The media's enduring, and understandable, fascination with the Tea Party movement continues unabated, as this weekend's coverage demonstrates. Unfortunately, what appear to be false notions of objectivity—or perhaps a lack of interest in policy—is preventing that coverage from illuminating what the movement actually represents and what it would do if empowered.
Case in point: the Associated Press just published a 2,300 word stemwinder examining how and why a variety of individuals became involved in the Tea Party movement without once asking what precisely the platform consists of. It tells you the back stories of representative Tea Partiers, dutifully quotes their antipathy toward government, taxes, and deficit spending, and their horror at the accusation that they are motivated by racial animus. But the reporter seems never to have posed any serious questions about what tradeoffs they would make to achieve their stated goals.
There are only two ways to balance a budget in the red: raising taxes, which Tea Partiers vehemently oppose, and cutting spending. But what spending should be cut? Defense and veterans spending, which accounts for 54 percent of the federal budget? It would be pretty hard to merge that with the Republicans' foreign-policy-hawk wing. Entitlement spending such as Social Security and Medicare? Good luck winning elections with that platform. Discretionary domestic spending is the favorite target of fiscal conservatives. But when it comes to specifics, suddenly every program seems worthier than when demonized in the collective abstract. Which politician wants to cut spending on Homeland Security? Education for students with special needs? (Surely not Sarah Palin!)
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5 comments:
the assumption that there are only two ways to balance a budget is incorrect. history has proven that cutting taxes increases revenue. newsweek just refuses to acknowledge this fact
A very large portion of the projected deficit for 2020 comes from tax cuts.
10:24 thanks for pointing out the narrow minded writer . Reagan proved that lowering tax's generated more business which meant more money for all .
Its SOUNDS really good to talk about who wants to cut defense and veterans spending, but the fact remains that there are BILLIONS of dollars, actually, hundreds of billions wasted by congress on extrememly questionable items....thats why every bill has unrelated "riders' authorizing spending on projects that would never pass muster, but WILL pass if attached to something else....EVERY Senator and Representative ---EVERY ONE, regardless of their stated intentions to do otherwise--- is involved with this type of appropriation. This is lying, cheating, and stealing, all wrapped into one....Vote out the incumbents? You'll just get some new snakes selling a different brand of snake oil....there's only one solution...and it's on the way...
It's strange how our law makers take office with modest incomes and leave millionaires .
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