Government bailouts should be in the form of stock purchases. Want a bailout? Government owns part of the company. Want to issue dividends after the bailout? Government gets some. Too many bailouts, and the company is now state-owned.
the problem with taking equity is that it's not simply an income stream, it's a responsibility. you become a stakeholder and need to manage the asset lest it devalue in ways you don't like. it's messy and much more criticizable, something politicians and bureaucrats loathe.
fixed-income assets like loans are much simpler, and have the added benefit of naturally having higher liquidation preference (bondholders get paid before shareholders).
loans with performance penalties/incentives are cleaner to implement, but the problem there is lobbying that waters down penalties and magnifies incentives.
there's no simple solution, including taking equity. i'd love every loan to have a clause stipulating no executive stock incentives or share buy-backs for 7 years post-loan, but no one is lobbying for that.
Too big to fail was outrageous because it says big businesses rule the world, if you don't like it, suck it.
We're now a month and a half in, and some states have committed to broad mandatory shutdowns for another month. "Our business becomes illegal through the end of Q2" is not the kind of rainy day businesses can be reasonably expected to plan for.