Senator Tim Scott: ‘The Left Is Trying To Sell A Drug Of Victimhood And A Narcotic Of Despair’ | Eastern North Carolina Now

    So I had the opportunity to help write that specific legislation. And we've lowered their taxes for a single mom by 70 percent. We promised to put more than $4,000 back in the average family's pocket, we ended up around $4,400.

    We were able to lower unemployment for African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians to the lowest level in the history of the country and the lowest level since World War II for women.

    We actually saw more money come to the Treasury with lower taxes than anyone imagined and at the exact same time, wages grew at the bottom faster than at the top.

    I created opportunity zones, my signature legislation, that has seen more than $50 billion attack poverty in the hardest hit areas of the country.

    At the same time I focused on education, I started the School Choice Caucus. We led to the highest level of funding for HBCUs In the history of the country and then we made it permanent.


    I led on the vast majority of those pieces of legislation, I've worked on police reform where we want to make sure that the best wore the badge, that the officers have the best resources, the best training, and we never questioned their qualified immunity.

    We had to stand in the gap when it matters the most - that means leading from the front and not from the back.

    BREAM: I want to make sure quickly if we can because I want to couple's - to a couple of these issues.

    SCOTT: Yes, ma'am.

    BREAM: School choice. Lisa Lightner, a special education advocate, said what you do is end up hurting public schools when you let parents take the money elsewhere. She says the vision is that the same amount of money spread out over more schools, only the best would survive. If a public school has to compete with the charter or private school, it will find a way to become better.

    But she asked, how can they improve if you take even more money from them? It's just not possible.

    Your response?

    SCOTT: So, let's look at Success Academy in New York City where you see the populations are about 87 percent minority and yet their schools are the top in the state of New York. What we've seen very consistently, charter schools gets about half the money as public schools, yet there are public charter schools that provide choice for the parents and better quality education.

    Out of the top 25 percent of high schools in the nation, more than - about 12 or about half of those are charter schools. So what we're seeing around the country is a success of some form of school choice.

    And, by the way, I don't care whether it's a public school, a private school, a charter school, a STEM school, a home school, a virtual school, I want every child in every zip code to have quality education. That should improve all aspects of education, not reduce funding.

    BREAM: So, I asked Ambassador Haley about this last week, that this article that says the GOP - essentially U.N. Ambassador Haley give GOP cover on message of grace. It says, Scott's message is that racism is not an institutional or systemic problem, but an individual failing. That's precisely what conservatives want to hear so they can say, well, I'm not a racist, which means we don't have to do much of anything about racism.

    SCOTT: The only word I can think of is hogwash. The fact of the matter is I was Austin on Friday having a conversation with several hundred GOPers and we talked specifically about how the Jim Crow South impacted my family specifically.


    My grandfather made the choice to be stubborn in his faith, his faith in the future, faith in himself and faith in this nation. But we had to overcome those challenges.

    What I don't like is when we hear President Biden talk about Jim Crow 2.0 when my family lived through Jim Crow, and that's when you had to figure out the number of jellybeans in the jar in order to cast a ballot. To suggest that the current Georgia election laws are consistent with Jim Crow is just a lie.

    And so, what we have to do is make sure that we arm our people today with the challenges of today and not pretend like we're living in 1923 as opposed to 2023.

    BREAM: All right. So, we have to go, Senator, but do you have a timeline for making an announcement or decision?

    SCOTT: Well, I'm going to - I made a decision to go to church at 11:30 today.

    BREAM: I will be following you there after the show as well.

    When you decide about your political future -

    SCOTT: Amen.

    BREAM: - please let us know.

    SCOTT: Yes, ma'am. Have a great day.

    BREAM: Senator, thank you.