Cuomo on McConnell: 'We bail them out every year'
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo addressed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell during his Wednesday press briefing.
Video Transcript
ANDREW CUOMO: They're led by Senator Mitch McConnell, who leads the Senate, who makes it blatantly political. No blue state bailout, no blue state bailout. What is he trying to say?
The states that have coronavirus are democratic states, and he's a Republican. So he doesn't want to help the democratic states. He went so far as to say, well, he'd be in favor of the states going bankrupt.
First, states have never gone bankrupt. States can't go bankrupt. There are serious constitutional questions about whether or not a state can go bankrupt, declare bankruptcy, and you'd need a federal law that would allow the states to declare bankruptcy, even if you've got around the constitutional question on bankruptcy.
So if he believed that, if it wasn't just political rhetoric and personal vitriol, then pass a law that allows states to declare bankruptcy. You would have to do that, and I dare him to do that and get that bill signed by the president. But to make it partisan is what is most disturbing, and you can see they're now rallying the partisan troops.
Senator Scott from Florida says, we're supposed to bail them out. We versus them. We're supposed to bail them out. It's we, and it's them. That's not right.
Who is we, and who is them? Who is we, and who is then? Them, the people who had coronavirus. They are the ones who had the coronavirus. We without the virus are supposed to bailout those people who have the virus.
What an ugly sentiment. First of all, on the facts, it's not even close to right. And why they would even want to go down this road when the facts damn everything they're saying, and there are still facts. I know it's hard to communicate facts in this environment.
I know a lot of the filters don't communicate facts. They all communicate spin now. Everybody has their own spin, but there are still facts that are not political theater, right? New York state bails them out every year. They're not bailing us out.
We bail them out every year. New York state pays $29 billion into that federal pot, $29 billion more every year that we never get back. Our state contribution into the federal pot, the United States of America pot, every year, we put in $29 billion more than we take out.
On the other hand, they take out every year $37 billion more than they pay to the federal government. Senator Mitch McConnell, you are bailing out New York when every year, you take out more from the kitty, the federal pot, $37 billion dollars more than you put in? Who is bailing out whom?
