We Can Finally See the Real Source of Washington Gridlock
Updated at 4:06 p.m. ET on April 1, 2020.
Deep into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Republican leaders had one question for President Barack Obama, as his administration sought nearly $1 trillion in funds from Congress: How are you going to pay for this?
The unemployment rate was greater than 7 percent in January 2009, and would rise above 8 percent by February. Mitch McConnell, then the Senate minority leader, insisted, “The question is not doing nothing versus doing something,” but “the appropriateness of an almost $1 trillion spending bill to address the problem.”
Others in his caucus made similar points. “If you believe this is a good process to spend $800 billion, we’re on different planets,” Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, declared. Chuck Grassley of Iowa complained that “the package's massive government spending and long-term entitlement commitments … will leave the next generation with trillion dollar deficits.” Lamar Alexander of Tennessee demanded, “Should we ask every American family to increase their $531,000 debt in order to spend money for a stimulus package to try to restart the economy?”
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Some Democrats had been spooked by the price tag for the stimulus, and both Senate moderates and the Obama administration focused on keeping the number under $1 trillion rather than ensuring that it was large enough to bring the economy back quickly, an error liberal economists . That skittishness made it easier for Republicans to unify against the bill. Obama had promised to achieve bipartisan cooperation on behalf of the American people, and Republican opposition proved a simple way to deprive him of the ability to fulfill this promise.
