Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed a COVID-19 relief bill. But there's a partisan split over what the bill and one of the Governor’s line-item vetoes means for unemployment insurance benefits in the state.
The bill includes fifty-five million dollars for small businesses and forty-five million in direct payments to workers who are laid off because of the coronavirus.
The governor says she also signed an extension of unemployment benefits. But Republican leaders in the state legislature disagree. They argue a bill they passed during the lame duck session attached the extension to the $220 million dollars Whitmer vetoed from the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.
“It does not jeopardize a single effort or resource that is dedicated to helping our unemployed and anyone who tells you that is just not being honest about what that really was all about.”
Whitmer calls the deposit a tax-break for big businesses, shunting money from taxpayers to pay for the unemployment benefits.