It is obvious to me that Trump sent in his henchmen to tank the relief talks so he could hold his little rally yesterday and pretend to save the day.
But there is something more nefarious going on with his absolute refusal to offer state and local relief. He keeps saying that it’s just blue states that have been terrible stewards of their economies and don’t deserve the money (by which he means their state and municipal employees deserve to lose their jobs and their constituents deserve to die of COVID. )“They don’t vote for me anyway…”
Here’s one little data point that proves he is a disgusting liar:
Note the date. That was just pre-COVID. Compare California’s record to Trump’s when it comes to fiscal competence and I think you can see the grotesque hypocrisy of his position.
That surplus is gone and we are now looking at a huge hole and it will be the public employees, education and public safety that’s going to have to be cut. Trump wants to make it worse. In fact, punishing his enemies is all he’s living for at the moment.
The drunken sot Larry Kudlow went on CNN this morning and babbled some incomprehensible bullshit about how states have plenty of money to “match” the federal unemployment and nobody knows what he was talking about. But this is the reality:
The COVID-19 pandemic could swipe roughly $200 billion from state coffers by June of next year, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute‘s State and Local Finance Initiative.Record-high unemployment has wreaked havoc on personal income taxes and sales taxes, two of the biggest sources of revenue for states. Hawaii’s and Nevada’s tourism industries have crashed, and states like Alaska, Oklahoma and Wyoming have been hit by the collapse of oil markets. From March through May of this year, 34 states experienced at least a 20% drop in revenue compared with the same period last year, according to data provided to NPR by the State and Local Finance Initiative.
Those drops directly affect state budgets, so NPR asked member station reporters to fill us in on what’s going on in nearly every state across the United States. Check out your state here.
With dwindling cash, cuts to education, health care and other areas are inevitable in many places. State leaders have described the situation as “unprecedented,” “horrifying” and “devastating.” Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, compared his state’s budget cuts to the Red Wedding scene in HBO’s Game of Thrones.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, said, “Responding to this crisis has created a multiyear budget crisis unlike anything the state has ever faced before, more than three times worse than the Great Recession.”
For example, so far that state has cut nearly $190 million from higher education. Programs designed to reduce crime in Baltimore also took a hit, as did foster care providers and public defenders.
And state leaders everywhere are getting nervous as the economy shows little signs of a swift recovery.
Some states still seeking federal help
In March, Congress worked quickly to pass an aid package worth $2 trillion — called the CARES Act — which offered relief to state and local governments, individuals, small and large businesses, and hospitals affected by the coronavirus crisis.
But language in the law requires that funds go to expenses related to COVID-19 and not to plug holes in budgets, with few exceptions (though some state leaders have used creative accounting to make the money work the way they want it to).
Republicans and Democrats in states such as Maryland, California, Michigan, Iowa, Georgia, New York and Illinois have asked Congress for additional funds that they say are critical to stay afloat.
Others don’t agree. Last week, more than 200 state lawmakers signed onto a letter from the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of conservative lawmakers, opposing further federal money for states. The letter reads, “The American people are being forced to make difficult but fiscally responsible decisions during the pandemic, and states need to do the same.”
The Democratic-led U.S. House passed a bill to inject more money into states, but many Republican lawmakers say any new money has to be for items directly related to the virus, not to pay down deficits in the states.
California has gone as far as preparing a contingency budget: If additional federal money does not come through, the state will have to furlough state workers and slash funding for state universities and courts. It would also mean that K-12 school districts and community colleges won’t receive nearly $12 billion in upfront state payments at a time when costs could be at an all-time high.
“The federal government has a moral, ethical and economic obligation to help support the states,” said California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
Moral and ethical aren’t in Trump’s vocabulary.