The Enigma of the Tea Party

I live in a Florida city that like most of Florida is filled with grumpy retirees. Many are early retired from corporations, with large savings accounts, ample pensions and generous medical insurance plans, and there are others retired from blue collar factory jobs from the mid-west and northeast, so it is possible to walk around many neighborhoods in the afternoon without missing a line from Rush Limbaugh on talk radio. Needless to say, it is a pretty hostile climate for progressives. Tea Partiers thrive in this warm moist climate, most with plenty of time on their hands that they use to write mean and angry postings on the comment page of the local newspaper bashing liberals, socialists, commies, freedom-haters, Obama-lovers and others of questionable loyalty to American values that they imagine are trying to turn the United States into a third-world socialist nation by bankrupting the country with unnecessary taxes, giveaways to the corporations and banks, and a government run healthcare program that will have government bureaucrats dictating what care we can have before we are sent to the end of life death panels that they fear.

The two things that really set them off are taxes—they are too high—and socialist welfare programs for the poor, the unemployed, the lazy—all those scabs on the backs of true blue-blooded working Americans who have to work hard only to have their just financial rewards stolen from them by the government and redistributed to those who don’t deserve it.  Every news article, editorial, or letter to the editor becomes an occasion for these extremists to vent their increasing anger and frustration at society, at government, and at local and national politicians.

The Tea Party is something of an enigma. It is difficult and may be unwise to attempt to characterize a group that is as diverse and fluid as the Tea Party appears to be, yet there are some things that can be said about them. "They" appear to be a motley assortment of folks, well meaning in their intentions for the most part, gullible enough to be led astray by the right wing buffoons and rabble-rousers of talk radio and Fox News, foolish and naïve in their public displays and rallys, appallingly ignorant about American history and values, unable to make serious practical political judgments (note their fascination with Sarah Palin), and ultimately dangerous because they foster ignorance and mob rule. They do not understand either democracy or the realities of a republic, yet they are powerful enough to create real damage because they are frustrated and angry and they are lashing out at whatever seems to be a good target for their rage.

A recent dialogue illustrates the difficulty of intelligent conversation with a Tea Party supporter who advocates values that he does not really understand. In response to a newspaper critique of inflammatory rhetoric by speakers at a local rally in which supporters of President Obama were called everything from socialists to traitors, he said (talking about his friends who participated in the rally):

“They just want to be reassured that you’re an American and that you believe in capitalism, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That’s all.”

I responded to him:

“The vast majority of Americans believe in capitalism, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, including me. I fear that what you mean is that you want people to believe in your way of understanding these terms, and that is where our disagreement arises.

[a] I believe that capitalism is the best economic system but it needs operating rules, and it needs to get disconnected from corporatism and monopolies, so that there is real and fair competition between equal parties in commercial transactions. When one party to a financial transaction makes the rules (for instance, the banks), then real and fair competition does not occur and the basic premise of capitalism is defeated.

[b] I believe in Constitutional government, as do most people, including the courts and judges. The issue is how the Constitution is interpreted. That is what we argue about. If you mean that you want judges who make Constitututional decisions the way you want them decided, and I want judges inclined to go along with my read of the Constitution, both of us believe in the Constitution, but we disagree about what it means and how it is to be interpreted.

[c] I believe in the Bill of Rights. I believe in freedom of speech. I think that provision was put into the Constitution to apply specifically to political speech. No one should be able to muzzle your freedom to express and advocate for your political beliefs. But I want that strictly interpreted. Speech is speech. Actions are not speech. Money is not speech. Corporations are not people. So my take on this is that what the courts have called “symbolic speech” – i.e., flag burning, desecrating public buildings with splattered blood, or disrupting public meetings, etc. is not properly an exercise of “free speech.” I also maintain that “money” is not free speech and campaign contributions can be limited without any individual being deprived of his right to speak his mind.

In other words, we do not disagree about the importance of capitalism, or the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, but we surely disagree about what they mean.”

The leadership of the Tea Party movement says that the characterizations and estimates of the Tea Party should not be based on what happens at public demonstrations, what is yelled out, what is written on crude illiterate signs. It is apparent that the excesses of the Tea Party followers and hangers-on have proven to be an embarrassment to its leaders, who have visions of being taken seriously and having some impact on future political events. Fox News, in a surprisingly candid article on the Tea Party following its national tour, said that “while organizers have held the tour as a way to stay front-and-center as a political force, the rallies have also attracted the kinds of mistruths, exaggerations and conspiracy theories that make Tea Party leaders cringe. Though the movement is still trying to shore up its credentials as a grassroots power that's here to stay, the so-called "fringe" and its accompanying antics continue to give critics fodder.”

Adherents of the Tea Party movement are supposedly brighter than the average citizen (a questionable judgment based on the signs they carry and the slogans they shout), but regardless even those identified as its leadership seem strangely deficient in knowledge of history and the meaning of some of the simplest political concepts—socialism, communism, tyranny, fascism, Nazi—which they use in the most bizarre and uninformed way. An analysis of this aspect of the Tea Partiers appears in a recent issue of Slate, in a perceptive article worth the read by Ron Rosenbaum, The Tea Party's Toxic Take on History. In his critique of the lack of historical awareness evidenced by the Tea Party Rosenbaum says:

“Most people with a basic grounding in history find Tea Party ignorance something to laugh about, certainly not something to take seriously. But I would argue that history demonstrates that historical ignorance is dangerous and that it can have tragic consequences, however laughable it may initially seem. And thus the media, liberals, and others are misguided in laughing it off. And educated conservatives are irresponsible in staying silent in the face of these distortions.... The muddled Tea Party version of history is more than wrong and fraudulent. It's offensive. Calling Obama a tyrant, a communist, or a fascist is deeply offensive to all the real victims of tyranny, the real victims of communism and fascism.... The media for the most part has shown itself afraid to challenge the insidious distortions of language and history Tea Partiers promote.”

It would be nice if the so-called “Tea Party” crowd were actually a new third party instead of what appears to be merely “Republicans with attitude” who talk about change we might believe in but are actually just the same “angry white folks” with the same tired complaints about big government, unbalanced budgets, porous borders, gay marriage, enemies behind every bush, government giveaway programs, and high taxes. They are Republicans wearing camouflage, and I guess they assume we won't notice.

When the Tea Party movement first surfaced I had hoped for more. I really hoped for a third party of fiscal and social moderates that would give some balance to the flaky fringe of the right and the left and might lead to a national conversation about needs and priorities and a willingness (and necessity) to compromise in the interest of accomplishing something useful and workable for our nation and to move us beyond anger and frustration.

I wanted a party for fiscal moderates, a party that would not engage in unnecessary wars and that if and when a war was necessary for our defense would have the integrity to pay for that war by raising taxes so they could show they were serious and were not just engaging in political rhetoric for short term political gain at long term cost to the next generation of ever increasing debt and ever decreasing quality of life.

I wanted a party that would commit to making lobbying illegal; end campaign donations by corporations, businesses, labor unions, trade associations and political action committees; reform campaign finance laws and amend the “free speech” provisions of the Constitution so that corporations were not deemed to be persons and money was not deemed a proxy for speech; and eliminate the influence of corporatism in our lives.

I wanted a party that would enforce our borders and our immigration laws; end agricultural visas for farmers and technical visas for computer programmers and other professionals unless coupled with enforceable provisions requiring those with temporary work visas to leave when their visas expire; stand up to the Republican Party that wants our immigration laws to be ignored to keep the cost of labor down and ensure a continuous supply of low cost workers to business in order to undermine worker protections and unions; stand up to the Democrats who also want the immigration laws to be ignored so that more poor workers and minorities will increase the potential membership of their party; and change the national conversation about immigration so that there was no implication that open national boundaries are desirable and enforcing our immigration laws was somehow “racist.”

I hoped for a party that would encourage free enterprise to flourish by breaking up the big banks and big corporations that dominate our markets and prevent real competition in price and quality of goods and services; devise regulations to make markets fair and competitive; eliminate manufacturer agreements with retailers that arbitrarily fix prices and penalize retailers who compete on price; remove legal constraints on Medicare so that drug companies would have to bid successfully to get their drugs on an approved list; and enforce trade agreements to prevent dumping and other unfair and anti-competitive practices that undermine our economy and our workers.

I hoped for a party that would recognize that government is separate from religion and would not try to impose sectarian or religious values into the political sphere or try to impose particular religious standards on the rest of society.

But I am a realist and I do not think this will happen. I am afraid that the Tea Party is not really a serious political movement that will give us a real choice because we have seen the Tea Party movement co-opted by the Republican Party to try to win unhappy independents. Our choices will still be between Republicans and Democrats. That is a great disappointment to me, because both parties are firmly in the control of the corporations and despite what they say with their campaign rhetoric, fundamental change will not happen. The existing political parties are too entrenched in their ways, too entangled with lobbyists, too much under the influence of corporations, PACS and political cronies, too sure they can continue their current ways with no real consequences, too inclined to protect and advantage their friends. That said, and with considerable reluctance, I will continue to support the Democrats in elections as a moral choice of the lesser of the evils because they tend to be less selfish and more inclined to support programs that benefit people.

Paying Taxes Is A Privilege

We are fast approaching that horrific day each spring when our annual accounting with the IRS takes place, so I guess it is time once again for our occasional rant about taxes. Hear me out. Notice that I did not say rant against taxes, just about taxes. That’s because I believe that taxes are a good thing, necessary to our lives, our convenience, our health, our security, our education. My rant is against the rants of the tax complainers, the tax cutters, the tax cheats, the flat taxers, the tax avoiders—all those uninformed ideologically-driven anti-tax fanatics holding up signs at Tea Party rallies.


Don’t get me wrong. No one likes to pay taxes, including me. No one wants to see tax money wasted. No one (except in the minds of the loonies, fanatics and extremists) really wants government to be any bigger than it needs to be. Most people I know want to see serious efforts to deal with mismanagement and waste wherever it is found regardless of party or ideology.

That said, I accept what ought to be obvious to all, that if we want the services that go with modern civilization we have to pay for them and taxes are how we pay for them. Taxes are what makes civilized society possible—taxes fund roads, libraries, schools, street lights, fire and rescue services, child protection agencies, parks and playgrounds, airports and train stations, commuter rail and bus services, boat launches and all the other things we take for granted each day that make our life more pleasant.

Griping about taxes is almost a national pastime. Nevertheless I was surprised to read that Americans complain about taxes more than citizens of most other countries, while our tax burden is considerably less than in most other countries. The complaining does not seem justified by the reality. The U.S. ranks 27 out of 30 in overall tax burden in OECD countries, and has a comparable rank in what Forbes calls the “misery index,” which ranks taxes at the highest marginal rate, a rate which only the wealthy pay and then only on the portion of their income that exceeds $370,000. That is not a heavy burden.

I come at the question of taxes from the perspective of a Christian Humanist. I take quite seriously the teachings of Jesus that we have a duty to our neighbor, that compassion is a primary ethical value, that we are all in this sea of life together and must do our part to shoulder the burdens of life. I also take my commitment as a humanist quite seriously. We share a common humanity and a common commitment to the social compact theory of government that implies that we empower the government on our behalf and on behalf of each other to look out for our common welfare, and that requires a source of common funds to make it happen.

Some years ago when I got my annual bonus check [which was performance-based for meeting specific goals!] I made a comment to the CEO that he perceived as griping about the amount of money that was taken out of that check for Federal and State taxes, and he observed drily that I should be grateful because the amount of taxes taken out reflected a pretty significant income and that I should consider it a privilege and a duty to have the income that could pay taxes at that level—and he was right, and it was an important lesson that has stayed with me through the years.

Massachusetts (where I spend my summers) is considered a high tax state and is sometimes derisively called “Taxachusetts” by its residents. Taxes were on the minds of unhappy Massachusetts residents who, apparently influenced partly by the drumbeat of anti-tax ads attacking “big government,” elected Scott Brown to the Senate a few months ago. So the Boston Globe, mindful that taxes were on the minds of citizens, published an article recently about the attitudes and the realities of taxes in Massachusetts. It was an interesting and instructive read about the way people think about taxes. Some of their observations and conclusions are relevant to this article:

[a] Many people believe that government is too big and wasteful and that some programs need to be cut, but they were unable to name which programs they actually want to cut.

[b] When the sales tax was raised recently from 5% to 6.25% many residents flooded over the border to New Hampshire, which has no sales tax, to buy groceries and clothing, despite the fact that those items are not subject to sales tax in Massachusetts, an obviously funny and irrational response.

[c] Restrictions on real estate tax levies by towns require voter approval to bypass, yet most levies that go to voters are approved, apparently indicating that while voters are against taxes in general, they do not oppose taxes for something the value of which is obvious to them.

I live most of the year in Florida. We have no income tax, a sales tax rate of 7%, and property taxes (for residents with homestead exemption) that are below the median of the other states. We read complaining letters in our newspapers and hear rants about taxes on talk radio. The State budget, as is true in most states, has been cut for the past several years and is still in deficit. The public demanded drastic cuts and no new taxes. The legislature reiterated the public demand for cuts and the mantra of no new taxes. We have a Republican governor and Republicans control the legislature by a significant margin, so it should be easy for the Republicans to make the cuts they say they want. However, the legislature has run into the reality that most everyone says they want cuts but they don’t want programs cut that matter to them.

I see the same “cut our taxes but don’t cut our favorite programs” dilemma at the local level. Our county commissioners, all Republicans, complain loudly about foolish government waste and overspending on government programs (of course, at the Federal and State level) and promise that they will keep tax rates low with no new taxes. They cannot agree on what to cut—do we cut police and fire budgets, do we reduce teacher pay or lay off teachers or increase class size, do we cut athletics from the schools, do we reduce all county employees pay or just employees making over $100,000, do we cut the health department or ignore our sewage system repair needs? Is rebuilding the boat launching ramp at a city park an extravagance or a necessity?

The stated objective of the tax cutting movement (at the Federal level) is to lower the “marginal” income tax rates to benefit the wealthiest Americans. The essence of the argument supporting lower marginal income tax rates is “fairness” and the tactic is a proposal to eliminate differential income tax rates in favor of a “flat tax” that everyone would pay at the same rate that would have the added benefit of simplifying the tax code. Simplifying the tax code is long overdue, but that is a different issue. The question of tax “fairness” is a complicated one and could be answered in different ways depending on what values and assumptions are considered in the discussion but, regardless, the practical effect of lowering taxes on the wealthy inevitably involves shifting more of the burden onto the middle class and the poor. That is not an opinion; it is just a mathematical fact.

It is reasonable to argue that “fairness” of the tax burden means fairness in terms of ability to pay and that those who are wealthy have profited more from society and should pay more for its support. It is also obvious that requiring a wage earner with a middle class income to pay 10% of his income as tax, which cuts into the amounts required for food, clothing and shelter, creates a much greater burden on the middle class than a 10% tax on the income of a millionaire creates on the lifestyle of the wealthy. Arguing otherwise involves an “Alice in Wonderland” view of reality. Contrary to the argument made by the wealthy, lowering taxes on the wealthy and shifting the burden onto the middle class involves a wealth transfer (redistribution of wealth, anathema to the right) from the lower and middle class to the wealthy, and that cannot be fair in any reasonable sense of what “fairness” means.

Then there is the inconsistency in thinking by our political leaders. The same politicians who complain loudly and regularly that government bailouts of the financial industry or the auto industry lead the country toward socialism had no problem giving a local aircraft manufacturer $35 million in tax reductions, incentives and grants on the basis of his promise to stay in the area and hire more employees (a mixture of State and local funds were granted); the manufacturer took the money, laid off a good portion of the remaining employees, then sold the company to a Brunei corporation that may move the company out of the United States to Asia. When some locals objected to this expenditure of tax money to subsidize private enterprise, the same right wing blue collar types who protest Obama’s waste of money for bankrupting the country and believe that subsidizing private industry is socialism when the Federal government does it, said that this situation was different, it involved keeping local jobs so it was not really a waste of money and it was unfair to call it socialism. It was important and necessary.

So what do we make of this muddle-headed and inconsistent thinking, both from politicians and from the general public? We note with some amusement that:

[a] People do not like taxes in general but they do not object to taxes if they agree with the program the taxes will pay for. If I benefit from a tax-supported program, it’s ok; if my neighbor benefits, it is a waste of tax dollars.

[b] The more distant the taxing authority, the less people like paying the taxes. Federal taxes are worse, State next, local taxes are grudgingly acceptable.

[c] Earmarks (Federal money that pays for local projects) are always a waste of money unless they are in your local district. Then the money is “free” and doesn’t really cost taxpayers anything.

[d] State money is also “free.” An example: County Commissioners are spending $10 million on a beach re-nourishment project to spread new sand on beaches in the northern part of the county in front of ocean front mansions where the sand is annually washed away during storms. One commissioner said in response to complaints this project was wasting taxpayers money by throwing sand into the sea, “this is costing the taxpayers practically nothing, so it’s a no brainer”—but the commissioner was the one with no brain, because 90% of the funds were from the State and Federal government and was tax money.

Why do we have such ambiguous, inconsistent and ultimately selfish attitudes toward taxes? I think there are three reasons:

[a] Right wing anti-tax activists have been very vocal in print and in various media including talk radio in insisting that our tax system is not fair, that we pay too much of our “hard-earned income” in taxes, that government is bad and wastes our money, and that the purpose of taxation is to take from those who earned their money in order to give it to deadbeats—so they have created mistrust among the populace.

[b] The public is increasingly uneducated, intellectually lazy and ill-informed so they are uncritical in their thinking, inclined to believe what they are told on talk radio, and unable to form independent judgments based on evidence and common sense.

[c] Our elected leaders have been negligent and provocative by encouraging the anti-tax revolt as part of their continual drive to get re-elected and by their failure to lead and educate the public—to explain the role taxes play in a democratic society, to explain that taxes are for the benefit of everyone and are not just for those things that one personally agrees with, that taxes are necessary to support the community and the nation.

We need a new national conversation on the role of taxes in a democracy, that paying taxes is both a necessity and a privilege—but don’t count on that happening in our divisive and self-interested political climate.