Tea Party

#21

Wow, lots of tea party hate in this thread. Here’s some fact based history to counteract it.

2006: After the success of Howard Dean’s online fundraising and organizing apparatus wins Democrats control of both houses of congress, I predict that the Republican answer to internet organizing will be a massive well-funded system of online astroturfing, where GOP operatives posing as motivated citizens will create a viral movement online for their supporters to donate money to and coordinate rallies.

2008: Grassroots Ron Paul supporters organize a “Tea Party” online rally where they all send Ron Paul money on Dec 16. Ron Paul gets millions of dollars in campaign contributions and loses the election handily.

2009: The economy tanks and Wall Street’s massive ponzi scheme collapses. In it’s final days in office, the Bush administration spends billions bailing out banks.

2009, continued: Obama is elected, and proposes a package of federal spending to increase lending in the economy, which was the stated and failed goal of the Bush bailouts.

Late 2009: Seeing a political opening, the GOP seizes on Obama’s economic stimulus spending as a method of tying the Obama administration to the unpopular Bush bank bailout. CNBC, a right-wing pro-business network, allows one of their anchors to advertise a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest the stimulus package. On the same day the Tea Party is announced, a network of websites created by GOP operatives tied to the professional astroturf organization Freedomworks (run by the former Republican Senate Majority Leader) go online, and are used to organize rallies and donations.

2009/2010: Fox News decides Tea Party rallies, no matter how small, are the biggest news of the decade, and provide non-stop national news coverage. Fox news anchors such as Glen Beck promote the rallies and even start some of their own, directing their massive Republican audience to participate, and then providing further airtime to the rallies they create.

2010: It becomes an article of faith in the mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc) that a massive, grassroots movement has risen up to protest Obama. Due to the mobilized and motivated Republican “activist” base, the media observes that the Democrats are fucked in this years midterm elections, and both houses of Congress could be under Republican control.
Truth is that the Tea Parties are nothing more than the core Republican base being mobilized by the GOP campaign apparatus, and whether the broad corporate media-created perception that grassroots America has turned against Democrats is enough to swing elections is open to debate - we’ll see after the midterms.

No, the overall tax rate in the US is the lowest it’s ever been. Look it up. They are basically bitching about their party (the GOP) being voted out in 2006/8

#22

Okay, that’s pretty interesting. Sad to see people still complain about being taxed too much, and yet the tax rate is the lowest it’s ever been.

EDIT: I meant some of them, not all the tea partiers.

#23

Lots of misguided “facts” and misinformation here, but I dont have the stamina to be lured into it. Chalk it up to another thread that I cant partake in. You win guys. :eyesrolling:

#24

You know, you could try to put forth some well-guided facts and information here.

#25

ITT: tea prty iz dum becuz dey R.

#26

Naw. I dont have a debate talent and I end up more frustrated than informative. I would be better offering girl advise than my political background stance and reasonings. :slight_smile:

#27

The common tea party Republican answer to the question “why are you protesting against taxes when the tax rate has never been lower?” is that because of the national debt, our children’s children’s taxes will be tyrannically high, and that the national debt is so high because of Obama’s socialist spending practices.

In light of these claims, here’s a neat little graph breaking down US the national debt that should be informative to anyone here who may or may not be a tea party Republican:

#28

They also have more to do with the opposition of the current “more government” mentality going on.

#29

never mind, i just thought that graph would be informative

#30

every confused and meaningless statement/sign (almost all of em) is just code for nigger president

#31

that’s not true at all, don’t you think Republicans would be out protesting against “more government*” if Hillary was President? be serious, they are protesting because they lost an election and their politics are discredited, not because they are racist.

*more than what? not more taxes, because there aren’t more, or more spending, because they didn’t protest the vast majority of it as per the aforementioned deficit graph.

#32

Health Care according to Republicans

1064×820 459 KB

#33

The chart looks complex but it’s really no different from any organizational chart. I could make one that looks very similar regarding the organization structure at my work (a private business). What is the chart supposed to prove?

#34

requires more liberals with horns and pitchforks

#35

Not true, while I am not a tea partier (more of a rothbardian) the tax rate is NOT lower than it has ever been. The numbers have been fixed.
https://www.thefreemanonline.org/headline/how-to-create-the-illusion-of-low-taxes/#

#36

Damn me living in another country and not know of these matters!

#37

By “fixed” you mean some people claim they aren’t accurate. The general argument of the article you linked to is that the ‘lowest tax rate’ statistic leaves out Social Security contributions and State taxes, and it doesn’t take into account the deficit (shocker). I already addressed the deficit fallacy, and people that pay Social Security get paid back when they retire so it isn’t really a tax. And state taxes are irrelevant when we’re talking about protests against the federal government.

#38

And social security is projected to be insolvent by 2037 or sooner, so we will not be getting that money back. But even if we get social security benefits, we will not be recieving what we pay in. Do you ever read the statements the social security administration sends you? They explicitly state that you will not recieve 100% of funds paid in.

This is actually the first year on which the amount of social security paid outweighs the amount of money collect from taxes. This is a threshold that was not supposed to be reached until 2016 according to the CBO.

#39

Social security is projected to be insolvent if it isn’t amended to deal with demographic changes, and there’s no reason it wouldn’t be.

#40

Although I guess it doesn’t matter. If someone is relying on social security for their retirement they most likely have bigger problems. I have been planning my retirement since the day I turned 18 and I suggest everyone else does the same.
Life expectancies for our generation could be well over 100, which will pose big problems for traditional programs like social security and pensions, not to mention retirement overall. Start putting the money away now if you have not already.

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