Congressional republicans blocked most of President Obama's attempts to stimulate the economy in order to deliberately slow down economic recovery from the Great Recession, in order to make Obama look bad and help their own party. The effects of the slow recovery on people's lives helped fuel the anger that led to the increase in right-wing violence, including the attempt to overthrow the government on Nov. 6. But republicans are still using the same tactics.
Feb. 26, 2021, 5:35 AM EST
By Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion Columnist
There may be no creature on this planet more stubborn than a Republican member of Congress. President Joe Biden's Covid-19 stimulus package is chugging along, with Democrats in the both the House and the Senate committed to its passage. And yet as a whole, the GOP caucus is still digging in its heels. But its reluctance reflects a partisan commitment to obstruction, not what Americans want.
•••••
But whether Republicans like it or not (and they don't) the bill as it stands is the only game in town right now. In response, they are pretty transparent about their efforts to obstruct like the dickens in the hope that they can turn around and blame Democrats for not getting anything done for Americans in the 2022 midterm elections. In effect, they're running the same play that they used effectively at the beginning of the Great Recession over a decade ago. But 2021 isn't 2009, and it's truly wild that Republicans can't see that yet.
•••••
A poll by Quinnipiac University taken in the last week of January found that 68 percent of respondents were on board with Biden's plan, including about 37 percent of Republicans. A New York Times/SurveyMonkey poll taken the next week bumped that approval up to 72 percent of respondents and 43 percent of Republicans surveyed. But most eye-popping was this week's news that a new Morning Consult/Politico survey found that 60 percent of Republicans asked were at least somewhat supportive of the $1.9 trillion package. Overall, 76 percent of the respondents in that poll wanted the bill signed into law.
•••••
Even elected Republicans back this bill, as long as they aren't coastal elites who spend their days in Washington, D.C. Out in the real heartland — places like Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma — mayors of cities in need of help are throwing their support behind Biden's stimulus efforts. As Mayor Bryan Barnett of Rochester Hills, Michigan, told USA Today, his constituents aren't interested in "the games being played in Washington." (And I've been to Rochester Hills, Michigan; it's not exactly a bastion of liberalism.)
•••••
And yet, when the package passed out of the House Budget committee on Monday, it was on a party-line vote, with all 16 Republican members voting nay. The same day that Biden was asking Republicans to listen to their voters, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., sent out a message to his caucus urging a no vote.
•••••
Now, there's still a chance that Republicans' cynical gamble will pay off for them politically. By fall 2010, just ahead of the midterms, the GOP's anti-Obama mantra had sunk in with voters — more than two-thirds of Americans thought the 2009 stimulus bill was "a waste" by then. But Democrats may have learned their lesson: Go big or go home. They aren't budging on the size and scope of the bill, making it less likely that its effects are forgotten quickly.
All this means that I, for one, am looking forward to the midterm commercials in 2022, when Republican members of the House are touting the benefits of the package while bending over backward to avoid citing where the funding came from. But we'll know. And we'll remember how hard they worked to block it.
