Tuesday, October 26, 2010

None of the Above

If you haven’t seen Brewster’s Millions, you should.  If only because the Tea Party is the modern Monty. 

image Monty is a run of the mill guy, worn out pitcher in a depressed New Jersey city, who loves his friend Spike.  He’s your average Joe.  In a race between two established candidates, our average Joe has to spend $30 million in 30 days.  He starts out running as a candidate only to realize that he doesn’t really want to be a politician, he just wants to throw the bums out.  And this is the modern Tea Party, $30 million in 30 days to throw the bums out.

Unfortunately, when the Tea Party wakes up from their party on November 3rd, they’re going to face the same hangover Monty felt.  And there’s no $300 million from George Burns (although come on, doesn’t Boehner look exactly like this guy).

My Dad sent out a well intentioned email summarizing the Tea Party angst.  Surprisingly, I kind of felt myself drawn to the early pieces.  It was like rooting for Monty.

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then they [sic] campaign against them.  Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Of course then the forwarded email gets Fox Newsisized. There’s your standard Nancy Pelosi reference (we need a villian).  And a list of taxes in case you forgot that there was a hunting license fee.  But it’s the end that sheds light on the Party of Tea.

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

That’s when I’m like WTF? 

None of these taxes existed 100 years ago.  Well neither did airplanes.  But ok, you don’t like taxes. NOBODY DOES.  This is where most journalists end their amazingly probing inquiries (sarcasm) of the Tea Party.  But the debt?  How many times do Democrats have to say that it was the Bush tax cuts that created our current debt?  Or the Bush wars.  Or the let’s stop watching Wall Street policies.   And the largest middle class?  Take a look back at an earlier post on income inequality; it’s amazing that the Tea Party and the rich-supporting Republicans are even remotely on the same page.  If you really want a strong middle class, you really should be supporting unions and eliminating tax cuts for the rich, not exactly your conservative plank.  Conservative policies DO NOT HELP the middle class. And mom staying home with the kids.  Hi, welcome to the 2010s.  But if you really want mom staying home with the kids, Sweden (we know all Tea Partiers love Sweden) pays for it.

The point is that the Tea Party is a throw the bums out party who’ve aligned themselves with the devil (George Burns, Oh God you Devil, get it?).  In thrusting up the Republicans, they’ve demolished any hope of actually solving the problems they care about.    And in the meantime, we’ll be choking on cigar smoke.  And Hackensack will still have a train running through the outfield.

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