WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joined Fox Business Network’s Mornings with Maria to discuss how Democrats’ radical tax-and-spending spree will hurt the U.S. economy and bankrupt future generations of Americans. Whip Scalise called out President Biden for his out-of-control spending, which has led to an unprecedented increase in inflation that has caused gasoline, car, and food prices to skyrocket. In addition, Whip Scalise slammed President Biden’s handling of COVID-19 and pointed out that the mainstream media continues to ignore that more Americans have died from the coronavirus during Joe Biden’s presidency compared to President Trump’s tenure in the White House. Whip Scalise emphasized that voters have rejected Democrats’ extreme agenda and are furious that President Biden and Speaker Pelosi are prioritizing their radical base over the needs of struggling families.
On what Congress should accomplish before the end of the year:
“Well, while the Democrats have been on this big drunken spending spree, raising taxes, spending trillions of dollars, they’ve neglected to take care of the basic forms and functions of government. And that is with the House, Senate, and White House, all in Democrat hands, they still haven’t passed an appropriations bill to fund any of the agencies of government properly through both chambers. So now, we’re facing yet another [crisis], another shutdown. You’ve got the debt ceiling looming because they’ve spent trillions [of] more dollars. We’re about to max out our credit card again. And what is their answer? They passed over to the Senate, trillions more in spending, Maria. And by the way, deficit spending, that’ll all go to the debt. They don’t care about who’s going to pay for this.
“They’re going to ultimately wait till the midnight hour – this is what Speaker Pelosi always does – wait until the midnight hour and then blame Republicans somehow when they control the House, Senate, and White House. They’re running us up to yet another deadline. They’ll probably do something short-term again because they’re not having any long-term serious negotiations with Republicans on solving any of these problems. And the answer to the problems, by the way, is not spending trillions [of] more dollars. It’s not raising taxes on hardworking families. It’s starting to live within our means and trying to get people back to work, getting our economy back open. Again, those are the things they should be focused on. It’s not where they are.”
On President Biden’s disastrous handling of COVID-19:
“Look, President Biden has botched his handling of COVID from the beginning. And he campaigned, by the way, this was one of the centerpieces that he would do it so much differently. Well, he walked in on day one as President with three approved vaccines. He doesn’t have anything new there on the vaccine front. He surely hasn’t done anything to advance therapeutics. And then we’ve seen [the] resurgence of COVID take down our economy again. We’ve seen more deaths. By the way, [there are] more COVID deaths under President Biden than President Trump. I know the mainstream media doesn’t want to report any of that because he’s mishandled this in so many different ways. He doesn’t even have an FDA Director approved.
“There are so many problems that this administration has created under COVID, and now it seems like they want to talk about more shutdowns. That’s not where people want to be. They want to work through this. Again, there [are] vaccines, there [are] therapeutics. Let’s advance that. We should be having hearings on the origins of COVID. As you were talking about earlier, they want to completely ignore that because all roads lead back to China. When any expert looks at this variant, it probably started in the Wuhan lab, not from a bat to a human. So, they don’t want to properly manage this because President Biden doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t have a plan for the economy. He doesn’t have a plan for inflation. His plans are to keep spending more money, and that’s what’s creating all the problems. So, the crises after crises [are] only getting worse. The border crisis is getting worse too, by the way.”
On Democrats refusal to work with Republicans and investigate the origin of COVID-19:
“Yeah, it’s unbelievable. When, you know, when many top scientists have said this was not a naturally occurring virus. There are other viruses that they’ve studied that are. This one, from all accounts, is not, and it most likely started in the Wuhan lab. There was gain-of-function research going on that may have even been funded by the National Institute of Health through indirect parties. They don’t want to investigate any of that. And frankly, people want to know those answers because we don’t want this to happen again. Look at some states who have handled this well. They’re doing better than the states [that] have shut everything down. Yet, there’s talk of shutting things down again. That’s why you saw the markets tank. They’ve got to focus on getting our economy back in order and stopping this from happening again. And if it was in that lab in Wuhan, we ought to be investigating it thoroughly.”
On the chances that Democrats’ tax-and-spending spree becomes law:
“Well, I sure hope none of it passes because if you look, voters in Virginia already spoke out overwhelmingly. They said they don’t want more spending. They don’t want more government control. They don’t want [the] government telling parents to stand of their kids’ education. They don’t want [the] government spending trillions more dollars because that’s what’s driving inflation. And if you spend trillions more, you’ll get even higher inflation. That’s what voters said in Virginia, which is not a red or purple state yet. Yet, they want to ignore that and just keep ramming the spending down people’s throats because they’re drunken sailors on all of this spending and apologies to sailors who drink because they don’t even want to be compared to these folks. But look, the answer should be to focus on what works in our economy, what works on getting people going again, getting the economy back open again. That should not be more spending, but that’s all they want to do. And they’re going to keep trying to sell it. But nobody’s buying it. Yet, they’re forcing it down their throats anyway. If it’s $1.5 trillion, it’s too much.”