put in place when he was at one of the debates. If he is going to say
things like he is going to crush the virus and going to have a plan,
but then he comes out and obviously didn't crush the virus and tells
Governors that there is no Federal plan, I do think that is a mixed
message, at the least. That dereliction in his promise, at the worst,
ought to be confronted.
What is the plan, if there is a plan? If there is not a plan, admit
there is not a plan. But you campaigned saying there was going to be a
plan, and clearly, there is not one. Those are other facts that we can
put on the table.
Clearly, when you look at how President Trump pushed the Federal
Government to work and partner with the private sector to move red tape
so we can expedite the research and the trials, more tests than were
ever done maybe on any other attempt for a vaccine, and come up in less
than a year with vaccines when many said it would take years, it was
clearly a remarkable achievement that we all worked on. President Trump
led the effort, and we funded it in a very bipartisan way, and it was
very effective.
Obviously, this is a challenge for every country. There were other
things said that ought to be put out there, and let's at least try to
all be saying the same thing and focusing on the same thing.
When scientific experts say that this is what we anticipate
happening--if you are going to reject that science, at least hold
people accountable who were part of the discussions to reject that
science, as I referred to the October rejection of a testing plan that
would have been in effect for December that was rejected.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. For a long time, the former President of the United
States--apparently, he changed his view now and criticized DeSantis for
not pursuing mask wearing, et cetera, et cetera. The fact of the matter
is, of course, the former President discouraged wearing masks early on.
He discouraged it: Oh, no, you don't need to wear a mask.
He had events that were spreader events, as we call them.
The gentleman heard me say that I think the President followed good
advice and made a decision on Warp Speed that was helpful. As the
gentleman noted, it was the scientists at NIH and scientists in the
private sector and scientists throughout the world, but mainly our
people, who did an extraordinary thing in an extraordinarily short
timeframe--never been done before--to develop this kind of vaccine.
You talk about the three vaccines. The three manufacturers, it had
never been done before. It was a wonderful event. Unfortunately, too
many people are advising: Don't take the vaccine. You don't have to
take the vaccine. Don't sweat it.
The government tells people they have to vaccinate their children to
send them to school. Why? So other children don't get sick.
[[Page H180]]
I told you I had those great-grandchildren, three of whom are in
school. They have a child that sits in front of them, a child that sits
to the right, a child that sits to the left, and a child that sits
behind them. I want all of them well because I don't want my great-
grandchild getting sick.
I don't think there was a very successful effort either by the former
President or by many on your side of the aisle to say--you talk about
science--do what the scientists tell you to do. Now, I notice most of
your Members are doing so now, but still some wear it as a badge of
courage and raise money off of it. I think that is harmful to our
communities.
I think you sort of just set aside no plan. Well, no plan has
resulted going from 1.7 million to 11.7 million tests per day. That is
the plan. We invested in March, in the American Rescue Plan Act, in
making sure that health services could respond properly. A lot of money
went into health and testing in the American Rescue Plan.
You keep saying there is no plan. We have adopted plans, and we think
they are positive plans. We think, hopefully, that we are going to get
better soon.
Neither President Trump nor President Biden was responsible for this
extraordinary virus. Our view is President Trump laid back for a long,
long time before he really engaged heavily in this, and now he has
changed his tune to a much more positive ``listen to the scientists''
kind of attitude, which we welcome.
{time} 1215
I disagree with the gentleman that there is not a plan. We adopted
together in 2020 five major pieces of legislation to address this
challenge, and we have adopted in a partisan way, unfortunately, bills
that continue to fight that fight, and I think it is fighting it, not
as successfully because we have a new variant, much more transmissible,
a different type. It has metastasized into a more communicable disease.
That has caused us a challenge, we are addressing that, and we are
accelerating the availability of resources to do so.
Mr. SCALISE. Clearly, we have some disagreements, but as we both have
advocated for the vaccine, I do think one of the differences that we
may have is that I strongly feel that it is a personal decision. It is
a medical decision. And if government thinks that shaming people,
threatening people, and firing people is going to address that
challenge, they have missed the mark, and I wish they would instead
move away from the shame and the firing. Hopefully the U.S. Supreme
Court agrees with us and stops at least the firings of people by
mandates from the government and just encourages people to have that
conversation with their doctor if they have hesitation. But,
ultimately, it is a decision that each individual would have to make.
We will continue this conversation I am sure, and I yield to the
gentleman.
Mr. HOYER. I just want to say in terms of where we are today, the
overwhelming percentage--I am talking about 90 percent--of people who
are getting really sick are people who are not vaccinated. And for the
government to say: You need to be vaccinated because we don't want you
coming to the office, we don't want you coming with other people who
are being careful, who have been vaccinated, and who have done the
responsible thing and getting them sick. Because what we have seen,
unfortunately, even with vaccination, is that people who are
vaccinated, of our own Members on both sides of the aisle who have been
vaccinated, have gotten--thankfully--mild cases of COVID.
But when we talk about the President wanting people to get
vaccinated--and my friend indicates that he and I both are advocates of
that, and/or requiring them to get vaccinated--the reason you require
people to get vaccinated, the more people you have unvaccinated, the
more hosts this virus has to metastasize and to grow into a different
type of virus that can attack in different ways. That is why you do
that. That is why they talk 70 percent. Now we just have about 70
percent in America now. Very frankly, if we had a higher percentage we
would be better off. So let's hope that we can work together to make
sure that we give encouragement to people to do what the scientists
advise.
My friend talks about the reason we were so successful in that year
under Warp Speed of getting those three vaccines is because the
scientists knew what had to be done. They found out and they had quick
discoveries and eliminated a lot of dead-ends relatively quickly
because of our computer capability and transformation of information
around the world and dead-ends.
If we listen to them, we would be better off. But an awful lot of
people are saying: Don't listen to them. Don't do it.
When the gentleman says for health reasons, there are hundreds,
probably billions, I don't know what the billions are, people who have
been vaccinated with a miniscule and almost undetectable adverse
reaction. So I don't know what the gentleman talks about for health
reasons. I know Djokovic is saying he is doing it for health reasons. I
don't know what those are. Maybe my friend does. I am not an expert
enough to know what that is. But all the doctors I talk to--and
certainly our own doctor here whom we consult with on a regular basis,
I know both of us have done that--say get the vaccine.
So I would hope that all of us would ask our constituents to get the
vaccine. It is good for you, it saves your lives, it saves your
families, and it saves others. Get it.
Mr. SCALISE. To be clear, I never said it was for health reasons. I
said it was a health decision. So this is a medical decision that
people are making.
Again, in the past we have seen this suggested by some in the medical
community inaccurately that if you get vaccinated you can't get the
virus. A Supreme Court Justice said that if you get vaccinated you
can't spread the virus. That turned out to be false. We know whether
vaccinated or not you can get the virus. You can receive the virus, you
can give it to other people, and you can die. We know in the hospitals
the higher propensity of people in the hospitals are unvaccinated.
Those are the kinds of things that we should be encouraging to get
the facts out and then encouraging people to go make their decision
with their doctor if they have concerns and questions.
There are valid questions. There are people in the past who have
raised religious exemptions to other vaccines and, by the way, been
given approval for those religious exemptions that today are not
getting similar religious exemptions for this.
So let's just treat it equally, let's treat it fairly, and let's just
focus on the facts. This idea that if you mandate something and
threaten somebody it is going to change behavior, it is just not
proving itself to be correct, and it is causing more division and
forcing people into corners that they shouldn't be on. So hopefully,
again, we can continue this conversation and get back to a place where
we are in agreement which we have been in things like Operation Warp
Speed.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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