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This shouldn't be a choice between risking continued transmission of a pandemic disease and letting small businesses fail. The US collectively produces way more

This shouldn't be a choice between risking continued transmission of a pandemic disease and letting small businesses fail. The US collectively produces way more than enough to keep them afloat until the end of the pandemic; the only reason for the dichotomy is Congress's failure to pass enough aid funding to provide that support. As far as I'm concerned, congressional Republicans - and in turn, everyone who voted for them - are ultimately responsible for the failure of every small business that shutters due to the pandemic, due to their absurd insistence on legal indemnity for employers whose employees get COVID due to unsafe working environments. To be clear, as a lot of other commenters have pointed out, it doesn't seem to be well established how risky activities like outdoor dining are. If it were a question of whether it were worth an additional $X billion in aid to prevent that risk, great, that's a conversation that's worth having. But you can't have that kind of meaningful conversation starting from an ultimatum, as we are today.

nradov 6y ago
The fault is not with Congress. The federal government hasn't forced any businesses to close. All of the lockdown measures have been imposed by state and local governments so they are the ones that should subsidize impacted businesses. The Florida state government allows restaurants in that state to remain open so why should Floridians pay to keep California restaurants running? There's nothing stopping the California legislature from raising taxes on the wealthy to fund pandemic relief in our state.
- tfehring 6y ago
  State-level funding sounds good on paper but would work poorly in practice because the federal government benefits from its sovereignty in ways that state governments don't. The vast majority of Americans' tax revenue goes to the federal government, not to state or local governments, even in wealthy, high-tax states like California. And state governments, unlike the federal government, don't have access to effectively unlimited borrowing capacity at <2% interest. Also, California can't shut down its border to Floridians - or prevent Californians from traveling to Florida and then returning - to stop the virus from being carried from Florida to California.

nradov 6y ago

The fault is not with Congress. The federal government hasn't forced any businesses to close. All of the lockdown measures have been imposed by state and local governments so they are the ones that should subsidize impacted businesses. The Florida state government allows restaurants in that state to remain open so why should Floridians pay to keep California restaurants running? There's nothing stopping the California legislature from raising taxes on the wealthy to fund pandemic relief in our state.

tfehring 6y ago
State-level funding sounds good on paper but would work poorly in practice because the federal government benefits from its sovereignty in ways that state governments don't. The vast majority of Americans' tax revenue goes to the federal government, not to state or local governments, even in wealthy, high-tax states like California. And state governments, unlike the federal government, don't have access to effectively unlimited borrowing capacity at <2% interest. Also, California can't shut down its border to Floridians - or prevent Californians from traveling to Florida and then returning - to stop the virus from being carried from Florida to California.