A rundown of what’s good, bad, and mediocre about the largest bailout in American history
“From each according to his ability to each according to his investments in lobbying.” Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images To combat the coronavirus and its economic side effects, Congress has assembled an economic rescue package about five times the size of Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus. The legislation is vast, complex, littered with inscrutably worded giveaways to obscure constituencies, and, as of this writing, not 100 percent finished.
This will make America’s wage replacement policy more generous for low- and middle-income workers than analogous programs recently adopted in European social democracies. Which is as it should be, given that U.S. workers lack access to the myriad social insurance programs that reduce European laborers’ costs of living.Individuals who earn less than $75,000 a year will receive $1,200 in cash, while couples who earn under $150,000 will receive $2,400, plus $500 for every child in their care.
Compared to nothing, then, the small-business aid is good. But the $367 billion that Congress has allocated to the program is almost certainly insufficient to keep every eligible small business alive for the duration of the crisis, or so many conservative economists have argued. Meanwhile, it is unclear how quickly the Small Business Administration will be able to get these loans to the myriad enterprises that are currently on the brink of insolvency.
There remains ambiguity about exactly how this giant pot of money will be distributed. Officially, that $454 billion won’t support loans exclusively to large corporations but also to select, creditworthy small businesses, along with state and local governments. That said, the common understanding among legislators and reporters is that the bulk of this money will go toward supplying credit to big firms .
Some progressives have tried to answer this objection by suggesting that large corporations wouldn’t need any bailout if they hadn’t squandered their record-high profits on payouts to CEOs and shareholders. As the American Prospect’s David Dayen writes:
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