Norton Statement Supporting and Analyzing Today’s Interim Coronavirus Relief Bill for What it Does and Leaves Undone
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released the statement below as the House today passed the $484 billion interim coronavirus relief bill, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act. Overall, Norton supports the bill for its funding of small businesses and hospitals, both mainstays of the District of Columbia's economy, but she is already at work on the next bill, which she says must address the mounting needs of individuals and of states and local governments.
"If the District had a vote on the House floor, as the D.C. Statehood bill, expected to pass the House this year, provides, I would have voted for today's bill." This bill has my support not because it takes the country where it needs to go, but because it gives critically needed attention to vital sections of the D.C. economy and its residents.
"The interim coronavirus relief bill for now replenishes the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, two vital small business loan programs indispensable to the District. Today's bill will help D.C. small businesses struggling to pay workers and keep their doors open. For the District, this means hospitality, the second largest industry in the city.
"The bill will also help the District's major health care providers, including Children's National, George Washington, Howard, Georgetown, and Sibley hospitals, which are currently handling coronavirus cases from across the entire region. The bill's resources will allow our hospitals to pay employees and build enough capacity to properly care for patients and protect frontline workers.
"The bill also contains funds for our community health centers and minority and community banks. It moves us toward universal testing, which needs targeted priority in Wards 5, 7, and 8, which are absorbing disproportionate numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
"However, the interim bill is a compromise, required to get it through the Senate, that falls short in several key areas. Senate Republicans wanted to provide funding only for the Paycheck Protection Program and initially would not agree to any other funding. Even the amount allocated to the two small business loan programs that are the center of today's bill falls so short that experts predict it will run out, perhaps in a matter of days. This is a key example of how Senate Republicans are forcing Congress to play catch-up instead of getting in front of foreseeable COVID-19 funding needs. Congress must seize the offensive to get ahead of, not behind, the virus in the next bill.
"Perhaps most critically, the bill fails to fund state and local governments so they can continue providing services to residents. State and local governmental employees are continuing to provide vital services, such as police, fire, garbage collection and public transportation. State and local governments are the lifeline closest to the people and must get top priority in the next bill. Moreover, unlike the federal government, state and local governments are usually required to have to balance budgets. Yet Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested that state and local governments, which, people look to first for relief, should declare bankruptcy instead of get help from the federal government which has virtually unlimited borrowing capacity
"The third coronavirus relief bill shorted the District $750 million by treating D.C. as a territory instead of as a state in the state stabilization fund, as it usually is. This was despite the fact that the District pays more per capita federal taxes than any state and more in total federal taxes than 22 states. The mounting support we are receiving from House and Senate Democratic leadership and Members signals that we will retroactively receive the $750 million the District should have received in the third bill."
Congresswoman Norton is available for Skype, Zoom, and telephone interviews on request.
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