Liberals, Really?

Tea Party this, Tea Party that. Seriously? Get a grip! It is a battle of ideas necessarily articulated in a convincing way that successfully counters opposing ideas and concepts by defeating them with a logic that resonates with voters.

The perceived facts on the table are that we have, and are continuing to, spend more dollars than we can reasonably derive from the economy. The vast majority of the arguments presented in by Dowd, et al call for greater taxes and cuts in the defense budget - 20% of the budget - as though that will make it all groovy.

This is the polarized thinking of the late 1960's out and really needs revisiting. Social Security is 21% of the budget. Medicare and Medicaid is another 20% with other Income Security another 7%. Some fresh, imaginative thinking is needed on the other roughly 48% of the bugeted spending that is doing more to harm the middle and lower classes by way of inflation than any scheme dreamed up by the ruling class every time the Treasury and the Federal Reserve create more dollars and more debt.

If the Tea Party is anything, it is an amalgation of the frustrated voices of some Americans who have come to believe that they do not have any voice in a government that seemingly works against them at every turn and is unraveling the conception of America that they hold.

Truth be told, much of the elitist, progressive agenda has brushed them off as 'fly overs' and irrelevant. That was and is a tactical mistake. In the rush to achieve liberal/progressive goals, a significant portion of the population has been excluded and is, albeit belatedly, objecting. As they find themselves increasingly priced out of existence, even as they do all the things that are supposed to work, they look for a solution to the question of "Why?".

When searching for a solution one must first discern causes, effects and the outline the proper sequence of steps that will lead to remediation and restoration. Unsurprisingly, they have discovered that beyond taxation the greatest progenitor of their disaffection from their expected reward to be the cruel price inflation caused by the bailing out of everyone but them. The lower classes have their safety net (albeit with inflation diminished results), the upper class has their exoneration from the suffering the consequence of their actions ( much more reduced in their impact) but the working stiff has once again been stiffed. No jobs, higher prices, home values shrunken to a joke. Predictability they are angry. Who in their position wouldn't be?

Yet here we are fretting about higher taxes which we all know invariably result in higher spending rather than spending constraint to a managing and -God forbid! - reducing the debt that is driving the inflation in prices in everything but the value of their prime asset, their home which is going to hell in a hand basket.

Their argument goes, "You don't deserve any more money until you learn to manage the money you are already receiving!" bears some merit. Any reasonably responsible parent would say the same to their child.

Perhaps it would be of value to stop dismissing and objectifying alternative views and pay some attention to what drives their concerns in a constructive way. After all, not everyone lives in Manhattan - or wishes to.