“It’s unconscionable that Trump, Collins and McConnell haven’t passed COVID relief for essential state services.”

In a new op-ed in the Bangor Daily News, MSEA-SEIU Vice President Allison Perkins calls out Senator Susan Collins, along with President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for their failure to provide funding for essential state services, while communities in Maine face massive budget shortfalls due to COVID-19.

Perkins describes in detail how families around Maine rely on crucial state programs, which provide rental and food assistance, protect our drinking water, and maintain our highways and bridges, to name just a few. But, as she recounts, Republicans in Washington have failed to pass any aid for state governments who provide those services since May, and Collins recently went on record saying that any new COVID relief package should give less money to states.

Bangor Daily News: US Senate needs to step up, do its job and provide relief to states

By Allison Perkins
October 9, 2020

Key Points:

  • Scores of Maine families struggling in the coronavirus pandemic have turned to unemployment and rental assistance, SNAP, food banks, Medicaid expansion and other help to get by.
     
  • Maine people were counting on President Donald Trump and Sens. Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell to enact a COVID-relief package for workers and essential services. The U.S. House of Representatives passed its latest compromise COVID-relief legislation on Oct. 1. On Tuesday, Trump called on lawmakers to stop their negotiations. He partially reversed course later in the day. The Senate has so far failed to pass more COVID relief before the election. This is the second House relief package the Senate has refused to vote on since May.
     
  • Then on Wednesday, Collins told the Portland Press Herald she wants to give less money to state governments and more to municipalities in a COVID-relief package. This is a stunning statement by Collins. The State of Maine is projecting a $1.4 billion revenue shortfall over the next three years due the pandemic. Collins, Trump and McConnell worked to pass $1.9 trillion in tax breaks mostly benefiting corporations and the wealthy, yet they are failing to fund essential services.
     
  • This virus remains a serious threat to Maine workers and families. The critical needs of Maine people aren’t going away, yet the services they’re counting on could be threatened without federal action.
     
  • Fortunately there is a path forward. Sara Gideon, if elected to the U.S. Senate, will fight to provide COVID relief for services working families are counting on. 

###