David Brooks: "Republican fanaticism caused this default," and they're not fit to govern.

I love Ezra Klein's email newsletter editorials. They always seems to sum up exactly what's going on when it comes to the debt ceiling.  

The Republicans are not looking good in the eyes of the public. But how could they, when their agenda is the opposite of public opinion polls across the board? Republicans are going to need to make a very tough decision over the next couple of weeks: Are they a party that's very good at saying "no" in order to get the best deal possible? Or are they a party that's incapable of saying "yes" even once they've gotten there?

The Democrats have agreed to limit tax increases to cuts in "tax expenditures" -- a category that no less eminent a Republican economist than Alan Greenspan says should properly be understood as "government spending" rather than "tax cuts" -- rather than the marginal-rate increases that Republican economists say are truly harmful to growth. That's given Republicans an out, if they want it: They can say they're cleaning the code rather than raising taxes.


But there's little evidence, at least as of yet, that Republicans are going to take the deal -- or even that they can take the deal. That raises the question of whether they've gotten here by being savvy, tough negotiators, or whether the reason they keep saying "no" is that they've lost the ability to say "yes." As David Brooks writes today, "If the debt ceiling talks fail, independents voters will see that Democrats were willing to compromise but Republicans were not. If responsible Republicans don’t take control, independents will conclude that Republican fanaticism caused this default. They will conclude that Republicans are not fit to govern. And they will be right."

Here's another moment in time when I'm in complete agreement with David Brooks:

"We can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative. The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no. The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it."

Weak President and Democratic Majority End Checks and balances, Ushers in Shock Doctrine Policies.

With all the talk centered around the deficit commission, there are a few plans out there that make a lot more sense. Here, Keith Olbermann gets Ezra Klein and Heather McGhee from DEMOS to explain what's really going on.

By the way, Sundance Channel is offering up the movie Shock Doctrine, also On Demand. After watching it, you may feel as panicky as I feel right now about the reason why we're being told "everything is on the table," and the brutal similarities to the deficit commissions recommendations that favor to the wealthy and what has come before.



The state of the Democratic Party is summed up by this E.J. Dionne editorial:

The idea of freezing the pay of federal workers … an obvious element in any negotiation. But

Obama simply threw in the federal workers in exchange for -- well, as best I can tell, nothing. And in the short term, shouldn’t jobs and rising incomes be a higher priority than austerity?

Worse, every signal out of the White House is that it is prepared to cave in to Republican demands for a temporary extension of all of the Bush tax cuts … how can anyone take a deficit-reduction proposal seriously when the main order of business in Congress is to make sure we widen the deficit by keeping all of the Bush tax cuts alive?

What we are witnessing here is the political power that comes from the Republican Party’s single-minded focus on high-end tax cuts and the strategic incoherence of a Democratic Party that is confused and divided -- and not getting much help from its president.

Obama seems to have decided that showing how conciliatory he can be is more important than making clear where he stands. The administration’s strategy is rooted in a fear of what the Republicans are willing to do, which only strengthens the GOP’s bargaining position. The president figures the Republicans would be quite happy to let taxes on the middle class rise on Jan. 1 if that’s the price of continuing to fight for the tax cuts for the rich.

In a game of chicken, Republicans are willing to gamble -- even if the economy would take a hit.

Related articles

• Essay: The Reagan Doctrine (time.com)