The $3 trillion HEROES Act is scheduled for a vote on Friday in the U.S. House. Representative Antonio Delgado NY-19 of the Hudson Valley, says rural areas like his didn’t get much from the last stimulus package, so this time around, he was determined to change that.  

“What we tried to do with the Direct Support Communities Act is devise a formula, partly with my Republican colleague Lee Zeldin, to be sure that whatever the amount of funding is, for state and local, a portion of that will reach every single town, hamlet, village, based on population across the country.”

$375 billion is the amount currently earmarked for local governments in the HEROES Act. Under Delgado’s formula, local relief funding would be split 50/50, half committed to cities, towns and villages, and half committed to counties.

“I have counties in the district that are laying off folks because they don’t have the means to maintain,” Delgado said. “We have to support our firefighters, our teachers, our law enforcement, our police officers, our nurses, doctors who work in public hospitals.  There is so much that is being provided by way of local government, but they don’t have the resources right now.”

If the HEROES Act passes in the House, it will have an uphill battle in the U.S. Senate, where today Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the aid package “a totally unserious effort” to address the pandemic. Delgado called those words unfortunate.

“The notion that rather than provide a serious response, one that meets the serious of the moment, is insulting to the millions upon millions of Americans who have been asked to sacrifice so much to endure this hardship,” McConnell said.

The Direct Support Communities Act is the only bipartisan and bicameral piece of legislation in the HEROES ACT.