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Monday, February 12, 2024
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Opinion|Can America Survive a Party of Saboteurs?

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Opinion

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Paul Krugman


CAN AMERICA SURVIVE A PARTY OF SABOTEURS?

Feb. 8, 2024

Credit...Thalassa Raasch for The New York Times

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By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

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Almost four years have passed since Congress approved and Donald Trump signed a
huge relief bill designed to limit the financial hardship created by the
Covid-19 pandemic. The CARES Act did its job. Although around 25 million
Americans temporarily lost their jobs — with the job losses mainly caused by
fear of infection rather than officially mandated shutdowns — there was far less
monetary pain than you might have expected given the magnitude of the public
health crisis.

In fact, according to a Federal Reserve survey, the percentage of Americans
“doing at least OK financially” was actually higher in July 2020 than it had
been before the pandemic, presumably because for many people, government aid,
including one-time checks and greatly enhanced unemployment benefits, more than
made up for lost jobs and business.

Furthermore, fears that generous aid during the pandemic would undermine
America’s work ethic — that adults would leave the labor force and never come
back — proved totally wrong. A new paper from the San Francisco Fed is titled
“Why Is Prime-Age Labor Force Participation So High?” It notes that Americans
between 25 and 54 are more likely to be in the work force now than they were at
any time since the early 2000s.

So the CARES Act was a huge policy success. But given recent political
developments, I’ve found myself thinking: What would have happened if Democrats
in 2020 had behaved like Republicans in 2024?



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Imagine an alternative history in which Joe Biden, who was already by then the
strong favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination, had urged
Democrats in Congress not to pass a relief bill — the same way Trump has bullied
Republicans into voting against a border security bill — because he believed
that reducing Americans’ misery might help Trump get re-elected.

Imagine a history in which Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House at
the time, had behaved like Mike Johnson, the current Republican speaker, and
prevented a bill attempting to address an urgent national priority from coming
to the floor.

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Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a
distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He
won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on
international trade and economic geography. @PaulKrugman

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 9, 2024, Section A, Page 23
of the New York edition with the headline: Can America Survive a Party of
Saboteurs?. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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