U.S. State Bankruptcy Was a Farce Then and Now

No one was asking, but it turns out a global pandemic isn’t enough for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to take a break from fretting about purportedly “borrowing money from future generations.” 

Never mind that the three-month-old coronavirus crisis has led to more than $2.3 trillion in congressional appropriations, to say nothing of the $484 billion relief package that passed the U.S. Senate on Tuesday. Much of those funds, after all, aided small businesses and hospitals, sent direct payments to families and expanded unemployment insurance. All of this promises to blow an almost $4 trillion hole in the federal government’s 2020 budget.