If, like me, you are puzzled by the anti-democratic obduracy of the Republicans in the US Senate, then this post by Mark Anderson may strike a chord.

As I have watched the first year of the current administration unfold, I have increasingly wondered if all of this, at a thirty thousand foot level, is a result of a simple GOP plan first outed long ago, and spoken of frequently during the Bush Era. Called “starve the beast,” it is a much-discussed strategy of spending the US into oblivion while in power, so that the following party has no dry ammunition with which to carry out its programs. Carried further, it suggests a gluttony of spending while in power, so that services, and the government itself, is forced into contraction.

The last administration spent more money from current funds, and indebted us more deeply into the future, than any in history. Was it all just bad management and fake wars? Or was it as intellectually simple and negative as the current GOP refusal to vote for any single bill? It’s a simple strategy. Did it work?