You didn't see much response to COVID? We spent more on COVID relief and response than we spent on WWII. $40B is a rounding error in what we spent on COVID.
I think you’ve misread what I said. I said “My fear is… we won’t respond with sufficient scale to avoid large scale suffering.”
With a million dead and millions more financially ruined, I think it’s fair to say we didn’t prevent large scale suffering. And to be clear my issue isn’t just with direct spending - a few more stimulus checks would have been nice but wouldn’t solve the larger problem - I think we needed better consistency from the government on risk profiles and the importance of masks, as well as more mask mandates and travel restrictions, and finally better testing infrastructure. Some of that is direct spending but much isn’t.
With a million dead and millions more financially ruined, I think it’s fair to say we didn’t prevent large scale suffering. And to be clear my issue isn’t just with direct spending - a few more stimulus checks would have been nice but wouldn’t solve the larger problem - I think we needed better consistency from the government on risk profiles and the importance of masks, as well as more mask mandates and travel restrictions, and finally better testing infrastructure. Some of that is direct spending but much isn’t.