Pages

Monday, April 20, 2009

Left blogs to tea party - one lump or two?

Many liberal bloggers both nationally and right here in Wisconsin have had no small amount of fun taking shots at last week's tea party protests.

One method of attack seeks to label the entire group as racist, tin-foil-hat-wearing, conspiracy nuts. This is primarily based on some of the more outrageous signs wielded by a few of the protesters. Any mass movement is apt to attract a few (or even more than a few) characters that see this as a forum to shout about their own particular viewpoint, no matter how questionable. I seem to recall certain WTO protests at which it wasn't entirely clear if the crowd was against free trade or unbroken storefront windows (perhaps they didn't like the look of their own reflections).

The next attack revolves around the involvement of professional groups to promote and organize the tea party rallies. In the minds of those on the left, this results in the tea parties being artificial and not a real grass roots movement. This may be fun to repeat, but is entirely beside the point.

If the people that attended the rallies last week were the same ones that voted against President Obama last fall, and these events result in nothing more than preaching to the choir, then the left really has nothing to fear from them. If, on the other hand, some voters previously disposed to give Obama the benefit of the doubt start to wonder about the impact of his policies based on coverage of the tea parties, then these events do represent a political threat to the enactment of the so-called progressive agenda. If someone's mind is changed based on what they saw or heard at one of the tea parties, will it really make one bit of difference that Dick Armey parked their car?

The final, and in my mind the most disingenuous, critique states that ordinary working and middle class people shouldn't participate in the tea party protests because: 1. Obama's massive spending spree is being done for their benefit and 2. Taxes will be cut for 95% of the country and raised on only the top 5% of earners in order to pay for the spending.

First, here's Emily Mills at The Lost Albatross:
Apparently it took a New Deal style stimulus plan to do it for the teabaggers. This would be the stimulus plan aimed at pulling the country out of the abominable mess left by the last administration's hard-on for deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.
Next here's Corey Liebmann at Eye on Wisconsin:
Another crazy point was that we were all being taxed to death. While that may have been an official talking point, it is clearly not based in reality. President Obama's stimulus plan actually gives significant tax cuts to working people and he only raises taxes on the very wealthy – and even then only to Clinton era levels.
If you increase government spending and decrease revenues you have to start borrowing. At some point, that debt will have to be paid back. Does anyone really think we can just get the top 5% of earners in the country to all pass the hat and pay off the massive debts we incur? This problem is magnified by the demographic conditions we are up against in the very near future.

That the bill will come due is true regardless of how the money is spent today. Spending it wisely and in ways that encourage future growth may help ease the debt burden, but this will not eliminate it.

So when people, ordinary working and middle class people, stand up at rallies around the country to denounce spending they are not defending the wealthy, they are sticking up for their future selves and for their children's future.

Washington Post writer Steve Pearlstein identifies the heart of the matter here:
The old Republican fantasy was that tax cuts were the magic elixir that would solve every problem. Now that the public has finally rejected it, it's disappointing to see Democrats offering up the equally fantastic notion that Americans can have all the government they want while getting someone else to pay for it.
Or if he's not good enough for you, how about a true believer, liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias has tried to point out that a higher tax bill is in our future (emphasis added):
Barack Obama has, quite rightly, an ambitious progressive agenda. But in budgetary terms you can’t really implement an ambitious progressive agenda and pair it with revenues that are only “slightly above” the average at which they rested during an era of conservative governance. This is not an issue in the short-term, since we’re dealing with a recession, but what you see at the right hand side of these charts is not sustainable. And I think the administration is correct to think that they should not compromise on their main policy pillars. The issue, though nobody wants to say it, is that taxes need to be higher.
If more people on the left had the courage to make this argument in public, many questions about the motivation and funding of the recent protests would give way to a simple, "how do you take your tea?"

6 comments:

johnny said...

I found these teabagging festivals comical on a number of levels. First, the propaganda arm of the Republican party, fox news, spent weeks promoting them as if they were some massive ground swell of public outrage.Their slobbering coverage and promotion of these events was shameful even by their low journalistic standards. Secondly, what exactly were these folks protesting? Was it the cut in their payroll taxes taken out of each paycheck, or was it the tax cut that the vast majority will get under the Obama budget. Third,if it was really about out of control spending where were all these folks when President Bush was doubling the debt he inherited from President Clinton with irresponsible, war-time tax cuts. The best part I heard though was the fact that the protesters didnt want to burden their children with having to pay for all the programs the president has proposed. A valid complaint, some on both sides would say. However, where are the republicans on issues like global warming that will most assuredly burden their children with a myriad of problems. Dont get me wrong, I dont care if the surface of the planet boils over, i just want to hear more than a few token republicans take this issue as seriously as they do the growing debt. What these teabag protests were were anti-Obama rallies, by and large, and thats fine because the very 1st amendment says people can assemble and protest whatever they want. I think they would have been more genuine if they had just said they dont like democrats and outlined why.

Soapbox Jill said...

"So when people, ordinary working and middle class people, stand up at rallies around the country to denounce spending they are not defending the wealthy, they are sticking up for their future selves and for their children's future."
Yes, they/we were standing up against irresponsible spending and our children's future of debt. BUT, sticking up for the "wealthy" is not evil. The wealthy are the job-creators, spenders and investors that fuel and finance America. THEY are an important part of US. The Tea party people knew this, as evidenced by the pro-capitalism and anti-socialism signs at the rally I attended in Fond du Lac.

Jeremy R. Shown said...

Soapbox Jill,

Thanks for commenting. I appreciate it.

I think that it is possible that wealthy/job creators relationship actually goes the other way. The job creators become wealthy.

This doesn't necessarily mean all wealthy people are job creators.

I am confident there are some smart Wall St. folks that made a bunch of money securitizing mortgages, and for a short time created jobs in the mortgage industry. Now though, much of these gains are gone. If these gains weren't built on any real foundation, do these folks really deserve the support of those footing the bill for the bailout?

I still think concerns about the future are a prime motivator in this case.

Or, to put it another way, maybe we should stick up for the wealthy because eventually they are going to run out of rich people to tax, and I'm pretty sure that won't mean the end of taxation, so who's left? The rest of us.

Thanks.

Jeremy R. Shown said...

johnny-

I am unconvinced by the "where were these guys when Bush was spending like a sailor on shore leave" argument, though I hear it all the time.

Say you got pulled over for doing 100mph. Do you think that the cop would let you off if you told him that he happened to be the same cop that pulled you over last year for going 15 mph over and that time he let you off without so much as a warning?

PS - Tell sheriff Joe I say, "hi."

Soapbox Jill said...

You said,"I am confident there are some smart Wall St. folks that made a bunch of money securitizing mortgages, and for a short time created jobs in the mortgage industry. Now though, much of these gains are gone. If these gains weren't built on any real foundation, do these folks really deserve the support of those footing the bill for the bailout?"
I say,NO. I don't think anyone should have gotten bailouts, actually.
You said, "maybe we should stick up for the wealthy because eventually they are going to run out of rich people to tax, and I'm pretty sure that won't mean the end of taxation, so who's left? The rest of us."
I say, Yes, to that. Plus, don't you think that tho' the "rich" don't all create jobs, they do spend and invest moola, which ought to help business and the market?
Fun chatting with ya.

Jeremy R. Shown said...

Thanks Jill.

Good talking to you as well.