Fellow Conservative,

In the dead of Friday night, the House passed Speaker Pelosi’s HEROES Act, but for Americans, this bill is rather villainous. It’s a $3 trillion socialist wishlist with nearly $1 trillion alone going to bail out states like New York, California, and Illinois for their years of unpaid spending.

State bailouts are a case of crony politicians trying to “never let a crisis go to waste.” As Jessica Anderson explained in a recent op-ed, these bailouts are for spending unrelated to the coronavirus epidemic and are a form of generational theft:

Before the pandemic, irresponsible politicians were already driving Social Security, Medicare, and public pensions to the brink of crisis. Now, those same politicians are using COVID-19 as an excuse to take a trillion dollars for the decades-old problems they caused, leaving the bill with the next generation. Millennials should be outraged.

Jessica also sat down this week with Florida Senator Rick Scott who has been a leading conservative voice in opposition to a federal bailout for state governments. Senator Scott explained why liberal blue states want a bailout from you, the federal taxpayer:

Illinois, by itself, has a $137 billion shortfall in their pension. They would like taxpayers in other states to pay for that, because they don’t want to have to pay for it...In California, they provide healthcare for illegal immigrants. That’s not what we ought to be doing.

You can watch the full conversation here.

Take Action

Here are 3 things you can do to help stop a federal bailout for spend-crazy states:

1. Call your representative using this call script and talking points (use the link to also find your representative’s phone number.) Congress is checking their voicemails, so if they don’t pick up, leave a voicemail and tell them to “oppose state bailouts.”
2. Tweet at your representative using this automated tweet (enter your zip code to auto-populate the tweet with your senator or representative’s Twitter handle).
3. Write a letter to the editor (LTE) using this tip sheet and talking points.

If you would like to get more involved as a conservative activist, please join the Sentinel Program so we can provide you with timely resources and access to special events.

Pelosi’s Socialist Wishlist

There’s a lot more than just state bailouts to oppose in Pelosi’s latest attempt to take advantage of a crisis. With a $3 trillion price tag, there’s plenty of spending for liberal causes in the HEROES act. On our blog, we published a whole list of bad policies found in the bill—here are just 3:

• Stimulus Payments for Illegal Immigrants: Remember the $1,200 cash payments some Americans received under the CARES Act? Well, this bill would include more cash payments, but not only for American citizens. Because the HEROES Act does not require social security verification to receive a stimulus payment, the bill would also send Americans taxpayer dollars to illegal immigrants.
• Interferes with States’ Election Rights: Under the U.S. Constitution, the right to conduct elections is given solely to the states. But the HEROES Act requires states to provide no-excuse absentee vote-by-mail ballots, forgo any form of identification to obtain an absentee ballot, and establish vote by mail standards that would allow an individual to designate another person to return their ballot for them.
• $25 Million for the Arts, Humanities, Libraries, and Museums: We’ve been down this road already. An earlier coronavirus relief bill gave $25 million to The Kennedy Center, but despite the influx of cash, The Kennedy Center still furloughed—without pay—279 full-time employees and 725 part-time staff members. So this additional $25 million isn’t going to go to working Americans—just the well connected, Washington elites!

Time to Open American Society

As of this morning, 100,000 conservative activists have signed the petition to open American society, and the voices of these conservative activists represent the views of millions more!

Together, they are sending a message to governors and Washington politicians that:

• People should be free to travel
• Businesses should be open to the public
• Americans should be responsible for getting themselves tested as needed
• Constitutional liberties must be protected in times of crisis
• Individuals have personal responsibility and are willing to take smart precautions to care for their neighbors

We’ve passed 100,000 signatures, but there is still time to sign the petition before we deliver it next week to the National Governors Association and others.

We’ll be posting pictures and videos on social media, so be sure to follow along on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Thank you to all who have signed for helping direct governors’ attention towards sound policy!

- Jessica and the Heritage Action team

Join the fight to advance the conservative agenda.