Where’s the Tea Party? Spending in Washington continues to go up and debt deepens

Washington Times ^ | 09/18/2012 | Emily Miller

[SeekAndFind]

The 2010 midterm elections showed the American people want to tackle crushing federal debt before it’s too late. The Tea Party succeeded in handing control of the House of Representatives to Republicans, which thwarted White House plans for another massive stimulus program. That majority switch in one chamber hasn’t been enough.

Outlays have continued to grow year-after-year with annual deficits topping $1 trillion. The red ink will deepen later this week as the Senate is expected to approve a House-passed continuing resolution that maxes discretionary spending and adds another $106 billion in disaster and war spending that wasn’t offset. This is a departure from the previous House insistence on frugal appropriations bills that would have expended less in 2013 than was legally allowed under the debt-ceiling agreement sealed in August 2011.

Influential conservatives wanted to stop the measure from becoming law. Former Attorney General Edwin Meese, Colin Hanna, Gary Bauer, Brent Bozell and others wrote to Republicans before the vote Thursday, explaining, “Short weeks before the election, the grassroots will feel discouraged, perhaps even feel betrayed by congressional conservatives.” Club for Growth said it will score against members who support the measure. In the end, 70 House GOP members voted nay, but the measure still passed by a lopsided 329-91 margin.

Last summer, the Tea Party pushed House Speaker John A. Boehner to adopt a new policy in which a $2.1 trillion debt-ceiling increase had to be accompanied by at least $2.1 trillion in savings. It didn’t work.

“After all the haggling and agonizing last year, President Obama got every dime of his debt ceiling increase — and so far the debt has risen $1.7 trillion,” explained Patrick Louis Knudsen, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Meanwhile, spending has not declined,

[Cicero]

Boner lied, savings died.

[camle]

don’t blame the tea party! had the politicians been doing their jobs all along, we would have no crises, and no need for the tea party.

[cotton1706]

Spending has gone up because we have had one continuing resolution after another. This is why Reid has not passed a budget, so that spending can always coninue at the same enormously high level. And because Boehner didn’t have the balls to say “no more continuing resolutions, the senate will have to pass something or the government will shut down,” spending has gone up. McConnell came up with his silly debt ceiling deal to screw the conservatives in the House and keep the gravy train flowing. The elite GOP have capitulated at every turn. They are in cahoots with Reid and the democrats and until we have new leadership in both the House and the Senate, deficits and debt will continue.

And if Boehner and McConnell should remain in the leadership, our only hope is that Mitt Romney would demand an extremely tight budget (should he win, that is.)

The short version: we’re screwed!

[Elendur]

The short version: we’re screwed!
///
yep. even the Ryan plan, will ADD to the debt,
for the next 20 years.
and it’s considered “extreme”.
-
...if only Jefferson could have added the ONE amendment,
he later wished for.
that the Government would be forbidden to borrow.

[Kolath]

Where’s the Tea Party?

1. American Majority
2. AFP
3. FreedomWorks
4. FreePac
5. Phone centers
6. Walking precincts
7. Facebook
8. Twitter
9. Organizing their peeps

In effect, instead of yelling at a street corner (which is what liberals comprehend as “protest”) the TP has been supporting candidates (like 2010) as well as working on it’s own future infrastructures. 2010 was a surprise, 2012 will be rewarding, but to the GOPe, 2014 and beyond, watch your back! Lugar, Christ, Castle and Bennett are only a taste of things to come.

Where are they? Ask Cruz, Mourdock, Walker, Fischer, Yoho, Love, etc.....they’ll tell you....in their volunteer ranks making a difference!!!!

Let the libs keep thinking politics of the past. Shhhhhhh, lets not upset their applecart too much. Not yet ;)

[bigbob]

Not blaming, but I think it’s fair to point out that the Tea Party is having little influence. It took Porkulus Pelosi to get people inflamed enough to form the Tea Party in the first place, but now - where’s that emotion? If Obama wins a second term it’s not going to do much good if everyone comes back all fired-up in December again...

And sorry, but we didn’t need a “crisis”...the current problems date back to the Great Society of the Johnson era, and “we” were all asleep then, too. That’s why Spiro called us the “great silent majority”, remember?

[camle]

i remember very well. debt upon debt upon debt, and the voices of reason drowned out by all the gimmegimme crowd, like echoes in the wilderness.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

The bottom line is that when the Tea Party began, it had to fight two entrenched forces in Washington, the Democrats *and* the RINO Republicans, complicit with the Democrats.

While the Republicans control the House, the Tea Party does not yet even control the Republicans, and the RINOs will fight as hard as they can to stay in power, and prevent what the Tea Party wants from coming to pass.

So the Tea Party is doing the logical thing: eroding the strength of the RINOs, and gradually replacing them with conservatives who back the Tea Party.

They have been extremely successful in doing this during the primary season. And they have played their role well.

However, the scene shifts to the Republicans who control the House.

Harry Reid, majority leader of the senate, totally controls what the senate can do, and with the Democrats has prevented the senate from even *considering* a federal budget for three years and counting.

Thus, no matter *what* the House can do, they cannot make a federal budget. And Harry Reid has them over a barrel, because the ONLY think the House can do is either vote for continuing resolutions, which is what they have done; or shut down the government completely.

The latter is exactly what the Democrats are hoping for, because they, and their MSM allies, would *entirely* blame the Republicans for “shutting down the government”, “starving the poor and elderly”, etc., ad nauseum.

How do I know this? Because they did EXACTLY the same thing when Bill Clinton was present. AND THEY GOT AWAY WITH IT! The voters blamed the Republicans for everything, and it cost the Democrats nothing.

So what is John Boehner supposed to do?

The wisest thing is what he is doing—paying Harry Reid’s blackmail just one last time, and hoping that the Republicans get control of the senate and the presidency, and keep the House.

Then, and only then, will the Republicans matter. And then, and only then, will greater numbers of Tea Party candidates be able to change things.

If all goes according to plan, it begins on January 20th, 2013. Until then, whining about why the Tea Party and the Republicans and John Boehner aren’t *doing* something is pretty useless.

[bigbob]

You’ve summed-up very well what is at stake in this election.

This is truly about whether that situation continues, or if we take a different path. It matters little that Romney is the President, what is most important is that it NOT be Barack Hussein Obama, and that the Democrat control of the US Senate be brought to an end.

I live in Illinois, and our State Senate has been the prototype for what Harry Reid et al has produced in the US Senate. If Michael Madigan doesn’t want a bill to come up for a vote, it doesn’t come up for a vote. Who controls the agenda controls the state, because if you can’t get an up or down vote, you’ll never get anything passed. This is what tyranny looks like. This is what Pelosi did to pass the Porkulus and shove Obamacare up our asses and that’s what finally pushed the Silent Majority into action. Yet once the immediacy is gone, we fall back into old patterns of thinking the Republicans or someone is out to save us.

Ain’t no one coming to save us. The choice before us is to continue on the pat Obama has taken, and has doubled-down on every chance he’s had — or to take a different path. A or B. It’s not multiple choice.

If anyone can put forth the argument that Romney is the same or worse than Reid and Obama in any shape, manner, or form - let’s hear it.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

The TP has gone from a stage where it kinda found its’ legs, in the rally stage, and is IMHO now in a stage where it recognizes that serious, concentrated work must be done. It also recognizes that playing to the media is a worthless pursuit, in fact, it’s advantageous to have the media sit at their desks and perform Google searches (this is what journalism is, today) and wonder where the heck the TP actually is. The short answer is: It has gone stealth. It has lost some members who were in on it from early on over the TARP fiasco and who shun what they feel is excess concern over the social issues. But the results of the 2010 election can not be argued with.

[RicocheT]

Post 4 has the answer. Without a budget passed, Democrats keep the spending going via continuing resolutions. They threaten a shutdown and the Republicans flinch. Republicans know a shutdown will be blamed on them - after all the “do nothing Congress” is really a do nothing Harry Ried Senate. Obama has used that line with success.