Sullivan keeps holding out for a sane Republican party, which is causing him to lose his sanity and pen things like this:
One tiny part of me hoped that after the GOP spending binge of the Bush years, and the alleged Tea Party commitment to turn the page on growing government, the Republicans, like the Tories in Britain, would run on a clear platform of massive spending cuts to reassure the markets of long term fiscal stability.
What does this even mean, “reassure the markets.” I’d give them a damned reach-around if it would bring a booming economy, but what kind of nonsense talk is this? Haven’t we gone through months of being bent over by the markets who were worried about inflation, and it turns out… the “market” was wrong about that, too?
You know what? Screw the damned markets. How about we start crafting economic policy that makes sense for Americans, and the market thing will take care of itself. How about we get people back to work so they can start spending and investing and saving, rather than worrying about the fee-fees of our “producers” on Wall Street. I’ve got a basic premise here I’m working off of- if more people are working, more people are buying shit and paying taxes, the market will be just fine.