Republican Partisanship and the Stimulus Package

Every Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, including representatives that I admire and respect, such as Steve Austria of Beavercreek, Ohio, and Mike Turner of Dayton, Ohio, voted against the President’s $819 billion economic stimulus package. I’m sure they knew that the package would have sufficient Democratic votes to pass and considered their votes to be symbolic opposition to aspects of the bill that they did not like. The problem with symbolic votes is that they can be read two ways. When you vote against a stimulus package you vote against everything in the bill, and this is something that should and will be considered by voters in the next congressional elections.

By voting against the entire bill, the Republicans voted against the nearly $245 billion that is to be devoted to unemployment benefits and fiscal aid to states so that they don’t have to cut services, raise taxes, and lay-off employees. Mike Turner, whose district includes both Dayton and Wilmington, may have wanted more direct aid for the newly unemployed workers in those places, but his vote was not a vote for more direct aid. It was a vote against a package that would greatly help the thousands workers who have lost their jobs in those ravaged areas.

According to the Center for American Progress, Ohio would get approximately $19 billion of the stimulus funds, including $2.3 billion to help with the state’s fiscal crisis. The package would also provide $155 million for job training and employment services in Ohio. Those services are needed by the unemployed workers of Dayton and Wilmington.

The bill provides $62 billion in infrastructure spending for highways, mass transit, and other projects. Millions of dollars of this money would go to repair and rebuild infrastructure and to create thousands of new jobs in the Miami Valley and throughout Ohio. A vote against the bill did nothing to help the thousands of out-of-work people who could fill those jobs and the millions of people who will benefit by the repairs and new infrastructure.

One of the greatest problems for the newly unemployed people of Dayton and Wilmington will be health coverage. The stimulus package provides $40 billion to subsidize the cost of health coverage for unemployed people. Republicans do not like subsidizing health insurance because they consider it a step toward universal coverage. A vote against the bill was a vote directly against the desperate health needs of those thousands of out-of-work people.

The bill devotes $145 billion to President Obama’s “Making Work Pay” tax credit for two years. The credit is $500 per worker, $1000 per family. Republicans claim that the bill does not provide sufficient tax cuts, but they voted against this tax credit for middle class taxpayers. It is as if they are saying: “If you don’t do it our way we are going to take our ball and go home.”

The stimulus package provides over $1.4 billion for Ohio public schools over the next two years, with $106 million going to the Miami Valley. Approximately $3.2 million of this would go to the Xenia City schools. The bill would create jobs, aid in new school construction, and prevent cuts in curriculum and extra curricular activities. A vote against the bill did nothing to help education or unemployment in this area.

Some Republicans list as one ground for objection that the package did not contain money for defense spending. In September 2008, Congress passed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2009. The base budget was $515.4 billion, with a total of $651.2 billion when emergency discretionary spending and supplemental spending are included. There is no indication that that amount was insufficient or that the Defense Department is laying people off. Defense spending is always included in separate appropriation bills covering the needs of the military.

Republicans probably hope that their objections will inspire changes in the bill by the Senate. The bill needs to be improved and one hopes that some of the Republicans’ ideas will be adopted in the Senate. Perhaps the House Republicans will then vote for the final package. I doubt that they want to go down as having voted against their own people in a time of desperate need.