"“When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist. "

Dom Helder Camara – one of the great prophets of Christian "Liberation theology".

The poor, especially the homeless, are held to much higher standards than others, especially the wealthy. Spending on things that may allow them to keep the will to live another day is hardly something that can be understood or imagined by the vast majority of us.

We are about to see a major increase in the numbers of homeless in this country after the eviction moratorium was allowed to expire and we have yet to hear any meaningful reaction from Congress. This is a major travesty of justice and should horrify anyone who previously believed their government actually works for them.

A major pandemic and the supply chain disruptions it created should not cause such additional suffering when it is quite easily mitigated by Congress complying with its Constitutional mandate to "coin" the currency "for the general welfare". The US government can use its power of the purse to simply pay the rents of those at risk of being displaced by the pandemic from their homes. No one's taxes need to be raised to "pay for it" and no borrowing is necessary if the President would simply qualify it as an "emergency". He has that ability, as well as keeping "war funding" off the books as part of the debt.

I hardly have to tell anyone which he chose to do in continuation of his powers given to every President since FDR. It has nothing to do with the homeless, and everything to do with military contractors. He is a neoliberal's wet dream, as is most of Congress who tell us daily we can't "afford" to do things to benefit the people.