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No More Safety Nets!

The office of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has sent around a document preemptively attacking a new stimulus bill. This objection is perfectly in line with

Jul 31, 202054.4K Shares1.8M Views
The office of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has sent around a document preemptively attacking a new stimulus bill. This objection is perfectly in line with Republican thinking, but I’m still surprised to see it:
The bill includes $79 Billion for safety net programs (more than is actually supposedly dedicated to job creation), including:
  • Extension of unemployment benefits through June of 2010;
  • Extension of COBRA subsidies through June of 2010;
  • Extension of Increased Medicaid Matching Rates (FMAP) from December 31, 2010 to June 30, 2011; and
  • Extension of the refundable child tax credit to those with income less than $3,000 (under the original stimulus, families must have at least $3,000 in income to qualify).
Those are all pretty popular programs, and ones that voters would notice if they suddenly vanished. Attacking this stuff — and implying that a Republican majority would cut off these benefits — is something an opposition party can do, but something very hard to imagine a Republican congressional majority getting away with. See 1995 for evidence.
Paula M. Graham

Paula M. Graham

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