GOP's dangerous game

James Fallows flags an old NYT piece today that I meant to link to earlier as well about how Republicans are ruining our country.

[T]he short version is: Since winning control of the House, the Republican leadership has been brilliantly successful in convincing some of the public, enough of the news media, and at crucial points the Obama Administration that the main threat to America is future deficits. Thus the debt-ceiling collision; thus the agreed-on cutbacks; thus the frenzy through these past few months about deficit projections.

James is right, it should be read in full, but this bit explains how to repair the economy.

Meanwhile, what business people, ratings agencies, financiers, investors, central bankers, and even most Republican economists (with a predictable exception) consider the real emergencies for the country -- stagnant growth, very high unemployment, the prospect of worldwide recession yet again, which among other bad effects would drive deficits even higher -- will only get worse because of the new austerity drive.

Instead, these critics say, Washington should be focusing on stimulating the economy in the near term to induce people to spend money and create jobs, while settling on a long-term plan for spending cuts and tax increases to take effect only after the economy recovers.

Of course, the DFH community has been saying this for literally years now, but no one listens to hippies so they won't get any credit if anyone takes this advice. Nonetheless, it's good this narrative is finally building in "serious" circles.