Two days ago, ten Republican senators met with Joe Biden offering him a COVID aid program that amounted to one-third of what he wanted. Paul Krugman writes:
Republicans, however, want to rip the guts out of this plan. They are seeking to reduce extra aid to the unemployed and, more important, cut that aid off in June — long before we can possibly get back to full employment. They want to eliminate hundreds of billions in aid to state and local governments. They want to eliminate aid for children. And so on.
This isn’t an offer of compromise; it’s a demand for near-total surrender. And the consequences would be devastating if Democrats were to give in.
Republicans offered the plan as a demonstration of "bipartisanship." But this isn't bipartisanship:
First of all, a party doesn’t get to demand bipartisanship when many of its representatives still won’t acknowledge that Biden won legitimately, and even those who eventually acknowledged the Biden victory spent weeks humoring baseless claims of a stolen election.
Complaints that it would be “divisive” for Democrats to pass a relief bill on a party-line vote, using reconciliation to bypass the filibuster, are also pretty rich coming from a party that did exactly that in 2017, when it enacted a large tax cut — legislation that, unlike pandemic relief, wasn’t a response to any obvious crisis, but was simply part of a conservative wish list.
Oh, and that tax cut was rammed through in the face of broad public opposition: Only 29 percent of Americans approved of the bill, while 56 percent disapproved. By contrast, the main provisions of the Biden plan are very popular: 79 percent of the public approve of new stimulus checks, and 69 percent approve of both expanded unemployment benefits and aid to state and local governments.
So when one party is trying to pursue policies with overwhelming public support while the other offers lock-step opposition, who, exactly, is being divisive?
In short, everything about this Republican counteroffer reeks of bad faith — the same kind of bad faith the G.O.P. displayed in 2009 when it tried to block President Barack Obama’s efforts to rescue the economy after the 2008 financial crisis.
Obama, unfortunately, failed to grasp the nature of his opposition, and he watered down his policies in a vain attempt to win support across the aisle. This time, it seems as if Democrats understand what Lucy will do with that football and won’t be fooled again.
In short, dealing with Republicans at this point is impossible -- because, like their former president, you can't believe a word they say.
Image: The New York Times
4 comments:
You have perhaps already seen this, Owen, but Edward Keenan writes on the same theme in today's Star: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/opinion/2021/02/02/how-should-joe-biden-handle-republican-senators-bill-murray-might-have-the-answer.html
Never underestimate the capacity for Dems to step on their own dicks. Biden promised $2,000 cheques would go out pronto. The current Dem plan is to send out $1,400 cheques ($2,000 - $600 sent out by Trump). That isn't what Biden promised and, regardless of the rationale, people will remember getting less than promised. Even if Lucy doesn't pull the football, Charlie Brown hasn't tied his shoelaces and is still liable to mess up.
Cap
I think Keenan is on to something, Lorne:
It may even turn out that acting on popular policy goals rather than compromising them away would achieve a kind of unity — or at least broader cross-partisan popularity outside the walls of Congress. Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain suggested as much Tuesday, tweeting, “This IS a bipartisan agenda,” with a link to a poll showing Biden’s policy priorities have strong public support.
The Republican Party is a minority party. They've been a minority party for a long time. The trick is to win majority public support for Biden's agenda.
As I wrote to Lorne, Cap, it's all about garnering a majority of public support. We'll soon see if Biden can do that.
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