Republican response to Obama’s overtures makes a grim kind of sense. Given the ballooning budget deficit and failure of tax cuts under their watch, the Republicans have no ideological integrity. So in the absence of a clear alternative or coherent leadership, they have decided to distance themselves from the entire project. They have calculated that if the stimulus package works, Obama will get the credit anyway. And if it doesn’t, they don’t want to be associated with it. It’s not constructive - but it is at least politically cogent.
