THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

From Steven Pearlstein, business columnist for the WaPo. For all those folks wishing for a Republican/Teabag victory, remember, they aren't even George W's Republicans anymore.

The good news, of course, is that you won't have to spend a minute over the next two years worrying about tax increases or climate-change legislation or that odious card check idea that would open the doors again to union organizing. The bad news is that you can kiss goodbye tax reform, education reform, infrastructure investment or any new trade treaties. With DeMint cracking the ideological whip in the Senate, and a new crop of young and hungry conservatives beginning to take charge of the Republican caucus in the House, Democrats will be in no mood to strike any deals on these business priorities. Ditto for a Democratic president readily wielding his veto.

And then there's that matter of regulatory uncertainty you've been complaining about. If you think it's bad now, just wait until next year when the Obama administration tries to do through regulation what it will no longer be able to achieve through legislation. Republican committee chairman will respond with hearings and investigations and appropriations riders in an attempt to block the new regulations. In the end, nothing will be resolved until the issues are subject to years of federal court litigation.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that, once the heat of the election season has passed, cooler heads will prevail and DeMint and the other anti-government zealots will return to their rightful place on the fringes of the political system, leaving it to the grown-ups to get things done. Don't kid yourselves. You're about to create a political monster that you can't control, one bent not on reforming but on destroying the institutional framework that allows an advanced industrial economy to grow and thrive.

And like the termites you don't see until it's too late, they have already done great damage to the framework of our democracy.