Menendez: Allowing States to Go Bankrupt is ‘Illogical, Immoral, Downright Dangerous’

Senator pushes bipartisan, $500B SMART Fund to help frontline in COVID-19 fight 

NEWARK, N.J. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) today renewed his call for robust federal funding to help states and communities on the frontlines of the COVID-19 public health and economic crisis, and pushed back on efforts to allow them to file for bankruptcy instead of meeting the needs of the American people.  Sens. Menendez and Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.) this week unveiled a bold, bipartisan plan to provide $500 billion in federal funding to state and local governments to help them respond to the pandemic while maintaining essential services for their residents.

“Our states did not choose to face this deadly pandemic.  They did not choose to have this deadly virus claim thousands of American lives.  They did not choose to have their economies sink into a devastating recession,” said Sen. Menendez.  “Telling our states to throw in the towel and go bankrupt in the middle of a pandemic puts countless lives at risk and is a prescription for catapulting our nation into a full-blown depression.  It is illogical, immoral and downright dangerous.  Our frontline public health workers, police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers and public works employees are risking their own health to keep us all safe.  Our teachers haven’t stopped educating our children.  Now, more than ever, we need to keep them all on the job and doing the good work we all depend upon.”

“That is why Congress must answer the bipartisan call from our nation’s governors, mayors and county administrators and provide $500 billion in flexible federal funding to address their most urgent needs—and we must act swiftly to keep their governments running and serving the very same people we were all sent to Washington to represent,” the Senator continued.  “We will never defeat this public health challenge, reopen our economy and get back to normal if the federal government ignores its responsibilities to lead and to act.”

The Menendez-Cassidy State and Municipal Aid for Recovery and Transition (SMART) Fund builds upon the existing $150 billion set aside in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help states and local governments.  It expands eligibility to include counties and towns with populations of 50,000 or greater—the current threshold is 500,000—ensures every eligible entity receives additional funding, increases flexibility for states and local governments to use the funds to plug revenue losses due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and targets additional funding toward coronavirus hot zones to combat the pandemic head-on.

The only bipartisan proposal in the U.S. Senate, the SMART Fund calls for an additional $500 billion in COVID-19 state stabilization funds, in line with requests made by the National Governors Association (NGA), to help support state and local government efforts to fight the pandemic.  These funds can be used to help meet the current demand while helping communities transition towards reopening by expanding testing and contact tracing, providing additional resources to residents, local hospitals, small businesses and schools.

Specifically, the SMART Fund would deliver funding to state and local governments, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia in three equal tranches based upon a new formula that takes into consideration areas of the country with the greatest need:

1)     One-third to eligible entities based on population size to ensure they each receive additional federal resources to meet their growing needs (Same formula used to disburse the $150 billion state stabilization fund created in the CARES Act, but essentially doubles those available funds)

2)     One-third to eligible entities based upon the number of COVID-19 cases relative to the U.S. population to target the urgent public health challenge

3)     One-third to eligible entities based upon state revenue losses relative to pre-COVID-19 projections to target the urgent economic challenge