Sorry but plain facts are not our cuppa
The only consensus that seems to be coming from the Tea Partiers is that they as a group do not want to be held accountable with the rest of America
Like most Americans, I prefer a good cup of coffee to tea.
Tea in the US has a slightly unpatriotic stigma to it. That's not to say we don't drink it, but tea is forever associated in the American psyche as a symbol of our inability to control our destiny, or at least our own money. The story of the Boston Tea Party is one that kids learn early.
So it not surprising that Americans looking to place blame for the rotten state of the US economy have taken to calling themselves the Tea Party Movement. Its members are largely conservatives unhappy over the increase in federal spending by the Obama administration. They don't like bailouts. They don't like the stimulus package. They don't like that their tax dollars that will be used to pay both.
The only consensus that seems to be coming from the Tea Partiers is that they as a group do not want to be held accountable with the rest of America. For years, Republicans had their way on ever fewer regulations for the financial sector. An unregulated financial system coupled with a policy of low interest rates allowed the US to see unprecedented growth for almost half-a-decade, they said. Now that the bubble has burst, they want to lay the responsibility at the feet of the "socialist" in the White House.
But logic isn't something the reluctant American tax payer has ever paid close attention to. Just take a look at California.
Since the early '70s, the people of California have used the referendum, which puts proposed laws on the ballots for direct approval by voters. It has forced the state's government to do what "the people" say.
Laws that are proposed to raise taxes are continually voted down. Laws that increase the state expenditures — provided they too don't raise taxes — are routinely passed. It has reached the point where even the state's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has called for overhaul of how laws are passed in the state.
Stigma of raising taxes
Similar problems have also crept up on a national level. The political stigma of raising taxes over the past few decades, even in the face of drawn-out wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has resulted in less federal money being spent on vital infrastructure.
Logic isn't the only the thing the Tea Party Movement has problems with. They also don't like the facts for instance, while they complain of being over-taxed, the average tax burden for a single person without children (24.5 per cent) in the US is generally inline or lower than most industrialised nations. Lower tax rates are by no means a guarantee of prosperity. Two countries with some of the poorest performing economies in the world, Japan and Spain, have tax burden of only 20.1 and 20.4 per cent respectively.
It's time for the Tea Party Movement to face up to reality. After years of living on borrowed money, the bill is due.
