We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Stimulus
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2020
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With 26 million Americans filing for unemployment in the last five weeks, it’s obvious that the economy is still broken. However, Congress hasn’t been sitting on its heels—trillions of dollars of aid have been approved with billions more signed into law this week. The problem? It just hasn’t been enough. Now, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecasts unemployment could reach 16 percent later this year. So, what else can Congress do to resuscitate the economy?
Guest: Jordan Weissmann, Slate’s senior business and economics correspondent.
Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds. Sign up now.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This past Friday, anyone who's been tracking the economic spiral in this country got some bad news. |
| 0:11.5 | It came from a bunch of nonpartisan policy wonks on Capitol Hill. |
| 0:15.6 | So Jordan, can I just tell you what I thought when I saw this Congressional Budget Office report? |
| 0:21.3 | I was like, what's the opposite of the future so bright I got to wear shades? |
| 0:28.6 | There's this great song that only fans of 2000s indie rock will remember. |
| 0:35.4 | It was called The Opposite of Hallelujah. |
| 0:38.0 | But sister, |
| 0:39.7 | it's the opposite of |
| 0:41.4 | Hallelujah. |
| 0:42.9 | It's the opposite of being you. |
| 0:46.5 | And I feel like that's sort of |
| 0:48.8 | what that report was. |
| 0:50.9 | Just the opposite of Hallelujah. |
| 0:52.5 | The opposite of things are going to be okay. |
| 0:56.4 | You don't know what I'm going through. |
| 1:05.6 | Jordan Weissman covers the economy for Slate. |
| 1:08.7 | I called him up because after seeing this bleak report, I wanted |
| 1:12.6 | a little perspective on what our economic future could look like. The CBO, they are now saying |
| 1:18.6 | unemployment could go as high as 16%. This is the first time a federal agency has acknowledged, |
| 1:25.3 | our economic downturn. It's going to last a year and a half, |
| 1:29.9 | maybe more. How predictive usually is the CBO? This gets into a very fraught topic for budget |
| 1:37.4 | nerds, which is how good is the CBO at its job? But they do pretty standard economic modeling. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.