Is the Tea Party's 15 minutes over?

 
Too soon to tell. The left and the GOP establishment, both aided by the mainstream media, have done their best to crush out and discredit the movement. They have been fighting an uphill battle from the start. The left obviously doesn't want the "smaller government" movement to ever take hold. The GOP establishment doesn't want to give up their power. So the tea party...which is the advocate group for smaller government and less money to the government...is getting squeezed. The media tends to focus on the big elections, of course, but the tea party always had the longer term strategy of winning local and state offices and working their way up to making a dent at the national level. The movement may actually just be in its beginning. At some point, the debt will need to come down, the deficits will need to be trimmed, taxes will need to be lowered, regulations will need to be loosened. When that crap hits the fan, that's when the tea party movement will take the lead.
 
I believe the Tea Party has had some pretty solid ideas over the years. Unfortunately their unwillingness to compromise at all has not allowed them to gain a foothold in the legislative branch of our government so even when they do manage to get elected they don't get much done. While compromise may slow the march to your ultimate goal it is just about the only way to get anything constructive done in a democratic society.
 
The Tea Party is kind of like the old Soviet Union, great ideas but will not work in practice. I'm all for smaller government but what happens when the pot holes are not filled because road workers are laid off due to lack of funds? Also whether they like it or not they are a group that is not very inclusive; why pick a fight on immigration when these folks in general are sympathetic to their core values? These people want a fair shot to work hard, keep more of their $s, and keep govt off of their backs; sounds like the Gadsden Flag crowd to me.
 
One thing is clear, for as much as he derides Debate Forum posters, with the topics he has been posting lately, e_p clearly misses being able to post over on the Debate Forum.
 
Auggie said:
The Tea Party is kind of like the old Soviet Union, great ideas but will not work in practice. I'm all for smaller government but what happens when the pot holes are not filled because road workers are laid off due to lack of funds? Also whether they like it or not they are a group that is not very inclusive; why pick a fight on immigration when these folks in general are sympathetic to their core values? These people want a fair shot to work hard, keep more of their $s, and keep govt off of their backs; sounds like the Gadsden Flag crowd to me.
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The smaller government movement is not about abolishing government. Money to infrastructure, such as your pothole example, would be part of the role of governments at the different levels. The entitlement system and all the fluff...like PBS funding and similar "discretionary funding"...siphons money away from the basic duties of government, which include maintaining infrastructure. Imagine if all that entitlement money was going toward infrastructure?

As for the immigration debate, nearly all of the illegals will vote Dem (big government/entitlement), so they are hardly in the same sphere as the tea party movement. The debate also involves border enforcement and immigration law enforcement, which are required duties of the federal government. That's an area where the tax money is supposed to go.
 
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