As Congress debated Thursday whether paid leave was worth paying for during a pandemic, the Federal Reserve announced it would inject $1.5 trillion worth of liquidity into the American economy in an effort to stave off recession. With no shortage of cash or crises on hand, there’s no question government action is needed. But particularly at a time when the economy urgently requires not just fiscal and monetary stimulus but a transition to more sustainable footing, there are more trillions to be spent.



Big spending packages are now relatively rare in Washington; when they do come up, they’re usually disguised as wars, tax cuts, or—as is the case now—a response to some pressing crisis. There are a number of emergency measures needed to deal with the situation at hand, several of which Democrats proposed on Capitol Hill this week and some they didn’t: paid leave, extending Medicaid and Medicare, aid to local governments, placing a moratorium on evictions and utility shutoffs, and stimulus checks for the American people. Senate leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday dubbed Senate Democrats’ relatively modest proposal—involving universal paid leave, free testing, and food assistance—an “ideological wishlist” and refused to bring it to a vote. He has now extended the session, and negotiations between Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are ongoing.

The White House, for its part, seems more worried about closing borders and getting stock prices back up than making adequate test kits available, allowing people to stay home from work, or bolstering the country’s public health infrastructure. Trump—reportedly considering a bailout for oil and gas companies—called Democrats’ stimulus proposal “a way for them to get some of the goodies that they haven’t been able to get for the past 25 years.” Whereas South Korea is now testing 10,000 people a day for COVID-19, the United States as of Thursday had tested 11,000 total.

Any response to this looming recession needs to work toward lower emissions in the long run, with investments that both improve lives and cut carbon.

Arguably, more goodies are needed. On top of the coronavirus outbreak and economic downturn, the world is now dealing with another urgent crisis in the form of global warming. Whereas traditional stimulus programs aim to blindly boost fossil-fueled growth, any response to this looming recession needs to work toward lower emissions in the long run, with investments that both improve lives and cut carbon.

There’s also evidence voters support such an approach. Despite a largely bipartisan belief that private companies are better at handling mountains of new cash than the federal government, new polling released Friday by Data for Progress; the McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania; and the Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborate, or (SC)2, found broad public support for a rapid, public-sector-driven shift toward a low-carbon world. (Disclosure: I am a senior fellow at Data for Progress, and two of the authors of this polling brief are my co-authors—along with Alyssa Battistoni—of a book released last year, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal. I had no role in compiling the brief.)