Congressman Trone Supports Heroes Act to Help American Families, Essential Workers, and Small Businesses
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Trone.Press@mail.house.gov
Congressman Trone Supports Heroes Act to Help American Families, Essential Workers, and Small Businesses
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman David Trone (MD-06) voted in favor of the Heroes Act, the latest legislation considered by Congress to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Heroes Act addresses the continued economic and public health crisis by providing much-needed support for struggling families, small businesses and nonprofits, and frontline healthcare workers.
The bill also provides the Maryland state government and local communities on the frontlines of this crisis with robust, desperately needed funding to pay our health care workers, police, fire, transportation, EMS, teachers and other vital workers who keep us safe and are in danger of losing their jobs. In addition, the Heroes Act funds testing and tracing measures that are essential as we begin to reopen our economy.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on our health, our small businesses, and our pocketbooks, and Congress must act to respond to the magnitude of this crisis,” said Congressman David Trone. “The Heroes Act provides desperately needed funding to keep Americans safe, employed, and healthy. I am hopeful that after negotiations Congress can once again come together on a bipartisan basis to do what’s right for this country.”
Below are a few of the numerous initiatives in this legislation that will benefit the residents of Maryland:
- State and Local Funding: Nearly $1 trillion to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments (Trone led a request with 61 local government leaders this week requesting additional funding)
- Testing: $75 billion for testing, tracing, and isolation measures and $100 billion in support for hospitals
- Unemployment: Extends unemployment benefits, including the $600 weekly emergency payment (through January 2021)
- Direct Payments: Another round of direct payments to Americans to families up to $6,000 per household
- Housing: $175 billion in assistance to renters and homeowners to make monthly rent, mortgage, utility payments
- Small Business: Additional funding for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans and strengthens PPP for minority and underserved communities
- Nutrition: Expands nutrition benefits through SNAP and other programs, including the Food and Nutrition Provider Emergency Support Act (Trone introduced this bill this week)
- Medical research: $4.75 billion for medical research at NIH
- Mental Health & Addiction:
- $1 billion for the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant
- $1.5 billion for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant
- $10 million for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (Trone requested this funding for youth mental health)
- Creates a new national suicide prevention hotline number: 988
- Broadband: $5 billion for FCC’s E-Rate Program for schools and libraries to provide internet service (Trone led 83 Members of Congress to push for much-needed broadband funding in this and future packages)
- Criminal Justice:
- $200 billion to Bureau of Prisons for coronavirus response
- $300 billion to states for coronavirus response in prisons and jails
- BOP must report demographic data of individuals denied placement in community supervision (Trone led efforts to press states to report this data)
- IRS/Tax: IRS will allow for temporary changes in cafeteria benefits plans and Flexible Spending Accounts to roll over money or change the election because of COVID-19 impacts (Trone led effort to work with the IRS to change this policy)
- Election Security: Provides Maryland $67,461,628 in funding to help to assist in safely and fairly carrying out its 2020 elections
A Section by Section summary of the Heroes Act can be found here.
Congressman David Trone was elected to the House of Representatives in November 2018 to serve the 6th District of Maryland, which includes all or part of Montgomery, Frederick, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett Counties. Trone serves on the Education and Labor, Foreign Affairs, and Joint Economic Committees, where he is fighting to make progress on issues that matter to Marylanders, including the opioid epidemic, criminal justice reform, and funding for medical research.
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