To make sense of the benefits disaster, you have to realize that Republicans don't understand that lack of sufficient demand can cause mass unemployment. I don't mean that they've rejected that view; they don't even know where it comes from 1/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2020/07/31/congress-bailout-unemployment-insurance/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_bailout-1230p%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

Larry Kudlow, who is for our sins Trump's top economist — and long a go-to-guy for the GOP in general — said some revealing things in 2006, with no indication he's learned anything since 2/ https://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/08/kudlow_needs_he.html

In his view, higher output means lower inflation, because money is chasing more goods. Not a hint that he understood that output might be depressed because of insufficient spending, or even that he understood the concept. "I don't get it," he declared; that at least was true 3/

So the whole GOP lives in a mental universe in which the only reason people might be unemployed is because they don't want to work, or maybe because employers pay too much taxes. The idea that cutting off income for millions will lead to more unemployment isn't in their minds 4/

And what they don't know can very much hurt you, and almost everyone else 5/