Fiscal conservatives mobilize to block Biden
WASHINGTON – Tim Phillips had some straight talk for fellow “freedom fighters” who gathered in an Iowa restaurant in April.
Their side lost the first few months of the “big, big battle” going on in Washington as Congress passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, said Phillips, head of the fiscally conservative group Americans for Prosperity. But it’s still possible to stop the more than $4 trillion in additional spending that President Joe Biden has proposed.
“In the next few months, Washington, D.C., is going to be making some decisions that could literally dramatically transform our country,” Phillips said as he urged the gathering of more than 160 people to “do more than you’ve ever done before.”
That meeting, held in the district of Rep. Cindy Axne, a moderate Democrat who is among the top targets for Republicans in the midterm elections, was the first of more than 100 events around the country that AFP has in the works for a major campaign that kicks into gear next week.
In details provided first to USA TODAY, the group’s “End Washington Waste: Stop the Spending Spree” campaign also includes several million dollars in advertising to pair with the planned rallies, town halls, phone banks and door-to-door canvassing.
“This spending spree we’re seeing out of Washington, D.C., is both unprecedented and unsustainable,” Phillips told USA TODAY.
It remains to be seen whether conservatives can generate the kind of grassroots activism that roiled lawmakers’ districts when Democrats debated how to overhaul the health care system in 2009. Democrats eventually passed the Affordable Care Act, with no support from Republicans, but lost the House in the 2010 midterm elections.
Progressive groups are also mobilizing to support Biden’s proposals and fight back against groups like Americans for Prosperity.
Building Back Together, a progressive organization run by Biden allies, began airing TV ads Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada to promote Biden’s “blue-collar blueprint to build America.”
Democrats argue that polls show the elements of the plans are popular.