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Gordon MacInnes The Tea Party burst onto the scene in 2009, captured the credit for the big Republican congressional victory in 2010, and is slowly sinking. Too slowly, because it still claims 60 members of the 243-seat Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Hence, the danger . The first and last point to understand about the Tea Party nationally is that there is no one party. There is no coherence, no coordination, no single message. It appears to represent frustrated and angry white middle-class citizens who have seen their 401(k)’s shrink while Wall Street banks gobbled trillions of taxpayer dollars but suffered only a hiccup. It favors eliminating most government spending while making sure that the 1% see no tax increase. The congressional Tea Party Caucus comprises 60 House members and four Senators, all Republicans. The founding chair and most visible spokesperson is Michelle Bachman, who recently discovered that being the leader of the Tea Party was not enough to survive past the Iowa caucuses. The fairest measure of the Tea Party movement is found, therefore, in the workings of its congressional caucus. Here are some reasons to be frightened by the Tea Party:
. By the way, if any Honeywell workers or retirees contribute to the company’s PAC, you might be interested to know that it is the largest corporate contributor to the Tea Party Caucus freshmen members. And ironically, born of frustration over bank bailouts, Tea Partyers happily accept banker donations. Pushing the nation into bankruptcy is hardly the answer to our economic woes, yet that is an almost certain result of Tea Party dominance of the Republican Party. Maybe the GOP voters in Iowa got the message in handing Iowa native Bachman a decisive shellacking.
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Rick Watson, a Republican There are two Tea Parties. First, the version most of the media wants you to perceive – angry old people who can’t stand the President and therefore must be racists. TV nurtures this notion by showing only their most extreme statements and scouring the fringes of a rally to find the lone nut with a racially insensitive sign. To get the real picture, attend a Tea Party rally, where you’ll see friends and neighbors and hear what the speakers have to say. The people are angry, for sure, but it’s all about policy, not race. Their complaints, like those of the Occupy movement, include the bailouts of selected industries at our expense and arguably without clear benefit for the public. Their solutions, however, are less government, not more, a simpler, more “back to basics” approach, where the government does only what it needs to and taxes as little as possible (TEA stands for “taxed enough already” but also invokes the spirit of our revolution, which was to replace an oppressive regime.) The movement would never have arisen if people weren’t justifiably frustrated with Washington’s dysfunction, trillion dollar deficits, a 13 trillion+ dollar debt, and an intrusive health care law that any student of the history of new programs knows will cost more than predicted. There’s much talk in the movement about returning to the original intent of the Constitution, but the Constitution does give Congress the power to enact foolish laws, so the Healthcare Act is unlikely to be nullified by the Supreme Court. Still, the Tea Party improves public debate by raising the fundamental questions of what, exactly, the government should be doing and how we’ll pay for it. Over time, the movement, still not a formal party or centrally organized, moved from rallying to political action, and had some success in Republican primaries, but sometimes, as with their Senate candidates in Nevada and Delaware, this resulted in General election wins for Democrats. This is because the Tea Partiers regard compromise and moderation as sins and undervalue electability. I have a Congressman who I agree with about 95% of the time. That’s about as good as it gets, but the Tea Party people may try to replace him with someone I’d agree with 98%, but who would lose a General Election to a more liberal Democrat. This is the essential flaw in the movement – not recognizing that politics is the art of the possible. Sometimes you have to settle for budgets and legislation that are less than perfect. That said, the Tea Party gives voice to many frustrated Americans and in spite of their intransigence and sometimes clumsy political moves, will be remembered in the future for having shaken up our public discourse - for the better.
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Gordon MacInnes, a Democrat It looks like the scruffy campers of OWS may make an impression after all. They should, because they have one very big idea that will not go away: 99 percent. OWS still has no clear strategy or specific demands (except for warm tents). What it has is a number that cannot be ignored. The highly regarded Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just reported that over the last thirty years the top one percent saw its after-tax income increase by 275% versus 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent. Over half the gain (53 percent) went to the top one-fifth. If the top 1 percent gained its wealth like Steve Jobs gained his, I don’t think that OWS would have a chance. Jobs was a genius who contributed mightily to America’s enjoyment and its economy. No, OWS is alive because so many Americans think that the very rich have been propped up by the rest of us. Big Finance has sold Washington on the story line too essential to fail. “Let us sink,” it says, “and the world flirts with total collapse.” Presidents and legislators of both parties bought and sold the line.
Here’s the problem: the money to bail out Wall Street was raised by shifting the bill to the rest of us. And what did we get in return? Not much.
Here is the stinging irony of all this special treatment for the wealthiest: there’s nothing left for American families going bankrupt because of rising foreclosures and lower property values. Nothing. Occupy Wall Streeters wants to reverse this lop-sided game of fortune for the few, insecurity for the rest of us. They don’t need the answers. Just keep pushing 99%.
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Rick Watson, a Republican At noon, in pleasant weather, I checked out Zucotti Park to see it first-hand. Bizarre is the word for no more than 150 demonstrators, mostly young, plus some unreformed hippy types, and equal numbers of tourists taking pictures and Police, who weren't doing anything and didn't need to. 1968 all over again? A guy had an "end the wars" sign right across the street from where the Twin Towers were, a sight unthinkable 10 years ago. Another sign just said "Sanitize the Lunacy", unexplained. Unlike the Tea Party rallies, there was almost no attempt to persuade anyone or to engage passers-by, (exceptions are made for fawning reporters from politically correct media). I didn't see, but don't doubt, the reported conflicts with homeless people, attracted by donated gourmet food, and local residents who don't appreciate steady drum-beating 12 hours a day. Weirdness aside, they show frustrations the Tea Partiers share (sometimes, as with bank bailouts, over the same things), but their remedy is more government, not less. Their mantra is "blame the rich", but don't they understand that paying a CEO less means more $ for stockholders, not for the lower-paid people? Don't they know that taxing the rich is already being done? The top 5% of taxpayers earn 37% of all wages, but pay over 60% of all income taxes. And when they die, their heirs will pay death taxes that other people won't. Yes, some people make too much, but using taxation as a punishment is a lazy solution, a blunt instrument that strikes Bill Gates as well as Bernie Madoff. It's just easier to slash down a whole class of people, many of whom deserve what they have, than to do the hard work of discerning who deserves high pay and who needs to be fired, or prosecuted for cheating. Wouldn't you like to someday see a President say on TV something like "Listen, American stockholders, stop acting like sheep. Think before you send in those proxies and don't automatically rubber-stamp whatever management wants"? I can see Teddy Roosevelt saying that; it's a spirit we need to recapture. And while we're at it, why not Occupy Washington?
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