Republicans playing a very dangerous game

Our government is in dire financial shape, yet Republicans refused to go along with a bipartisan commission to cut the debt - even though it was their idea in the first place! The commission was proposed in Congress and co-sponsored by seven Republican senators who nonetheless voted against it recently. It's unbelievable. (Editor's note: President Obama on Wednesday used an executive order to create such a commission.)

Former Republican Senate leader Alan Simpson of Wyoming said, “There isn't a single member of Congress - not one - that doesn't know exactly where we're headed. And to use the politics of fear and division and hate on each other - we are at a point right now where it doesn't make a damn whether you're a Democrat or a Republican if you've forgotten you're an American.”

Republicans have made the cynical calculation that the best way to get back into power is to render America ungovernable, cause the collapse of our government and then step in as saviors to the mess they've engineered. It's an ugly tactic that has worked in other places and times - the Weimar Republic, to name one. And just like Germany in the 1930s, a small minority would be swept into power.

It is a very dangerous game they're playing.

Russ McCarthy

Tiffin