KEY VOTE: ATR Urges A NO Vote on Pelosi’s Partisan “HEROES Act”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Congressional Democrats have re-released their partisan “Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act. 

This legislation is a 2,200-page, $2.2 trillion wish list of liberal priorities that are not directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the wrong approach for Congress to address the crisis.

ATR Urges a NO vote.

Some key provisions in the bill include:

• Extends the additional $600 unemployment benefit through Q1 of 2021. This benefit is in addition to existing unemployment benefits, creating an incentive for Americans to choose welfare over work.
   
• Suspends the $10,000 cap on deducting state and local taxes, a proposal that almost exclusively benefits wealthy blue states and does almost nothing to help the middle class.
   
• Provides almost $500 billion in funding for states, localities, territories, and tribes.
   
• Expands the refundability of several tax credits, using the tax code to provide direct cash subsidies.
   
• Retroactively increases taxes on struggling businesses by denying net operating loss carrybacks before 2019.
   
• Expands Obamacare by creating a special enrollment period.
   
• Provides $10,000 in student loan forgiveness to public and private loans.
   
• Provides $15 billion in funding to the United States Postal Service without structural reforms and would require states to accept mail-in ballots received within 10 days of the election.
   
• Provides $50 million for environmental justice grants.
   
• Bails out numerous Department of Housing and Urban Development programs and public housing agencies at the state and local level and includes a 120-day moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent for a one-year period beginning on the date of enactment of the HEROES Act. Applies to all dwelling units, regardless of whether they are subsidized or backed by a federal mortgage program, and regardless of whether a signed lease is in place.
   
• Suppresses all negative information for credit reporting and bans new credit scoring models during COVID-19 and major disaster periods. This will punish borrowers who most need access to credit during the health emergency.