Manufacturing A Loss

Laura Conaway at Maddowblog has a point:  Why should the GOP lift a finger to help the unemployed when they will be rewarded at the polls when nothing improves?

The Federal Reserve predicts the jobless rate will stay above 9 percent for all of next year and above 8 percent for 2012. That's bad news in general for Americans, and maybe very bad news for one President Barack Obama. Ezra Klein suggests unemployment rate might be the only number that really matters.

Americans appear to favor government spending to stimulate job growth. Republican lawmakers, not so much -- and why should they? If you want to make President Obama a one-termer, as incoming House Speaker John Boehner certainly does, keep more people out of work.

And that's a massive problem.  Republicans not only know that you know they'll gain from blocking any and every effort to help unemployment, but they don't care that you know.  And they don't care that you know because you don't care that they gain if unemployment remains high:  it's all Obama's fault.

So yes, if there's a message from the 2010 election, it's that the voters reward irrational actors.  GOP's counting on you doing it, or at least getting so disgusted with the system that you no longer care to participate in it, which is perfectly fine with them.

Chalk up yet another who understands the GOP Plan.