Stevenson’s army, March 26

Take a moment to consider the enormity of what just happened and the even greater enormity of what has to happen now. The Senate approved an 880-page bill approving extra spending of $2.2 Trillion. Until now, total discretionary spending in FY 2020 was planned to be $1.119 Trillion. So the government now has to spend twice as much as was already appropriated.

That $2.2 Trillion amounts to a 46% increase in total federal spending, which includes $2.9 Trillion in mandatory spending. The deficit for FY2020, originally estimated at $1.073 Trillion, will now more than triple, given the new spending and the shortfalls in revenue because of the economic lockdown.
So the national debt held by the public will surge from $16.8 Trillion by another $3.3 Trillion in one year.
In addition to managing the exploding debt,the US government has to manage the stimulus. Small businesses have been promised $350 Billion in loans. Yet the Small Business Administration, with only 3,877 people, has an annual budget of only $665 million and will now have to process claims for more than 500 times as much.
Throughout the government, agencies will have to  figure out regulations, develop forms, establish processes for reviewing and approving them, and then disbursing the money. And if they don’t, or don’t do it fast enough, the stimulus will fail.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).