Krugman's "Getting to Crazy" NYT article is guilty, guilty, guilty ...

guilty of telling the unvarnished truth about the utter insanity that has possessed our elected leaders and is
playing out on steroids in DC w/ the haggling over the debt ceiling.

My hat is off to Mr. Krugman. He illumines the debt ceiling situation brilliantly IMHO.

PS - my apologies if this has already been thoroughly hashed over ad nauseum on DU, as it was published July 14.
I just discovered it as I've been somewhat preoccupied lately with family issues.

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Getting to Crazy
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 14, 2011

There aren’t many positive aspects to the looming possibility of a U.S. debt default. But there has been, I have to admit, an element of comic relief — of the black-humor variety — in the spectacle of so many people who have been in denial suddenly waking up and smelling the crazy.

A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. “Has the G.O.P. gone insane?” they ask.

Why, yes, it has. But this isn’t something that just happened, it’s the culmination of a process that has been going on for decades. Anyone surprised by the extremism and irresponsibility now on display either hasn’t been paying attention, or has been deliberately turning a blind eye.

And may I say to those suddenly agonizing over the mental health of one of our two major parties: People like you bear some responsibility for that party’s current state.

Let’s talk for a minute about what Republican leaders are rejecting.

President Obama has made it clear that he’s willing to sign on to a deficit-reduction deal that consists overwhelmingly of spending cuts, and includes draconian cuts in key social programs, up to and including a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. These are extraordinary concessions. As The Times’s Nate Silver points out, the president has offered deals that are far to the right of what the average American voter prefers — in fact, if anything, they’re a bit to the right of what the average Republican voter prefers!

Yet Republicans are saying no. Indeed, they’re threatening to force a U.S. default, and create an economic crisis, unless they get a completely one-sided deal. And this was entirely predictable.

First of all, the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.

As a result, Republicans are automatically against anything the president wants, even if they have supported similar proposals in the past. Mitt Romney’s health care plan became a tyrannical assault on American freedom when put in place by that man in the White House. And the same logic applies to the proposed debt deals.

Put it this way: If a Republican president had managed to extract the kind of concessions on Medicare and Social Security that Mr. Obama is offering, it would have been considered a conservative triumph. But when those concessions come attached to minor increases in revenue, and more important, when they come from a Democratic president, the proposals become unacceptable plans to tax the life out of the U.S. economy.

Beyond that, voodoo economics has taken over the G.O.P.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/opinion/15krugman.html

Kinda obvious, actually.

and the republicans would still vote to not raise the debt ceiling.

They are rabid dogs.

Rec

We saw it in 2000 too, when they went along with Bush's "gimme gimme gimme" strategy in Florida, with a SCOTUS decision that went against everything they say they want about interference in state matters, and by backing Bush's "don't be moderate just because I lost the popular vote; go all out for 'mah base'/backers".

It was brewing through the Reagan and G.H.W.Bush years. Just look at the rise of Newt Gingrich, who rode to power on rhetoric that did not recognize an opposition, only an enemy -- and a vile, loathsome, traitorous enemy at that. One for which the only solution is to utterly crush them.

Anyone who thought that was gone just because Newt himself went down wasn't paying attention.

wouldn't want DU to get in any trouble for copyright purposes, now would we?

:)

"Politics is the entertainment branch of industry" - Frank Zappa

-90% Jimmy

and the way the Republicons rape the pocketbooks of the American people.

His is one of the sanest, most rational and brilliant voices in our national discourse today... yet, unfortunately, that voice remains too often just "crying in the wilderness".

Even here on DU I have seen those who are quite ready and eager to besmirch and bash him rather vilely. Why anyone would feel that to be justified simply flabbergasts me... especially in a forum for democrats??? :shrug: