HKS Affiliated Authors

Excerpt

Main Street Needs More Fed Help. Hal Scott, April 16, 2020, Opinion, "The U.S. economy is in free fall. Leading economic forecasters predict as much as an 11% year-over-year decline in second-quarter gross domestic product. Small businesses—those with under 500 employees, which constitute 50% of the workforce and 44% of GDP—have closed their doors and are teetering from illiquidity to insolvency. Depression is around the corner. The priority should be to get funds to these firms to avoid disaster. Unfortunately, the Main Street Expanded Loan Facility, designed by the Treasury and Federal Reserve, will fail to do so. It wrongfully prioritizes preventing losses over rescuing the economy. The Treasury needs to allocate much more than $75 billion to this program if it is to succeed." Link