The CARES Act was the first major COVID-19 relief legislation, enacted in March 2020. It was described by Rep. Thomas Massie as a $2 trillion bailout measure, and by Jeff Deist as over $2.7 trillion of spending. The Act included the Paycheck Protection Program, which provided loans to businesses for payroll, and a $25 billion bailout of the airline industry. Across episodes of The Bob Zadek Show, guests criticized the Act for its constitutional irregularities, its economic logic, and its distributional consequences.
Constitutional quorum and the March 27 vote
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky congressman elected in 2012, told Bob Zadek that he insisted Congress follow Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, which requires a quorum to do business. Massie said he told everyone a day in advance that he would note the absence of a quorum if one was not present. He stated that his goal was not to delay or stop the vote, and that one person cannot do that. After members showed up, Massie asked for a recorded vote, which was refused. He said that regardless of whether one supported or opposed the bill, members should go on the record, calling it their one duty. Prime time for the PRIME Act (2020)
Massie described the bill as sending checks to dead people, citing electronic transfers to deceased individuals who still had shared accounts with survivors. He said his greater concern was $10 million checks to “small businesses” that were publicly traded companies paying executives a million dollars a year. He argued that the rush to get money out of the Treasury suspended normal checks and balances, and predicted that the waste, fraud, and abuse of the program would dwarf all that preceded it. Prime time for the PRIME Act (2020)
Economic analysis
Jeff Deist, speaking with Bob Zadek, used the CARES Act as an example of how an Austrian economist would approach a real-life policy question differently from the government. Deist described the Act as over $2.7 trillion of spending, purely on the fiscal side, meaning Congress and the Treasury spending money as opposed to monetary policy. He explained that government shutdowns put a brake on economic action, which he called deflationary in nature. He said the government wanted to help people by giving them money but botched getting the checks out, with many people never receiving them. Austrian Economics Triumphs (2021)
Deist argued that the government did not tax the money but produced it at the Treasury level, which he simplified as printing money, though he noted it was mostly digital. He said that all the new money, wherever it entered the economy, did not produce any new goods or services. Society was left with the same amount of goods and services as before, but with more money. He asked whether society was richer, and answered that it was not, because nothing new was produced. He said that while some individuals might benefit politically, society as a whole was not better off. Austrian Economics Triumphs (2021)
Deist emphasized that money per se does not make a society richer; what makes it richer is more goods and services, produced by productivity, better technology, innovation, and profit that allows saving and investment in better machinery and equipment. He cited Tesla and Elon Musk as an example of investors saving money and putting it into a company over a long period with risk, which he contrasted with simply producing money and giving it to everybody. He expressed concern that people have lost sight of common sense and think government or central banks can will prosperity into existence through a big stimulus bill. Austrian Economics Triumphs (2021)
Impact on small business
Carol Roth told Bob Zadek that the economic devastation of 2020 was not caused by COVID but by the government’s reaction to COVID. She said the government picked winners and losers based on political clout and connections, not data or science, enabling the greatest wealth transfer in a lifetime. She said the government told people they were non-essential, which she argued the government should never tell anybody, and noted there was no data or science to explain why liquor stores or pet groomers could open but hair and nail salons could not. Carol Roth on the War on Small Business (2021)
Roth characterized the government’s actions as taking people’s businesses and property for the common good, which under the Constitution is considered eminent domain. She said the other side of eminent domain requires appropriate and just compensation. She argued that the PPP provisions of the CARES Act and other aid were not only a fraction of the overall dollars spent but a fraction of the dollars needed. She said that by the middle of 2020, hundreds of thousands of small businesses had closed permanently, while seven technology companies gained $3.4 trillion in value, and it was a record year for initial public offerings and SPAC vehicles. Carol Roth on the War on Small Business (2021)
Airline bailout
Veronique de Rugy told Bob Zadek that the airline bailout was part of the CARES Act, which she called the first big, massive COVID relief bill. She corrected Bob’s suggestion that the bailout was a Democratic initiative, stating that it was quite bipartisan and that Republicans are as terrible as Democrats when it comes to bailing out and cronyism, though they do it for different reasons. She said the bailout took the form of tax relief, loans, and grants, mostly under the Paycheck Protection Program name, to give airlines an incentive not to furlough or fire workers. The True Cost of Airline Bailouts (2023)
De Rugy said the initial bailout was $25 billion for six months, followed by another $25 billion and another $15 billion, totaling close to $70 billion. She said the airlines argued each time that the economy had not recovered, people were not flying as they used to, and they would have to furlough workers. She also described the argument that keeping workers employed would help the economy recover by ensuring no gap between not flying and flying full time. The True Cost of Airline Bailouts (2023)
Across episodes
The excerpts show a consistent critique of the CARES Act across four episodes, with no development in the argument over time. Thomas Massie in April 2020 focused on constitutional procedure and the distributional unfairness of the bill, while Jeff Deist in March 2021 provided an Austrian economic analysis of the stimulus. Carol Roth in August 2021 emphasized the Act’s inadequate compensation for small businesses destroyed by government mandates, and Veronique de Rugy in January 2023 detailed the airline bailout embedded in the legislation. Each guest advanced the same fundamental criticism: that the Act transferred wealth from ordinary Americans to corporations and the well-connected, though they approached it from different angles.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the full legislative text of the CARES Act, the vote counts in either chamber, or the specific date of enactment beyond Massie’s reference to March 27th. They do not provide the total number of small businesses that closed permanently, the exact amount of the airline bailout beyond de Rugy’s approximation, or the names of the publicly traded companies that received $10 million checks. The sources also do not cover any legal challenges to the Act, the details of the Paycheck Protection Program’s implementation, or the subsequent COVID relief legislation beyond the airline bailout extensions.