COVID relief caution

Nebraskans should stick to their conservative spending philosophy when it comes to the billions of dollars pouring into the state’s economy in the form of COVID relief. 
That’s a message Dist. 34 Sen. Curt Friesen shared Friday in Aurora, and it’s a cautious warning that should be heard and heeded at the local, state and national level. Friesen deserves credit for voicing a concern out loud that not enough politicians seem to understand or talk about. Some day soon, that money will have to be paid back!
All of us are breathing a little deeper these days with a growing sense that the ominous pandemic cloud we’ve been living under for the past year is beginning to clear. Our state and local economy have fared better than most, though clearly there were some sectors that took a direct hit. In those cases, federal stimulus money provided a much-needed lifeline.
Unfortunately, as Friesen bluntly pointed out during Friday’s town hall forum in Aurora, there is potential danger looming now as an estimated $10 billion worth of COVID relief funding piles up in Nebraska alone, waiting to be spent. The total sum allocated across the country is mind-boggling, much of it having nothing whatsoever to do with pandemic relief, but that ship has long since sailed.
The temptation, and immediate concern now in Lincoln, and most certainly in Washington, is to spend that money as quickly as possible so as to stimulate the economy, get people back to work and fuel the engine that drives the American way of life. Those wheels are already in motion, creating a very real sense of hope and optimism regarding economic growth in 2021.
The core message in Friesen’s warning, which logically applies at all levels of government, is to think through how this one-time funding is allocated. Creating new, permanent programs, no matter how popular and “needed,” is a land mine timed to blow up several years down the road.
Making people, and sectors, whole again should be a priority, as well as funding infrastructure and improvements that simultaneously create jobs and address critical needs. What should be avoided is the creation of new, permanent jobs and programs that can’t fund themselves long-term.
The size of the CARES Act funding bills may one day haunt Americans in the form of ballooning interest rates. It’s going to be critical in the weeks and months ahead that political leaders at all levels minimize that damage by spending this one-time funding source ever so cautiously, or not at all.
Kurt Johnson