Unlike the Bible’s manna from heaven, the $6 trillion to $9 trillion federal COVID-19 relief spending must be paid back, and until it is, if ever, we and our grandchildren’s grandchildren will be paying interest on it and their dollar will be devalued.

It is important to appreciate that “trillion” is an astronomical number. If you go back a billion seconds, you would go 32 years and it would be 1989. If you go back a trillion seconds, you would go 32,000 years and it would be 30,000 B.C.

The government stimulus checks were needed for the one-third of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck. The pandemic shutdown would have made them unable to feed, shelter or provide health care for their families. The same goes for many thousands of businesses that would not have survived the shutdown.

My concern is that only a third to a half of the money spent was really needed by the recipients, since they included 80 percent of the population, including families that made up to $150,000 per year.

In the year since the shutdown started, the M2 money supply, which includes cash, checking accounts, money market funds and certificates of deposit, grew $5 trillion to an all-time high of $20.4 trillion. Maine predicted a deficit of more than $1 billion and wound up with a $460 million surplus.

The federal government must begin to pay its bills since our future does depend on it. That includes raising taxes and targeting spending to those who really need it.

Stuart Gilbert
Falmouth

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