Craziness of today's Republican Party is unparalleled

Has any political party in American history been crazier than the current Tea Party-fueled antics of Congressional Republicans?

Not in my lifetime. And I'm getting to be damn old (65 next month).

Threatening a shutdown of the federal government because of Affordable Care Act hatred, along with holding the nation's economy hostage with a threatened refusal to pay bills Congress already has incurred (a.k.a. not raising the debt limit) for the same reason -- this is new Crazy Territory.

Listening to reasonable talk radio today, I heard a historian say that maybe, just maybe, politicians in the mid-1800's acted even crazier. But that craziness led to the Civil War.

Which isn't a ringing endorsement of today's not-so-grand GOP.

Yesterday Paul Krugman wrote about "The Crazy Party." Right on, Paul.

In recent months, the G.O.P. seems to have transitioned from being the stupid party to being the crazy party.

I know, I’m being shrill. But as it grows increasingly hard to see how, in the face of Republican hysteria over health reform, we can avoid a government shutdown — and maybe the even more frightening prospect of a debt default — the time for euphemism is past.

It helps, I think, to understand just how unprecedented today’s political climate really is.

...Most of the time divided government led to compromise; sometimes to stalemate. Nobody even considered the possibility that a party might try to achieve its agenda, not through the constitutional process, but through blackmail — by threatening to bring the federal government, and maybe the whole economy, to its knees unless its demands were met.

It was a Tweet, I believe, where I saw something like "Imagine if Democrats had demanded that Bush withdraw all troops from Iraq before they would raise the debt ceiling."

That's a pretty good analogy to what Congressional Republicans are doing. And they have no standing, no mandate, no support for doing it. They lost the 2012 elections handily, as Rachel Maddow points out. Last year we had a big debate about the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare.

Romney made that a central aspect of his presidential campaign. So did Obama. Obama won. The people of the United States spoke. Democrats added seats in the House and Senate. 

These are not minor details. We have a constitutional system of government and free national elections in which we, the people, help set a course for our country. GOP candidates made their case, lost, and forfeited their claims to a popular mandate.

And yet, when it came time to govern, Republicans decided it was still time to pursue an aggressive, right-wing agenda, predicated on manufactured crises, extortion politics, a misguided culture war, and non-negotiable demands.

We've all heard the "elections have consequences" adage many times, but let's be clear about what we're witnessing in 2013: Republicans are very clearly telling the country, "No, actually, elections don't have consequences. We're still going to do as we please."

Democracies aren't supposed to work this way.

No, but when crazies are allowed to take control of Republican caucuses, it isn't surprising that unprecedented craziness prevails. Recognizing reality, never a strong suit of the GOP, has faded away completely.

It's virtually certain that the Affordable Care Act isn't going to be done away with or defunded. Senate Democrats and President Obama won't agree to taking away health insurance from 30 million or so people, and rescuing many millions of other private insurance policy holders from the nasty games insurors play.

Yet it sure seems like House Republicans are blind to that fact. Today they held a "ghoulish defunding rally." 

The party atmosphere was so boisterous, the cheers and laughter so loud, that it was easy to forget everyone in the room had just voted to keep tens of millions of people from getting health insurance.

By keeping spending at its current levels through mid-December, they had also voted to continue the sequester, which is preventing millions of people from getting public housing subsidies, Head Start seats, and unemployment benefits. The sequester is also taking a serious toll on scientific research and investment in infrastructure, not to mention its infuriating drag on employment and the economic recovery. How about another round of applause?

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, of course, from a House that had voted the previous day to cut food stamps for 3.8 million low-income people, including many very young and very old recipients. But at least they didn’t have a party to celebrate that vote.

There is something seriously wrong with the Republican Party these days.

I speak as someone whose mother was as avid a Republican as could be imagined in the 1950s and 1960s. I read National Review along with her. I went to see Ronald Reagan campaign for California governor along with her. Until I went to college, I embraced the conservatism that my mother knew, expounded, and loved.

Believe me, it wasn't anything like what passes for conservatism these days -- which is anything but conservative. Back then, conservatives believed in conserving the environment. Back then, conservatives believed in rational, reasonable policy debates. 

No more. The crazies have made the Republican Party into a political insane asylum. Which will come back to bite them.

Americans have watched the economy crawl back from near-depression levels. Jobs are coming back. The stock market has come way back, to new highs. All that is threatened by a federal government shutdown and failure to raise the debt limit.

Failing to finance the federal government and to pay the bills already incurred (by both Republicans and Democrats) is no joke. Borrowing costs will skyrocket. Consumer confidence will be shaken. Business uncertainty will shoot up.

What's astounding is that Republicans fail to realize that the Affordable Care Act will keep on chugging along through all of this craziness. Its funding is from non-discretionary sources. Problems in implementation, which are inevitable, can be explained away by Republican interference.

Sane politicians would recognize this. Crazy ones wouldn't. I only hope there are enough mentally healthy politicians in today's GOP to stop the crazies from taking the United States over an economic cliff.

Comments

[tucson]

In 2008 Obama made a campaign speech in which he promised by the end of his FIRST term to reduce the cost of healthcare to American families by $2500. There was quite a cynical smirk on his face when he heard them cheer for that one. ("I'll have to remember that line for my next speech.")

The cost of healthcare and insurance for my family has gone up, way up, not down since our Dear Leader took office. I did get a "free" colonoscopy and my wife got a "free" mammogram, but I have paid $3500 in increased health insurance premiums since that provision of O-care went into effect.

On Forbes.com today they reported that the Centers for Medicaid Services CMS.gov said that next year healthcare spending would increase by $621 billion and that a typical family of four will see their healthcare costs increase by $7450.

Blogger Brian said, "Problems in implementation, which are inevitable, can be explained away by Republican interference."

I think Obamacare has a whole lot more problems about it than Republican interference.

[Willie R.]

I do not think that the major thrust of "Obamacare" is to reduce the costs of medical care on an individual or family basis. It is simply a way to get more individuals insured by making it mandatory to have medical insurance. One of the methods employed to accomplish this is to impose a surtax on individuals who deliberately choose not to acquire medical insurance coverage. In this way, the money withheld from income tax refunds, which could have been used to purchase medical insurance, will go toward subsidies that defray the costs of the remaining uninsured.

Mandating that medical insurers must accept individuals with pre-existing medical conditions will be uncomfortable for the insurers in the short term, but the "system" will achieve a more equitable balance in the long term, as a more reasonable distribution of resources is finally realized.

Almost all original charters of public medical facilities include the stipulation that medical care must be administered to all individuals, regardless of their ability to pay. When you have an emergency that requires immediate attention, you will get it, regardless of whether or not you have insurance. The surtax on uninsured individuals will have an effect on those who recognize that not having medical insurance is not life-threatening. But it will cost them by not participating.

Republicans are cutting their own throats by resisting inevitable change. Most medical professionals are rather dismissive when questioned about Obamacare, because they realize the intent of the legislation. In other words - it's the same clowns in a different circus.

Meanwhile, the morally neutral and emotionless second law of thermodynamics, and the inexorably cruel forces of natural selection will impose unavoidable realities on all human egos, regardless of whether or not they think that legislation affecting medical care in the United States will result in a favorable change.

I am one smart sumbitch, right?