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Others seemed much more focused on Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head, a culture war bait that ignites their conservative base. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, even brought the matter to the House. “First they ban Dr Seuss, and now they want to tell us what to say,” he said during a debate on a Democratic voting rights bill. (It’s the company that oversees the author’s estate, not the Democrats, that recently chose to stop publishing many of his works. And Republicans’ attention to Dr. Seuss has brought some economic benefit: over 1.2 million copies of the author’s children’s book stories sold in the first week of March – more than quadruple from the previous week.)
The Republicans’ predicament is simple: People love to make money, especially when they are in trouble, and this bill will work. About 90% of US households will be eligible for stimulus checks. More than 93% of children – 69 million – will receive what is essentially a guaranteed income for families. Even those who do not receive payment will benefit from new funding for the reopening of schools and the distribution of vaccines.
Former President Donald J. Trump taught Republican voters to love this kind of government spending by championing stimulus measures even bigger than this bill. This makes it difficult for the GOP lawmakers who supported these measures to argue against the cost of this legislation, without facing accusations of hypocrisy or possible pushing back from parts of their base.
To change public opinion, Republicans will have to make do with a clear argument against the legislation and find the party discipline to lead it. To that end, they will closely monitor how the money is distributed, hoping to find examples of waste or fraud that they can highlight to undermine Mr. Biden’s political agenda. One area of ​​discontent is aid to state and local governments, which is far less polled among Republicans than Democrats. But it won’t be easy: Republicans are already struggling to overcome deep divisions within their ranks.
Mr Biden, well aware of the potential pitfalls, wants to make sure Americans understand the benefits of this bill – and honor it. His Thursday night speech marked the start of an administration-wide campaign to promote the legislation across the country. It’s a strategy to avoid the struggles of former President Barack Obama, who some Democrats say was not aggressive enough in selling his 2009 stimulus package to voters.
The situation is not exactly the same: Unlike Mr. Obama, who has faced the challenge of a slow recovery, Mr. Biden is likely to benefit from a rapidly expanding economy, with forecasters predicting that growth will continue to grow. ‘will accelerate in the coming months as more Americans get vaccinated. He is also starting his campaign with more goodwill. Biden’s legislation is about 20 percentage points more popular than the 2009 bill immediately after its passage.
Yet the 2009 stimulus package provides an instructive example of how quickly public opinion can change. No House Republican voted for the $ 787 billion package and only three moderate Republicans in the Senate backed it, although nearly two in three Americans supported the bill.
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