U.S. Representative Bustos Urges Administration to Renew Funding for National Guard COVID-19 Assistance

We share this reporting by Politico Pulse to keep members informed of efforts to maintain the National Guard’s role in COVID-19 response. ANCOR members have received assistance with key elements of their COVID-19 safety measures, including mask fit-testing and testing staff and individuals supported for the virus.

“With federal funding for the National Guard’s coronavirus relief work set to expire at the end of the year, Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) is leading a new Capitol Hill effort to pressure Trump to extend the funding at least until Biden takes office.

‘Forcing governors to sit and wait over a three-week delay between your Administration and the next will inflict unnecessary, easily avoidable suffering,’ Bustos writes to Trump in a letter first shared with POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein.

Bustos, who recently contracted Covid-19, asks for the mission to be extended and for the Trump administration to drop cost-sharing it imposed on most states earlier this year, which charged them 25 percent of the cost of the Guard’s deployment. Nearly every governor is depending on soldiers and airmen for many key pieces of the pandemic response.”

Update: Politico Pulse reported that Vice President Pence stated he will be elevating the issue of National Guard funding to the President.