$25B for restaurants
Schumer, in Colonie, touts plan for $25B to aid small businesses
Schumer pushes restaurant relief, ducks questions about Cuomo in upstate visit.
U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, in his first visit to upstate New York as the Senate majority leader, lauded a restaurant relief fund policy he’s folding into the broader COVID-19 stimulus package that’s in the works in Congress.
In a press briefing at the Toro Cantina on Wolf Road in Colonie on Monday afternoon, Schumer was joined by the owner of the restaurant, Jaime Ortiz, who said he’d planned the Mexican eatery for two years before doors opened last spring — just in time for them to almost immediately close again due to the pandemic. Because it was a new business, it was ineligible for Paycheck Protection Program funds, Ortiz said.
Under the proposed program, Schumer said $25 billion would be set aside for restaurants — restricted to small businesses — to help them out through the end of the year.
Schumer touted his new swagger in the Senate, saying that as majority leader he has the power to decide what amendments get votes on different bills. That allows him to ensure that measures like the restaurant fund, which he said has bipartisan support, end up in the final version of bills that
land on the president’s desk.
“I am going to use that clout to help New York and help the Capital Region,” Schumer said.
The press conference was held in the midst of a political maelstrom over the policies of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in dealing with COVID -19 in New York’s nursing homes.
Republicans had long alleged a cover-up of the full number of deaths in the facilities, allegations that were given weight by a state attorney general’s report last month. Then last week, Secretary to the Governor Melissa Derosa acknowledged in a closed-door meeting with Democratic state legislators that “we froze” and the administration had withheld information from their chambers —
and from the public — out of fear it would be politicized or used against them in a U.S. Justice Department inquiry.
Typically, when Schumer or his junior colleague, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, hold press conferences to tout specific policies, they ask for questions on those policies first, then open the floor to broader questions. More than a dozen journalists attended Schumer’s Monday afternoon event, and many had planned to ask the senator about the controversy involving Cuomo.
But Schumer abruptly ended the news conference and cut through the kitchen to exit through a back door to a waiting car, sidestepping questions about Cuomo and nursing homes.