All Aboard the Crazy Train?

We've discussed this many times before. Investment begets growth. We need more investment in our communities if we want more economic growth.

Yet despite this basic common sense, G-O-TEA Congresscritters on vacation are now threatening to shut down the government and wreak (even more) economic havoc on the nation if they don't get their way. And vof course, they're (again) demanding millions of Americans be stripped of health care access.

Yep, it's really that bad.

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Yep, they're still trying to destroy Obamacare (aka the Affordable Care Act, or ACA). And not only are they trying to destroy already settled health care law, but they also want to crash the entire federal government and global economy in the process! Not only are G-O-TEA Congresscritters not "tired of the drama", but they want even more this fall.

So why can't they just do what the rest of us do and DVR some silly "reality" TV shows for their drama fix? Why are they insisting on such epic political obstruction and economic destruction? Jonathan Chait has an explanation, and he may be onto something.

The fratricidal Republican conflict du jour is whether Congress ought to shut down the government unless President Obama agrees to end Obamacare. Tea-party activists are confrontingRepublicans in town halls, and conservative organizations aremobilizing behind Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and other shut-it-down conservatives. Establishment Republicans are flaying them as suicidal.

But the terms of this intramural debate are so extreme that the premises left intact are still highly crazy. The position of the Establishment Republicans — the non-suicidal ones who maintain at least some grasp of the practical limits of their power — is that a government shutdown may fail, but all other measures to attack Obamacare are fully justified. In particular, the party remains fully committed, without dissent, to a full-on boycott of any measures to help the law function in any way. [...]

The Republicans’ Obamacare boycott will increasingly render the party useless for an expanding list of constituencies. Yet the Obamacare boycott remains a policy of universal agreement within the party. If conservatives are spilling blood on the floor over whether to shut down the government in a futile attempt to coerce Obama to repeal his own signature law, just imagine what’s going to happen when Republicans eventually abandon their boycott.

They're hell-bent on making Obamacare fail. So now, they're willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. And apparently, that even includes federal government shutdown, economic catastrophe, and political suicide.

But wait, do all these Republicans really want to commit mass political suicide? This is why some have started to jump off the "Defund Obamacare" Crazy Train. It remains to be seen if Senator Dean Heller (R-Crazy Train to Crazytown) will ever really want off.