Sen. Angus King and Gov. Janet Mills are calling on Congress to provide direct financial relief to states, cities and towns to stem tax revenue losses due to the coronavirus recession.Mills, a Democrat, and King, an independent, said federal aid is needed to address severe state budget shortfalls.Maine is projected to have a $528 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year ending next June.King said it is a scandal that the Republican-led Senate has yet to act on the latest coronavirus aid package passed by the House four months ago.“Within two or three hours of Justice Ginsburg’s death, Mitch McConnell made it very clear how fast he was going to move the Senate to fill that seat. But he doesn’t seem to have any sense of urgency whatsoever about protecting the millions of people across the country whose lives are still being upended by this coronavirus,” King said.King and Mills said thousands of public and private sector jobs are at risk.“No state wants to choose between public safety and health care, education and child protection, but that’s what we’re going to be forced to do, along with every other state in the country, if Congress and the United States Senate in particular does not act now,” Mills said.The proposal pending before the Senate would allocate $500 billion to states and municipalities to replace revenue losses. Under the usual population formula, Maine would receive $2.5 billion.