Republicans Have Opposed Every Democratic President’s Economic Stimulus Bill For Almost 30 Years

The U.S. had a recession in 1990-91 during George H.W. Bush’s one term as president. Although the recession was relatively mild and short-lived, it was characterized by a jobless recovery. Unemployment continued to rise in 1992, an election year, and was a contributing factor to Governor Bill Clinton defeating George H.W. Bush that year for president (third-party candidate Ross Perot was also a contributing factor).

President Clinton proposed a $19.5 billion stimulus package to revive stagnant job growth. His stimulus bill passed the House, but was defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. G.O.P. Senators Prevail, Sinking Clinton’s Economic Stimulus Bill: Senate Republicans killed President Clinton’s economic stimulus program, maintaining their filibuster until Democrats surrendered and agreed to limit the bill to $4 billion for extended unemployment benefits. It was Clinton’s first serious legislative defeat.

The Clinton tax bill, which raised taxes on high income earners, was done through the reconciliation process. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 aka the Deficit Reduction Act of 1993, was opposed by every congressional Republican. It passed by narrow margins in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. It led to the longest period of sustained economic growth in American history (at that time), and the first federal budget surpluses in decades, almost paying off the federal debt by the time Clinton left office.

Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, testifying on behalf of George W. Bush’s $1.3 trillion tax cut proposal in January 2001, argued that debt reduction was actually happening too fast. Greenspan’s Brave New World Has Room for Bush’s Tax Cut:

[T]the Fed head said, “the most recent projections, granted their tentativeness, nonetheless make clear that the highly desirable goal of paying off the federal debt is in reach before the end of the decade.”

And that could be a bad thing.

Running surpluses without a debt, Greenspan warned, would result in the “longer-term fiscal policy issue” of a government paying off its debt, particularly long-term Treasury bonds, before the bonds mature — costing it extra money by buying back those securities from private investors before they mature. Which is very expensive — better to buy back only matured bonds, which won’t be possible until at least 2011.

Greenspan’s bogus fear failed to come to pass because George W. Bush’s tax cut, along with his economic and fiscal mismanagement of the economy, and two wars over eight years, ended in the Great Recession of 2007-09, the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. The federal debt, which was on the verge of being paid off in 2001, more than doubled under George W. Bush by 2008.

Barack Obama was elected president because of the failure of the George W. Bush administration. Obama took over during the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression. Even before taking over, Republicans in Congress were voting against bills to stabilize the financial markets and for economic recovery. The attitude of these Republican arsonists was “burn, baby, burn.”

Who will ever forget House Minority Leader John Boehner tearfully begging his fellow Republicans to vote for the financial bailout bill in September 2008, begging them to “put country first.” Republicans did not, they voted no (it later was passed). Bailout plan rejected – supporters scramble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVOS1CC6V5I

 

President Barack Obama proposed a $787 billion economic stimulus bill to rescue the economy, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which in hindsight was too small, mostly because Obama sought bipartisan support from Republicans and agreed to making concessions that, in the end, every Republican in the House still voted against the bill (3 Republican senators vote for it). This was part of Mitch McConnell’s policy of “total obstruction” to “Make Barack Obama a one term president.”

This Republican opposition to rescuing the economy from disaster gave rise to the right-wing astroturf Tea Party movement, and the Republican arsonists unbelievably being reelected to control of the government. With Mitch McConnell’s policy of “total obstruction,” it took six years from the end of the Great Recession in 2009 to return to pre-crisis levels of employment in 2015.

Despite the slow economic recovery under President Obama, due largely to Republican obstruction, his stimulus bill did kick off the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, breaking Bill Clinton’s record of 120 months of economic growth from March 1991 to March 2001.

Putin’s Puppet, Donald Trump, rode the coattails of the Obama Recovery until his abject failure to prepare for and to address the global coronavirus pandemic. The recovery ended in March 2020, with the steepest economic decline since the Great Depression. As of January 2021, over 10 million Americans remain unemployed, with an unemployment rate of 6.3%. Much of the drop in unemployment is because people stopped looking for work and “were no longer counted as unemployed.”

Now President Joe Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 Relief bill (not an economic stimulus bill). The Morning Consult poll recently found that 76% of Voters Back $1.9 Trillion Plan, Including 60% of Republicans. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found 59% of respondents support the idea of more than doubling the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Biden’s Covid-19 Relief bill gets backing from more than 150 top business leaders, and GOP mayors embrace Biden’s COVID-19 relief plan even as Republican lawmakers pan it. More than four in 10 Republicans back Mr. Biden’s aid package, according to polling from the online research firm SurveyMonkey for The New York Times. Over all, 72 percent of Americans said they supported the bill.

In fact, Joe Biden’s Covid-19 Relief bill is the most popular legislation since the last minimum wage hike in 2007.

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1364623137804066825

Just as they did to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Republicans will again vote en masse against Joe Biden’s Covid-19 relief bill. Why do Republicans hate America?

Aaron Blake writes, The GOP might oppose one of the most popular bills in decades. How risky is that?

Republicans have seemingly found themselves on the very wrong side of some big legislative battles in recent years.

The tax cut package they pushed through in 2018, for instance, polled among the most unpopular bills passed — if not the most unpopular — in decades. Their 2017 effort to replace the Affordable Care Act was even more historically unpopular, with support falling as low as the teens in some polls (before Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona ended it with his thumbs-down).

And it would seem to be happening again, with Republican leaders pushing for their party to unite against President Biden’s hugely popular coronavirusstimulus bill. Some are characterizing this as a huge risk.

As some have logically argued, opposing such a popular bill could poseproblems for the GOP. The legislation, after all, even has significant support among Republican voters — close to half favor it, in some polls. It also deals with a very obvious threat that Americans recognize and generally agree on. Republicans may object to the specifics of the measure, but politically speaking, they would be voting against something the vast majority of the American people want.

* * *

The last time we were in something amounting to our current situation — at least on the economic side — was the Great Recession of the late 2000s. Then, as today, Democrats called for stimulus. Then, as appears to be the case today, Republicans united against it. Not one House Republican voted for the $787 billion stimulus package, and only three moderate GOP senators did.

The bill wasn’t as popular as today’s stimulus, but it was quite popular. After passage, a Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that Americans supported the plan 64 percent to 35 percent. They favored it 57 percent to 34 percent in an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll. Polls pre-passage weren’t quite as positive, but they trended pretty strongly in favor of the bill as the debate wore on.

Despite that, Republicans calculated that they could still oppose the package, by focusing on some of its more objectionable elements. And by the time 2010 rolled around, about 75 percent of Americans said half or more of the stimulus money had been wasted. In April of that year, 62 percent said the legislation had not created jobs, with just 51 percent of Democrats saying it had. And on Election Day, only about one-third of voters said the package actually helped, according to exit polls. Republicans won the House in a rout and gained six seats in the Senate, after running in many cases on their opposition to the bill.

Republican arsonists paid no political price for destroying the economy and financial system during the George W. Bush years, and they are banking on the American people having short memories and to reward them again, as they did in 2010. Americans have always voted against their own best interests. Republicans are counting on Americans behaving stupid.

As POLITICO says, “Republicans are making a risky but calculated bet: that voters won’t punish them for opposing a popular $1.9 trillion coronavirus bill.” ‘Bad politics for them’: GOP sneers at Dem Covid bill.

It’s always about the next campaign, not governing for Republicans. The post-truth, post-policy Republican Sedition Part is “all about feeding right-wing media (which loves nothing better than to paint progressives as extreme radicals) and never about governance, let alone bipartisanship.” (h/t Jennifer Rubin).

Roll Call reports, GOP testing ways to make relief package a burden for battleground Democrats (excerpt):

In an early indication of the attacks to come, the GOP is road-testing messages in battleground districts. A poll obtained by CQ Roll Call and conducted for The American Action Network, a nonprofit group that supports Republicans but does not disclose its donors, focused on whether Congress should pass legislation encouraging schools to safely reopen and the possibility that aid payments could go to undocumented immigrants.

The poll, by the right-leaning Remington Research Group in Virginia’s swingy 7th District, found pandemic-weary respondents were receptive to Republican messaging surrounding the relief package and other measures that the Biden administration and the Democratic-led Congress have made priorities in its early weeks. For weeks, for example,  Republicans have been working to tie Democrats to virus-related school closings.

Democrats say voters overwhelmingly support the Biden agenda and understand that decisions about school closings are made at a local level.

Do they? Americans never fail to amaze at just how stupid they can be (the QAnon Cult and Trump’s “Stop The Steal” Big Lie are only the most recent examples). Thousands of them just tried to violently overthrow the U.S. government, while millions more watched on TV and cheered them on.

The AAN poll found that 65 percent of respondents preferred targeted relief measures focusing, “on only the highest priorities of COVID relief like vaccine distribution and opening schools,” versus 27 percent who said they thought Congress should, “go big and address many priority items for the Biden Administration, like bailing out state governments and extending benefits to illegal immigrants.” The poll surveyed 804 likely 2022 voters and had a margin of error of +/- 3.3 percent.

Democrats on House committees voted down GOP attempts to bar relief payments from going to undocumented immigrants earlier this month.

The party of White Nationalists playing the race baiting card, once again. They need their immigrant bogeyman to rile up the racial hatred of their White Nationalist base.

The poll also surveyed voters’ opinions on COVID-19-related school closures, which Republicans have attempted to tie to Democrats in Congress, and HR 1, a sweeping measure that would overhaul campaign finance, voting and ethics laws.

The wording of the questions left little room for doubt about the pollster’s positions. The poll presents HR 1, for example, as a bill, “that would allow Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger to spend upwards of $5 million of public funds on things for her campaign like attack ads and luxury hotels.”

* * *

The GOP is already rolling out attacks against the $1.9 trillion relief bill and Democratic incumbents it sees as vulnerable, including Virginia’s Spanberger, who has been a GOP target since she flipped the 7th District seat in 2018.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm for House Republicans, sent an email blast Tuesday calling the COVID-19 bill, “a liberal wish list filled with unnecessary spending that mostly benefits Democrat special interest groups, not hard-working American families.”

Post-truth Republicans engaging in alternate reality, and alternative facts to spread Soviet-style disinformation (the Big Lie) as radical Republicans devolve ever further into embracing fascism. This disinformation propaganda machine is all that the GQP is about today.

The Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, takes on Dissecting the House GOP spin against Biden’s $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. There are some “arcane budget issues, while others reflect a more philosophical dispute.” But give it a read anyway. It just demonstrates the rank hypocrisy and  dishonesty of Republicans who will do nothing to help Americans in desperate need unless they see a political advantage to themselves.

Republicans don’t know shit about economics. For forty years, they have had blind faith in faith based supply-side “trickle down” economics, or “voodoo economics” as George H.W. Bush once called it. The theory has been thoroughly debunked and disproven. No one should listen to anything Republicans have to say about economics. They have zero credibility. Don’t get fooled again!