Toomey and the stimulus bill

To Senator Toomey: I read your email yesterday in which you described the “Democrat” Stimulus Bill (incidentally, passed by both houses of Congress) as a waste of taxpayer dollars. Your misrepresentation of the bill is misleading and highly partisan.

• Perhaps some “incarcerated felons” (citizens, by the way) who will receive stimulus checks. A vast larger number of hard-hit American families will benefit from these payments. This is simply a scare tactic.

• Your “lack of bipartisan support” refers to the

Republican refusal to negotiate in good faith on this bill. Democrats actually made several compromises.

• You state that a great deal of money is being sent to “blue states”. Don’t those people deserve relief? Are you suggesting that people in Democratic areas are not Americans, and should be deprived of benefits? Political grandstanding on your part.

• You criticize spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” to the arts, humanities, and ‘environmental justice.’ This is a small proportion of a 2 trillion-dollar bill; the arts are important, poorly funded, and employ significant number of people. And your apparent contempt for “environmental justice” is completely outrageous and ignorant.

• Finally, all these expenditures are actually directly related to Covid and the dire financial situation deriving from it (much of which could have been mitigated by constructive action by President Trump).

You are not representing we, the people, but are furthering the agenda of corporate America and right-wing ideologues.

Shame on you.