GOP Economic Sabotage

There's a lot of talk going around these days, to the effect that Republicans are intentionally blocking efforts to help the American economy primarily through obstructionist tactics. No specific timeline is mentioned, but in general it seems most agree that the main turning point was sometime during or immediately after last year's debt ceiling negotiations.

Recall how close to default such a small number of House Republicans brought us. Recall how challenging it was to get even the smallest concession. Recall the bitterness and infighting that was going on. The deal ultimately reached was, by design, doomed to fail: everyone knew that committee would get nowhere, accomplishing nothing, and everyone also knew that any and all compromises were shams to be voted down next time a deadline came up.

We can already see both sides prepping their talking points for the lame-duck session.Remember the rhetoric of the GOP presidential campaigns - the oft-repeated mantra that the most important thing to those candidates was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Sure sure, that is achieved by winning the presidential election... I get that. But note the focus so many of them had on that one sentiment, expressed that one way, like it was a talking point. To be sure, it is a good talking point: quick to say, has a nice rhythm to it, easy to chant, fits on a bumper sticker, etc.

What I am getting at is the fundamental notion that the GOP is very capable of finding a strong majority, within itself, to rally around. The communication from the top always strikes me as somewhat better organized than that of the Democrats, although there're notable exceptions (women's reproductive rights issues). Republicans have long been better at playing to emotions rather than reason, and this in turn has influenced not just their supporters, but also those that have been elected to office in more recent years. There is definitely a feedback loop here.

It wasn't all that long ago that you had true Republican moderates in Congress. Some are still there (Lindsay Graham is an example on certain issues). But the incoming freshmen of the last 3 or 4 elections, 2010 in particular, have tended to be the most intractable bunch of ideologues we've seen on Capitol Hill in a long time. It used to be that a given Representative or Senator was an ideologue about a specific issue: Inhofe with his environmental and climate bullshit; Sanders with his socialism, Pitts with his war on women. But at the end of the day, these men were still able to see the bigger picture on many other issues, and have rather gray voting records when you look closely: except (maybe) on their particular pet issues, they are bipartisan legislators who try to get important work done for their constituents. They don't block for the sake of blocking, and they are willing to make the occasional deal.

But with the 2010 GOP freshmen, especially in the House, we have seen hostage-taking become endemic. By hostage-taking, I mean the idea of publicly holding people's lives or livelihoods at stake in order to get some concession from the opposition. I mean Eric Cantor holding up his own district's post-earthquake emergency funding because he wanted to see offsets to that spending, while he joked that his constituents should have had earthquake insurance (in central Virginia, mind you). I mean the GOP spending roughly 40% of its legislative efforts over the last year on reproductive rights issues (really??) rather than even bothering to try to work on jobs in a meaningful way. I mean debt-ceiling negotiations in which the credit rating of the United States, which affects all borrowing costs, was itself held hostage. I mean repeatedly passing budgets that do NOT balance; do NOT drop the deficit; do NOT lower taxes, except for the wealthy; do NOT rein in spending, unless that spending is on the military or on corporations; do NOT provide assistance to financially devastated American workers; do NOT show compassion in caring for the most vulnerable among us, the children of the poor... That list could go on for some time.

This newest class is coming up to their first reelection cycle. Some are in trouble back home, and some aren't. But it is undeniable that they have helped change the style of dialogue in Washington permanently. However, it isn't fair to pile all this intractability on just the newbies, but I think it is appropriate to pile much of it on John Boehner for his inability to keep the loudmouths in line. Of course, that is assuming that Boehner actually is the moderate, unifying compromiser he occasionally tries to act like.

So, to summarize my ramblings here, I do think that obstructionism has been a key part of GOP strategy, especially for the last year or so. However, I think it best to clarify exactly what I mean by obstructionism: I don't intend to imply that it is just one thing an opposition party will do, nor do I mean to imply that it is merely an expression of minor rebellion against an Administration that refuses to reach across the aisle.

When I say obstructionism, I mean obstructionism for its own sake, purely as a delaying/smearing/hostage-taking tactic.I'll go even further than that, because this is what I see as an intrinsically moral evil: the GOP is intentionally blocking Obama's proposals not just because they are Obama's; not just because it's an election year; not just because they want him to be a one-term president; not just because they want him to look ineffective; not just because they don't see the spending offsets they'd like; not just because their latent petulance over not getting their way requires them to; not just because those are evidently the marching orders from the GOP heirarchy; not just because it has become simple habit...

The primary reason they are obstructionists is that THE GOP KNOWS THAT HIS POLICIES TEND TO WORK, AND TEND TO IMPROVE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS ACROSS THE INCOME SPECTRUM.In other words, the GOP is intentionally blocking Obama's initiatives not because they are bad for the economy, but because they are good for the economy.

This is a vital distinction and a critical rhetorical disconnect of Orwellian proportions: they are arguing against something that is known to work, for the sake of getting into power, so that they can enact policies that are known to fail, AND which hurt the most vulnerable in our society while propping up the least vulnerable.

What moral code is at work here? Have I discovered Rovianism?