The GOP Is About to Do to the American Economy What Thelma and Louise Did to the Car

In a normal country, we wouldn’t need a second round of expanded unemployment insurance benefits. The back-of-the-envelope math lawmakers did in late March would have been sufficient to see us through a temporary lockdown — the time it took to scale up testing, contact tracing, and the emergency production of masks, gowns, and ventilators. By now, we’d be savoring the few summer evenings left before students return to campuses and the rest of us resume our anxious tiptoe toward November.

Instead, four month of relentless carnage later, we have four million coronavirus cases and counting, states around the country are going back into lockdown and the president has just released a new campaign ad decrying “the left’s assault on Goya.” (The bean company.)

The pandemic is nowhere close to under control in America, but despite levels of unemployment not observed since the Great Depression, the economy hasn’t totally collapsed yet. And there is a good reason for that but, thanks to Republicans in Congress, it’s about to disappear.

Technically, the additional $600 unemployment benefit Congress hurriedly approved as part of the CARES Act back in March doesn’t expire until next Friday, July 31, but because of the way most states distribute unemployment benefits — for full weeks starting on Saturday and Sundays — jobless workers in most states will receive their final installment this weekend.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/600-dollar-unemployment-end-1031860/