Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) provided the GOP rebuttal to President Joe Biden‘s handle to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
While Biden’s handle boasted of accomplishments made throughout his first 100 days in workplace and proclaimed that “America is on the move again,” Scott stated that the Biden administration merely inherited the accomplishments of former President Donald Trump, who he praised for placing COVID-19 “on the run.”
Scott, the solely Black Republican in the Senate, additionally accused Democrats of attempting “to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present” whereas stating that “America is not a racist country.” Scott blasted Biden’s American Jobs Plan and stated the GOP remained targeted on increasing job alternatives for all Americans.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Read the full transcript of Scott’s speech under.
Good night. I’m Senator Tim Scott from the nice state of South Carolina. We simply heard President Biden’s first handle to Congress. Our president looks as if a very good man. His speech was full of good phrases, however President Biden promised you a particular variety of management. He promised to unite a nation, to decrease the temperature, to govern for all Americans regardless of how we voted. This was a pitch, you simply heard it once more, however our nation is ravenous for greater than empty platitudes. We want insurance policies and progress that brings us nearer collectively. But three months in, the actions of the president and his celebration are pulling us additional and additional aside.
I will not waste your time with finger pointing or partisan bickering. You can get that on TV any time you need. I would like to have an sincere dialog. A typical sense and customary floor about this sense that our nation is sliding off his shared basis and the way we transfer ahead collectively. Growing up I by no means dreamed I might be standing right here tonight. When I used to be a child my dad and mom divorced, my mom and my brother and I moved in with my grandparents. Three of us sharing one bed room. I used to be disillusioned and offended, and I practically failed out of college, however I used to be blessed. First, with a praying mother. And let me say this to the single moms on the market, who’re working their tails off working arduous attempting to make the ends meet, questioning if it is price it: you guess it’s. God bless your superb effort on coronary heart of your children. I used to be additionally blessed by a Chick-fil-A operator, John Moniz. And lastly, with a string of alternatives which are solely attainable right here in America.
This previous yr, I’ve watched COVID assault each rung of the ladder that helped me up. So many households have misplaced dad and mom and grandparents too early. So many small companies have gone underneath. Becoming a Christian reworked my life, however for months too many church buildings have been shut down. Most of all, I’m saddened that thousands and thousands of children have misplaced a yr of studying after they couldn’t afford to lose a single day. Locking susceptible children out of the classroom is locking adults out of their future. Our public college ought to have reopened months in the past. Other nations did. Private and spiritual colleges did. Science has proven, for months, that colleges are secure. But too usually highly effective grown-ups set science apart. And children like me have been left behind.
The clearest case I’ve seen for college alternative in our lifetimes. Because we all know training is the closest factor to magic in America. Last yr, underneath Republican management, we handed 5 bipartisan COVID packages. Congress supported our colleges, our hospitals, saved our financial system and funded Operation Warp Speed, delivering vaccines in document time. All 5 payments obtained 90 votes in the Senate. Common sense discovered frequent floor. In February, Republicans advised President Biden we wished to hold working collectively to end this struggle. But Democrats wished to go it alone. They spent virtually $2 trillion on a partisan invoice that the White House bragged was the most liberal invoice in American historical past. Only 1 p.c went to vaccinations, no requirement to reopen colleges promptly.
COVID introduced Congress collectively 5 instances. This administration pushed us aside. Another situation that ought to unite us is infrastructure. Republicans help every part you assume of while you assume of infrastructure. Roads, bridges, ports, airports, waterways, high-speed broadband– we’re in for all of that. But once more, Democrats desire a partisan want record. They will not even construct bridges to construct bridges. Less than 6 p.c of the president’s plan goes to roads and bridges. It’s a liberal want record of huge authorities waste. Plus, the greatest job-killing tax hikes in a era. Experts say, when all is alleged and accomplished, it will decrease wages of the common American employee and shrink our financial system.
Tonight, we additionally heard a few so-called household plan. Even extra taxing much more spending to put Washington much more in the center of your life, from the cradle to faculty. The magnificence of the American dream is that households get to outline it for themselves. We must be increasing alternatives and choices for all households, not throwing cash at sure points as a result of Democrats assume they know finest. Infrastructure spending that shrinks our financial system isn’t frequent sense. Weakening our Southern borders and making a disaster isn’t compassionate. The president can be abandoning ideas he is held for many years. Now he says your tax {dollars} ought to fund abortions. He’s laying groundwork to pack the Supreme Court. This isn’t frequent floor.
Nowhere do we want frequent floor, extra desperately been in our discussions of race. I’ve skilled the ache of discrimination. I do know what it looks like to be pulled over for no purpose, to be adopted round the retailer whereas I’m procuring. I bear in mind each morning at the kitchen desk, my grandfather would open the newspaper and skim it, I assumed. But later I spotted he had by no means realized to learn it, he simply wished to set the proper instance. I’ve additionally skilled a special variety of intolerance. I get referred to as Uncle Tom and the n-word by progressives by liberals. Just final week, a nationwide newspaper steered my household’s poverty was truly privilege. Because a relative owned land, generations earlier than my time. Believe me, I do know first-hand, our therapeutic isn’t completed.
In 2015, after the taking pictures of Walter Scott, I wrote a invoice to fund physique cameras. Last yr, after the deaths of Brianna Taylor and George Floyd, I constructed a fair larger police reform proposal. But my Democratic colleagues blocked it. I prolonged an olive department, I provided amendments. But Democrats used to filibuster to block the debate from even taking place. My associates throughout the aisle appear to need the situation greater than they wished an answer. But I’m nonetheless working, I’m hopeful that this can be completely different. When America comes collectively, we have made great progress. But highly effective forces need to pull us aside. 100 years in the past, children in school rooms have been taught the coloration of their pores and skin was their most vital attribute. And in the event that they regarded a sure approach inferior.
Today, children are being taught that the coloration of their pores and skin defines them once more. And in the event you look a sure approach, they’re in an oppressor. From faculties, to companies, to our tradition, individuals are earning money and gaining energy by pretending we’ve not made any progress in any respect. By doubling down on the divisions we have labored so arduous to heal. You know these things is flawed. Hear me clearly: America isn’t a racist nation. It’s backwards to struggle discrimination with differing kinds of discrimination. And it is flawed to attempt to use our painful previous to dishonestly shut down debates in the current.
I’m an African American who’s voted in the South my total life. I take voting rights personally. Republicans help making it simpler to vote and tougher to cheat and so do the voters. Big majorities of Americans help early voting and large majorities help voter ID, together with African Americans and Hispanics. Common sense makes frequent floor. But at present, this dialog has collapsed. The state of Georgia handed a regulation that expands early voting, preserves no-excuse mail-in voting and regardless of what the president claimed, didn’t scale back election day hours. If you truly learn this regulation, it is mainstream. It can be simpler to vote early in Georgia than in Democrat-run, New York. But the left would not need you to know that. They need folks advantage signaling by yelling a few regulation they have not even learn. Fact checkers have referred to as out the White House for misstatements. The president absurdly claims that that is worse than Jim Crow.
What is occurring right here? I’ll inform you: a Washington energy seize. This misplaced outrage is meant to justify Democrats’ new sweeping invoice that may take over elections for all 50 states. It would ship public funds to political campaigns you disagree with and make the bipartisan Federal Elections Commission partisan. This isn’t about civil rights or our racial previous, it is about rigging elections in the future. And no, the identical filibuster that President Obama and President Biden reward after they have been Senators, the identical filibuster that the Democrats used to kill my police reform invoice final yr, has not instantly change into a racist relic simply because the shoe is now on the different foot. Race isn’t a political weapon to settle each situation the approach one facet desires. It’s far too vital.
This must be a joyful springtime for our nation. This administration inherited a tide had already turned. The coronavirus is on the run thanks to Operation Warp Speed and the Trump administration our nation is flooded with secure and efficient vaccines. Thanks to our bipartisan work final yr, job openings are rebounding. So why will we really feel so divided, anxious? A nation with a lot trigger for hope mustn’t really feel so heavy laden A president who promised to deliver us collectively shouldn’t be pushing agendas that tear us aside. The American household deserves higher. And we all know what higher seems like. Just earlier than COVID, we had the most inclusive financial system in my lifetime. The lowest unemployment price ever recorded for African Americans, Hispanics and Asians. And a 70-year low, practically, for ladies. Wages have been rising quicker at the backside than at the high. The backside 25 p.c noticed their wages go up quicker than the high 25 p.c.
That occurred as a result of Republicans concentrate on increasing alternative for all Americans. In addition to that, we handed alternative zones, prison justice reform and everlasting funding for traditionally Black faculties and universities for the first time ever. We fought the drug epidemic, rebuilt our army and reduce taxes for working households and single mothers like the one which raised me. Our finest future won’t come from Washington schemes or socialist desires. It will come from you: the American folks. Black, Hispanic, white and Asian, Republican and Democrat, courageous law enforcement officials and black neighborhoods. We aren’t adversaries, we’re household. We are all on this collectively and we get to stay in the best nation on Earth. The nation the place my grandfather in his 94 years noticed his household go from cotton to Congress in a single lifetime.
So, I’m greater than hopeful, I’m assured that our most interesting hour is but to come. Original sin is rarely the finish of the story. Not in our souls and never for our nation. The actual story is all the time redemption. I’m standing right here as a result of my mother has prayed me by some actually robust instances. I consider our nation has succeeded the identical approach. Because generations of Americans in their very own methods have requested for grace and God has equipped it. So, I’ll shut with a phrase from a worship music that basically helped me by this previous yr of COVID. The music is new, however the phrases draw from Scripture. May the Lord bless you and hold you, make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May his presence go earlier than you and behind you, and beside you, in your weeping and your rejoicing. He is for you. May his favor be upon our nation for a thousand generations and your loved ones and your youngsters and their youngsters. Good evening and God bless the United States of America.
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