Why the Republican obstructionists oppose the stimulus

Besides the usual reasons, Robert Reich gives the following as an explanation for their opposition:

Republicans don't want their fingerprints on the stimulus bill or the next bank bailout because they plan to make the midterm election of 2010 a national referendum on Barack Obama's handling of the economy. They know that by then the economy will still appear sufficiently weak that they can dub the entire Obama effort a failure — even if the economy would have been far worse without it, even if the economy is beginning to turn around. They'll say "he wanted more government spending, and we said no, but we didn't have the votes. Elect us and we'll turn the economy around by cutting taxes and getting government out of the private sector."

The model Congressional Republicans wish to follow here: The 1994 midterm election campaign which brought about the so-called Contract with America Congress.

Briefly put, then, Reich is suggesting the Republican Party has chosen to put its future conquest of political power before acting today for the sake of resolving the economic crisis, a crisis, by the way, which Republican market fundamentalist thinking and practice brought about! How patriotic!