Is the Tea Party suicidal?
Jul 29, 2011, 9:42 AM
Listen to Is the Tea Party suicidal?
Is the Tea Party suicidal — and will it take an already shaken economy with it.
The latest numbers show two things — that Great Recession of 2009 … was worse than we first thought. And that the Lousy Recovery of 2011 continues to be lousy.
And now we add to that Debt impasse: Default-a-saurus Rex.
“We can end it with a simple vote,” says President Obama.
A simple vote, followed by a big debate over a fundamental downsizing of the federal government.
“Keep in mind, this is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart. We agree in a process where the next step is a debate in the coming months on tax reform and entitlement reform,” according to Obama.
And that may be why the Tea Party is going for broke. Because that debate would force them to spell out just HOW they would cut the budget by 40 percent – And those cuts would hit directly at the retirees and farms in the Heartland — where the Tea Party draws it’s support, but that’s what you have to do if you’re not going to raise taxes and if the economy doesn’t recover.
And the economy isn’t recovering.
“Consumer spending in the second quarter was the weakest it has been in two years and companies aren’t seeing enough demand to justify new hiring and so we have a vicious circle,” reports Jill Schlesinger.
Once upon a time the government was in the business of breaking vicious circles. We had a huge government stimulus that put the US Government even deeper in debt than it is now, accompanied by huge tax increases where people in the top tax brackets were taxed at a rate of 94 percent. But it took more than a debate to pull that off. It took World War II.
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Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
