If it's not already abundantly clear to everyone: The Trump administration has done more to try to protect Wall Street from the negative effects of COVID-19 than it has to protect Main Street.

President Trump has actively harmed our outbreak response on multiple levels. He's more worried about the public relations impact of the outbreak than he is about the lives of infected Americans. He's spreading disinformation about matters of public health. And he long ago slashed the federal government's pandemic response teams as part of his destructive trickle-down agenda.

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Compare that to what Trump has done to help his wealthy friends. Recently, Trump was pitching the idea of a tax break for big businesses to help save the economy from a coronavirus-inspired tailspin, and the Federal Reserve slashed rates in a futile attempt to keep the stock market afloat. Neither of these ideas worked, of course  -  the stock market is declining at levels not seen since the crash of 2008  -  but they do clearly identify the Trump administration's priorities.

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Our workers and our entrepreneurs are suffering right now. Everyday Americans can't make ends meet, and the businesses that they've invested their life savings into are going to fail without some sort of intervention.

From here on the ground in Seattle  -  the hardest-hit region in the American coronavirus outbreak so far  -  I can tell you that Trump's top-down economic response has it all backward. My fellow Seattleites aren't worried about their 401(k)s at the moment: They're worried about their next paychecks, or whether their small businesses can survive another few weeks of social distancing and self-quarantine.

The coronavirus, then, offers us a unique opportunity - a chance to correct one of the biggest economic errors of the last 15 years. We can restore the economy, improve our communities, and generate wealth for everyone.

We can't afford another bailout that leaves everyday Americans behind.

We know that the American economy is powered by consumer demand. That's why communities like Seattle that raised their minimum wages have seen their local economies grow: When more people have more money to spend, it's good for everyone - that money circulates in the community, from business to business, creating more jobs and more wealth for everyone.

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So it's time for a stimulus that puts individual Americans first, encouraging growth on Main Street that will buoy the entire economy - including Wall Street. The fantastic thing about a middle-out stimulus is that it's not an either/or proposition; the markets are largely informed by stability and consumer demand, so a stimulus package for low- and middle-income people would naturally help Wall Street stabilize by building economic stability from the ground up.

Congress should infuse money into state workers' comp and unemployment funds, especially in the hardest-hit states, so that these existing systems can provide benefits to all quarantined workers and those forced to work reduced hours (through short-time compensation). The federal government should also immediately increase funding for food stamps, housing, and utilities assistance, and suspend restrictions on access. A temporary reduction in federal payroll taxes would provide a little extra cash for both workers and businesses.

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Our friends at Working Washington are asking you to sign on to a letter demanding that Washington state lawmakers institute four simple relief policies:

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1. Preservation of medical benefits.

2. Moratorium on evictions.

3. Prevent utility shut-offs.

4. Emergency income assistance.

And House Democrats are working on legislation demanding paid sick leave for Americans struggling to make ends meet during the coronavirus outbreak.

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It's obvious that we also need to offer low-interest loans and easy-to-access grants for struggling small businesses, as well as make loans available for people looking to start a business in the days after the outbreak. Rep. Ilhan Omar's proposed bill to give $1,000 to every American adult and $500 to every American child would increase spending and protect vulnerable families who suddenly have no income.

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And here's where the wails and gasps and moans chime in: "That kind of a stimulus package would cost billions! How on earth are you going to pay for it?" You know, I don't care: The Trump tax cuts didn't create jobs. They didn't pay for themselves. Instead, corporations and wealthy Americans kept all the money.

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A Main Street Stimulus Package, though, would absolutely pay for itself. With more money in their pockets, people would spend that money in their local communities. Business owners would invest in improvements. Competitors would open businesses to get a share of that increased consumer demand. And profits would trickle up the supply chain to the same corporations who failed to share their tax-cut wealth with us three years ago. Everyone benefits.

But as it happens, I do have an elegant solution for How We'll Pay for It: Just ask Congress to revoke the Trump tax cuts, and then devote the increased tax revenue to employers of small businesses and entrepreneurs. We could be talking about trillions of dollars in stimulus money, depending on how long the program lasts.

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The important thing is that we can't allow the Trump White House to pull off a second tax scam - or, worse, a wholesale gift of billions in taxpayer dollars to the same people who squandered stimulus money last time. Instead, we need to treat this outbreak as an opportunity - a chance to give the American people a shot to rebuild this country from the ground up. Wall Street had their shot at fixing the economy. Now it's Main Street's turn.

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