I'm no economist, but no such training is needed to recognize the deflationary confluence of balanced-budget Hooverism, cheap political opportunism, a heedless electorate and nearly boundless Democratic poltroonery.
"The American people are tired of the games," bellowed Republican David Dreier last week in targeting the upcoming, emergency House bill to save teachers and healthcare for the poor, which is to say, U.S. states. "We should be spending our time getting our fiscal house in order rather than scrambling to score points on the House floor." Meanwhile the House Republican leader's spokesman offered the classic GOP "but": "No one wants teachers or police officers to lose their jobs." Certainly not, so let's do something, right? Wrong. "But Washington Democrats can’t just keep borrowing money and raising taxes for more 'stimulus' spending."
Putting aside the GOP's characteristically creative definition of "raising taxes," the rational economic response to the minority leader is, Sure they can; in fact, sure they should. When was the last time we heard of a need for stimulus spending in a thundering economy?
Nevertheless Politico this morning describes the desperately needed state aid as "politically unpopular" -- a questionable assessment of aggregate polling but spot on, no doubt, in red and purplish districts overrepresented by older, pseudoconservative whites who give not a damn about sane and responsible governance. To take a felicitous line from "Blazing Saddles" 's Gene Wilder, "You know, morons."
So, even though Politico still further describes the impending House vote as a "rubber-stamp" of the Senate's bill, just give me some decent odds and I'll take some action on the possibility of the increasing probability that House Democrats will once again capitulate to precisely the wrong action: none.
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