Shutdown! - the "Tea Party GOP" plays a dangerous game in a fragile economy

The Financial Times' Clive Crook weighs in on the GOP holding the country and the economy hostage to their destructive agenda:

Rep. Paul Ryan: "It sounds worse than it probably is."

Republicans in Congress are playing an outrageous game of brinkmanship over the budget for the current fiscal year.

Some Tea Party supporters happily contemplate a shutdown of government at the end of this week....

(W)ith the US labour market at a turning point, whatever Congress can do to undermine confidence and add to uncertainty, it is doing. Just as the private sector shows signs of reviving, Capitol Hill is threatening to drag it back down.

The danger is real because the recovery is fragile. The jobs figures were good but not great. With unemployment still high, employers can recruit at low wages, which will limit the growth of consumption. ...

It is too soon for an abrupt withdrawal of fiscal and monetary support, but that is what lies in prospect during the remainder of 2011...

The federal stimulus was big but, in the aggregate, fiscal support for the recovery has been modest. Now the federal stimulus is running down and many states are embarking on severe and immediate spending cuts and tax increases.

With fiscal policy turning contractionary in any event, Congress is squabbling over the current-year federal budget... It is an error to cut spending at all this year...Yet, with the economy poised between stagnation and recovery, this pointless quarrel might shut the government down.

In a democracy people are supposed to get the politicians they deserve. What on earth did Americans do to deserve these?

Via Brad DeLong.  Crook's entire piece HERE.