Others seemed much more focused on Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head, the cultural war lure that ignites his conservative base. Congressman Kevin McCarthy, a minority leader in the House, even took the issue to the House floor. “First they banned Dr. Seuss and now they want to tell us what to say,” he said during a debate over a Democratic voting law bill. (It was the company that oversees the author’s estate, not the Democrats, that recently chose to stop publishing several of his works. And the Republicans’ focus on Dr. Seuss has brought some economic benefit: More than 1.2 million copies of children’s book stories author sold in the first week of March – more than the quadruple of the previous week.)
The Republican situation is simple: people like to receive money, especially when they are having difficulties, and that account will be fulfilled. Approximately 90 percent of American families 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 a 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 type of government spending, advocating stimulus measures that were even greater than this bill. This makes it difficult for Republican lawmakers who supported these measures to argue against the cost of such legislation, without facing accusations of hypocrisy or possible resistance from parts of their base.
To change public opinion, Republicans will have to establish a clear argument against the legislation and find party discipline to conduct it. To do so, they will keep an eye on how the money is distributed, in the hope of finding examples of waste or fraud that they can highlight to undermine Biden’s political agenda. One area conducive to discontent is aid to state and local governments, which polls significantly lower among Republicans than among Democrats. But it will not be easy: Republicans are already struggling to overcome deep divisions in their ranks.
Biden, fully aware of the potential pitfalls, wants to ensure that Americans understand the benefits of this bill – and that they give it credit. His Thursday evening speech was the start of an effort by the entire government to promote legislation across the country. It is a strategy to avoid the struggles of former President Barack Obama, which some Democrats believe was not aggressive enough in selling his 2009 stimulus package to voters.
The situation is not exactly the same: unlike Obama, who faced the challenge of a slow recovery, Biden is likely to benefit from a rapidly expanding economy, with meteorologists predicting that growth will accelerate in the coming months as more Americans are vaccinated. He also starts his campaign more willingly. Biden’s legislation is about 20 percentage points more popular than the 2009 bill was immediately after approval.
Still, the 2009 stimulus package provides an instructive example of how quickly public opinion can change. No House Republicans voted for that $ 787 billion package and only three moderate Republicans in the Senate supported it, even though almost two out of three Americans supported the bill.