The above quote is from the Big Lebowski regarding Nihilism, in case anybody missed that one. Anyway, the point of this post is about Tea Baggers. No, I’m not talking about some of nice girls with that I hung out with at Rutgers (HY), but the Tea Party Movement. It’s pretty easy to write a post bad mouthing the Tea Party, but that it is not my intention. I actually have been curious who the Tea Party is and what they stand for. I’ve concluded, like they are akin to Nihilists in Lebowski, “They believe in nothing!”
It appears, as best as I can understand it, they actually want to represent and be the party of anger. That’s right; above all, they want to be the party that is angry. I guess it’s like the Megadeath album “Peace sells, but who’s buying?” According to CBS, “Fifty-three percent of Tea Party supporters describe themselves as ‘angry.’" Wow, what a selling point (obviously sarcastic).
Apparently, the Tea Baggers are primarily mad about government spending. Well, that’s a perfectly logical ideology, but, I’m still trying to figure out what spending they are so opposed to. The only concrete spending item that it seems that Tea Baggers are opposed to is, healthcare spending. According to the same CBS poll “Asked what they are most angry about, the top four answers among Tea Party supporters who identify as angry was the health care reform bill (16 percent).” Aside from the health care bill, they really don’t seem to have one concrete spending item that they would like to cut. They also seemed to be opposed to Entitlement Programs like TANF.
Oddly enough, they seem to support Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Defense spending. A few facts about these programs that the Tea Party supports…. According to the ever reliable Wikipedia…federal spending for FY 2010 (that’s Fiscal Year) is $3.55 trillion. Yes, that’s a big number. But, by far the largest mandatory spending expense is social security, with payments topping out at $677.85 billion. The second largest mandatory expense on a single program is Medicaid at $571 billion, followed my Medicare at $453 billion. Now, I’m no math whiz but that’s well over a third of the entire spending of the Federal Government. Now, the highest discretionary spending program is the Department of Defense, at $663.7 billion. To give some comparisons on how much is spent on Defense, Health and Human Services is the next largest Discretionary spending program at $77.7 billion, including in that budget is TANF. TANF is the largest, what tea Baggers would call “welfare”, federal program, that they are opposed to. TANF spent only $17.059 million last year. That’s right, not billion, million! When you add up the four programs the Tea Baggers want to spend money on (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense) you are well over a half of all spending. As an aside, other big spending programs of the Federal Government are paying interest on debt which accounts for $164 billion.
So, to summarize, you’re angry because we spend too much, yet the only program they seem to want to cut for the next budget is (TANF) at $17 million of the $ 3.55 trillion that the government spends. That’s the whole crux of the tea party!
I get it. You’re angry! I can understand that, I really can. People want to know why the work so hard yet have nothing or little to show for it. They want to think that someone is stealing their money. The easiest to blame, poor people! But believe me; poor people are not stealing your money, well not any significant portion anyway.
As an adult, you need to be able to express ideas, and provide solutions to real problems. Being angry, in itself, is not really a political position. You need to have some beliefs. I don’t like to pay taxes either. However, I still would not agree to cut many programs, but it appears, neither will the Tea Baggers! Yet, it is this idea of cutting spending that the Tea Party is based on. Until I hear what the Baggers want to cut spending on, real things like, “I do not support Social Security and I would not have tax money support Social Security (for example). Social security should be phased out on such and such a date…” Tea Baggers need to shut up, because their position simply makes no sense. Their belief system is based on nothing. Until they say what they want to cut spending on, the party has no point! It appears to me, the whole party is all anger mixed with smoke and mirrors.
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