• A statewide relief fund is available to residents negatively affected by COVID-19.
  • Speaker Nancy Pelosi seeks $1 trillion for next COVID-19 relief bill.
  • State budget leaders host virtual economic roundtable this morning.
  • Small businesses struggle with cumbersome and confusing application for relief funds.
  • 2020 could be the shortest Presidential election ever. Why?
  • Today’s COVID-19 silver lining: John Krasinski gets the original cast of Hamilton to perform on his show, Some Good News

 

  1. The Massachusetts COVID-19 Relief Fund was launched yesterday with an inspiring $13 million in private donations. An initiative by Massachusetts First Lady Lauren Baker and the One8 Foundation, the fund will support frontline healthcare professionals, first responders and other essential workers and, in addition, those suffering from food and housing insecurity, people with disabilities and immigrant and undocumented populations. This joins with the Boston Resiliency Fund Mayor Marty Walsh launched last month.

 

  1. Congress is formulating a new relief package that could top $1 trillion, to try to contain the economic devastation. House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, want to extend unemployment aid and small business assistance as well as initiate another round of checks to Americans. The package could be formulated as early as this month according to House leadership.

 

  1. Chairs of the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Ways & Means, Senator Michael Rodrigues (D-Westport) and Rep. Aaron Michlewitz (D-Boston), and Secretary of Administration & Finance Mike Heffernan, are hosting a virtual economic roundtable discussion today at 10 a.m. on the impact of the pandemic on the Commonwealth’s fiscal health and economy

 

  1. The 2020 Presidential campaign is essentially on pause and no one has any idea when the campaign, in the traditional sense of the word, will resume. Will the 2020 Democratic National Convention, which has already been pushed back a month to August, become virtual?

 

  1. Small businesses across Massachusetts are united in their frustration of the federal loan application process. Community banks have been lauded for their flexibility while larger lenders like Bank of America are being panned for reportedly putting up significant road blocks, such as cumbersome requests for documents, ahead of a streamlined application process.

 

  1. Massachusetts lawmakers are still working on the best ways to legislate without calling a full formal session which requiries the attendance of a majority of the 160 representatives or 40 senators in their respective chambers. While there has been consensus between members on the emergency relief bills that have recently passed, what happens when they disagree?

 

  1. In a moment we all need, Newton’s own John Krasinski’s second episode of Some Good News, features the original cast of Hamilton in an epic sing-along.