WILKES-BARRE — U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright on Thursday said the American Rescue Plan delivers on the promise made to the American people to get shots in arms, money in pockets, children in schools and people in jobs.
“After a year of pain, loss and hardship brought on by this pandemic, this is the long-overdue, comprehensive national plan for beating this virus and getting our economy moving again,” said Cartwright, D-Moosic.
Cartwright said the American Rescue Plan is strongly supported by a large majority of the American people — including 59 percent of Republicans — bipartisan state and local leaders, national education groups, trade unions and advocacy organizations and hundreds of businesses and chambers of commerce.
Cartwright said economists agree that the American Rescue Plan’s targeted, evidence-based action is needed — both for struggling families and for the American economy. He said the legislation’s provisions will generate $1.25 for every $1 of spending, will cut child poverty in half and will lift nearly 12 million people out of poverty.
U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Dallas, said over the past year, Congress passed five bipartisan and targeted relief bills totaling $3.7 trillion to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said these packages have succeeded in supporting the economy through the worst of the pandemic crisis.
“Now, Democrat leadership wants to spend another $2 trillion on an excessive spending bill that directs just 1% towards vaccines and provides far beyond what is needed to fuel our continued recovery,” Meuser said. “States will receive $350 billion, on top of the $500 billion already allocated, despite the fact that in many states, revenue is actually up.”
Meuser added that significantly supplemented unemployment compensation will be extended through September, even as businesses need employees to return to the workforce and fill open positions.
“Felons, including currently incarcerated murderers, will receive a stimulus check paid for by the taxpayers,” Meuser said. “Federal workers will receive up to $35 an hour, in addition to their full salary, to care for a child learning from home.
“When we should be focused on economic recovery, getting our children back to school, and vaccine distribution, Democrats passed legislation that caters to special interests, while also enormously expanding our national debt and the role of the federal government in our lives.”
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, said now that Biden has signed the American Rescue Plan, the country is one step closer to putting the virus behind us.
“This historic legislation will put more money in the pockets of working families, help our children return to school safely and ensure everyone who wants to can be vaccinated,” Casey said.
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, called it “the Democrats’ partisan, wasteful $1.9 trillion spending bill.”
“Last year, Congress passed, with overwhelmingly bipartisan support, five bills that provided almost $4 trillion in response to COVID,” Toomey said. “This year, President Biden and congressional Democrats refused to work with Republicans and instead rammed through a wasteful $1.9 trillion bill on a strictly partisan vote.”
Toomey said this bill is not about responding to COVID — he said it’s about exploiting the final stretch of a public health crisis in order to enact a longstanding liberal wish-list for years into the future.
“Only a fraction of the funds in this bill can even be spent this year,” Toomey said.
Toomey listed what he called is “a sample of indefensible items” in the bill:
• Making Obamacare subsidies available to people with six figure incomes,
• Sending $350 billion to blue states and cities, despite their record high revenue collections in 2020 and $500 billion sent to them last year,
• Sending payments to farmers and ranchers equal to 120 percent of their borrowings, irrespective of their earnings, wealth, or affects from COVID, and exclusively for ethnic minorities or immigrants,
• Sending $1,400 stimulus checks to violent incarcerated criminals,
• Paying federal employees to stay home for another 15 weeks, even after many of them have been working from home for the past year, and
• Funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to the arts, humanities, and ‘environmental justice.’
“None of this is COVID-related, yet it is all in this spending monstrosity,” Toomey said. “At the same time, this bill fails to address the biggest problem facing Americans — fully reopening businesses and getting kids back to school as quickly as possible.”