Why the Tea Party movement is weird

By Tom Quiner

This is the way our system works:

Teachers want more money for schools (and salaries, of course).

Defense contractors want more money for defense.

Social justice advocates want more money for welfare and society’s safety net.

Planned Parenthood wants more money for abortions.

Senior citizens want more money for Social Security and Medicare.

AIDs advocates want more money for AIDs research.

Lovers of the Tipton Kangaroo Rat want more money for enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

We have created a system of governance in America with an endless list of groups with their hands out asking taxpayers for money for their causes.

Some of them are very good.

Some of them are very bad. It depends on your perspective, I guess.

That’s why the Tea Party movement is so weird. They don’t want anything.

They don’t want taxpayers to hand out money for their pet project. In fact, they want taxpayers to hand out less money to these causes.

They want government to live within its means.

They want government to be governed by the Constitution rather than special interests.

No wonder the Democratic Party tries to portray them as being weird.

No wonder our Founding Fathers would love them.

6 Comments

  1. Lisa Bourne on July 29, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    Amen



  2. Bob Roelf on July 30, 2011 at 7:57 am

    Tom, This was an excellent article. My respect for the Tea Party continues to grow because of it’s advocacy for smaller government. Our government has gotten too big, too expensive, too intrusive, and too bureaucratic. It seems to have a life of it’s own that is beyond the control of ordinary citizens.

    Bob Roelf



  3. Monte B. Gray on July 30, 2011 at 8:41 am

    Where was the tea party when President Bush took us into Afghanistan and Iraq without paying for it, other than by the money he borrowed, and financing it by raising the debt limit numerous times so the government could pay for it! Tea Party members were asleep at the switch on that one!
    Maybe thats why the Democrats find them so weird!



    • quinersdiner on July 30, 2011 at 9:07 am

      The Tea Party wasn’t in existence at that time. By your tone, I gather you would still find them weird even if they had been. I wish they had been around back then. It is only through their pressure that serious discussions of fiscal restraint is occurring. I commend them.



  4. Monte B. Gray on July 30, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    You are correct! The Tea Party is to be commended for bringing fiscal restraint back into vogue! Weird is to harsh a word. My point I was trying to make is that I wonder what those members were doing when President Bush was in power. Why were they not expressing their concern when he was spending money right and left. Because, when you get right down to it, I suspect the majority of the Tea Party members were former Republicans.



    • quinersdiner on July 30, 2011 at 1:12 pm

      In a way, I think they came into being because of the reckless spending during the Bush years, which got even worse once the Democrats retook Congress in 2006. Bush overspent, but it was chump change compared to the Pelosi/Reid/Obama spending orgy. The Tea Party was formed in about 2009 to prevent the kind of undisciplined spending that flowed from both parties.