Tea Party critique published

I submitted a "Local View" on the Tea Party to the Duluth News Tribune.  It was published today with the title "Tea Party positions misses today's complexities".  You can find it for a week or so at http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/tag/group/Opinion/tag/Local%20view/

The opinion page editor, Chuck Frederick, changed almost every line, as his wont.  Fortunately, his sends his revisions of my Local Views to me before publication.  It was a good thing because he added a word that changed the meaning of one point.  I pointed it out and he printed it with my correction.

Thanks to the four people who said they liked it.

Essentially I wrote that the Tea Party Patriots' fiscal responsibility can be irresponsible, their limited constitutional government cannot be determined by the "intent" of the writers, and their free markets haven't existed since the railroads began.

One question readers may have in reading "the last great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln" is who do I consider the last great Democratic President.  I thought about it for five minutes and came up with Thomas Jefferson, who was then called a Democratic-Republican.

"Fiscal responsibility" can be irresponsible

"Fiscal responsibility" is one of the current buzzwords in politics and is one of the core beliefs of The Tea Party Patriots.  The Tea Party Patriot statement on this is rather amorphous with phrases like "freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of their own labor" and "high levels of taxation".

But was the money the fruit of their own labor free of any infra-structure, like roads, education, police and fire protection?  A high level of taxation is a relative term.  What is high in simple times to fill the treasury of the king can be too low in a complex times to provide all the services that individuals need to be fully productive.

The users of "fiscal responsibility" and "living within its means" are conspicuously silent about these same terms applied to corporations.  Some very large corporations have more debt than they have shareholder capital.  If corporations were to live within their means, why do airlines raise fares when the price of fuel goes up or food processors cut the size of their packages when the price of agricultural goods goes up?

If government were to "live within its means", can you imagine calling the fire department and getting the answer, "Sorry, we can't come any more this month; our diesel budget has run out."  I'm sorry, but if corporations can raise their prices without even consulting their customers, why can't government raise its taxes when the prices of goods goes up?

If we're going to talk about "fiscal responsibility", let's be specific about what is truly fiscally irresponsible.  Do we really need a second engine manufacturer for an already overly expensive fighter plane?  Do we really need "a bridge to nowhere".

The sad reality is that there are petulant people in Congress who think their constituents need these projects and they won't vote for projects for constituents of other members of Congress unless the latter vote for their projects.  Pork to one is bacon to another.  And what newspaper doesn't praise its local member of Congress for "bringing home the bacon"?

The sad reality is if only ten percent of the populace are for a project, thirty percent don't care, and sixty percent are opposed to the project, then many of the ten percent will be very vocal in support, and few of the others will even say anything.

Fiscal responsibility is irresponsible

The great hue and cry is that government should be fiscally responsible, live within its means, and pay as it goes.  Oh, yes, and government should not raise taxes; in fact in these times of an economic downturn, government should lower taxes to stimulate business.

Let's see, your kitchen caught fire.  Luckily for you, the fire department arrived quickly and limited the damage to the kitchen.  But you forgot to pay your fire insurance premium and the insurance was canceled.

You could eat out more often, but that would cost you more money than preparing food at home.  For some budgets, that might be fiscally irresponsible.

Your next recourse is to take out an equity loan on your home to pay for the repairs.  That certainly isn't pay as you go on home improvement.

Many people don't realize that we have something similar in government expenses.  Suppose in this time of fiscal austerity that the city didn't have the money to replace its aging fire hoses.  Then when the fire department came to your house some of those aging hoses burst and your whole house burned down.

What about sewer repairs?  Suppose in this time of fiscal austerity that the city didn't replace some of its aging sewers.  As the fire truck drove to your house it was the "last straw" for a big sewer pipe and it collapsed.  Your house burned down, the city lost a fire truck, and the city has a major, major sewer and street repair project on its hands.

Do you think we can count on free will donations to pay for all of this today?  The banks certainly won't be any of these donors.  They will want interest on the loans they make to the city.