Sacks’ claim was conditional: because the U.S. used very large stimulus in 2020–21 despite a rebounding economy, if another major economic emergency occurred in the near future, the federal government would have much less fiscal capacity to respond effectively.

Facts that support the premise of his concern:

• Between the CARES Act and related packages in 2020 and the $2.3T Consolidated Appropriations Act plus the $1.9T American Rescue Plan in late 2020–2021, the U.S. undertook extraordinary multi‑trillion‑dollar fiscal measures.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Debt and deficits remained historically high afterward: public debt hovered around ~95–100% of GDP in 2022–23, and total federal debt exceeded 120% of GDP by 2024–25, with deficits above 6% of GDP.(ycharts.com)
• Nominal debt rose from about $27.7T in 2021 to $34–35T in 2023–24 and then over $37–38T by 2025, well above pre‑COVID levels.(visualcapitalist.com)
• All three major rating agencies (S&P, Fitch, Moody’s) have now downgraded U.S. sovereign debt, explicitly citing high and rising debt, large structural deficits, and the increased vulnerability of the fiscal position to future shocks.(cnbc.com)

However, the test of his prediction—another major economic emergency in the “near future” that required large new fiscal action—has not clearly occurred:

• After 2021, the U.S. did not experience a COVID‑scale or 2008‑style recession. Growth remained positive in 2022–24, with many observers characterizing the outcome as a “soft landing,” not a deep crisis.(cnbc.com)
• The main genuine shock, the 2023 regional banking crisis (SVB, Signature, First Republic), was addressed primarily through regulatory and monetary tools: the Treasury authorized a systemic risk exception so the FDIC could guarantee all deposits at SVB and Signature, and the Federal Reserve launched the Bank Term Funding Program to provide emergency liquidity.(en.wikipedia.org) These moves did not require a massive new fiscal stimulus bill from Congress, and there is no clear evidence that high pandemic‑era debt prevented such a bill; the constraint was more political than market‑driven.

Because:

1. No crisis comparable to 2020 or 2008 struck in the “near future” window where very large discretionary fiscal action was clearly needed, and
2. In the main shock that did occur (the 2023 banking turmoil), the government was able to mount an effective response using existing tools, without evident bond‑market refusal or an explicit statement that fiscal space was exhausted,

we cannot empirically determine whether 2020–21 stimulus in fact left the U.S. unable to respond fiscally to a major new emergency. The underlying fiscal risk he pointed to is real and documented, but his specific conditional prediction about future emergency response capacity has not been decisively confirmed or falsified.

Therefore the appropriate classification is ambiguous: enough time has passed to judge the “near future,” but the required triggering event (a comparable major economic emergency demanding large new fiscal stimulus) never fully materialized, so the prediction’s accuracy can’t be cleanly evaluated.