Heads You Lose ... And Tails You Lose
Congressional Republicans have a tough choice to make when it comes to President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-relief package.
Yesterday afternoon, Senate Democrats voted unanimously to push President Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief bill through Congress via the budget reconciliation process. This means that the legislation cannot be filibustered by Republicans and can be passed with a simple majority. Not surprisingly, all the members of the GOP caucus voted nay (with the exception of Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania who was absent). The final tally, and the fact that Democrats are using reconciliation to pass the relief bill, was portrayed by many as a partisan gesture or as an “effort to pass COVID aid without Republican support.”
But let’s be very clear: there was nothing stopping Republicans from voting for the budget package. The only reason that the Democratic move is seen as partisan is because it is largely assumed that Republicans would filibuster the legislation if they could. In that scenario, who exactly is being partisan? Republicans are not only welcome to vote for the budget reconciliation package, they are welcome to propose amendments to it or try to revise the legislation as it goes through the committee process. Now while it’s certainly true that Democrats are trying to pass the relief bill as expeditiously as possible - and can vote along party lines to reject GOP amendments - that does not mean Republicans are being shut out of the process.
It’s also largely taken for granted that any final COVID relief package will pass along party lines - with all Democrats voting for it and all Republicans voting against.
I’m a bit skeptical about this, for the simple and somewhat obvious reason that voting against giving each American $1400 is bad politics. In fact, voting against a $1.9 trillion bill that will, based on the basic rules of macroeconomics, spur economic growth, create jobs, increase the amount of money in people’s wallets, and is very popular is really bad politics.
It’s possible that Republicans are betting that the stimulus won’t move the needle on the economy - as they did back in 2009 when they opposed President’s Obama $831 billion stimulus plan. That’s a bad bet because $1.9 trillion is $1.069 trillion more than $831 billion, the economy today is not nearly in the same hole it was in 2009, and the vaccine is coming.
This is the under appreciated political silver lining from pushing through COVID via reconciliation (and where I suppose you could argue that Democrats are being partisan): it puts Republicans in a political pickle. Vote for the bill and they give Biden a political win - and allow him to claim that his first major piece of legislation was bipartisan - or vote against it and oppose a broadly popular relief measure that helped spur the economic recovery.
One would imagine that most Republicans, particularly those in safe seats, will decide to vote against, for purely partisan reasons. But it’s not a clear-cut decision and it’s one that comes with some rather significant down side. If you’re a Republican up for reelection in two years do you really want to face the prospect of political ads asking why you voted against giving Americans money? Here’s a further irony: since President Trump initially supported larger stimulus checks those ads could come not just from Democrats, but also Republicans running against them in a primary. This is probably unlikely, but it’s not impossible.
On the flip side any Republican who votes for the bill can be portrayed as enabling more federal spending, and larger deficits, and giving support to a Democratic president. Even worse for them, they would help give Biden a big political victory, another mark against them in a primary fight.
I would guess that any Republican with 2024 presidential aspirations will be voting against the bill if only to embellish their conservative, small-government bonafides, but for the rest of them the path forward is not so obvious. At least if there was a filibuster possibility up to nine Republicans could vote for the bill and not have to worry about it passing. Now they know it’s going to pass, will likely give Biden a big political boost and have to make a decision how to vote. I think it’s quite possible, even likely, that a handful of Republicans will vote in favor of the final bill, probably after wrangling some concession out of the White House that will allow them to claim victory. But whatever their decision all of them will be reminded that being in the Senate minority is no fun at all.