David Brooks Hammers Bobby Jindal & Mike Pence Says Crazy Things

Via Ben Smith, this clip of conservative pundit David Brooks laying into Bobby Jindal's speech last night is pretty astounding-- he calls the speech "stale," "insane," and "a disaster for the Republican Party:"

But he's right, of course. The people of Louisiana (who have perhaps benefitted more than the people of any other state from government spending in recent years) should be very concerned that their governor is liable to turn down funds from the stimulus package, or turn off the flow of other money coming from Washington.

These hackneyed old ideas about government spending being the problem are not only wrong-- in an economic climate like this, they're dangerous. Here's Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana making the same argument Jindal made, asking congress to "freeze federal spending."

If this were only one crazy congressman, I wouldn't be concerned, but these are the standard talking points of the right-- Jindal was saying essentially the same things last night.  It's alarming that the Republican Party is so obviously out of ideas that they've fallen back on suggesting we shut down the government to combat a recession.

UPDATE: Paul Krugman explains pretty well why this argument is so crazy. It's because there are, you know, things the government needs to do.  And then, at the end:

And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.

The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.