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We Need a People’s Bailout and the Senate Stimulus Package Is a Joke
Politicians are attempting to buy our forgiveness as cheaply as they can
There’s going to be a bailout. Or something. As Covid-19 continues to spread across the United States, non-essential businesses are shutting down, people are losing their incomes, unemployment websites are crashing, and of course, most of us still have bills to pay. And that’s why Congress has spent the better part of a week negotiating a cash stimulus package that will involve sending checks to Americans as we all weather the storm of this coronavirus pandemic.
If you’re like me, or any of the millions of lower income Americans teetering over the precipice of bankruptcy, this is welcome news. Since stocking up on groceries and hunkering down for what will likely be months of social distancing, I’ve looked at my bank records and credit card bills, and I’ve calculated that, unless the government sends checks, I may not be able to make it through the spring without running out of cash. Well-paying freelance writing assignments have already been put off or canceled (putting an axe in my plan for paying off some credit card debt). I’m still trying to get paid for prior work. And my landlord is still collecting rent. I’m not alone. Millions of people are in situations worse than mine. We can’t go out and make more money. We need help. Now.
Of course, things would be different if the United States had social safety nets akin to those in so many other countries suffering coronavirus outbreaks. But we don’t. Stingy U.S. welfare programs and our ineffectual federal government are the result of a decades-long project waged by conservative ideologues and their donors — a mission to render government powerless, to make wealth hoarding easier. But this makes no sense during a pandemic, when a foundation of social solidarity becomes crucial to get people to stay in their homes and “flatten the curve” of viral infections. When a cataclysmic event like a pandemic happens, politicians have one job: giving money and resources to all the people who hold society together.
Who are those people? They’re frontline health care workers taking care of any patients who’ve contracted Covid-19. They’re grocery store workers who make it…
