The bill is not great

The $2 trillion "Phase 3" Congressional relief bill looks to be ready for passage.

The legislation, which is expected to be enacted within days, is the biggest fiscal stimulus package in modern American history, aimed at delivering critical financial support to businesses forced to shut their doors and relief to American families and hospitals.

Yay! A thing is happening! Unfortunately, the details of this  "biggest fiscal stimulus package in modern American history," at least as reported in this article indicate that it will probably not be enough.

The $1500 one time cash payments to individuals means tested to phase out after $75000 in household income is not nearly enough. It leaves hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people with no assurance of income through the crisis.  There are some silver linings in the bill such as expanded unemployment benefits, including a provision that unemployed workers, yes, even tipped and "gig" workers be paid 100% of their salary (up to $75,000.)  It would still be more efficient to distribute emergency aid directly to everyone.  For most people the assistance they receive will be a partial stop-gap, not a solution and certainly not enough to "stimulate" a sagging economy through increased demand. 

$150 billion in aid to state and local government is also not enough.  Every state and every city budget is completely busted right now. The feds will have to throw in at least 5 times that amount just to avoid hundreds of localized fiscal catastrophes. Our city and state, dependent as they are on oil and tourism revenues are particularly vulnerable so I'd like to know more about how this relief is meant to be distributed as well.

The bill also includes $350 billion in forgivable loans to small business also does not seem like enough. The loans are conditioned on maintaining employees on payroll but, again, this is nowhere near as effective as just giving people money directly, which is what should be happening. Small businesses are going to find themselves with revenue crunches and this taking on new debt (even if most of it is forgivable) isn't going to cover them.

Then there are the corporate bailout funds.  The article says this will be overseen by an inspector general and a panel of investigators. It also says there is a one year ban on stock buybacks which seems easy enough for the big money lawyers to work around and they will definitely work around it. Also I don't see anything about the government taking an equity stake in anything. We should be buying out most of these companies instead of bailing them out. Much of this money will be stolen.

This is not a great bill but it will likely be passed and enacted by Thursday at the latest. 

On to Phase 4...