October 15: Republicans Are Setting Up a Nuclear Winter



Republicans Are Setting Up a Nuclear Winter

by Jonathan Bernstein, bloomberg.com

October 15, 2020 06:48 AM

No deal?

Photo by: Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg

Get Jonathan Bernstein’s newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe.

The pandemic relief and stimulus bill remains almost as dead as a bill can get, but that doesn’t mean that the continued maneuverings aren’t meaningful. Republicans are currently planning a sure-to-be-filibustered vote on a relatively small bill and are openly opposing the White House’s position, which (most of the time) is for a $1.8 trillion bill or larger. House Democrats clearly wanted a bill back in April; at this point it’s unclear whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi would accept a deal just before the election, although she and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are still negotiating, or at least going through the motions.

As Bloomberg’s Steven T. Dennis and Jordan Fabian report, some Senate Republicans are already starting to position themselves against a potential Joe Biden administration’s spending plans:

A GOP strategist who has been consulting with Senate campaigns said Republicans have been carefully laying the groundwork to restrain a Biden administration on federal spending and the budget deficit by talking up concerns about the price tag for another round of virus relief. The thinking, the strategist said, is that it would be very hard politically to agree on spending trillions more now and then in January suddenly embrace fiscal restraint.

I continue to think it’s unlikely that strategies based on the assumption of President Donald Trump’s defeat were driving Senate Republicans back in April and May, when this bill was first on the table. It seems much more likely that their opposition was based on a sincere belief by some of them — despite the broad consensus of economists — that more spending would be counterproductive, along with a fear among others that crossing those “conservatives” and voting for a big spending bill would be politically dangerous, either this November or in some future primary. At this point, though, it’s possible that even those who accept mainstream economics may be, as Greg Sargent suggests, attempting to undermine what they now see as a likely Biden presidency.

If so, they’ll presumably continue to oppose any large stimulus in the post-election lame-duck session, especially if Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate along with the White House.

I hate to get too speculative about 2021, but in this case it’s necessary. Because the flaw in Republican reasoning, if this is what they intend, is that the most likely justification for Senate Democrats to use the “nuclear option” and eliminate the legislative filibuster would be the scenario that Republicans seem to be setting up: a deep recession, only minimal stimulus since March 2020 and incoming Democratic majorities unable to provide further relief because of Republican rejectionism. Faced with the choice of procedural complaints if they act, or the possibility of economic (and perhaps political) disaster if they don’t, Democrats might have the votes to go nuclear even if they have the slimmest of majorities.

In other words, too much rejectionism might backfire badly. There’s a lengthy agenda of Democratic policy preferences that might have the votes in a simple-majority Senate but that don’t have the urgency, especially among moderates, to push the party to go nuclear. After eliminating the filibuster, many of those items might well pass. Meanwhile, without the need to attract Republicans, a partisan stimulus might be very large, and very effective. Especially if it coincided with large-scale distribution of a vaccine.

Of course, Trump could still win. And even if he loses Republicans could still retain a Senate majority, in which case the filibuster won’t be the issue. But if Democrats do win? Republicans could’ve pushed for a stimulus deal over the summer, when it might’ve helped Trump and their own senators. They could still push for a deal now. Even in the lame-duck session, even if they’ve lost badly, they would still have considerable leverage. But the truth is that many of them would rather lose on policy, even lose badly, than to compromise. And while we’re still several steps away from having this all work itself out, one increasingly possible outcome appears to involve Republicans pushing Democrats into setting up a majority-party-rules Senate and then passing way more of their agenda than anyone expected.

1. Danielle Gilbert at the Monkey Cage on political kidnappings.

2. Dan Drezner on what he worries about for the election.

3. Political science and communications scholars have solid “Recommendations for Media Covering the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.”

4. Cecilia Balli on Latino voters (and nonvoters) in Texas.

5. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Conor Sen on returning to the office.

6. And happy birthday to Honest Graft, the great blog by political scientist Dave Hopkins.

To contact the author of this story:

Jonathan Bernstein at jbernstein62@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.net

Published on October 15, 2020, 7:48 AM EDT

Comments 0