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A Federal Stimulus Bill Is Needed To Fund Essential Operations

This week will be a pivotal week for school districts trying to build their budgets.

Robert Mujica, state budget director, will release his first of four 2020 examinations of state revenues and expenses, an analysis that will likely trigger a first round of state spending cuts. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said earlier this week that schools could see state aid cuts as high as 20%.

Of course, that could change in the next five days if the state sees a large infusion of revenue through the fourth phase of federal stimulus that is being debated in the halls of Congress. The presence of massive amounts of aid to state and local governments is muddied somewhat by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s comments that the federal government shouldn’t take on more debt to rescue states that have given too much to public employee unions in the past.

“There’s not going to be any desire on the Republican side to bail out state pensions by borrowing money from future generations,” McConnell said.

Mr. McConnell fails to mention that we’re borrowing money from future generations because politicians from both parties spend taxpayer money unnecessarily on frivolous programs, including throwing money at companies that didn’t necessarily need help in the last federal stimulus bill while small companies found themselves shut out of business aid programs.

The federal debt is certainly a concern, and ordinarily McConnell would be correct in his analysis. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo isn’t asking for a union bailout. He’s asking for an infusion of cash so that necessary aid for things like schools can be delivered as promised.

Ask any parent struggling to teach their child in place of trained educators if they view state aid to schools as a union bailout or necessary spending to make sure schools open with a full compliment of trained teachers. We’re pretty sure after six weeks of teaching their child, they would give teachers anything they want.

Perhaps McConnell and his fellow Republicans can come up with conditions for accepting the federal dollars so that the federal money is last-resort spending to cover shortfalls driven by COVID-19 shutdowns but not to be used for new spending. It would make sense for the federal government to want to see before writing a check what the states want to use the money for. Cuomo has blanched at writing blank checks to local municipalities in the past, so he should understand why the federal government would have reservations. One could discuss structuring some of these items as loans based on expected tax receipts. Perhaps there could be some required efforts on the parts of states to show they are trying to cut spending rather than simply run to the federal government for additional money. Surely there is some fat in New York’s recently enacted budget that could be cut to meet such a requirement. Maybe, Republicans could require every child to write a thank-you letter to Mr. McConnell for his benevolence in approving money so that teachers can remain on the job.

All we know is that right now is not the time for political talking points. A federal stimulus bill must be approved that spends no more than necessary, but enough to make sure that essential operations like schools and hospitals are funded.

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