For all the talk about the Tea Party Movement and its demands that America’s political system be turned upside down, it’s always been a bit hard to get a fix on what, exactly, these conservative activists want Washington to do.
To solve this puzzle, it’s worth taking a look at the Contract From America process — a project of the Tea Party Patriot organization, designed to create a bottoms-up, open-source agenda that activists can embrace when they gather for their next big moment in the national media sun on April 15. The 21-point agenda laid out for Tea Partiers to refine into a 10-point “Contract” is, to put it mildly, a major Blast from the Past, featuring conservative Republican chestnuts dating back decades.
There’s term limits, naturally. There are a couple of “transparency” proposals, such as publication of bill texts well before votes. But more prominent are fiscal “ideas” very long in the tooth. You got a balanced budget constitutional amendment, which ain’t happening and won’t work. You got fair tax/flat tax, the highly regressive concept flogged for many years by a few talk radio wonks, that has never been taken seriously even among congressional Republicans. You’ve got Social Security and Medicare privatization (last tried by George W. Bush in 2005) and education vouchers. You’ve got scrapping all federal regulations, preempting state and local regulations, and maybe abolishing some federal departments (an idea last promoted by congressional Republicans in 1995). You’ve got abolition of the “death tax” (i.e., the tax on very large inheritances). And you’ve got federal spending caps, which won’t actually roll back federal spending because they can’t be applied to entitlements.
My favorite on the list is a proposal that in Congress “each bill…identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.” This illustrates the obliviousness or hostility of Tea Partiers to the long string of Supreme Court decisions, dating back to the 1930s, that give Congress broad policymaking powers under the 14th Amendment and the Spending and Commerce Clauses. This illustrates the literalism of Tea Party “original intent” views of the Constitution; if wasn’t spelled out explicitly by the Founders it’s unconstitutional.
We are often told that the Tea Party Movement represents some sort of disenfranchised “radical middle” in America that rejects both major parties’ inability to get together and solve problems. As the “Contract From America” shows, that’s totally wrong. At least when it comes to policy proposals, these folks are the hard-right wing of the Republican Party, upset that Barry Goldwater’s agenda from 1964 has never been implemented.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bisongirl/ / CC BY 2.0
Tags: Barry Goldwater, Budget, conservatives, Constitution, Medicare, Republican Party, Social Security, Taxes, Tea Party, term limits
I don’t think they are hard right wing. Ask them if we should be in Iraq? or about the Patriot Act or about Torture, they aren’t conservative there.
Face it, these progressive pukes are having a tough time identifying a target so they can freeze it, personalize it and then polarize it. LOL BWAHAHAHA.
They can’t find the head of the snake and it’s killing them.
And no, we are NOT funded by the GOP , we are NOT taking one dime from the wealthy elites, like the lefties who are wholly owned subsidiary of George Soros.
Yes it is conservative to oppose the patriot act or interventionism? Damned straight it is.
[...] The Tea Party’s Retreaded “Ideas” | Progressive Fix "We are often told that the Tea Party Movement represents some sort of disenfranchised “radical middle” in America that rejects both major parties’ inability to get together and solve problems. As the “Contract From America” shows, that’s totally wrong. At least when it comes to policy proposals, these folks are the hard-right wing of the Republican Party, upset that Barry Goldwater’s agenda from 1964 has never been implemented." (tags: Republicans politics via:cshalizi conservatism tea-party extremism) [...]
At least they are out there.
Exactly where are the progressive base when we need them? This was supposed to be our time. But immediately after the election, we lost control of the party. Wall Street and big insurance quietly took over while democrats sat on their hands and liberal punditry, as always, gave us nonsense and trivia. Instead of financial regulation with the bailout, Obama let Wall Street run rampant. Instead of targetted, fiscally responsible investment, he gave us a Keynesian hog fest stimulus. He deliberately put us deeper in hock to those who finance the debt. And by crossing fiscally concerned voters, he threw political capital out the window when we needed every scrap. Now we can’t even get the public option, which the country desperately needs to keep costs down. Still establishment writers waste time with non issues and weak arguments. The progressive base over at Salon spend their time pontificating instead of becoming active. And you make an issue of the Tea Party nut jobs. Please.
How about making any of the arguments that could win the day for us. Mention that we are the real fiscal conservatives, that progressive healthcare is the best fiscal policy, that republicans destroyed the national economy, that they have put the war on terror back ten years by going after oil in Iraq, but that Obama has put the war back on track, or any of the other devastating arguments we could make. At least call TV pundits like Ed, Keith, and Rachel on their obedience to media owners, and their non issues and loosing arguments.
Where’s the mystery? These Tea Baggers are simply the Republic right-wing base. The Democrats have a base and the Republicans have one two.
Their politics is a mix of “I’ve Got Mine” seniors enjoying the benefits of Soc. Sec. and Medicare, liberationists when you mention the economy, and follow-the-leader types condoning any invasion of civil liberties when their guy is in office.
In other words, hypocrites writ large.
Add to the Tea-Party ideology the almost ancient views — so startling to Alexander Hamilton and Woodrow Wilson (and those who paid attention in Economics 101) — that (1) a sovereign people’s government can and should operate without debt, and that (2) a sovereign people’s government should not own (or even regulate) the banking system and the money supply.
So thanks, but there needs to be a lot more of this kind of analysis. There’s a lot of simple ignorance out there, and if people on this site know, they need to try to teach. (So says, at any rate, this history teacher from Brooklyn.)
-WRE