These are the Grover Norquist disciples who want to ‘drown government in the bathtub’ as Norquist, whose pledge they’ve all signed, famously said. Why? Because if they actually let government work, then people could have faith that government can work.

In short, when your entire philosophy is that government is the problem, you make government the problem. Even conservative economists agree that unemployment benefits create jobs by allowing consumers to spend more money. Yet this conflicts with the Republicans’ predetermined ideology that no government action can help. Broad majorities agree that having millionaires pay their fair share in taxes would reduce our deficit, and allow us to invest in jobs. But apparently no amount of evidence can convince Republicans that our government can be part of the solution.

The Republican philosophy goes something like this: If you take your car to the mechanic and instead of fixing it, they take out the engine and charge you an arm and a leg, you should conclude that mechanics can’t fix cars and you should probably just take yours to the junkyard and sell it for scrap metal.

But the truth is; you probably just hired a bad mechanic.