What have the Republicans done for you Lately?

I find it highly irritating to watch Republicans in the US turn purple and rant about the Obama handling of the economy (the budget, the deficit, etc.) The US just experienced 8 years of reckless budgetary mismanagement by a Republican President and a Republican Congress (2001-2007).

But the real epitome of Republican economic know-nothingism is the following which I've taken from a Harvard economist's website, Jeff Frankels:

The lesson that economists have long thought had been most clearly demonstrated by the 1930s is the lesson to which today’s Congress has paid the least heed. Senator Smoot (R) and Congressman Hawley (R) in 1929 proposed legislation to raise US tariffs sharply. Warnings of the damage that such protectionism would cause were ignored, including a petition organized by the leading economists of the day and signed by 1,028 of the profession. President Hoover (R) signed the infamous Smoot-Hawley bill in 1930. The consequences are well-known. Other countries instantly retaliated, and emulated this aggressive act of protectionism. Over the subsequent years world trade collapsed (down 60% by 1932), helping to put the “Great” into Great Depression and facilitating the rise of rabid nationalism in Germany and Japan.

Today you can easily get 1000 mainstream economists to sign a petition against contemporary Republican political grandstanding and ignorance concerning the need for an economic stimulus and the relative insignifance of a deficit -- even a trillion dollar deficit -- in dealing with the yawning crater of unemployment and lost economic activity from the current recession.

At least the Republicans are consistent in this ignorant anti-economy policies.