We already let landlords stop paying. Some landlords are already let off from paying their mortgages during the pandemic. Pandemic mortgage holidays are a thi

We already let landlords stop paying. Some landlords are already let off from paying their mortgages during the pandemic. Pandemic mortgage holidays are a thing. Generally the landlord's mortgage holiday is not being passed on to the tenant though. If you think the government should pay rent to prevent the banks from losing income from landlords, what's wrong with this simpler system: Tenant stops paying -> landlord stops paying -> government pays the bank? But it's not really a concern. Unless they really screw up, serious banks don't run out of money at this scale. There are problems from stopping mortgage payments, but "the bank closes" isn't likely to be one. Same reason you can talk about government covering the rent. The government doesn't have more money than the banks. Its super power is the ability to obtain or create money as needed. It could give it to tenants to pay landlords, give it to landlords to pay the bank, or give it to the bank directly. (Btw, I don't think it should give direct to the bank, because people need to cover more than just rent, they need food and other things, and individuals have different urgent priorities which any blanket directed payment would miss. For this reason, I don't think it should pay rent directly either.)