What are the pros and cons of the new Tea Party?

The Tea Party movement is the direct results of many Americans feeling over-taxed with spending out of control and largely ignored. A positive of this movement is that it is largely bipartisan with 52% of members claiming to be independent or democrat. Other positives include a strong showing for the demand of the government to start controlling spending and that the majority is not in favor of many of the current actions of our government. On the negative side is the movement has fiscally conservative values and as it grows into a true political party that will have major implications. While being a bipartisan movement, as a party it stands a large chance of splitting the Republican vote while only drawing the the most moderate democrats, leaving the chance neither party wins and the democratic party winning even though the received relatively low votes. Though if you are democrat this isn’t really a negative, it’s more of a positive. The best thing of the Tea Party movement in my opinion, is the American people openly and fully using their constitutional right to free speech, and it’s semi uniting factor because at the end of the day we might not all agree on how to get there but we all want whats best for this country.

On one hand, questioning government and using your voice are good things. I wish more people would educate themselves and do these things.

The key part, here, is educate. The tea party is questioning and voicing, but often what they spread is not necessarily the most accurate information (link), and anger seems more important and prevalent than thought (link). No matter what side they’re on, with those two things, it’s more of a hindrance imho. And it doesn’t seem to even be all that new(L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories).

Mostly, they seem upset about higher taxes when most Americans received a tax cut this year. Of course, this may be more in line with what the original Boston Tea Party was about than they think. Ironic!

The pros of the Tea Party is it is drawing attention where attention is needed and the is greater accountability for the way our growing government is running our country which many Tea Party members think they are doing a lousy job. Their mission statement sums if up nicely…

Mission Statement
The impetus for the Tea Party movement is excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets.

Core Values

* Fiscal Responsibility
* Constitutionally Limited Government
* Free Markets

Fiscal Responsibility: Fiscal Responsibility by government honors and respects the freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of their own labor. A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it must subject its citizenry to high levels of taxation that unjustly restrict the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. Such runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington D.C. compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.

Constitutionally Limited Government: We, the members of The Tea Party Patriots, are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is possible to know the original intent of the government our founders set forth, and stand in support of that intent. Like the founders, we support states’ rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law.

Free Markets: A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government’s interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. Therefore, we support a return to the free market principles on which this nation was founded and oppose government intervention into the operations of private business.
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/Mission.aspx

The cons of the Tea Party? None that I can see.

Pros: A legitimate cause that needs to be addressed.

Cons: An unfortunate name for the group.
Leadership that doesn’t believe in the cause. They just hate Obama.
The support of FOX

Pros: I can’t think of any

Cons: They’re inventing their own reality. We’ve got some of the lowest taxes in modern American history. Sure there’s spending and waste that needs to be cut out, but even the most generous estimations peg the pork-spending at 1% of the total budget, so we’re not going to fix the problem simply by trimming fat (which still needs to be done).

@Cruiser as for the “Free Markets” core value, do they realize that de-regulation is what led to the massive financial collapse we’ve just had? When you don’t have oversight you get Standard Oil, Ma Bell, and “too big to fail.”

The angry mob mentality of their public meetings is a concern. At any given moment, a TEA bagger rally is a spark away from a riot.

Also interesting is that it’s mostly rich white suburban people who think they’re losing everything which is a laughable notion.

@gorillapaws I just heard that argument on the way into work today and it could further be argued it was the regulations that required even forced banks to lend money to people with little to no credit. The Fannymae, Freddy Mac lending practices which were heavily regulated is what started much of this mess. The failed policies such as Community Reinvestment Act and HUD tax incentives for Freedy and Fannie to offer subprime loans set the table for the housing bubble nobody saw coming. So it is easy to point fingers after the fact, but the best and the brightest again could have never predicted the full effect of a housing bubble. When it is all said and done…people got loans they never should have thanks to Government regulation and tax incentives of the mid 1990’s. Then in the early 2000 when the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to near 1% people were snapping up ridiculously low 1 and 5 year ARM loans that when came due people couldn’t afford the higher interest rates and avalanche began and more is on it’s way as another slug or ARMs are maturing and more people will find themselves underwater and more foreclosures are imminent.

@Cruiser “the best and the brightest again could have never predicted the full effect of a housing bubble.” People did predict it.

Read this article, it will explain what happened.

Also, it’s an error in reasoning to go from “this one particular regulation was bad” to “therefore all regulation is bad.” Never did I argue that all regulations are good, but I did make the point that there are many evils that come about when you have no regulations of the market.

@Cruiser: The number of people defaulting on mortgages because of the regulation that you’re talking about is small – about 6% of the sub-prime loans. The rest of the bad mortgages, about 94%, were because of unregulated or poorly regulated banks that thought they could make more money. Yet the Right’s new rallying cry against further regulation is all about that 6%. Can you tell me why you think that the 6% of mortgages to poor people is a bigger problem than the 94% that could have been ameliorated through stricter regulation? Is it because the Left is looking for regulation, and the Right has pledged to block anything the Left puts forth? It’s okay if it is – but call it what it is, if so.

As for economists who predicted the housing bubble or trouble with credit-default swaps, they are there. They just aren’t being listened to., in lieu of listening to economists that support the Right, whether or not the information is correct or even logical.

I heard that at the Denver Tea Party rally, the activists were protesting Obama cutting funds to NASA and suggesting space travel become privatized. I have no clue what the Tea Party actually wants if they have a problem with this.

@cockswain Once you’ve abandoned the idea of being consistent with your stated beliefs and the actual reality, pretty much anything goes at that point. You’re witnessing anything goes. It’s sad and amusing at the same time, similar to when the KKK endorsed Obama.

I see mainly cons. To begin with, the “Tea Party” misnomer shows the profound and alarming ignorance of this dubious movement.

The name “Tea Party” is of course a reference to the historic Boston Tea Party of 1773, a protest by American colonists against taxation by the British government when the colonists had no representation in the British Parliament (Wikipedia).

The US is a democracy and not a colony. The movement should know that politicians who are supporters of fiscal conservatism are actually part of the Senate and House of Representatives. They are a minority these days. The tea baggers haven’t understood democracy at all. They think that they are only represented if the President is a Republican who can rely on a Republican-dominated Senate and House of Representatives.

@mattbrowne – BTP was a protest against a tax cut, which is why it’s sort of ironic they took the name. ;)

@laureth – Yeah, it seems both ironic and dumb. These so-called freedom lovers actually show certain signs of supporting totalitarian approaches. A true freedom lover respects the vote of the American people. McCain is a freedom lover. He told his supporters on November 4 that the American people have spoken.

The name wasn’t taken to say the situation is exactly the same situation, it was taken because nearly every American equates the Boston Tea Party with discontent with taxes which is the main thing the Tea Party is protesting. The Tea Party stands for fiscal conservatism and will support either party if they show restraint on taxation and spending. That also goes the other way too that the Tea Party will bash either party if the fail to show that restraint.

The Boston Tea Party was about representation and colonial oppression. The tea baggers are an insult to the American democracy. They picked the wrong name. How about they call themselves the ShROTAS movement. Show restraint on taxation and spending. They have every right to criticize the government, but they have to respect the decisions. A large portion of taxes are now needed to pay interest of all the debt created by the Iraq war (which the tea baggers supported).

I thought the original tea party was all about causing a bunch of chaos and destruction and then blaming it on an innocent population that didn’t have the resources to defend themselves… or was that this tea party? Maybe it is a good name after all.

@gorillapaws Did you go to elementary school in Texas?

@cockswain Were the original tea party guys not dressed as Native Americans when they committed domestic terrorism?

@gorillapaws Ah, true enough. My apologies.

There are pros for the Tea Party? So far I have only seen cons.

They are misinformed, fighting to protect the richest 2% of Americans, say taxes are higher but are in fact, lower than when Reagan was president. They are nothing but ignorant shills for corporate lobbyists. With a political whore like Sarah Palin, with the backing of Carl Rove, how could they be anything close to honest.

They are the epitome and example of how dumb Americans can be.