Texas Scorecard by Cary Cheshire April 30, 2020
“Americans expect that their tax dollars will be used for Coronavirus response, not to backfill decades of bad fiscal policy.â€As federal lawmakers contemplate additional financial payouts to state and local governments that have racked up massive budget deficits and are expected to pull in far less revenue as a result of their shutdown orders, a group of Republican lawmakers is pressuring President Donald Trump to prevent any additional aid from being used to reward poor fiscal stewardship.
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R–TX) signed on to a letter authored by U.S. Sen. Rick Scott (R–FL) asking the Trump administration to prevent future Chinese coronavirus grants to the states from being used to bail out blue state pensions and deficits—something Scott writes is being rumored.
The text of the letter reads thusly:
“Dear Mr. President:
We write to thank your administration for taking bold steps to combat the Coronavirus and keep Americans safe. As our efforts to respond to – and ultimately defeat – the Coronavirus continue, state and local governments are at the front lines of this war. They are working tirelessly to protect our communities – an enormous task in this difficult time, and have received federal funding through the CARES Act specifically directed to aid in their efforts to keep families safe.
Unfortunately, we are hearing reports that some states and localities are advocating that a potential future Coronavirus response measure be used as a piggybank for unrelated expenses that have nothing to do with responding to the Coronavirus. As your administration works with Congress on any additional phases of Coronavirus response, we urge you to reject efforts by some states to use federal tax dollars for reasons unrelated to combatting Coronavirus. We believe additional money sent to the states for “lost revenue†or without appropriate safeguards will be used to bail out unfunded pensions, reward decades of state mismanagement, and incentivize states to become more reliant on federal taxpayers. Again, we are supportive of funding to respond to the Coronavirus and protect our frontline workers, but we cannot allow states and localities to get a blank check from American taxpayers to fund areas of their budget that have nothing to do with the Coronavirus.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/federal/cruz-to-trump-dont-put-american-taxpayers-on-hook-for-blue-state-bailouts/
