Is the Tea Party finished?

by CalWatchdog Staff | January 8, 2013 1:11 am

[1]Jan. 8, 2013

By John Seiler

Tony Quinn just wrote happily[2] of the demise of the Tea Party. Which never had much power in California anyway.

He said that, without them, Republicans might have grabbed control of the U.S. Senate in 2010 and 2012. He wrote:

“In the next four years Obama will probably have an opportunity to place a fifth liberal on the U.S. Supreme Court thus changing it for decades.  His nominee will need Senate confirmation and that he or she will get it. This is a direct consequence of the loss of five United States Senate seats that should be Republican today but are not because of Tea Party candidates.”

Except that the Establishment Republicans that always have controlled the party always rubber-stamp Democratic Supreme Court appointments. They did so with Justices Breyer and Ginsberg back in the 1990s under Clinton. They would do so today under Obama.

Quinn attacked the Tea Party for getting Richard Mourdock nominated for U.S. Senate in Indiana. Mourdock then made really dumb remarks about rape. What he doesn’t point out is that, in the GOP primary, Mourdock defeated one of the all-time GOP sellouts, Dick Lugar, who had been in office an incredible 36 years and was a pillar of the Elite Establishment.

For most Tea Partiers, anybody was better the Bushes, the McCains, the Romneys, the Lugars, the Doles and the other worthless Establishment hacks.

Moreover, without the Tea Party’s outrage and energy, in 2010 Republicans never would have taken back control of the House, nor kept it in 2012.

Sold down the river again

Quinn:

“In the House, Republican Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) began the just completed lame duck session on equal negotiating level with Obama, but after the Tea Party radicals undercut him, he ended up largely surrendering control of the House to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco.  The New Year’s Day ‘fiscal cliff’ bill to save 99 percent of the Bush tax cuts (and avoid a tax increase on 100 percent of Americans) was shepherded through the House by Pelosi with Tea Party members opposing the deal worked out in the Senate, and therefore voting for a massive tax increase on every American.”

Not quite. What happened was that the Tea Party found out the hard way that the GOP sells out — and especially sells out the middle class.

The “fiscal cliff” deal really was a fiscal fraud from start to finish, slamming 77 percent of Americans[3] with massive tax increases. Hey, weren’t there also to be $3 in spending cuts for very $1 in tax increases? Instead the spending “cuts” were as insignificant as a politician’s promises.

Quinn thinks the Tea Partiers were fools for opposing tax increases on the “wealthy.” Except that the tax increases specially will hit small businesses, which file as S corporations[4]. And the increased death tax will hit family farms and businesses.

And, as mentioned, Tea Partiers have found out that “tax the rich” means “tax the middle class, too.” The only way to stop the tax increasers is to Stonewall against all tax increases. Otherwise, things get complicated fast and the GOP bosses start cashiering the middle class, like this time.

Well, the movement is dead now, betrayed by the Republicans they supported. The Tea Partiers won’t have time to campaign, anyway, because they’ll be working longer hours to pay the huge tax increases their Republican pals just foisted on them.

That’s if they even have jobs. If they’re out of work, they’ll spend all their time in unemployment lines.

Meanwhile, there’s a song about where both the majority Democrats and the minority Republicans are taking America ….

Source URL: https://calwatchdog.com/2013/01/08/is-the-tea-party-finished/

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