It was on March 27 this year that the so-called “CARES” Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) became law — a $2.2 trillion federal spending bill, designed to bail absolutely everyone out of any and all downside risk from the economic downturn brought about by government response to the pandemic.
There was virtually no opposition, with the bill passing unanimously in the Senate and by voice vote in the House. Since there was no new tax revenue associated with the bill, it represented approximately a 10% instant increase in the public debt incurred in the 231 years since the founding of the Republic.
Whew! Was there any possible negative consequence to taking on this enormous amount of new debt, mostly just to hand out checks to anybody and everybody, whether they needed the money or not? If so, that subject was barely discussed anywhere.
Hey, this was a “stimulus.” Everybody knows that when the economy is down, it needs a massive federal “stimulus” to get it going again.
Then, almost immediately after the CARES Act became law, the House started working on the next round of so-called “stimulus,” labelling the new effort with the equally idiotic acronym of the “HEROES” Act. . . .