Washington, D.C. — Despite a lack of leadership from Washington, elected officials in state and local governments are working to set the country back on a path to recovery, help protect frontline workers, and expand access to testing. Now they have a new problem to contend with: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts to undermine them
Yesterday, as Republican and Democratic governors have asked for additional resources to respond to coronavirus and keep firefighters, police officers and teachers employed and serving their communities, McConnell actually suggested that states should “use the bankruptcy route” rather than receive aid from the federal government, and insultingly said they “would love to have free money.”
This comes on the heels of McConnell forcing a half-trillion dollar corporate bailout for his special interest donors … not to mention his debt-financed trillion dollar tax cut that favored the wealthiest special interests.
“In Mitch McConnell’s corrupt senate, this pandemic means that the biggest special interests get trillion-dollar tax cuts and bailouts, but first responders and teachers on state government payrolls should face pay cuts and layoffs for no other reason than they don’t line McConnell’s pockets every election year,” said Joshua Karp of Fix Our Senate. “Turning his back on states and Americans that are looking to the federal government for assistance for purely political reasons is foolish and beyond the pale, even for Mitch McConnell. He needs to reverse this reckless idea immediately.”