I stand corrected

In relation to the GOP's SOTU response, Krugman makes an essential point that serves as a wise corrective to my morning's under-sensitivity to the potential return of these clowns:

[Rubio] and his party are now committed to the belief that their pre-crisis doctrine was perfect, that there are no lessons from the worst financial crisis in three generations except that we should have even less regulation. And given another shot at power, they’ll test that thesis by giving the bankers a chance to do it all over again.

And there's always that next "shot"--notwithstanding its slimness--which, as mentioned, is essential to keep in mind, as opposed to committing to trust my earlier idiotic remark about the GOP's "certainty of electoral doom" in 2016.

There are no certainties in politics.

I knew that, and I should have reiterated it this morning. Indeed the reason for my perhaps peculiar concentration today on Rubio's address rather than the president's is that the story, the drama, the uncertain future lies not in whatever Obama said last night, but in how the GOP proceeds. The latter has the guerrilla's advantage; it can snipe, and it can and most likely will inhibit economic progress with lethal accuracy. And a prolongation of what Jennifer Rubin gleefully characterizes as "anemic" growth could in a few years turn this seemingly won war around.

Comments

[AnneJ]

Well I don't see much getting done one way or the other for at least the next two years with this congress. Sorry if I'm off topic, but the $9.00 (per hour) question is: When did it become so wrong to work for a living? It seems as though now that most people do not qualify for welfare anymore thanks to "reform" from 1996, the republicans now look down with contempt on those of us who work for someone else for a living. The working man and woman of America are the new "welfare queens" and jobs are just another handout to layabouts who are too lazy to start their own business. In the republican language, freedom's just another word for "you're on your own, sucker!"

[BobH]

The sneering of the wealthy at the working class is one of the uglier aspects of the public debate on the minimum wage and what constitutes a "living wage", a term we hear too little of today. The debate needs to be re-framed by those who care using that term. Maybe at some time in the future we will also hear about the "dignity of labor" again, but I doubt it. Not by these republicans.

[Beauzeaux]

Here in British Columbia the minimum wage is $10.25. Less than $21K/yr. It's extremely difficult for a SINGLE person to subsist on that much less a family.

A "living" wage would have to be twice that.