They want to kill the New Deal just as much as we want to save it.

[phantom power]

I view GOP policies like cutting funding for the USPS, public education, infrastructure maintenance, the arts, or hell basically anything except defense spending, as being strategically useful to them. Every time they defund social programs, it makes them less useful to people and it makes it easier for them to argue that "govt isn't effective." The failure of Dems to explain what's going on here and/or even colluding with them, is one of the great political failures of our age.

It's lately become a truism of sorts in progressive circles that conservatives don't really care about anything but keeping taxes low for rich people. I agree that it is a prime directive, but I'm not convinced that it's the only thing they care about. They have a very deep antipathy toward government for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that they believe it takes their money and gives it to people they dislike. (The fact that they benefit as well is irrelevant --- they believe they deserve it, those "others" don't.)

...

Wondering about how this fits into their historical patterns, I asked Rick Perlstein about it the other day. He agreed with Kilgore that they are confused and I think that's right. They are being offered things they should, by all rights, be thrilled to take. But they are afraid that by taking the president up on his offers to "reform entitlements" they'll lose the bigger argument. They're probably wrong about that --- degrading the social insurance programs will make them less reliable and less popular. But they aren't willing to take that risk. And I, for one, am grateful.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/they-want-to-kill-new-deal-just-as-much.html

[reformist2]

1. It's high time we added Social Security and Medicare amendments to the constitution.

I'm so tired of the Repugs tossing these basic rights around like political footballs. Sadly, amendments are the only way these jerks will understand.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. They're shills for the Plutocracy, nothing more. n/t