Republicans fear that the pandemic will reveal that the federal budget isn't like our household, business, or state budgets and their entire economic platform will crumble. To be fair, neoliberal Democrats are almost as bad at truth telling when it comes to economics at the federal level and show much more interest in the welfare of their donors than that of their voters.

When the food producers are plowing under their crops for lack of sales and the people are food insecure at the same time due to a lack of money I think we can agree that our economic system is broken. If we allow it to remain broken for too long supply chains will fail and rebuilding them is far more expensive than maintaining them.

The purpose of federal safety nets is not all about charity. Their primary function is injecting federal money into the economy when business and banking fail to provide it sufficiently. The "deficit" spending of Congress is the only net source of dollars the private sector has. It is not evil, but a necessity if private sector growth and retirement of bank debt are desired.

If deficits are too small the economy falls into recession at every hiccup of the business cycle and asset bubbles form to drain money from the middle class in place of productive economic activity and upward velocity of money. On top of those dynamics, a balanced budget at the federal level (the holy grail of politicians pandering to our ignorance) steals the resources the government uses without compensation. No one can claim that to be sustainable.