Bruce Bartlett lashes out against tea parties

[bascule]

Okay, so this guy's like a former Reagan policy adviser and stuff... and worked under Bush for the US Treasury.

 

http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/07/deficit-tea-party-opinions-columnists-bartlett.html

 

He basically says the tea parties were retarded.

 

There were, of course, no tea party demonstrations during the Bush years. Staying in power, even if it meant buying votes with the public purse, was OK with Republicans as long as it worked. Those with misgivings kept their mouths shut and looked the other way or, like Vice President Dick Cheney, said that deficits don't matter.

 

Some of those protesting today's deficits rationalize their double-standard by saying that the deficits projected under Barack Obama are orders of magnitude greater than those created by Bush. This is not true. According to the Financial Report of the United States Government, the federal government's total indebtedness rose by $36 trillion under Bush--to $56.4 trillion in 2008 from $20.4 trillion in 2000.

 

Republicans were thrown out of power because of the giant mess they created. Within a little more than 100 days of Obama's presidency, there's suddenly a massive conservative outrage at the budget deficit. Apparently Democrats need to fix the budget deficit at the same time as dealing with a financial crisis and a recession/depression. We need to go haphazardly slashing through the national budget now, but under Bush everything was a-ok. WTF hypocrisy?

 

Cut them some slack? Seriously. And were you talking about the national debt during the Bush years? I sure was... in 2005 and in 2007.

[Pangloss]

I agree. And you sure were -- I remember it well.

[Sisyphus]

I say just ignore them. It's true, they're hypocritical, and largely empty of content, and this particular meme probably won't last. The only way it could matter is if it stirred up enough vague populist anger to swing a few elections, but it will fizzle out before November 2010, when we'll be talking about some other stupid non-issue instead. Hey, did you hear that Obama asked for DIJON MUSTARD?!?!?! LOLZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaYLo76RrEE

Edited May 9, 2009 by Pangloss
duplicate merged post removed

[Pangloss]

Several posts have been removed for moderator review due to apparent flaming. Let's follow Sisyphus' lead and get back to the subject at hand, please.

 

Remember to avoid personal attacks. SFN Rules can be found here.

 

(Sisyphus I also removed a dupe of your post that had merged itself into the one above.)

Edited May 10, 2009 by Pangloss

[iNow]

I appreciate that many people are concerned about spending, and worried about the long term impact to the economy. There were a few people who participated in the tea bagging affair who truly believe in conservative principles, or who were making these same criticisms during the past administration. My take, however, is that these participants/supporters in the tea bagging thing are really few, and far between.

 

Most of the people who took part are partisan ideologues who want nothing more than to bash Obama and his "liberal agenda." It had nothing to do with too much spending, because these same people were not standing up and taking notice when the spending was being done by a republican administration.

 

That's what is so infuriating, really. So many of these people are out there falsely waving the flag of "caring about spending and deficit," when in reality most of them are just covering up their witch hunt... putting a mask on their true motivations and attacking the current president for actions which the previous president was particularly guilty of, as well.

 

I'm personally really very tired of the hypocrisy and double standards.

Also, I think those who are against spending need to, at the very least, offer up a viable alternative to that will get things moving forward again (with a heavy emphasis on "viable" and also on "realistic."). No more beating of the free market drum unless they acknowledge and mitigate the areas where that freedom breaks down, or makes matters worse.

 

It's one thing to be against spending, but it's quite another to not have any alternatives. It's the lack of alternatives, I feel, that makes many of us a bit more patient and understanding of Obama's actions... thus far, anyway. There's a pretty significant difference between judging a president after 8 full years of fiscal irresponsibility and calling for a lynching of a new president after only 100 days in office... and it only makes matters worse when the people calling for fiscal responsibility now after such a short time were so silent during the last two administrations, or would even go so far as to call criticisms of the past administration signs that the critic lacked patriotism and/or honor. It's disgraceful, and glaringly hypocritical.

 

 

 

From the article linked in the OP:

 

Those that organized tea parties on April 15 to protest the budget deficit are like Capt. Renault. They are shocked, shocked to discover a problem that they turned a blind eye to for eight years because they're almost all Republicans and their party was in power. Now that the Democrats are in charge, these Johnny-come-lately fiscal conservatives have finally decided that something must now be done about the deficit--right this minute!

 

Our budgetary problem has been building for years and was made vastly worse by George W. Bush, who liquidated the budget surpluses of the Clinton years on give-away tax credits and rebates designed more to buy votes for Republicans than stimulate growth, and who added a massive unfunded drug benefit to Medicare even though the program was already deeply in debt. Just for good measure, Bush also opened the floodgates to pork barrel spending by refusing to veto anything until well into his second term.

 

There were, of course, no tea party demonstrations during the Bush years. Staying in power, even if it meant buying votes with the public purse, was OK with Republicans as long as it worked.

Edited May 9, 2009 by iNow

[bascule]

I looked up the Cheney quote that Bartlett was referencing:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26402-2004Jun8?language=printer

 

The line is not likely to make this week's eulogies to Ronald Reagan, but when Vice President Cheney allegedly declared, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he summed up an enduring argument from the former president's economic legacy.

 

In late 2002, Cheney had summoned the Bush administration's economic team to his office to discuss another round of tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Then-Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill pleaded that the government -- already running a $158 billion deficit -- was careering toward a fiscal crisis. But by O'Neill's account of the meeting, Cheney silenced him by invoking his take on Reagan's legacy.

 

The article just gets worse and worse the more I read. Wow. At least the Obama is trying. The Bush administration just didn't care (or rather, those who did were silenced)

 

Where were the tea parties then, when the Bush Administration was off starting expensive wars and cutting taxes while the deficit was skyrocketing?

[padren]

Republicans have always been against deficit spending, just as they have always been at war with Oceana.

 

Honestly what I find the most upsetting is the use of language purely as a manipulate tool - anyone who can't be bothered to actually communicate and state their true sentiments insults the people they are talking at. They are not against government spending, just against government spending on social programs and regulation. They may even genuinely believe our economy is being hurt by the current tax rates and that they should be lower. It's like the curtain was pulled down and they were kicked out of the Emerald City, but they are still trying to play the same booming voice games despite the obvious transparency. (To mix one too many metaphors)

 

I've never been a big fan of the republican party, but I actually hope they get their act together because this is just too sad to watch. I mean, have you seen the liberty tree?

[The Bear's Key]

I say just ignore them. It's true, they're hypocritical, and largely empty of content, and this particular meme probably won't last....

I used to shrug away the insane nonsense rabid yellings on AM radio, the liberal bashings on 700 Club, many things which I had no inkling were long connected to a national and fabricated ideology, yet confident in "knowing" that few would be idiots enough to buy into such lunacy -- without mentally challenging it.

 

Then Bush happened....and I won't so easily dismiss the "nonsense" again. Study how their propoganda works, attack it from so many different angles it makes their head spin, weaken it by strengthening its enemies: open government, healthy lower to middle class, a strong and free education.

 

I'm personally really very tired of the hypocrisy and double standards.

It's a habit of the power seekers in religion, carried onto the party they dominate (i.e. have infiltrated).

Edited May 12, 2009 by The Bear's Key