Tea Bagger Voices

You may notice a pattern on the last few posts.  It's all about Tea Baggers here at The Fold Blog this week.  Since I can't get a poll to get to the root of the movement by sampling tea bagger relationship to taxes, I'll just have to focus on their very own words.  And judging by their words, they are very misinformed people.

The Times released excerpts of some post-polling follow up interviews and a noticable pattern is visible there too: Tea Baggers hate Democrats, think Republicans are the party of small government and fiscal conservatism but are mad that Republicans are acting like Democrats.  Talk about misinformed.  For example,

Dee Close, 41 -- Independent from TN:  The Tea Party is doing what the Republican Party should be doing but the people at the leadership level of the Republican Party are liberal. They are not true conservatives. I’m a conservative, and the Republican party used to be conservative but now a lot of them aren’t.

Elwin Thrasher, 66-- Republican from FL:  “I hope there won’t be a need to have a third party. There will be a need if the Republicans keep behaving like Democrats. Look at the history of the Republican party of late. They’ve been big spenders. They’ve been moving to the left themselves. If they don’t change, we’ll have no option.”

Jeff Harr, 39-- Independent from VA:  Every single administration increased the size of government, even the Republican administrations. Roosevelt increased government. When Bush took over, it was a gradual thing. When McCain almost took over, it promised to continue this gradual grow of government. That kind of slow death over a period of time people sort of ignore. But when Obama took over, with Pelosi and Reid, you got this tremendous impetus. Growth of government took on a velocity you couldn’t ignore. People suddenly woke up.

Since we are talking about patterns, no where in American history is there any pattern of Republican rule that would suggest the GOP is the party of small government and/or fiscal conservatism.  Since WWII no president has ever spent less than his predecessor.  No president, much less a Republican, has effectively shrunk government.  More to the point, there is not one single item anyone can point to that suggests that while in power the GOP has proven to govern as small government, fiscal conservatives.  All they have ever done is talk about it.  Actually they talk about it nonstop.  But while in power, especially in total power during the majority of the Bush years, all they did was dramatically increase spending, dramatically grow the size of government and dramatically run up very large amounts of debt.

It's not just the Bush administration either.  If anything the Bush administration was symbolic of  typical Republican rule.  Just like Reagan, Bush increased spending and increased the size of government.  Just like Reagan, Bush increased the deficit to the largest levels in history.  So when you read quotes like the above from tea baggers, you have to ask yourself what planet are they living on? 

Ms. Close-- The "Republican party used to be conservative but now a lot of them aren’t."  Really, where and when? 

Mr. Thrasher-- "There will be a need if the Republicans keep behaving like Democrats. Look at the history of the Republican party of late. They’ve been big spenders. They’ve been moving to the left themselves."  No they have been acting exactly like Republicans do once they are in power.  They've always been big spenders and have always increased government, increased spending and leaped great sums of debt onto the American people.  So yes look at history and show me where and when Republicans didn't act like Republicans.

Only Mr. Harr makes any amount of sense when he says all presidents have increased the size of government.  He falls flat on his face, though, when he claims Bush did so incrementally.  In fact, you have to look all the way back to FDR to find any administration comparable to the growth of government under Bush.  But at least FDR left the country in a much better position than when he found it.  Way much better.  The same cannot be said of the Republican administration.