not off wiki btw, but it’s misinformation that the national debt is a big scary thing and a valid reason to not spend stimulus money on a crisis when it’s very much needed. Also the airlines as a whole got less than $50 billion of a multi trillion dollar package. Keeping the airlines solvent and held together for now is worth the relative small dollars. Why? Because it’s an investment that will pay back more in future tax revenues and law makers know it but unfortunately their kitchen table economist constituents don’t.

edit:
and if for no other reason, if you are a pilot think of all the money you’ve paid in taxes in years past. Look at this as getting some of it back. If you’re too senior to be furloughed or downgraded look at as in investment in your job security (stability of the company). And if the feds won’t grant the airlines the money who do you think they will look to for the grant. at the very least an investment in your relative seniority that will slide back if your brothers are let go.