As top Republican officials gather to renominate President Trump, they still have no plan to help Georgia families struggling during this pandemic
Eviction protections have expired; extended unemployment benefits have run dry; promised stimulus checks don’t exist
Atlanta, Ga. — This week, after disingenuously insisting the Senate stay in session to pass another relief package and “wrestle this to the ground,” Senator David Perdue and Republicans are focused not on urgently needed COVID-19 relief, but rather their allegiance to Donald Trump.
Georgia needs continued economic support. While GOP officials fall over themselves to pay tribute to the Trump family and lavish the president with cringeworthy sycophantic praise, the Senate remains out of session while emergency unemployment benefits and small business loans have expired and Georgia schools aren’t getting federal help.
In the past month, extended unemployment insurance benefits ran out, eviction protections expired, promised second stimulus checks were nowhere to be found, and support for small businesses ended.
Yet Perdue and the Senate left town without addressing any of these programs, leaving Georgia families and small businesses out to dry.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently reported that eviction hearings have “quietly” started to resume across Atlanta with 10,000 cases on the docket, while WABE reported last month that without relief, “COVID-19 will leave more than a half-million more Georgians in a state of food insecurity.”
Georgia Public Broadcasting reported that the state of Georgia asked for a $1.1 billion loan from the federal government to help the state pay unemployment benefits.
And through it all, Senator David Perdue (R-Ga.) continues to hide in closed-door meetings and refuses to stand-up for his constituents’ needs.
When the Senate was in session, Perdue fought against and continues to oppose a single $1,200 relief check for workers and has fought to cut unemployment insurance, calling it a “hindrance” and peddling a debunked claim that it is “disincentivizing” work, despite a Yale study that found “no evidence that the $600 weekly jobless benefits Congress authorized in March reduced employment.”
Yet while opposing aid for Georgia families, small businesses, and local governments, Perdue had no trouble sending billions overnight to his corporate donors in March.
“This week, Senator Perdue and the Republican Party will fall over each other lavishing the Trumps with praise and double down on the President’s failed presidency while Americans wonder why the Senate is on vacation. While our frontline health care and essential workers are working hard and are in desperate need of help, Perdue and the Republicans refuse to pass the life-saving economic aid they need,” said Miryam Lipper, Ossoff’s communications director. “Unless you’re prepared to pay thousands of dollars for Senator Perdue’s time, the Senator doesn’t care. Georgia will reject Perdue’s corruption in November and send Jon to the Senate to put working families and small businesses first.”
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