Connect the Dots
We’ve said before that a major reason behind the tea parties is that the current level of spending and debt is historic. This is a primary reason and not insignificant in and of itself. I believe that this is only a symptom of a much larger problem with significant and dangerous implications for our republic.
As I read through news stories and watch the trend in Washington, I see a common theme reoccurring in nearly everything that is underway. In fact, I would argue that many policies that seem absurd on their face can be understood when viewed through the prism of consolidated power in Washington.
Let’s review a list of recently passed and currently planned legislation.
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 – this was passed in late 2008 in response to defaults in the subprime mortgage market that led to the collapse of Bear Stearns. This created the $700 billion TARP fund which the treasury secretary could use to inject capital into banks or buy toxic assets. At the time, the fear was that another large bank/fund failure could cause a series of cascading failures. Critics said the program was unnecessary and would lead to too much government control of banks that survived, but it was passed in spite of public opinion being soundly against the program. It is almost impossible to say if more banks would have failed had the bill not passed, but we are seeing the critics proved right about government control.
TARP has been used to pressure banks in the Chrysler bankruptcy and to pressure Bank of America to risk their future by acquiring Merill Lynch. The truly scary part of this is that banks that didn’t need the capital were essentially forced to accept it so that accepting TARP money didn’t signal weakness. Many banks are now rushing to pay back the TARP funds, but some of the larger banks are told they must pass tests prior to doing so. Regardless, the government is in no hurry to lose their leverage in the financial system.
Another use of TARP funds was to provide working capital for GM and Chrysler. While this wasn’t authorized anywhere in the act (or in the Constitution for that matter!) it was accepted by the establishment as a matter of course. This has given the government a justification to oversee the Chrysler bankruptcy which has been used to give effective control of the company to the UAW and the Obama Administration.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 aka “stimulus” - We were told that this borrowing and spending was so critical to the economy that it was passed in record time that left not a single congressman capable of reading it. Four months later, barely 6% has been spent (for which I’m grateful… this will be a drag on growth for years to come). The real result of this is that state and local governments are becoming more dependant on the federal government to pay for local spending.
Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009 – Given that the Department of Homeland Security thinks I’m a right-wing extremist for peacefully advocating for lower taxes and limited, Constitutional government, I find it possible that this will apply to me. Will this truly limit terrorists who by definition don’t follow our laws or does this have the potential to be used against American citizens? Where are all the liberals that screamed about the Patriot Act?
Carbon Cap and Trade - as I’ve pointed out in a previous post, the science of global warming is flawed at best. In addition, the logic doesn’t follow that we should limit carbon output at all. Yet Congress is working on a bill anyways that will add billions of dollars to the cost of doing business. Supporters claim this will promote green jobs. It surely will, but only at the expense of many times more existing jobs and higher prices for everyone.
Chrysler Bankruptcy – I’ve talked about this briefly above, but I want to mention in greater debt. The pressure that the Obama administration has put on Chrysler’s lenders is contrary to the rule of law. In order for businesses to invest and prosper, they must have confidence that the rules will not be changed on them. Those that lent to Chrysler as a senior creditor did so at a discount because they knew that they were entitled to first repayment under bankruptcy laws. No longer do we have the assurances that bankruptcy or contract law are sacrosanct and that risk will be priced into future transactions for everyone.
Socialized Health Care – A little known provision of the stimulus was funding to create an electronic database of medical records. This is a step towards a national single payer system. I believe that nothing in our Constitution authorizes nationwide health care spending, and that gathering medical records without an explicit opt-in is an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the 4th amendment. The Obama 2010 budget included $634 billion as a down payment on government run health care.
Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act - Government sponsored and paid volunteerism. Not authorized in the Constitution and more power to the federal government.
Keep an eye on the news and watch as power is aggregated in Washington bit by bit. You can’t eat an elephant all at once, but you can take care of it one bite at a time.
Slowly but surely our freedoms are being chipped away at.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:29 am
It is so obvious and I think people are noticing but it will take time.
Keep an eye out on the next big bailout. Barney Frank has introduced legislation to have the Federal Government guarantee California bonds. Of course this is being done to enable cheaper borrowing by California … never would the rest of the taxpayers have to fund anything. The Statists cannot dare let one of their biggest liberal experiments go down in flames … New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan and other liberal state nightmares will be right in line behind them.
They could overreach on this one though … flyover country might just metaphorically string up any of their legislators who force them pay for other state failures. The states rights resolutions might become more than just a symbolic message.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:58 am
The Tea Party outrages are so late and ineffectual at this point. Started in February 2009, claiming to be a non-partisan effort? Hmmm… Where was the outrage during the Bush Years?
I mean at least be honest with yourselves, that you are disappointed Republicans.
Your party is in shambles and you watch FoxNews trying to blame everything you can on the new administration. Remember: It was YOUR President who asked for the first bailout.
I didn’t see a single Republican stand up between 2000 and 2008 and say “Quit spending our money”. In fact, as Cheney says “Deficits don’t matter, this is our due”.
The Tea Party is a bunch of hypocrites who probably lambasted the over 10 million protesters of the Iraq war (before we ever went in) as unpatriotic. Here’s some information to swallow before you start ticking off all these items that are a “Socialist Scare”:
The Iraq war has cost Cincinnati alone: $806,900,000 (806 million)
The Iraq war has cost each taxpayer $6,400.
Here’s another pill to swallow:
Remember when the Free Market dumped over $1 trillion in all the hardworking people’s 401ks?
It was YOUR president who wanted to take Social Security and go ‘all in’.
Give us a break, please. Your new found rage is 8 years late and 2 trillion short.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:31 am
Andrew,
Thank you for the visiting the site and taking the time to respond. It is disappointing however that your response attacked our motives instead of our ideas. Unfortunately it’s something that I’m getting used to.
First, you are welcome to attack the Republicans and I’ll be glad to join in with you. You are correct that many of us are disappointed Republicans, but it isn’t for the reasons you infer. We are disappointed not because the Republicans lost their election, but because the Republicans lost their principles. We were growing progressively more frustrated over the last 8 years as spending increased in spite of Republicans controlling both Congress and the Presidency.
I can’t tell from your post if excess spending or debt matters to you. I think it might, but you’re too busy tying me to Bush and blasting him again and again over the war for me to figure it out. Late to the party or not, we’re here now and you should welcome us to your side. Many people who have joined with us have said that they felt like they were asleep. They didn’t think that politics was worth their time and this was a somewhat rational response to small, incremental increases in spending.
But starting with the TARP bailouts pushed by Bush’s administration and continued with the spending of the Obama administration, spending has gone up at an unprecedented rate. Historic action on the part of our government is worthy of a new response. You’re being completely disingenuous when you compare 6+ years of spending on a war with what’s going on right now. We spent $700 billion on TARP, another $830 billion on “stimulus” and we’re not done.
As for Social Security and the free market, Social Security is a scam. It isn’t possible for countries to save. That’s worthy of a whole post in and of itself, but money is only worth the goods and services that are available to buy. The bottom line is that the current system is unsustainable because of demographics. GDP is the number of people working times their productivity. We’re approaching a decline in the number of people working. Unless productivity growth outstrips the decline in workers, Social Security will have a shrinking pie to draw from. Benefits will go down in one way shape or form because they have to.
May 26th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
So, my point still remains: Your anger and concern is a bit incredulous being started in February of 2009.
You WERE asleep and many people who were outraged at what was going on got lambasted as being unpatriotic. The whole Tea Party movement seems very politically motivated.
Yes, the $700 billion on TARP and $830 billion on stimulus.
TARP is one issue. Japan experienced a similar situation to our banking problem and the government only funneled small amounts into the economy and it dragged piecemeal for a decade. They finally gave a sufficient injection and it got rolling again. Evidence shows that if they had done so earlier, it would have helped earlier (NPR piece on that). Free market would need to start from scratch, putting each piece into place, brick by brick, taking too long, possibly 20 years.
For the Stimulus:
In the end, we will actually have something to show for it, be it a comparable public transit system that Europe enjoys or better education for our children. We are still enjoying the fruits of the WPA today.
The 860+ billion spent on the War we will not see a single dime in return. Those who benefit are the fat cats who have stake with giant military contracts.
In fact, we have not even figured in the cost of taking care of our veterans, many whom will need care for the rest of their lives (do you guys oppose spending on their health care too? I certainly hope not, because we owe those guys everything and anything they need). We also need refitting of our military to be strong again. This is something that I am not opposed to spending tax money either. I will be curious to see if anything shows up about that on your blog or at your rallies.
That final price tag of the War jumps to almost 3 trillion dollars when you figure in the incidentals.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html
The military is the largest social program in the United States, it is well funded and it does gloriously in all that it is asked to do. I never see you guys going after the millions of waste in that sector or concern with oversight, or promoting a privatized army. My suspicion is that would politically disadvantageous and I’m not expecting to see that from you any time soon.
On the converse, I never see the military touted as a success either, but something to consider. (Throwing enough money at something will produce excellence).
You can sidestep me “tying you to Bush”, and that I am attacking your motives rather than your ideas, but you also say you are late to the party and should be welcomed (maybe with open arms?)
I am not for increasing national debt, but I AM in favor of funding issues that have been sorely neglected in our country. If we treated other sectors of our life with the same dedication as what we do for our military, we would return to being the envy of the world AGAIN.
I cannot join in your efforts to stymie any and all progress while you claim negligence for opposing the backbreaking debt (the War is not the only example, but a glaring one) that now makes those initiatives that I care about even more difficult to fund.
May 28th, 2009 at 5:25 am
Andrew,
No. We haven’t been asleep. Let’s be clear. When we characterize ourselves as being “late to the party” that does not mean we have not been paying attention and even taking action as we have been able to. For many years now, most of us have written letters to Senators, Representatives, and newspaper editorials, etc. Any given individual in our core group has probably sent hundreds or thousands of emails advocating for various political positions to various email distributions. We have commented on blogs, much as you have done here. What we have not done, that we may wish we had done earlier, is to actually organize something like the Cincinnati Tea Party.
It should be no surprise that mainstream conservatives are not the “in your face” type of activists who usually run out, create an organization, and organize protest rallies. Almost by definition, that is not typically our personality type or comfort zone. But then, should I expect a Liberal to be tolerant of such differences in people? Maybe not these days.
Getting back on point, we have been active. We just have not been organized. So, that leads me to some questions for you. Where is your organization with over 3,000 people (families) signed up? Where is the 4k to 5k person rally that you personally organized? Is writing letters, blogs, and comments all you have done? If so, then how are you any different from what we were 6 months ago? I don’t mean to attack you here. I really just want to help give some perspective.
Now, for all I know, you are the head of some large and growing organization that is trying to make a difference according to your own values. But, I tend to doubt it and I certainly doubt that most who have accused us of doing too little too late (or too much too late, depending on perspective) have done anything more than either cheerlead their own side or criticize their opposition from the sidelines (behind a keyboard). Maybe they’ve even attended a rally (as activists on the Left are more likely to organize rallies for them to attend) but how many really have ever organized anything like Mike has done here?