“[like] a hospital that invests mightily in palliative care while elimating the oncology department.”  –The Economist, describing the US approach to economic stimulus in this pandemic

Following Congressional approval, on March 6th, 2020 $8.3 Billion in emergency funding was authorized for federal agencies to respond to the pandemic.

Twelve days later, $192 Billion in ‘Phase II relief’ was authorized for paid sick leave, tax credits, and free COVID-19 testing, and more.

Seven days later, March 25th: $2.2 Trillion was authorized through the CARES Act.

Congress is now discussing the next round of stimulus and the public discussion will be focused on the terms of that debate going forward, but I did want to formulate some thoughts on the topic.

All of April, May and June have passed since the CARES Act was signed into law. There is a week left in July, and we still have no national plan, just “guidance to the governors” from a hodge-podge of agencies coordinated enough to produce material on the subject of the Coronavirus. Some 13% of GDP has been spent (so far this year) on economic stimulus alone. While many disagree on what the funding above should have looked like, there is consensus that funding was necessary in March to prevent the further contraction or collapse of US economic activity. No serious person believes there won’t be additional stimulus to come.

Back in early March polling data pointed to increasing polarization around issues related to COVID-19. It seemed clear the body politic was not going to take a conservative appproach to the new virus that had emerged but wanted to maintain the status quo as much as possible. I honestly did not expect the polarization to have as much staying power as it did though–even after some folks started to valorize the idea of at least expressing a willingness to die for the economy later in the month. I estimated that once the cases reached a certain prevalance–frankly, once enough people, in enough places, had either died or had their health irreversably impaired–the risk of death and permanent loss of health would be taken seriously, and the competing narratives would align. Doing what it took to minimize cases would be seen as the best approach to sustainably reinvigorate economic activity after all the “if you build open it, they will come” attempts failed.

By April 15th, 25,668 deaths in the US had been attributed to COVID-19; the polarization did not abate, it intensified. By May 15th, when over 84,000 Americans had died, the largest predictor of an individual’s views on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was party identification.

Today, almost 150,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Economic activity is still hindered, not just here, but abroad; the E.U. just authorized a €1.8 Trillion plan to address the impacts of the pandemic four days ago. But as I think back, I largely expected that $2.2 Trillion we spent at the end of March, to do most of the heavy lifting.  I suspected some additional funding might be in order to tidy things up after America had bent the curve, overcome logistical issues or met its manufacturing challenges. But I largely expected America to do better than it did.

H.R. 6800, The HEROES Act currently proposed by the House is reported to provide $3 Trillion in COVID-19 response. It is almost impossible to argue that people don’t need help. But it occurs to me–in a way that it did not the last time we were here–that unless there is leadership of the sort that can unify the country in an effective course of action stopping the spread, this is just another stop gap measure. In other words, more of the same in terms of public health policy, will yield more of the same in terms of mortality and economic decline. The lesson since March is that there is no inevitable moment of truth where the body politic faces reality.

In the absence of leadership, this money buys us nothing – it only rents economic activity at a negotiated level until the next round rents more. All while people continue facing reduced employment options, many of which increase the risks to the health of themselves and their families and more people continue to die.

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