“When you make that kind of decision and go against a party I’m a part of, I feel lonely,” said Dyer, a former Fresno police chief. “You start to wonder along the way what kind of impact this could have on you in the future. But the reality is that I felt that I was making the right decision for the right reason to benefit the people of Fresno, not necessarily a party. “
Aid will be distributed to states according to a formula that is based primarily on the state’s unemployment rate, officials said. There are several rules about how money can be spent. For example, money cannot be used to pay pension obligations or to cut taxes.
Republicans in Congress argued that a financing formula based on unemployment rather than population benefits Democratic-led states and harms Republican-controlled states. An analysis by Congressman Jason Smith, a Republican from Missouri, found that 33 states were receiving less money based on the unemployment formula, all but 10 of them led by Republican governors.
But many Democratic officials, and some Republicans, have contested the idea of a party bailout.
“I think my residents know I don’t give a fuck about the party – all I care about is making sure the street sweeper works, the police show up and the water doesn’t stop,” said Acquanetta Warren, a Republican who is the mayor of Fontana, a working-class suburb east of Los Angeles, which will receive $ 52 million.
Local governments have been hit harder than states. Three-quarters of the more than 1.3 million jobs lost between state and local governments since February 2020 have been at the local level, discovered White, from Moody’s, the vast majority of them in school districts.
The counties, which are critical geographies for public services such as emergency services, public health departments and local prisons, were ecstatic. Many complained that funds from previous rounds of stimulating the pandemic did not reach them because the funds were channeled through states to smaller counties. This time, the checks come directly from the United States Treasury Department.
The size of the sums has changed the scale of what is possible. New York’s Erie County, which includes Buffalo, has been battling Internet malfunctions in rural areas for years, which have been ignored by Internet service providers.