I was reading this week's Time magazine, and I found an article about South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, and about how he and his ideas represent the Tea Party. Based on the content of the article, the Tea Party's first and foremost goal seems to involve bringing down the national deficit by significantly reducing federal spending. For example, Jim DeMint recently successfully pushed for legislation in the Senate that banned earmarks; "DeMint and his allies... say earmarks are the grease that makes the hidden machinery of money politics work, the bribes that get really expensive measures through Congress." Other things on the Tea Party/ hard-core Republican agenda include "slashing taxes and spending, repealing the Obama health care law, turning education policy over the states and gradually dismantling safety-net programs like Social Security and Medicare." In order to further these plans, the Tea Partiers are working to remove the moderate Republicans from office. However, the Tea Party ideologies seem to contain some worrying contradictions. For example, according to the article, "DeMint himself can say that Medicare spending must be restrained and then in the same interview bash health care reform for reducing the program's growth by $500 billion."In my opinion, the Tea Party's extremist views will not succeed in winning over a majority of the public in the long term. The ideas seem misguided, unlikely to succeed, and contradictory. The quote about DeMint on Medicare shows that the Tea Party is trying to please people on both sides of the issue, without taking a moderate stance. Another contradiction is that they want to cut taxes, but reduce the deficit; how will that work? Also, I don't think that people want so many government programs to be cut. Finally, I don't think that making leadership more extreme by rooting out moderates is the right way to go. Right now, the Tea Party's extremist, vague rhetoric seems to be working, but I don't believe that this extremism is an effective tactic to achieve success in 2012. What do you guys think about the Tea Party and its goals and leaders?
5 comments:
I agree with Rashmi's ideas. The Tea Party definitely sounds a little contradictory when they tout the national deficit as the greatest problem today and then argue for cuts in both taxes and government spending--that implies cutting a lot more government spending than taxes. Frankly, I don't think that the Tea Party will maintain its appeal for very long because of its extreme views, although the ideas of the Tea Party might remain (cutting taxes and government spending simultaneously). The truth is, few voters are willing to vote for higher taxes even if they are in favor of reducing the national deficit. Perhaps it is the voters themselves who are trying to vote for their own self-interest?
The Tea Party really annoys me. They are like this sily little chihuahua that's barks all over the place for no reason and just will not shut up! First of all, there seems to be no real agenda in this party other than their haterd for liberalism and Obama. Yes, I know that many of them are frustrated by the current political system and want reform, but in trying to prove that they are better than the current parties of today, they encourage factionalism and extremism that only aggravates our national problems. This interesting little piece on found on US News discusses how the former Senator of Alaska, Miller, lost to Murkowski, and is trying to make a disgusting power grab by asking the court to prevent Alaska from declaring her a winner and to invalidate a good number of her votes based on Mistakes. Miller, a product of the Tea Party Movement, is not getting any flac from the Tea Party leaders like Sarah Palin, even though they are quick to point out the corruption of other parties. This proves that despite their wonderful "fresh" approach to politics, their leaders seem to be the same extremist powerhungry hypocritical jerks with a new name.
Maybe it started off as a good thing, but ultimately the fact that they care nothing for compromise, seem keen on dividing our nation, hold contradictory and ill thought out plans, and want to have their cake and eat it too, they ain't gonna make it in the long run.
now to go have some real tea to cool down (sorry I had to make this bad joke
Here is the link to the story any how: http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2010/11/19/palin-tea-party-quiet-on-joe-miller-power-grab
Anjana, I really like your chihuahua analogy.
I really wish the tea party would separate from the Republicans and become a third party because eliminating the moderates seems like a bad move for the country. Like that movie we watched in class said, legislation can't be passed in an extremely partisan Congress. Also, if that happened then the tea party might be finally be forced to make a workable platform so they can become constructive rather than destructive.
I'd definately agree with everyone. Many times, these extremeist parties never get a chance to grow and capture a significant majority simply because they lean so far in the political spectrum. Also, the idea of reducing the deficit is a good idea. However, what happens after you reduce it? You fixed the government's problem but lots of pepole are going to be unhappy with things like dismantling Social Security and Medicare. It's just a lot to consider and it's such a huge change to our status quo right now that it doesn't seem likely and successful at all like what Rashmi said. It is contradictory too and people will find that untrustworthy, ultimately not vote for this party. All in all, I don't think this party will be very successful.
I think we all agree that the Tea Party ideologies won't thrive in the long run. The some of government spending is absolutely necessary and cutting those programs may slightly affect the budget deficit but will ultimately have undesirable consequences on our nation. Anyways, the people will never go for cutting the government programs.
However, the mere existence of the Tea Party signifies dissatisfaction. While I don't agree with the methods of the Tea Party, I believe something should be done about the current national deficit. Perhaps we don't need to take such drastic measures but we do need to recognize the severity of the problem.
Post a Comment