Stalwart conservative Bruce Bartlett writes of Obama's deficit that "[n]ot one penny is due to higher spending." He looks at the numbers from CBO and OMB, analyzes federal revenues and deficits, and in unable to square reality with GOP orthodoxy. He concludes, "I continue to believe that the Republican position is nonsensical:"
I think there are grounds on which to criticize the Obama administration's anti-recession actions. But spending too much is not one of them. Indeed, based on this analysis, it is pretty obvious that spending - real spending on things like public works - has been grossly inadequate. The idea that Reagan-style tax cuts would have done anything is just nuts.
Over at Big Picture, Barry Ritholtz sounded a note of amazement at Bartlett's forthrightness:
Wow, when this guy burns bridges, he sure doesn't fuck around!
Considering that Bartlett's latest book explains the failure of Reaganomics, I'm not sure how much more a pariah he can become. Nonetheless, his Q&A with NYT is even more blunt:
I think the Republican Party is brain-dead. It stands for one thing and one thing only - being against whatever the Democrats are for and regaining political power by whatever means necessary. The idea that the G.O.P. is the party of ideas is laughable. [...] What now passes for a conservative movement is either pure Republican partisanship or right-wing populism. I no longer consider myself to be a Republican and am very happy to be a political independent.
Anonymous Liberal calls the GOP "The Party of One Idea," observing the following:
As near as I can tell, they don't currently have a single idea, realistic or otherwise, for reducing the deficit in the long term. My guess is that if they suddenly found themselves back in power, they'd fumble around for a while and then, having thought of nothing else to do, try to pass some sort of tax cut. It wouldn't make any sense and it would make the budget situation worse, but they just don't have any other policy ideas. They are the Party of One Idea. And it doesn't matter that their one idea is the primary reason we are in such a bad budget situation in the first place.
Without more conservatives willing to call out GOP's groupthink, the party's situation will only deteriorate.
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