President Donald Trump is "willing to consider additional funding" for state and local government if schools reopen this fall, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Monday.
"The president has said that he's willing to consider additional aid in order to help reopen the schools," Kudlow told Fox Business Network.
"The big picture is, why not?" Kudlow told Fox News' "America's Newsroom," adding that "it will be much more difficult on the economic impact" to the country if schools stay closed out of fear of spreading coronavirus.
In March, the CARES Act allocated $13.5 billion for K-12 education, but advocates say administrators will need far more money to open schools safely this fall.
"If we go through the masking, if we go through the good hygiene practices, if we go through the distancing practices and will go through the testing practices, we are testing 750,000 per day testing, that's quite remarkable," said Kudlow on "America's Newsroom." "We are a long way from where we were last winter so I think schools can plan this out. Those are the fundamentals, the four fundamentals on the health story and that will mitigate these hot spots."
"If we don't reopen the schools, that would be a setback to a true economic recovery," Kudlow told Varney. "Let's use some American ingenuity and common sense to get the schools open."
However, just last week, Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from districts that stay closed this fall, pointing out that schools in Germany, Denmark, and other countries are open without having any problems.
Kudlow also insisted on Fox News that the administration's promise of a "V-shaped" economic recovery is a "story that's still in place," despite reports that the economic recovery that had taken place in recent weeks could be fizzling.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that the economic recovery will be much more traditional, noting that it took almost 10 years for unemployment to return to where it was after the 2007 recession.
"Whether it's consumer confidence or retailing or housing, and we are scouring everything imaginable. I don't see an interruption to the V-shaped recovery and at the moment, what with our fingers crossed I think we are on track for a very strong second half of the year," Kudlow said.
"We created 8 million jobs in May and June, and the key point here is returning to work," said Kudlow. "Temporary layoffs and furloughs are now giving way back to a trend of returning to work."
He added that the coronavirus fatality rate "remains very low and flat" and even though hospitalization has gone up in "some states," "it doesn't yet seem to be translating into another downturn."