Message to GOP: Keep digging . . . please.

You know the old adage: "when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."

I for one hope the Republicans keep on digging. Nothing could benefit us more at the polls in November than for them to keep insisting on the same policies that got us into this mess when they were in control of government. As Huffington Post political reporter Sam Stein reports:

Top Senate Republican Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) insisted on Sunday that Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans regardless of their impact on the deficit, even as he and other Republicans are blocking unemployment insurance extensions over deficit concerns. . . .

In private, administration officials say that the framing of the argument couldn't be more advantageous: "It's cutting taxes for the wealthy and letting the unemployed to fend for themselves," said one White House ally.

"If all of this has a familiar ring to it, it's because unpaid for tax cuts for the rich at the expense of working people is the same backward policy Republicans used to put the nation in this hole, and it's the same policy they promise to return to if put in a position of power again," added Hari Sevugan, press secretary for the Democratic National Committee. . . .

And yet, Kyl is now suggesting that the same budget rules shouldn't apply with respect to tax cuts for the wealthy, which are set to expire unless Congress acts to renew them. As Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly notes:

It's quite a message to Americans: Republicans believe $30 billion for unemployment benefits don't even deserve a vote because the money would be added to the deficit, but Republicans also believe that adding the cost of $678 billion in tax cuts for the wealthy to the deficit is just fine.

Now if the Democrats can't take political advantage of such a gift and turn it into campaign fodder that people will get, then we really have no hope of every holding on to the reins of government.

Ralph