Congressman Brian Higgins expects a stimulus package that includes roughly $1 trillion in direct aid for state and local governments to be approved this week.

"There's a distribution formula based on the community development block grant that's used historically to distribute funds from the federal government to localities," he says.

Higgins said he expects the city of Buffalo to receive more than $140 million and Erie County more than $80 million. They would be the biggest local beneficiaries, with funding also going to local cities, towns and villages, most of which are facing significant budget gaps due to spending and loss of revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

"They're also major employers. We need to keep people working so it is the number one priority right now for House Democrats," Higgins says.

He says House Democrats intended to include this aid in the previous stimulus package and blamed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for removing it at the 11th hour.

"Before Mitch McConnell tries to turn this into a Red State-Blue State board game, he needs to know that people are hurting throughout the entire country, both Red States and Blue States," he says.

Despite the fact Congress has not yet passed any direct aid to municipalities over the first two months of the pandemic, Higgins said he is confident it will happen next week.

"I'm confident because the House is initiating this funding bill, which we have the constitutional authority to do, Article 1 Section 7, that this bill will in fact get passed to provide that much needed assistance to state and local governments, right here in Western New York, New York state, and throughout the nation," he adds.

Meanwhile, the congressman says New York State's plan to take a phased regional approach to reopening the economy is sound. However, he has concerns about other state's that are already beginning the process.

"The people that are opening up their economies, they better be doing it in a way that keeps everybody healthy because we don't want to go back to where we were eight weeks ago and have to go through all of this again," he says.