Quote:But just what is the current Republican business model? It really resembles the business model of the Washington Generals, an exhibition basketball team. The job of the Generals is to play second fiddle to the Harlem Globetrotters. There is logic in this.

Losing is not a bad deal if the the loser’s purse is bigger than the expected value of the winners pay packet outside the deal. Since it is the Globetrotters, not the Generals, that drive the total size of the revenue, it makes sense to accept second-best. The bigger the audience the Globetrotters attract the bigger the losers’ purse of the Washington Generals. It is rational for the Generals to aim for a smaller slice of as long as the Trotters keep growing the pie.

The pie in Washington DC is the size of the Federal Government, which the Republicans, avowedly the party of small government, cannot grow or grow as quickly as the Democrats. It makes sense to enter into a symbiotic relationship where like the Globetrotters, the Democrats will tirelessly expand the size of the Federal Government so that even if the GOP only gets to sit its turn 40% of the time, the feast is over an expended empire of spoils. The losers’ pay packet is pretty good.


The post World War II era has been a golden age of government spending, and it shows no sign of ending. Although spending dropped back to 21 percent of GDP immediately after WWII, it steadily climbed thereafter until it hit a peak of 36 percent of GDP in the bottom of the recession of 1980-82. Thereafter government spending chugged along in the mid 30s until the mortgage meltdown of 2008. In the aftermath of bank and auto bailouts, government spending surged to wartime levels at 45 percent of GDP. The mortgage emergency seems to have ratcheted out-year spending up a notch. Near term government spending in the future is pegging at 40 percent of GDP.

The reason why the GOP business model is in crisis is that the audience is beginning to suspect the game is fixed. Nobody can plausibly run on “Republican principles” any more. Pledges to cut the bloated bureaucracy, close the borders to illegal immigration or put a stop to endless expansion have a ring of insincerity. Ticket sales are slumping. And the Trotters aren’t even pretending to take the Generals seriously.
~more~