Cassidy Co-Authors Second COVID Assistance Funding Bill

US Senator Bill Cassidy talks to 101.7 / 710 KEEL's Robert J Wright and Erin McCarty about his Senate bill, legislation that would give more federal money to states, cities and towns to shore up their finances in the wake of the Coronavirus shutdown.

The Cassidy legislation, co-authored with Democrat Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, is the Senate response to the $3 trillion "Heroes" bill recently passed by the Dem controlled House of Representatives, a bill that Cassidy tells KEEL listeners has no chance of making it through the Upper Chamber.

Cassidy explains that his bill, the State and Municipal Assistance for Response and Transition (SMART), would provide a half a trillion dollars to city and state governments across the country. The purpose of the funding, described by Cassidy as "flexible," would be to makup the revenues lost to those governments during the nationwide Coronavirus shutdown.

The senior Senator also explains how his SMART Act, if passed, would pass along federal monies directly to the states, who then would be bound by the legislation to distribute one third of the funds to local governments. In the bill, those "local governments" are defined as cities and towns. as well as counties / parishes, which would split the available money. The federal money would be distributed according to the amount of tax revenue lost as a result of the Coronavirus economic shutdown.

The first federal COVID 19 stimulus allocated $1.8 billion to Louisiana alone, with cities and towns across the state getting 45% of the money. Plus, the state stands to receive as much as $660 million more to make up for what is described as Coronavirus costs.