No, the Tea Party is the loose aggregation of disaffected middle class types who are tired of excessive taxation, regulation, and governmental bureaucratic meddling; having finally acquired the impromptu organizational networking via the internet, they can discuss what they're tired of, and what they can do to change things.
We're not loony. We're not the creation of any group. Anyone claiming to be a Tea Party "leader" or "creator" isn't. We're your neighbors and friends who are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore". We're dismayed that our kids are obligated to pay six digits in government debt before they can talk. We know what happens when anyone spends $2 of every $1 that comes in. We're outraged that the Republicans agreed to allow this administration another $2.4T in spending of money we don't have and our kids won't have. We're tired of having our money taken from us to spend on wasteful cronyism, meddling, and funding idleness, while told we can't be trusted to wisely spend our own money we earned. We're tired of being dismissed as looney by people who vote for confiscating our hard earned income under threat of fines, imprisonment or death.
The Tea Party is middle Americans who, on the whole, just want to be left alone. Yes we'll fund "safety nets", build infrastructure, etc. No, we don't want people to starve and die...we also want the able to take care of themselves, and for people to cope with the obvious consequences of their own actions.
Our protests are, on the whole, spontaneous. On boards like this we express concerns, discuss under-reported news, and decide "hey, let's call Senator X and let him know we exist" or "hey, let's rally at location Y at time T" and spontaneous groups gather and act. Oh, BTW, we clean up our own trash too.
We see $1.5T in deficit spending, and know that despite our objections we're the ones saddled with paying it off. We object to getting shafted, and you dismiss us as "looney".
If you honestly think that the Tea Party is some kind of popular, spontaneous grassroots movement that looks out for the interests of the middle class, then I'm sorry, but you're being taken for a ride.
You may wish it were that way. It may have even actually been that way for two weeks back in 2009. But it's not that way today.
Not paying the bills you have already run up or reneging on existing legal obligations is definitely the loony way of cutting government spending.
If you rent a large house, the way to cut spending is not to stop paying your rent or threatening your wife so she doesn't pay the rent or stop feeding your kids.
Being "mad as hell" is no replacement for thinking.
Where did you get THAT notion of the Tea Party? We're not saying "don't pay the rent and stop feeding the kids", we're saying "move into a smaller apartment that we can actually afford AND can afford to feed everyone AND save enough to pay off the massive credit card bill".
[EDIT per responses: sometimes you have to threaten to stop paying the bills in order to persuade others to, in fact, move into the smaller apartment and stop swiping the credit card as if it costs nothing. It's called "brinksmanship", based on the premise "either we stop spending so d@mned much now by choice or we're going to have, in fact, nothing to spend later"; a rhetorical device both sides use.]
BTW: I run http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com precisely to help people see how they can afford decent meals for just a buck a plate. Nobody needs to starve when you can eat for a day for just $3.
> "Where did you get THAT notion of the Tea Party? "
I'd imagine based on the behavior of the representatives they sent to congress. In particular, regarding the debt ceiling fiasco in which the position of legislators the Tea Parties endorsed, supported and voted for was quite clearly: "the government may have agreed to buy certain things on the nation's credit card, but we're able to block payment of the bill, so we're willing to force the country to default unless you come up with more spending cuts".
I think you should have stopped using the first party plural there. Some of them are loony; and they are in part the creation of some older, tireder, Republic faction.
But I guess they do all share vaguely Republican values, and the belief that both major parties (not just the Democrats) have been taxing too much.
My issue is that they are attacking taxing, not spending. It's spending that's the problem, as total revenue (tax) will eventually have to match total spending. And the Republicans can be cynical bastards who spend like crazy, then force the Democrats to raise taxes (later down the track) for fear of the debt becoming unsustainable.
But I guess "Spent Enough Already" doesn't have the same ring, or historical kitsch.
We are not the ones saddled with paying it off. This is the biggest myth in Politics today. Government bond transactions are settled in us dollar reserves. Reserves come from government spending. That's the only place they come from. As a point of logic, the reserves used to purchase government bonds comes from government spending in the first place. Tax revenue does not fund the federal government. Neither does bond sales. Federal Government is self-funded. The private sector provides goods and services to the federal government in exchange for dollars. Modern Monetary Theory explains all of this. Read Mosler's "The 7 deadly innocent frauds of economic policy" its free in pdf form.
http://moslereconomics.com/2009/12/10/7-deadly-innocent-frau...
You are not alone and you are correct. Politicians take these abstract deficit numbers and use words like "unsustainable", and "our grandchildren are straddled with debt" to try to make them meaningful when they are not. What is the difference between 1.7 trillion , 20 trillion, or 5 trillion and what does it mean to joe schmo today? Read Mosler for more.
We're not loony. We're not the creation of any group. Anyone claiming to be a Tea Party "leader" or "creator" isn't. We're your neighbors and friends who are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore". We're dismayed that our kids are obligated to pay six digits in government debt before they can talk. We know what happens when anyone spends $2 of every $1 that comes in. We're outraged that the Republicans agreed to allow this administration another $2.4T in spending of money we don't have and our kids won't have. We're tired of having our money taken from us to spend on wasteful cronyism, meddling, and funding idleness, while told we can't be trusted to wisely spend our own money we earned. We're tired of being dismissed as looney by people who vote for confiscating our hard earned income under threat of fines, imprisonment or death.
The Tea Party is middle Americans who, on the whole, just want to be left alone. Yes we'll fund "safety nets", build infrastructure, etc. No, we don't want people to starve and die...we also want the able to take care of themselves, and for people to cope with the obvious consequences of their own actions.
Our protests are, on the whole, spontaneous. On boards like this we express concerns, discuss under-reported news, and decide "hey, let's call Senator X and let him know we exist" or "hey, let's rally at location Y at time T" and spontaneous groups gather and act. Oh, BTW, we clean up our own trash too.
We see $1.5T in deficit spending, and know that despite our objections we're the ones saddled with paying it off. We object to getting shafted, and you dismiss us as "looney".