...In other words, it may be a long time before the economy starts getting the life support it needs right away.
And even when workers and businesses finally get the promised aid, the CARES Act doesn’t provide remotely enough money to state and local governments, which are seeing revenues plunge and expenses soar. This is likely to force big cuts in government services precisely when they’re needed most.
So what do we need right now? First, we need an all-hands-on-deck effort to resolve the bottlenecks that are holding up unemployment benefits and small-business loans.
The obvious parallel here is to the crash of healthcare.gov when the Affordable Care Act was first going into effect; things looked terrible at first, but an Obama administration expert task force, working around the clock, resolved the problems more quickly than anyone imagined possible, and new enrollments ended up exceeding expectations.
I don’t see any reason, in principle, a similar effort couldn’t rescue the CARES Act. But here’s the thing: We’re talking about the Trump administration, which disdains expertise of every kind, and in which every effort somehow ends up being directed by Jared Kushner.
Second, we need another relief bill to fill the holes in the CARES Act, especially inadequate aid to state and local governments.
But will Republicans be willing to provide that aid? Donald Trump is talking, as he has many times before, about a giant infrastructure bill. But Senate Republicans are notably unenthusiastic. And while going big on infrastructure is a good idea, right now it’s less pressing than providing aid to states facing huge budget gaps.
And going back to the bill that Congress already passed: I’m fairly sure that we’ll eventually get the kinks worked out. But when you’re losing six million jobs a week, “eventually” isn’t good enough.
