Effective Date

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALMER. Mr. Speaker, millions of American school children will soon have missed a year of in-person instruction, and we may have inflicted permanent damage on some of them and on our country.

The educational losses are disproportionately the fault of Democratic Governors and mayors. Those are not my words but the content of an article in The New York Times.

The article goes on to say: ``The blunt fact is that it is Democrats, including those who run the West Coast, from California through Oregon to Washington State, who have presided over one of the worst blows to the education of disadvantaged Americans in history. The result: more dropouts, less literacy and numeracy, widening race gaps, and long-term harm to some of our most marginalized youth.''

The article continues: ``As many as 3 million children in the United States have missed all formal education, in-person or virtual, for almost a year.''

Democrat policies leaving schools closed have inflicted a pandemic of depression, anxiety, behavioral problems, drug abuse, and suicide among school-age children. You said this bill will get children back in school, but the funds in this bill that are education-related have nothing to do with reopening schools. It leaves them closed.

I hope parents of the children who are locked out of their schools are watching what you are doing, how you have abandoned their children in favor of your powerful political friends. I can only hope they never forget that, at the moment they needed you to step up and do the right thing, you failed them and their children.

Mr. Speaker, millions of American schoolchildren will soon have missed a year of in-person instruction, and we may have inflicted permanent damage on some of them, and on our country. The educational losses are disproportionately the fault of Democratic governors and mayors who too often let schools stay closed even as bars opened.

Those are not my words, but the content of an article in the New York Times. The Times article goes on to say, The blunt fact is that it is Democrats--including those who run the West Coast, from California through Oregon to Washington State--who have presided over one of the worst blows to the education of disadvantaged Americans in history. The result: more dropouts, less literacy and numeracy, widening race gaps, and long-term harm to some of our most marginalized youth.

It continues, The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank this month estimated that educational disruptions during this pandemic may increase the number of high school dropouts over 10 years by 3.8 percent, while also reducing the number of college-educated workers in the labor force. This will shrink the incomes of Americans for 70 years, until the last of today's students leave the work force, the bank said.

As many as three million children in the United States have missed all formal education, in-person or virtual, for almost a year.

Finally, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, ``in- person learning in schools has not been associated with substantial community transmission.'' The British Medical Journal this week put it this way in an editorial: ``Closing schools is not evidence based and harms children.'' I remind you, this is from the New York Times.

Democrat policies have inflicted a pandemic of depression, anxiety, behavioral problems, drug abuse, and suicide among school-age children. Democrats, including President Biden, have said you will follow the science on school openings, but that is not what is being done. You said this bill will help get children back in school, but instead, you are bailing out the teachers' union's pension plans, building a bridge in New York, constructing an underground tunnel in Silicon Valley, bailing out incompetently run state governments, lavishing money on museums and the arts. The funds in this bill that are education-related have nothing to do with reopening schools. It leaves them closed.

I hope parents of the children who are locked out of their schools are watching what you are doing, how you have abandoned their children in favor of your powerful political friends. I can only hope they never forget that at the moment they needed you to step up and do the right thing . . . you failed them and their children.

I urge my colleagues to vote NO on this bill.

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