The Grape 2009 Tea Party

As many of us finished our taxes, there were “Bipartisan” groups who told us we were wasting our money. These groups, who were mostly conservative, demonstrated anywhere they could find a camera. They called the gatherings tea parties. I find the allusion to the actual Boston Tea Party both scary and a disservice to the real patriots who participated in the historic event at their peril. The question in 1773 was being taxed without the ability to elect the representatives who would levy the tax. The last time I checked, everyone who wished to vote in the last election voted.

Did they serve a side of sour grapes at the tea party in 1773?

Conservatives seem a little sour right now. They told us everything from bailing out banks to healthcare reform was a waste of money. They told us the deficit the Obama Administration proposed in this budget was obscene. They told us we were mortgaging our children’s future. Did they have a tea party during President George W. Bush’s Administration? Many conservatives continue to defend President Bush’s optional war which ran up over a trillion dollars in deficits. Did they forget about the Reagan deficits? I guess, if you’re buying bullets and lasers, deficits are ok.

Conservatives are trying to get some free press on a day which is painful but necessary. They want to tap into the usual angst which accompanies tax day. Conservatives like Senator Judd A. Gregg (R-NH) send us mixed messages which they to try pass off as philosophical differences worthy of a tea party.

“The budget is reasonably honest, and in fact, I give them credit for having brought on line and made clear the costs of the war,” Gregg told NPR’s Melissa Block.

“But the budget itself has some real serious problems, in my opinion, because it is a massive expansion in spending and a massive expansion in taxes. And the real problem is that in the out years, not only does it increase spending in taxes, but it passes on to our children a government that can’t be afforded, and that’s a big problem.”

One of the major items of the budget is the 650 million dollars set aside for health care reform. This might be our best hope of reducing entitlement costs which balloon the very out year deficits Gregg and others have mobilized the tea parties to fight against.

The irony is that Gregg is probably more interested in killing the set aside than the actual deficit. It turns out his number one contributor in the 2006 election was Blue Cross Blue Shield. In a career, his top three donor industries have been insurance, pharmaceuticals and health professionals. This is the kind of thing right wingers do.

Right wingers like to drag out a bunch of poor kids with their piggybanks on tax day and tell us the evils of deficits. They want us to starve the budget of any chance of real reform. They want us to demand this so their fat cat contributors can continue to make obscene profits. Americans got to vote. They decided Gregg and others needed a little break from power. They can whip up all the tea parties they want but, America has voted. Fifty-two percent of us want to spend a few bucks more today to keep from paying later.