I think the backlash that the GOP is facing right now is entirely due to the fact that they speak the language of big goverment social engineering, and the normal people speak from a common sense perspective.
To normal tax paying americans means Cutting waste, means getting rid of overtime, freezing salaries until the economy recovers, reducing redundant computer systems. We want a more effective management style.
But if you remove a program that they depend on for an expected quality of life to the point that it no longer functions, for ideological reasons, you miss the point of what a normal conservative mind considers "reducing costs".
People still want their fruit inspected. They just want the division run more efficiently from an operational perspective. We have all had to get licenses or permits, and its maddening to see a gov't employee work at the speed of snail when you are jumping through hoops and dashing to your second job.
Medicare, medicaid, and social security were created because the costs to society of NOT having these programs was more expensive than they are.
I think getting rid of certain programs within the Gov't for the GOP has become almost dogmatic and religious in nature, and the tea baggers are the fundamentalists of their religiophilosophy.
Cuts in spending means there is less money in circulation and less jobs for everyone. IT puts people with ten years experience in competition with the unemployed at a time when education funding is also being cut. We are creating a younger class of citizens with no hope of competing.
The short and long term costs of that effect on our economy are incalculable.
Economics is like meteorology. You are dealing with fractal systems so complex , with variables so unpredictable that forecasts become instinctive to the individual.
When ALL of them agree on something? That is generally when you know an economic tsunami is heading your way, because it hardly ever happens.
There are no economists out there that are saying that these spending cuts without revenue increases will work. The GOP ignores that as it ignores global warming. It has a vested interest in playing intelectual possum.
