The GOP had a good issue with the deficit. Cleverly played it could be a real vote getter, after all, who likes debt and" stealing from future generations." You can see the GOP ads full of  crying kids with  big tearful puppy dog eyes , lip quivering:  "How will I pay for college?"

That was, until, Senator Jim Bunning (A: Kentuky) opened his large gaping pie hole.

To be fair to the GOP, Jim Bunning is an idiot. His own party hates him. He is a disagreeable, unbalanced man who apparently takes great pleasure in being an obstructionist. Bunning, a lame duck, for some unexplainable reason other than a mild stroke, latched on to GOP issue number one as a justification to screw with unemployment benefits.

Instead of dropping Bunning like a bad habit, the GOP ,in the form of the Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, made it clear the GOP stands against extending aid to the jobless: "It could be argued it [unemployment insurance] is a disincentive for work

Damn, keep fucking that chicken GOP.  

Yes ,Senator Kyl, indeed it can be argued. A wise politician would have argued it when unemployment was 4%.

Keep in mind that unemployment insurance is not an entitlement contrary to what the GOP claims. Benefit funding is based solely on a tax imposed on employers and in many states requires some employee contributions. 

In that regard you can view unemployment insurance as an earned benefit, much like employer provided or subsidized health insurance.

The genetic GOP tendency towards assholiness and self immolation isn't new.

All one must do is look back to 1928 when President Herbert Hoover took office. In Novemeber, 1928 the US  unemployment rate was 4.4 percent. When he left office, it was 23.6 percent. At the end of his term voters regarded him as a clueless, heartless asshole who would provide federal aid for banks but not for hungry Americans.

That characteristic of Mr Hoover's was particularly odd because Hoover’s efforts in providing relief during and after World War I saved millions of Europeans from starvation.  His generosity and caring made him an national and  international hero (and gave him the visibility to run for President.)

Then he became a Republican politician.

The assholiness gene , stimulated by the ego endorphins of being "conservative" kicked in.He was a proud man and often proclaimed he was a self made millionaire and self made man. Needless to say Hoover became a proponent of  "rugged individualism." (latter plagiarized by Ayn Rand) fantasy.

That ( being a self made man) was partially true. Hoover did go to Sanford to become a mining engineer and made his fortune in that field. Fact was Sanford as a start up university at the time, they only let Hoover in because they needed students that year to remain a "university".

In the speech that closed his campaign, Hoover stated that "the American system was based on rugged individualism and self-reliance." Government, which had assumed unprecedented economic powers during the Great War , should "shrink back to its prewar size and avoid intervening with business".

That was in 1928. We all know what happened in 1929.

Undeterred , Hoover was convinced the economy would fix itself without intervention by the government and the problems of poverty and unemployment were best left to "voluntary organization and community service." Sound familiar? This was a "new idea" hawked by the GOP in the 2004 , 2006 and 2008.

He ofter articulated that sentiment in hopeful speeches.  Americans, being a hopeful lot, listened politely and went on about the business of  trying feed themselves until one fateful day in 1930.

In June of that year, when it was clear that the economy was not going to get better by itself, a delegation of businessmen, civic leaders and Congressmen came to see Hoover to request a federal public works program.

Hoover overwhelmed by the effects of the assholiness gene responded thusly:

"Nonsense*. Gentlemen, you have come sixty days too late. The Depression is over." He insisted that "nobody is actually starving" and that "the hoboes...are better fed than they have ever been."

<Hooverville ( homeless encampment) circa 1930

He also claimed that the growing number of vendors selling apples on street corners had "left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples."

Now you know where "Mission Accomplished" came from.

Aghast , the delegation talked to a waiting press. Those quotes where soon wired around the nation.

The GOP legacy was born.

By 1932 , Vaudeville comedians told the story of Hoover asking the Treasury Secretary Mellon for a nickel so he could call a friend.  Melon replies, "Here, take a dime and call all your friends.

I wonder if Hoover is a distant relative of Jim Bunning or John Kyl? They wont need dimes to call their friend these days, there are cell phone plans like "Friends and Assholes"

Sources An American Experience , the Great Depression, Digital History, Wikipedia

* The word "nonsense" was attributed to Hoover by some but undocumented.