he compromise with the tax cut and unemployment extension. We failed to be one unified voice on that front. FreedomWorks and Americans for Tax reform were for it while most Tea Party groups were against it.Dick Army and Matt Kibbe’s group FreedomWorks is a top down Tea Party group/PAC that does too much directing and not enough listening to average American concerns. My rub against this group is that they act more like a PAC and less like a grassroots group of average Americans freely voicing their opinions.
I wish not to bash these PAC’s but supporting the compromise hatched between the old Republican guard and the election losing p
resident was a mistake from the gate.The president and the Democrats lost the election! They lost resoundingly. They lost on the domestic front, with the condemnation of their fiscal policy being most prominent! Moreover, the president has shut the Republicans out of the room of negotiations, and the Democrats never allowed their ideas to even be put on the table of debate, for two long years!
Then the president, weak and yet still arrogant asks the Republicans for a meeting about a tax deadline about to expire that would infuriate voters even more if allowed to lapse. Sounds like ropy-dope, right? Sounds like the perfect time for Republicans to invoke a Nancy Reagan stance, “just say NO.” Moreover, what compromise? Let the Democrats vote to extend the Bush taxes while altering the bill to raise the rate on the rich. Americans know it will be another job-killer.
The new 112th Congress can step in and reverse the increase, and if they run up against a presidential veto so be it. Do you really think that the Democratic Senators staring at their 2012 elections futures would not jump away from Obama and join Republicans in overriding that veto?
No the Republicans old guard played political chess again between the need and voice of the American constituency and the political desires of their party power. How?
Well if the Republicans listened and were looking out for American interest they would have demanded from the president
3 things. One make the Bush tax rates permanent, two stop or find funding for unemployment that would not come out of business taxes and three abolish estate taxes and lower the corporate tax rate. What would the president get in this deal? His prize would be that he would enjoy the political capital from fiscal policy that would start creating real job growth in America and not smoke and mirror stimulus jobs.Well let’s peek inside the minds of the Republicans first to see the political spinning wheels. The Republican Party still fears the Democrats will use vitriolic rhetoric to define them in the run up to 2012 elections. They are fearful that independent voters will believe the Democrats and the President if they are called “Scrooge” by not extending unemployment benefits during Christmas. They hate being tainted as the party of “No.”
The Republicans only pushed for a two year extension of the Bush tax rate so they could keep the political tax issues on the front burner for the presidential campaign. The Republicans are thinking the economy will start to improve and they can say to the American people “we kept your rates low” but the President wants to raise rates on the rich and kill American jobs. This political hot potato is what infuriates Americans about Washington politics.
Okay what is the President thinking? Well, pardon me if my Karl Marx is rusty, but here I go. I believe he is aware that he has lost the battle but not the war. He knows he will lose his re-election bid in 2012 if the economy doesn’t turn around, but he
will also lose his base supporters if he caves in to Republicans. Therefore, by doing a deal with the Republicans to extend the tax rates, he tries to show that he is listening to the proletariat, (American workers) and their needs, but through no fault of his own is held “hostage” by the bourgeois. (The Rich) He gets to continue to demonize the Republicans to his Kool-Aid drinking base while also taking credit if the economy turns a corner. That is a win win for the President.What is the Tea Party thinking? Well, along with Sarah P
alin and Michelle Bachman we are thinking forget the political games. The Bush tax rates should be extended indefinitely and voted on by an up and down vote without anything attached to the Bill. Then pack your Democratic bags and put your gavel in the draw 111th Congress and go home permanently.All of this brings up the reason why the Tea Party Movement needs to grow their voice and get on the same political page. We are the Movement of common sense and reason in government. No mor
e bailouts, stimulus, tarp, cash for clunkers and subsidized “couch potatoes” or unemployment benefits that now will be three years of paying idle workers with the cost born on American taxpayers and business.Yes, we are not shy or ashamed to be the voice of reason as we invoke the tough love discipline needed in Washington by the word “NO”.
We are just the average traditional Americans fighting on the ground trying to bring a “bottom up” message to the “top” of Capitol Hill.
Join me and other traditional Americans to discuss our American issues and battles ahead at;
http://www.thetraditionalamericanmovement.com/home
