Pennsylvania’s Bob Harvie has faced increased scrutiny of his spending habits as county commissioner
Bucks County, Pa., commissioner Bob Harvie (D.), who is running to unseat Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), required 2,300 county employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine or lose their jobs during the pandemic. He then spent more than $115,000 in taxpayer funds on gift cards that rewarded staff who got the mandatory jab.
When the American Rescue Plan Act awarded Bucks County nearly $120 million in taxpayer funds, the county board of commissioners—which Harvie chairs—used at least $44 million of those funds on programs for county employees. One such initiative was a “vaccine incentive program” which used $115,567 in taxpayer funds to purchase $50 gift cards for 2,300 county personnel who received the vaccine, even though the commission already required all county employees to get vaccinated or “be released from employment.”
County officials said the gift cards “served both as an incentive to get vaccinated and a thank you to employees who rolled up their sleeves to protect themselves and their co-workers,” according to the Bucks County Courier Times. The article did not mention that employees would be terminated for refusing vaccination.
Harvie’s congressional campaign has coincided with increased scrutiny of his spending habits as county commissioner. In one instance, he used funds meant for recovering opioid addicts to transport kids—some as young as 14—to an LGBT youth center offering sex-change seminars, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
The funding came from the county’s Opioid Settlement Fund, which was due to receive $70 million from drug distributors and pharmacy chains over the next 18 years. That money was supposed to go to “Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery,” but instead some of it was used to transport high school students to a center that included seminars like “SEX ED NIGHT / MASTURBATION.”
In 2023, the center hosted a “Queer Prom,” where attendees as young as 13 were given goody bags with condoms, lubricant, and dental dams. It held a “translating transition” seminar in September meant to teach kids as young as 14 “the basics of transgender identities, social transition, medical transition, and more!”
“The Board of Commissioners is unanimous and bipartisan in its commitment to public health,” a Harvie spokesman told the Free Beacon. “This was true more than three years ago when the county reported this spending to the public, as was reported then in the Courier Times, and remains true today.”
Harvie is the most prominent Democrat running against Fitzpatrick in what Democrats see as a potential pickup opportunity. Former vice president Kamala Harris narrowly defeated President Donald Trump by less than a point in the district, though Fitzpatrick held onto his seat by a 10-point margin.
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