THREAD. The success of Congress’s efforts to support the economy in this once-in-a-century crisis seems to have undermined the perceived need for those efforts to continue.

My latest Bloomberg column: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-07/republicans-endanger-the-economy-by-forgetting-their-successes?sref=QK42wmXj @bopinion

2/ Passing another round of fiscal-policy support following March’s $1.8 trillion Cares Act should not have been a heavy lift for Republicans in Congress, particularly in an election year when a strengthening economy would help incumbents.

3/ The great irony is that the success of Congress’s efforts to support the economy in this once-in-a-century crisis seems to have undermined the perceived need for those efforts to continue.

4/ Some Senate Republicans and White House economic advisers are acting like hospital patients who receive treatment and feel better, only to conclude that their treatment wasn’t necessary because they feel fine.

5/ It’s like denying the efficacy of the polio vaccine by pointing out that very few people have polio. Or walking through a rainstorm with an umbrella and not getting wet, and concluding that the umbrella wasn’t necessary after all.

6/ The challenge is to think of the counterfactual — of what the world would have been like if different decisions had been made. Yes, the economy has recovered considerably from its low point in March and April.

7/ But that does not argue against the need for additional fiscal-policy support. Instead, it argues that this support was critical and effective.

8/ The decision on additional stimulus shouldn’t be based solely on whether the economy seems as if it needs additional support today.

9/ Instead, the question should be in part whether trading $1 trillion in additional government spending in order to double GDP growth in the fourth quarter makes sense (using the Goldman Sachs forecast)...

10/ ...or whether trading nearly $2 trillion for an additional 4 million new jobs is a good use of taxpayer money (using the @ernietedeschi analysis).

11/ I would take the $1 trillion. The recovery is fragile. In many parts of the U.S., it will be too cold to dine outdoors, and the weather and school reopenings could lead to an acceleration of the virus’s spread.

12/ Cold and flu season could reduce economic activity by keeping people home who are feeling ill and are unsure of whether they have Covid-19.

13/ In addition, the faster the economy recovers in 2020, the less likely that temporary economic problems grow deep roots, which in turn would make it more likely the U.S. experiences a period of prolonged weakness.

14/ A stronger sense of counterfactual reasoning would help with public-health efforts, as well. Upon returning to the White House after his hospitalization for Covid-19, Trump implied in a tweet that the number of people who have died from the coronavirus is comparable to the...

15/ ...number who die from the seasonal flu each year, arguing against social-distancing measures to slow the spread of the virus.

16/ But without the extreme social-distancing measures the U.S. has employed — in the counterfactual world where the U.S. treated Covid-19 like a seasonal flu — the body count from the coronavirus would be multiples larger than it is.

Fin/ It’s not too late for Congress to pass more stimulus. But the only person in Washington who can undo the damage Trump did to the negotiations on Tuesday is the President himself.

My latest Bloomberg column: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-07/republicans-endanger-the-economy-by-forgetting-their-successes?sref=QK42wmXj @bopinion