Democrats plan to hang COVID relief obstruction around Republicans' necks: report

According to a report at Politico, Republicans can expect their foot-dragging and quibbling over dollars in the COVID-19 relief package being put together by Democrats for President Joe Biden's signature to be a featured part of attack ads over the next two years leading to the midterm elections.

With Americans desperate for aid checks and states needing relief to get schools open and vaccines distributed, Democratic leaders have been doing all the heavy lifting while Republicans have taken to the airwaves to worry about the costs while pitching a $600 billion package that is a far cry from the Democrats' $1.9 trillion proposal.

According to Democratic leaders, the GOP's decision to not cooperate will be a central theme of upcoming ads.

"Already, there's talk about midterm attack ads portraying Republicans as willing to slash taxes for the wealthy but too stingy to cut checks for people struggling during the deadly pandemic. And President Joe Biden's aides and allies are vowing not to make the same mistakes as previous administrations going into the midterms elections," Politico reports. "They are pulling together plans to ensure Americans know about every dollar delivered and job kept because of the bill they're crafting. Andthere is confidence that the Covid-19 relief package will ultimately emerge not as a liability for Democrats, but as an election year battering ram."

According to Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) that message is going to resonate with voters in a big way.

"If I'm a candidate in 2022 running for the House or Senate, I think I'd want to be able to say we've had a robust Covid-19 relief bill, we raised the minimum wage, we made progress on health care, we've started to make progress on combating climate change and a whole range of issues candidates would want to run on," he explained, adding, "This is one of those rare instances — maybe not exceedingly rare, but it doesn't happen often — where the best policy perfectly aligns with the politics."

According to one Biden official, polling shows this will be a potent weapon for Democrats.

"It's going to be very difficult for Republican lawmakers to look their constituents in the eyes and try to explain why they voted against giving them $1,400 checks, why they voted against reopening schools, and why they voted against speeding up vaccinations," they explained. "We're going to keep making the case about why this package matters and Republicans on the Hill are going to have to decide whether or not they're going to listen to their voters."

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