Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The wrath from the right has been scortching ever since VP Joe Biden commented that certain freshman tea party congressmen were acting “like terrorists” in negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. There was equally no love lost when John McClain commented that the tea party freshman were acting as “deceivers” and their ideas were “bizarro.”
Now Tea Party freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) (No, not the one with the Maserati that goes 185) has produced his own video decrying the incivility and telling us that “Vice President Biden, I’m not a terrorist. Terrorists target and kill people.” You can watch the lament here.
While the language employed by the VP was quite over the top, and especially so given Biden’s challenge to introduce more civility into public discourse, our freshman congressman fails to see the irony of his words. No one suggests the Tea Partiers are calling for mass extinction of liberals or undocumented aliens, or gays or the poor. But what do they want?
Here’s Nevada GOP Senate Tea Party candidate Sharon Angle on the frustration of her comrades:
“I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”
Some Tea Party candidates are a tad less discrete in their call for violence. Here’s Texas Tea Party candidate Stephen Broden, “Our nation was founded on violence. The option is on the table. I don’t think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms.”
Alaska Tea Party candidate Joe Miller found a lot to like in East Germany’s “checkpoint Charlie” system of stemming the tide of freedom-seekers “immigrating” to West Berlin during the Cold War:
“The first thing that has to be done is secure the border … East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow. Now, obviously, other things were involved. We have the capacity to, as a great nation, secure the border. If East Germany could, we could.”
And the Tea Party has a thing or two to say to liberals about the notion of any separation between church and state:
“Do you know, where does this phrase ‘separation of church and state’ come from? It was not in Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. … The exact phrase ‘separation of Church and State’ came out of Adolph Hitler’s mouth, that’s where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State, ask them why they’re Nazis.” —Glen Urquhart, the Tea Party-backed Republican nominee for the Delaware House seat. You can even watch him here.
And then there’s that “witchy woman,” Delaware’s own Christine O’Donnell, who, when questioned about whether the Constitution calls for separation of church and state during a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School delightfully noted, “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?” Ahems were heard around the world on that one.
New York Tea Party darling Carl Paladino had this suggestion for the poor:
“Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we’ll teach people how to earn their check. We’ll teach them personal hygiene … the personal things they don’t get when they come from dysfunctional homes. These (prisons) are beautiful properties with basketball courts, bathroom facilities, toilet facilities. Many young people would love to get the hell out of cities. You have to teach them basic things — taking care of themselves, physical fitness. In their dysfunctional environment, they never learned these things.”
Then there’s the First Lady of the Tea Party, Michele Bachmann, sharing all the inside dope on what it really means to be gay (no husband jokes, please):
“If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” — then Minn. state senator Michele Bachmann
There’s scores more and they deal with all manner of insensitivity to the poor, immigrants, the 45000 Americans who die every year from inadequate health care, and just about everyone else the right likes to pillory.
Now most of these quotes were from losers in their electoral races and maybe they represent only the most extreme dunces the Tea Party has produced, but that’s not really the point is it? The point is that while the far-out Right might be justly indignant for the rhetorical excesses of the Left, they can’t seem to find the words to decry the excesses of their own camp.
There’s a word for that.
Source: Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Survey’s surprising finding: tea party less popular than atheists and Muslims
rafflaw:
that is news to me. They sure seem to be for individual rights, low taxes a fiscally responsible government, adherence to the Constitution.
Those are wealth creating principles for individuals.
I would like to understand why you think individual freedom doesnt produce wealth and why you are against individual freedom and rights.
@rafflaw
“The Tea Party is not looking to make everyone wealthier. ”
Support?
“They are bought and paid for by special interests trying to keep corporations in control.”
Support?
Who do you favor that isn’t bought and paid for by special interests?
@slarti
“Nice try at lying with statistics”
How so?
“put the wars on the budget during the Bush administration and the picture looks very different”
that will merely raise the spending as a percentage of GDP which serves to strengthen my point that spending is the problem, not revenue. Also, I agreed with you that the wars we are currently engaged in should come to an end.
“The last time the debt was in this high the top marginal tax rate was 92% – why can’t it be 50% today? (say on any income over $1 million/year).”
The average revenues as a percentage of GDP during the years 1950-1982 is 17.8% so those high tax rates did not translate into higher revenues. We exceeded that revenue in 2005 and 2006 with the Bush tax cuts in place.
Roco,
I think you need to underline the word “all” in your last sentence. The Tea Party is not looking to make everyone wealthier. They are bought and paid for by special interests trying to keep corporations in control.
Slartibarfast:
that was the 50’s we were the only economic game in town, we could have made money back then if we were deaf and blind. there was no competition. Europe and Asia were destroyed.
We are not the only game in town now, we need to make the environment favorable to wealth creation for all citizens.
kderosa,
Nice try at lying with statistics – put the wars on the budget during the Bush administration and the picture looks very different… The last time the debt was in this high the top marginal tax rate was 92% – why can’t it be 50% today? (say on any income over $1 million/year).
Why don’t we bring some data to bear?
GDP for Years 1990-2011 along with Revenue and Spending as a percentage of GDP.
Year GDP Rev Spending
1990 5,734.5 18.0 21.9
1991 5,930.5 17.8 22.3
1992 6,242.0 17.5 22.1
1993 6,587.3 17.5 21.4
1994 6,976.6 18.0 21.0
1995 7,341.1 18.4 20.6
1996 7,718.3 18.8 20.2
1997 8,211.7 19.2 19.5
1998 8,663.0 19.9 19.1
1999 9,208.4 19.8 18.5
2000 9,821.0 20.6 18.2
2001 10,225.3 19.5 18.2
2002 10,543.9 17.6 19.1
2003 10,979.8 16.2 19.7
2004 11,685.6 16.1 19.6
2005 12,445.7 17.3 19.9
2006 13,224.9 18.2 20.1
2007 13,891.8 18.5 19.6
2008 14,394.1 17.5 20.7
2009 14,097.5 14.9 25.0
2010 14,508.2 14.9 23.8
2011 15,079.6 14.4 25.3
Now let’s deal with the claims:
“Can we start with the wasteful and unaffordable Bush tax cuts that were one of the first dominos in unbalancing the budget?”
At the end of the Clinton admin, federal budget spending stood at 18.5%. Now it stands at 25.3%. That’s a whopping increase of 6.8 percentage points. Up until 2009, the Bush tax cuts were raking in 17.5% and 18.5% the year before. That compares favorably with the Clinton tax rates of 18.4% in ’95 and 17.6% in ’02. In no year did the Clinton era tax rates exceed 20.6% and that was at the height of the tech boom. That is still well below the current spending levels of 25.3%.
What is unaffordable is the skyrocketing spending being done by Congress.
“Then cut spending on wars (especially wars of choice) and the defense department?”
Yes, let’s do that. though I believe those wars are off-budget, like SS.
“After that can we raise taxes on millionaires and close corporate tax loopholes?”
And how much do you think that will bring in? Where is the supporting data? You do know that thee will already be a millionaire surcharge applied to pay for Obamacare already?
“And then explain to every American who gets Social Security or Medicare that they are a socialist? (wont save money,”
No, but means-testing and raising the retirement age will help. SS now stands at a $100 trillion unfunded liability. It isn’t sustainable in its current form.
“Where would you start cutting?”
Let’s just cut back to Clinton era levels of spending, that will solve all the problems.
Slarti:
lower taxes and cut spending on wars, foreign aid and eliminate corporate loopholes and farm subsidies, have SS means tested or eliminate it for all but the most needy.
Quit bailing out wall street and find other ways to fund infrastructure improvements. quit spending money on midnight basketball by lowering the minimum wage to market demands.
A whole host of other things could be cut as well, starting with congressional pork for their home districts.
Roco,
Can we start with the wasteful and unaffordable Bush tax cuts that were one of the first dominos in unbalancing the budget? Then cut spending on wars (especially wars of choice) and the defense department? After that can we raise taxes on millionaires and close corporate tax loopholes? And then explain to every American who gets Social Security or Medicare that they are a socialist? (wont save money, but alleviating ignorance in the body politic is good for the health of the republic… besides, every American should understand that a vote for the Republicans is a vote to end both programs). Where would you start cutting?
rafflaw:
I am celebrating it, maybe it will make the numb nuts in Washington wake up and get control of all of this unnecessary and ridiculous spending.
HenMan,
I was just visiting a friend last weekend in Whitewater and caught a nice Bass on Whitewater Lake.
Elaine,
Great clip and Schultz should have slammed anyone for celebrating a downgrade of the USA credit.
Tea Partiers cheer the “Tea Party Downgrade.”
AY-
I live in a suburb in Milwaukee County just north of the City of Sudsville, just south of the Fascist Empire of Ozaukee County, and east of the Fascist Empire of Waukesha County.
Hen Man,
What part of WI do you hail…I was in Taylor County recently…
lottakatz-
Last night Maggie was speaking Ig-Pay-Attin-Lay.
Maggie, please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m asking in a totaly positive manner and absolutely no insult is meant: is English your first (primary) language?
All revenue raising measures must begin in the House of Representatives.