According to the "Beavis and Butthead Party" no economic problem is too big that a little greed and tax cuts can't solve.

"I call you my base."

Remember who George W. Bush smugly said that to.

Don't forget, the Republican Party might have sold their soul to the freaky Christian right, but they're still beholden to the privilaged class who have no idea there is an economic crisis.

I do worry that Cantor's 'alternative universe'-- where there's no economic crisis, where tax cuts increase revenue, where a federal spending freeze is a rational response to cratering demand-- is going to be treated as a respectable 'on the other hand' opinion by the Bethesda-beside-the-Beltway villagers... rather than the "Insult, I'd like you to meet injury" counterfactual it actually is.

when you're rich and Republican, there's never a financial crisis. sure, you lose a little bit of money (unless you invested with Bernie Madoff) but otherwise, it's only less millions or, worse, less billions you have. you'll make it back up on the inevitable upswing.

http://moravings.blogspot.com

The whole idea that we could be "overreacting" could only come from a politician who's hedge fund is shorting absolutely everything so he is making money as our economy declines.

For every American who has lost a job, lost their healthcare, lost their home, and lost their savings, the majority party has a simple message:

Get a job! Losers! If you ever happen to get rich, become Republican so we can start paying attention to you. Right now, you're just a bunch of ground noise and static.

No economic crisis? Mr. Cantor, drive down Route 1 through Prince William County, Virginia, just outside the Beltway. One boarded up business after another. It looks like a war zone.

In order for tax cuts to have any stimulative effect whatsoever you first need jobs.

Reading and listening to what Eric Cantor says should make us all grateful to the Yiddish language for providing us with such fitting descriptors as "putz" and "schmuck." He personifies both words.

I think he ought to suspend his campaign and return to Washington and "straighten this mess out"

Cantor's statement makes sense from a Republican point of view.

Many people have argued home prices need to fall to make things right in the economy. And if you are looking to buy property or a home this will work to your advantage.

There is a segment of the GOP that believes U.S. businesses will be more successful if labor costs go down. And high unemployment theoretically will drive labor costs down.

Part of the GOP solution to making U.S. businesses more competitive is to drive down what American workers get paid.

The Democrats should make sure the media explains this. It's also helpful for understanding the GOP approach to healthcare. Workers without health care are more desperate and willing to work for less.

Americans being without health care isn't a bug for the GOP, it's a major feature of their economic system.

No surprise here - to the free-market ideologues, (a) the banks never really wanted to be bailed out - Bush and Obama forced money down their throats and (b) doing nothing is the best way to deal with the recession, it will recover by next year anyway.

Cantor obviously has been spending too much time with those ideologues in between Britney Spears concerts.

So business owners are over-reacting by firing too many people.

Out here in Wa State our liberal legislature is over-reacting by considering doing away with certain programs: witness protection, screening for typical age related diseases, which are treatable if caught early, after school tutoring in math.

All of this is caused by consumers and businesses over-reacting by not spending money which generates tax revenue.

If you crybabies think bringing up joblessness, foreclosed homes and other depressing news is the way to get voters excited about you, go for it.

Cantor has a better idea of what Americans want: solid, positive action without all the drama.

It's going to be awful to be you guys in 2010.

Republican motto: If I ain't broke, don't fix it.

Cantor also said, “I don't remove the prospect that we would take the majority back in 2010."

Seriously?

They live in some alternative universe, where everybody gets a pony.

Pretty rich from the people whose idea for dealing with terrorism is to throw out the Constitution and create a global system of concentration camps.

You missed the best quote:

You just asked me if I think we can take over the House. I think [the budget] plays into that as the country sees the unfolding of the Obama agenda... There's going to be a lot of rejection by the American people in increasing the size government in every aspect.. [Those] is tired policies of the past [sic]. [Emphasis added.]

A Republican Congressman having the chutzpah to whine about "tired policies of the past"?! The mind boggles.

"If you crybabies think bringing up joblessness, foreclosed homes and other depressing news is the way to get voters excited about you, go for it.

Cantor has a better idea of what Americans want: solid, positive action without all the drama.

It's going to be awful to be you guys in 2010."

This is a joke, right? It sounds like a Chappelle skit. "that shit is depressing, no one want to think about reality."

Republicans, proving again they are the party of illusions.

You could also use this to say, wait, so republicans are the voice of....hope? not pessimism and fear? I've heard that before....and said to be a bad thing...

"Doing too much has huge, huge pitfalls as well," he said.

This actually makes sense, if you're considering doing anything a Republican proposes.

Unfortunately Geithner's half-steps allow Republican proved-wrong cliches to stay alive.

The GOP used to own the pithy, visceral messages, while Dems struggled to communicate nuance to the electorate and got nailed as we needlessly complicated simple messages.

Now Republicans fall all over each other competing to say the clueless thing that's most likely to offend the greatest number of Americans in the least number of words. McCain was a contender with his "fundamentals of the economy are strong" line and inability to remember how many houses he owns. But Cantor has just taken a solid lead.

Wait till the pain really starts.

But what if you are Eric Cantor, and you've bet the farm that the President's economic policies are going to fail, but you are faced with fresh information that the economy might be turning the corner? How to prevent the Obama administration from getting any credit? You pretend that it was never really that bad, and there never was any reason for a stimulus bill, or additional regulation?

Does Cantor look anything like Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House, just before he's flattened?

"Remain calm! ALL IS WELL!!"

I've got it, the GOP are The Dangerous Brothers- as their premise falls apart, they desperately try to sell the idea that this weeks thrilling episode is about "nothing". Start watching at 2:00.

Here's hoping they jump in with both feet on this one.

The Republicans do have a strategy - the same strategy that's brought us to the present crisis: let the kleptocrats and oligarchs continue to gorge themselves and suck the economy dry, impoverishing the rest us and turning America into just another authoritarian banana republic.

Steve Benen wrote: "Why have Republicans refused to take the economic crisis seriously?"

On the contrary, the Republicans see the economic crisis as a very serious opportunity for their ultra-rich white-collar-crook corporate cronies to enrich themselves through "disaster capitalism". Think of the crisis as an economic Hurricane Katrina, and the whole country as New Orleans, and you've got the basic idea.

Steve Benen wrote: "Why have they offered the same tired, failed economic ideas they've been spouting for decades?"

Because the Republicans' "economic ideas" are not "failed" -- on the contrary they have proved highly successful for decades at enriching and empowering their ultra-rich white-collar-crook mega-polluter war-profiteer corporate cronies at the expense of, and to the detriment of, everyone else.

The Republicans are not crazy. The Republicans are not stupid -- although they are counting on large numbers of Americans being stupid enough to fall for their lies.

What the Republicans are doing is exactly what the have done for generations: they are practicing ruthless, relentless, rapacious class warfare on behalf of America's Ultra-Rich Ruling Class, Inc. against everyone else. The economic crisis is just one more battle in their ongoing war to establish the absolute dominance of a tiny, ultra-rich, hereditary minority over a population of impoverished, indentured, insecure cheap-labor serfs.

Shorter Cantor:
"Suck it up, you nation of whiners!"

"...praised Rush Limbaugh for his 'ideas'..."

Careful, Eric. You might get a bad case of anal poisoning.

The Virginia Republican, speaking to reporters at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast Thursday morning, praised Rush Limbaugh for his "ideas" and for avoiding the Democratic error of "overreacting, as they often will, to crisis." He went on to criticize Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's recent statement that the biggest danger was "doing too little" to deal with the meltdown. "Doing too much has huge, huge pitfalls as well," he said.

Ironic that these are the same pants-wetting hysterics who bleated that the entire world changed on 9/11. No concerns about overreacting or the pitfalls of doing too much when they invaded Iraq, I see.....

Let's face it: there's one party these days that's know for cool, collected rationalism, and it isn't the GOP.

Eric Cantor is the result of decades of GOP denigration of science, expertise and learning in general and preference for surface and style over substance. He is a truly and deeply ignorant man who thinks showboating his ignorance is the road to success.

What he and his ilk seem not to realize is that George W. Bush poisoned that well for a generation. People, particualrly younger people, want competence and pragmatism. A party devoted to the glorification of superstition and biblical literalism has nothing to offer to people today who do not share that vision.

Everytime you see Eric Cantor, remember this; he is likely to be the next leader of the GOP in the House (some might argue he already is and Boner's just his figurehead). He is the best and brightest the GOP has to offer.

It'd be sad if I wasn't laughing so hard.

You gotta love republican logic. They just have a knee jerk reaction against every single thing that the democrats try to do. They are quite simply the party of no. They have no good ideas and they say no to everything the democrats try to fix. They are a joke. All I can think of when I think republican is that video of Ted Stevens scraming NO!!!!

People, particualrly younger people, want competence and pragmatism

They do now. But when the shit really hits the fan, they'll want scapegoats, and easy answers.

And then the GOP comes into its own.

Eric Cantor is a smarmy, whiny piece of shit. Along with Norm Coleman and Linda Lingle. They make me ashamed to be Jewish.

' As Cantor explained, the minority party is worried about "overreacting." '

The minority party isn't worried about jack crap. They have their marching orders. Keep talking about the stimulus not working, "it's not working, it's not working, Mr. President, it's not working WE HAVE TO STOP NOW IT'S NOT WORKING"...until it starts working. Then they'll change their tune to "yeah, well, WE would've done it faster and cheaper, why didn't you listen to us? It's like you WANTED to drag this out." And then, if all else fails, remember: Obama is a Muslim. And a fascist. Possibly gay.

Meanwhile, the fundraising goes on (as it is even in this sh!tty economy, not as well as years' past, but it still beats a real job). Will they make more money once they're in power and can rewrite laws to their sole benefit? Sure. But they're not starving now. They're fine. It's all a show to these schnozzles, and they loves the spotlight.

Didn't Hank Paulson get the ball rolling by grossly overreacting? The Democrats just fell in line.

Gee.

I guess that Cantor would be saying that "The Democrats" overreacted to the bombing of Pearl Harbor by throwing tons of money at the problem, wouldn't he?

Oh, wait. He MIGHT have been one of the Republicans who felt that there was no problem spending unlimited amounts of money on "The Military." (Not all Republicans supported the war against aggressive fascist nations, as I recall.) Spending money on expanding and deploying massive armed forces is not the same as spending money on the most important economic resource America has, protecting its workforce and helping them return to jobs, is it?

Is it that the wealthy oilmen, Wall Street bankers, and other wealthy elites who control American politics can profit from expansion of the armed forces (or maintaining the current bloated military spending) and they can't make a similar profit off of recovery from the economic disaster they have created? That might be the answer, since all the rational answers to the Wall Street-created economic crisis involve things like stopping crooked bankers from skimming 45% of all the profit made last year from GDP. That, and reducing the cost of education to workers and potential workers while making it easier to avoid Medical-emergency induced bankruptcy, along with cutting super-expensive not aimed at any real threat weapons systems (F35) are certainly a large part of the set of solutions that Obama is attempting to implements.

(Mind you, as a resident of Fort Worth and a real fan of military aviation, I'd hate to see the F35 actually cut. But, other than the local employment it supports and the air force pilots it will provide careers for, I can't see a valid justification for it except to spend massive amounts of money to prove America has the most powerful air force in the world.)

It's unclear, though, who else he might have been referencing.

He was referring to the GOP and the neoconservatives and the Bush Administration on September 12th 2001. - and pretty much any other day after that.