Our Political Future

Politics is crazy sometimes.  Economist's tell us that in the United States the areas of the country that are dominated by Republican's are also generally the areas of the country where they receive more federal tax dollars in benefits than they pay in taxes.  The areas of the country where people pay more taxes than they get back in benefits tend to the controlled by Democrats who want more taxes and spending.

Yet in Congress it is the Republican's who are wanting to cut and chop government spending and Democrats that are usually resisting.  The exception, of course, is defense spending.  Many Republican's regard our mind boggling levels of defense spending as untouchable.  At least here politics maybe makes some sense - it's my impression (haven't researched it)  the last round of military base closures 20 years ago ended with the bulk of the military bases being in Republican controlled states - I suspect that fact is a big part of why Republican states get more Federal dollars back than they pay out.

When we look at the negotiating positions of members of Congress on the approaching debt ceiling and, shortly thereafter, the deadline to impose 6% across the board federal spending cuts, we find it is the Republican members of Congress who represent areas of the country who will probably be hit the hardest by cuts in federal spending who are pushing the hardest for big cuts.  They are trying to steer the cuts toward social spending, but the fact is defense accounts for 50% of the spending our income taxes support.  Republicans controlled the agenda for most of the last couple decades and they have continually nibbled away at social programs, then turned around and lavished new money on defense and handed out tax cuts.  As a result of their policies to only path toward getting the country back toward a balanced budget involves either higher taxes or major cuts in defense, or start stealing money from the Social Security trust fund or Medicare.

What are their constituents going to think when the economy in Republican parts of the country get slammed by cuts in Federal spending?  Are the Republican's in Congress that confident in their ideological marketing that they think they can keep voters who vote their pocket book voting for them through (another) deep downturn?  Will Republicans trade ideological purity for irrelevance, as they have in California?