“The victory against the omnibus spending bill is so important because it allows Republicans to make a change to spending quicker,” Norquist said. Passage “would have been devastating to morale, and to the voters.”

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute said that the “complete failure of the stimulus package” showed that “deficit spending isn’t good for growth.”

Norquist said the GOP has to do the right thing for the economy, even at the risk that Obama could try to take the credit for a stronger recovery. He said that it would be easy for Republicans to convince voters that their cuts were the cause of the renewed growth.

But how about all those rosy economic projections as a result of the Bush/Obma tax cit "stimulus"?

[E]conomists interviewed by The Hill said they would need to know more about the possible spending cuts to estimate their effects.

[Mark] Zandi said that he was not prepared to estimate the economic effects of deep spending cuts without seeing the details first, but after the middle of 2011, he said, recovery should be strong enough to withstand reduced federal purchasing power. [. . .] If Republicans go after grants to state and local governments, however, that could cause some economic damage, Zandi said. State aid from the 2009 stimulus act is set to dry up by July, so any further cuts could cause massive and sudden downsizing at the state level, he argued.

Gee, you think? But here is my favorite:

Maya MacGuineas of the New America Foundation, who has been working with a bipartisan group of senators on deficit-cutting legislation to be introduced next year, said that while cuts in 2011 are not ideal, there is enough waste in the budget to include them without hurting the recovery.

Hmm, somehow "wasteful" spending does not add to aggregate demand for some reason according to MacGuineas.

We are ruled by idiots.

Speaking for me only