When you "split the difference" with crazy people and thugs, watch out for the results

People who think the crazed machinations of the new House GOP majority are of only "symbolic" import may be in for a rude awakening.

"This is what Americans voted for. Republicans were very clear that this is what they wanted, and Obama spent his campaign talking about tax cuts, not spending. They’ll meet somewhere in the middle. 'No, let's amputate at the hip, not the neck.'"

-- Ian Welsh, in his blogpost "You now have a year to a year
and a half at most before the next economic meltdown"

by Ken

I know the conventional wisdom is that what the Republican-controlled House of Representatives does is all "symbolic." Goodness knows, we're told that every time news of its latest piece of malicious, ignorant crackpottery is reported. Even stuff that passes the House, we're told, won't get through the still-Democratic-controlled Senate, and in the extreme case, there's always the presidential veto.

I don't see it quite this way, though. On the simplest level, even if it works out this way, the Right-Wing Noise Machine gets to portray the Senate as the place where the People's Will is sent to be killed by socialistic Dems. And if it comes to a presidential veto, well, the propaganda value skyrockets.

More practically speaking, giving the gutless conservatism of so many fake-centrist right-wing Dems, it's not at all clear that no extremist mischief can surmount all those hurdles. The maiming of Social Security, for example, is an idea that's popular with lots of Dems as a make-believe "deficit-reduction" issue, even though Social Security doesn't contribute a dime to the deficit. (t least it didn't until the Social Security-killers maneuvered their "payroll-tax holidays" to deprive the system of its normal funding and make it, for the first time, dependent on the congressional budget process. Talk about an expensive tax "holiday"!) And the president was prepared to do whatever he had to do to Social Security even before the 2010 elections turned from a moderate conservative on economic matters into a raging far-right-winger.

Then there's the latest issue that the virulent sociopaths of the House Right have seized: abortion. Again, between genuinely right-wing Dems and craven self-preservation-obsessed opportunists, it's all too possible to imagine truly horrific legislative undoing of hard-won women's reproductive rights being flushed down the drain, very likely with the White House's approval, and possibly enthusiastic approval. I think the administration made pretty clear when the issue came up in the health care legislative imbroglio that there's no limit to how far it's prepared to sell women out if it means saving its behind.

It's also not hard to imagine the effect that mischievous House nonlegislating may have on judicial deliberations, at both the federal appeals court and especially Supreme Court level. Just wait for the first opinion from the chief justice, or from Justice Alito or Scalia or, yes, Kennedy which includes 112th Congress House actions as an indiction of "congressional intent."

But none of that is what I'm thinking about when I doubt that what the Republican House does is merely "symbolic." Are we not already seeing the standard right-wing tactic of establishing a "baseline" position so extreme that it's beyond the imagination of most humans -- the idea being to redefine the issue so that when "the difference is split," the "mid" position is so extreme that not long ago anyone who espoused it would have been generally judged to be in need of immediate institutionalization involving massive applications of electro-convulsive therapy.

In the 111th Congress, Senate Republicans demonstrated the previously unimagined power of the No-Power Minority No. Now House Republicans can show us the power of the No-Power Majority Yes.

The "split the difference" principle rears its head again in the latest deficit-reduction wedge concocted by the House right-wing crazies. Here's Ian Welsh's take.

You now have a year to a year and a half at most before the next economic meltdown

2011 JANUARY 20

by Ian Welsh

The RNC is asking for 2.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years. Assume Obama and Dems split the difference (remember, Obama wanted a freeze already, anyway). 1.25 trillion.

The effects of that on the US economy, such as it is, will be catastrophic.

If you can work right now, do. Earn as much money as you can, reduce your costs as low as you can and get ready for the next downturn. It's going to be ugly. Jobs will continue to be shifted out of the country, Americans will continue to be turned into debt-serfs with every relationship a revenue stream for some entity which provides a necessary service (whether internet, credit, food, or whatever). Your house probably can't be sold for what it's worth, since the banks have a ton of houses they need to sell, so don't assume you have an asset worth its face value, instead evaluate it as housing.

Times are bad, they will get worse, especially as this type of austerity is happening in virtually every western country. Expect both high inflation in what you actually need (food, for example) and high unemployment (the return of stagflation), whatever the "official" rate of inflation says.

This is what Americans voted for. Republicans were very clear that this is what they wanted, and Obama spent his campaign talking about tax cuts, not spending. They’ll meet somewhere in the middle. "No, let's amputate at the hip, not the neck."