During a recent appearance on The Gallo Show, Mississippi Senator Jeremy England said he firmly believes a final CARES Act appropriations bill will be passed by the end of this week.
“I expect when we go in tomorrow morning…we should have a bill out pretty soon this week,” England, who is the vice-chairman of the Economic Development Program, said. “We know we have to get some help to the people of Mississippi.”
England mentioned the Back to Business Mississippi grant program, which was approved last week. The program guarantees more than $100 million of the $1.25 billion in federal funds will go towards small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s going to at least be 100 million dollars for our small businesses in Mississippi,” England said. “The money will be administered by the MDA, so there’s no grabbing back and forth on this.”
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Another priority, according to England, is working directly and efficiently with the Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES) in order to get people back to work.
“They know there’s work to do,” England said. “We know there’s work to do, and what we wanted to let them know is that we’re there to help. We want to see communications improve. We want to see timeliness improve, because we have got a lot of people out in Mississippi that need some help.”
With the coronavirus creating the largest unemployment surge since The Great Depression, over 14.7 percent of the nation is now out of work.
“We have a priority right now to get money to our small businesses, to our unemployed individuals,” England said.
To watch the full interview with England, click the video below.
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