I predicted it in December, and today, the House GOP completely caved in on the debt increase and presented Mr. Obama with a blank check to continue borrowing, printing, and spending the money to support the massive expenditures his FSA demands. Not even purely symbolic amendments for bipartisan committees on debt reduction or entitlement reform… which they could have embarrased Democrats into voting against… were offered. “This is not the time to fight,” said Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), trying out the GOP’s inspiring new 2014 campaign slogan.
Update: Mr. Paul Ryan and Mr. Eric Cantor were guests at the president’s lavish state dinner last night. (The one where Mrs. Obama wore the $12,000 designer dress.) You might want to drop them a line on twitter and ask them how the caviar was. (Paul Ryan on Twitter – @PRyan) (Eric Cantor on Twitter – @GOPLeader)
Analysts think the Republicans are just beaten down and exhausted, or that they don’t want to risk antagonizing the delicate sensibilities of the swing voters their highly paid consultants tell them are the key to holding onto their phoney baloney jobs. (Base? What base?) There is another possible explanation.
Maybe the GOP has gone L.I.B. (Let It Burn).
Imagine you’re a GOP congressman, and you know full well the country is on an unsustainable fiscal and economic course. You look at the 2012 election as the last chance to turn the country around; and the country (expressed in terms of stupid people voting in large numbers) said, “We don’t want to turn around, we want to burn!”
You can see two predictable outcomes to this course; tyranny or collapse (probably one followed by the other).
Having reached that conclusion, your next rational course of action might be self-preservation. This can take the form of not antagonizing the people who are likely to be running the forthcoming tyranny. It might also mean making as much money as you can now to insulate yourself against collapse later.
If you look at the current behavior of the GOP as self-preservation in the face of imminent catastrophe, it makes perfect sense why they are submitting completely to the Democrats, and seeking to make as much money as they can off their big, rich donors. (Paul Ryan, especially, seems to be angling for a lucrative position at the US Chamber of Commerce.)