The stimulus bill seems big – $2 trillion – but it’s just one week of median income for small businesses and families.
Cory Doctorow: “The crisis is already four times longer than that, depending on which city you live in. The end is not in sight.”
Umair Haque: “Coronavirus is an extinction level event for modern economies.” We are living through the complete collapse of the US economy. This is happening now, will play out over the summer and will take generations to recover.
The solution for Congress is to just spend money to keep the economy going – or, more precisely, put the economy in suspended animation. Whatever it takes. Fund businesses to pay employee salaries and meet other essential expenses while the employees stay home, so when the crisis passes the businesses can just reopen their doors, call the employees back in and get back to work.
Only essential employees should be working now, and the government should spend whatever it takes to pay them and be sure they have the best protection we can provide.
Whatever it takes. $2 trillion is inadequate. A thousand trillion is a quadrillion. A thousand times that is a quintillion. If that’s what it takes, so be it.