How could anyone objectively look at the current economic situation and not find the economy utterly broken? Perhaps because with many big companies deemed “essen-tial,” and a stock market propped up by the Federal Reserve, it is easy to look at what appears to be econom-ic strength and miss the glaring weaknesses.

While Walmart and Tar-get continue to exceed earnings expectations, small businesses try to stay afloat. According to Alignable’s June Road to Recov-ery Report, “57% of small busi-nesses have only reached half or less of the monthly revenue lev-els they achieved prior to COVID.” Shifting power and money from in-dependent small business owners to a handful of big, powerful companies as a result of politicians’ mandates isn’t something that anyone should be arguing is a good outcome.