On Thursday, when the Department of Commerce reported an estimated annualized loss of 32.9% for the second quarter’s GDP growth, it was the worst number that the United States had seen since GDP accounting began in the 1930s. The agency also provided a supplemental table that explained what happened to total personal income for all people taken together. The table contains the essence of the challenge Congress faces in coming up with an aid package that both assists struggling households and gives a shot in the arm to a coronavirus-stricken economy.

The data there are troubling for another reason. It appears that the pandemic has caused us to burden our grandchildren with a huge debt so that much of the current generation can put more money into savings accounts. That’s right: Congress seems to be caught in a dramatic struggle to increase transfers from future taxpayers to present ones who are busy squirreling it away.