The Fed is making the right moves to help America's small businesses

[This piece was originally published on CNN Business.]

My grandmother was fond of saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That certainly fits the bailouts of 2008 and 2009. The Federal Reserve lent trillions of dollars to bail out Wall Street highfliers, hoping that by stabilizing big banks, the benefits would flow through to the rest of the economy. But it didn't work out that way. While big banks rebounded quickly, working families suffered for years from the effects of lost jobs, lost homes and sluggish wage growth.

When the coronavirus started roiling financial markets earlier this month, the Fed again reverted to its 2008 "playbook," pumping hundreds of billions into the banking system, but with little discernible effect on Main Street. Fortunately, this week, the Fed corrected course. In a bold move, it announced new programs that use its ability to create money to more directly help the real economy...