WASHINGTON – Republicans have one goal for President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package: to erode public support for the rescue plan by portraying it as too big, too bloated and too much wasteful public spending for a pandemic that’s almost over.
Senate Republicans prepared Friday to vote lockstep against the relief bill, taking the calculated political risk that Americans will sour on the big-dollar spending for vaccination distribution, unemployment benefits, money for the states and other outlays as unnecessary, once they learn all the details.
Reviving a page from their 2009 takedown of Barack Obama’s costly recovery from the financial crisis, they expect their opposition will pay political rewards, much like the earlier