Do Republicans "win" by destroying the reputation of government?

The legislative branch can invent deadline after deadline after deadline. And with each new one that is hit, two things happen. One, the public gets more and more disgusted with the appearance of incompetence. And two, and somewhat though not completely at odds with this, the public pays a little less attention each time. We’re already seeing in polls that people are paying less attention to the sequester than they did to the fiscal cliff, and this seems likely to continue.

All this will hurt Republicans. They know this. But as long as it hurts Obama too, they don’t care. Bear in mind here the words of Mike Lofgren, the former GOP congressional staffer who left his party in disgust in 2011. At the time, he wrote a big Goodbye to All That piece where he said the following: “A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.”

In sum, this is going to go on indefinitely. It suits the long-term GOP strategy to take some hits as long as Obama is taking them too.

the only people destroying the reputation of government are the democrats with their runaway spending, Obama's ridiculous claims about 2% reductions in increases being Armageddon, when he JUST SIGNED a 2% increase in taxes on EVERYONE, the nanny-state democrats with their never-ending list of government-run programs and bureaucracies that everyday we hear are rife with waste, fraud, and corruption, and democrat-led programs that encourage unproductivity and punish success.

I think its funny that by making more transparent the workings of government it's viewed as 'destroying the reputation' of it.

"What? There's a deadline for a decision to be made? The horror!"

There's a reason the first things getting cut are the most visible and often the most cherished by people. It's because this IS the reputation of government. If you cut something from it, they will make sure you feel it.

Do you think more or fewer people would eat sausage if they saw how it is made?

If one Party wants smaller government, can they win power by destroying the reputation of government and thus justify shrinking it?

Absolutely. Starve the beast.

If 0bama accomplishes nothing in his second term, it will be great for the US. The less of his agenda he advances the better.

I'm confused. The reputation of government based on the way it functions is inefficient, wasteful, and violent. And this is at its best. I'm not saying we abolish government, as we certainly want it for securing our rights. On the other hand, it has been justly described as a necessary evil.

So, given that the reputation of government is bad, wouldn't destroying that reputation mean making is seem good? Therefore making anyone who calls the government good the destroyer of its reputation.

Or are you talking about degrees of bad? "Government is worse because a (insert D or R) is in charge!" Because history has shown that either party, when in charge, is very happy to grow and use the government. Or, in the current situation, they both seem to be making the most of slowed growth and using the government.

Do you think people would eat healthier if the saw how it was made? Probably move forward with the food choices a bit more cautiously?

Just because something is repugnant, doesn't mean people shouldn't know it's inner workings.

Government is as inherently evil as everything else. As with everything else, you fix what's broken (IOW, minimize the cons) not do away with it or shrink it to the point that it is ineffective. When you do the latter, you are also eliminating the pros that are associated with it.