Today’s Action: Tell Congress to support state governments – not bankrupt them

State governments fund public services and the workers who provide those services: our educators, firefighters, police officers, sanitation collectors, and highway construction workers. States also fund our unemployment insurance, coronavirus testing sites, and so many other frontline battles in the fight against this pandemic. Coronavirus has wreaked havoc on state economies, and thus state budgets, and both red states and blue states are calling for support from the federal government.

But after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pushed through a $500 billion support package for corporations and giving 43,000 hedge fund and real-estate mogul millionaires a tax break that will cost the rest of us $90 billion just in 2020, he now wants state governments to declare bankruptcy.

And Trump has said he’ll expect quid pro quo from blue states in order to receive funding for a crisis they didn’t cause – such as relinquishing sanctuary city status.

Call or email your Members of Congress and demand they fight hard to fund and support our state governments and state workers– declaring bankruptcy is NOT the smart option and unrelated partisan political demands is unacceptable during a public health crisis.

The federal government has the ability to borrow an almost-unlimited amount of money, and right now the interest rates are negative – so now is the time to borrow to help out our struggling economy. But states do not have this option, and are legally required to keep a balanced budget. States also aren’t legally allowed to declare bankruptcy (for good reason) and now isn’t the time to start changing the law on that.

Mitch is pulling a political trick in the middle of a crisis, hoping to force states to cut their employee rosters – fire teachers, reduce fire station budgets – in the guise of fiscal responsibility while he continues to hand blank checks to millionaires.

And Trump’s threat against sanctuary cities? Immigration status has absolutely nothing to do with defeating coronavirus, and will prove a roadblock towards saving lives if he pursues..

We see through this. We must fight hard against this.

Email or call (202.224.3121) your Members of Congress and tell them ABSOLUTELY NOT to letting states go bankrupt while corporations and millionaires get bankrolled, or threatening blue states with partisan quid pro quo. Congress must fund states properly to see them through this crisis that they didn’t cause.