Cross posted at MEGADITTOES!!! -- The Tea Party Cult Website.
When we went out to interview tea partiers, it wasn't something we were trying to prove. It just sort of emerged and became obvious.
You discover it by working through a progression. Tea partiers like to talk about "socialism" ... but they don't really know what "socialism" means. So we asked them.
Eventually, they say something like "government keeps getting bigger."
In fact, government spending is the same as it was during the Reagan administration, when we were also in a bad recession. Prior to that, in 1953 when Rush Limbaugh was two years old, government spent 21 percent of Gross Domestic Product. As a percentage of GDP, government hasn't grown in Rush Limbaugh's lifetime.
Tea partiers don't care. They simply move along to the next talking point. "My taxes keep going up."
Only their taxes haven't gone up. Income tax rates haven't risen since 1994. In fact, tax rates were cut in 2003. Middle class tax rates were cut again as a part of Obama's stimulus package, and we just finished extending a reduction in the payroll tax.
Tea partiers don't care. Do they give Barack Obama any credit at all for "cutting taxes" ... something that is supposed to be holy writ for Republicans?
Hell No.
They just move along to the next buzz word -- "spending." They don't like spending, but when you ask what kind of spending, they don't mean military spending, or spending on keeping people in prison. They mean the next buzzword in the progression.
That would be "redistribution."
Here's where we had some fun. In 2003, George W. Bush's tax cuts created huge deficits. Those deficits were financed by US Treasury bonds. In fact, one conspicuous holder of those treasury bonds was one George W. Bush. He actually held between 3.5 and 7 million dollars worth. In fact, out of every hundred dollars of income, we spend about $2.68 -- ballpark 400 billion dollars a year -- in interest on the national debt.
Those interest payments go to millionaires like George W. Bush. It is redistribution from middle class taxpayers to millionaires. Is that what tea partiers mean by "redistribution?"
Oh hell no.
What they mean is the dirtiest of dirty words to tea partiers. "Welfare." It's "taking my hard earned money and giving it away ..." to poor people. They don't mind making interest payments to rich people.
But wait. Is it just "poor people" they don't like?
It has been pointed out here, and I used to point it out on my radio show that most welfare recipients are white.
Do you think you average tea partier knows that? We've already heard Newt Gingrich calling Obama -- the same Obama who cut taxes -- the "food stamp President." We've heard him say that he would tell the NAACP that they should demand "paychecks instead of food stamps." These are big applause lines.
You see, in the mind of tea partiers, it's all about those "lazy blacks."
Which brings me to today's clip from "MEGADITTOES -- The Tea Party Cult."
Remember the financial crisis of 2008? Most economists say that crisis was caused by the repeal of Glass-Steagall. They say it was about the securitization of high risk mortgages, and the use of credit default swaps wherein the finance capitalists figured out how to make money on mortgages even when they went into default.
Way back in 2008, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the rightwing noise machine figured out how to scapegoat "minorities." The tea partiers ate it up.
Here, watch the clip.