New Op-Ed: Small Businesses Battered by COVID-19 Need Urgent Help
In an op-ed for USA Today, Senator Michael Bennet and I wrote about the need for our RESTART Act to help save small businesses suffering from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
This is a code red moment for small businesses. It’s why nearly 2,000 buildings across the country from Seattle’s Space Needle to New York’s Madison Square Garden to our very own Victory Field lit up in red lights earlier this month to underscore the need for urgent action. The action they’re all calling for is clear. As Congress negotiates the next relief package, it must pass our RESTART Act. Senator Bennet and I wrote the RESTART Act to help America’s hardest-hit businesses stay afloat and keep workers on the job through the end of the year and into 2021. It’s the only bipartisan legislation of its kind with 56 Republican and Democratic co-sponsors in the Senate and momentum is building across the country.
RESTART Act Event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute
On Thursday, I participated in a virtual event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to discuss my RESTART Act. The event coincided with more than 8,700 small businesses nationwide signing onto a letter urging congress to pass my bipartisan RESTART Act.
This is personal for me because I hail from a small business family. I can remember the lean Christmases we had some good ones, we had some challenging ones but more than that I remember those many employees that over the years came and went. There are real faces and real names associated with this crisis. So the approach we’ve taken with the RESTART Act a low-interest, partially forgivable, longer-term loan where one’s forgiveness is based on one’s revenue loss I think that this is the right approach.
Click HERE or on the image above to watch last week’s event hosted by AEI.
Indiana to Receive $27.5 Million from DOT for Highway Improvement Projects
Last week, I was proud to announce that after I wrote to Secretary Elaine Chao, Indiana will receive $27.5 million in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for highway improvement projects.
Indiana is known as the Crossroads of America with nearly 12,000 miles of highways and more than 4,000 miles of rail lines within our borders. Recently, Indiana has taken responsible actions to ensure that its state-level infrastructure program serves the needs of Hoosiers and all Americans who traverse the state each day. In 2017, our state implemented a long-term transportation plan that fully funded maintenance and construction on existing highways for at least the next 20 years, provided funding certainty for transformative projects like the extension of Interstate 69 from Indianapolis to Evansville, and provided significant increases in funding to local governments for city, town and county road projects. Federal funding through these BUILD grants will ensure that these critical corridors are able to continue facilitating national commerce.
Passing the Next Coronavirus Recovery Package
Kids. Jobs. Healthcare. This is what the American people want us to address right now. Serving the needs of boots-on-the-ground Americans is the best policy and political course right now. I was disappointed that my colleagues on the left refused once again to come together and pass a relief package for the good of the American people.
Click here to watch my full remarks from last Wednesday’s Senate GOP Leadership press conference.
Remembering the Americans Lost on 19th Anniversary of September 11 Attacks
Not a year goes by where we don’t remember the national heartache experienced on September 11, 2001, when we lost the lives of so many brave Americans, including several Hoosiers. We must never forget those heroes. We have a duty to keep their memory alive, and to honor them through unity and service, while remaining vigilant so a tragedy like this never happens again.
Last week, I co-sponsored a resolution honoring the heroic actions of first responders and other citizens in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. The resolution calls for acts of service and reflection, and urges all Americans to continue to live their lives throughout the year with the same spirit of unity, service, and compassion exhibited throughout the country following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This year’s resolution also recognizes the many Americans who have rallied together to respond to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
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