House Republicans find their scissors

October 17, 2005

Recent polling data suggests only about a third of Americans approve of how the Republican-dominated Congress is doing its job, the lowest in a decade. A new NBC poll shows voters preferring a Dem-run Congress by a fairly wide margin. All the while, the Republican establishment seems to be drowning before our very eyes under a sea of indictments and investigations.

House GOP lawmakers have considered this landscape and appear to have stumbled upon a plan to make things worse for themselves.

House Republican leaders have moved from balking at big cuts in Medicaid and other programs to embracing them, driven by pent-up anger from fiscal conservatives concerned about runaway spending and the leadership’s own weakening hold on power.

Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs.

Now, I suppose these Republicans deserve some credit for re-discovering their principles. These guys are supposed to want to slash health care for the poor. The fact that Tom DeLay, among others, recently said the federal budget no longer had any areas to be cut showed that the GOP had lost its way, but reports like this one suggest they’re anxious to embrace the draconian ideals that have defined the party for a generation.

But the funny part is that House GOP lawmakers seem unaware or unconcerned about the political consequences.

For reasons that defy comprehension, these guys are under the impression that slashing domestic spending will be a popular move. If we’re really lucky, they’ll keep on thinking that.

For a party already on the ropes with corruption and mismanagement crises, picking a fight by attacking the poor is enough to make one wonder if the GOP prefers to just give up its majority status altogether. Imagine the TV ads for a vulnerable House incumbent: “Rep. Doe voted to slash health care for families in poverty while backing billions in giveaways for oil companies and pharmaceutical companies. There’s got to a better way…”

What’s more, this is just the House. These Republicans can rally behind massive cuts in domestic spending, only to find that they’ve done so for no reason because the Senate won’t go along.

But if the House GOP has its heart set on this, there’s no reason to stand in their way.

Ah, there is a universal theory after all.

The congress bone’s connecte to the tax bone, the tax bone’s connected to the rove bone, the rove bone’s connected to the cheney bone, the cheney bone’s connect to the oil bone, the oil bone’s connected to the bush bone, the bush bone’s connected to the war bone;

put it all together and you get a 3 trillion dollar debt and the greatest strategic disaster in the history of the United States.

  • “there’s no reason to stand in their way”

    I suppose not, if this is just a game, but we’re dealing with the livelihoods of millions of the poorest Americans, who very likely depend on these programs just to get by. This is the issue, and what’s important, not gaining some political points by letting the opposition self-destruct and not attempting to prevent the damage they will cause upon millions of impoverished and underrepresented Americans in the process.

    It would be wrong of anyone to sit back and let the Republicans try to tear these programs apart. We should be fighting in their defense tooth and nail.

  • …but we’re dealing with the livelihoods of millions of the poorest Americans, who very likely depend on these programs just to get by.

    No, no, that’s not what I meant at all. I’m not saying we should let the GOP succeed in gutting domestic spending and aid to the poor, I meant we should let them try.

    They vote for draconian cuts, the Senate fails to go along, and Dems expose their craven ideals in advance of the election.

  • Or, maybe, it’s not really that much of a cut at all but just a misleading description?

    Damn, I knew I should have checked with DeLong before writing the post.

  • Repubs remind me of a single soldier, trapped, inevitably going to be killed by advancing troops. He stands and opens fire int he direction of the enemy, hoping to maybe take out a few before his inevitable bloody death.

    Repubs know they’re in trouble, and they’re scrambling as fast as possible to do as much damage as possible (i.e. follow their agenda) before they’re kicked out. No one can really stop them – certainly not their consciences.

    The difference between congressmen and the soldier are that the soldier will not “recover” in a cushy lobbyist position.

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