An unignorable "Well, duh"

"The logic here is simple enough" that even a House Republican could understand it: the sequester's "adverse effects on jobs and incomes," remarked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday, "would lead to less actual deficit reduction in the short run for any given set of fiscal actions."

This linear simplicity suggests that "actual deficit reduction" is not Republicans' objective, as advertised. Slower growth--from which will emerge even higher deficits and thus a more sharply perceived urgency for government's downsizing--is.   

I confess that I might be giving too much credit to the strategic Republican mind; the above scheming requires that mind to think three moves ahead, as opposed to the GOP's seeming, one-two apishness of "We cut now, deficit go down."

But, I'm wary of being too sure of too generous credit. The other day I referenced the criminal mastermind, Keyser Söze, who famously admonished that "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." There's at least a whiff of the same trick in Republicans' convincing lack of any coherent strategy.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomb]

Footnote: Bernanke is a Republican who was originally nominated to the position by a Republican president, George W. Bush.

I guess that makes him the Benedict Arnold Hagel of the Fed.

[Turgidson]

I think your theory is definitely true, but not of all the rank and file. Most of the teabagging fools probably really think they're freeing the economy of its shackles and saving the world from a debt apocalypse by slashing spending.

But the Norquist and Koch-aligned types are happy to use the austerity push for the reasons you say - it becomes an endless cycle. Austerity! Deficit got bigger? More austerity! Until voila, government small enough to drown in the bathtub.

This is sort of a cousin to the GOP's habit of running up massive deficits while in office. I really do think that's a deliberate ploy to force a Democratic successor to not only be scared off from passing any big bills, but also shamed into reducing the deficit, and getting Democratic fingerprints on entitlement cuts, that can then be campaigned against.

I do think the higher-ups in GOP circles have this design. The ground troops? Nah. They are drunk on the Kool-Aid.

[AnneJ]

I tend to think it's best to err on the side of caution and take the republicans at their word that this is their plan to reduce the size of government. But what I don't understand is why. What is to be gained by first throwing thouands of people out of work, increasing the need for the social safety net that they want to shred, then leaving them with no help whatsoever. Why would they want to see a country full of poor people who can't find a job, have no place to live and no health care? No education, no ifrastructure, but one helluva military! Because when republicans cry "Freedom!" It really means, "I've got mine, good luck getting yours, loser!"

[Turgidson]

^ AnneJ, it's because they really think the "takers" deserve no better than that, and are more troubled by the thought of one red cent of THEIR MONEY!!! being spent to keep a mooching welfare queen fat and happy (although that was always a load of guano meant to stoke existing resentments) than they are by the prospect of mass poverty and all that comes with it...which we know from pre-New Deal America is what happens when there is no safety net. They want to bring. that. back. It's dumbfounding, but that's what they want.