Small businesses are the engine of our economy. In many communities small businesses are the largest employer and the lifeblood of the community. We create meaningful jobs and opportunities for entrepreneurs to thrive. By unilaterally requiring that your small business clients have pre-existing lending relationships with Bank of America you are putting up unnecessary roadblocks to saving jobs and saving communities from devastation. Worse, this practice may even be discriminatory, as it may impact black, Latino, Asian, and Native American business owners disproportionately, who are more likely to have been denied access loans due to historic and current red-lining practices and institutional racism. The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to provide forgivable loans to Small Businesses to keep people employed during this time of emergency. In determining clients of Bank of America's eligibility for these lifeline loans, you have instituted an unnecessary pre-existing lending client requirement that is preventing many desperate smaller businesses and nonprofits from even applying for PPP. We all need to come together at times like this, not put up barriers to resources. You have the power to eliminate this arbitrary requirement and we ask you to step in and address this issue with the urgency the present emergency demands.

Although, it is a great initiative to do distant learning, parents and/or students are not fully equipped, mentally, emotionally to successfully provide or acquire the education that is provided by an official educator. This initiative will also keep the educators and households sane as we survive and readjust because of this pandemic. It will also provide a more realistic grade point average for schools and students not to lose their academic status.

Health care and other essential service workers have become sick and some may die over the lack of preparedness, even though these masks were changing hands and flying back and forth between countries since January of 2020

This week, Politico reported that there is “contentious debate” over whether or not companies should be allowed to use taxpayer money from the relief funds to lobby Congress. This is utterly absurd. Any companies receiving federal relief money must be banned from using it to lobby Congress. The lack of a strict ban on using relief funds to lobby Congress was a gaping hole in the original stimulus. Congress must act urgently to close this loophole. Source: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2020/04/01/corporate-america-might-need-more-money-from-congress-786576

Without a working healthcare system, entire communities will collapse -- healthcare workers, patients and their families will be affected. Not that one can put a monetary value on human lives, but our economy will never recover from a healthcare collapse.

Every single human being is stressed now with everything that has evolved as a direct result of this crisis. Pharmaceutical drugs have proven to wreak havoc around the world causing many deaths. while cannabis is a safer alternative for many and has never killed anyone. Re-legalize cannabis NOW, it is the only humane thing to do at this point.

1099 business have been literally tossed by the wayside and ignored. We have needs, responsibilities, families and obligations, just as any other business in Maryland and we should not be treated, as if we do not matter, when we still pay taxes. Business taxes, personal property taxes, sales taxes, bottle taxes., etc.Our rents and mortgages on our businesses are due, just like every other business in Maryland and it's time we stop being ignored.

I am the father of two kids under 6 and husband to a tenure-track professor at The College of New Jersey. On Friday, March 27th, in the middle of a global pandemic of COVID-19, my wife went to get the groceries we need at the Wegmans in Nassau Park Pavilion located in West Windsor Township in order for us to continue to shelter at home until it is safe to end social distancing. It was a shocking experience. Wegmans had very few COVID-19 precautions in place. There were no limits on the number of people entering the store. There were no ways to sanitize the shopping carts. Workers were not wearing protective gloves or masks, nor were they practicing social distancing except at check-out. No one else in the store was practicing social distancing. This is an immediate health risk to both customers AND workers. There is no excuse for this. Other stores are doing this right now. The West Windsor Trader Joe's is doing everything Wegmans is not. They limit the number of people in the store at any one time. They sanitize the carts. They enforce social distancing. And it's not just Trader Joe's. Other Wegmans stores in the chain ARE taking these measures. At least one store in Northern Virginia is also taking all the measures described above. Tell the General Manager of the Nassau Park Pavilion Wegmans to immediately implement all COVID-19 safety measures including limiting customers, sanitizing carts and check-out lanes, providing protective equipment for workers, and enforcing social distancing throughout the store, especially during re-stocking. Tell the Health Officers for West Windsor and Mercer County New Jersey to immediately order this Wegmans store to implement these health measures. UPDATE April 2, 2020: I want to be clear that Wegmans corporate guidelines for COVID-19 are very clear and very good, including a number of actions around pay and sick days that prioritize their employees' well-being. But how the social distancing and sanitizing guidelines are being implemented on the ground leaves a lot to be desired. On this point, Trader Joe's is a model. Wegmans' Princeton store can and should do better in meeting their responsibilities in this moment. You can see what Wegmans corporate guidelines are here: https://www.wegmans.com/news-media/press-releases/wegmans-response-to-covid-19-2/

Las Vegas has approximately 150,000 hotels with a homeless population of approximately 5,286, as reported by their survey in 2019. There is more than enough room among those hotels to house those who are suffering from homelessness. These people being forced to stay in the streets and in parking lots are human beings. They deserve to have a safe place to stay at all times, but especially in the middle of a global pandemic. Show Las Vegas and the rest of the country that this treatment of those suffering is unacceptable. Demand they open up their hotels for those without homes.

Banning of Partners/Significant Others/Family Members/Visitors in Hospital Labor and Delivery Units in the Tri-State Area Protect our mothers and our newborns. Protect our front-line healthcare workers, doctors and nurses. Ban all visitors now! 784, 716 infected worldwide, 163,807 cases in the United States, 67,384 confirmed in New York and 16,636 confirmed in New Jersey, 37,639 fatalities worldwide - we need to flatten the curve now! This past week, New Jersey ordered its citizens to stay home and closed all non-essential businesses in order to slow the spread of COVID-19. New York has mandated the policy of “stay home, stop the spread, save lives.” But our nurses and doctors face that spread every day, and we must do what we can to protect them. New Jersey and New York must prohibit visitors, including partners and family members, on all maternity units in the state. According to CNN, half of infections originate in pre-symptomatic carriers – every person allowed into a hospital increases the risk of spreading COVID-19 to patients and newborns as well as the medical staff caring for them. Two of New York’s largest hospital systems, New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai Health System, had barred all visitors from their maternity wards. This ruling was recently reversed. Inconsistent policies are creating confusion in the public, causing people to “hospital shop,” even crossing state lines to deliver their babies with partners present. With the influx of out-of-state patients, New Jersey and New York obstetrics doctors and nurses are faced with unfamiliar patients with unknown medical history. During this COVID-19 pandemic, Labor and Delivery wards’ primary focus must be on the safety of the mother, newborn baby, and staff. As nurses, we understand the pain a partner feels missing the birth of their child, but that pain doesn’t compare to the risk posed to our patients and our medical staff. Having a partner absent at birth creates a more stressful delivery for mothers and staff alike, but it is necessary. Every person in America is making sacrifices in social distancing in order to ensure the future safety and health of our nation. As health care providers, we are at the front line ensuring this safety. Doctors and nurses are at high risk of contracting COVID-19 and must be quarantined if exposed. Therefore we demand that our health and safety, as well as the health and safety of our patients, is taken into consideration. Until testing is available for everyone, we must reduce this risk as much as possible; banning partners in labor and delivery will flatten the curve and save lives. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html Please refer to this hyperlink to show how many people have been infected with unknown origin, how the death toll has risen and how the increase in contact per patient per partner would thus increase exposure risk to all of the people involved. How many people are asymptomatic infected people? Spreading the disease? The USA death total has doubled since Thursday, surpassing 2,500, with NY 1,218 deaths - an increase of 965 since Sunday morning. *Actual numbers provided in opening of petition are from the John Hopkins University Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering as of 22:30 on March 30, 2020. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

As a group, the working class of Indiana have been financially crippled by the critical and necessary measures put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19. Though the federal or state government may eventually provide relief, the immediate conservation of our limited financial resources is necessary for our own and our family's health and well-being. Rentors, Leasors, banks and other relevant institutions can, as a class seek their own relief; the state and federal government is much more responsive and historically more likely to act on their behalf. We must protect our limited cash flow immediately.

FIRST: This is NOT about IMMIGRATION! This is about tax paying United States citizens being denied government assistance due to the status of their spouse, parent, or any other household member. Thousands of immigrants and their families have been seriously negatively impacted by the current public health crisis. Many have lost their jobs, at no fault of their own, and others, who are still employed, are putting their lives at risk each day. So many families and children are impacted by this pandemic, and it is extremely unfair that “mixed-status” families and children of immigrants will continue to suffer, with absolutely no assistance from this relief package, unlike the many millions of Americans that will receive relief. Regardless of your views on immigration and support or opposition of undocumented immigrants, this is about thousands of United States citizens being denied assistance! Urge our representatives and senators to fight for ALL of our families--immigrant families and children of undocumented immigrants. They deserve financial assistance from the government just as much as any other tax-payer!