Trump Says He's in No Rush to Give Money to States Short on Cash
President Donald Trump said he is “in no rush” to provide federal assistance to states that are short of money because of the coronavirus, and said Democrats would have to make concessions if they want grants for state governments. “If they do it, they’re going to have to give us a lot,” Trump said Friday.
The Brookings Institution estimates that at least $500 billion needs to be infused into state and local governments for them to continue providing services such as education, public safety, and health care.
Trump had previously signaled he was supportive of direct relief to states but the president retreated from that stance after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell labeled such funding a bailout for states run by Democrats and instead proposed allowing states to declare bankruptcy.
Fiscal challenges aren’t limited to blue states. Across the country, states are reeling from lost revenue: With 30 million people thrown out of work in the past several weeks, income tax collections are tanking, and sales taxes have evaporated after stores and restaurants shuttered. Most states receive a majority of their revenue from those two sources.
On Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump doesn’t want financial assistance to states “to be an excuse for decades and decades of bad Democrat governance that have run these states into a financial predicament.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-01/trump-says-he-s-in-no-rush-to-give-money-to-states-short-on-cash?srnd=politics-vp
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