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New ad dings Toomey on
PA DEMS HIT TOOMEY IN NEW WEB AD OBER CARES ACT AID TO BIG BUSINESS OPINION
BY JOHN L. MICEK- FOR THE PITTSURGH CURRENT INFO@PITTSBURGH CURRENT.COM
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14 | MAY 5, 2020 | PITTSBURGH CURRENT Act. They include airline, oil and cruise line execs. "Pat Toomey is letting mil- lionaires get away with using taxpayer funded bailout funds to write themselves big checks,” Beth Melena, a spokesperson for the state party said in an email. “Pat Toomey’s looking out for millionaires and billion- aires because he only works for the rich and powerful. When will Pat Toomey start working for us?”
Here’s the part where we get to the nuance.
In an email, Toomey’s spokes- man, Steve Kelly, accused Dems of faulty fact-checking, noting that the oversight panel’s purview doesn’t include small businesses, pointing to reporting by The Hill, a publication that covers Congress. *”Lawmakers established P ennsylvania Dems are out with a new digital spot hitting U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., over an emerging dispute over how to hold the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Depart- ment accountable as it doles out billions of dollars in loan money authorized by the CARES Act.
As Politico reports, the “fault lines” in the congressional panel charged with exercising over- sight on the lending pit Toomey, a former Wall Streeter, against Bharat Ramamurti, a former staffer for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., whose hostil- ity to Big Money is well-estab- lished.
According to Politico, Rama- murti believes the Fed should restrict stock buybacks and executive bonuses for large corporations that are the benefi- ciaries of taxpayer largesse. He also believes that midsize firms should face conditions that include limitations on corporate outsourcing, Politico reports.
Not so for Toomey, who was tapped by noted Sith Lord Mitch McConnell, for the over- sight panel.
“The Fed’s role is to comply with the statute,” Toomey said, according to Politico. “If Con- gress had wanted those restric- tions to be in place, it would’ve been in the statute.”
As you might expect, Pa. Dems pounced on Toomey’s comments like the guy in “Oliver!” bellowing “Moooor- reee??? You wanntttt moor- reee!!???”
A 60-second YouTube spot shows the unseen hand of cor- porate America penning thank you notes to Toomey for the loans authorized by the CARES
the five-person congressional oversight commission as part of their deal on the massive $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief pack- age passed by Congress late last month,” The Hill reported. “The panel is charged with monitor- ing the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve’s handling of the $500 billion in aid to impacted industries like airlines included in the bill.”
And while he acknowledged that Toomey wanted to offer loans to the airline industry, Kelly pointed to a Washington Post story which shows Demo- crats wanted to offer grants to the industry.
“It didn’t end up in the place I thought was ideal,” Toomey said, according to the Post, add- ing that the assistance offered to a variety of industries “will do a tremendous amount of good.”
While it’s far from perfect, the Senate version of the CARES Act did include, as NPR re- ports, $560 billion in assistance to individuals, including those direct cash payments of as much as $2,900.
Aid to small business in the Senate package was nearly equaled by assistance to large corporations at $500 billion. And as a member of the major- ity party in the Senate, Toomey was in a position at the time to shift that balance. As we know, that ended up not happening in the bill, which sailed through the majority Democrat House before landing on President Donald Trump’s desk.
