On climate change, the GOP is lost in never-never land (of course)

[G_j]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/on-climate-change-the-gop-is-lost-in-never-never-land/2011/04/15/AFVLN8vD_story.html?hpid=z3

On climate change, the GOP is lost in never-never land

Fred Hiatt, Friday, April 15, 2:37 PM

The Republican self-deception that draws the most attention is the refusal to believe that Barack Obama is American-born.

But there are Republican doctrinal fantasies that may be more dangerous: the conviction that taxes can always go down, but never up, for example, and the gathering consensus among Republican leaders that human-caused climate change does not exist.

<snip>

But it’s hard to debate blind faith. When President George W. Bush and Congress lowered taxes in 2001, the justification, unlikely as it seems today, was a budget surplus. When the surplus melted away, that didn’t affect the ideology. Surplus or deficit, peace or war, healthy growth or steep recession — anything is an argument for tax cuts.


You can get a taste of this illogical arithmetic in Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget. The Wisconsin Republican lays out some ideas worth discussing to control entitlement costs. But by refusing to acknowledge that revenue will ever have to rise, even as society ages, he ends up, as the Congressional Budget Office noted (though not in so many words), in fiscal never-never land.


..more..

[Richard D]

1. So strange to realize (yet again) . . .

. . . that the future of life on the planet is dependent on keeping the repukes out of office.