Trump’s War On Capitalism, Chapter 4: A Big Spenders League All Of His Own

As it happened, the US Congress acted like greased lightening, enacting the $2.2 trillion CARES act virtually sight unseen just 11 days after the Donald’s March 16 press conference initiated the Covid Lockdowns. The bill was over 800 pages long and included a more ostentatious cornucopia of spending authorities and free stuff than had ever before been imagined in even the most profligate quarters of Capitol Hill. This tsunami of money amounted to roughly $6,000 for every man, woman and child in America or 45% of all federal government expenditures in 2019.

The money was literally shoveled into the US economy in massive dollops with virtually no eligibility standards, qualification processes and enforcement/accountability procedures. This included—

• $425 billion for the Federal Reserve to support business loans and bailouts.

• $75 billion for direct subsidies to airlines and other industries.

• $350 billion to launch what became the notoriously corrupt SBA-operated Paycheck Protection Program (PPP for small businesses).

• $300 billion to fund checks amounting to $3,400 per family of four, going to approximately 90% of the US population.

• $250 billion mainly for the $600 per week unemployment insurance benefit on top of normal state program benefits averaging $355 per week.

• $150 billion in walking around money for state, local and tribal governments.

• $140 billion for a sweeping, open-ended array of public health programs.

• Tens of billions more in special interest pork of every kind, shape and purpose.

Not surprisingly, the Donald did not hesitate to take credit for this grotesque act of fiscal malfeasance:

We are marshalling the full power of government and society to achieve victory over the virus. Together, we will endure, we will prevail, and we will WIN! #CARESAct

Signing Ceremony for The Most Grotesque Act of Fiscal Malfeasance In American History

The budgetary outcomes were truly astounding—especially when the second Covid Relief bill signed by the Donald in December 2020 and its extension and companion, Biden’s American Rescue Act enacted in March 2021, are added to the total. In all, Washington enacted $6.5 trillion of Covid-relief measures in barely 365 days. This figure which is detailed in Chapter 5 was nearly 50% larger than the entire Federal budget—defense, social security, education, Medicare/Medicaid, interest and all the rest—in the pre-Covid year of 2019.

That’s right. Trump ignited a grotesque outbreak of fiscal recklessness far worse than anything GOP orators had inveighed against since the time of FDR. And much of this spending eruption was recorded in the government data series for personal transfer payments. The latter is posted monthly and at annualized rates, thereby capturing in real time the impact of Trump’s fiscal cyclone ripping through the US economy.

The annualized run rate of government transfer payments, including the state and local supplemental portions, posted at a normal level of $3.15 trillion in February 2020. So that’s the pre-Covid baseline. But after the sight-unseen $2.2 trillion CARES act was enthusiastically signed into law by the Donald in late March, it erupted to a $6.42 trillion annualized rate in April.