LANSING, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – As the restrictions from “Stay Home, Stay Safe” and “Safer at Home” are lifted in Michigan, state lawmakers now have to face the financial cost of the COVID 19 pandemic.
According to numbers announced last month by the Senate Fiscal Agency, there is a projected two-year revenue loss of $6.28 billion. Governor Whitmer has led the call from Lansing for financial help from Washington to cover the shortfall, and the chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, second-term Republican Mary Whiteford of the South Haven area, wants to tap into around three billion dollars of federal money coming to the state from the CARES Act in order to avoid making massive slashes to health care.
“There’s a senate bill that, I think, we’re voting on this week that puts in some of the spending of that federal money, working with the Governor’s office,” she said on “WHTC Talk of the Town” during her monthly appearance on Monday. “Right now, we’re in the works to try and get the ability to use that to make up for our shortfall, because it’s directly related to the virus. If we can do that, it will be saving lives.”
Some Congressional Republicans are reportedly opposed, for various reasons, to “bail out” states financially as a result of losses from the pandemic.
