The GOP Isn’t Interested In Helping The Economy As Long As A Democrat Is In The White House

The title above is a direct quote from yesterday's Paul Krugman column in the NY Times. It's quite extraordinary when you think about it. Steve Benen had something similar to say last week but yesterday, one of the most distinguished economic thinkers in the world, a columnist for the most important newspaper in the world just leveled a charge akin to treason against a major political party. In fact, he did it several times in the column, just in case anyone is skimming and missed it once.

The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation-- cooperation that won’t be forthcoming.

Elite opinion has been slow to recognize this reality. Thus on the same day that Mr. Simpson rejoiced in the prospect of chaos, Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, appealed for help in confronting mass unemployment. He asked for “a fiscal program that combines near-term measures to enhance growth with strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce longer-term structural deficits.”

My immediate thought was, why not ask for a pony, too? After all, the G.O.P. isn’t interested in helping the economy as long as a Democrat is in the White House. Indeed, far from being willing to help Mr. Bernanke’s efforts, Republicans are trying to bully the Fed itself into giving up completely on trying to reduce unemployment.

And on matters fiscal, the G.O.P. program is to do almost exactly the opposite of what Mr. Bernanke called for. On one side, Republicans oppose just about everything that might reduce structural deficits: they demand that the Bush tax cuts be made permanent while demagoguing efforts to limit the rise in Medicare costs, which are essential to any attempts to get the budget under control. On the other, the G.O.P. opposes anything that might help sustain demand in a depressed economy-- even aid to small businesses, which the party claims to love.

Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits-- an action that will both cause immense hardship and drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy. But there’s no point appealing to the better angels of their nature; America just doesn’t work that way anymore.

And opposition for the sake of opposition isn’t limited to economic policy. Politics, they used to tell us, stops at the water’s edge-- but that was then.

These days, national security experts are tearing their hair out over the decision of Senate Republicans to block a desperately needed new strategic arms treaty. And everyone knows that these Republicans oppose the treaty, not because of legitimate objections, but simply because it’s an Obama administration initiative; if sabotaging the president endangers the nation, so be it.

How does this end? Mr. Obama is still talking about bipartisan outreach, and maybe if he caves in sufficiently he can avoid a federal shutdown this spring. But any respite would be only temporary; again, the G.O.P. is just not interested in helping a Democrat govern.

My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country.

Krugman's immediate concern is the "mainstream" Republican Obama appointed to the Deficit Commission, Alan Simpson, who seems to take great pleasure in public displays of derangement. His latest was a shrill cry for "the blood bath in April... When debt limit time comes." Krugman points out that the Republican strategy is to "probably try to blackmail the president into policy concessions by, in effect, holding the government hostage; they’ve done it before. Now, you might think that the prospect of this kind of standoff, which might deny many Americans essential services, wreak havoc in financial markets and undermine America’s role in the world, would worry all men of good will. But no, Mr. Simpson “can’t wait.” And he’s what passes, these days, for a reasonable Republican."

The question for the rest of us is why is Obama appointing saboteurs like Alan Simpson? A Democratic Member of Congress-- until recently one of Obama's most fervent and public defenders, someone who is so disillusioned with him that he now says he'll vote for him in 2012 as the lesser of two evils-- told me last week that Obama isn't just willing to do the bidding of the ruling elite on Social Security, but that he wants to. Obama sees himself leading a great conservative coalition of the center, between Republican-dominated reactionaries and incoherent teabaggers on the one hand and progressives of his own party on the other hand.

Howard Dean, Alan Grayson and Dennis Kucinich have all said they will not primary Obama. Will Bernie Sanders? In that case he'll continue moving inexorably to the right. That isn't just a label. It will mean more of everything we hated about the Bush Regime-- from the national security state to the dismantling of the American social contract. Alan Simpson wants blood. He's liable to get it when ordinary Americans get pushed too far over the edge to not react. Arizona's Republican death panels are for real. And what they come down to is now standard GOP political philosophy-- better to condemn the poor to death than ask the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes.

Instead of trying to save the lives of these people, who had been told that they had a chance to spend a few more years with their families, the Arizona legislature has chosen to take away their hope in order to save an estimated $4.5 million.

Facing a projected $1.5 billion budget deficit, the state of Arizona has decided to make poor people pay with their lives instead of making rich people pay with their treasure.

This didn't have to happen. In a special election in January 2010, the people of Oregon (a state with a comparable average income as Arizona) decided to raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporations instead of cutting essential services. Despite an all-out effort to convince voters that taxing the rich would hurt the poor, voters approved Measures 66 and 67, raising tax rates on those most able to pay and allocating the money to preserve state services.

Our economy for the past decade or more has been built on lies. Superfueled by greed and so-called "innovation" in the financial sector, it finally careened off the road and slammed head-on into the cement wall of reality. Instead of taxing the people who caused and profited from this situation, our political system has bailed them out, buried their crimes and passed the costs onto the most vulnerable-- people like the 98 poor men and women who were told their lives might be saved, only to have that hope taken away.

I don't think anyone's going to shoot anyone because a TSA agent gropes their junk... but what happens when members of your family as condemned to die? How many Arizonans would love to take a potshot at Jan Brewer or Russell Pearce about now?