West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) said Monday that “we needed to go big” in the federal COVID-19 relief bill in order to get over “the steepest part of the mountain.”
The West Virginia governor told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that his experience in business showed him that “generally” people “undershoot” the cost of getting past the hardest point of a crisis.
“The steepest part of the mountain is always at the very top, and most people slide back down,” he said. “But really from my standpoint, we needed to go big. Now, going big doesn’t mean we do all these projects or bail out pension plans and all that kind of stuff.”
“Too many people are still hurting, and if we undershoot, we’re not going to get across the top of the mountain,” Justice said. “If we overshoot and waste a few dollars, well we just waste a few dollars. But we’ve got our economy going. We’ve helped our people and everything.”
Justice’s position on COVID-19 relief strays from other Republicans who worry that high-cost relief bills would spend too much government money.
President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan last week after the package eventually passed both chambers of Congress. No Republicans in the House and Senate voted in favor of the relief package.
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