president biden's 1.9 bill trillion
dollar relief uh
includes 350 billion for state and local
governments but
there's new data that shows the states
well a lot of them may just not need
that cash
blake berman is at the white house now
with details hi there charles when you
look all across the country some states
clearly have fared better than others
when it comes to revenues
within their states during the kovit 19
pandemic for example the tax policy
center
took a look at this and when you look at
revenues from april to december of 2020
and compare that to the very same time
frame in 2019
here's what the tax policy center found
they said the 22 states had revenue
increases during that same time frame
compared to 2019
28 state salt revenue drops and they peg
the nationwide average you see the map
here
at 1.9 percent so far 150 billion
dollars was sent to states and local
governments in the cares act
but the committee for a responsible
budget says the real number is more like
360 billion dollars when you factor in
for example the cares act
85 billion that has gone to medicaid
increases 75 billion
for education funding and 39 billion
dollars for transportation grants
earlier today i asked the white house
press secretary secretary jen saki
why the president believes another 350
billion dollars is needed for state and
local governments
and she says that's what those on the
ground are calling for
1.3 million state and local government
jobs have been lost since the beginning
of the pandemic
the people we're listening to are the
400 mayors democrats and republicans
who have conveyed clearly that they need
assistance
they need funding to ensure that they
can keep cops on the beat they
can keep firefighters employed and they
can keep state and local governments
functioning charles want to give you a
live look right now
of what's happening here in washington
dc if you can pop up rem 212 in the new
in the control room that would be great
because there's an event ongoing with
republican senators right now they are
pushing back thank you very much live
look
they are pushing back on this very issue
describing this
as a quote unquote blue state bailout as
they view it
they're laying out their case as to why
they say this portion of the rescue
plane isn't needed
one of the issues that they're taking uh
taking an issue with you see john cornyn
of texas there
is they say the formula in the american
rescue plan for the 350 billion dollars
hurts states
that reopen sooner than others
charles blake thank you very much
i want to bring a university of maryland
economist peter mauricio and peter
you know i also read somewhere where
states will end up with 200 of that 350
billion
uh but collectively they only lost 31
billion
in tax revenue so it seems like they're
rewarding that the states that killed
the most businesses that put millions of
people out of work they're kind of
giving them a reward
what are your thoughts on this well it's
certainly overkill
it's much more money than is needed
along with the stimulus payments and it
will cause a great deal of inflation
uh you know i it's just remarkable how
irresponsible the treasury has become
with janet yellen and the federal
reserve they're cheerleading all of this
we certainly need some additional
support for people whose unemployment
benefits have run out
in places like new york city and whose
jobs prospects for the moment
are limited but this kind of relief in
this
amount of money after all democratic
economists themselves are criticizing it
everybody's criticizing it except the
economist inside the white house
because if they criticize it they'll
lose their jobs
yeah and of course i mean a state like
california saying
they sheepishly i guess that they have a
surplus i mean
you got to be kidding me now there is a
report though because
the big news last night and this morning
is texas reopening
in the journal saying that asian
countries are going to be way behind the
united states and the uk
because their lockdowns were too severe
so
does this kind of speak to the the
notion that sort of the deleterious
actions that come when you have these
complete shutdowns these complete travel
restrictions
i mean this was debated all year long
maybe we're getting some clarity now
well i think in asia what the basic
problem is is they're very good at
locking down
towns when they when they need to or
feel they want to
but they're not very good at rolling out
the vaccine the hard line
the hard reality here is the united
states and britain with populist
governments
produced a lot of vaccines very quickly
uh
and and now they're getting out there
into the system i got my shot this
morning and it went very smoothly
it's a matter of availability and if you
look at where they have liberal
governments
france for example superstition is
keeping them from
inoculating their population they're
pixelated over there
they're behaving like a bunch of panic
junior high school students
trying to run the government and they
can't get the vaccine out
all right let's stick with the
administration because president biden
says
he wants to help the most downtrodden of
americans and
you know this green new deal every day
i'm seeing things that suggests
maybe it's going to be worse not better
particularly when it comes to helping
lower income americans progressives say
they want to help in fact the native
americans something i saw you
article i saw you retweet about how this
green new deal is actually going to hurt
them
can you share that with the audience
well my feeling is is that a lot of
their policies are going to come down
toughest and make it most difficult for
the people that need to basically
relocate
and and and get new jobs because they're
taking away positions in a lot of places
like when they shut down the pipelines
uh but they're not really connecting
them to new jobs and the new
opportunities they talk about you know
well climate changes are
kerry says well you know the folks that
are working on the pipeline go go
build windmills that's great you tell me
how they're going to get there
if they want to do the right thing they
shouldn't be giving out stimulus
checks to people that don't need them
because the president promised them
in the georgia runoff elections and now
he's paying a political debt
but instead he should be providing
relocation assistance
uh beefing up training programs and so
forth but essentially but it's certainly
giving these people the rent money they
need
by giving them direct payments into
their pockets in places where they
they can't find a job so that they can
relocate
that would be much less expensive than
sprinkling money across the entire
population
to look like lord bountiful in
preparation for the midterms this that
is what is going on
yeah they're definitely trying to buy an
election here but unfortunately for the
native americans
they don't have enough of a vote to get
real consideration and when you cut off
these gas and oil leases
or exploration on federal property we're
taking away billions of dollars from
them
peter thank you so much appreciate it
yeah you know
places you know new mexico is a major or
gas producing state
yeah yeah i mean it's crazy the
hypocrisy there's just really no
boundaries for it
but they get away with it thanks a lot
hey