Today's New York Times/CBS poll of Tea Party supporters found that Tea Party supporters are mostly white men who are wealthier and better educated than the general public, and they are convinced that the economic stimulus package and the health care reform helps the poor more than the rich.
Well now, isn't that refreshing? Fact is: they are right! Suddenly we can have a real debate based in the real world.
We can stop talking about the President's birth certificate, a United Nations takeover of the United States, changes in the design of coins, and all that other nonsense. What we are really dealing with is remarkably straightforward: a sizable group of wealthy white men who think that the government should help them and no one else.
Duh.
And government policies actually did help them instead of everyone else for so long that they came to feel entitled to such things. And now they are mad.
It's so simple. The poll shows that most Tea Party supporters send their children to public schools, don't think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president, return their census forms at a higher rate than the general public, and like Social Security and Medicare. What they don't like is government policies that help those less fortunate than themselves.
Thus, they fiercely oppose the economic stimulus package and the health care reform but they didn't really mind the bank bailout. They hate the the health care reform in particular, because it actually does redistribute wealth downward more than the stimulus package.
May I suggest that we actually engage in this debate? That we say, loudly and proudly, yes, that is what these programs do, and that is why we support them. The gap between those at the top and everyone else has been steadily growing for decades, and we think that is bad.
This is a debate we will win, hands down. Let's stop talking about whether Sarah Palin is in her right mind, or what her speaking fees are, or uneducated Tea Party dimwits (which is in any case untrue), and say plainly it is a good thing for the government to redistribute wealth downward in a time of multimillion dollar bonuses on Wall Street and high long term unemployment on Main Street.
This is gonna be like shooting fish in a barrel.
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Confronted by such obvious and repeated failures, liberals like Mr. Ostertag instead call for more wealth confiscati
Of course very little of the money stolen from you and me is used to feed and shelter the poor. It is used to make payments on the national debt and fund the Pentagon.
Moreover, simply stealing money from the producers and showering it on the poor is not how the game is played. The game is about debt and turning the little people into serfs and slaves.
Sounds like small business owners.
Go ahead, keep calling us names. I love telling progressiv
What the ... are you smoking? EVERY tea party acquaintan
Find a tea party activist and ask them – if you could quit paying ss now, and NEVER get a dime in return, would you do it? If you didn’t have to pay a dime into the public educationa
And the part about not helping those less fortunate, a complete load of bull. I understand that conservati
You don’t really want a real debate. That’s why you live in this cesspool of groupthink
The government doesn't have the money to spend. Beside, it's not the government
The government should provide its citizens with a safe environmen
Spending money on deadbeats is the concern. Let family, churches and nonprofit charitable organizati
And, by the way, I hate Social Security! It was a bad idea back then and it should be dropped. Where the heck is the SECURITY? I'm nearing retirement and if it weren't for the common sense in me telling me to do my own savings, I'd be screwed if I depended solely on that stupid idea of Social Security. Both parties have robbed that plan and now--my blood pressure is shooting up, I'd better stop. I can't stand either party. Those politician
BTW - if I work hard as a parent to make additional money to send my kids to private school, should I not be able to?