Enter
competitors bring to the game.
But what happens when one
of the wrestlers, mid-clutch,
abruptly relents, disengages and
steps away? His rival, unprepared for the sudden disappearance of equal pressure, might
well stumble forward and sprawl
all over the ring in embarrassing fashion. The referee might
disqualify the wrestler who quit,
giving the stumblebum athlete
the “win” by forfeit, but both
wrestlers end up looking pathetic and weird.
That’s the image I think about
when I read Josh Barro’s Business
Insider piece on how the GOP
managed to make “both parties
stupid on infrastructure.” Barro’s
argument is that with Republicans all but refusing to engage
in the debate on infrastructure,
the “optimal policy” is not being
realized, and Democrats are left
“fear[ing] that if they don’t
defend wasteful, ill-conceived
rail projects, they won’t get
any at all.”
Per Barro:
Republicans ought to be providing a healthy skepticism
about government projects —
attention to cost-effectiveness,
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
HUFFINGTON
06.16.13
awareness of opportunity cost,
recognition that sometimes
government actions produce
unintended consequences. But
a healthy skeptic sometimes
conducts those evaluations
and still says “yes” — which is
why people take him seriously
The obvious preference
is to have a debate between
two responsible, intelligent
parties, operating in good
faith opposition.”
when he says “no.” Republicans
have shifted from skepticism
to pure obstinacy, fighting at
every turn against government
solutions, which is why their
(somwetimes perfectly valid)
critiques of government action
lack credibility.
Barro notes that “this dynamic
is not limited to infrastructure.”
In turn, I’ll point out that this observation is not limited to Barro.
Let’s recall Thomas E. Mann and
Norman J. Ornstein, writing last
April for the Washington Post,
providing a better sports metaphor than mine: