When Pat Toomey was elected to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate in 2010, he hoped to rein in the federal government’s runaway spending and looming budget crisis. Roughly $14 trillion more in debt later, suffice it to say that these hopes didn’t materialize. Now, after announcing he plans to retire in 2022, the senator worries that he will leave behind a federal government on a “very bleak” financial trajectory. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, he explained why the current pandemic crisis could be followed by a fiscal disaster.

The first COVID-19 relief package was indeed “unprecedented and massive,” Toomey said, but he argues it was necessary. “The government closed down the economy to a very large degree, so we didn’t have much choice but to replace the lost income. And I think it would have been absolutely catastrophic had we not done so.”