How the Tea Party Spent Their Summer Vacation

Image by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

Normally I try to be as thoughtful and coherent as possible when I sit down to write this blog. My goals are to be informative, somewhat amusing (albeit with varying degrees of success ), and to sharpen my own mental acumen. It is true that if you want to really learn something, you need to teach it. I try to do my homework. I always attempt to dig a little deeper to find any nuances of a subject or an idea where I do not have 100 percent command of the facts. I am, after all, just a woman with an internet connection and some strongly held beliefs who finds it cathartic to spout off on her own blog that 8 people read (thanks guys!). However, today, I am apologizing in advance for any failure with respect to meeting those self-imposed standards with this offering. I am teetering on the precipice of complete insanity over this perversion happening in Washington right now. I have been eating and sleeping this cluster you-know-what for weeks now a lot like I was back in 1986 when my Mets brought me nightly joy on their way to a world championship. I am immersed in this quagmire like I was when writing my 50 page seminar paper in college about John Brown. I still cannot, by the way, decide if I think he was a cold-blooded murderer, a noble terrorist, or completely insane…maybe all of the above. But anyway, the point I’m so poorly trying to make here is that these bozo’s in Washington are making me so nuts and so flipping angry that I just have to kind of let this blog entry hang out, almost in a stream-of-consciousness way. I need to vent so I may regain some damn sanity and enjoy the rest of my summer vacation without hyper-ventilating into a paper bag everytime I have to listen to Cantor or Bachmann speak. I have to express myself through blogging because these Tea Party ideologues are so gleefully ready, willing, and able to take us down in order to stick to their insane rigid Tea Party principles.

It seems that you Tea Party types despise government, although you certainly don’t mind making a living by it, becoming pretty wealthy and powerful by it. But all right, I’ll throw you a bone. Something had to be structurally changed in order to keep our fiscal house in order. No question. Good boy Fido [pat on the head]. But cheese and rice people, you have shown yourselves to be completely devoid of any ability or inclination to compromise with other government officials. Now I really do believe that you are doing everything in your power to tank this economy for your own political gain. I didn’t want to believe that when I started to hear whispers of it, but your intransigence in making any attempt at reasonable, balanced, and fair-minded reform has reversed my thinking. This Mayan-world-ending-in-2012- thingy may have something to it because the path that these lunatics have us on is a recipe for disaster–no government infrastructure programs, no investment in education, no research or development, no government safety nets, no government food/air/water safety oversight, no nuthin’.

As I write this blog, it is apparent that Congress will come to an agreement on raising the debt ceiling. It is also very apparent that the hostage takers won. They will get lots of cuts to things that help many average Americans and they will get to protect the plutocracy. Read my lips, no new taxes. No new taxes on the money hoarding/ stash my cash in the Caymen Islands/ ship my job overseas corporations or the top 2% of the “job creators” (again, WHERE ARE THE EFFING JOBS FOR THE LAST DECADE?) who have been benefitting royally from tax-cutting since I entered my mid-life crisis years. Oh, and I’m not out of those woods yet, evidently, because I just entered myself in a half-marathon. Ugh. Anyway, this debt ceiling “deal” has me feeling like I just got mugged. Ugh times ten.

You have to hand it to the Tea Party. They threw a sack over the head of the debt-ceiling, shoved it in the trunk, and sped off leaving the ransom note at the White House door. Give us what we want or the debt-ceiling gets it. The adults left in the room had to pay the ransom. We all know that. Well, most reasonable people know that.

Part of the reason they got away with it is that the narrative crafted by the right is a bunch of bull-pucky and malarkey wrapped up in a pretty little package with a really adorable bow. They bellow, ‘tax cuts spur business to hire and rev up the economy!’ Once again, I say, hey Tea Party Patriot, check out the facts. Taxes have never been lower in 50 years. We keep saying it, but they just tune it out. ”Nah-nah-nah-nah…I can’t h-e-a-r youuuuu.” The rich and the corporations have a lower effective tax rate than the janitor in my school. “Dum-dee-dum-dee-dum…What’s that ya say?” Oh my gosh, I’m gonna pop a neck vein listening to these people. Facts are stubborn things and to the Tea Party, they are completely irrelevant things.

I now firmly believe that they want this economy to tank. Come on, you know it and I know it. It’s a little like when you break up with someone and then you find out your ex has a new love interest. On the outside you’re all, ‘I just want them to be happy. Good for them.’ But on the inside your thinking, ‘I really hope they’re fat, ugly and have herpes.’ What else would explain why the Republicans/Tea Partiers voted AGAINST a bill that would give small community banks money to lend to small businesses to spur business growth? Yeah, they blocked it…twice. Why else would they put forward NOT ONE jobs bill this year in the House of Representatives? Why else would they use this ridiculous debt-ceiling formality to force the government to, in effect, put the brakes on focusing on the real issue of jobs in a jobless recovery? How can the economy grow when Republican governors across the country have been slashing thousands of jobs every 5 seconds? How can the economy grow when we are not priming the pump through things like building infrastructure which we so desperately need? The economy is stinking up the joint because there is no demand you dummies! I only took a few economics courses in school but I distinctly remember the words “supply and demand” on a test or two. Businesses hire when there is demand. People are out of work and not buying anything so why would a business hire anybody??? Sheesh. Additionally, the problem with the deficit is not because President Obama is the anti-Christ, but because of two UNPAID FOR wars, Bush and his Medicare part D law, the Bush tax cuts (God, Bush really sucked wind, didn’t he?), and deregulation on Wall Street leading to the collapse of the financial markets.

The Tea Party has focused on the absolutely wrong thing at the absolutely wrong time. Most of the respected economists in the country have said that you don’t pull back on government spending in the depths of a recession, especially ones as severe as this one. You only make things worse. The debt ceiling was used as a pawn for people who want to destroy the government but are only cutting the nose to spite the face. The economy is sputtering and we can understand why now. Everything the Tea Party has stood for is like taking a baseball bat to the shins of a down economy. No jobs? Thwhack! We will cut thousands of jobs in the public sector, only adding to unemployment rolls and ramping up food stamp beneficiaries and  producing loads of people who aren’t going to run out and get new refrigerators or eat out anytime soon. Huge deficits? Crack! Let’s only cut programs out from under average people and not raise a thin dime of revenue from the billionaires and continue the fairytale notion that this is smart and fair economic policy. It’s like if I lose my job tomorrow, sure, I know have to get rid of cable, turn the heat way down until I see my breath, and end my addiction to Ebay. But eventually, don’t I also have to look for a job to get some revenue rolling in??? Right??? This ain’t brain surgery people.

Hey, but don’t believe me, check out a REPUBLICAN who thinks exactly the same way I do. David Frum writes this about the Tea Party ninnies:

I’m a Republican. Always have been. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation and limited government. But as I look back at the weeks of rancor leading up to Sunday night’s last-minute budget deal, I see some things I don’t believe in:

Forcing the United States to the verge of default.

Shrugging off the needs and concerns of millions of unemployed.

Protecting every single loophole, giveaway and boondoggle in the tax code as a matter of fundamental conservative principle.

Massive government budget cuts in the midst of the worst recession since World War II.

I am not alone.

Only

about one-third of Republicans agree that cutting government spending should be the country’s top priority. Only about one-quarter of Republicans insist the budget be balanced without any tax increases.

Yet that one-third and that one-quarter have come to dominate my party. That one-third and that one-quarter forced a debt standoff that could have ended in default and a second Great Recession. That one-third and that one-quarter have effectively written the “no new taxes pledge” into national law.

Well, Mr. Frum, if I didn’t know better I’d venture a guess that you have no use for the Tea Party either, because that one-third and one-quarter dominating your party are hostage takers. They are inflexible ideologues. They are the bullies on the block. They are wielding a very sharp axe around town to chop down some trees and aren’t afraid who gets hurt if they swing wildly and miss. Don’t you dare question them, and certainly don’t ask them to put the axe down. They are incapable of being reasoned with. It’s their way or the highway…or default. Some choice.

Related articles

• Fareed Zakaria: Tea Party’s ‘Extraordinary Act Of Hostage-Taking’ Over Debt Ceiling (mediaite.com)
• Mitchell Bard: The Debt Ceiling “Compromise” Is A Total Democratic Capitulation To The GOP (huffingtonpost.com)