Tea Baggers rises up against McConnell's $1 trillion relief plan
The debate over the size of the next coronavirus relief bill is reopening the same divisions within the Republican Party that spawned the Tea Party movement more than a decade ago, putting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a delicate spot.
McConnell is up for reelection this fall in Kentucky, a state that has been a hotbed of Tea Party activism over the past 10-plus years. His home state colleague, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a Tea Party favorite, is taking an outspoken stand against another large federal relief package.
The situation is eerily similar to 2008, when McConnell was up for reelection for his fifth Senate term. That fall, Congress was under intense pressure to pass an expensive relief bill to stave off a possible depression while there was an unpopular Republican in the White House and a presidential election only weeks away.
The first relief bill that Congress passed, which created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and which McConnell supported, was later labeled a Wall Street bailout by disgruntled conservatives, who saw it as the apogee of eight years of profligate spending under the George W. Bush administration.
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