Comments on: POLITICS: Tea Party hypocrisy and the myth of Republican fiscal conservatism

By: POLITICS: Tea Party hypocrisy and the myth of Republican fiscal conservatism « The Conservation Report

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:14:07 +0000

[...] POLITICS: Tea Party hypocrisy and the myth of Republican fiscal conservatism [...]

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 17:00:23 +0000

I don’t think it’s nationalism at play but something else. I suspect there is some special interest behind the military industrial complex and it’s not for the sake of protecting us from terrorists. Sadly, we are actually weakening ourselves. Where is the national security in bankruptcy?
As to the selfishness thing, abortion is the ultimate act of selfishness. I don’t think anyone should take other people’s money for their own charities (ie, taxation of other people’s money for your favorite social programs), but I draw the line on taking another person’s life.
In any case, I believe the most effective way to help the needy is to empower the individual as much as possible, but not to the extent they can use that power to harm another individual. If this means some people choose to be selfish, well that’s freedom, but there will be a lot less selfishness than when all the power is given to those in government and to those who run these programs.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:49:30 +0000

Sorry, I meant to say 2008, not 2009. Bush wasn’t in office in October 2009.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:46:54 +0000

“Are you sure that taxpaying Americans who are worried enough about this to show up at Tea Party protests are the ones showing “hypocrisy, ignorance, and insanity”?”

Yep, pretty sure. Tea Baggers just too stupid to realize it. This kind of momentum was *never* seen during the eight years that Bush was in office.

And did we forget Bush authorized the $700 billion bailout in October of 2009? Say what you want about Obama but at least admit Bush got the ball rolling.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:35:41 +0000

They’re blinded by their unshakable nationalism (we must defeat terrorists at any cost. even if we have to sacrifice the constitution and bill of rights!) and the basic human instinct to be selfish (I work hard and pay taxes. why should I bother helping out people less fortunate them me?).

Don’t get me wrong. The Democrats have proven they’re just and ineffective at governing as the Republicans. The only difference is that the Democrats are a bunch of spineless fools (heath care reform?) and the Republicans are just bat-shit crazy (keep the government out of my life. except when it comes to abortion, gays, and god!).

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:32:29 +0000

The Democrat and Republican party are just two sides of the same coin. Both of them have been undermining our liberties by funding special interests (whether corporate or individual) with our money. A Democrat that believes in using other peoples money to pay for social programs he/she values is just as bad as a Republican that cuts taxes on big corporations or promotes policies that encourage outsourcing. Taking another persons money for your own good causes is not good, it’s bad. That being said, it’s the Republican party that angers me the most precisely because I considered myself a Republican and I have woken up to the lies of ‘fiscal responsibility’ and ‘small government’ that the Republican party spewed. Ask yourself, how is it, that as far as we have come technologically or productivity wise over a couple hundred years, that our nation is indebted to someone and getting more so all the time. Shouldn’t all this progress mean we are getting richer as a nation? How did we ever survive back in the 1800′s without all these government programs..especially without all this technology and productivity? If you use a little common sense, you’d know that the reason our nation doesn’t have huge savings is because we are being fleeced.

By: Heath T

Heath T — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:15:29 +0000

Yeah the far right are a funny bunch. They become fiscally conservative when a democrat is in office, but there is no problem pumping billions into senseless wars or wasteful military spending. Car Talk

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:21:29 +0000

Only if you fiddle the numbers. It is true that the official deficit is quadruple Bush’s, but the deficit does not include all debt-creating spending. If you count the increase in debt, Bush’s 2008 ‘real deficit’ was a little over a trillion, and Obama’s ‘real deficit’ is quite shy of 2 trillion (about 1.7, 1.8). Not quite quadruple. That’s because most of Obama’s increase in ‘real deficit’ has been caused by structural deficit- lower tax revenues and higher Unemployment Benefits- caused by the George Bush Great Recession. Those increases are not counted in the normal deficit numbers.

So, in this case, Teabaggers are both technically right and extremely dishonest or stupid.

By: Kip

Kip — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:24:30 +0000

And in actuality Obama’s budget only accounts for about 4% addition to the deficit. He actually put in the money for the wars that Bush left off the budget, so almost all the deficit is from the Bush administration. Obama clearly has not had a chance to clean that up. It took Bill several years before he could clean up the Reagan/Bush 1 mess.

By: Buck Denton

Buck Denton — Tue, 12 May 2009 02:52:45 +0000

For me the issue isn’t about Obama, since he is actually doing his job by spending for the general welfare of our country and addressing issues that have long been ignored. What would be “fixing the mess” or what would remedy our problems in America—smaller government and cutting taxes for large corporations, so corporations can trickle down profits to the average American’s pockets (such a naïve policy). How about we cut taxes for Americans—God forbid we actually pay for our infrastructure and the other comforts we enjoy in the U.S., which are provided by federal and state governments. In America, we’ve ended up what we’ve paid for—nothing.

What about making the federal government much smaller and leaving issues to the states—historically that hasn’t worked—national uniform polices addressing certain issues is a must.

Ultimately, I don’t think the republican philosophy has worked, and it will not work, and republicans only have about two things in their toolbox to fix “the mess.” At least democrats are open-minded and progressive. Progressive republicans do exist, but there aren’t enough of them. Bush II certainly wasn’t a progressive republican. Personally, I can sleep at night knowing I never voted for Bush II.

But now it’s all President Obama’s fault. As if! Furthermore, now, a lot of people that supported Bush/Cheney during those dark and frigid eight years want to disown those eight years and blame Obama. It’s craziness!

If some republicans and/or conservatives were so livid during the Bush II years, then why did they wait for President Barack Obama to be elected before deciding to organize those ridiculous and embarrassing tea parties? I guarantee if Obama did nothing, he would have still been criticized. (And I do know republicans and conservatives aren’t necessarily synonymous, but there is certainly some blending).

Why should Obama be penalized for Bush II’s spending that amounted to nothing more but extremely narrow-minded polices that have ruined the world politically not to mention the environment and our infrastructure?

The American money Bush II spent imposing his narrow idea of how he thought the world should work is what I don’t want to pay for, but I have no choice. Furthermore, how do you know Obama’s policies, and his spending will fail? You don’t.

I’d rather pay for a deficit that address issues that are relevant—education, poverty, the environment, mitigating climate change, modernizing our electricity grid and transportation networks—instead of paying for a deficit that was created through too much tax-cutting policies, warmongering, and more warmongering.

Personally, I believe that the taxpaying Americans who showed up at these tea parties lack credibility, because they should have protested en masse during Bush II. If they had, I would have never blogged this post.

I’m still plenty worried, but I feel much safer having an objective, progressive American President over a narrow-minded ignorant President that never understood how the world works (and he never will).