Brown voices support to pass new coronavirus relief bill
Bipartisan bill includes $900 billion of funding
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) voiced his support for a bipartisan coronavirus relief package on Wednesday.
This comes on the heels of President Elect Joe Biden telling Americans that “help is on the way” and urged the Senate to pass immediate relief.
The $900 billion-plus plan includes $288 billion in small business aid, $160 billion in state and local government relief and $180 billion to fund a $300 per week supplemental unemployment benefit through March.
During a conference calls with reporters on Wednesday, Brown said he would vote for the bill, but also stated that it doesn’t do enough.
“It’s nothing close to as much as I want,” said Brown. “I don’t think it does enough for PPE (personal protective equipment), I don’t think it does enough for rental assistance, but it does something significant and it will absolutely matter to a number of people.”
The Senate has struggled to come to an agreement on a new relief bill since the summer when the $600 a week unemployment funding ended. Brown said Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R- KY) has pulled back on the bill in recent days but Brown urged Republicans to give them a chance to pass something.
“The bipartisan agreement is less than I’d like to see us do, but it will matter in people’s lives and we have no business leaving town until we actually vote on it,” said Brown. “I’m hopeful Republican senators will tell McConnell, ‘ You’ve got to bring this to the floor and do this.’”
Ideally, Brown’s plan would provide more for rental assistance and PPE, but he said that a “real plan” cannot wait any longer.
“Without real leadership from the federal government, more small businesses will close. More families will be evicted. More local governments will layoff police and fire and teachers. It just doesn’t have to be that bad,” said Brown. “We know we can solve problems for the people we
serve. Back in March, we all came together and passed the Senate unanimously. It was unemployment benefits and so much more.
“There are studies that show kept 13 million people did not fall into poverty because of what the Senate did back in March. Since then, the Senate’s done virtually nothing.”
The new relief package would include $25 billion in additional rental assistance, which Brown and others say is needed quickly.
Graham Bowman, an attorney with the Ohio Poverty Law Center and was also on the call with Brown on Wednesday, said eviction claims reach as high as 100 daily, with more on the horizon.
“We’re going to see a massive flood of these evictions … where people are actually put out of their homes,” he said. “So, we believe a stronger moratorium is needed immediately or today’s crisis will become a catastrophe in January when evictions resume in mass.”
Brown said that when Americans voted in November, they sent a clear
message to the government.
“They are tired of getting the message from their government that ‘you’re on your own,’” said Brown. “They want us to get to work to empower people with a real plan to fight this virus and get people back to work and back to school and back to their lives. We have the resources to do it — we just need Mitch McConnell to come to the table. The American people should not have to fend for themselves in a once-in- a-generation crisis.”
Brown said the Senate has had many chances to pass a new relief
bill, adding that they’ve “waited too long already” and something needs passed quickly.
“I want to do something along the lines of what we did in March where hundreds of thousands of Ohioans were kept out of poverty. This is a good proposal that I’ll support,” Brown said. “It doesn’t go far enough but I understand you make compromises, I’m fine with that. We just can’t wait any longer. We’ve waited too long already. We should have done this back in August and September but now we have a chance that’s within our grasp.”