Republicans to Wage 30-Year Budget War

By Jonathan Chait

Since Republicans took control of Congress in the 2010 elections, they have provoked a series of budget crises, all justified by what they claimed was the extraordinary, Greece-esque threat of a runaway budget deficit. The shrinking of the budget deficit has made it harder and harder to rationalize the hair-on-fire mania required to justify threats like refusing to raise the debt ceiling.

I’ve been wondering how Republicans in Congress would acknowledge this development. The answer seems to be: by moving the goalposts back. Waaaay back — like, another twenty years back. Manu Raju and John Bresnahan report that the latest hang-up is that Senate Republicans are demanding that budget talks use a 30-year timeline. (Keep in mind that the Senate is the “moderate” of the congressional GOP — House Republicans aren’t even talking to Obama.)