why am i yelling?

Now that the Tea Party seems to have found its way into about a dozen or so congressional and gubernatorial races, I’ve relented and tried to understand where they’re coming from. I never took them seriously because of all the footage of misspelled words on posters, not understanding the term ‘czar’ and hateful slogans from their rallies in 2009.

I think the movement has garnered a lot of support for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I think it’s easy to get people to agree with you on what’s WRONG with the government (let’s all note that Hitler did this pretty easily in the 1930s and we all know how that turned out). It’s easy to say “politicians in DC are spending too much money and we need to stop them”. I’ll admit that the Tea Party philosophy gets a few things right. Money is NOT being spent effectively in Washington (or at the state or local levels of government). I have absolutely no issue paying income tax, sales tax or property taxes. I understand that the infrastructure of this country depends on taxes collected from Americans and that the same tax money also provides social services to people who can’t afford them. Is too much money being spent? Most likely, yes. Is the government overhaul of health care going to be cost effective - most likely, no. But, has the invasion of Iraq given us a good return on investment? I think we can safely say no here.

Money isn’t being spent effectively - however, that doesn’t imply that our country requires drastic cuts in social programs and privatization of things like Social Security. What it implies is that our country needs to stop seeing itself as a country with unlimited means. We have VERY limited means in this country as we age beyond our years as an industrial and economic powerhouse. There is a large percentage of our population that has been trained to do jobs that have already become obsolete or will be obsolete within the next few years. There is an aging population who will be extremely dependent on government assistance (since the money allocated for their pensions has probably gone down the tubes).

I think the second reason the Tea Party has been able to gain support is because of its conservative stances on social issues. It’s interesting that the Tea Party was founded around fiscal conservatism and apparently their core members try to disassociate themselves from the evangelicals and other social conservatives that want to hop on their bandwagon (it’s hard to find any “official” resources on the Tea Party movement on the web, but the “Contract from America” proposed by Ryan Hecker outlines only fiscally conservative policies and makes no mention of any social issues).

Despite this, the reality is people like Christine O’Donnell have made it painfully obvious to everyone that social conservatism is part of the Tea Party movement. It’s easy to get people on your side when you make them feel better than other people. Social conservatives feel far better than the women who seek abortions or gay couples who want to get married. They also feel better because they (think) have God on their side. Another argument they make is that leading socially conservative (and what they call “responsible”) lives leads to their other major tenet - fiscal conservatism. I’ve really tried to understand this argument, but I can’t connect the dots. How does teaching Genesis in school lead to spending less money in DC? 

I’ve started to understand why people are jumping ship and becoming Independents recently. I’m a socially liberal person who thinks government (at all levels) does a terrible job at spending money efficiently. There’s a good chance some of it is due to the sheer size of our country. Although, I’m sure there are about a billion people in China who would argue that even excessively large nations can run efficiently (temporarily ignore the fact that the cost of living there is a tenth of what it is here and their government has purposely kept the Yuan weak in comparison to the dollar to encourage trading). Sometimes I think that some of the federal decision making power should be shifted to the state level. But, then I remember what a mess California is in every year when it comes time for the legislature to pass a budget.

I’m definitely voting next Tuesday. I have a pretty good idea of how I’m voting on the propositions on CA’s ballot, but I never seem to know if the politicians I’m voting for can do what I think is right - responsibly spend tax money while creating and defending socially compassionate legislative policies.