Fighting for a reopening New York in Washington

As new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to trend downward in New York, the state has slowly begun the process of reopening and jumpstarting its stalled economy. But with the pandemic far from over and local governments facing massive budget shortfalls, the road to recovery will be a long one. Rep. Tom Suozzi – the only member of Congress representing New York City on the federal Task Force on Reopening the Economy – spoke about what he and his colleagues are doing to try to help ease the pain and aid in reopening during a June 9 webinar with City & State. His responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What’s going on at the federal level with reopening, and what are you seeing in your own district?

I think that there's a tremendous amount of anxiety that remains. Some people are anxious about reopening, they're anxious about the impact on coronavirus spread from the protests that we've all been a part of. And other people are anxious to reopen. (There are) two different emotions that are driving people right now. We've been through so much. Imagine how bad it was six weeks ago. So from a federal perspective, my number one priority is we have to get money in New York. We first handed out money for hospitals. There's a $100 billion fund, $30 billion went out from the Health and Human Services Department. And more money went to hospitals in Texas, which at the time had 2.5% of the cases, than went to New York, which at the time had over 35% of the cases. So we said, “That doesn't make any sense. What the heck's going on here?” Now we have a special fund to try and get money in the HEROES Act the Democrats passed to states based upon the rate of infection. I got every Democrat and every Republican in New York and New Jersey, and then we built coalitions throughout the country with other states that are hard hit, to say that this special fund – we got up to $49 billion – will go to those states that were hardest hit. Of that $49 billion, New York will get about $10 billion of that money alone. That, combined with the other money, will bring in about $20 billion to New York state if we get this deal done.

What is the mood in Washington, given the news that we are officially in a recession, and getting a deal done on the next relief bill?

It’s the height of hypocrisy (for U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) to suggest we’re getting bailed out. New York is the epicenter of the coronavirus crsis. I represent three of the six hardest hit counties in the United States. We need to make up not only for the money we've spent, but for the lost revenues that we've been hit with so hard, because of the shutdown of the economy. And this is what the federal government's role is. If the federal government can make one mistake right now, it's not spending enough. Now, we really have to help the states and the local governments that have all the frontline workers that have been suffering throughout this process doing the essential work that we have. Republicans are saying, “We don’t want to defund police, we don’t want to defund police.” Well, you’re defunding police if you’re not giving money to New York state and to our state and local governments around the country. So I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure. They’re going to play games and they’re going to do what they typically do, and there’ll be some horse trading, but this is what we are here for.

Is there any planning now that there might be a spike in new cases in the aftermath of massive protests against police brutality?

We really need to look at people who are asymptomatic, but have been exposed to the coronavirus. That’s so important. Those folks are the biggest spreaders of all. So we have to test people who are asymptomatic, especially if they’ve been exposed to someone with the coronavirus. The federal government has failed. The federal government should be – and I’ve proposed this to the administration, they’re not listening – we should be doing a million tests a day, and they should be purchased by the federal government. That would cost $30 billion, which sounds like a big number, but it would give people the confidence that it would be safe for them to go back because we have the data.

What can we do to help minority communities that have disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and its economic impacts in terms of reopening?

One of the really important things that had happened was that Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, who's the chairwoman of the Small Business Committee in Congress, fought, along with many of us, to make sure that the second round of the PPP loans – the Payroll Protection Program loans – actually, a big piece of it was given to minority-owned banks. A big piece was given to community banks, a big piece was given to credit unions, so that not only could we try to drive more of these loans to smaller small businesses, but minority- and women-owned businesses as well. And whether it's testing related to the HEROES Act, whether it's money to state local governments, I think that it's essential going forward that we start thinking about what's the impact going to be persons of color.