Introduced your legislation today. Thank you, mr. President. Madam president , i rise today to engage inuy a colloquy senats cassidy, collins and my fellow senator from newnd jersey senatr booker. Ask that the dick knowledge in that order, a lot to complete the remarks. Without objection. As our nation apples with the covid19 pandemic, our state, county municipal governments have been on the front lines taking the lead role in responding to this crisis. As a result they been squeeze on both sides of the ledger, spending billions of dollars in unforeseen costs on Emergency Response while watching as revenue dry up due to necessary stayathome orders, and the closure of nonessential businesses. The emergency protective measures have been effective with flattening the curve and have no doubt saved thousands of lives. But they also came with a cost. All Revenue Sources are down, sales tax revenue has plummeted with businesses closed, Highway Trust Funds will not have the resources to do basic road maintenance, Downtown Parking meters are going empty due to people observing social distancing. Building permit and Municipal Court fees have fallen. Unless we act soon we will see mass layoffs devastating tax increases and a breakdown in Public Safety and essential services. Already the bureau of labor statistics reported that state and local governments have laidoff 1 million Public Employees in april. And this challenge is true for every state, county, city and town in the country. The state and municipal assistance for response and transition, or smart act, is the bold, bipartisan and competent solution we need to give our communities a fighting chance and stop the economy trump from freefalling. It provides 500 billion inflexible federal dollars that will help our communities dramatically expand, the Testing Capacity on Contact Tracing we need to contain the virus, a necessary step in restoring Consumer Confidence and to restart the economy. It will help stave off massive layoffs, tax hikes and deep, painful cuts to essential services. It will keep our Police Officers, firefighters, Public Health workers, teachers and other essential employees on the job during this critical time. Because its not just about defeating covid19, we still need to keep our streets safe, our children learning, the trash picked up, the roads making, the buses and trains running on time. Now, i hear some of my colleagues speak from this floor calling out for unity but for division. They callously ignored the pleas for help from their fellow americans plummeted by the selfish but mistaken belief that their communities are immune to the fiscal armageddon facing our communities. Let me be clear. When your revenues dropped 30 overnight, it really doesnt matter how fiscally responsible or conservative or state budget is. No one can prepare for that. Mood is just reported that states like ohiozo and arizona e facing a fiscal shock of losing 20 of their entire budget. West virginia, 40 . This is not a red state blue state issue. This is a red, white and blue issue. Its an american priority. In december 18621862 during the height of the civil war president lincoln wrote the following message to congress. In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity. I believe that history will look kindly upon those who stood for unity, and compromise over demagoguery. Those who put the wellbeing of the country over scoring partisan points. Those whory stuck out then next and took a Political Risk for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. Im proud of the bi Person Coalition we built i do want to thank each of my colleagues for your work and your commitment to rebuilding our communities. Senator cassidy was like this ever with me, senator manchin, senator collins and my partner in new jersey senator booker. With that i will turn to my friend from louisiana distinguish senator was amplified his cronies, been an agreeable partner crafting this legislation building this coalition over the past month, senator cassidy. Thank you. I returned the cop and spirit we worked a lot of issues to find it built that meets a valid public purpose i can pass on a by person basis and a both chambers so i think senator menendez for working with me on that. Madam president , the title of this bill is the smart act, but in retrospect i wish we renamed it the thin blue line act because this is about helping cities and states preserve essential services such as police, fire, education for the reopening of our economy. The federal government asked states and local government would shut down economy in order to control the coronavirus and just like the Small Businesses close at the behest of the government authority, so state and local governments closed, if you will, at the behest of the federal authority. What they did was devastated tax bases. Movies, the independent agency which looks at the finances of city and states is that if your state is develop on income tax, upon sales tax, upon tourism, upon proceeds from energy, you have been hammered. Your tax base has fallen dramatically and with the dramatic fall of that tax base becomes a dramatic fall in the ability to support the thin blue line, the educators, the firefighters, that you name it, the essential service, essential to the reopening of our economy when we come out the backside of this epidemic. Now, its already happening. Moodys predicts three name of these essential workers will be laid off. Im told that 1 million already have been. You can read about university laying people off, lets go back to the thin blue line. The city of shreveport, louisiana, just put out a budget in which theres a 20 million hit to their city budget over all. 3. 9 million was unfortunately laidla upon Law Enforcement and4 positions eliminated. Now im told that some federal dollars came through and allowed the restoration of some of those positions which if you will, is a proven concept, that if this helps from the federal taxpayer to the state or local taxpayer because theyre one and the same thing these essential services can be preserved and we know that if those police positions are preserved, then that downtown in shreveport is more likely to safely reopen for commerce. Now, we talked about moodys predictingos loss of revenue. Blouisiana is predicted to lose 45 of its revenue but theres other states affected, new jersey, maine, florida, oklahoma, michigan, idaho, alaska, arizona, illinois all predicted to lose large sums of tax revenue. So let me speak specifically about the smart act, or as again i would call it the thin blue line bill. It is a reasonable, bipartisan, this is how we go forward in both chambers. Now, we picked 500 quintillion. Some would say thatso too much it actually that is the amount of light that moodys predicts state and local governments will act over the next year and a half. So we k actually kind of nail where the independent agency puts the need for our state and or local government. And its targeted. One, theres been a lot of concern this will be used to bail out states, quoteunquote, that those who accumulated a large unfunded accrued liability in their Pension Funds would use thatpe money to support those Pension Funds. We specifically do not allow that. So that is somebodys political concern, that has been addressed. But what do we do . Well first off third of the dollars can go out now because its based upon population. This recognizes that if california 31 Million People and wyoming that has 500,000, that there that there needs to be some accommodation or just the population size, because inevitably that will influence the totally. The next third will go out at the end of june based upon how hard estate was hit in terms of help from the coronavirus. If your state was slammed from coronavirus, louisiana was, new jersey was, other statesn have been, then thats where you get the hell. Frankly it is unfortunate youre getting the help. To help. It would be a lot better if you would not been impacted but if it has, it is there to support your state to the health aspect of this crisis. The last third will go out at the end of this calendar year. That is based upon thehi financl hit that your state has taken. So if your states tax base has been decreased by 45 , then you would get additional dollars in the third tranche of money which comes up at the end of this calendar year. Obviously at the end of this calendar year is almost beyond the fiscal year for most states and so that replace the dollars of the states disposal for the next fiscal year. And in that we recover this prolonged period that moodys says that state and local governments will be out. Theres one more concern, and that is whether or not, whether or not all this money will go to a Governors Office and none will go to counties or parishes in louisiana or municipalities. D onethird of the dollars will go directly to mean a a spouse and counties. Those local governments that are on the forefront of providing services to those who are being affected by the coronavirus epidemic. So we think weve got something which balances the needs of stakeholders. The most important stakeholder being the american citizen. That both addresses the need for fiscal accountability but the need to preserve those essential Government Services to get our economy, to get our economy going whats more. So can i want to ask all my colleagues to support the thin blue line bill otherwise known as the g smart act. I think it is a smart way to go forward to make sure we dont slip into a recession before we return with is robust and economy from this crisis as we entered the crisis. With that i will yield to my colleague from maine. Madam president . The senator from maine. Madam president , im pleased to be a cosponsor of the smart act and want to commend senator senator cassidy for their tremendous leadership. Our bill would help us set the collapse of state and local revenues resulting from the covid19 pandemic. The coronavirus virus has already claimed the lives of more than 95,000 americans, and as the virus damages our health and deprives us of our loved ones, it is also devastated our communities and our economy. As of last week nearly 20 of maines total civilian workforce had filed for unemployment. The Tourism Sector has been tickled hardhit, and this is so important particularly hardhit. But the fact is that no industrial sector has been immune from this disease. Restaurants and hotels in f Southern Maine face uncertainty not k known when or even if they will ever reopen. As the result of having to cancel nonessential surgeries, many hospitals are struggling to stay open. Lobster men and freshmen have major markets. Potato farmers may be unable to sell more than 22 million worth of their 2019 crop. The motorcoach industry has been invastated. In short, madam president , working families and communities across the state of maine have been hit hard. Moodys forecast that maine may face one of the worst impacts in the entire country in terms of lost revenue. 85 of maines state revenues are from income and sales tax. They have plummeted. Gas tax revenues have tanked. These projected shortfalls threaten vital state and local services. Madam president , one in six mainers is employed in the public sector. These are the individuals who nsep our communities and our citizens safe. The Police Officers, the firefighters, the ems personnel. They provide healthcare and education. They maintain our roads and our bridges. When i visited the Fire Department recently to deliver some muchneeded masks, the town manager told me that the decline in excise taxes has been devastating for this town. Maineti communities tell me that they will have no choice but to either increase property taxes at the worst possible time for working families,ie or eliminate First Responder jobs and slash Education Funding if they do not receive help. The sport act would help avoid the worst of these consequences by providing 500 billion in federal relief to state, local, and tribal governments. Unlikehe the cares act where ony big cities were eligible for assistance, under our bill every county and every community would be eligible for funding. Maine would receive at least 2 billion, including about 330 million for counties and 330 noting for communities. And the 1. 25 billion that we already appropriated for assistance to state governments under the cares act would be made much more flexible so it could be used to offset these dramatic revenue shortfalls. Madam president , the fallout from the coronavirus is unprecedented. Congress has a tremendous responsibility to help mitigate the impact of this crisis on our states and our local communities, and on the families they serve. We must not wait. We should act now. Thank you, madam president. Madam president . The senator from new jersey. Thank thank you very much. I want to thank senator casey, store mendez for leaving on this extraordinary bill and the broad bipartisan support that it has. And a senator menendez and i have both been mayors in our communities. When theres no crisis we know intimately the challenges that so many of our Public Servants face in times will we do not see pandemics are firefighters put their lives on the line, our Police Officers put their lives on the line, our teachers do extraordinary above and beyond of duty and deed. Our communities are strong because of these dedicated Public Workers. At the time of the crisis we see that our teachers are rising to the challenge, working to keep their students engaged even though they are now miles apart. I hear stories of teachers writing around going out to even visit students, keeping their distance but ensuring that the students get the support that they need. Are firefighters are out there now putting their lives even more of a risk. Putting their souls online to help their communities. Police officers answering calls without hesitation despite the great risk it puts o on themsels and their families when they go home, and so many of our other Public Servants who are working diligently to keep our communities running, to keep our states strong to meet a crisis to try to help folks stay healthy. Stay safe. Without hesitation across new jersey, across all of our 50 states we are seeing more clearly the heroic actions of people who are leaving in a time of crisis. But as was said by my colleagues across the country, states are being hit by significantly declining revenues and extraordinarily increasing costs. We are already seeing early projections as we discussed by my colleague even independent rating agencies like moodys are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in deficits for our state and local governments. My own governor has estimated new jerseys projected gap caused by those declining revenues, extremely rising costs to be somewhere between 20 30 billion. Due to these shortfalls. Without immediate action, from Congress State and local governments will be forced to make deep cuts to public services, including laying off folks who are not just essential but make the difference often between life or death, safety or crisis in our communities. These would be the workers that would be laid off at the time that we need them the most. Not only do these vital Public Servants do a a job protectingr communities from educating our kids to supporting our neighbors, but acts like hes actually will aggravate and deepen the Overall Economic crisis facing our country independent rating agencies anothere say that cuts like thee will actually prolong our economic crisis in the time needed for recovery. This is not thef time for half measures. This is the time to act at the scale that the crisis demands. The federal government needs to be providing a robust, accurately taylor respond to this crisis by funding our state and locall governments in a way that prioritizes those areas that have been hit the hardest. The smart act does exactly that. It is b a bipartisan bill. It is thoughtful. It is tailored narrowly to fit this crisis. The smart act is a common sense approach that will make sure that the help is going to where it is needed most tour hardest hit communities and states, ad will help to ensure that those workers that we hail with our words, firefighters, Police Officers, and teachers, that we support them with our actions as well, for they are out there right now supporting us. No state should go bankrupt by come because of this virus. No state should go bankrupt because we refuse at the federal government to support them. No essential Public Workers should lose their job because of this crisis and because congress was not stepping up to lead through it. Theres no time to waste. As was said by my colleague, we have folks in my state of putting together their budgets right now. As we saw from my colleague from louisiana they are already accounting for the need to cut. Already seen hundredsth of thousands of Public Workers being laid off. The delay has costs, and when youre talking about First Responders, the delays could have costs that are hard to imagine. I encourage my colleagues to see this is what it is. It is an accurately tailored response, a bipartisan bill. It is what our nation needs right now. I encourage my colleagues in the senate to work to get this to the floor so that we can vote on it, pass on and get it through congress to the president to desk so we can avoid these layoffs and help to endure the storm that were in an ultimately overcome the severity of its ravages. Thank you, madam president. Madam president . The senator from georgia. I ask unanimous consent t