WASHINGTON, D.C.—At the House Republican Leadership stakeout today, Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) drew attention to the stark contrasts in policies coming from the Republican and Democratic parties. Republicans this week will be moving legislation to increase choice and lower costs on health care for American families through popular programs like Health Savings Accounts, while Democrats propose forcing Americans into a government-run, single-payer system. While Republicans prioritize national security and support law enforcement agents who perform life saving work every day, Democrats want to eliminate these agencies in favor of open borders.
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On how pro-growth Republican policies are helping American families:
“As we continue to feature the reasons that families are better off now, you can look at what just happened a few days ago when Chairman Brady went to the White House to start preparing for Tax Cuts 2.0. The tax cuts have been working incredibly well to get this economy moving, to create more jobs, to put more money in the pockets of hard-working families.
“I’ve seen families in Southeast Louisiana experience over $1,200 more on average in their paychecks in their pockets because of the hard work that we’ve done in the House. We’re going to continue building on that growth.”
On Republican legislation moving this week in the House to improve the health care system:
“This week, we’re working to bring forward some more health care solutions for families. Erik Paulsen’s got the bill to repeal the medical device tax. That’s something that will help lower premiums. It’s also something that will help create more jobs, really good high-paying jobs in America.
“You look at what we’re doing to bolster health savings accounts. Peter Roskam is bringing legislation forward to bolster health savings accounts. And think about this: More than twice the number of people in this country use health savings accounts than enroll in Obamacare. More than double.
“And by the way, health savings accounts are optional. There was a mandate on Obamacare. And even with that mandate, more than twice as many Americans participate in health savings accounts than sign up for Obamacare. We’re going to continue to make health savings accounts work even better for families across this country.”
On Democrats’ proposal to increase government control of health care through a single-payer system:
“And when you look at the contrast, while we’re talking about helping lower premiums and giving families more choice, Democrats are talking about a single-payer health care system. And what would a single-payer health care system do?
“Number one, it would take away employer-based health care, which works really well for millions of Americans. But it would also dump over a hundred million more people on Medicare. And we just saw, a few months ago, the Medicare actuaries said that Medicare goes bankrupt in eight years if we don’t save it from bankruptcy.
“We have a plan in the House, by the way, to save Medicare from bankruptcy. But if a plan’s going to be going bankrupt even faster than expected, dumping over a hundred million more people on Medicare is not the answer. It would actually make Medicare go bankrupt more quickly. We need to be saving Medicare from bankruptcy, continuing to provide families real choice.”
On the contrast between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to national security and supporting agencies like ICE:
“And then, of course, last week we saw this vote on—just a basic vote—on standing up for our men and women in ICE who keep our country safe. As we focus on national security, we’ve bolstered our military. We’ve actually addressed the neglect in our military.
“But we’re working in this House to keep America safe, and we had a bill just to say we support our ICE agents. And what did you see on the left? The radical left is moving so far away that they’re talking about abolishing ICE, and over 130 Democrats voted “present” on a basic resolution with clear ‘whereas’ [language] saying we just support the men and women who keep our country safe.
“Last year, our ICE agents saved more than 900 children from sexual assault and human trafficking. Over 900 children were saved by ICE agents last year. Imagine if those ICE agents would have just showed up present at work that day; not take the risk to go save those 900 kids, but just showed up present. Thank God they didn’t. Thank God they showed up and did their job and risked and sacrificed so that we can be a safer country.
“We’re going to continue moving forward on an agenda that stands up for the real issues that are important to people across this country.”