U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin Supports Governor Evers and Wisconsin Local Officials in Calling for Additional Federal Resources for the State and Local Communities to Combat COVID-19

Statement

Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin is echoing calls from state and local officials to President Trump requesting that he work quickly with Congress to support additional resources for all states and localities to respond to COVID-19 and cover budgetary shortfalls that have resulted from the public health emergency and economic downturn.

"There is a public health and economic crisis devastating our state and Wisconsin needs President Trump to step up and provide real leadership to make our state whole and provide the resources we need to combat this pandemic and save lives," said Senator Baldwin. "I stand with Governor Evers and local officials in every county, municipality and town in Wisconsin in calling for the President to work with us in Congress to get the job done to make sure Wisconsin receives robust and flexible funding in this next emergency coronavirus package."

Governor Tony Evers, the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, Wisconsin Counties Association and the Wisconsin Towns Associations have all sent letters to the White House this week calling on the President to take action and provide more funding and resources for state and local officials.

As an important first step, the CARES Act provided $150 billion dollars to states, local governments and tribes on the frontlines of the COVID-19 outbreak to cover new expenses. Additional and flexible funding is needed to respond to COVID-19 and to contend with dramatically reduced state and local revenues that are the direct result of the pandemic's effects on our economy.

Wisconsin is already experiencing major job losses in the wake of COVID-19, with the unemployment rate estimated at roughly 15% of the state's workforce as of today. Initial estimates indicate that state revenue losses are likely to exceed $2 billion over the next year, and this significant revenue shortfall will damage the state's ability to respond to the economic crisis faced by our workers and businesses.

Source