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Senate Hopeful Jim Lamon Rips Capitol Hill
Spending, But His Company Got COVID-19
Relief |
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Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Arizona Republic
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Published 4:50 p.m. MT May 5, 2021 |
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Republican Jim Lamon, who entered Arizona's
GOP U.S. Senate race this week, suggested
Congress was spending excessively to deal
with the pandemic’s economic fallout. |
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| In an
announcement video, Lamon lamented the power
"to spend so much money, our grandchildren
will struggle to pay off the debt" while an
on-screen headline noted that Congress has
already spent $4 trillion in COVID-19 relief
spending. |
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| But
records show his own company, Depcom Power,
received $2.6 million in relief last year
from the Paycheck Protection Program,
intended by Congress to provide some
economic reprieve for payroll, rent,
mortgage interest or utilities. Lamon is the
founder and chairman of the Scottsdale-based
solar engineering and construction company. |
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| The
company was among thousands of Arizona
businesses that received federal aid. |
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| In a
written statement on Wednesday evening, a
spokesperson for Lamon's campaign said
Depcom plans on paying back the funds. Under
PPP guidelines, employers generally are not
required to repay the money if they used it
on certain expenses, such as salaries. |
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| In the
earlier days of the pandemic, amid
stay-at-home orders in an effort to curb the
spread of the virus, Depcom's projects
halted, the spokesperson said. |
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| "In lieu
of layoffs, management took a significant
pay cut, slashed personnel spending, and
applied for a loan not knowing how long the
shutdown would last," Stephen Puetz said.
"Now that the company has recovered,
management proactively approved and budgeted
repayment of the loan — which will be repaid
in full over the next two years. |
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| "This
proactive repayment is extremely rare and
represents Jim and his company's core values
of putting America and its taxpayers first,"
Puetz added. |
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| Lamon is
the first Republican to enter the 2022
Senate race, where Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.,
again faces voters, this time seeking a full
six-year term. |
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| The race
is expected to draw more GOP candidates, and
hundreds of millions of dollars, in what
will surely test the potency of
Trump-friendly figures like Lamon, in a
newly purple Arizona. |
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| Casting
himself as a political outsider who would
take on the establishment and the “elites,”
Lamon, 65, of Paradise Valley, criticized
the trillions the federal government has
spent and approved in response to the
yearlong pandemic. |
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| “Our
political and media elites have a lot of
power — it's a power to divide us and
distract us,” his introductory video said.
“To amplify the angry, the lies, and
suppress the reasonable. The power to spend
so much money, our grandchildren will
struggle to pay off the debt.” |
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| The
video cites information from a CNN story
published in February that said Congress had
approved $4 trillion in COVID-19 relief
funds. |
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| The
multiple rounds of COVID-19 stimulus funds
signed into law by former President Donald
Trump and more recently, President Joe
Biden, have gone toward direct stimulus
checks to individuals and families,
vaccination programs, health care centers,
state, local, and tribal governments,
business programs and more. |
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| Depcom
Power Inc. received $2,660,600 in PPP funds
last year, according to ProPublica’s
database of federal aid. The company employs
1,600 workers across the nation, according
to its website. |
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| In its
application for the money, the company said
it intended on spending the money on
payroll. The application was approved on May
1, according to records. |
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Meanwhile, a Tucson-based company Kelly
co-founded and advised until February 2019,
when he launched his first Senate campaign,
received $1,880,176 in PPP funds last year,
according to ProPublica’s data. The company
was approved for $1,880,176 more in
February. In both applications, World View
said almost all of the money would be spent
on payroll. |
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| Kelly’s
2022 campaign did not comment on the PPP
funds. A spokesperson pointed to the
campaign’s 2020 statement that noted Kelly
wasn’t at the company at the time of the
first application. |
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| Sarah
Guggenheimer, an Arizona Democratic Party
spokesperson, said “Lamon’s hypocrisy
reveals precisely why the GOP’s opposition”
to the relief funds "is going to be a major
problem for the entire primary field." |
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| Polling
shows the American public has widely
supported the most recent COVID-19 package
that President Joe Biden and Democrats
passed through Congress with no GOP support. |
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| On his
campaign website, Lamon said Washington “has
a spending problem. While the American
people balance their own budgets,
politicians are using our national credit
card to burden our children and
grandchildren with trillions in debt.” |
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| Depcom
Power’s use of government aid is a reminder
of a debate that unfolded last year, as
recipient data revealed conservatives who
criticized the program yet took the money. |
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| Citizens
Against Government Waste, an anti-government
spending organization, took at least
$150,000 in loans, according to Forbes. The
free-market Ayn Rand Institute received a
loan for up to $1 million, according to
Reuters. |
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| The
national debt exceeds $28 trillion,
according to the U.S. Treasury. If elected,
Lamon would support getting rid of
“non-essential agencies” and oppose new
taxes, his website said. |
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