The 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania is one of the poorest districts in the United States. Thirty percent of the households in the district take home less than $35,000, and 13.2% of the district’s children live in poverty.
I have lived in this area my entire life, and its struggles are on display in almost any community. The ruins of industries long gone remind us of what once was our prosperous region.
Despite the apparent need for economic help in PA-15, our congressman, Rep. Glenn Thompson of Centre County, voted in favor of the “Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023,” which would thrust thousands off of programs designed to help the poorest of Americans.
For instance, the act takes deep cuts to WIC, a program that provides food aid to needy women infants and children. WIC only accounts for 0.1% of the federal budget, and serves a vital need in our community, so why put it on the chopping block? Furthermore, why is GT voting in line with Rep. Nick LaLota of New York’s 1st Congressional District, where the average person makes more than double that of PA-15, and where their childhood poverty rate is half of PA-15?
This is the logical conclusion of hyperpartisan politics; congresspeople are more loyal to their party than the constituents whom they were sent to Washington to serve. In the words of the late John P. Murtha, a former congressman (D-Johnstown), bringing federal dollars to central Pennsylvania was, “the whole goddamn reason I went to Washington.” As a community suffering from industrial decline, we cannot afford to have programs keeping our poor, children and elderly afloat ripped out from under us in the same way high-paying manufacturing jobs were pulled from us under NAFTA and the WTO.
Time and time again when this nation faces economic struggles, it turns not toward the most prosperous to tighten the belt, it turns towards our nation’s poor. The last time this occurred was in 1996 when Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The act eliminated welfare for millions of needy recipients and increased the gap massively between welfare recipients in urban areas and rural areas, with the latter receiving far less federal aid than the former.
Murtha would be an anomaly today — a pro-gun, pro-life, pro-union, pro-working-class Democrat. Murtha voted against the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and he would have voted against the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023. Precisely because those kinds of Democrats do not run for office anymore, rural voters are often left to make a Sophie’s Choice between strongly held convictions on social issues and the federal aid our communities need to survive.
What we have seen is most voters will choose a politician that plays to their heart, regardless of what they do to your wallet.
(Zack Womer, of Philipsburg, is a 2023 graduate of Denison University in Ohio with a degree in psychology and he will attend Penn State University Law School.)
