In the News

If U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright D-8, Moosic, gets reelected, he will have enough seniority to get more money to Northeast Pennsylvania.

The congressman told those who attended a “Coffee with the Congressman” evening at the Hazleton One Center on Wednesday night he will be lined up to chair one of a dozen subcommittees on appropriations in his next term.

“The Appalachian Regional Commission is a federal agency that provides money to communities that have skyrocketing poverty,” Cartwright said. “Alabama and Mississippi get so much more money than we do here because they have longer-tenured legislators. I want to get help for Northeastern Pennsylvania because we get less of those federal dollars.”

Cartwright is in the middle of his fourth two-year term.

People traveled from Mountain Top and Wilkes-Barre to get a chance to talk to the congressman about their concerns.

Two of them were Gregory Chang of Mountain Top and Christopher Smith of Hazleton, two members of Wilkes University Democrats, which they said is an organization that has been re-energized in the last year.

Wednesday was the second Coffee with the Congressman in 2020, the 22nd in the last year, and one of 50 or 60 in the eight years Cartwright has been in office.

“I got a lot of complaints about the streets in Hazleton,” Cartwright said. “It all goes into the question what are we going to do about American infrastructure? I would like to present to the mayor of Hazleton some grant money to work on city infrastructure. But that’s going to require Democrats and Republicans to come together in Washington on that subject.”

Latinos who attended the event told Cartwright they need more English as a Second Language programs.

“There is a preponderance of people of the Hispanic community here tonight,” he said. “They’re looking for ways to make themselves more productive members of the economy and the community. I had a couple of people express interest in better ESL programs, which I am in favor of. If we are going to integrate these folks, they need to learn English.”

Health care was also a concern of the people, and is a major concern of Cartwright.

“For me, it’s making health care more available and affordable including the skyrocketing costs of pharmaceuticals,” he said. “They are among the very top concerns that I have. That’s why I never stop fighting to make sure peoples’ pre-existing conditions are covered by insurance. I’m fighting against that lawsuit in the courts that would invalidate that. You hear promises from the (Trump) administration. ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’re going to have a plan for that.’ We haven’t seen it, and we have 130 million real Americans counting on having the pre-existing conditions covered.”

The two Wilkes University students discussed Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang’s proposal for Universal Basic Income, which would provide more cash to every household from the wealth provided by automation, since many people have lost their jobs to automation.

Cartwright said many of those jobs are “back-breaking, monotonous” jobs, but those workers displaced have to be re-trained for jobs in today’s economy.

“It’s an interesting theory.” Cartwright said. “We’re going to have to talk about that more.”

One person expressed concern that the cash would take away the incentive to hold a job.

“People have to have purpose,” the woman said.

Cartwright reminded the people at one table that Wednesday is the 10th anniversary of the Citizens United decision — which allows corporations to spend as much as they want on political campaigns as they want.

“It should be one person, one vote, not one dollar, one vote,” Cartwright said.

Cartwright also responded to allegations made Tuesday by Republican congressional candidate Michael Cammisa that he has been voting with U.S. Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York, an ultra-liberal.

“I can’t comment on how my votes line up with the lady from New York because I don’t pay any attention to how she votes,” Cartwright said.

He also answered Cammisa’s point about voting to impeach President Donald Trump.

“I voted three times against impeachment before the Ukraine thing came up,” Cartwright said. “I’ve been one of the loudest voices of restraint on the subject of impeachment. What really troubles me is foreign governments meddling with our elections. I promise you that if it had been a Democrat that did what the president did, I would have voted the same way.”