I absolutely think we should do that. The problem is it's extremely hard to quantify that cost/gain, while its extremely easy to quantity the cost/gain of low-interest loans.

Not to say its impossible, or that we shouldn't try--we should. But when you have a bunch of senators arguing, it's easier to point to the easy numbers.

Why do we need to quantify it?

Because we shouldn't spend tax money on solutions that show no gain or make things worse for the country as a whole.

We spend tax money to make the nation worse all the time already, why does it matter now when it’s for helping out poor people?

Last 75 years of foreign & drug wars: https://i.redd.it/b4rgt6ovw7k31.jpg

Is it really that difficult to quantify or is it that the government doesnt want to do the work of quantifying it?

I think you said it yourself with your comment about senators arguing. The root cause is an overall lack of political will, not any technical or logistical impediments in modelling impact.

It's less political will than not having simple competence in any arena other than the political that got them there. Throwing gobs at cash at a broken system is what keeps Congress employed. If we had an unemployment system that didn't try to use "one size fits all" numbers, required two minutes on your phone to get enrolled, and two minutes on the employers' part to verify your application, then we wouldn't have have need of a significant number of government employees, and Congress's role wouldn't exist to posture about caring, but instead to simply fund a functioning system simply needed cash.

> It's less political will than not having simple competence in any arena other than the political that got them there.

The U.S. Census, GAO, and various other bureaucratic organizations (USDR, EPA, etc), all seem to be quite competent when it comes to performing studies and gathering data.

So is the IRS, Department of Defense, etc.

Of course there are lots of problems, but the U.S. Federal Government has plenty of agencies able to competently perform some sort of study.

It probably would. But solving that problem is significantly harder than putting out loans to large companies that employ thousands of people. If the airline industry collapsed, many other things would've followed. Certain industries are absolutely essential infrastructure to the economy and cataclysmic events can have massive ripple effects.

Whatever happened to doing worthwhile things because they're hard? Do you know how hard it is to have to quarantine yourself from your family because you've been deemed an essential worker, while getting seemingly nothing in return? Do you know how hard it is to live with the guilt of even possibly infecting others with COVID?

Clearly, the current administration puts corporate profits over the lives of Americans. Clearly, the current administration is allergic to hard work. Hopefully, Americans can send the message in November that there's no room in our government for people like that.

> Whatever happened to doing worthwhile things because they're hard?

People realized that was idiotic? Don't celebrate that someone accidentally did something worthwhile for a terrible reason. Target your efforts at doing things that are worthwhile, not at doing things that are hard.

>People realized that was idiotic?

This

>Don't celebrate that someone accidentally did something worthwhile for a terrible reason.

Doesn't track with this.

>Target your efforts at doing things that are worthwhile, not at doing things that are hard.

I think you're missing nuance.

I say, condemn those who lazily do the easiest jobs that don't interrupt their sleep at night.

Rather, we should all be trying to make the greatest positive impact within 40 hours of work a week. Those who do more are being taken advantage of one way or a dozen. Those who do less are taking advantage.

By setting a floor and a ceiling we limit abuses on both sides and,hopefully,better distribute labor.

Also,doing things that are hard for the sheer sake of it is not idiotic. It can be a positive characteristic, just like avoiding difficulty is a negative one.

Like others have said, I think you're missing the point. In the past we've done something specifically because it was hard (going to the moon) but it would be a controversial statement to say it was done accidentally or for a terrible reason. For example, the state of computer science wouldn't be nearly where it is if it wasn't for going to the moon specifically because it was hard.

> In the past we've done something specifically because it was hard (going to the moon) but it would be a controversial statement to say it was done accidentally or for a terrible reason.

I don't think it would be especially controversial to say it was done for a terrible reason. We didn't do that specifically because it was hard; those are just words from JFK's speech. We did that because the Soviet Union had beaten us to putting a man (and a satellite) in orbit, and we thought it was crucially important to beat them to something related.

And in the resulting flurry of science that came from JFK's speech, we got many amazing and good things. The easy thing to do is say "space doesn't matter" like many countries have chosen to do. We did it even knowing it was hard, because the benefits outweighed the difficulty.

What is "terrible" about advancing science and putting humans in space?

> What is "terrible" about advancing science and putting humans in space?

Neither of those was a reason for the project.

The real reason were not terrible either, neither were they accidental.

Yes, the real reason was in fact terrible. Doing something because you feel pressured to win a race against another country is a really bad reason to do that thing.

I’d love to send that message but the other team seems dedicated to throwing the game. Biden is garbage

There's more than one election. There's also the entire house, a third of the senators and perhaps local elections as well.

You’re right and I absolutely will be voting. I actually regret my earlier comment it didn’t contribute to the discussion.

The loss of jobs and income is going to have cataclysmic cascading effects, worse than if a few large companies had gone under. It hasn't even started yet.

Can you elaborate/link?

What's there to link or elaborate? Look at the number of people applying for unemployment (I looked it up for you [1]). With a record number of people on unemployment and no real end in sight to the pandemic, something has to break.

Basically, it doesn't matter how quickly we re-open if people don't have any money to spend, don't feel comfortable spending, and aren't leaving their homes.

[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate