
So now the grossly inadequate $900 billion Covid relief package has been signed into law by an impulsive President still clinging to his leaking reservoir of power at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Thanks to the Senate's still apparently prevailing view that the federal government shouldn't help "blue states" address their massive tax and fee revenue shortfalls, the package includes only fiscal crumbs for the state and local sector, e.g. $54 billion for k-12 schools, to come largely through the Title I program (compared with the $175 billion for roughly the same purpose included in the HEROES Act, an amount calculated to meet the reasonably well-projected amount of actual need to be experienced b all the nation's public school districts.).

As the Covid epicenters have moved from the Northeast and Northwest (both heavily "blue") into virtually all states (including many "red" states like Florida, Texas, Tennessee and Kentucky) the state and local fiscal stress associated with trying to bend infection and death trends has followed predictably along. So now we're treated to the tragically ironic spectacle of Kentucky's state and local governments - particularly those in heavily red rural areas - struggling to help their constituents do things like AVOID STARVATION, GET EDUCATED, AND ACCESS OHEALTHCARE. Thanks to today's excellent NYTimes reporting by journalists Ben Casselman and Will Wright, you, too can see the disgusting results of one party's refusal to do the economically and politically right thing as it plays out for the local leaders and constituents of Perry County, KY
Now it's true that overall the state and local revenue shortfalls we are seeing accumulate by year-end 2020 are not necessarily as great as many including me had predicted early in the crisis, as Lucy Dadayan of the Urban Institute and Jared Walczak have been doggedly chronicling month using direct reporting by states (In Dr. Dadayan's approach) and Census Bureau data (in Dr. Walczak's methodology. But has actual data been used to justify the measly fiscal band-aid approach taken finally by the Senate and now lame duck POTUS to sizing and maybe even targeting state and local fiscal relief to address actual need fiscal needs in their incredible federal patchwork variety ? Heaven and the (Majority Leader) forbid!
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