Why Can’t the GOP Get to Yes?
5th July 2011
Megan McArdle asks the big question.
I am getting the same sinking feeling that Brooks is having–that there is a sizeable faction on the right, and worse, in the GOP caucus, that is willing to default rather than make any deal at all. In fact, I think it’s worse than Brooks suggests. It would be bad enough if these people were simply against higher taxes, because then you might persuade them by pointing out that if we default, we’re probably going to end up with higher taxes, right now, in order to close the current gap between spending and tax revenue.
She’s got a point. Some of the Republicans in Congress are in serious danger of making the best the enemy of the good.
If the GOP doesn’t cut a deal sometime pretty soon, we’re either going to default on our debt (hello, financial crisis, unemployment spike, substantial and immediate drop in GDP, followed by an angry mob of voters descending on their polling places with pitchforks), or we’re going to cut a bunch of programs that beneficiaries are very attached to. (Hello, angry mob of seniors descending on their representatives with machetes.) There is no deal that they can cut which does not include raising more revenue; the Democrats aren’t going to be the only people offering compromise, and I don’t blame them.
And that about says it all.
July 5th, 2011 at 15:16
The old saying applies: In a democracy, you always get the government you deserve.
July 7th, 2011 at 14:13
If the DNC doesn’t stop spending there won’t be any more money. Raising taxes will certainly reduce revenue as more money will be forced overseas and more jobs too.
According to leftists the only thing the GOP should do is bend over.