Anti-Tax Tea Parties Held Across U.S.

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Oh, I agree with you there. I'm well aware of how fickle the American people can be especially if things don't go their way. .

I realize you enthusiastically voted for Obama.


But elections are won with the moderate, independent swing voters.

And a good portion of them have been voting against Bush/ Cheney.

If there is a perception that that things are going poorly in the next election cycles, and the GOP puts up something that pretends to be "fresh" they can win.


You will recall Obama threw a lot of dirt on Clinton and presented himself as being the "fresh" new choice.
 
I realize you enthusiastically voted for Obama.


But elections are won with the moderate, independent swing voters.

And a good portion of them have been voting against Bush/ Cheney.

If there is a perception that that things are going poorly in the next election cycles, and the GOP puts up something that pretends to be "fresh" they can win.

You will recall Obama threw a lot of dirt on Clinton and presented himself as being the "fresh" new choice.


In essence, that was the point I was trying to make, the bolded part, that is. Like both you and I said, the majority of Americans are moderates on most issues. Most Americans want a president and Congressional leadership that will do the most good for the middle-class to lower-income Americans in every way. I think the current financial crisis, the frustration over Iraq, the healthcare situation, etc. have been amplified by the massive failures of the Bush administration in nearly every area. I agree that many people were simply voting against Bush/Cheney. However, McCain spent most of his time on the campaign trail distancing himself from Bush. He was the maverick, the renegade, the guy who was going to turn the Republican party and then the country around. That's how he fancied himself, anyway. In better times, the American public might have bought it. The John McCain of yesteryear was more similar to that image than John McCain the GOP nominee. Why, then, didn't people respond to that this time around? The entire Republican party tried to distance itself from Bush. He spoke via satellite to his own party's convention for less than 10 minutes. Nearly every major speaker there tried to go on a populist rant about all that had gone wrong in the past 8 years apparently "forgetting" the fact that they supported most of it. It was a good show and in times past it may have been enough to pull off a win for the safe, "experienced" choice. It became clear on election night, though, that the Americans saw through the Republican charade beyond the Bush/Cheney debacle. They saw the Republican party was out of ideas, and out of touch with the world in which we now live. And coming back full circle to what you said, unless the Republican party itself realizes this and takes itself back from the super-rich, selfish blowhards and the morality police, fundies, the American people are no longer going to buy what they're selling.
 
But it's not just social spending. You love military spending, but don't want to pay the taxes for it...

This is the Elephant size contradiction that keeps hitting conservatives in the ass which you just ignore.

I don't think I have. Paying for the military is GOOD. Military for me is just as important as roads. There is no freedom without political freedom. You would think September 11th would teach people that. Even if they don't like the Iraq mission, certainly Afghanistan was worthy and you would need a military for that. Yes taxes should have been raised to pay for it but it becomes much harder when Bush wanted to increase domestic spending along with it and lower taxes. Not all tax cuts pay for themselves. Everyone knows that Europe has all those social programs because the U.S. spends more on the military so that they can be free to do so. If they want to cut social programs on their side and do more military spending so the U.S. can spend less on military that would be fine by me. Of course that won't happen.

Plus much of the social spending that Bush did didn't result in improvements so having Democrats do what he did doesn't make it somehow more efficient spending. We are talking about government here. If government was more cost efficient we should have government everywhere. It's getting so cynical that it looks like political opposition just criticizes because they want power more than implementing meaningful changes.

Most of the western world wanted to have their cake and eat it too during the post-Soviet era, that was called the "peace dividend", and the threat to freedom didn't actually go away and now decadent westerners want to shower themselves with benefits and pretend that there are no challenges with Iran/Russia/China etc. The debt is getting so big that I may be an old man before I see any meaningful changes.

They want roads just like everyone else. They also want their big ass American SUVs, insurance to cover them, and banks to be able to loan them money and I guarantee you that if Obama let them fail they'd be bitching then.

Here I agree. The public is full of the contradictions as I mentioned in my prior post. To balance the budget will need political courage that can handle political attacks from all sides. The public wants stuff but doesn't want to pay for it. I'm not a huge fan of "tea parties" precisely because of that. Many conservatives like it because they desperately want to see some public awareness on the issue but it will take a lot more effort and convincing of even Democrat supporters to see any real political results like seen during the Contract with America period.
 
But it's not just social spending. You love military spending, but don't want to pay the taxes for it...

This is the Elephant size contradiction that keeps hitting conservatives in the ass which you just ignore. They want big-ass walls that cost 4 MILLION dollas a mile to keep the brownies out. They want roads just like everyone else. They also want their big ass American SUVs, insurance to cover them, and banks to be able to loan them money and I guarantee you that if Obama let them fail they'd be bitching then.

Like I said before, very few actually want to ride out the market healing itself, but it's easy to be a Tuesday morning armchair quarterback.

EXACTLY!:up::up:

Most Americans, when asked about things like roads, education, renewable energy, health care research, deposit insurance, banking regulation,military, border control, elimination of drug cartels, the list goes on, want the government to step in and act.

However, we act as if all of this is free. I know the Republicans have popularized the "we can have it all, big spending AND no taxes" argument the last 8 years, but it has utterly failed.

Of course, we should not raise taxes more than necessary, nor should we raise them to the level of Sweden or Denmark or Canada. We need some modest tax increases (top 2 brackets returned to 1990s level, loopholes closed, and deductions limited for some and yes, cap and trade like McCain has supported) to bring in revenue. There is waste, farm subsidies, military programs that we dont need anymore, fraud, govt contracts, etc, but that does not mean the government does not need revenue.

Tea party people, dont even get me started on these knuckledraggers! Have they been asleep for 8 years? Protesting government spending and debt??? If I recall correctly, Bush left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit ,10 trillion in debt and a recession that is going to wind up being worse than 1982 when all is said and done. To think that Obama wanted to come in and spend 800 billion on a a stimulus and 700 billion and counting bailing out banks is ludacris; HE HAD TO. If the stimulus had not passed, if we were not creating a "bad bank" and subjecting banks to stress tests, the economy and our confidence in it would have TANKED COMPLETELY, we would have lost more revenue and the deficit would have been worse than its going to be. Obama has already said he is dead serious about the deficit and is the first President ever to identify the cause- entitlements(medicare,medicaid) and the cause of the cause, health care costs are out of control. Bush has wrongly focused on Social Security, which is by and large fine. Other hard decisions on taxes, farm subsidies, military procurement, payments to medical providers have been made in the FY 2010 budget to move toward deficit reduction. Obama does not lack for caring on the deficit as the protesters suggest. Even the deficit watchdog group the Concord Coalition(founded by a Democrat, Paul Tsongas and a Republican, Warren Rudman) has said that, given the state of the economy, the deficit was not the #1 concern immediately.

Before I get nailed to the wall here, let me just point out that I am not a blind Obama lover. He has had to earn my respect, voting for him was never even a foregone conclusion for me until around summer 2008. What gave me confidence in him is how he has been calm and delibrative through all of the economic collapse, offered substantive responses, taken on the biggest challenges to our future economic growth and most importantly, hired brilliant economic advisers who know what they are doing. These people are not socialists- these are centrists. Larry Summers, Tim Geithner are both market devotees through and through, Peter Orszag is a deficit hawk, Paul Volcker was the Chair of the Federal Reserve, firecely anti-inflation, and Austan Goolsbee is from the University of Chicago Economics department, hardly a bastion of socialism. These are not people that dont care about leaving us in debt, nor are they people who would just spend $800 billion on a stimulus unless we ABSOLUTELY HAD TO. Are we recovered yet? Of course not. But confidence is slowly returning, the market has shown signs of life, the stimulus money is hitting the economy, putting people to work, cutting their tax bills, etc. Growth will be back next quarter, unemployment will continue to rise, but it always peaks after recessions. We are coming out of this, and stronger than we would have had McCain been calling the shots, rest assured!

They are protesting earmarks? Do they even realize that new disclosure rules put in place by Democrats in Congress in 2007 have cut them nearly in half from their heyday under Hastert and DeLay, who used them to trade on votes from fellow Republicans? Obama never flip flopped on this, never said he would eliminate earmarks, only that they would have to pass a legitimacy test. Anyone who thinks the end of earmarks will solve any part of the deficit/debt problem needs a doctor.

Furthermore, what are they protesting?? Just like the original Boston Tea Party Organizers, who were acutally protesting a TAX CUT given to the British East India company, they are against their $400 or $800 tax cut they are getting from Obama?
 
I don't think I have. Paying for the military is GOOD. Military for me is just as important as roads. There is no freedom without political freedom. You would think September 11th would teach people that.



how would increased military spending have prevented September 11?

be specific.
 
I don't think I have.
I meant a collective "you", but really I meant conservatives in America. Most like the "cut taxes not defense" mentality.

Many conservatives like it because they desperately want to see some public awareness on the issue but it will take a lot more effort and convincing of even Democrat supporters to see any real political results like seen during the Contract with America period.

But this is why is was such a major epic fail, it wasn't about public awareness on the issue of balanced budgets, it was a bitch session for illegal immigration, abortion, liberals = socialists, etc etc...

If it was about the issue of balanced budgets and they actually had a plan, then I probably would have been there yesterday.
 
Well I definitely know that there are sensible people protesting out there who know what they are talking about, but some of this ignorance can't be ignored. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone call Obama a fascist after claiming that he wants to drive this country into socialism.

images


Some of us reject this.
 
If someone could provide me with, or at least a link to, a well informed reason for yesterday I would appreciate it.


GWB's approval ratings his last term.

There aren't enough anti-war protesters, Bush-haters or even partisan Democrats around to get him down to 20%. His ratings were historically low because people who once put their trust in him came to see him and the Republican congress as Democrats Lite in regards to federal spending, illegal immigration and finally the bank bailouts.

We thought the country was "moving in the wrong direction" too. The direction, unfortunately, Obama is now fasttraking.
 
people who once put their trust in him came to see him and the Republican congress as Democrats Lite in regards to federal spending, illegal immigration and finally the bank bailouts.



if all these people are taking these positions, and all these people are Republicans, doesn't that make them Republican positions?
 
Energy independence, fiscal responsibility, true political leadership and letting the marketplace weed out inefficient companies.



could you be more specific? would you have bailed out AIG? what programs would you cut? how would you raise revenue? am i right to assume that raising taxes are verboten? where does energy independence come from? does it inclue, say, high speed rail?
 
purpleoscar said:
Whether they like it or not taxes will have to be raised to balance the budget. The spending has been through the roof for a long time. Obama is just continuing what Bush already was for.

All the Neo-Keynesians want to do now is get inflation up because inflation to them is a "recovery". Staff at the Fed also mentioned that they don't want to raise interest rates too soon to create probably another recession so they are obviously going to make the public eat more inflation than they are used to in the coming years. It's looking more and more like the '70s. I think I need some platform shoes and bell-bottoms.

Agreed, a perceptive and succint analysis.

I don't think I have. Paying for the military is GOOD. Military for me is just as important as roads. There is no freedom without political freedom. You would think September 11th would teach people that. Even if they don't like the Iraq mission, certainly Afghanistan was worthy and you would need a military for that. Yes taxes should have been raised to pay for it but it becomes much harder when Bush wanted to increase domestic spending along with it and lower taxes. Not all tax cuts pay for themselves. Everyone knows that Europe has all those social programs because the U.S. spends more on the military so that they can be free to do so. If they want to cut social programs on their side and do more military spending so the U.S. can spend less on military that would be fine by me. Of course that won't happen.

Plus much of the social spending that Bush did didn't result in improvements so having Democrats do what he did doesn't make it somehow more efficient spending. We are talking about government here. If government was more cost efficient we should have government everywhere. It's getting so cynical that it looks like political opposition just criticizes because they want power more than implementing meaningful changes.

Most of the western world wanted to have their cake and eat it too during the post-Soviet era, that was called the "peace dividend", and the threat to freedom didn't actually go away and now decadent westerners want to shower themselves with benefits and pretend that there are no challenges with Iran/Russia/China etc. The debt is getting so big that I may be an old man before I see any meaningful changes.

The manner in which Russia and China conduct their business is none of our business, to be honest. Provided they comply with the international trade agreements and don't start pre-emptive wars. Like, you know, your neo-cons did.
I'd allow Iran is problematic.

Explain to me why there have no significant Islamist terrorist incidents in France and Germany.
 
Olbermann just had a guest on tonight. She says the tea parties are all about Racism. Rednecks hating on a black man in the White House. Keith was gushing.


(the guest was Janeane Garofalo.)
 
Olbermann just had a guest on tonight. She says the tea parties are all about Racism. Rednecks hating on a black man in the White House. Keith was gushing.


(the guest was Janeane Garofalo.)

While the idea that the sole ideas behind the tea parties was racism is pretty ridiculous, but one would be fooling themselves if they didn't think that racism wasn't at least one factor (whether it be towards President Obama himself or other minorities) in more than a few peoples' minds. Just take a look at some of the signs posted in this thread.
 
GWB's approval ratings his last term.

There aren't enough anti-war protesters, Bush-haters or even partisan Democrats around to get him down to 20%. His ratings were historically low because people who once put their trust in him came to see him and the Republican congress as Democrats Lite in regards to federal spending, illegal immigration and finally the bank bailouts.

We thought the country was "moving in the wrong direction" too. The direction, unfortunately, Obama is now fasttraking.

So if Obama sat back and did nothing, and just let the market heal itself, you would thinking the country is heading in the right direction?
 
Olbermann just had a guest on tonight. She says the tea parties are all about Racism. Rednecks hating on a black man in the White House. Keith was gushing.


(the guest was Janeane Garofalo.)

There was a lot of racism at these "parties" but I would never go as far as saying that's all they were.

They were bitch fests plain and simple from folks that have no plan, and they would not be out there if it was McCain.
 
The response TO would have prevented the ATTACK?

Yes, a time machine would be nice. Maybe that's where the stimulous money should go...

Anyone have a Deloreon?
 
yeah, but if you go back in time and prevent the attacks then you don't get the opportunity in the future to go back in time and prevent the attacks, thus the attacks still happen, except if they happen you can go back in time to prevent them, but that means you won't be able to go back in time to prevent them, thus they'll happen anyway, which means you can go back in time to prevent them, and so on.

come on people, don't we understand basic time travel principles in fym?
 
The manner in which Russia and China conduct their business is none of our business, to be honest. Provided they comply with the international trade agreements and don't start pre-emptive wars. Like, you know, your neo-cons did.

Well Taiwan and Georgia are problem situations with China and Russia respectively. I don't think the U.S. has the ability to prempt with those countries considering their nuclear arsenal. It's more of a cold war chess game. If the U.S. really draws down with their military spending it will tempt those countries to enact what they already want to do. That's why many in the middle east want nuclear weapons. With a nuclear weapon a country can decay as much as they want and threaten neighbors and more disturbingly, they can give small nuclear weapons to terrorists so they can detonate them and and say "it wasn't me. It was some _______ splinter faction". This is a large motivation for Neo-Con premption ideas.

Explain to me why there have no significant Islamist terrorist incidents in France and Germany.

France certainly do have problems with Algerian tensions. Germany I'm not so sure. Smashing Al Qaida and the Taliban helped the whole world IMHO. As long as Sharia law is not implemented in the West the only fear is terrorist attacks getting through; but the successful attacks we've seen are in the east (recently Mumbai) and I think the thesis that taking the war to them keeps it off our soil is still holding up.

I'm happy that Obama will continue to support smashing what's left of the Taliban. Their executions of women and acid bombings of girl students piss me off. The success or failure of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be based on how much the infrastructure is complete before NATO & the "Coalition of the willing leave". If the institutions are not adopted in the long run then the reconstruction part of the war will be a failure. Bush's example, Japan, was already industrializing before the U.S. reconstructed over there so having a population that is interested in these changes makes it easier. It's a hard sell that all humans, regardless of culture background, want democracies and the question is still up in the air. I personally think that once a generation gets the habit for education institutions and democracy they will want to keep it. When the U.S. pulls out they will still need to have close ties with Iraq and Afghanistan in case Iran and Pakistan get naughty with them.
 
The response TO would have prevented the ATTACK?

Yes, a time machine would be nice. Maybe that's where the stimulous money should go...

Anyone have a Deloreon?

Sorry I misread his post. He quoted my post that iterated that military spending is as important as roads. No, military spending can't prevent a terrorist attack unless you have ADEQUATE intelligence to act on. After September 11th you would need a military if you wanted to respond in Afghanistan. That's what I was aiming at.

Jeeezzz you guys!!! :angry:
 
The Taliban weren't and aren't "smashed," just pushed across the border where they can destabilize a nuclear state instead, which they're currently doing quite effectively, and not just in the northwest anymore either.
 
just pushed across the border.

They used to run Afghanistan. I don't think that's an unimportant feat. The war isn't over yet and Pakistan poses a motivation problem but we will have to be patient and wait until the increase in troops get to the region. Pakistan is unstable with or without the Taliban.
 
I didn't say that was unimportant, but "motivation problem" doesn't even begin to describe how grave the situation in Pakistan has the potential to become. Previous "instability" would pale in comparison to a Taliban-driven revolution, which while far from likely is looking a lot more possible than it did two years ago.

But, this is getting off-topic.
 
If the U.S. really draws down with their military spending it will tempt those countries to enact what they already want to do. That's why many in the middle east want nuclear weapons.

Do you realize how much nuclear weaponry we have?

Rush told you Obama wants to cut military spending, how dare he, oh my!!! The proposed cuts are mostly in future nuclear weapon development. You honestly think anyone is thinking "the U.S. doesn't have enough to hurt us, now that they stopped we got them right where we want them."
 
Do you realize how much nuclear weaponry we have?

Rush told you Obama wants to cut military spending, how dare he, oh my!!! The proposed cuts are mostly in future nuclear weapon development. You honestly think anyone is thinking "the U.S. doesn't have enough to hurt us, now that they stopped we got them right where we want them."

I don't care about nuclear disarmament when the U.S. can still have enough to nuke the enemy several times over. As long as the U.S. has enough to keep China from being tempted to take over Taiwan and Russia from taking over any number of neighbors I'm okay with that. Rush is going to attack everything and we all know that. This is partly because he sees the left do that same and be totally partisan that he feels no guilt in being partisan in return. Ideological warfare is real. I agree with much of what he says but not all things. To me it's small fish to fry. There's so much more to complain about (cap and trade, deficit spending, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, ACORN). Without Rush paving the way for right wing media there would be a blackhole of debate right now. I'm so happy to see that there is more competition nowadays.
 
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