WASHINGTON (March 27, 2020) – Today, President Trump signed the CARES Act into law, the third relief bill passed by Congress in the last few weeks.

There is no event in our collective memories that compares to the moment we are living in. Americans are applying for unemployment benefits at historic levels. Small businesses continue to shutter at an alarming rate. Families need checks in their mailboxes right now to pay their rent and mortgages, buy food, purchase prescriptions and more.

This bill spends more than $2.2 trillion in various areas, some of which are legitimate in the current crisis, and others of which are cronyism and corporate welfare at its worst. We hope that moving forward, Congress will focus more on direct aid for those who need it at the expense of benefits for the well-connected.

“This crisis is not likely to leave us anytime soon, and as Congress considers another round of aid, it must weigh the difference between relief and stimulus—and how the American people and our economy will best benefit,” said Jonathan Bydlak, director of the Fiscal and Budget Policy Project at the R Street Institute

For more read “Fiscal Policy in a Time of Crisis.”

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