Western Pa. lawmakers split on relief package

Where Rep. Guy Reschenthaler sees “progressive payoffs,” Rep. Conor Lamb sees a chance to “deliver vaccines quicker.”

The $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill passed by the U.S. House early Saturday sparked no unanimity among Western Pennsylvania’s elected officials, whose reactions largely followed party-line divides.

Provisions in the bill, which now moves to the Senate for consideration, include about $248 million for transit agencies in the Pittsburgh region and $35 million for Pittsburgh International Airport. That money would help shore up budget deficits as people curtailed travel during the pandemic.

The legislation also includes $355 million for the City of Pittsburgh and $383 million for Allegheny County, according to a spreadsheet circulated by the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Plus, nearly $130 billion of the $1.9 trillion bill would be set aside for schools, according to the House Committee on Education and Labor, of which Pennsylvania would receive $4.7 billion. Pittsburgh Public Schools

would receive close to $130 million of the state’s share.

“This is an incredibly important step for Pittsburgh, and is just the type of COVID-19 relief a bipartisan coalition of mayors from across America [has] been calling for,” said Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, in a statement Saturday. “Now we need the Senate to adopt the plan — and quickly.”

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, also a Democrat, voiced similar enthusiasm.

The measure “provides relief not only for government like the county and all the municipalities that have had shortfalls because of the pandemic, but a lot of relief for people,” he said. “That’s really the heart of it, I think — to help people get through this crisis.”

Also key is the bill’s support for education, public safety, public works, the airport and Port Authority, Mr. Fitzgerald said.

“The airport is a huge part of our economic growth strategy in growing companies and businesses in this region,” he said, while Port Authority “is such a vital part of our overall economy — for businesses, for individuals, for people being able to get themselves to their jobs.” On the other side, Mr. Reschenthaler, R-Peters, panned the relief legislation as having “little to do with the ongoing pandemic.” The “most expensive single bill in history” would put just 9% of its price tag toward defeating COVID-19, he argued in a statement. Much of the money would go toward “corrupt payoffs to progressive special interests” such as Planned Parenthood and “bailouts to blue-state governors who crushed small businesses with their draconian shutdowns,” said Reschenthaler, who voted against the bill. “President Biden and Congressional Democrats had a chance to make good on their calls for ‘unity,’ ” he said in the statement. “They could have worked with Republicans on a targeted bill that sends money where it is truly needed and effectively spends the $1 trillion in remaining funds from previous bills. Instead, they are using this pandemic as a pretext to force through a corrupt bill filled with progressive payoffs.” Another opponent of the bill, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, shared similar complaints. “No amount of deficit spending will heal an economy that remains locked down,” he said in a statement. “Congress’ top priorities must be to get Americans back to work, our kids back to school, more efficient vaccine distribution and a return to fiscal sanity so we can get our country back on a path to prosperity,” Mr. Kelly said. Mr. Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon, who voted for the legislation, cheered its scope. He said the bill would provide “wartime-level funding to help end” the pandemic. “To honor the 500,000 Americans who have lost lives, we must fight this virus to the finish, and the size and scope of this bill will allow us to do that,” Mr. Lamb said in a statement. Money in the bill would “deliver vaccines quicker, make schools safer and better support the unemployed.” “It will help the millions more who have lost hours at work due to the pandemic, and will protect people’s jobs, especially those who work for airlines and the public sector,” he added. Millions of worried Americans “deserve to see their government act with the urgency demanded by this deadly disease.” Pennsylvania’s U.S. senators also split over the bill.

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Scranton, called on his colleagues to pass it.

“We need the plan for a lot of reasons, but here are the big three steps it takes for the American people: direct payments for families, nutrition assistance to vulnerable children and funds to help our kids get back to school,” he said in a statement. “The plan has broad, bipartisan support among the American people. The Senate must deliver for them.”

But Sen. Pat Toomey, a Lehigh County Republican, has argued the legislation would foster more harm than help for the economy. In a committee hearing Thursday, he called the bill “poorly targeted,” “completely partisan” and “divorced from economic reality.”

“Rather than trying to ram through a partisan, bloated and unnecessary spending bill, Democrats should focus on lifting government shutdown orders and restrictions, reopening our schools and distributing vaccines so that small businesses and their workers can thrive again,” Mr. Toomey said.