What Is The Tea Party Protesting?

by Melissa Clouthier | April 15, 2009 10:55 am

Dan Riehl says it’s the spending[1]. So does Betsy[2].

Glenn Reynolds[3] calls them, in the Wall Street Journal[4], a “they’re really a post-partisan expression of outrage.”

Michelle Malkin talks repeatedly of “generational theft[5]“, as in people are protesting robbing our children to pay for the current generation’s mistakes.

MaxedOutMama brilliantly discusses the economics of things[6]. The Tea Party folks, myself included, might not understand the details, but the principles of things are clear. She says here[7]:

But with employment declining, and CRE busting so badly, and with corporate profits in a profound swoon, the fundamental economic choices facing a government are:

The government lets the natural economic cycle run its course (and that natural economic cycle is for a depression-like event), or
The government intervenes to bring needed infrastructure investments a few years forward, which puts a floor on the drop in economic activity, supports employment, and knocks the bottom off the cycle.
Our current leaders in Congress seem to have chosen yet a third way to produce a lengthening and deepening of the natural economic cycle, which is to pull money out of the private sector and to invest it in projects such as research grants for non-viable energy production, mandates for utilities to spend on higher-cost energy production, investments in frilly socially attractive programs (community outreach?), and throwing money into non-viable financial institutions. These steps pull money out of gross private domestic investment instead of supporting it.

I don’t think it makes Americans extremists[8] because they see the implications for this government mess. The protesters are protesting a tone-deaf government, bailouts, spending, and just the implications for the future.

Some aren’t protesting at all…and taking a vacation[9].

Endnotes:
  1. the spending: http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/tea-party/
  2. Betsy: http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-grassroots-activists.html
  3. Glenn Reynolds: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/76702/
  4. Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975867505519363.html
  5. generational theft: http://michellemalkin.com/2009/04/15/a-tax-day-tea-party-cheat-sheet-how-it-all-started/
  6. discusses the economics of things: http://maxedoutmama.blogspot.com/2009/03/everyone-gets-cockleburr-rations-for.html
  7. here: http://maxedoutmama.blogspot.com/2009/04/rumors-of-my-demise-were-not-hugely.html
  8. extremists: http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=14719
  9. taking a vacation: http://lileks.com/bleat/?p=1895

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