The Tea Party

“… and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”

The current political playbook instructs readers that should you be a mindless incompetent who wishes to maintain your elected office, deflect examination of your record by turning the focus on a perceived greater threat to American democracy.

In short, spare no opportunity to demonize your political opponents’ as the cause for your incompetence, wrapping your arguments around such phrases as ‘crazy’, ‘unpatriotic’ and any other terminology that cannot be defended: the old canard of asking an opponent a question along the lines of when did they stop beating their wife?

It is that approach to political discourse that has framed the debates and discussions about the emergence of the Tea Party.

With all due respect to the members of that particular political faction, I believe that their rise as a political force has not been properly explained in a manner that can fit into conventional pop culture idiomatic form.

To wit:

The Tea Party of the 2010 elections are the Marx Brothers of their time.

This is not intended as a disparaging dismissal of the party, but rather a defense of their emergence to those who would dismiss them as merely an epithet.

The Marx Brothers, as opposed to their comedic contemporaries and progeny, did not choose to dismantle the societal norm; rather, they accepted the framework that was in place and simply acted within that given restriction. It is when by doing so that the entrenched interests took exception to their actions. They were not the revolutionaries looking to overthrow the status quo; they merely pointed out its absurdity by working within it.

This is where the Tea Party gets its strength and garners the harsh response by the political elite and their media flacks.

The congressional members elected as part of the Tea Party caucus did not undertake a military coup to obtain positions of power. They did not subjugate the United States Constitution; rather they directly followed it. They were legally placed on their respective ballots and by the electoral process rules in effect for all candidates won the election. There was no illegality, no subterfuge, no assault upon the Constitution.

So the question must be asked: what is the level of stagnation in the body politic when duly elected members of Congress can be ridiculed and labeled as crazy because they fairly brought their own ideology to government?

This is a dangerous trend that must be addressed by the American electorate. We must move beyond the entrenched two parties; the elevation to halls of power by the Tea Party is the definition that demonstrates that the nation has begun that necessary realignment away from an entrenched two party system.

Those who oppose the Tea Party have a simple solution – do what they did. If they can make a winning argument to win an election, that is American democracy in action.

Ridiculing the Tea Party is nothing more than a demonstration of ineptitude by their opponents.

Those who garner more votes win elections and are awarded the custodial and temporary positions pf power.

It is as simple as that

Let Freedom ring!

One Million Million

As the budgetary debate continues unabated within the political class and their media flacks, there seems to be emerging a recurring theme that has somehow gone unchallenged.

In the context of finding additional funds with which to use for the operation of government, that new catch phrase being trumpeted has been for “millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share”

It is indeed true that the United States tax code does offer certain and particular tax breaks and advantages to a few select citizens and corporations. On that basis alone, the tax code should be completely overhauled and restructured to insure a truly balanced framework with which to collect revenue. The debate should not be whether or not the government needs to be properly funded; of course it does. The debate should be on exactly what the government should be doing with that specified funding.

The question of ‘fairness’ relative to those aforementioned millionaires and billionaires however is nothing more than class envy and class warfare. Is not America the land where the only limitation on a citizen is their own desire in the pursuit of the American dream? By charging unfairness to those who have worked hard and played by the rules by definition makes that effort seem somehow unfair , bordering on apparent criminality,  to the rest of  the populace who have chosen not to choose a sizeable financial fortune as their particular definition of success. This is as it should be in the world’s foremost democracy. Each man left alone by the government to his own pursuits.

The ridiculous part of this debate of fairness however is that no one seems to have actually done even the most basic of math relative to ‘fairness’ and the national budget.

To wit:

The proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2012 is for roughly 3.8 trillion dollars: to better understand that number, it is necessary to remember that one trillion is a million million.

With that fact, this is how the numbers would work if the millionaires and billionaires paid what some of the political class would deem to be their fair share.

It would be inappropriate to garnish 100 percent of either an individuals or business’ income, so we will ignore those whose wealth is just 1 million dollars. Since the argument holds that millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share, let us use that million dollars as a benchmark, so let us consider a total wealth of two million dollars to be the threshold for this scenario.

It could be safely presumed that those whose wealth exceeds two million dollars would number at about one million entities -personal and corporate.

If we were to confiscate one million dollars from each of those million pocketbooks, we would only acquire ONE trillion dollars. The shortfall of almost three trillion dollars would need to come from the rest of the populace. That redistributed wealth would not fund the government for more than three months and pay nothing towards the national debt.

Of course, once the fact that one million dollars a year was being confiscated from ones wealth, what exactly would the motivation be to succeed and prosper? Those million picked pocketbooks would begin to shrink, putting an even greater responsibility on those who could ill afford to appease the governmental appetite for funds.

The budget process is broken; there are a million reasons why, but one inescapable fact; it must be fixed and brought into balance or the land of prosperity will dwindle and fade into the dusty pages of history.

Eighteen Point Four

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” – attributed to Benjamin Franklin

In the midst of the haze, hysteria and raging examples of political cowardice that was the debt ceiling debate these past several weeks, a commonly voiced, but little noted, concern of both political extremes held that there needed to be federal funding to help salvage our crumbling roads and assorted related infrastructure and that said funding needed to be appropriated separate and distinct from any imagined compromise on the debt ceiling requirements. We were told by the political class and their media flacks that crumbling roads and accompanying injuries or worse would be attributed to those who opted not to help preserve this part of America.

A solid sounding, if otherwise ridiculous, talking point to be sure, spewed forth with solemnity but wildly inaccurate and sadly one that was never confronted or even questioned in passing. This is an example of the canards floated by our elected officials when faced with the realities of our national financial health and their delinquency of duty in addressing these national concerns.

They either outright lie or exemplify stupidity in action. These are not ad hominum attacks; they are observations based upon factual actions and responses by those who are entrusted with the fiduciary health of this nation.

There can be little debate on the collective incompetence of Congress when the following facts are ignored, or chosen to be the subject of obfuscation.

(ed. Note: the following information was gathered directly from the official United States Department of Transportation and the

Federal Highway

Administration website. This information is available to any citizen, even those who hold elected office)

On November 5, 1990, President George H. W. Bush approved the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990. It embodied a compromise the Republican President had reached with the Democratic-controlled Congress to reduce the Federal budget deficit. The Act increased the Federal gas tax by 5 cents, with half the increase going to the Highway Trust Fund, the other half to deficit reduction.

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, signed by President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1993, increased the gas tax by 4.3 cents, bringing the total tax to 18.4 cents per gallon. The increase was entirely for deficit reduction, with none credited to the Highway Trust Fund. However, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which President Clinton approved on August 5, 1997, redirected the 4.3-cents general fund gas tax increase to the Highway Trust Fund.

So the question demands an answer: How can there be a need for additional national debt relief and highway financing when there is a tax of 18.4 cents on every gallon of gasoline sold being redirected to the national coffers to be absorbed into the general fund instead of its intended usage?

The American electorate must answer this question in the only way those who live in a free and democratic society have at their disposal; Receive an intelligent response from those entrusted with the budgetary responsibilities for this nation, or in the absence of any substantive and salient answers, vote those responsible out of office en masse’.

American can not long prosper if those with fiduciary responsibilities handle our finances with this level of ignorance.

18.4 cents of each and every gallon of gasoline –almost two dollars on the average fill up -  the number is staggering.

Demand an answer: it is YOUR money.