I tend to agree with Steve Benen that the Republicans have finally fallen off the cliff and lost the debate on the economy:

GOP Whip Eric Cantor … accused Democrats of “overreacting” to the economic crisis by embarking on a federal spending spree. The Virginia Republican, speaking to reporters at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast Thursday morning, praised Rush Limbaugh for his “ideas” and for avoiding the Democratic error of “overreacting, as they often will, to crisis.”

Steve reacts better than I could:

As Cantor explained, the minority party is worried about “overreacting.” Where most sensible people see a global, generational economic crisis, one of the leaders of the Beavis and Butthead Party see a regular ol’ downturn. No wonder the GOP rejects the very idea of stimulating the economy, reforming the regulatory system, and addressing the pitfalls that created the crisis. As far as Cantor & Co. are concerned, there is no crisis.

Because I used to be a right-of-center type, I frequently get into this caution vs. bold action debate with people. To sum up my thinking on the matter, I generally think that fiscal responsibility, constrained spending and balanced budgets can be laudable goals during times of growth and prosperity. It is when government is flush with cash that some of the worst decisions are made and government leaders need to be constrained from spending themselves into a destructive stupor.

However — and this is the crucial element that is missing in the current mindlessness inhabiting the GOP — during times of severe financial crisis, a lot of the reasonable, “common sense” notions about spending, taxes, and government action become destructive and counterproductive.

To illustrate this, let’s just look to a fundamental tenet of freshman-level economics. When a severe recession hits, the big driver behind it always is a huge crater in consumer spending. In order to shorten the duration of the recession, government needs to step in and fill the crater with spending of its own.

What’s the best thing you can do in a severe recession? Stimulate the economy with government spending.

What’s the absolute, undeniably worst you can do in a severe recession? Freeze Spending.

The GOP of today has, like all political movements before it, calcified to the point where only unyielding dogma and ideology remain. The fever pitch of lying, insanity and irrationality is only going to get worse before it gets better (see, e.g., Rep. Michele Bachmann’s lunatic fight about replacing the dollar as our currency). It’s not that we’re even debating policy points anymore. We are simply faced with an entire wing of our political class that is fundamentally unserious.

Now, don’t think I’m just all giddy with delight over the GOP’s self-immolation. I believe a strong minority party is good for America. However, when that minority party is two steps away from locking themselves away in a compound and poisoning themselves to hasten the Rapture, thinking people don’t have much to engage with. Although it probably won’t happen for a long while, I look forward to the day when they decide to become serious again and come back to the table with rational solutions.