Thread: TEA PARTY - USA TODAY Debate

TEA PARTY - USA TODAY Debate

Our view on political rebellion:

Tea Party activists take aim, but many miss target

Rolling back Big Government is really about health care costs.

As Tea Party activists gather for this weekend's convention in Nashville, it is safe to say that shrinking the federal government will be foremost in their minds. After all, to the extent that the group has a core organizing principle, it is that Washington has gotten too big.

And yet, apart from the surging bills that Washington absorbs for health care, the surprising reality is that Big Government isn't all that big by historical standards. Even with an economic stimulus, a bank bailout and two wars, non-medical spending by the federal government is a smaller percentage of the economy than it was during most of Ronald Reagan's administration.

In just a few years, as the stimulus shrinks and the economy expands, government spending outside of health care will drop to about 16% of the economy, roughly where it has been since the mid-1990s. By contrast, even though Reagan began paring back government, non-medical spending hovered around 20% of the economy during his administration.

The reason for this is no mystery, even if it's not part of the daily political narrative. As the government's medical tab surged from $72 billion in 1980 to an estimated $912 billion in 2010, traditional government functions — things like roads, criminal justice and education — had to be more tightly controlled simply to avoid the kind of outlandish deficits we've seen in recent years.

In that sense, the Tea Partiers are barking up the wrong trees. If their goal is to control spending, they should be demanding curbs in Medicare and answering President Obama's call for health care reform with counterproposals heavier on cost control.

Tea Partiers also say taxes are too high, but here, too, perception differs from reality, at least by history's measure. In 2009 and 2010, tax receipts collected by Washington will total 14.8% of the economy. That is the lowest since 1950.

If the activists truly want to reduce the deficit, they should be demanding that the two parties work together. With the minority party always poised to attack when the majority sticks its neck out, nothing gets done.

But the Tea Partiers seem to be promoting more partisanship, not less.

Many are rejecting candidates deemed to be too likely to cross over and reach accommodations with Democrats. That's a recipe for more debt.

This isn't to say an uprising against Washington is not merited.

Lawmakers of both parties are simply ignoring the nation's drift toward fiscal suicide. Nor is it the case that populist movements can't serve constructive purposes. The last one — Ross Perot's presidential bid in 1992 — forced both parties to focus attention on the deficits, which then turned into surpluses.

The populist movement we would like to see would look more like a full-fledged youth rebellion. Young people will shoulder the brunt of paying our national debt, now at $12.4 trillion and rising rapidly. The debts they will inherit are being driven largely by the surging cost of health care and retiree benefits that will bring the nation fiscal ruin long before those young people retire. When you're facing a threat like that, the ideological food fights that preoccupy some of the Tea Partiers look trivial.
Until the youth movement arises, or until the Tea Partiers can channel their anger toward more productive solutions, the Washington spending machine will keep churning.

Posted at 12:22 AM/ET, February 05, 2010 in USA TODAY editorial

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/ ... arget.html
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Opposing view: 'Take America back'

Tea Party activists seek lower taxes, less government, more freedom.

By Dick Armey

The Tea Party movement is a reaction to a government that has grown too big, too irresponsible, and spends too much money. These citizen protesters know Milton Friedman was right when he argued that the real rate of taxation is the level of government spending. Unfortunately, an arrogant political class in Washington remains tone-deaf to these concerns, a view representing a common sense fiscal conservatism that now sits at the very center of American politics. So before we can hope for serious consideration of positive solutions based on freedom, we need to take America back.

Our public policy process has elected officials on the inside who create the legislation, and citizens on the outside who pressure lawmakers. Currently, the levers of power in Washington are manned by people who put government solutions first.

As the great moral philosopher Waylon Jennings once said, "There ain't no right way to do the wrong thing." Tea Party activists have risen in opposition to bad public policies that grow the power of government, including more deficit spending, a government takeover of health care and "cap and trade" energy taxes. As they succeed, they will save all Americans from the higher costs that naturally flow from more big government.

Grassroots activists are building a political platform for advocates of personal and economic liberty. This is happening in primary challenges against establishment candidates. Just look at the Senate race in Florida, where Marco Rubio has surged ahead of Gov. Charlie Crist, a tax and spend politician unacceptable to grassroots America.

In November, I predict a new generation of citizen legislators more in tune with positive solutions based on consumer choice and limited government.

The Tea Party movement will have been a deciding factor in this new majority, and will be a standing army of citizens eager to hold new legislators accountable. That's the kind of change we can believe in.

With $1.6 trillion deficits, we cannot afford the unending expansion of government now championed by President Obama and his cohorts in Congress. Tea Party activists will not settle for simply making a bad bill less worse. They want fundamental change that replaces bad legislation with real reform that promotes lower taxes, less government and more freedom.

Former House majority leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, is chairman of Freedom Works and a leader in the Tea Party movement.
Posted at 12:21 AM/ET, February 05, 2010 in USA TODAY editorial

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/02/ ... .html#more

Once again, one could get the impression that the Constitution means little to the Tea Party movement. Neither view mentions it.

Smaller government, less taxes, government is too big, politicians ignore their constituents, yada, yada, yada. No Constitution.

It would seem some are afraid to mention it.

Neither mentioned jobs either.