Paul Krugman in the NYT has it right today. Paring down the Biden administration's Covid relief bill not on policy considerations but merely to win a few Republican votes is the definition of political insanity and Biden knows it from personal experience.
Obama listened to his political advisors and cut the stimulus bill by hundreds of billions of dollars in order to win 3 Republican votes in the Senate. The stimulus saved the economy from immediate implosion, but was not big enough to get it moving quickly enough to blunt the economic suffering that happened in much of the country. That in turn allowed Republicans to say that government spending is ineffective.
Now, Congress has another bite of the apple. There is overwhelming support in the country for Biden's proposals and in particular for the relief checks of $1400.00 for voters making less than $75,000 individually or $150,000 for couples. The "smart" people seem willing to reduce eligibility to $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for couples. On the surface, this seems like a reasonable compromise. However, in many areas of the country, the higher threshold is still not a lot of money and there would be pain and a sense of betrayal if these people were not included. BTW, people in this income bracket tend to vote Republican. This is Biden's chance to convince them government can work for them.
Krugman also makes the point that future measures such as infrastructure spending will be more popular if the first relief bill affects a wider cross section of America. It's time to learn from history and mobilize popular sentiment around policies which help the most people.
No comments:
Post a Comment