What Do The GOP Want?

No sooner do I finish my earlier post than I read Paul Krugman’s take on the Republican position on the budget. I think he nails it.

The issue seems simple: having bashed away at government for the best part of three decades the GOP is now reaching the point of no return: the federal deficit needs fixing and they need to say how they would do it.

That sound you hear is of nothing. Nada.

This strikes me as both supreme hypocrisy and cynicism. Since Reagan launched the current attacks on big government the Republicans have been playing a dangerous game with our well being. Knowing that the programs they hate so much – the New Deal era safety net – are so popular they decided to take the long road. Instead of coming out and explaining their hatred of Social Security and Medicare, they have attempted to undermine those programs by gutting the government’s ability to pay for them. This involved the deliberate running of huge federal deficits and the creation of the fear that we cannot afford them. This was summarized in Grover Norquist’s famous quip about ‘starving the beast’. Remember: only twice in American history has the country plunged into a budget deficit not caused by war or an economic downturn. Those two instances were the Reagan and Bush deficit build ups.

Well, as Krugman points out, the beast is well and truly starved. So now is the moment for them to go public and – with suitable hand wringing of course – explain that those expensive social programs need slashing in the name of fiscal prudence.

But they aren’t doing that.

They aren’t doing anything.

On the contrary they are denying their objective and are affirming their support for Medicare etc. Which is ridiculous. And, frankly, downright dangerous.

The best analogy I can offer is the old Leninist adage about having to ‘destroy you in order to save you’. The GOP seems hell bent on making the deficit worse, much worse, before it is willing to step up and admit their goal.

So my question becomes: just how bad do they want it to get before they tell us what they want to cut and by how much? Until then they are playing with our future. It is a cynical ideological game that we will all end up paying for. It is shameless and inexcusable. But it is the game they are playing.

And voters are going along with it.

Wow.