Even more problematic? Congressional leaders have not sought or welcomed an open national deliberation about best uses of the stimulus funds.
There should have been an effort through online congressional hearings to gauge the public’s priorities regarding different kinds of outlays: help for the hungry and unemployed, support for health workers, additional funding for testing and tracing systems, financial backstopping for small businesses, and assistance to state and local governments which need to pay to keep teachers, firemen and policemen on the front lines.
In fact, the public has never been formally informed about options and tradeoffs, and their sentiments have not been asked. The American people never heard the testimony of mayors, teachers, health professionals and other first responders, nor did we, as citizens, have the opportunity to engage with specific budget options as might have been canvassed through opinion surveys.
One might think that the rush to spending without the time to think was due to the unprecedented Covid-19 emergency, but in both March and now, Congress could surely have held hearings preceding both bills. There have been months of discussion about the second round of spending, in particular, but there has been no serious explanation to the public about the budgetary options and no readiness to engage through hearings with key stakeholders.
Yes, politicians voiced their opinions, but they didn’t listen to the public’s opinions in any systematic manner. That’s what congressional hearings, at the very least, could have allowed for.
The upshot is that we are squandering the benefits of deliberative democracy: assessing budgetary options, comparing them, debating the tradeoffs and then choosing among the options in an informed and rational manner. The two parties don’t even try anymore to forge a public consensus on what we need to spend on and what we should tax. Neither party seemingly assesses long-term spending needs, nor proposes a tax structure to align with those needs.
So, while I wholeheartedly subscribe to the new Covid-19 relief package, I object to the way we arrived at it and the way we are paying for it. I would feel better for today’s young people, who will be servicing the public debt in the future, if we resolve to budget in a more serious and deliberative way in the future, including higher taxes on wealthy Americans as part of the deal.
