(SBG) — Congress allocated around $4.1 trillion over the past year to combat COVID-19, with around $3 trillion already spent, according to the Committee for a Responsible Budget’s “COVID Money Tracker.”
Much of the 2020 funding wasn’t narrowly targeted for the sake of emergency, said Marc Goldwein, Senior Vice President and Senior Policy Director for CRFB. Although Goldwein believes the next COVID relief package should be much smaller than the $1.9 trillion currently proposed, he believes the previous stimulus was essential in helping America ward off a depression or prolonged economic freeze.
“None of the doomsday scenarios that people like me were worried about actually occurred,” he said. “We need to give credit where it’s due: COVID relief worked.
” The leftover $1.1 trillion is largely due to the stimulus bill passed in December, he said. Some of that money won’t be spent right away. Unemployment benefits, for example, are designed for gradual expenditure over the course of several months. Other spending categories, like the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loans, haven’t had enough applications, he said.
