1. I'm pretty sure that states can decide to not evict tenants (thereby severely hurting landlords who possibly have multiple mortgages to cover the rentals.
2. Did any other country uniformly cancel all rent?
2. Did any other country uniformly cancel all rent?
Other countries have more of a safety net, and less of an inflationary treadmill. A better safety net (eg continuing direct subsidies for the unemployed, and expanding them to cover small business rent) is another option, and probably the more practical one. But there is this American tendency to characterize such things as deliberate meddling with some default state of affairs. So I am mainly pointing out that this needing to feed the debt black hole is itself a result of explicit federal policy.
The US should have more leeway because it has the world's reserve currency.
I haven't worked it out but I'd like to hear why the Fed or Treasury (let's just say federal govt) couldn't simply replace lost real estate loan payments by adding to banks' balance sheets.
Non-mortgage landlords might hurt if they depend on the income. But that's not much different from other businesses whose income stream stopped, and the same rescue packages could be applied, e.g. furlough etc.
In the UK, rent was not stopped, but landlords were allowed to stop paying their mortgages. That seems unfair to me.