Spano Surveys Constituents About China's Involvement In Pandemic

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FL — Republican U.S. Rep. Ross Spano has launched a survey asking constituents their thoughts on holding China accountable for the coronavirus pandemic.

The congressman from Riverview who represents House District 15, which include parts of Hillsborough and Polk counties, is calling for an investigation into China's role in the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

"As our district and nation continues to cope with the health and economic impact of COVID-19, the calls to push China for answers regarding the pandemic are growing louder," he said. "All the scientific evidence points to China as the source country of this virus and our own intelligence community suspects that the Chinese government intentionally withheld vital health information from the international community. We deserve the truth."

Spano has distributed the survey to constituents throughout his district, which has a population of 762,822 people, asking for their thoughts on China's involvement.

The online questionnaire asks if constituents agreed with Spano that Congress should hold China accountable for the coronavirus; if they believe the Chinese government intentionally hid information; and how concerned they are with the national debt.

Spano said he's concerned about how the country will recover from the economic impact of the coronavirus.

On Wednesday, commented after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled an 1,800-page bill titled the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act. The bill, which is expected to be up for vote Friday, calls for $3 trillion dollars of new spending as a result of the coronavirus.

While Spano said he's supportive of small businesses and individuals who have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus, he said he's concerned that the Democrats' proposed bill will hurt fiscally responsible cities and states.

“The mindset of ‘never letting a crisis go to waste’ is absolutely despicable and not a way to govern. Speaker Pelosi presented a bill which she knows has zero chance of becoming law. Instead of wasting time on political brinkmanship, the speaker should call the House back into session and let us get to work.” said Spano. “Congress and the Trump Administration have offered historic aid to help Americans, small businesses and support the true heroes in the fight against COVID-19, our frontline workers. Using a public health emergency as an excuse to fulfill Democrats' ideological wishlist is simply inexcusable.”

Describing it as the fifth coronavirus relief package, Pelosi and House Democrats released the bill known as the Heroes Act Tuesday afternoon. The legislation includes $875 billion in coronavirus relief for states and cities and $20 billion each for tribal nations and for U.S. territories.

"We must think big for the people now because if we don’t it will cost more in lives and livelihood later," Pelosi said in introducing the bill. "Not acting is the most expensive course. We are presenting a plan to do what is necessary to deal with the corona-crisis and make sure we can get the country back to work and school safely."

Spano believes the bill calls for $1 trillion "to bailout cities and states that have been fiscally irresponsible and have mismanaged taxpayers’ dollars."

“There is no reason why Floridians should have to bailout poorly managed cities like Detroit or states like California,” said Spano.

He said there are items in the bill that have no direct connection to the coronavirus pandemic including bailing out the U.S. Postal Service's "mismanaged pension plan, giving Payroll Protection Program loans to registered lobbyists and their clients and changing election laws.