There's a diary up on the front page that tells you everything you need to know about today's Republican Party: the House voting to eliminate public funding for campaigns. Leaving aside the actual significance of the vote, which Jed covers well, there's one other factor that he brushes past which is, I think, even more useful in illustrating how ideology affects the choices this GOP is making.
Let's say you have some serious credit card debt, and you're about to add some more debt on it: $1500. You know you've got to work on that.
Do you get all proud of yourself when you save yourself six cents?
We have a $1.5 trillion dollar deficit. The savings from ending this program is $61 million a year. Same story.
To close the deficit gap the House has to find more than 24,000 such programs. I don't think there's time for that.