General Discussion

We have major issues right here with the things we're voting on today in the Congress, again, in terms of the rescission that the president and the Senate have sent back over us to cut all of these resources out of helping poor people throughout the world to be -- America play its leadership role in soft power to keep us safe and to keep us healthy, so that we -- viruses know no boundary.

PELOSI: No, I think they're both distractions.

I think they're both -- I don't think she's going to Alcatraz -- I think she's planned to do that. But I think that they're both off the subject of what is happening, changing the character and the culture of America by undermining, by placing huge trillions of dollars of national debt on -- for future generations to carry forward, at the expense of the health, nutrition, education of the American people.

And I will just make this further point. Nothing brings more money to the treasury than the education of the American people, whether it's early childhood K-12, higher education, post-grad, lifetime learning for our workers. Nothing brings more money.

And yet they and their friends in the court are undermining public education in our country. So we're talking about judgment. We're talking about no vision, no values. And, again, with some of the things they're doing, it's not the price only. It's the money. It's the money that they're using for frivolous ideas like the Alcatraz idea.

And, again, it's important. It's important to me. It's in my district. But it's not urgent, the way it is urgent for us to cut the -- to get rid of the cuts that they have made in our budget that meet the needs of the American people.