HOLLY, MI - U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin held a second tele-town hall special live stream event to update residents in the 8th District on the response to the COVID-19 crisis on Friday, March 27.

The event went live at 3:30 pm at a tele-town hall, and along with Congresswoman Slotkin, two of her colleagues were present with her, Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II and Senior Chief Deputy Director for Administration of Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Elizabeth Hertel . "When I became a congresswoman in early 2019, I committed to meet at least every three months and we have been doing that. Of course with the off-set of the coronavirus, we aren’t able to get together in big groups and didn’t want that to stop me from meeting and talking with people and getting the information out there that people need," says Representative Slotkin.

Going into week three of the onset of the coronavirus, Slotkin says, “We are largely still at the beginning of this problem, we're not in the middle or the end," Slotkin stated. "Until we get a hold of the medical situation and medicate the spread of the virus and make sure we don’t have our worst case scenarios, then we can get our economy going again. That is our goal to make America back up and working again. This is a tiring time, but I have watched our community and it has amazing things to come and we’ve seen those across the state support each other.”

Congresswoman Slotkin had to vote on a 2 trillion dollar appropriation aimed to jump start the economy during COVID-19. It’s the third largest emergency package the United States has ever passed and this package was designed with the lessons from the 2008/2009 stimulus package. Slotkin says, “Back then the recovery packages were aimed at our largest corporations and senior executives at the top of the ladder, and not enough for the working people.” Slotkin admits the care act is imperfect but feels it’s a really important step and will get cash in the pockets of Americans faster than any other package we’ve ever had.

This package also extends unemployment insurance and will get 10 weeks of unemployment, on top of the unemployment benefits and have expanded on part time, self employed, people who work in these big economies, but also on emergency forgiveness of loans for small businesses. Slotkin says they have expanded money for subsidized loans from the small business association, and added, “This time we really wanted to enhance that by putting in more money and provided guaranteed loans. One important detail is that the community banks and small businesses place cannot lay off their workers."

Another important detail is 100 billion dollars is going to hospitals. All the gowns, masks, gloves, swabs, and things our health care providers, who are really on the front lines during this crisis, are going without or really rationing. Congresswoman Slotkin says this is really a big problem because, “These health care workers are nurses, doctors, first responders and if they get sick, their ability to take care of the increased flow into the hospital will decrease, which is not good for anybody. We have been working a full effort between the state and the federal government to do everything we can to get more equipment.”

Residents in the state of Michigan who participated in the live event could call by pressing “Star 3” to ask questions regarding the outbreak and were answered by either Representative Slotkin or the Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist, who is second to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Representative Slotkin thanked everyone who joined in on the tele-town hall event and added, “Although we’re not physically able to be in the same room, doesn’t mean we can’t keep continuing to communicate and we need to help each other as Americans and Michiganders, we're going to get through this as a community.”