On Friday the Fern Hollow Bridge collapsed in Pittsburgh, PA, injuring ten people, four of them badly enough to be taken to the hospital. Fortuitously, President Biden was scheduled to speak in Pittsburgh in order to promote the 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill he has already signed into law. Making the best of the situation, Biden discussed this in his speech, observing that the Fern Hollow Bridge had been deemed unsafe more than 10 years ago, that there are hundreds of other crumbling bridges in the Pittsburgh area, and that the infrastructure bill will send $327 million to the Pittsburgh area. "We're going to fix them all. Not a joke, this is going to be a gigantic change,"
The bill passed with bipartisan support in August. I was curious if any congressmen in Pennsylvania had voted against it, and sure enough, there were quite a few republicans who were happy to vote against a bill that would fix the crumbling infrastructure in the U.S., particularly in the state they represent. Here are the ones that voted against it:
Senator Pat Toomey
John Joyce PA-13
Fred Keller PA-12
Mike Kelly PA-16
Dan Meuser PA-09
Scott Perry PA-10
Guy Reschenthaler PA-14
Lloyd K. Smucker PA-11
Glenn “GT” Thompson PA-15
I don’t know much about these Pennsylvania congressmen. Except Pat Toomey (who represents all of Pennsylvania), who is not running for re-election in 2022 and will retire from politics, dismissed the bill as “too expensive, too expansive, and to unpaid for.” Cute. Fortunately the bridge didn’t collapse about a half hour later because then it would have been in the middle of rush hour and more than likely some commuters would have been killed.