Don’t Get Rope-A-Doped By Republicans Again: ‘Go Big Or Go Home’ On Economic Relief

Follow-up to David Gordon’s post, Are Republicans Serious About Compromise On Covid Relief Probably Not But The People Should Know For Sure Soon.

Moody’s Analytics Mark Zandi’s analysis of The Biden Fiscal Rescue Package: Light on the Horizon (introduction):

President-elect Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion fiscal rescue package, the American Rescue Plan, would provide a large boost to the economy if passed into law. With this additional economic support, real GDP growth would be robust at nearly 8% this year and almost 4% next, bringing the economy back almost to full employment by fall 2022. Given the complicated politics of what Biden is proposing, it would likely have to be passed under budget reconciliation rules requiring only a majority vote in the Senate.

In other words, this is a Keynesian economic plan to “run the economy hot” to bring the economy back from the depths of the COVID Recession (a depression for some) as fast as possible. It is an attempt not to repeat the mistake of 2009 when Democrats let themselves get rope-a-doped by Mitch McConnell’s “Party of No” Senate obstructionists who demanded changes to President Obama’s economic rescue proposals, only to provide no votes for the compromise bills in the end. It was the ultimate act of bad faith during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (at the time). Republicans were more than willing to let the economy burn down after creating the very financial crisis with their failed economic policies.

The Obama economic rescue plans were in the end too small because of this Republican bad faith, and the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis took almost a decade, for which Republicans blamed Obama. This is like the arsonist blaming the fire department for the house burning down.

Mark Zandi based his analysis of the Biden economic recovery plan with the assumption that Republicans would again demand changes to Biden’s economic relief proposals in bad faith:

[W]e expect the legislation that ultimately gets through Congress to be no more than half the size proposed, setting the stage for another fiscal policy proposal later this year along the lines of Biden’s “Build Back Better” campaign agenda. One way or another, through this step or over several steps, we ultimately expect fiscal support to the economy under the new Biden administration that totals close to what was proposed Thursday. It is thus the impact of this level of support that we assess here.

President Biden is demonstrating his good faith, and his commitment to bipartisanship. Biden will meet with Republican senators over proposed relief outline, White House says.

Biden’s good faith will not be rewarded or reciprocated by Republicans.

James Downie writes at the Washington Post today, Republicans’ blundering attempt at bipartisanship:

Early in Barack Obama’s presidency, Democrats wasted months on futile hopes of wooing Republican support for his major priorities. Key bills such as the 2009 stimulus and the Affordable Care Act were watered down in return for little or no GOP support. With President Biden’s team learning from the Obama administration’s mistakes and plowing ahead on its own with a covid-19 relief package, some Senate Republicans have put out a counterproposal, supposedly to prove that they can be bipartisan after all.

Instead, they’re just proving how little they have to offer.

Sunday morning, 10 Senate Republicans — the number it would take to overcome a filibuster if combined with all 50 members of the Democratic caucus — announced a coronavirus stimulus proposal totaling $600 billion. “We want to work in good faith with you and your administration to meet the health, economic and societal challenges of the covid crisis,” the group wrotein a letter to Biden. The move was meant to head off a Democratic push to bypass the Republicans by using the budget reconciliation process, which is not subject to the filibuster, to pass a relief bill.

Considering just the top-line number, it’s insulting for Republicans to pretend that a proposal less than a third the size of the White House’s $1.9 trillion package is a serious compromise offer. But the breadth of what the plan cuts from the Democrats’ plan is remarkable. Among other reductions, stimulus checks would be reduced to $1,000 (and phased out at $50,000 in income for individuals, rather than $75,000), supplemental unemployment insurance would be trimmed by $100 a week, and there would be no state and local aid, or minimum wage increase at all.

The emptiness of this proposal was personified on the airwaves Sunday by two of the 10 proposers: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who went on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

First, it seemed not everyone was on the same page about the basics: While Cassidy knew the plan’s top-line cost, Rob Portman bizarrely did not. “Well, it will be less than $1.9 [trillion]” was the best that Portman, who recently announced his upcoming retirement, could muster.

Rob Portman was George W. Bush’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2006 to the end of his second term, presiding over the financial crisis and the Great Recession – he was rewarded for his failure by falling upward into a Senate seat. We’re supposed to care what this guy has to say?

As for the policy details, Cassidy and Portman tried to defend smaller stimulus checks. Both senators sidestepped explaining the reduction to $1,000 to focus instead on the lower income threshold. “Our money goes to that income level where we know it will stimulate the economy,” Cassidy told Fox News. Funny how neither Portman nor Cassidy had such concerns when it came to the Trump tax cuts, which delivered windfalls for the wealthiest Americans and increased inequality. And if the argument is that the relief is better targeted, then why reduce that relief? The only reason to offer less is that Republicans think struggling Americans need less.

More broadly, neither of the senators had good explanations as to why Democrats are wrong for seeking to go ahead without them. Cassidy complained that it wasn’t in keeping with Biden’s inauguration calls for “unity” — a thoroughly substance-less gripe. Portman argued that using reconciliation to force a party-line vote “will poison the well for other bipartisanship we will need on so many issues” — only for host Dana Bash to point out that, when Republicans controlled Washington, Portman supported using reconciliation for partisan moves like repealing the Affordable Care Act.

To be fair to Cassidy and Portman, they didn’t have a good reason for why Biden and the Democrats should listen to them because there is no reason to do so. In a vacuum, voters may say they like bipartisanship, but in the real world they value results more. Any American able to pay their rent thanks to $1,400 stimulus checks won’t care what process was used to pass those checks. As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, “The question is not bipartisanship, the question is addressing the unprecedented crisis that we face right now. If Republicans want to work with us, they have better ideas on how to address those crises, that’s great. But … I have not yet heard that.”

If that day ever comes, then Democrats should certainly embrace bipartisanship. Until then, it’s full-steam ahead on the one-party train.

How many of these ten Republican senators will vote to impeach Donald Trump for sedition and inciting a violent insurrection against the U.S. government, and disqualifying him from ever running for office again? Silence is consent, and ratification of Trump’s sedition. As I’ve said before, America does not negotiate with terrorists.

As Michael Tomasky writes at The Daily Beast (subscription required), Why Biden Should Tell These Republicans Offering a COVID Relief Deal to Stuff It:

It’s a smart chess move, this letter signed by 10 Republicans that was released Sunday announcing that they’d agree to a $600 billion COVID relief bill. It puts them on offense and forces Joe Biden to respond. He would appear to have three choices.

One, accept in the name of unity and bipartisanship and just take what he can get, forgoing a $1,400 check to people, aid to state and local governments, a minimum wage increase, and more. Two, accept, sign a bill for $600 billion, and then turn around and immediately pass as much of the remaining $1.3 trillion as he can through reconciliation.

Three, tell them to go stuff it and pass the full $1.9 trillion through reconciliation. That may be the toughest play here for Biden, but it’s also the best one. Let me explain why.

Senate Democrats are rightfully uninterested in wasting time on this bad faith GOP proposal. It is not a serious proposal that address the enormous size and scope of the economic crisis.

It's only been a few hours but so far the consensus view among Democrats I've spoken today is that the GOP offer is not worth entertaining or delaying Biden's plan over

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) January 31, 2021

Schumer Says Democrats Will Not Allow Republicans To Whittle Down COVID Aid:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Democrats will not make the same mistake that they made in 2009 and allow Republicans to whittle down aid for COVID.

And for some who have asked, here are clips of Schumer explaining that Dems would like a bipartisan bill, but will do what they need to do. pic.twitter.com/i0uharx66Q

— Michael McAuliff (@mmcauliff) January 31, 2021

Schumer said, “Our Republican colleagues, most of them have been very negative, either don’t want to do anything, or want to do something minimal,” Schumer said. “President Biden believes, and I agree with him, we need a bold, strong action. Now, we’d like to do that with the Republicans, but if we can’t, we’ll have to go forward on our own using this process, reconciliation.”

The Senate Majority Leader later added, “Let’s hope we get some bipartisan support, but we can not do the mistake of 2009 where they whittled down the program to where the amount of relief was so small that the recession lasted for four of five years, and then on the ACA they spent a year to a year and a half negotiating and then did not come to any agreement.”

The Republican playbook of obstruction that they used against Obama isn’t going to work this time. Senate Democrats aren’t going to stand back and let Mitch McConnell run the Senate through obstruction. Senate Democrats are going to hollow out the filibuster and pass the COVID relief bill. They have no interest in playing the same old games with Republicans and are ready to deliver for the American people.

Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that Democrats have the necessary votes to pass President Biden‘s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill. Sen. Bernie Sanders Says Democrats Have The Votes To Biden COVID Relief Bill Without Republicans:

When asked if Democrats have the votes to pass the legislation without any help from Republicans, he said, “Yes, I believe that we do because it’s hard for me to imagine any Democrat, no matter what state he or she may come from, who doesn’t understand the need to go forward right now in an aggressive way to protect the working families of this country. Look, all of us will have differences of opinion. This is a $1.9 trillion bill. I have differences and concerns about this bill. But at the end of the day, we’re going to support the President of the United States, and we’re going to come forward, and we’re going to do what the America people overwhelmingly want us to do. The polling is overwhelming. Republicans, Democrats, Independents. They know this.”

Sen. Sanders is correct. All of the mainstream media handwringing about Joe Manchin is overblown. It might require some tweaks to make a few Senators happy on the Democratic side, but Sen. Manchin knows that the people of his state need pandemic aid, and he is not going to vote against it.

Democrats have the votes. The Senate is going to start working on the passage of President Biden’s proposal this week. It will take the House no time to pass the bill, and it will head to the President’s desk for his signature, as the American people will have the real help and relief that they have needed for months.

Go big, or go home on this economic relief bill. Don’t fall for bad faith GOP proposals for small ball economic relief, only to discover later that not one Republican will vote for the bill with their changes. Pass Biden’s aggressive economic relief bill with only Democratic votes by reconciliation, if necessary. The American people should know who is on their side, and who is not.