In other words, if things went according to plan, the United States national debt would have increased by over a trillion dollars in 2020! Now, things are not going according to plan on both sides: we’re now spending an additional $2 Trillion and government revenues are primarily based on taxing income and payroll, both of which are going to decrease this year.
Any time you give things away but don’t give it to everyone, it’s going to cause conflict. This is the basic economic problem, right? How do we allocate scarce resources between people with infinite wants?
This bill is being referred to as a stimulus package or a “bailout”, but I think it’s more helpful to think of it as government spending replacing private consumer spending. When the government is enacting social distancing measures, even enforcing “shelter-in-place” policies in many places, that is going to affect consumer spending immensely. All of a sudden, no one is flying, no one is eating in restaurants, no one is going to the movies, etc. Because the government is telling people not to do these things, does it follow that the negatively affected companies deserve to get some of their lost revenue replaced with government funds?