Ben Bernanke: I Was Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Save the States.

[Zorro]

Congress must act decisively to avoid repeating mistakes of the recovery from the Great Recession.

The coronavirus pandemic has set loose a recession of shocking speed and severity. In the coming months, the actions taken by both the public and the private sectors will have economic and public health repercussions that will reverberate for years.

As a member of Gov. Phil Murphy’s Restart and Recovery Commission in New Jersey, I have worked to help put together an effective reopening strategy, one that not only will allow the state’s economy to move forward but also will address the glaring inequalities the pandemic has revealed.

The experience has been eye-opening. It’s become abundantly clear that the responsibility for responding to the pandemic cannot lie only with local and state governments. Congress must act decisively — and it must act in ways that don’t repeat mistakes of the recent past, during the Great Recession.

Our state governments serve a dual role as providers of critical services — health care, public safety, education and mass transit — as well as large employers. Many states, including New Jersey, are responsible for tens of thousands of jobs and the paychecks that go with them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/opinion/ben-bernanke-coronavirus-federal-aid.html