Gov. Wolf urges lawmakers to use COVID money for $2,000 stimulus checks
HARRISBURG (KDKA) - Gov. Tom Wolf once again called on state lawmakers to approve his plan to give a check using unused federal COVID dollars to most Pennsylvanians.
As KDKA money editor Jon Delano reports, the Republicans, who control the state legislature, do not seem inclined to approve that idea.
Wolf says he wants to use $500 million of the $2.2 billion of unspent federal COVID relief money to give most Pennsylvanians a one-time state stimulus check.
"This is not some grand theoretical thing," Wolf said on Thursday at an event in Reading. "This is something that says, could we take some of this money and actually give it to Pennsylvanians -- $2,000?"
"If you're a household that makes $80,000 or less, you qualify for this. And it's $2,000 for what? Anything you want," said the governor.
Both former President Trump and President Biden got congressional approval for their federal stimulus checks, but so far, Wolf's state stimulus plan has had a cool reception in the Republican-controlled legislature in Harrisburg, says state Sen. Devlin Robinson, a Bridgeville Republican.
Delano: "Is the governor right that if we don't use this money, we lose it?"
Robinson: "Well, he's right that if we don't use the money, we lose it. But there's better ways to spend the money. Out here in Pittsburgh, we have bridges falling around the city. We have a lot of closures."
Robinson, who is on the Senate Appropriations Committee, says his Republican colleagues are not keen on stimulus checks, preferring to spend that money on other things like bridge work on I-79, instead of tolling the interstate.
"The sense that I'm getting is that there are just better ways to spend that money. If people are waiting for $2,000 to come into their bank account, I wouldn't have a plan to spend that money just yet," says Robinson.
He also wants to save money for future deficits.
"The problem with these stimulus checks is that it masks the inequality of the current budget," he says.
House Republican caucus spokesman Jason Gottesman says Republicans, who control the state House, are not on board with this idea, and he says they're not alone.
"There is no consensus even among Democrats on how this money should be spent," says Gottesman.
Wolf says the Republican legislature should act now to provide direct relief for families hit hard by inflation.
"I think we're all open to hear what the other side wants to do with that money. But we need it to be in the pockets of Pennsylvanians, and we need it to be in the pockets right now," says Wolf.
"Not next week. Not down the road in six months, but right now. Because right now are when those things are hitting. Right now is when the pain is being felt, and we can do this right now," adds the governor.
Of course, without Republican support, there is no state stimulus check.
But it is an election year, and it may come down to what Republican lawmakers are hearing from their constituents. As Robinson says, everything is possible in Harrisburg.