GOP could suffer a self-inflicted wound as the party unites against this popular Biden plan: analysis

As lawmakers gear up send Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan to the House floor for a vote this Friday, Republicans face "significant political risk by forming a unified front of opposition to the legislation," according to CNN's Maeve Reston.

Making Republicans' stance on the bill extra fraught is the fact that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the plan.

"One area the GOP has been heavily focused on is getting kids back into school, for example, because they see it as a winning issue at the ballot box in 2022," Reston writes. "Yet their opposition to Biden's legislation could complicate those efforts, since many members will likely end up on the record voting against a Covid relief bill that would provide money for exactly that purpose."

A sticking point for Republicans in the bill is the proposed minimum wage increase $15 by 2025 -- a prospect that would cripple small businesses, according to Republicans. They're also upset that the bill contains funding projects that they say have nothing to do with Covid. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Republicans are knocking the bill at their own peril, citing a letter sent to congressional leaders from more than 150 business leaders noting that "more than 10 million fewer Americans are working today than when the pandemic began, small businesses across the country are facing bankruptcy, and schools are struggling to reopen."

"The Covid pandemic is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst public health crisis our nation has faced in 100 years," Schumer said in a floor speech.

"But our Republican colleagues say all these groups demanding the $1.9 trillion American rescue plan — business leaders, government officials from both parties, economists from across the spectrum and seven in 10 Americans — Republicans say all of them are wrong."

According to Schumer, if the GOP wants to oppose a bill that has such broad support, then "good luck."

Read the full analysis over at CNN.