…or not. Mostly—nearly entirely—not.
real per capita disposable income in [Wuhan Virus situation-ridden] 2020 grew 5.5%
The Wall Street Journal noted that this is all before the December-passed $900 billion stimulus “took effect.” It’s also after that stimulus—which still hasn’t had much effect since much of that money hasn’t even been sent into the economy by Government.
What happened to the $2.6 trillion Government had already lobbed into the economy?
Preliminary data for 2020 show total savings for 2020 was $1.6 trillion higher than in 2019. And that was before the $900 billion stimulus.
It’s also after those $900 billion….
Some folks are squawking that the money wasn’t really all that stimulative—it was saved rather than spent, which was the purpose of the stimulus. Some folks misunderstand. Savings do get spent—in the short term, if not immediately, on short-term needs and wants. Savings that aren’t quickly spent become deposits in financial institutions, where they join the pool of what economists call loanable funds—and get lent to borrowers, who then spend. Loanable funds might not be promptly spent, but they most assuredly do get spent.
Given this and the fact that the December stimulus remains uncommitted to the economy, why the urgency, and the need, for an additional $1.9 trillion in stimulus? According to the CBO,
The office said gross domestic product would return to pre-pandemic levels by mid-2021 and will continue growing until 2026 as a vaccine reduces the number of new infections and the need for social distancing.
And
Labor market conditions continue to improve. As the economy expands, many people rejoin the civilian labor force who had left it during the pandemic, restoring it to its pre-pandemic size in 2022[.]
The unemployment rate gradually declines throughout the period, and the number of people employed returns to its pre-pandemic level in 2024[.]
All that without the $1.9 trillion mess currently being rammed through Congress by Progressive-Democrats.
Why, then, do we need the additional $1.9 trillion national debt stimulus? We don’t. Progressive-Democrats do, or rather they want the money, so they can continue to virtue-signal. Those new trillions that Progressive-Democrats are insisting they’re going to jam down our throats, and rip from our children’s and grandchildren’s wallets (not that I mix metaphors or anything), in a strictly partisan fashion will be, in the longer run, nothing but destructive of all things economic.
There is urgency: to stop the train wreck that is this new $1.9 trillion package of froo-froo.
