Which is preferable: to plan and erect a welfare state or to try to slap one together when confronted with a crisis?

Better to just ignore it and think it will never happen here.

Well the first thing to do is not use pejorative terms such as “welfare state”. That is an anti populist term from the 1940s and 1950s.

But the best way is to have a economy that evolves to meet people’s needs, rather than have people adjust to meet the needs of the economy.

Of course it’s a pejorative, just as socialism is as cheerful a term as chemotherapy or radIation. We should probably discuss the necessity of painting the concept as pejorative. But they are all, regardless, galloping realities, as the current solutions thrown together in panic certainly demonstrate.

Ideally, would slap something together to cover the crisis and then redesign it for the long term.

Make sure to send a few mil of that government money to son in law’s company, too.

And some of Trump’s small businesses he has invested.

When a crisis hits more people care and things get done. In normal times it is hard to give a hoot, and nothing gets done.
Only during a crisis do people think of being prepared. Like stocking up on N95 masks and p p.e.
Best to do it now, and for giggles make a list of other things that we can do to prepare for the next calamity.
Like fixing our crumbling infrastructure. Before a disaster collapses a bridge from a earthquake or time.
Covid20 or economic collapse.
Also hurricanes.

To at LEAST have a plan in place.