Since Obama was elected, the Republicans have staked their near term political future on pure obstructionism. This is not an opinion, but a fact-- Republicans from Mitch McConnell on down have openly admitted that they believe it is their role to block Obama and the Democrats from enacting what they believe to be dangerously bad policies.

What the Republicans do not openly admit is that they expect to be rewarded by the voters for their strategy. They figure that if nothing is accomplished now, the public will boot Obama from office in 2012 and elect one of them-- and also Republican majorities in both houses.

Their strategy has more or less worked so far. In previous legislative battles, the Republicans' obstructionism has not been as obvious to the ordinary voter as Democrats would have liked it to have been. Or, even worse for Democrats, the Republicans have gained outright approval for open obstructionism, as they have played the knight in shining armor saving the country from supposedly ruinous Democratic policies.

During the health care debate for example, few voters had the time nor the inclination to educate themselves on the details of various proposals. The issues involved were by necessity very complex and multi-faceted. It was easy for the Republicans to play on a natural fear of change, and they disguised their obstructionism by proposing half-measures.

And during debates on economic policies such as the stimulus, the Republicans could merely point at the current weak economy, and make the easy argument that the economy is weak because the President's policies have failed. They have had success hiding their obstructionism by arguing that they are merely blocking policies that have already failed.

But now, they've gotten a bit ahead of themselves.

In 2010, they won the House ahead of schedule, and, as a new majority feeling its oats, the new House leadership decided it was time to get into the "serious proposal" business. They've now come up with such a "serious proposal" on the budget--one that Obama could not possibly work with, obviously-- just to demonstrate how serious they are about fiscal responsibility and how unserious Obama is. They figured that any proposal that Obama could possibly come up with would look like weak tea when stacked up against their "bold" proposal.

But, unfortunately for them, they have made a serious blunder: they came up with a plan that is simultaneously easy to explain and plainly offensive to the average voter: the Republicans plan to eliminate Medicare, while simultaneously keeping the tax cuts for the rich.

The Republican have so far been able to convince a significant number of voters that keeping tax cuts for so called "job creators" has been necessary-- or they have at least escaped too much political damage from holding this position. But that was all before it was laid bare to people what these tax breaks were costing them.

That has just changed. Now, it is plain as day-- these tax breaks for the very rich are going to cost them the benefit of Medicare in their retirement-- a system they have dutifully paying into out of every paycheck, and are counting on being there when they retire.

That is going to be hard to swallow for a whole lot of people, liberal and conservative alike. People who have not opposed the tax cuts for the rich to date will be having a "Hey wait a minute" moment as the word gets out about this plan.

It's not just the optics of the Republican plan which are bad; the actual policy is plainly ridiculous. We had near full employment under Clinton when the Bush tax cuts for the rich were not in place-- and had near full employment in times when the top marginal rates were much much higher than under Clinton. And since those tax cuts for the rich were put in place, we have never been so near to full employment, nor have we ever come close to balancing a budget even during an economic expansion. Those tax cuts were never well targeted on job creation when they were conceived, never delivered jobs as promised, and are a key part of the chronic budget deficits we now face.

So, those tax cuts were pretty bad policy already. But now, we are going to eliminate Medicare to maintain that policy, when there's no evidence that those tax cuts have generated tons of jobs as advertised? And the tax cuts are so critical that they must be kept entirely off the table, and any discussion of rolling them back is a non-starter???

This dog won't hunt.





Erik W points out in the comments that the Ryan plan not only preserves the Bush tax cuts for the rich but piles on even more tax breaks for the rich-- a fact I somehow missed!