Republican Resistance, Examined.

I was a bit hasty in publishing this last night. It felt rushed and incomplete. And this morning that was obviously the case. Re-titled and re-written, this is hopefully both a better read and a more-convincing argument. 

With Republican resistance to the COVID relief package mounting, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) articulated their concerns this way: “In the administration's plan, you could have a family with three kids making over three-hundred thousand dollars a year getting a check.”

Wait. That's a problem for you? Seriously? That's a problem for the party that voted 278 - 12 across the House and Senate to pass the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act?

That's a problem for the party that thought it would be a good idea to effectively fill one of those 200-ton Hitachi open pit dump trucks with cash and deliver it to the doors of America's corporate giants and the one-percent?

Really?

Sorry, Rob. I have a memory and it works.

I'm fairly certain Portman's claim is extracted from the most-extreme scenario imaginable, and has the same chance of occurring that Citizen's United does of helping, well, citizens.   

President Biden, I can't imagine you ever seeing this, but I am going to make a suggestion, anyway. You must disguise your relief package as wealthcare (patent pending). Call it the Right to Riches or something like that. You will then be assured of knee-jerk Republican compliance and can then bask in the light of long-sought bipartisanship.

And just think of the tangible excitement on the other side of the aisle. Republicans, relieved to have at last escaped the long, dark shadow of Trumpism, will be eager to document their delight. For starters, it's easy to imagine the over-stimulated Josh Hawley (R-MO) tweeting his not-quite-appropriate evidence and posting it on Instagram. 

The Show Me State, indeed!

(Thanks for the sexting, Josh. Photographs are always a powerful tool in court.)

Yes, Mr. President, there will be push back the moment the one-percent and its servants realize they're not getting the biggest slice of the pie and will call it another example of Democratic-sponsored socialism (which is defined by Republicans as any benefit they don't receive most of). 

What's important is that the Republican instinct to empower the already-powerful and enrich the already-wealthy is abused and exploited. That the rest of us—the 99%--get the sustenance to live another day. 

Those of us who have lost our homes, our jobs, our businesses and, not inconceivably, our loved ones desperately need help.