With checks going out, NC Democrats are already running on the stimulus in 2022

Democrats, emboldened by the popularity of the American Rescue Plan, want to make sure voters in states that will be key to the 2022 election know they’re the ones who passed it.

And that includes voters in North Carolina.

As President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses begin a week of appearances in battleground states across the country, the Democratic National Committee will begin airing a 60-second television ad in the Raleigh market Monday morning touting some of the provisions in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package.

No Republican voted for the bill in either the House or the Senate. The ad features Biden discussing the legislation.

“This is just the start of a sustained effort to spread our message to North Carolinians far and wide that this is what happens when Democrats are elected to govern,” said Bobbie Richardson, the new chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party.

Biden and Harris have not announced any stops in North Carolina, which has an open U.S. Senate seat in 2022. But other stops on their “Help Is Here” tour include key 2022 Senate battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Colorado.

State Sen. Jeff Jackson and former state Sen. Erica Smith, two declared candidates for the Democratic nomination in the Senate race, are campaigning on the impacts of the package.

The package includes $1,400 checks for millions of Americans, including dependents, $350 billion for state and local governments, an extension of federal unemployment benefits, an increased child tax credit and increased Affordable Care Act subsidies. Some people have already received the $1,400 in their bank account.

Public polling shows large majorities of Americans, including Republicans, favor many of the aspects of the relief package — a fact Democrats are eager to highlight long before the 2020 midterms.

A recent Morning Consult/Politico poll found 75% of all voters, including 59% of Republicans, strongly support or somewhat support aspects of the aid package. A CNN poll, released last week, found 61% supported the plan, with specific aspects of it polling much higher.

With narrow majorities in the U.S. House and Senate, Democrats are working to ensure they get credit.

“The American Rescue Plan is the bold and historic action we need to combat this virus — and now it’s the law of the land despite votes by Republican Senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis to block it,” DNC chairman Jaime Harrison said, referencing North Carolina’s senators, in a statement.

Republican objections

Republicans have argued that the bill is not targeted enough on the coronavirus pandemic and includes too much money for Democratic priorities that are not pandemic-related. Many GOP lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Ted Budd of North Carolina, said only 9% of the bill is “actually going to COVID.” Tillis said “only 9% of it is used on public health to defeat COVID.’

That figure accounts for $160 billion in the bill for testing and vaccine production and distribution as well as protective equipment.

The overall package includes billions for housing programs, aid for restaurants and high-speed Internet — and more than $128 billion for K-12 schools, some of which won’t be spent until near the end of the decade.

Some state governments, including North Carolina which will receive more than $5 billion from the package, are running budget surpluses despite the challenges of the pandemic.

“$1.9 trillion. We allowed the government to trample on our freedoms in return for a handout that our children and grandchildren will pay for. Chuck Schumer called it ‘one of the most progressive pieces of legislation in decades.’ The only one more excited than Schumer is China,” Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Walker wrote in a tweet.

Biden made passage of the relief package his top legislative priority, and congressional Democrats resorted to an oft-used budget procedure to bypass the Senate’s filibuster rules, allowing it to pass with 50 Democratic votes.

Biden will host a White House event on the plan Monday with trips to Pennsylvania and Georgia later in the week. It was Georgia’s election of two Democrats in its January runoff that gave Democrats the majority in the Senate.

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