First, Do No Harm.

Yesterday, we looked at the complicated politics of trying to get Congress to agree to economically beneficial policies. In theory, it should make sense. No one wants the economy to suffer, and Republicans want lower corporate tax rates, so why not take President Obama's offer to lower rates, close loopholes, and invest in infrastructure (and job creation)?

Not so fast. Already, G-O-TEA opposition is building. The G-O-TEA looks to be as radically crazy as ever.

There Obama stands; still president, still trying, and still finding no serious partner with whom to bargain. But whereas the original grand bargain was truly sweeping in its ambitions, trading (too few) tax hikes for (too many) cuts to social insurance programs like Medicare and Social Security, this latest iteration of what some have called the president’s white whale is far more modest. And yet Republican resistance is, if anything, even firmer.

This time around, Obama is essentially asking to trade a cut to corporate tax rates in exchange for greater investment in jobs programs and public infrastructure. It’s a perfectly sensible deal, too, one in which each side gets something they’ve long wanted, and each side gives the other something they’d, in a perfect world, probably rather not. Needless to say, Republicans hate it. [...]

It’s therefore a big deal when the GOP shirks all responsibility for governing, mostly because they reject that November 2012 (or 2008, for that matter) ever happened. It’s a big deal when the litmus test for Republicanism becomes opposition to anything and everything one man attempts, with what’s best for the people coming a distant second. It’s a big deal when a party that runs 30 of 50 state governments behaves such that even sympathetically inclined commentators, like The New York Times’ Ross Douthat, call it more a faction than a real political party.

Here's the problem. The President is simply trying to govern. The House G-O-TEA faction, on the other hand, is still fighting past elections and engaging in dangerous ideological grandstanding. That's just no way to govern.

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House G-O-TEA "leaders" are now so blinded by Obama Derangement Syndrome that they're even rejecting the legacy of their supposed "Dear Leader". Yes, it's truly that bad. They're even resorting to mocking their own 2008 Presidential Nominee!

And of course, they're demanding yet another manufactured crisis. Even though it would be completely pointless, they're pursuing one nonetheless. It's infuriating that the G-O-TEA constantly gets in the way of Congress agreeing to anything that may help the economy. Can't they at least refrain from causing any more economic harm?