As the $819bn stimulus bill passed the House on Wednesday, Mike Pence, the Republican congressman from Indiana, explained why it was doing so without the benefit of a single Republican vote. Mr Pence called the stimulus a “dusty old wish-list of liberal spending priorities”. It is meeting little Republican enthusiasm as it approaches the Senate for a vote next Monday.

Well, tough cookies, one is tempted to say. Liberals are now in power, led by a popular president. It is in the nature of things that the nation’s agenda will be their agenda. But an emergency stimulus is a special case. Mr Pence’s warning should not go unheeded. The problem he mentions is serious, with the potential to divide the country even if the stimulus works.