The federal government spent something like 6 Trillion Dollars last year, meaning the cost would be about 6% of our national budget. Knocking off 1/3rd for the people who would refuse to participate, 4%. If the process happened over 5 years, you’re talking about <1% increase to our annual budget. And practically speaking, 15 years might be a more reasonable time frame simply given the enormous scale of the thing.
Sure, $332b is an absolute fuck-ton of money. But it’s not an inconceivable amount of money. That’s not to say we should do it, simply that the argument we can’t afford it doesn’t really check out.
I mean, an IPO is a pretty reasonable point to allow insiders to trade. You’ve just published a huge amount of information about the company, so the insider advantage is at a relative low. It’s somewhat common for blackout periods to exist prior to things like earnings announcements, but after the announcement is usually when trading is permitted.