“There’s a lot going on in Washington that we’re not very comfortable with.”
That was Cokie Roberts on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos as the Sunday morning panel sought to figure out what the April 15 tea parties were all about.
Was it about taxes? Well, taxes haven’t gone up. In fact, they’ve gone down – but they might have to go up given the massive new debt that the government is now incurring.
Was it about that debt? Perhaps the public has a gut sense that short-term gains from economic stimulus spending will be outweighed by the heavy burden of debt on the economy.
Maybe it’s government involvement in the economy. The administration has made competitive and leadership decisions for the auto industry recently, breaking down a dividing line between the public and private sectors that has been well accepted for most of our nation’s history.
“There’s a lot going on Washington that we’re not very comfortable with.”
Of course, there’s a theory that the tea parties were manufactured by interest groups on the right and that they were motivated by simple anti-Obama passions.
So, what were the tea parties about for you?
Alma Boudreaux
atttended in Clear Lake, Houston area. All ages were there. There was no mention of political parties or race. Ron Paul spoke about the Constition and going back to it. It was held at 6:00 pm so working taxpayers could attend. This movement is going to get bigger. They can laugh – all the way out of office. Americans are SICK of the waste and covert operations of this out-of-control administration. We are also tired of being ridiculed because we live the American way – honesty, truth, Christian values. It doesn’t mean we are stupid – it means we want people in office who listen to their constituents and vote the way the people who elected them want instead of for special interests. It means the idiots in Washington have awakened a sleeping giant. And once awakened, we aren’t going to back down until our country is right again. That means NO socialism, no alliances with dictators, no bailouts. It means free market enterprise, freedom from heavy tax burdens to support ludicrous projects and political payback, freedom to pursue whatever dream you want to follow.
WashingtonWatch.com Digest - April 20, 2009 - The WashingtonWatch.com Blog
[...] “There’s a lot going on in Washington that we’re not very comfortable with.” [...]
Margie Miller
These tea parties were organized for the very rich but they have ordinary citizens doing their protesting for them. These people do not realize that only the richest 1-2% will even receive a tax increase. The rest of us will get a tax cut.
It’s pathetic. The rich need to do their own protesting if they must.
Carolyn Mathis
AMEN ALMA! You took the words right out of my mouth! The tea parties bring a new energy to the American people and it’s about time we stopped being complacent and realize that there are more of “us” than “them”! It’s time to return our government to WE THE PEOPLE!
Sharen Bunn
The Government has not done their job to protect the American people and America from foriegn countries, as stated in the Constitution. With at least 40 million illegals in this country they have put us in harmsway. They say it would cost to much to get them out. That is not true. We would get the money back from deporting them. which would open up our country to the American citizens, we would save money on wellfair, stop a lot if not most of the drugs from coming into our country from Mexico.Give back all of the lawbreakers to Mexico, are where ever they are from, where they should be. Any immigrent that is here illegally is a lawbreaker.Our government caused this problem, now they want to fix it the easy way by making them citizens. Americans out of work, living in tent cities, children starving and they want to give it to illegals.But we can spend all of that money in bailouts on some fatcats that should have had to sell their homes and jets what ever they had to pay their bills, just like the rest of us. BIG WOW They are choosing illegals over the American Citizens. How Anti American can we get.
Matt Bruce
I did a 3 hour live remote radio show from 1 of the 3 TEA Parties in the Sarasota-Manatee County areas. I saw Blacks, Latinos, Indians and Whites in attendance. Some folks came as families with their children. During the 3 hours I watched a 1,000 car parking lot fill up and other cars parking across the street in a Hospital parking lot. When the newspaper showed up, they reported ’300′ people in attendance. Do the math, 1000+ cars at 1 person each equals what? The MSNM does not want us to know how successful an event the TEA Parties were. This is only the first of many more events like this to come as Americans say ” we’ve had enough!”
Tsanders
I attended one of the tea parties with my son-inlaw and Grandaughter.I wanted her to see our right to assemble.Without the fear of reprisal.I was very disappointed!Instead of a bipartisan effort it was nothing more than a republican rally! It was hijacked by our governor.Rick Perry.As I am independent I was disappointed to say the least.I will attend another one IF the Politicains are not able to Hijack it!! I was there to protest the raising of taxes and interference of government in the free market. Not to re-elect Rick Perry !You say the taxes have actually been lowered? Well that is true but somewhere down the line the piper will have to be paid!
Lawrence Cox
Much of the electorate is so naive as to believe that fiscal responsibility lies with one or the other political party. Once upon a time, the Republicans were fiscal conservatives and the Democrats were free spenders. But our last Republican president was a free spender, following a practice of don’t-tax-but-spend-anyway. The Democrat who proceeded him was a fiscal conservative under whom our economy was prosperous. Where were the tea-partyists during the past eight years of profligate deficit spending, for which our children and grandchildren will have to pay?
ChuckL
The only thing that I saw which I object to is the push for a so-called “Fair Tax” which is described as a Consumption Tax. In effect this is the most unfair tax of all. It hits those with minimum income on all of their income while those with much greater incomes are taxed on only that portion which they choose to spend rather than on that which they have to spend. Those who are not living day to day, have the ability use discretion on what they buy and effectively pay a much lower tax rate. It is an extremely regressive tax that is difficult to change to progressivity.
A response to this is that it is possible to exclude taxes paid on necessities, and issue a credit for taxes paid on necessities. This ignores the huge requirement for record keeping that is imposed on those least capable of maintaining these records.
In a much simpler and easier to understand way, we have a “Flat Tax”. This is simply an income tax in which all income is included, although it should be possible to provide exemptions for certain classes of income such as “unemployment” or “welfare”, including Social Security Retirement Payments as the “welfare” which they are. Without exemptions this tax is also regressive, however with the simple addition of a personal exemption that is a multiple of the annualized minimum wage the regressive character is converted to a progressive character.
Clinton was not a fiscal conservative except when it came to maintaining our lead in military equipment. His refusal to maintain our lead here is what has cost us our lead in this area. When you consider that the DOD portion of the GDP is less than 5% and has been there since before the Viet Nam police action, and that social spending has grown to almost 50% of GDP from only about 5% after WWII, it is rather plain where the spending has come from.
Diana
THAT’S RIGHT WE THE PEOPLE NOT WE THE GOVERNMENT.START DOING WHAT’S BEST FOR US GOVERNMENT.WHICH IS WHAT YOU ARE SUPOSSED TO BE DOING RIGHT.IT’S WHAT WE ELECTED YOU IN OFFICE FOR.
Chuck M.
Cokie Roberts and the left leaning press and commentators do not get it. They question the reasons for these type of gatherings. I for one attended the tea part in Sacramento because I love my country and do not want my country to be anything Europe.
Kay
I wish the people attending really understood why they were there. To bad the propaganda of talk show hosts who all to often do not give the true facts but very biased facts so they can get their bigger ratings which mean bigger paychecks. Don’t people understand they are entertainers & if you don’t entertain you are gone. To many times the truth is just not controversial or entertaining enough.
kathy M
I think the main idea is that the regular people are tired of getting ignored and railroaded. WE are tired of illegals getting the money we have worked hard for, we are tired of politicians making empty promises, we are tired of being treated like we don’t matter in favor of special interests and we are tired of status quo government. We have been sitting back watching politicians screw up for so long we are finally ready to get in there and fight for what we really want our country to be. Obama’s election was a catalyst that will set off a new political movement. There will be more meetings, tea parties and there will be changes made in the political arena next election. God Bless America.
Lawrence Cox
ChuckT:
Whom do you consider a fiscal conservative? Bush2 and Reagan both came close to doubling the national debt with their deficit spending – think Voodoo economics. In the past 40 years, we have had only five federal balanced budgets, where the government actually spent less than its total revenues. Clinton proposed and executed four of those (Nixon had the other in 1969). That is fact, not know-nothing puffery. Your understatement of DOD spending as a percent of GDP under Bush2 fails to include the huge annual supplemental appropriations for Iraq. Check your facts, Chuck.
Sharen
Anchor babies and the 14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.”
Babies born to illegal alien mothers within U.S. borders are called anchor babies because under the 1965 immigration Act, they act as an anchor that pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives into permanent U.S. residency. (Jackpot babies is another term).
Post-Civil War reforms focused on injustices to African Americans. The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect the rights of native-born Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently-freed slaves. It was written in a manner so as to prevent state governments from ever denying citizenship to blacks born in the United States. But in 1868, the United States had no formal immigration policy, and the authors therefore saw no need to address immigration explicitly in the amendment.
In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out the intent of the 14th Amendment by writing:
“Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country.”
The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was intended to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose allegiance to the United States was not complete. With illegal aliens who are unlawfully in the United States, their native country has a claim of allegiance on the child. Thus, the completeness of their allegiance to the United States is impaired, which therefore precludes automatic citizenship.
The correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment is that an illegal alien mother is subject to the jurisdiction of her native country, as is her baby.
Over a century ago, the Supreme Court correctly confirmed this restricted interpretation of citizenship in the so-called ‘Slaughter-House cases’ [83 US 36 (1873)] and in [112 US 94 (1884)]. In Elk v.Wilkins, the phrase ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ excluded from its operation ‘children of ministers, consuls, and citizens of foreign states born within the United States.’ In Elk, the American Indian claimant was considered not an American citizen because the law required him to be ‘not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.’
Congress subsequently passed a special act to grant full citizenship to American Indians, who were not citizens even through they were born within the borders of the United States. The Citizens Act of 1924, codified in 8USCSß1401, provides that:
The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth:
(a) a person born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof;
(b) a person born in the United States to a member of an Indian, Eskimo, Aleutian, or other aboriginal tribe.
The original intent of the 14th Amendment was clearly not to facilitate illegal aliens defying U.S. law and obtaining citizenship for their offspring, nor obtaining benefits at taxpayer expense. Current estimates indicate there may be over 300,000 anchor babies born each year in the U.S., thus causing illegal alien mothers to add more to the U.S. population each year than immigration from all sources in an average year before 1965.
American citizens must be wary of elected politicians voting to illegally extend our generous social benefits to illegal aliens and other criminals.
Angela N.
In response to Margie Miller’s quite ignornant statement. These Tea Parties were not for the rich. I am far from rich, and I absolutely see the need to hold the government accountable for their out of control spending. If you think your taxes are not going up in the near future…think again. Someone must fund the outrageous spending that our government is doing.
Please think before you type next time. Your statement was awfully broad and terribly unfounded.
johnb
What is–is. There is new sheriff in town–that is where we lost it.
If we are so upset as to what is happenig, there is a light at the end of tunnel—-it’s called hope.
We will have another chance in 2010. Our energy should be directed.
In 1962 Nikita Kruchev was asked a question about the future of communism–he responded “it’s not this generation that we are concerned with,its the next”–quess what…….
Margie Miller
I think you will find that only he richest 1 – 2% will see their taxes increase. The Bush tax cut cost the budget 2 Trillion dollars. Check your facts.