DEFICITS are ESSENTIAL to the Republican agenda
One thing we should never forget -- and the public should be made fully aware of -- is the long term Republican goal to (in the words of Grover Norquist) shrink government to the size that can be drowned in a bathtub. What does this mean? It means dismantling FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Great Society, and all other aspects of the federal government social safety net. It means killing Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, et al.
The problem (for Republicans) is those programs are successful and popular. A political party running on a platform to eliminate Social Security & Medicare would lose, so they need a different strategy. Republicans may seem stupid and/or crazy, but they're smart enough to know those programs will exist as long as there is funding to keep them going. So they have to dry up the funding, and that means one thing: Huge. Budget. Deficits.
Just look at federal deficits over the last 30+ years, and how they have skyrocketed under Republican presidents and been reduced by Democrats. Most people who are aware of this think the R's subscribe to faulty economic theories that have different results than anticipated.
But, given their actual agenda and what is necessary to achieve it, we have to consider those results -- skyrocketing deficts -- are exactly what they anticipated when they repeatedly lowered taxes while increasing military spending and launching costly wars of choice.
Republicans are not the deficit hawks they portray on TV. They have a long term agenda and will do whatever is necessary to achieve it. It makes little difference whether their motivation is ideological or dictated by their corporate masters; their agenda and their strategy must be exposed and stopped. They are using budget deficits the same way they are using the government shutdown & threat of default -- to implement an agenda that cannot be achieved in the light of day through the normal electoral and legislative process.
This is a potential turning point in our nation's history. We must not lose this battle, but to win it we have to know their strategy and their end game. Their goal is not to reduce budget deficits; their goal is to dismantle the social safety net that has served the Americam people for generations.
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It's funny how Republicans never really fall all over themselves saying how much they will cross the aisle to work with Democrats.
I wonder why that is?!?! 
Elected Democrats aren't stupid; too many are bought and paid for hand-picked agents for the plutocrats (often BEFORE the general election to elect them even occurs).
