Why the relief bill is a threat to everything Republicans believe in

[CoffeeTiger 5,114]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/11/why-relief-bill-is-threat-everything-republicans-believe/

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Part of the opposition’s job is to warn that whatever the party in power is doing will result in utter destruction. The majority passed a health-care bill? It will ruin the health-care system. A new education initiative? Before long, your kids will have to take off their shoes to count to 11. An economic plan? Get ready for a catastrophic recession.

 

But that’s not what Republicans are saying now that President Biden is about to sign the $1.9 trillion relief bill that just passed Congress. Just the opposite: They’re saying the good times are on their way. They just want voters to know that Biden shouldn’t get any of the credit.

“We’re about to have a boom,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday. “It will have absolutely nothing to do with this $1.9 trillion.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made the same argument, predicting “an American comeback,” but adding: “It won’t be because of this liberal bill.”

They’re only partially wrong — while the American Rescue Plan will provide a significant boost to the economy and give tremendous help to millions of families, we would likely have seen strong growth without it, as covid vaccinations allowed people to return to work and businesses to reopen.

But as a political message, it’s not exactly emphatic. Which shows why Democrats now have an opportunity to shape the political legacy of the pandemic.

Given the bill’s current and likely future popularity, and the growing consensus that a boom is indeed coming, Republicans’ reluctance to predict economic collapse is understandable. Some even want to grab a slice of the credit themselves.

 

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) took a victory lap over an amendment he co-sponsored targeting help to restaurants, even though he voted against the bill along with every other Republican. That got him plenty of mockery, but it shows the difficult position Republicans are in: When the boom comes, and Democrats repeat over and over that it’s because of the ARP, just saying “Nuh uh!” won’t get them very far.

But it also shows how the politics of this moment are working against Republicans in a more fundamental way. Wicker, a fairly mainstream Republican, is making what is essentially a Democratic argument: A terrible crisis happened; government (i.e. me and my amendment) stepped in with help; now things are better.

Republicans know they won’t be able to deny the first or third parts of that story, so they’ll have to deny the second part by saying government didn’t do anything worthwhile (except the things they take credit for, like Wicker).

 

The stakes are extremely high. Because if the public were to accept that story as the model for how things ought to work more generally, it would put Republicans at a substantive and political disadvantage not just in the 2022 midterms but for the foreseeable future.

That’s just the situation Biden and Democrats are trying to create. The ARP is a revolutionary piece of legislation — but we don’t know yet whether it will be a momentary exception to the paradigm that has existed since Ronald Reagan was president, or a death blow to it.

The essence of that paradigm is that our default presumption should be that government is inefficient, wasteful and incompetent, and while there are a few things we need it to do, in general we shouldn’t expect it to solve our problems. If it does offer help — particularly to people who are struggling — it should be as stingy as possible and should be accompanied by bureaucratic red tape and petty humiliations such as drug testing so recipients feel as bad as possible about getting it.

 

The ARP, in contrast, not only pours huge amounts of money into the economy and into people’s bank accounts, it does some revolutionary things, none of which are more ideologically significant than the expansion of the child tax credit.

The bill expands the credit from $2,000 to as much as $3,600 for each child and makes it available to poor families without tax liability who previously didn’t receive it. And — most symbolically important — it distributes the credit on a monthly basis, giving people regular infusions of money to help support their families. No onerous paperwork requirements to document the hours you work and thereby prove you’re morally worthy of the help, just the government giving you a hand.

Republicans don’t like this provision for multiple reasons. They don’t think government should provide that kind of income support. They worry that it will be popular and help Democrats in 2022. And they worry that if it’s made permanent (as of now it will expire after a year), it will change people’s expectations of government.

 

They’ve seen it happen before. Conservatives fought the creation of Medicare for all the same reasons, and today they have to pretend they’d never lift a finger to harm a program their older constituents adore. They don’t want to see a repeat of that.

If Democrats are going to pass big programs, Republicans would rather they resemble the Affordable Care Act: complicated, difficult to understand and providing its benefits in roundabout and sometimes invisible ways.

But Democrats learned the lessons of the ACA (and the 2009 recovery bill) too. Which is why they’re sending money right to people’s pockets — and will launch a PR blitz to remind voters of what they got. If they can convince the public that’s exactly what they ought to expect from Washington, it could shift the political debate for years or decades to come.

 

 

[autigeremt 6,642]

The horse is out of the barn. Economic collapse is on the horizon with all this spending and printing of money and the GOP is dying on the vine along with the United States as we’ve known it. Accept it or be forever stressed. 

[AU9377 4,960]

18 hours ago, autigeremt said:

The horse is out of the barn. Economic collapse is on the horizon with all this spending and printing of money and the GOP is dying on the vine along with the United States as we’ve known it. Accept it or be forever stressed. 

Take comfort in knowing that the rest of the world will suffer thru the collapse with us.  The GOP didn't foresee this collapse when they passed an even larger package and combined that with a corporate tax cut that cost another $1.5 trillion.  We have to get spending under control on many fronts.  That includes our unregulated defense spending during a time of relative world peace.  Corporations need help in the form of relief from the cost of employee health care.  There is a way to reduce unnecessary defense spending, make the Affordable Care Act work or replace with a medicare for all plan and provide relief to corporations in a meaningful way that allows them to invest in growth, all without exploding the size of the Federal budget.  It cannot happen until everyone puts country before self interest.

[DKW 86 7,426]

On 3/13/2021 at 5:08 PM, autigeremt said:

The horse is out of the barn. Economic collapse is on the horizon with all this spending and printing of money and the GOP is dying on the vine along with the United States as we’ve known it. Accept it or be forever stressed. 

So be it. The Republicans Committed Suicide. Please dont let anyone around here get that wrong. I am 100% fed up with them turning their backs on the Middle Class. They stir up a bunch of hate on several subjects and then offer.....JUST MORE FAIL THAT GOT THEM HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. 
Look, Reagan had it right FOR 1980. You cant keep applying 1980's Solution and expect it to work in 2021. I cant think Reagan would even tell you that. 

2021 is a different time, a different world. We have global issues we must address. Even Reagan, a firm market Capitalist had to tap the brakes and save the Auto Industry with Quotas back in the day. He even realized back then that theory and the real world do not mix well.

So, if the Republican Party is dead, and I actually agree with the most rabid here on the forum. If it aint dead, it has already begun to stink. In my mind, the Republican Party in 2021 is terminal with the machines unplugged, it just hasnt drawn its last breath yet. I really thought after 2020, they would do away with Trump. Apparently they are going to let him just keep him around as the "abusive boyfriend from hell" that he has been since 2011.

 

[CoffeeTiger 5,114]

23 hours ago, AU9377 said:

Take comfort in knowing that the rest of the world will suffer thru the collapse with us.  The GOP didn't foresee this collapse when they passed an even larger package and combined that with a corporate tax cut that cost another $1.5 trillion.  We have to get spending under control on many fronts.  That includes our unregulated defense spending during a time of relative world peace.  Corporations need help in the form of relief from the cost of employee health care.  There is a way to reduce unnecessary defense spending, make the Affordable Care Act work or replace with a medicare for all plan and provide relief to corporations in a meaningful way that allows them to invest in growth, all without exploding the size of the Federal budget.  It cannot happen until everyone puts country before self interest.

It's not going to be the Stimulus packages that do us in. A global pandemic and economic collapse is EXACTLY what the government SHOULD be spending large sums of money to help alleviate and prevent. Both stimuluses were good and needed.  The problem is the runaway deficit and spending the government didn't get under control when there wasn't a pandemic and when there was an economic boom. The US built up huge deficits during good times and had no rainy day plan for when times weren't going to be so good. THAT's the big problem. 

 

There's no political capital in the US to control spending. Progressives want never ending social and welfare programs and conservatives want ever increasing military budgets and huge Tax cuts every few years. Eventually both sides will have to make sacrifices and nobody is going to like it. 

[AUFAN78 3,911]

Everyone has an opinion on the bill. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges weighs in.

https://scheerpost.com/2021/03/12/chris-hedges-bandaging-the-corpse/