I'm not sure I believe the US Govt will be handing out money for votes.
Yeah. Wrong visualization. Paying for so they don't revolt.
The US govt shutdown shows just how much value it provides to the economy.
Yet, none of the value is theirs to give and as you rightly said, it ends up in that 0.1% pocket.
With the PPP loans and the US Fed buying up assets, absolutely, a ton of money ended up in the 0.1% pocket... but in terms of value that the US Government provides, I was thinking of things like Air Traffic Controllers. They are a federal unit who communicates with all the private airlines and coordinates the various flight paths, etc. Without Air Traffic Controllers funded by the Federal Government, private company planes would probably crash into each other all the time. Same with GPS, the US Government provides that to the world for free... that's tremendous value.