Reese Responds to Governor’s New Government Program

5/6/2020

HARRISBURG - Today, Rep. Mike Reese (R-Westmoreland/Somerset) issued the following statement in response to Gov. Tom Wolf’s recent announcement of a new Commonwealth Civilian Coronavirus Corps program:

“Gov. Tom Wolf is clearly out of touch with Pennsylvania’s citizenry if he believes that an additional layer of government is at all helpful at this point. I remind him that our workforce is struggling. Businesses are permanently closing, and unemployment compensation claims are months late. Families are struggling to put food on the table. As a state, we are currently facing a multi-billion-dollar revenue shortfall due to how this administration has chosen to handle this crisis. The last thing Pennsylvania needs is another government program.

“To begin his announcement, the governor explained that one in six workers is currently unemployed. That number would be considerably lower had he allowed Pennsylvania businesses to operate safely and responsibly under science-based federal guidelines, as my colleagues and I in the House urged him to do. Instead, he vetoed legislation we presented to him and he closed entire industries, which are still operating in a majority of other states.

“The list of reasons that Pennsylvanians have to become increasingly skeptical of Harrisburg’s response to COVID-19 has only increased. It began with a waiver system that allowed some businesses to resume operations but demanded identical businesses to close. These same businesses and their customers are offered no real answers when reviewing the governor’s three-phase reopening plan. Adding more bureaucracy is not only unnecessary – it’s an outrage.”

Representative Mike Reese
59th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives