Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao rejects criticism of federal relief for transit systems in blue states accused of being poorly run, saying President Donald Trump is “protecting the paycheck of Americans.”
In an interview aired Thursday on Newsmax TV’s “The Chris Salcedo Show,” Chao, who also served as Secretary of Labor in the administration of President George Bush, said “no transit system is self-sustaining.”
“All are subsidized by the federal government,” she said. “And in putting together the largest — unprecedented — economic assistance program- the CARES Act… that the president signed on March 27 [it] was a negotiated package…. [by} both sides of the aisle.”
“The president drove as hard a bargain as he could but ultimately on a bipartisan basis it was agreed that something needed to be done,” she said. “Most of the money going out to payroll, and also insuring the continued operations of airline companies, transit companies, buses, passenger rail… because the president is protecting the paycheck of Americans.”
Chao said Trump also is “is looking out for Americans” in transit-related industries through a recovery package approved for the Department of Transportation.
She maintained the $36 billion package “was really needed” because of a staggering number of Americans now unemployed because of the coronavirus — and noted the Treasury Department gave out about $50 billion to airline-related companies, including travel agents and companies that supply catering and other contracted service.
“Ninety percent of it goes basically to payroll,” she maintained.
“The president is really really concerned about preserving jobs, making sure that operations of all these facilities can continue so that when we open the economy, they’ll come back,” she said.
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