WASHINGTON, D.C.—At today’s House Leadership stakeout, Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) highlighted President Trump’s leadership during his first 500 days in office, especially on pro-growth Republican reforms that have led to historic economic growth and have allowed America to reclaim its spot as the most competitive economy in the world. He then discussed Republican efforts to vote on legislation this week that will properly fund programs for our veterans despite Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi’s efforts to obstruct the bill.
Click here or on the image above to watch his remarks.
On President Trump’s first 500 days in office and the booming economy:
“Earlier this week, we marked day 500 of the Trump presidency, and the economic news could not be better. You see a growing economy. You see families that are actually experiencing more money in their paychecks. They’re getting bonuses, they’re getting pay raises, and they’re getting a tax break because we reduced every tax rate. And we did that working with President Trump, who provided the leadership to make sure we got that done.
“President Trump’s main focus in the first 500 days was getting our economy moving again, removing some of these regulations — the regulatory burden that was holding back our economy and actually benefiting other countries at our expense. And so now you’ve finally seen that reversed and you’ve seen great economic news and it’s going to continue getting better.
“So we encourage more people to get back in the workforce. And with a growing economy, people now have that opportunity to get a better chance to seek the American Dream.”
On doing more for our veterans despite Democrat obstruction:
“We’re doing more things this week to continue to establish our priorities. It’s not just lowering taxes for families, but it’s taking care of our military and taking care of our veterans.
“We’re going to move an important bill at the end of this week that funds, properly, our Veterans Affairs Department, making sure that our V.A. hospitals all across the country have the resources they need to take care of our men and women in uniform who risk their lives for us.
“Unfortunately, just yesterday we saw Nancy Pelosi give a glimpse of what a Pelosi speakership would be like again. She laid down a partisan marker encouraging all of her members to vote against this bill that funds our military and funds our V.A. hospitals.
“Now look, there are a lot of areas where we can disagree and have partisan fights. Clearly over the tax cut bill, she made that partisan with every Democrat voting no on a bill to cut taxes for families. We have disagreements over things like whether or not to repeal Obamacare.
“But funding our V.A. hospitals should not be a place where we have a disagreement. I think it’s a tactical mistake to try and use our veterans as a pawn in some kind of political game.
“But we’re going to move forward. We are still going to do our jobs as House Republicans in this majority to move our agenda forward. Again, you see a clear contrast of what our majority has been like and what Nancy Pelosi would be like as Speaker. Hopefully, we can get this done and with a lot of Democrat votes. There ought to be a lot of Democrat votes on a bill that funds our military. But we’re going to move forward and get our job done in the meantime.”