When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation. – Peter/Paul Principle (expanded version)
George Rebane
Time, America’s premier leftwing news magazine, is going all out to cast the conservatives and their ideas as the debt debacle devils in the recent and ongoing debate. Its 15aug11 issue features articles on the country’s fiscal woes and ‘How the Tea Party Hijacked America’. The latter is actually a back-handed compliment to the enormous impact that the tea party movement has had and promises to have on our politics. Michael Crowley writes the featured piece that firmly establishes that the tea party movement is definitely not in Republican control, but instead is a major burr under its blanket. His leading tagline and takeaway is that the tea party is a “populist movement underestimated by both parties has shown that it’s here to stay.”
This assessment goes a long way to explain away the almost hysterical flood of articles from the progressives that the tea party movement is a rapidly waning force on the country’s political landscape, and that it may self-destruct even before the 2012 election. This line is picked up in the hinterlands’ blogosphere by the mindless followers of the lamestream. Meanwhile the founder/leaders of the various tea party factions, like Mark Meckler of the Tea Party Patriots, are getting more and more national air time, as incredulous hosts of TV commentary programs embarrass themselves trying to entice out some slip-of-the-tongue that might connect the tea parties to social issues or the Republican party (see also the comment streams on RR). Crowley goes on –
In January, Senate majority leader Harry Reid predicted that the Tea Party would soon “disappear.” Now, having pushed Reid’s party into a deal few people would have thought possible a few months ago–trillions in spending cuts, possibly with no new taxes–the Tea Party is more convinced than ever that its facts and its tactics are the right ones. And its influence is hardly waning–something Reid is the first to admit. The Tea Party’s sway in Congress, Reid lamented as the Senate approved the debt deal on Aug. 2, “has been very, very disconcerting … it stopped us from arriving at a conclusion much earlier.”
Barack Obama has long promised a post-partisan environment in the capital. But he never imagined that a minority of Americans would come to play such an outsize role in the public conversation. Polls may show that Americans overwhelmingly want more compromise in Washington, but the Tea Party’s leaders–and the roughly 25% of Americans who consider themselves Tea Party supporters–are primed for more confrontation. The debt fight, believe it or not, is probably just the beginning.
What continues unexamined is the basis for the tea parties being labeled as “rightwing” or “far right” organizations. As confirmed on these pages, those descriptors are supposed to be true just because the left repeats them with increasing frequency, while themselves claiming to be “in the middle”. Crowley’s article sheds no light here.
In the same issue Rana Foroohar in ‘The Wealth Gap Widens’ laments about the widening distribution of wealth and observes that the debt deal “has exacerbated the real problem underlying our woes; the fact that most people not only feel but actually are much worse off than they were three years ago.” She also correctly points out that during time of want, the richer and smarter are able to better retain their wealth than their less fortunate counterparts – in short, material and educational inequalities increase. But she fails to connect the dots that this widening continues as long as the economy is down, and the economy stays down as long as government continues Keynesian spending, taxing, and regulatory policies.
Finally, the message that is totally absent from Time is that continued borrowing, along with its ever-growing debt service costs, is the real reason that the US is following the European model down the sinkhole. And it is the real reason why our credit ratings will continue to be downgraded. The media, including Time and Fox News, did nothing to enlighten the public on the issues when they kept referring to the ‘default catastrophe’ in every other sentence of their reporting during the recent debt deal debate. It was the rare bird who dared peep that there was no way that America would default on its current debt service. Now, after it is apparent that the deal did nothing to salve our fiscal wounds, even Barney Frank (of ‘Fannie and Freddie are healthy’ fame) has come out to tell all that default was never in the cards.
All this said and done, do you notice that there still is not a solution to our economic tailspin to be had from within the Beltway? We can’t spend our way out, and we can’t tax our way out, and we can’t generate wealth out of growing stacks of regulations (witness EPA’s new ozone regulations). The socialist sickness is firmly over the land, and it can only be removed by a miracle next November, one that will again unleash the entrepreneurs and businesses to employ people and create new wealth.
Exit question: Until then, who will be the first to import the notion of ‘austerity’ from across the pond and introduce it into the national lexicon?
[8aug2011 update] In response to S&P’s downgrade and the world markets’ bloodbath, today President Obama and his progressive minions put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Parties are comprised of 20-25% of US voters, and 40% of Americans say they “support” the principles of the movement. The Tea Parties are made up of hundreds (thousands?) of independent small groups marbled into communities throughout the land. The Tea Parties have no unified leadership or central control body that marshals and directs their attitudes and voting behavior. The Tea Partiers are the office or factory worker here, the retired person there, and the lady who runs the hair salon or auto repair shop on the corner – its hard to conceive of a more spontaneous or grass roots movement in American history.
And the Tea Parties have been telling the nation for the last three years exactly how it is headed in the wrong direction and what would happen if the government didn’t change its economic policies. It was the same people’s voice that also sent new members to Congress who promised Tea Party voters that they would stay true to its principles.
And what was told has now come to be – but after everything that has happened, our growing debt is still totally out of control, and to this day we have NO PLAN TO REPAY OR EVEN REDUCE IT. Our credit ratings are finally beginning to catch up with and reflect long-established truths. And, yes Mr President, we Tea Party Americans from every nook and cranny of this exceptional nation take full credit for making every effort to turn our ship of state from the disastrous course to which you are holding it fast.
rebanesruminations.com 
Leave a comment