The same day that House Republicans are proposing to save $600 billion in defense spending by cutting 10% of all federal jobs, the United States Postal Service announces that it is cutting delivery of first class mail on Saturdays. These are linked together. You can file them under “stupid things we do because Republicans are crazy.” Let’s look briefly at what this all means.
The Postal Service cut has been a long time in coming. Back in 2006, during the lame duck after the Republicans lost control of the House and Senate, the Republicans passed a poison pill that required the Postal Service to pre-fund their retirement program. This is a requirement that no other business has and was put in place because, well, Republicans are evil. That really is what this all comes down to. The Republicans want to kill the Postal Service. Sure, there is the added benefit of helping out our corporate overlords at UPS and FedEx. But it is mostly about trying to destroy anything the government does well. See: Republicans just know that the government can’t do anything well. That’s why government programs like the Post Service (which is in the Constitution that they supposedly love so much) and Medicare and Social Security must be destroyed. If reality doesn’t conform to your ideology, change reality, because your ideology could not possibly be wrong!
Thankfully, the stupid Republican idea of cutting 10% of all federal jobs is not going to happen. But note: 36% of all federal jobs are military jobs. The Republican proposal is not yet available, but we can assume they are not calling for a reduction in that part of the labor force. Without that part of the federal workforce, there are roughly three million federal employees. So they are calling for eliminating 300,000 jobs. Plus all the jobs that would be lost via economic feedbacks. Can you say, “instant recession”? I suspect the Republicans can’t. They would have to claim that no jobs are lost, because they also claim that the government doesn’t create jobs. Therefore: why not fire them all? No one will lose a job by their logic.
I feel like a pinball these days regarding my thinking about the Republicans. Are they stupid? Yes, many of them are. Are they evil? Yes, most of them are. But more than anything, they are spoiled brats. They are the five year old at a family gathering who is going to ruin everything because he can’t get his way. John Boehner was lying when he said that Obama was trying to destroy the Republican Party. But I think he was onto something. We need to destroy the Republican Party. Then, the Democratic Party can split into a somewhat reasonable conservative party and an actual liberal party. The Republican Party is far worse than useless. And if we allow them, they will destroy the country.
You’ve got to hand it to ’em; they’re masters of the "slip this in unnoticed and watch it pay off down the line" move. Maybe their logo should change from a elephant to a Trojan Horse — or a date-rape drug.
I just watched the documentary "Gasland," where a filmmaker crosses the country interviewing people with poisoned water from gas fracturing (and are all pretty much screwed because of little-known provisions in the 2005 energy bill). A striking thing about these people is that they mostly "look" like typical GOP voters — rural, quirky, self-reliant types. The movie doesn’t specify (it’s angrier at the industry’s ability to buy politicians than the party of politicians so bought) but I imagine quite a few were (and maybe still are!) GOP voters.
It’s almost as if there are basically two GOP sales pitches. One: "this will be good for everyone." Two: "this will be good for everyone except lazy whining un-Americans." When the enacted policy turns out to be bad for everyone except lazy, whining un-Americans (the policy’s sponsors), the GOP either shifts blame or just waits for the next disaster/crisis (which they probably caused) to erupt and draw away everyone’s attention.
I guess buying up the media, fostering a zillion think-tanks to come up with framing ideas, and destroying any possible opposing mass-education efforts sort of works! I’ll put that in my "how to destroy the world" memory bank.
(Hope the illness is subsiding! — JMF)
@JMF – The GOP won long ago by shifting the debate so far to the right. Now even when the left wins, it loses. I tend to watch MSNBC while I make dinner. I’m really struck by the fact that it isn’t really liberal. It’s socially liberal, of course. And it isn’t crazy on economic issues. But to me, economic liberalism means a lot more than not crazy.
(The illness is getting better, but I’m still really tired.)