All to often we let the Republicans frame the debate. But right now we have them arguing over the price. In general that is a good place to start, but we all know this is merely their entry point into making it as ineffective as possible. (Cant give Biden and early win). We also know that this is an attempt to get their “deficit hawk” credentials back in order and by arguing money they can avoid the underlying issues the package attempts to address. Lets not let them. Lets make them focus on the details and not the money. Lets us our majorities however slim to force the debate and make the Republicans and our own wavering members take a stand.
To do this we just need to present the package in three parts: Vaccine and health, Education, and Economic stabilization and nutrition. We can have the House bring to the floor out of the committees of jurisdiction these parts as the are ready under the pressure of time. Now the debate has changed from to much money to to much money for vaccine or kids or helping Americans. Focusing the debate on the parts over the whole gives us a hammer. We then retain the threat of reconciliation with the added incentive that delay will cause the whole to be more costly.
This also lets the cabinet nominees strut their stuff in a focused way, building pressure on the Senate. We are in the position of using Trump’s tactics against the Republicans, but instead of a new outrage we can use popular priorities to take advantage of the short term memory of the media and the public.
Right now the package is being introduced as the $1.9 trillion relief package, we need to change that to what it does. We need to get this out of some bipartisan Senate gang as a total package.