The “tea party” protests against out-of-control government spending have been very clear in identifying what wasteful spending they object to. One example is Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package, which was falsely sold to the public as needed to prevent “irreversible decline,” but which the Congressional Budget Office repeatedly pointed out would actually cut the size of the economy “in the long run.” Another example is the Obama Administration’s mortgage bailout, which would benefit even high-income people with modest mortgages (see the “I can’t afford your mortgage” sign).
But the protesters are frequently criticized by journalists like Andrew Sullivan for supposedly offering no solutions or constructive suggestions.
For having the temerity to protest Administration lies and out-of-control spending, the protesters have been called “despicable” by a liberal Congresswoman, and attacked in the left-wing blogosphere in the most vicious language as “redneck, racist Republicons” and as “a bunch of white old people and rednecks” who “got together and tried to start a revolution…to drive the Fascist/Communist n****r out of the White House and stop the fags from stealing their children.”
As a Harvard-educated, arugula-eating, urban dweller whose office hosted the end of the Washington tea party, I find these claims baffling. I am certainly not afraid of my Asian, black, and Hispanic relatives, my French-born wife, or the gay neighbor whose children play with my daughter.
Andrew Sullivan derides the tea parties as “opposition to the Obama administration’s spending plans, manned by people who made no serious objections to George W. Bush’s.”
I did too make “serious objections to George W. Bush’s” spending plans. I condemned his costly prescription-drug entitlement in the Washington Times, and repeatedly condemned the $160 billion Bush “stimulus rebates” in 2008. I publicly called his $700 billion Wall Street “bailout bill dangerous, inflationary, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.” And I condemned his multibillion dollar auto bailout.
And contrary to Sullivan’s claims, I do indeed have a “constructive and specific argument about how . . . to reduce spending and debt and borrowing” — cancel the wasteful $800 billion stimulus package, most of which has not been spent yet, and may cause inflation when it finally is.
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Dude, honestly?!?! Yea the media is the media, but do you REALLY find find their claims that baffling???
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thisainthell/3337166693/in/photostream/
Has media coverage of the tea party protests been unfair? I found this video today that shows how various news outlets are reporting the story. It’s interesting to see the difference in perspectives:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/media_tea_party_brew/
Bob, your nasty photo is of someone who didn’t get anywhere near a tea party. By the background you can see she is not at a tea party.
This should not be baffling at all. I applaud the few people that are actually protesting the out of control spending - but those are few people. The majority of protesters are those that simply hate Obama. Did you not see all of the pictures and signs depicting him as Hitler and a fascist? And the reason people KNOW that almost all of the protesters are simply anti-Obama or anti-Democrat is that none of these protests took place over the last couple years. Where were the protests when Bush expanded the government and taxed various things? I didn’t see any of them - all I saw was praise for him. Instead you wait till Obama comes to protest, and you protest against him on the day that you pay taxes BUSH imposed. Remember, all of the things Obama has done and will do haven’t faced a bill yet. These protesters protested the current taxes. It’s just funny that they decry taxation without representation (that’s the Tea Party idea remember), when it’s not without representation, it’s just when your guy lost. Maybe wonder how the other side felt over the last several years and ask if they should have seceded from the Union like the governor of Texas seems to think is a logical argument.
Tom Tancredo attempts to speak at UNC and a few dozen progressive students cause more damage and disruption than the 250,000 “racists, rednecks and Stockholm Syndrome minorities” that attended the Tea Parties. Apparently in order to have a more civil society we need more racists and rednecks and less progressive students.