Ridiculous. Outrageous.
Those are two of the words that Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey is using to describe the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package that Congress is considering.
The bill containts billions of dollars in funding for the arts, the environment, and African-American farmers. Those are just some of the provisions in President Biden's COVID relief bill that Republicans are challenging.
Toomey told KDKA Radio's Marty Griffin that the earmarks and spending on the arts proposed in this package just don't add up to COVID relief.
"It goes on and on like this indefinite. $135 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. $135 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities. What does that have to do with COVID? What does that have to do with the recovery?," exclaimed Toomey.
Toomey says if this bill passes, it'll take the country into $30 trillion dollars in debt.
Toomey is voting no. He calls the spending bill "ridiculous" and says it's basically a liberal wish list for the Democratic agenda.
One provision he takes issue with is $4 Billion dollars for "socially disadvantaged" farmers and ranchers.
"You know what you need to do to qualify for that? You don't have to be poor. You don't have to have had any adverse impact from COVID. All you have to do is be a member of a handful of ethnic minority groups. But if you're a poor white farmer, you get nothing," said Toomey
He calls the provision racist.
The bill also includes $270 million dollars for the National Endowment of the Arts and another $50 million for so-called environmental justice grants that Toomey says have nothing to do with COVID.
Toomey says "This is the last train leaving the station that the Democrats can plausibly pretend is about COVID or the economic recovery and so they're loading it up with a long-standing liveral wish list of items that have nothing to do with combatting the pandemic."
Toomey says the best way to stimulate the economy is to reopen schools and end lockdowns.