according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of government data and court filings.” So in addition to the lost economic activity, as a result of the pandemic and government shutdowns, the federal government wasted borrowed cash on an ill-conceived plan to save small businesses. There are also legendary stories of fraud in the PPP program. According to the New York Post , as of September, there have been 2,495 suspicious activity reports thanks to companies self-certifying that they qualified for loans. Fox Business reported that one Virginia man “lied to obtain $2.5 million in loans” that he ended up using to purchase a Cessna aircraft and a luxury car. Another report indicated that a Florida man used his loan to purchase a Lamborghini. Reports indicate that government efforts to help the private sector in the wake of state shutdowns for the economy may not have worked. Although the program seems to have provided a stimulus for the sales of private jets and expensive foreign sports cars, the PPP program didn’t work as intended and was a magnet for fraud. A RADICAL SCENARIO CALLS FOR A RADICAL SOLUTION There has to be a solution that does not rely on the goodness of the hearts of Republican
THE PANDEMIC POURED SALT ON THE NATION’S DEBTWOUND Our national debt is petrifying... The Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”), the arm of Congress that produces independent analyses of budgetary and economic issues to support the congressional budget process, put out the “Monthly Budget Review: Summary for Fiscal Year 2020,” containing data for the fiscal year that ended on October 31. The CBO reported “in fiscal year 2020, which ended on September 30, the federal budget deficit totaled $3.1 trillion.” They found that the “federal debt held by the public rose to 100.1% of GDP” – up more than 20% from merely a year ago. When you interpret this sentence into easy-to-understand English, it reads government owes one whole year of private sector economic activity to pay off the federal government’s accumulated debt . This is not merely outrageous, it’s dangerous... Much of 2020’s deficit is attributable to the coronavirus pandemic. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES” Act), the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”), as well as other aid to private sector businesses hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, is estimated to cost about $1.7 trillion. Reports indicate that government efforts to help the private sector in the wake of state shutdowns for the economy may not have worked. Shane Shifflett of the Wall Street Journal wrote on November 17, “About 300 companies that received as much as half a billion dollars in pandemic-related government loans have filed for bankruptcy,
American Consequences
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