Maryland Official Pushes For State-Funded $2K Stimulus Checks By Using Its $1.2 Billion Rainy Day Fund
For the fourth day in a row, a proposal to increase the amount of recently approved coronavirus relief checks has been blocked. Senate Republicans blocked a House-passed bill to increase the stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 on Friday.
RELATED: Mitch McConnell Claims It Is “Unrealistic” To Pass House Bill Increasing Stimulus Checks
While Democrats are still trying to make this happen, an official out in Maryland has called for the state to step up COVID-19 relief. According to The Hill citing Fox Baltimore, state comptroller Peter Franchot is pushing Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and other state officials to approve a $1 billion relief plan that would extract money from the state’s Rainy Day Fund, reserve funds, or line of credit — $2,000 stimulus checks — and give it to residents.
Franchot emphasized that the Maryland Rainy Day Fund was “designed per its name for a crisis just like the one we’re in right now.”
“It’s not only raining outside,” he said, according to CBS affiliate WUSA9. “It’s also a tornado, a hailstorm, a hurricane and a tsunami all at once.”
As the news site notes, under the plan,
Maryland residents who make $50,000 or less in a year will qualify for the $2,000 direct payment. Couples who collectively make less than $100,000 will also be given a check. Franchot said, according to Fox Baltimore: “The key thing with state aid is that we can get it to people. Federal aid is a bureaucratic maze.”
Franchot even shared a petition to the governor earlier this week requesting use of the Rainy Day Fund, saying Hogan “should do everything in his power to prevent more of our small businesses from closing and more residents from losing their jobs due to an unavoidable virus.”
Millions of Marylanders are looking to Annapolis for help and for action, and we cannot — and we must not — let them down. Join us in urging the Governor to take action now ➡️ https://t.co/Gg6BwomxZf
— Comptroller Peter Franchot (@peterfranchot) December 28, 2020
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