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Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., ripped Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on “The Story” Friday for suggesting that states hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic declare bankruptcy rather than ask for a federal bailout.
“I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route,” McConnell told the “The Hugh Hewitt Show” Wednesday “… [T]here’s no good reason for it not to be available. My guess is their first choice would be for the federal government to borrow money from future generations to send it down to them now so they don’t have to do that. That’s not something I’m going to be in favor of.”
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That same day, McConnell told “Bill Hemmer Reports” that senators “are not interested in revenue replacement for state governments … we are not interested in solving their pension problems and all these other things that they would like for us to finance.”
King insisted Friday that “no one is looking for any money other than that we’ve lost directly because of the coronavirus” and said any claim to the contrary was “a total lie being spread by Mitch McConnell.”
“We’re talking about paying the cops, the firefighters, the doctors, [and] all of the lost revenue because of coronavirus,” King said. “This has nothing to do with pensions… I am not a big fan of [New York] Governor [Andrew] Cuomo as far as his policies as governor, I think he’s doing a very good job as far as the coronavirus is concerned.”
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King noted that his home county of Nassau on Long Island has nearly twice as many COVID-19 deaths as the state of California.
“Forty percent of the county budget comes from sales tax,” he said. “Sales taxes are [going to be] near zero for the next few months, so how do you make up that in the budget? That’s directly because of the coronavirus.
“So, Mitch McConnell says we should go bankrupt. One of the reasons New York has problems otherwise is because we subsidize Kentucky,” King added. “We get many billions less back from the federal treasury than we pay in, while Mitch McConnell and Kentucky gets billions more than they’re entitled to.”
