What Republicans Dream

David Brooks conjures up a Republican wet dream. With their theories destroyed and the results crashing over us, the Republicans have decided to bet that the typhoon they conjured up will overwhelm Obama (and America) and give them a chance to rule the wreckage.

Economists and policy makers had no way to peer into this darkness. Their methods were largely based on the assumption that people are rational, predictable and pretty much the same. Their models work best in times of equilibrium. But in this moment of disequilibrium, behavior was nonlinear, unpredictable, emergent and stubbornly resistant to Keynesian rationalism.

The failure to generate a recovery led to a collapse of public confidence. President Obama’s promises of 3.5 million jobs now seemed a sham and his former certainty a delusion. The political climate grew more polarized. That meant it was impossible to tackle entitlement debt. That and the economic climate meant it was impossible to raise taxes or cut spending or do anything to reduce the yawning deficits. Federal deficits were 15 percent of G.D.P. and growing.


Obama offered the Republicans a hand, and they tried to knife it, but I think that he, and the Democrats, have a gun or two for this fight.

So what would have happened if three Republicans had not conveniently provided the critical margin on today's vote? My guess: the S&P drops 150 points in an hour, and the screams of their wealthy patrons wake the Republicans up - but probably too late to prevent the really big world crash.

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