A.G. Gancarski
Schools are wide open in Florida, but elsewhere, debates rage as to when and how to open doors. And one Sunshine State Senator is stirring the pot.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, in his capacity as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, denounced Democratic delays, decrying the “charade” to mask an inability to stand up to the teachers’ unions.
“The Democrats are throwing every excuse against the wall, hoping it will keep the unions off their back and keep their campaign contributions flowing. The Biden Administration and Senate Democrats are using America’s children as leverage to get hundreds of billions in unrelated funding that has nothing to do with reopening schools,” Scott contended.
“Meanwhile, children are suffering, and parents are fed up. Senate Democrats should stop this charade to get money to their political cronies and stop using students and families as political pawns.”
Scott takes issue with claims from the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that schools can’t reopen without fresh stimulus money to pay for the process. A “fact check” from the NRSC contends that only $4 billion of $68 billion allocated for schools has been spent, and that the proposal from the Biden White House would largely go to fiscal out-years to 2028.
The NRSC release seemed timed as deliberate counter-programming to a release earlier Monday afternoon from the Democratic equivalent to the NRSC, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
That release spotlighted reporting from The Hill that ongoing tensions between former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have created problems for Scott, who reportedly is trying to broker a peace between the two.
“Scott’s brief tenure as NRSC chair is already plagued by battleground retirements and emerging primary headaches, and it will get worse as these Republican factions begin to go to war with each other in the coming months,” DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss said.
