Rep. Estes touts COVID stimulus for planemakers and unemployed; opposes $1,400 checks
Wichita congressman Ron Estes said Wednesday that he opposes a Biden Administration plan to provide $1,400 COVID-19 stimulus checks to most Americans.
Instead, he wants a more targeted approach that would include enhanced unemployment benefits and paying half the salaries of workers in aircraft plants.
“We did the first $1,200 round (of widespread stimulus checks) back in the spring, we did another $600 in December,” said Estes, a Republican. “And now we come back and they’re talking about $1,400. You end up with you’re sending the money to folks who didn’t lose a job. You’re sending it to folks that maybe were working a lot of overtime because of what they had to do. “
Estes said he’d prefer to see stimulus money reserved for extended unemployment payments for people who actually lost jobs or had their work hours severely reduced by business cutbacks and closures brought on by the COVID pandemic.
“I think it’s a better use of the federal resources to help the folks that really need it,” he said.
For the aircraft industry, Estes is co-sponsoring a proposed addition to the stimulus bill to have the federal government pay 50% of the payroll of aircraft companies to keep their workers on the factory floors.
“We know that there’s been a devastating impact on the aviation industry,” he said. “It really is an either/or. Either we do something like the Aviation Manufacturing Jobs Protection Bill or we pay unemployment for people. It’s not like it’s a difference in cost to do that.”
Estes made his remarks after touring Sedgwick County’s COVID vaccination site at Intrust Bank Arena. Also on Wednesday, he toured a laboratory set up at Wichita State University to process test results for coronavirus infection.
He praised both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden for their efforts to control the disease and vaccinate the population.
“The Trump administration started the process of getting the vaccines rolled out and we’re up over a million vaccinations a day,” he said. “Now the Biden administration’s continuing to roll forward with that.”
Estes also said there’s some encouraging news on the science front with indications that the current vaccine will be at least partially effective in protecting against mutated variants of the coronavirus that have surfaced in the United Kingdom, South Africa and elsewhere.
Estes participated in a conference call this week with health experts including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s point man in the pandemic. The group’s consensus on the vaccine was “even though it may not be as effective as it was on the first variant, at least it minimizes the symptoms when or if someone does get sick,” he said.
