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Congressman Rose: We must step up for law and order

September 8, 2020

U.S. Rep. John Rose, Republican representing Tennessee's 6th Congressional District, held a virtual town hall meeting Tuesday, Sept. 1 to answer questions on the economy and the pandemic.

Rose, from Cookeville, replaced Diane Black following her exit from Congress in 2018 to run for governor.

Rose initially addressed the nation's debt, a figure he cites as $27 trillion, expressed the urgency for law and order and called for a return to school and opening the economy in relation to the pandemic.

"Thorough the history of this country, we've enjoyed an appreciation among the populist for the rule of law," Rose said.

"I fear that we are losing our grip on our whole rule of law," he said. "We have seen, unfortunately, many of our major cities descend into violence. We cannot tolerate that."

Rose differentiated peaceful protests as a hallmark of American freedom and violent protests that intrude on the rights and property of public and business.

"We need to step up to the plate and make sure we have law and order," Rose said, expressing support of police, first responders and the criminal justice system.

Addressing the coronavirus pandemic, which he intermittently termed the "virus from Wuhan, China," Rose called for moving forward and getting back to work.

"Never before have we shut down the country intentionally. Thankfully, as we moved into February and March of this year, we had the strongest economy in history and the lowest unemployment rate in my lifetime," he said.

Rose stressed optimism concerning the pandemic, assuring that the "we have learned that coronavirus affects certain members of the population more than others. If you're under 40, largely, you are going to have the advantage that you are not going to have an adverse effect if you are infected with the virus," Rose said.

For those over 40, Rose said, especially those with preexisting conditions "may have a far different experience."

Rose concluded that it is time for America to get back to work and get our children back in school.

"We can't afford to do again what we've done this year (shutting down schools). We have to find other ways to respond to pandemics that we know came to us from Wuhan, China earlier this year," Rose said.

"We know that keeping (students) out of school has done them a lot of harm. I'm a strong advocate for local school control. We see that working in Tennessee," Rose said.

Rose anticipates, moving forward, school systems will learn from one another and find best practices.

As for the economy, Rose observed a wide-ranging effect on businesses across the district.

"In a very real sense it has been a season of feast or famine in businesses across Tennessee and across the nation. Some businesses have enjoyed the best year they've ever experienced. On the other hand, we've had some businesses that have been completely shut down and have not yet been allowed to reopen and frankly don't have any visibility of when they will be allowed to reopen," he said.

"I'm a strong believer that any additional aid we provide should be very targeted at the businesses most adversely affected," he said.

Rose called the response to the Coronavirus, largely a success. The goal, he said, from the onset was to flatten the curve so that the health care system would not become overrun.

"Without a vaccine, we stood no chance of stopping the spread of the coronavirus, but we did have the opportunity to reduce the speed of that spread as to not overwhelm our healthcare system," Rose said.

"By that measure, we have been very successful. For the most part, we have slowed the spread," he said noting virtually no health systems have become overwhelmed treating COVID-19 cases.

He again contrasted the adverse reaction people under 40 that contract coronavirus to other diseases, calling the risks are "very minimal."

Rose called for balancing the risks of infection to the damages caused by shutting down schools and the economy. The focus should be on providing care to those with preexisting conditions.

Answering questions concerning working with a Democratic majority in Congress and the outcome in the upcoming election, Rose hopes for a favorable outcome for his party, while criticizing some of the Democrat's agendas.

As a Republican minority in the House, he called the 116th Congress a much wasted session, that "has not solved many of the nation's problems" under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"Much of last year, the house leadership was completely focused on pursuing the president, hoping to undo the results of the 2016 election," he said.

He criticized Democratic leadership for introducing mainly partisan legislation with little chance of passing a Republican-held Senate.

Rose explained that he came to Congress with a pragmatic sense of negotiation.

"I came to realize that if every side gets what they want, then it's probably not a fair … reasonable deal. Both sides should feel they've gotten some of what they wanted, but not all of what they wanted," Rose.