Capitol Hill Updates

The Pandemic Response Report

What’s Important

Biden Follows Republican Roadmap and Sets New Goal of 200 Vaccine Doses in 100 Days: Last week, President Biden followed Republicans’ advice and set a new vaccine goal of administering 200 million vaccines in 100 days. Two months ago, Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.) called on President Biden to develop a new plan to administer 200 million vaccines in 100 days.

Teachers Unions Ignore the Science: Teachers unions continue to ignore the science and refuse to reopen schools, most recently saying they don’t believe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) guidance easing social distancing requirements in the classroom.

Cuomo Prioritized COVID Tests for Family Members and Well Connected: At the start of the pandemic when testing was scarce, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo prioritized his family members and other well-connected individuals to have special access to state-administered coronavirus tests.

Relief Radar

Dems Bail Out Failed Lockdown States at Expense of Open States: Under President Trump, the previous bipartisan COVID-19 packages allocated funding to states based on population. However, in their partisan $1.9 trillion far-left wish list, Democrats changed that formula by adding unemployment as a factor and boosted support to liberal states.

This is because Democrat-run states have the highest unemployment rates. In fact, the six states with unemployment rates over 8 percent are all run by liberal governors.

Democrats are bailing out their allies who made bad and unreasonable policy decisions during the pandemic, kept businesses shut down, and harmed their own economies. Republican governors made the right decisions to respond to the pandemic and get their economies back on track. The unemployment data demonstrates that.

California and New York are the biggest winners and gain billions of dollars under this new skewed formula. In New York, the unemployment rate is 8.8 percent, and in California, the unemployment rate is 9 percent. However, this formula cuts funding for states like Florida, where the unemployment rate is 4.8 percent, and Utah, where the unemployment rate is 3.1 percent.

Crisis Corner

Teachers Union Continues to Ignore Science: Following the CDC’s guidance announcing schools can safely ease social distancing requirements, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said the teachers union doesn’t believe their guidance, all so they can keep schools shut down longer. Meanwhile, school closures are harming students. Mental health issues, suicides, and failing grades have increased as a result of virtual school.

Democrat Hypocrisy Alert

Cuomo Gave Scarce COVID Tests to Family Members: At the start of the pandemic when COVID testing was scarce, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo prioritized his family members, including CNN news anchor Chris Cuomo, and other well-connected individuals to have special access to state-administered coronavirus tests and had the state lab immediately process their tests. This is around the same time when he mandated COVID-positive patients to be admitted to nursing homes and long-term care facilities. Democrats in Congress continue to refuse to hold Governor Cuomo accountable for his actions endangering the most vulnerable and subsequent cover-up.

Speaker Pelosi Says Children Come First but Fails to Work Towards Reopening Schools:  Earlier this year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told MSNBC that “there is no issue more critical to the future of our nation than the safety, education and all-around well-being of America’s children.” That was a lie. What does Speaker Pelosi say to the children suffering because Democrats are keeping their schools shut down?

Biden Blunders

Biden’s Border Crisis Has Created a Health Crisis at the Border: As President Biden has unraveled the previous administration’s deterrent-focused policies aimed at preventing illegal immigration, there is now not only a humanitarian and national security crisis at the border, but a health crisis as well. There are currently 300 unaccompanied minors being held at federal facilities who have tested positive for the coronavirus. Additionally, nearly 2,000 illegal immigrants have been released without being tested for COVID-19.

Biden’s Top HHS Appointee Sent COVID-Positive Patients to Nursing Homes Confirmed by Senate: Last week, the Senate confirmed Pennsylvania Secretary of Health, Dr. Rachel Levine, for a top post at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Like New York Governor Cuomo, Levine issued a deadly order mandating nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients. She also moved her mother out of a personal care facility before doing so.

This Week in SSOCC

President Biden Follows Republican Roadmap to Increase Vaccine Distribution: Last week, President Biden followed Republicans’ advice to set a new vaccine goal of administering 200 million vaccines in 100 days. On January 21, 2021, Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.) called on President Biden to develop a new plan to administer 200 million vaccines in 100 days. Scalise applauded Biden’s decision, saying, “Over two months ago, Republicans called on President Biden to set a more ambitious goal of administering 200 million vaccines in 100 days, and I’m glad he followed the roadmap we presented. Because of President Trump’s leadership creating the highly-successful Operation Warp Speed, the Biden Administration inherited contracts for hundreds of millions of doses for two approved vaccines and two that were in the final stage of clinical trials … President Biden ought to finally acknowledge the critical role President Trump played in creating Operation Warp Speed.”

99% of PPP Funding Went to Correct Recipient & Used Appropriately: Last week, the Select Subcommittee held a hearing on the Paycheck Protection Program. During the hearing, Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) touted the successes of the Paycheck Protection Program, underscoring it supported 51 million jobs, over 80 percent of America’s small businesses, and saved almost 19 million jobs from permanent loss. He also emphasized the Trump Administration harnessed the full force of the federal government to find and prosecute fraud in the Paycheck Protection Program and noted over 99 percent of the money went to the correct recipient and has been used appropriately.

What They’re Saying

Andrew Cuomo’s family members were given special access to covid testing, according to people familiar with the arrangement (Washington Post)

“As the coronavirus pandemic swept through New York early last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration arranged for his family members and other well-connected figures to have special access to state-administered coronavirus tests, dispatching a top state doctor and other state health officials to their homes, according to three people with direct knowledge of the effort. As part of the program, a state lab immediately processed the results of those who were tested, the people said, even as average New Yorkers were struggling to get tested in the early days of the pandemic because of a scarcity of resources. Initially, the lab was capable of running only several hundred tests a day for a state with 19 million residents.” 

Cuomo admin. kept COVID tests from nursing homes as gov’s kin got them (New York Post)

“The Cuomo administration largely ignored a county official’s pleas for COVID-19 tests for nursing homes at the pandemic’s height last spring — even as the governor allegedly secured the then-scarce tests for his relatives, The Post has learned.” 

Pandemic masks ongoing child abuse crisis as cases plummet (Associated Press)

“An Associated Press analysis of state data reveals that the coronavirus pandemic has ripped away several systemic safety nets for millions of Americans. It found that child abuse reports, investigations, substantiated allegations and interventions have dropped at a staggering rate, increasing risks for the most vulnerable of families in the U.S. In the AP’s analysis, it found more than 400,000 fewer child welfare concerns reported during the pandemic and 200,000 fewer child abuse and neglect investigations and assessments compared with the same time period of 2019. That represents a national total decrease of 18% in both total reports and investigations.”

Member Mention

Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) touts the successes of the Paycheck Protection Program.

Representative Mark Green (R-Tenn.) discusses how the Paycheck Protection Program saved Americans’ jobs.

Republican Whip and Select Subcommittee Ranking Member Steve Scalise (R-La.) calls out teachers unions for ignoring science.

Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) points out the Biden Administration’s double standard when it comes to COVID testing for illegal immigrants and Americans.

Select Subcommittee Republicans call out Governor Cuomo for giving his family preferential treatment.

Representative Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) remembers the 15,000 seniors who died as a result of Governor Cuomo’s deadly order.