Republicans treating gut-shot economy with styptic pen

Protein Wisdom has been on a tear all week about the failure of the Republican leadership to tackle, head-on, the crucial need for entitlements reform (including the absolute necessity of dismantling ObamaCare). True, the GOP understandably doesn’t want to get stuck with “owning” some of the tough choices that have to be made, and there are limits to what Republicans can accomplish while they control just the House of Representatives. But the drop-in-the-bucket cuts which are a feature of the (apparently) endless series of continuing resolutions do little to address the massive underlying problem: government’s condemnation of this and future generations to indentured servitude in order to pay for things the country can’t afford. The small nicks to the federal budget we’ve seen so far are increasingly being viewed as empty symbolism – as evidenced by the refusal of some of the new conservative congressmen to back the most recent continuing resolution. It is inconceivable to me that Republicans who are trembling like hunted rabbits because of what they see as the potential political fallout from a government shut-down are going to turn into entitlement-devouring lions when (they hope) they take back the senate and the White House.

Even a legislative majority isn’t going to make a fiscal rescue policy palatable to large numbers of people, as we have seen recently in Wisconsin. Yet there, the governor was willing to do the right thing, no matter what the future electoral consequences – which, you know, may well turn out to be positive, if the groundswell of concern over the irresponsible overreach of government and its mercenaries is genuine.

We might as well go ahead and find out what kind of country we are, and what kind we want to be, so the GOP leadership ought to stop bragging about how bold they’re all going to be tomorrow, weather permitting, and start stepping up their aggressiveness now.

P.S. And please tell me that the current leads held by Huckabee and Romney in preference polls are mostly about name recognition. If there is a god of politics, he’s eventually going to take umbrage at our willingness to offer up sacrifices of such inferior cattle.