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There are a lot of big problems with the Senate Republicans’ newly unveiled #COVIDRelief package. Among the biggest: it has *no new fiscal aid* for states & cities, whose revenues have collapsed due to #COVID19 and the resulting recession. 1/13
The plan would provide money to schools that reopen, regardless of whether it’s safe to do so — a wildly out-of-touch idea that uses schoolchildren in a risky economic experiment. 2/13 https://www.cbpp.org/blog/senate-republicans-out-of-touch-plan-would-pressure-schools-to-reopen
However, schools would not be allowed to use the funds to save the jobs of teachers, librarians, and other school workers who will be laid off because states lack the revenue to pay them. 3/13
States and localities need new aid for #Medicaid, education, and more to avoid laying off more workers (1.5 million have already been laid off or furloughed) & cutting services that would worsen racial and income inequities. https://www.cbpp.org/blog/additional-well-targeted-federal-fiscal-aid-key-to-advancing-racial-equity 4/13
While the plan doesn’t include any money for states & localities, it does include a woefully inadequate substitute: “flexibility” to use a small portion of previous aid to offset revenue losses. 5/13
That’s far too little to meet the revenue loss and most of that aid is already spoken for or already available for this purpose! 6/13
Right now states are facing huge revenue shortfalls: $555 billion through FY 2022. States have gotten some aid & have savings to cover some of this. But after all that, state shortfalls are still nearly $400 billion! 7/13
Even worse: this doesn’t include localities, tribal nations or territories, or costs of fighting #COVID19, which they are woefully inadequately prepared to do without the federal government’s help. 8/13
Faced with these big shortfalls, states and localities are already planning – and making – painful cuts to schools, health care, and other services that are harming families and communities while deepening the recession. https://www.cbpp.org/blog/states-localities-need-more-federal-aid-to-avert-deepening-budget-crisis 9/13
States need more dollars, not more rhetoric about “flexibility,” in order to protect their residents and communities from economic harm. Policymakers should take 3 key steps to make this a reality. 10/13
First, raise the share of #Medicaid costs that the federal government covers again — building on the 6.2% point increase in March’s #FamiliesFirst Act — and extend the duration of that increase. 11/13
Second, provide aid that helps states fund K-12 schools and higher education institutions *without insisting that schools open even if it’s not safe.* 12/13
And last – but not least – provide direct, flexible grants to states, localities, tribal nations, and U.S. territories that they can use to offset their revenue losses. https://www.cbpp.org/blog/senate-republican-relief-plan-ignores-needs-of-states-schools End/
