A Colorado liberal blog called ColoradoPols has, this afternoon, done a good job at simultaneously demonstrating why Republicans won the U.S. House and why our country is ever-closer to bankruptcy.

Although not necessarily opposed to extending unemployment benefits, House Republicans refused to add the cost of unemployment benefits to the national debt; instead, they wanted to use money allocated from unspent stimulus funds. This would have still increased the national debt (since the stimulus is paid for entirely by deficit spending), but it would mean that the projected $12.5 billion cost wouldn't be another $12.5 billion on top of the cost of the stimulus... extending unemployment benefits would have come out of the funds that were already allocated to the stimulus but haven't been spent.

In response to that, our friends over at ColoradoPols had the following, uhm, "insightful" analysis:

This is one of those prime examples of where Republican talking points from the election are going to get them into trouble with voters in 2012... "We don't like the stimulus, so we're not extending unemployment benefits" is not exactly the kind of populist message that voters are going to be pleased to read about tomorrow...

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national unemployment rate is 9.6% -- or roughly 14.8 million people without a job...

Maybe we're wrong here, but we really don't see how this is going to be anything but harmful to Republicans in 2012.

This is exactly the kind of electoral calculus that has left our country nearly $14 trillion in debt, caused us to resort to printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, and devalued our dollar.

The logic above is that Republicans are politically unwise to not give away money we don't have. Why? Because those people will resent not getting the money, they won't vote for Republicans, and they're going to complain to their closest friends who won't vote for Republicans in 2012, either.

So apparently the argument of Democrats is that Republicans should agree to add another $12 billion to the national debt to increase their electoral prospects in 2012. After all, it's only $12 billion, right? A drop in the bucket...

With this passing as political logic, is it any wonder that we have the economic problems that we have in this country? For far too long this is exactly the kind of logic irresponsible politicians in both parties have been employing to get reelected.

But times have changed.

Republicans were elected in 2010 not on a promise of giving us more "free" stuff that we can't afford. They were elected on a promise to stop the runaway, reckless spending. The worst thing they could do is, just two weeks later, continue with business and spending as usual. In fact, had Republicans supported this form of benefit extensions, you better believe Democrats would use it against Republicans just like they used "read my lips" against the elder President Bush after they convinced him to accept the very tax increases they later used against him.

But even if ColoradoPols' analysis is right and voters punish Republicans for this two years from now, I'm glad to see that Republicans are willing to make the tough decisions that politicians haven't been making. The attitude of "give them whatever they want to get reelected" has been the standard procedure for so long that people like ColoradoPols can't even fathom the possibility that Republicans are making grown-up decisions not because it will help them get elected, but because it's what our country needs to survive.

I personally think the citizens of America will reward fiscal responsibility in 2012 just as they rewarded promises of fiscal responsibility in 2010.

And even if they don't, it was still the right thing to do. We need more elected officials that base their decisions on what's good for the state and country, not what's best for their electoral prospects.