Hey, Daddy Government: Give me more money!

Our leaders have utterly failed in their Covid response. The least they could do is throw us another $1,200.

I am writing this article with my palms up. Hey, Daddy Government: I want more money.

Yesterday, we learned a bipartisan group of lawmakers are working on a new $908 billion stimulus package. Like most compromises, it leaves much to be desired. There is a liability shield for businesses and no additional funding for cash-strapped state and local governments. That means no help for our beleaguered transit agencies, which are threatening to cut services so dramatically, nobody with a schedule would ever be able to use them again.

The $300 weekly boost to state unemployment benefits is better than nothing, but it’s half of the $600 figure that kept 10 million people out of poverty through the first half of quarantine. We spend $15.4 billion annually on the Space Force, and refuse to give unemployed people an extra $600 per week to survive the worst pandemic in a century.

America First!

But selfishly, as someone who is woefully underemployed, I am most upset about this omission from the big compromise: no more stimulus checks.

With Mitch McConnell already announcing his opposition to the bipartisan proposal, we will likely see a skimpier version make its way through the Senate — if a bill even passes at all. That definitely means no more stimulus checks. Why give the people money when there are defense contractors to pay?

If you ever want to know whether your elected representatives care about you, keep this ghastly number in mind: the U.S. has spent at least $4 trillion in Covid relief, and only one-fifth has gone to workers and families. More than half, $2.3 trillion, has gone to businesses.

They fucked this up for us, and they’re refusing to pay. This week, the CDC reported Covid was likely already in the U.S. in mid-December. Thanks to Bob Woodward’s tape recorder, we know Donald Trump wasn’t ignorant about Covid, either. He warned Woodward about its danger as early as Feb. 7.

And yet, the U.S. didn’t start putting coronavirus restrictions in place until mid-March. Even the governors who have been lauded for their handling of the pandemic, such as Andrew Cuomo and Charlie Baker, made disastrous decisions early on.

Cuomo originally sent more than 6,400 patients sick with Covid from hospitals to nursing homes, without testing to see if they were still contagious. To date, at least 6,400 nursing home residents have died of Covid in New York.

Baker had his own nursing home scandal, with the coronavirus allowed to run rampant through the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home in March. The state report found the mismanagement “baffling,” and blamed the Secretary of Veteran Affairs for taking insufficient action.

On the Friday before Massachusetts started shutting down, Baker embarked on a family ski trip to Utah.

Our horrible leaders are culpable for the pandemic stretching into its 10th month — leaving us with a dismal winter that promises to have everything: death, evictions and a depression.

Oh, and public school kids largely still aren’t back in the classroom. UNICEF has warned school closures could lead to a “lost generation” kids.

They’re destroying our youth, and won’t even give us another $1,200?

Every other industrial country has managed Covid better than us — and no, that’s not because Americans spent the summer going to crowded beaches. They’ve been more proactive and supportive of their citizens. Europe implemented another lockdown (but kept schools open) due to rising caseloads weeks ago, and has already started re-flattening the curve. To keep people home, legislators are providing help. Even in the U.K., Boris Johnson’s government is still paying unemployed people 80 percent of their previous wage.

Few scenes illustrate our Kafkaesque nightmare in the U.S. more than what happened with Delta Airlines over Thanksgiving weekend. Despite calls to stay home, more than 9.4 million people were screened at airports during the holiday traveling window. And it would’ve been more, but Delta was forced to cancel 500 flights due to crew shortages. The airline industry has already received more than $25 billion in stimulus money.

People shouldn’t be traveling, but they are anyway, and when they do, they’re faced with cancelations, because a beleaguered industry desperate for business can’t offer service — despite receiving $25 billion in government aid.

I am proud to be an American! …

We’ve all lost some portions of our lives to the pandemic. Admittedly, my losses are relatively minimal, but there’s no doubt in my mind I would be in a better position professionally if the world were semi-open.

You couldn’t even meet someone for coffee right now if you wanted to.

Also, I’m a 27-year-old gay man who hasn’t been to a club in nine months. That’s a saintlike sacrifice.

We haven’t been able to see family members, hang out in groups, go to a bar, catch a ballgame, see a show, or really do anything pleasurable for nearly a year. Even with vaccines coming out, it will probably be well into next summer, and perhaps fall, before we can return to normalcy.

We will never get this time back. When you are wronged, you demand money. Isn’t that the American way?

Blaming individual behavior is a way to cover for bad leadership. Yes, Americans could be behaving more responsibly right now. But it’s also an extraordinary request to demand people stay put for an indefinite period of time. We are being asked to sacrifice without a reward or plan forward.

Some people want to compare this to war, but who would follow a general with no battle plan — or in this case, governors and mayors who go to big dinners at a fancy restaurant called The French Laundry after imposing some of the harshest Covid restrictions in the nation?

Every single one of our leaders is failing us. It is not selfish or lazy to demand more money from them. We deserve it.

Pay up, Uncle Sam.