I’ve never been to a tea party rally. Come to think of it, I’ve never been to an afternoon tea. I am dismayed at the coverage of the tea party in the media. If you can get around the ugly truth that most of these demonstrators appear to be middle class whites, there is some logic to their argument. And I can’t say the same about the liberals.
I confess to being an independent conservative my whole life. I am educated with graduate and post-graduate degrees. I was never a straight A student or the smartest in the class. I am a small business owner with, I think, a great deal of common sense. I enjoy the daily economic/political debate that never takes a break. Watching the financial channels can be almost as entertaining as a roller coaster. With all that said, here is my take on what is right with the tea party economics and wrong with the liberal/progressive view.
The tea party message is very simple and clear. They are for smaller government, lower taxes, and less spending. This separates them from both the republican and democrat parties. Republicans talk of lowering taxes and reducing government, but they seldom do and never cut spending. Democrats proudly expand government, increase spending, and raise taxes. I like the tea party view because the end result is more freedom. Freedom is what my soul craves, even at the risk that a greedy person gets rich.
The liberal/progressive message is harder for me to accept. Here are just a few of their tenets that I can’t agree with.
- The way out of an economic recession is to spend more money. This is an insane tactic on the micro-economic level and I can’t trust it on the macro level.
- Entitlements improve the economy. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, now healthcare, farm subsidies, and more may be helpful programs but cannot possibly sustain a national economy. With the population aging and living longer, I would like to hear an honest liberal assessment of how we are going to pay for just Social Security in the future.
- Legal and illegal immigrants raise the standard of living for Americans. The theory says immigrants take the lower paying jobs pushing other Americans up the economic ladder. I can’t comprehend this one. I guess that makes me as unintelligent as a tea partyer.
For the sake of brevity, I will stop. I understand why you have to have a Harvard degree to be a progressive. Much of liberal economics does not make sense.
Bigger government to me means more fraud, corruption, and waste. Bigger government means paying more for less and making the system much more complicated. I think politicians want to do good and most have big hearts, but the end result seems to be an expansion of rules and systems plus higher taxes and less freedom for individuals.
The best answer for all is to limit the terms in office for elected officials. We don’t need a constitutional amendment for that, just go vote. Somewhere along the way we allowed being a congressman become a career.
I’m from the south. Can you drink ice tea at those parties?
Tags: big government, economics, entitlements, progressives
Ice Tea, Sweet Tea, Earl Grey…they’re all acceptable…C’mon, join the fun! Critical thinkers are always welcome….