GOP Walking Into Destruction

by Deacon Blues

Yes, a GOP takeover of both houses of the federal government would be a bad thing, and would ensure endless investigations and confirmation battles for the Obama administration. But after looking at the agenda priorities of a likely House and Senate GOP leadership according to the New York Times, it becomes clear that Barack Obama’s salvation lies in the expected stupidity of his GOP foes.

According to Jackie Calmes’ great piece in today’s paper, the House and Senate GOP can’t even agree on what to pursue, with the House GOP seeking passage of the usual grab-bag of right wing allegedly economic issues like the Keystone pipeline, bans on federal regulations, corporate-friendly tax “reform” and giveaways, the Ryan ten-year budget plan that guts Medicare and Medicaid, and of course the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Yet the Senate GOP is only willing to go along with several of those items and wants to steer clear of the fringe items that would endanger Republican incumbents in 2016, a year where Democrats will have a far more favorable terrain to retake seats and bludgeon the GOP for their agenda.

As the Times notes, many economists already agree that the anticipated GOP agenda will do little to actually create jobs, but it will make the usual suspects even richer at the expense of all of us. And tellingly two issues are notably absent from either the House GOP or Senate GOP agenda: immigration reform and infrastructure, two issues with broad electoral support even from Corporate America, and yet the GOP plans to ignore those two issues when they have complete legislative power.

The proposals would mainly benefit energy industries, reduce taxes and regulations for businesses generally, and continue the attack on the Affordable Care Act. It is a mix that leaves many economists, including several conservatives, underwhelmed.

So envision this: After the electorate sees that the GOP scare machine was exactly that, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell spend their precious airtime next year selling the country on their investigations and impeachment talk while offering nothing but the usual giveaways to the One Percent packaged as “jobs programs”. Against this, the White House and a re-energized Democratic opposition led by the 2016 candidates blast them for ignoring real issues, Main Street, and having nothing new to offer except more tax cuts for the wealthy and gutting spending for the 98%. It makes me giddy already.

Of course, the right wing machine will continue to scare the electorate with their Maslowian misdirection efforts, so that Republicans can avoid addressing real issues they don't give a damn about and for which they have no answers. But even with this transparently pathetic "look over here at these rampaging brown people" rhetoric, the GOP will make it too easy for the Democrats to destroy them next year.