rssSanders: Tea Partiers Work to Dems’ Advantage
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 at 11:57 am
- 6 Comments
For Republicans in Washington trying to latch onto the small-government momentum of the Tea Party movement, there’s this little glitch: Their very jobs depend on the same big spending in Washington that the Tea Partiers claim to oppose.
Recall, for example, the GOP outcry when the Democrats proposed to trim some payments (many say overpayments) to the private insurance companies that cover Medicare patients. Or the reaction when the White House proposed to cut a defense project from Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R) Alabama. The message is clear: Republican leaders might defend the virtues of smaller government in theory, but if it threatens popular programs or jobs in their districts, they suddenly don’t want to see that theory realized. Particularly in an election year.
That conflict of ideology hasn’t been lost on Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Vermont Independent, who caucuses with the Democrats, pointed out yesterday that a Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party would be “extraordinarily good for the Democrats.”
“When you analyze and you go beyond the rhetoric,” Sanders told CNN’s Joy Behar, ”what you find out is that these guys want to abolish Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid and the Veterans’ Administration. There really is not a whole lot of policy substance to what they are saying.
“When the American people learn that behind the anger there’s not a whole lot to be said, I think it works to the Democrats’ advantage.”
Sanders argues that the source of the public’s anger isn’t government spending, but a decades-long trend of of middle-class jobs moving overseas for the sake of corporate profits — the trickle-down theory of corporate protection that hasn’t quite trickled down to many working-class folks.
“People in this country, especially men, are extremely angry because the middle class is in the process of collapsing,” Sanders said. “You have guys who are working 40, 50, 60 hours a week, and they’re making less money than they did 10 or 20 years ago. What they are perceiving is there is a gap between the very rich and everybody else. Their jobs are going to China and they are angry.”
Sanders isn’t the only one to call out the GOP recently on their claims of small-government advocacy. Last week, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman also took the Republicans to task, arguing that the GOP tax cuts of the last decade have produced the inevitable deficits that were designed to shrink government.
“The beast is starving, as planned,” Krugman wrote. “It should be time, then, for conservatives to explain which parts of the beast they want to cut.”
6 Comments
Comment posted March 2, 2010 @ 1:13 pm
message to teabaggers: dump the corporatist puppeteers and Berfers and make common cause with the genuine populists. at that point, we will begin to winnow out the phonies & white supremacists and eventually there will be a) a viable 3rd party or b) adults who can work with the progressive wing of the Demos. Win/win, in other words.
Comment posted March 2, 2010 @ 2:48 pm
Sanders doesn't mention that the progressives, like himself, work to the Republicans advantage.
Search on “Democratic socialists progressive caucus” in google and you will find a hit for http://www.dsausa.org/pdf/widemsoc.pdf
That Q and A document has this question. The document is propaganda, intended to promote their views, because progressives believe that the world would be socilist now except for people “do not know what is good for them”, or they are to selfish and greedy. Another words, the problems of the world are our fault because we want to make our own choices, about our health our wealth and lives.
“Aren't you a party that's in competition with the Democratic Party for votes and support?
No, we are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”
Comment posted March 2, 2010 @ 2:51 pm
Paul Krugman also took the Republicans to task, arguing that the GOP tax cuts of the last decade have produced the inevitable deficits that were designed to shrink government.
——————————
There was excess revenue at the time.
The money that the government took from the people was returned to them.
The beast needs to starve, and it needs to stop spending so much money.
Comment posted March 2, 2010 @ 6:13 pm
message to teabaggers: dump the corporatist puppeteers and Berfers and make common cause with the genuine populists. at that point, we will begin to winnow out the phonies & white supremacists and eventually there will be a) a viable 3rd party or b) adults who can work with the progressive wing of the Demos. Win/win, in other words.
Comment posted March 2, 2010 @ 7:48 pm
Sanders doesn't mention that the progressives, like himself, work to the Republicans advantage.
Search on “Democratic socialists progressive caucus” in google and you will find a hit for http://www.dsausa.org/pdf/widemsoc.pdf
That Q and A document has this question. The document is propaganda, intended to promote their views, because progressives believe that the world would be socilist now except for people “do not know what is good for them”, or they are to selfish and greedy. Another words, the problems of the world are our fault because we want to make our own choices, about our health our wealth and lives.
“Aren't you a party that's in competition with the Democratic Party for votes and support?
No, we are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”
Comment posted March 2, 2010 @ 7:51 pm
Paul Krugman also took the Republicans to task, arguing that the GOP tax cuts of the last decade have produced the inevitable deficits that were designed to shrink government.
——————————
There was excess revenue at the time.
The money that the government took from the people was returned to them.
The beast needs to starve, and it needs to stop spending so much money.
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