With all this war rhetoric thrown around, it seems a reasonable jump to declare essential workers troops on the frontline deserving of what we give other troops (free health care, pension, heavily subsidized secondary education)
I think around 3X current levels. USPS mail carriers and handlers are being given no guidance or support right now either.
I don't disagree that the support for, say, airlines, are bailouts, but the connotation that word has from 2008-2009 mischaracterizes what's going on right now. When this all blows over, you absolutely want airlines ready for business. Letting heavily impacted businesses fail is a recipe for a depression.
The same excuse was used for banks during the recession. We need banks when the economy recovers, and we need people who know the system to unwind the major screw ups they did. What happened is most of the people who were responsible for the recession remained in power making a lot of money. Lessons were not really learned, other than that being too big to fail is a good position to be in.
Great call. Every time I watch a presidential press conference, my first thought is "Wow, when this all blows over, I hope these people are running the airlines."
Maybe it's not such a bad thing to ask the question of who do we want running these huge ventures, which seem so entangled to the health of the economy and citizens. That applies to the government and private sector.