So Trump finally invoked the Defense Production Act, forcing GM to make ventilators on Friday after trying to nickel and dime “negotiations” with them. Once again, this is the opposite of what our country needs right now. He should have doubled their cost estimates and paid them enough to turn a healthy profit.
Instead of giving companies that have been doing stock buy backs over the past 13 years trillions of dollars in bailout money, we should be invoking the Defense Production Act with every manufacturing company in the country and we should be offering them generous contracts with large profit margins.
Clothing companies should get federal dollars to make masks and gowns. Paper companies should get federal dollars to make latex gloves. Distilleries should get big fat contracts to make isopropyl alcohol and hand sanitizer. Event equipment companies should get contracts to build temporary hospitals and testing sites all across the country. Any factory that can be retrofitted within 2 weeks to produce critically needed supplies should all get big, fat fucking federal contracts to retrofit and ramp up production. Those contracts should be generous enough to ensure that safety precautions are in place for the workers, and that they can get tested every few days in order to prevent outbreaks.
This strategy would create a situation where everyone wins. Hospitals would get the supplies they need to save lives. Workers would be able to get good paying temporary jobs to sustain their households through this crisis instead of useless small checks every few months. The companies would be able to build up cash reserves with those generous profit margins, which would create the kind of long term stability that a stimulus check wouldn’t. The economy would get a boost because that money would be flowing.
But since this is America, and our politicians only care about the companies that generously donate to their campaigns, we can’t have nice things and we can’t do anything in a way that actually makes sense.
We’re going to spend the money anyway. I’d like to see us for once, not spend it in the stupidest way possible. Is that too much to ask?
