New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy emphatically called statements by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “completely and utterly irresponsible” and once again called for pandemic relief funds for states.
McConnell was quoted in news media outlets as saying he would favor states going bankrupt instead of giving state federal relief that would be paid back by future generations.
“There’s no level of responsibility with that, and I don’t care what party you’re in,” Murphy said.
States won’t go bankrupt, but there will be consequences, the governor said.
“We will gut the living daylights in every state in America out of the services, the exact services that our citizens need right now,” Murphy said. “We will just cut, cut, cut and cut. We won’t go bankrupt, senator. But we will leave our citizens in the lurch at their most profound hour of need. This is no time for bankruptcies. This is the time to stand up on a bipartisan basis and be there for the states in America, not just for the state’s sake but for the American people.”
The National Governors Association asked Congress for $500 billion in direct payments to states to offset costs due to the coronavirus due to the pandemic. The package passed by the Senate on Tuesday that goes before the House on Thursday does not include any direct state assistance.
Murphy said he is feels better about recent tweets by President Donald Trump that indicate he is open to helping states.
“I believe the president is in a better place in this, and he is going to have to be, because it’s not optional,” Murphy said. “If we’re going to continue to serve folks who are unemployed, small businesses that are bust, folks who are sick or, God forbid, dying, there’s no other way around that. We’ve got to be there for them and the federal government has got to give us the wherewithal to allow us to continue to do that.”
New Jersey is partnering with New York and Connecticut on contract tracing which is “vital” to reopening, Murphy said. The governor signed a bill that will require hospitals to provide demographic and racial data on coronavirus patients.
“This information will be critical for us to fully understand the impact that COVID-19 has had on our diverse communities, as we can already tell from the preliminary data that this emergency has had an outsized impact on our communities of color,” he said.
The number of people who died from coronavirus reached more than 5,000 on Wednesday as another 314 deaths were reported Wednesday. The total number of cases is at 95,865 with 5,063 deaths.
The number of coronavirus patients released continues to outpace the number of those admitted to the hospital, Murphy said. There were 745 people discharged from the hospital and 361 were admitted in the 24-hour period that began at 10 p.m. Monday and ended at 10 p.m. Tuesday.
“We need to see this number begin a sustained decrease,” Murphy said.
