President's Order For Pandemic Relief 'Means Nothing': NJ Gov.

NEW JERSEY - President Donald Trump on Saturday signed a series of executive orders intended to ease the ongoing economic fallout caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Governor Phil Murphy was not impressed.

"A payroll tax holiday means nothing to the unemployed, when there is no paycheck coming in. A fact made worse when the $600 enhanced weekly unemployment benefit expired at the end of July," Murphy said at his Monday COVID-19 briefing in Trenton. "Unfortunately a payroll tax holiday will not save workers anything in the long run as they will still be on the hook for the taxes owed, come April 15."

Murphy noted that a payroll tax holiday diverts billions of dollars from social security and Medicare.

"The former, is a lifeline for millions of American seniors, and the latter is the sole means of healthcare for many others who are wary of becoming COVID-19's next victims," he said.

Trump moved to extend supplemental federal unemployment benefits for millions of Americans out of work during the outbreak. Congress allowed those payments to lapse on Aug. 1, and negotiations to extend them were mired in partisan gridlock.

Through Trump's order, benefits will be lowered from $600 to $400 per week.

"It's $400 a week, and we're doing it without the Democrats," Trump said, asking states to cover 25 percent of the cost. It was not immediately clear where the federal portion would come from — though the president suggested he was looking to use unspent funds from previous coronavirus relief bills — and Trump said it would be up to states to determine how much, if any of it to fund.

Murphy said that the president has offered a $400 benefit, but has offered no clear guidance as to how states will pay for or even administer this program.

"Millions of unemployed workers and their families deserve better," he said. Numerous experts have already spoken out and said that this plan will have little if any stimulus effect on our national economy."

Murphy said that states are going broke and millions of Americans are unemployed and this solution calls for states to create a new program they can't afford to begin with and don't know how to administer because of this uncertainty.

"I cannot sit here right now and say New Jersey could afford to participate in this program. And the president's actions do not provide one dime for state and local governments who are the frontline responders to this pandemic," he said. "Not one dime for our first responders who put their lives on the line every day fighting COVID-19. Not one dime for our educators preparing for the new school year. Not one dime to secure health care for families who have seen their incomes plummet and in many cases their health coverage evaporate."

Murphy said that the solution is congressional action.

"The House of Representatives has already sent to the Senate a workable plan to extend direct benefits to the unemployed as well as hundreds of billions of desperately needed dollars to state and local governments to ensure that our COVID-19 services don't go dark," he said. "Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer have more than shown a willingness to sit with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and hammer out a deal and get a true stimulus and response bill to the president's desk. The time for political games ended months ago. COVID-19 hasn't cared a wit about which side of the partisan divide it has taken its victims from."

Not Workable

Murphy noted that as it stands, to follow the executive order New Jersey would have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars and that was not a workable solution and that the CARES Act funding would be of little help, if any.

"There's only so much cares act funding. People speak about the cares act as if it is some $500 billion dollar bucket of money. Not only is it limited but there isn't enough money to go around to deal with the variety of tsunamis we're facing," he said. "We're talking about finite amounts here. We need another big slug and big is when I say big I mean big. In New Jersey we need $20 billion with a B. And that dwarves the amount of CARES act money and what is left to be spent."

Murphy implored McConnell to stop trying to play to a partisan audience.

"There can be no more excuses. We are proving as a state what is possible when we react to this pandemic not according to politics, but according to science and the direct needs of the people we serve," he said. "Please. Get this done."

This post contains reporting by Megan VerHelst.

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