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What Are the Tea Partiers For?
We know what they’re against, argues Andrew Sullivan, but what do they favor? Although he engages in a bit of what seems to me an ad hominem attack on Glenn Reynolds, the question is a good one:
All protests against spending that do not tell us how to reduce it are fatuous pieces of theater, not constructive acts of politics. And until the right is able to make a constructive and specific argument about how they intend to reduce spending and debt and borrowing, they deserve to be dismissed as performance artists in a desperate search for coherence in an age that has left them bewilderingly behind.
Read the whole thing.
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11 Responses to “What Are the Tea Partiers For?”
All of this is why nobody can take these teapot tempest protesters very seriously. It may have started with a small group with a single, focused protest – but it has since been co-opted by virtually every angry-fringe group and Obama-Derangement-Syndrome nut in the nation. It's a cacophony of disparate voices all yelling across each other, instead of with each other.
That is not to say that the individuals who are attending these teapot tempest rallies are thoroughly sincere in their beliefs. I have no doubt that there is real outrage among the teabaggers. But is far, far from a unified voice or a unified message. It's everyone who is “against” everything, no single theme or issue.
And ultimately, that's why this whole teapot tempest nonsense will go nowhere. “All sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Unless the big-money organizers who are behind this faux-grass-roots protest can spin off the fringe-nut wackos and dial in on a solid, unifying theme, it will only be so much noise and chatter.
Meanwhile, as the opposition screeches and waves signs around, the administration in Washington goes about its business of fixing the problems and finding solutions that will move the country forward. Just like the majority of Americans elected them to do.
It's the same thing McCain (and to a lesser extent Obama) tried during the '08 campaign. Vague promises of spending reduction sound great; unfortunately, there is no Department of Waste, Pork and Fraud to abolish. The libertarians are more than happy to offer up hundreds of billions in spending cuts, and look at how well they do at the polls.
As far as Excitable Andy is concerned: they favor less government, fewer intrusive programs and lower taxes. What's so hard to figure out?
There is an entirely unrepresentative bunch of tax cheats [Charles Rangel, Chair of Ways & Means] and mortgage-benefit profiteers [eg, Dodd of CT] inside the Beltway perpetrating gigantic hoax bills unreviewed by Committee and loaded with earmarks.
Sentences like Meanwhile…the administration in Washington goes about its business of fixing the problems and finding solutions that will move the country forward demonstrate that some people are seriously behind in the news feed, as the economy seems to be getting better BEFORE the stimulus monies even arrive. Not that reality will change the “minds” of committed fantasists.
Dave, “As far as Excitable Andy is concerned: they favor less government, fewer intrusive programs and lower taxes. What's so hard to figure out?”
Exactly the point of this post…. WHICH programs would the teabaggers have Obama cut? Defense spending? Education? Health and benefits to vets? Traansportation? And which taxes would be lowered? Corporate, individual, and at what thresholds? We can't operate with zero taxes….
Thanks Stockboy. It's easy to get people to say “we don't want to pay taxes!” But we do apparently want what taxes pay for.
We can't operate with zero taxes….
You're using an extreme. The opposite extreme would be the country can't operate with 100% taxation either. Really the question is at what tax rate does the country function optimally.
As far as what programs could be cut you could start with the earmarks, all the museums, ball fields, golf courses, parking garages, etc. I would also say rather than ask for an additional 600+ billion for health care why don't we first have the discussion on what exactly we're going to do with it, then after that decide how much it costs. I would also ask that Obama go through the budget line by line as he promised and tell us what HE thinks can be cut.
That's just off the top of my head, I could probably come up with more.
DaGoat – Many 'socialist' countries survive under high taxes. yet according to Heritage they're 'capitalist friendly. Their high ranking 'capitalist pig lovers': Note 7 & 8.
Canada and Norway are near the top in the Forbes Misery Index. I guess high taxes and “market friendly” aren't mutally exclusive.
DaGoat, thanks for the reply and a start of the list of what we can do without taxes. Though personally I think we need museums. And some of those earmarks do provide for lots of jobs.
I see, Stockboy… It evidently is wonderful for people to be “politicized” as they were last Fall when teen agers swooned over Obama, who had “Hope & Change” for an agenda.
But the near-spontaneous “Taxed Enuf Already” DOESN't have street cred because the sign-holders aren't organized into cadres spouting 16-point Five Year Plans to lower itemized tax expenditures? Is that what you are saying?
[Ironically enuf, the "Tea Party" meme began when a CNBC reporter named Fratelli ranted about the stupidity of much of the "Stimulus" pork and inane projects ---- like museums --- included in the earmark packages. The MSNBC & NBC affiliates retired in shame and rebuked their own reporter for straying from the party line Jeff Zucker & Immelt have evidently prescribed for their nitwit crew.]
I think museums are great, but they should not be used as a priority in justifying a deficit. They are something than can wait.
Rudi, Ireland has the lower corporate tax rate in the EU or the entire Eurasian land mass at 12%, last I checked—-making it an offshore haven for Microsoft, Intel, & dozens of international EU & US firms seeking a base where they won't be expropriated.
Norway's income from offshore oil — I worked for Amoco which had assets in-country — makes their socialism largely funded from petrodollars, not high taxes on the citizenry, which has a high level of state-sponsored services which might be dubbed “socialistic.” Perhaps now the rate of taxation is higher, but state income from resources is still the largest chunk of national revenues, not taxes.
Australia, where my late brother was a citizen, also has a high level of state services, but not so high level of taxes, since the Japanese and Chinese pay prime rates for the immense natural resource base in Oz-land. Including offshore oil in various areas in-country.
Venezuela manages to combine huge revenues from oil with incompetent socialist policies and property confiscation combined with massive corruption to ramp up the “misery index” to a level that has produced a brain boom in S. Florida, where Weston is dubbed “Westonzuela.”