Legislative Business

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring to the majority leader the schedule for next week.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

There are a few items relating to legislation that I want to bring up with the gentleman, but before that, I did want to mention that it is my understanding that the floor director for the majority leader, Ms. Shuwanza Goff--the last thing I would want to do is embarrass her here on the House floor, but it is my understanding she may be leaving.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to yield time to her if she would like to deny that rumor, but while that may create some issues, I would like to say that, if this is the last time that we do this colloquy before the end of this year, it has been a true pleasure to work with Shuwanza Goff.

My whole staff has enjoyed working with her, and especially on those areas where we agree--the CARES Act and USMCA come to mind as recent major accomplishments that this legislative body has done together, Republicans and Democrats--and she, I know, has been that conduit who works with our staff on the Republican side. We considered it a true joy to work with her. She doesn't schedule every bill I ask her to schedule, but I will blame that on the majority leader, not on Shuwanza.

Mr. Speaker, if I can, in all seriousness, say, it has truly been a treat and a joy, and she is one of the people who makes this place work when it does work.

We can always talk about the things that we would like to achieve that we can't, but there are many important things we achieve, like those important pieces of legislation I talked about and many others that don't get that same kind of attention, but they wouldn't happen without the work and the great leadership that Shuwanza has demonstrated here. She will be missed here, and I just wanted to mention that.

I know the gentleman feels probably even stronger, because she has worked for him for the whole time I have been in leadership, but, I think, going back to maybe 2008.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I will give this assurance to the majority leader, that if you are looking for a replacement, I would be happy to provide recommendations and even participate in the interview process, if that would be helpful to the gentleman from Maryland.

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Mr. SCALISE. I think the generosity probably ends there with today's colloquy. I am sure we will have that opportunity next week to have a longer conversation, but I truly do want to pass that on to Shuwanza, and not just on behalf of myself, but on behalf of the minority leader, Mr. McCarthy, and his staff, as well as mine, and all of us in leadership who get to work with her.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to mention, on the schedule next week, one of the items that I know we have worked on together and talked about that I believe the gentleman has scheduled for next week is S. 578, which is the ALS Disability Insurance Access Act, something that we have worked on, a number of these items, for people with ALS.

The Steve Gleason Act was one of those items we worked on a few years ago, passed to help people with ALS, and has been a tremendous, tremendous benefit to people struggling with ALS.

Steve Gleason is a constituent and a dear friend, somebody whom we have worked with on many things. He received earlier this year--it seems like years ago, but just January of this year, he was the recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal, and deservedly so.

He and I were communicating earlier this week about this legislation, which I am a cosponsor of, and I just want to thank the gentleman for scheduling that for the floor next week.

One of those areas, as you were talking about earlier, that might not get a lot of attention but an issue that both Republicans and Democrats have worked on is to help people with ALS who, right now, under current law, even after the diagnosis with ALS--as we know, it is just a devastating diagnosis--have to wait 5 months to get the normal benefits that they are entitled to. And time is very, very critical to people with ALS. This eliminates that 5-month gap where they would have to wait, one of those additional occasions where it takes an act of Congress to fix this.

The Senate acted, and quickly, now, the House will be acting to address this deficiency that needs to be fixed. I think you will see both sides come together with a very large vote, but I thank the gentleman for scheduling that for the floor next week.

I yield to the gentleman, if you have anything to add on that.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, as relates to the schedule next week, as well as the schedule we have had this week, I want to bring up a piece of legislation that we have talked about here in this colloquy and in other venues for months now, and that is the bill by Congressman Chabot, H.R. 8265, which is the Paycheck Protection Program Extension Act.

We have seen over these last few months our small businesses have struggled tremendously. Some industries have done better during this pandemic where they have seen increased sales for various reasons, but we have mostly seen and heard from so many of those businesses and industries that have been devastated, some harder than others, but so many devastated to the point of bankruptcy. Daily, we see stories of businesses that closed their doors for good.

Mr. Speaker, in the State of New York alone, it was reported that one-third of all small businesses--one-third--will never open again. We came together to do the CARES Act, to pass that lifeline to so many small businesses--saved probably 50 million jobs in America, saved millions of small businesses--but it expired; and when it expired, we learned a lot more about where our economy was at that time.

When we passed it, it was at the very beginning of the pandemic. We now saw over those months which businesses were doing better, which weren't, and came back in September with a piece of legislation that would free up money that is not going to have to be borrowed, money that is actually sitting in that account, frozen, $137 billion that we already appropriated. But the program expired so it can't be used anymore unless we change the law.

So, we are not talking about creating a new program. We are talking about going back to a program that was maybe one of the most successful things that we have done to help people in need--not just those small businesses, but the millions, 50-plus million people whose livelihoods depend on those jobs.

The bill was brought forward, had a lot of bipartisan interest, but for various reasons hasn't been scheduled on this House floor. And there were reports that maybe it was tied to waiting on the election or whatever other things.

In fact, the Speaker of the House, just today, made a comment that one of the reasons a certain relief package bill wasn't brought to the House floor is because she was waiting on a ``new President.'' I hope that was a quote that was made out of context or maybe needs to be revised.

There are millions of people that are literally facing the elimination of their livelihoods, and we have a bill that, if it was put on the floor today, yesterday, or September, when we first had this conversation, there would be hundreds of thousands of businesses still open today that are now bankrupt, that will never open again. Every day we wait, more businesses don't reopen.

Clearly, we are negotiating to try to get an agreement on bigger issues. We are not there. We weren't there last month; we weren't there the month before. The Senate has tried to take up votes on things. It wasn't the Republicans; it was the Democrats that blocked those bills coming up. This, by the way, was one of those in the package that would have been voted on by the Senate, if not for Senate Democrats blocking even the debate on the Senate floor. So they never had that debate.

On this floor, just today, we saw a bill to legalize marijuana. You saw items in there where it would give additional money to people in the marijuana industry. This is something that Congress, I am sure, will continue to debate.

But there is a pandemic where, today, we have businesses that are shutting their doors. Tomorrow, businesses will go bankrupt forever, small businesses. We can help them. Not with a new program that we need to negotiate the details over, but something we already did that was so highly successful that we have a track record to show what it can do.

Our small banks, local community banks, were part of that process and are ready to go again. Again, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here. This is an existing program that has got existing, remaining money, but the program is frozen and expired. This bill just renews it and could pass on the suspension calendar, and it still hasn't been brought up.

While we are negotiating other things, why not release this hostage and let this bill pass. It could have been done today. It wasn't a lack of time. When we are debating legalizing marijuana instead of saving small businesses, that is a misplaced priority of this Congress. We should have come together months ago. September 16, it was introduced. September 17, I brought it up to the majority leader at this colloquy. The following week brought it up again.

Then we filed a discharge petition. You had, I think, 23 Democrats sign a letter saying they would sign that discharge petition if we didn't get a bipartisan agreement, recognizing that the Heroes Act is not a bipartisan agreement. Unfortunately, not one of those Members who signed the letter saying they would sign the discharge have signed the discharge. Talk is cheap around here.

Livelihoods are being lost. Businesses are shuttering for good. Why can't this bill be scheduled for the floor while we work on the other things that we are not in agreement on? This is something we are in agreement on. But it won't be scheduled for the floor.

Maybe we can get an agreement to schedule that Monday when we are coming in at 2 o'clock to vote on other items. This would be something that would get 400-plus votes, if it was just scheduled.

I yield to the gentleman.

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Mr. SCALISE. Let me remind the gentleman that in the CARES Act, we addressed many of those issues that the gentleman already brought up, starting with the States.

In fact, I don't know of a single State in this country who has spent all of the money we sent them. Educational opportunities for schools to reopen safely and educate kids are being denied in some places but not in others, but it is not from a lack of money. There is not a single school system I have heard from, where we sent them the money--and by the way, they still have millions, and in some cases, billions of those dollars sitting in their account, idle, that can be used today to safely reopen schools.

If the State chooses not to do it or if the school system chooses not to do it, that is on them. But they are denying those kids opportunities. We are seeing report after report, scientific studies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, talking about the damage that is being done to our young children by being denied the opportunity to go back to school in classroom and learn. It is devastating to those kids.

Suicides are up and opioid abuse is up, because of all of these things, and it is the small businesses that are paying the biggest price.

If you look, people that are getting unemployment insurance at the State level--we did enhanced unemployment insurance for a period of time, and in most cases we were paying people more money not to work than they were making before they lost their job.

What they ask me is not that they want to stay on unemployment. They want to go back to work. They want their business to be alive when they go back to work. But if a small business closes for good, the cost to us is going to be dramatically higher.

If we can right now throw that lifeline, again, to those businesses-- not with a new program, not with things that we don't agree on, like $900 billion to bail out failed States, which is the Heroes Act. We already spent hundreds of billions of dollars that we gave to States. Like I said, I think every single State has some of that money left. Some have billions of dollars of that money left.

So the idea that we are going to hold up relief to small business, who are closing every day, hundreds of thousands--a third of every small business in the State of New York is gone for good. How many more need to die before this problem is recognized by this Congress?

So those States are sitting on money, and the gentleman wants to hold up relief to small businesses to give another $900 billion to bail out States, not for the COVID damage, but the problems they had before. That is what the Heroes Act disagreement was about. We agreed on giving States money. They still have some of that money, and it can be used to reopen schools safely, still today.

What is not there right now is relief for those small businesses. So when you look at all of these different things--the vaccine, they are not waiting on approving a vaccine based on more money coming in. We put money in the CARES Act, and President Trump spent it effectively on Operation Warp Speed to get us to the point where we have not one, but two--Pfizer and Moderna--ready to go.

The FDA is about to approve two different vaccines, and it is being mass produced today. We are not waiting on money to mass produce it. The Department of Defense is actually involved in helping distribute it. Airlines have already been contracted to get it out. Some need to be air-conditioned more than others. All of that is put in place.

If we need more money, we will come together and get more money. But a vaccine is not waiting on us to send them more money. We need to get it out. We need the FDA to follow their process, which they are doing. They are the gold standard in the world for approving vaccines, and it is unheard of, in the history of mankind, for a virus, that we didn't even know of until a year and two days ago in the world, to now be on the brink of not one, but two FDA-approved vaccines. That is happening because of what we did coming together with the CARES Act and then President Trump's Operation Warp Speed.

These aren't items that are waiting on our relief. What is waiting is relief for small businesses.

Now, the Heroes Act, again, it was a partisan exercise, not because it was mostly like the CARES Act. It was very different from the CARES Act. In the Heroes Act, there are billions of dollars in that bill to give checks to people here illegally. That wasn't part of any agreement. It wasn't in the CARES Act. That is new policy that is not going to be signed into law.

If you want to negotiate and hold small businesses hostage on that, we may never get relief for small businesses. But that was one of the items in the Heroes Act where we had no agreement.

But the areas where we had agreement, can we at least agree to pass the things we have agreement on?

And what did we have more agreement on than anything? The PPP, proven to be so successful that literally every day we hear from small businesses that say they would not be alive today if not for the PPP. But we also hear from small businesses every day who are about to close.

Some States are talking about shutting their whole State down again.

We know that is going to lead to businesses that will never come back. And we have a bill ready to go that would get massive bipartisan support without a new dime of money, money sitting frozen in an account that would help those small businesses. The criteria is you have to have at least 25 percent loss.

So your small businesses that are doing well today--again, we know there are some that are doing better today than they were a year ago, but we also know some are about to close for good. We can help them, not with new policy that we are not in agreement on. That is where the negotiations are continuing to go back and forth on.

But if there is something we all agree on, do we really need to hold that hostage, when that means that many of those businesses will never come back?

We could have done this in September. It was brought up in September. It is not a new item.

How many thousands of businesses died from the day that that bill was introduced to today and will die again between now and Monday?

It can be put on the schedule Monday. It is not going to stop the negotiations on the other things. There are other things that we are both in agreement on that aren't part of that bill. Bring that as a stand-alone. Let's bring each of those items that we are in agreement on.

But the idea that we hold everything hostage to things that aren't going to happen, hundreds of billions to failed States, giving checks to people who aren't here legally, is that really a priority?

Is that really the things we are getting called on every day?

The folks that are on unemployment want to be able to go back to their job. If the company is dead and gone, there will be nothing to go back to. And so we are working on so many items that we are in agreement on. We have given money to our health experts to continue to focus on the virus, to continue to get the vaccine, and we may have another two--could be four--vaccines by the end of this year. That is something we all ought to applaud because of what we did when we came together.

But here is an area where we already came together. It was so successful that that money now is frozen, and those businesses that did well are still doing well. The ones that aren't will or will not be alive in a month from now, based on whether or not we confront this. It is not new policy. It is something we already agreed on, and something we already celebrated as a success. Let's do that one more time while we negotiate on the things we are in disagreement with.

Mr. Speaker, I would just suggest that, and I yield to the gentleman.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, too. In terms of our children, we know sending them back to school safely, the protocols are out there. Child nutrition programs are administered in our schools. That is not happening because the kids are in those systems where they are not safely reopened. Those kids aren't able to get the school lunch programs.

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Mr. SCALISE. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, those schools already have access to the $150 billion that we sent the States that they haven't even already spent. If I gave you money to do something and you haven't even used all that money, you can't use that as an excuse for not doing it, and saying: I am waiting for you to give me more money, when you still have money remaining.

And I agree with the gentleman on the school lunch program. The thing there is that we don't give a supplement to schools in normal times. These are not normal times. But in normal times, schools feed kids at lunch with the existing budgets they have. They don't wait for us to send extra money to them to feed the kids.

If they are not educating the kids in the classroom, they are still taking that money. I haven't seen them rebate the money to those families in communities.

So what are they doing with that money?

If you bring the kids back and educate them safely in the classroom, which the protocols allow for in any community, high risk, low risk, if you have got a high outbreak, there are different ways to handle each community. The CDC has given them guidelines. The Academy of Pediatrics have given them guidelines. Some school systems have chosen not to follow them and leave the kids at home, but they are still taking the money.

There has never been a better argument for school choice and letting parents choose. If one school system is willing to educate your child safely and the other is not, why shouldn't you be able to take that money and send your child to the place that is willing to do it safely for you?

It is not a question of the money. It is a question of the will to do it.

But when we talk about those businesses and what was in the CARES Act and what wasn't, the CARES Act was not the Heroes Act. I think the gentleman knows some of the differences. I will tell the gentleman a few of the differences.

What is in the Heroes Act that is not in the CARES Act that we all voted for was letting thousands, an unknown number of thousands, of criminals out of prison. I have never gotten a straight answer on how many thousands of criminals would be let out of prison or why that even needs to be in a COVID relief package. But that is in the Heroes Act, which was not in the CARES Act, and we are completely in disagreement on that.

Why it hasn't been dropped out, who knows, but that is a choice the majority made. Again, sending direct checks, billions of dollars in direct checks, to people that are here illegally was not in the CARES Act; it is in the Heroes Act. If we wanted to make it bipartisan, drop those things out. But they haven't been dropped out by the majority, and here we have a program that we agree on.

But in terms of the small businesses, the small businesses are dying on the vine because some States are giving mixed signals, changing rules, going backward, forward. In States like California, they are saying you can operate as a liquor store or as a strip club but not as a church. Even the Supreme Court stepped in and said that is ludicrous and that you can't keep doing it.

But you go to New York and so many of these States where they are saying for safety protocols you have to shut down and you can't go to a restaurant, and then you see the Governor of the State at a restaurant without a mask. But you can't go. You see mayors in communities telling businesses they can't stay open or it is not safe to have Thanksgiving with your family, and you find out they are flying to other States to have Thanksgiving with their family.

This blatant hypocrisy by some of these leaders who are telling you that you have to live your life one way and they are living their lives a different way, and hiding behind protocols that don't exist, that is driving people nuts. The businesses are dying because of it.

The trust in government gets depleted in those places because they are watching. And it is not isolated. I wish it was just once or twice. I wish it was never going on. But it is over and over again, yesterday and today another story comes out of a local leader or a governor telling you that you can't do something, and they are doing it. They didn't think they were going to get caught doing it. My God, that has to end. The hypocrisy has to end.

Let's get back to saying things that make sense, working with the protocols, working with the experts and the scientists. But don't use a scientist selectively and say something that is not really true and you, yourself, know it is not true because you are doing it. That is what some of those folks are doing. It is driving people nuts, and it is driving their businesses under. They will never come back.

Those families that are struggling and the kids that are going to have trouble eating are having that trouble because the businesses that their families work for are being bankrupted by crazy, radical policies that have to end. We can help them in the short term. We ought to help them in the short term.

Some of the stuff I mentioned that we are not in agreement on ought to get dropped out. But in the meantime, don't hold them hostage. Let's bring those things that we agree on to the floor and save the businesses that we can because every day we don't, more will never come back.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, if we wanted to pass another CARES Act-type piece of legislation, as we have seen in both other CARES Act bills, you have a lot of willingness and interest on this side of the aisle, which was there on both of those votes. Clearly, there are things in Heroes that there is no bipartisan consensus on.

So, our party is willing and ready to go another round on those items we agree on, and not months from now, not months ago, as it should have been done. It should be done today. Hopefully, it will be done when we return. I would be happy to work with the gentleman on those items.

If the gentleman has nothing else, then I would be happy to yield back.

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Mr. SCALISE.

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