Scott Reaffirms Stance on No Bail Outs for Blue States

Florida Senator Rick Scott (R) took to the Senate floor this week to share his thoughts as to why he believes that lawmakers should reject any proposal “to bail out wasteful states, like New York and California, that want to use taxpayer money intended for coronavirus response to backfill their poorly-managed budgets and pension plans.”

The former Governor of Florida has spent the better part of 2020 explaining why said proposals should be rejected, and on the Senate floor he provided a reaffirmation of his views, saying that lawmakers must respond to “the out of control spending that is threatening the future of our children and grandchildren.”

Expressing that “every dime spent in Washington belongs to American taxpayers, and every dollar spent now is a tax increase for a future generation,” the Florida lawmaker slammed “career politicians” for prioritizing their next reelection efforts.

Scott asserted his support for “another relief measure,” detailing that “for months, Senate Republicans have been trying to pass responsible, targeted measures to quickly help those in need and for months Democrats have blocked these measures because of politics.”

Finally, Scott launched verbal jabs at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D), who has received criticism from Republicans who argue that she has put politics above the American people. In short, Senator Scott commented that Pelosi "purposefully stood in the way of a deal until after the presidential election so that politics would be in their favor to... 'avoid considerations in the legislation that we don't want'"

Earlier this year. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to reiterate that Republicans would not be supporting any kind of Blue State bailouts.

“I said yesterday we’re going to push the pause button here, because I think this whole business of additional assistance for state and local governments needs to be thoroughly evaluated," said Leader McConnell. "You raised yourself the important issue of what states have done, many of them have done to themselves with their pension programs. There’s not going to be any desire on the Republican side to bail out state pensions by borrowing money from future generations.”