Paul Krugman on The GOP's Existential Crisis

Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman had an excellent column a few days ago make several significant points about the "fiscal cliff" and the GOP's strategy over the last thirty years and its future.  His whole write-up is worth reading (it's short), but here's his key points:

1. The "fiscal cliff" is not a debt crisis but a crisis of political will. In fact, "borrowing costs are near historic lows." In other words, if the fed wants to borrow it does not have a problem doing so. [That's a little simplistic since it doesn't the amount of accumulated cost and debt service already existing nor credit rating issues.]
2. The "fiscal cliff" negotiations are not realistic since the Republicans have offered, so far, no plan with real specifics. "They claim that they’re willing to raise $800 billion in revenue by closing loopholes, but they refuse to specify which loopholes they would close; they are demanding large cuts in spending, but the specific cuts they have been willing to lay out wouldn’t come close to delivering the savings they demand." That's true and nothing new.
3. "Since the 1970s, the Republican Party has fallen increasingly under the influence of radical ideologues, whose goal is nothing less than the elimination of the welfare state -- that is, the whole legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society. From the beginning, however, these ideologues have had a big problem: The programs they want to kill are very popular."
4. The Republican strategy has been (1) try to deprive the federal government of resources that would be used for social security, medicaid, and medicare [as well as federal regulatory agencies, which the Republican hierarchy and corporate sponsors generally hate], and (2) to play on white resentment. [For what little it's worth, I think he's dead on correct about both of these points.]
5. The strategies in (4) have failed [I think he's partially wrong about that -- they did not result in a Republican takeover but they did greatly boost that party] given the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the influence of the Hispanic vote, the Republican's failure reflected ultimately in the re-election of President Obama.
6. Due to the failure of its overall strategy "[t]he G.O.P. is lost and rudderless, bitter and angry, but it still controls the House and, therefore, retains the ability to do a lot of harm, as it lashes out in the death throes of the conservative dream."
7. He concludes: "Our best hope is that business interests will use their influence to limit the damage. But the odds are that the next few years will be very, very ugly."

He may be right about that. I think there is a small but meaningful chance that the Republican party will fracture. It is up to the Democrats to keep their perspective reasonable to consolidate their gains and to bring in the reasonable Republicans.