The Republican base has “gone mad,” according to one of the most brilliant economists of our time, Paul Krugman. He uses Speaker of the House, John Boehner’s resignation as the basis of his argument against GOP politics. Krugman is the go-to man when it comes to understanding our crazy economic-political world.
Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences and has taught at Yale, MIT and Harvard. Now, he is a professor at Princeton University. In his spare time, he has written 20 books and writes a weekly column for the New York Times.
Krugman wrote in his column that Boehner is fond of “know-nothing economics.” By that, the Speaker means that American families should tighten their belts while the government continues to spend freely.
Why would Boehner call for such a terrible economic plan? There are several theories:
- He genuinely believes in this economic strategy.
- Anything President Obama wants, he rejects.
- He was deliberately sabotaging our economy, because that is good for GOP politics and Republican elections.
It is difficult to imagine that the man third in line for the President, should something happen to both the President and Vice-President, would be so reckless with our economy. Unfortunately, Boehner has had to deal with the influx of far right-wingers into the House of Representatives. Nothing much worked, which is exactly the intent of the new-comers. After all, the GOP politics ran on reducing the government.
Not one to mince words, Krugman writes further about Boehner:
“…a terrible, very bad, no good speaker of the House. Under his leadership, Republicans pursued an unprecedented strategy of scorched-earth obstructionism, which did immense damage to the economy and undermined America’s credibility around the world.”
Boehner appeared to give in to the extremism of Tea Partiers in GOP politics, but that was not enough. They wanted blood – Boehner’s blood. Apparently, their constituents agreed, because a great cheer arose from the crowd when presidential candidate Marco Rubio announced Boehner’s resignation.
So why did Boehner quit? Well, he looked miserable every time the camera caught him. It wasn’t until he resigned, that the Speaker started singing in earnest, “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” The words continue:
“My oh my, what a wonderful day.”
Maybe, the GOP controversial political threat of a government shutdown over funding Planned Parenthood was just one battle too many for the orange man. Or just maybe, Boehner was tired of trying to manage the not-funny farm.
Featured image by Joe Penniston, via Flickr, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
