Scalise Touts America’s Continued Economic Renewal
WASHINGTON, DC — House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (LA-1) appeared before a breakfast meeting of The Ripon Society yesterday morning, delivering a speech about America’s continued economic renewal and how this renewal has been fueled by tax reform, regulatory relief, and other pro-growth policies that the President and Congressional Republicans have pushed through.
The Louisiana lawmaker opened his remarks, however, by talking not about America’s economic renewal but about America’s national pastime – baseball. Specifically, he talked about the Congressional Baseball Game for Charity, which was held the previous night and, he said, gave Members of Congress the opportunity to demonstrate talents that are otherwise hidden from public view. “Some of them bring really good baseball skills,” he said of his colleagues. “And very few people knew about it until last night.”
Scalise – who was the lead-off hitter for the Republican squad – also noted that this year’s contest included a moment that he thought represented “a congressional baseball first.” The moment occurred when former Tennessee Titan and current Democratic Congressman Colin Allred (TX-32) connected with a drive to the outfield that was caught by former Indianapolis Colts wide receiver and current GOP Congressman Anthony Gonzalez (OH-16). “I don’t think an NFL player has ever hit to another NFL player before,” the Cajun Republican observed.
In addition to allowing Members to show off their athletic skills, Scalise said that the annual baseball game serves an even more important purpose – namely, it allows Members to build relationships with each other across the political aisle. “It’s great comradery,” he said of the contest. “It’s great to get to know your colleagues on the Republican side really well. But even on the Democrat side, we build great relationships and it really does bleed over onto the policy side when you’re able to work with Democrats. And there are opportunities all the time.”
One of those opportunities, he said, occurred in 2016, when Congress passed and the President signed into law the 21st Century Cures Act. Scalise said the bill’s enactment was an example of both parties coming together for the common good. It was also, he added, an example of how bipartisan cooperation in Washington rarely receives the attention and coverage it deserves.
“I think you’re going to see big cures for diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s or ALS because of that bill,” Scalise said of the landmark measure. “But yet it got no attention because Republicans and Democrats came together. We were in the majority as Republicans and Barack Obama was President. I use this example a lot when we talk about things like USMCA or other important issues, where you’ve got one party in power and the President is of a different party and there are some people who just don’t want to give the President a win on anything.”
“That was an example of where we did. A Republican Congress came together and worked with Barack Obama. It was probably one of the very last bills that he signed as President, and we let him get all the credit. If we save millions of people’s lives, you will be able to point to that and see it. But it got no attention. Nobody knows about it. Every day we do bills like that. We just renewed the national flood insurance program. We’re working on a long term re-authorization. Hopefully in the House, we’ll pass the five-year re-authorization soon. We work on a lot of other issues like that. But nobody knows about that. It’s Republicans, Democrats coming together to solve problems for everyday families. And we need to do more of it.”
Scalise then turned his attention to America’s economic renewal over the past two years – a renewal, he said, which has been fueled by tax reform, regulatory relief, and other pro-growth policies that the President and Congressional Republicans have pushed through.
“We’ve seen what we’ve done on the economy,” the veteran leader declared. “It’s not just the tax cuts, but getting regulations under control. It’s amazing how when you go across the country and when you talk to small businesses back home, they love the tax cuts. And they’ll tell you what they’re doing to hire more people. It’s not millionaires and billionaires going off and buying islands and yachts and all that. It’s small business owners who are hiring more people.”
One of those small businesses, Scalise noted, is Gnarly Barley, a thriving small brewery in his home state that has benefited greatly from passage of the tax bill over the past two years.
“They were literally a shop of six people,” he said of the Hammond, Louisiana-based business. “They couldn’t even afford health care benefits for their employees … now they’re one of the fastest growing breweries in the country. They used the savings from the tax cut bill to hire more workers, increase production, get health care benefits for their employees, and start a 401k program. They were able to do all this because of the tax cut bill.”
According to Scalise, America’s economic renewal is also being driven by the renaissance of America’s energy sector, which has not only helped fuel growth here at home, but has helped boost security abroad by giving our allies another choice as to where they can purchase their fuel.
“We’re bringing back manufacturing in America,” he said. “We’re creating millions more jobs. We’ve got higher wages for workers. Anybody who wants a job can get a job today in large part because of how dominant our energy sector is … It’s great for our economy. It creates really good jobs here in America. But you know what else it does? It creates a stable source of energy for our friends around the world that don’t have to get that energy from Russia, a country that puts strings attached to the energy they provide.”
The Republican Whip concluded his remarks by recounting a recent visit the President made to the Sempra LNG facility in his home state.
“The President loves meeting these blue collar workers,” Scalise said of the visit. “And you know what else? They love meeting him. To see the excitement when these workers are just waiting hours in the hot sun because they want to see the President of the United States and what he’s done to bring manufacturing back and create jobs. Some of them told their stories about how they had given up … they were on unemployment, and they couldn’t provide for their family. Now they’re able to not only have a career, but they’re buying their first house and they’re starting a family.
“These policies are important to real people. We’ve got to get it right up here. And when we do, it’s really exciting to go back home to the real world and see the positive impact on people’s lives. So I look forward to working on a lot of these other things – getting USMCA done, maybe getting infrastructure done, whatever else we can get done if we can come together. And we need to come together more, because there are still big problems out there that people are counting on us to solve.”
To view the remarks of Scalise before The Ripon Society discussion yesterday morning, please click on the link below:
The Ripon Society is a public policy organization that was founded in 1962 and takes its name from the town where the Republican Party was born in 1854 — Ripon, Wisconsin. One of the main goals of The Ripon Society is to promote the ideas and principles that have made America great and contributed to the GOP’s success. These ideas include keeping our nation secure, keeping taxes low and having a federal government that is smaller, smarter and more accountable to the people.