Short and sweet, David Atkins breaks the Republican economic strategy behind their lies into its four stages: the Grand Lie. It's a model of accuracy, brevity, and clarity. I'm taking the liberty of quoting the core of it because it's a great resource. Whatever you hear from a Republican on budget proposals, this is what lies behind their rhetoric. This is what they are really doing:
1) Claim that jobs and economic growth depend on tax cuts, especially on the wealthy. Claim that any cuts will pay for themselves. Both of these are lies, and everyone serious in public policy knows it.
2) When revenues dwindle and deficits explode as they have under every Republican President since Nixon, blame "welfare" (a lie) and "spending" (another lie.)
3) Let Democrats be the ones to take responsible measures to bring deficits back under control by sacrificing their own programs. Don't take responsibility for "starving the beast": let Democrats do it instead, and then blame them for it.
4) When good economic times and minor tax boosts bring both the economy back to health and the deficit back in line, tell people that the government has too much money, and that they should "get more of their money back." This is an intentional strategy to drive up the deficit, forcing more cuts later.
Bookmark it, share it, save it somehow because you will never hear anyone in the mainstream media admit this
even though everyone knows it is true (with the possible exceptions of people like Paul Krugman, Matt Taibbi, Bernie Sanders and others not afraid to talk openly about the elephant in the room with no clothes, to mangle a couple of metaphors).
It's a con game. Even now Mitch McConnell is calling for tax 'reform' as long as it's coupled with 'reform' of entitlements "which as we all know are driving our deficit." This is how class war is done.
Thank you Mr. Atkins - now if only we can get the White House and the Democrats in Congress on down to memorize this and act accordingly, maybe then we might avoid the charade of a Grand Bargain that just advances the GOP strategy.
No more "This time they'll see reason." No more "Hey, we're all in this together, right?" No more "I'm sure they mean well and we can find common ground." The biggest advantage con men have is to be taken at face value. No one should take anything coming out of the right wing seriously. (Hell - the only way they could run Romney was by attacking anyone who DID try to take anything he said seriously.) Don't listen to what they say - all you have to do is look at their record and don't get fooled again.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me time and time again over 30+ years - well just call me a Very Serious Person and a centrist.
Read the whole thing (it's short) and pass it on. Atkins calls this sabotage, and it's hard to think of a better word.