patrick.net

Supposedly there is a tiff in the GOP over Tea Party wanting to pare back the sacred military cow.

I view this as posturing however, Tea Party feels safe in proposing it since they know they do not have the votes for it. If it had a chance I think they'd chicken out.

The only thing that the tp members appear to agree upon is that they're fighting the Man. Which Man, and what they're fighting for... well, they don't appear to have figured that part out.

elliemae says

The only thing that the tp members appear to agree upon is that they’re fighting the Man. Which Man, and what they’re fighting for… well, they don’t appear to have figured that part out.

As near as I can tell, the only thing that they agree on is that they're angry and they think the government is to blame.

Asked individually what they're angry about, it's mostly things that reducing government spending isn't going to fix, like losing a home, being unemployed, or a perceived threat to their way of life.

The tax thing is funny. I paid $40,409 in federal income taxes, 6623 in social security, and 3781 in medicare last year. $50,813 out of $257,987 in wages, or a little under 20%.

I make 4 or 5 times what the average person makes, and I only pay 20% of my income in taxes. Most people pay far less.

If anything, people like me should be the angry ones. I paid over $50k in taxes and will be lucky if more than a tenth of that actually goes to programs that I support.

Tea Party, charitably, is the driven by the same animus that got Perot 20% of the vote in 1992.

Now, these guys are my polar opposite in weltanschauung, but I can see the picture from their angle, too.

Total government spending is going to be close to seven trillion this year.

Divided by the 60M men aged 25-55, that's over $100,000 per working man.

How the hell can we be spending $100,000 per working man on government?

National debt to GDP was 0.3 in 1979, soon it's going to exceed 1 and the CBO just released a projection that it's going to be pushing 2 in 2021.

California is going to pay 62,000 FE officers and $9.2B for 2011 for our prison system -- and that's a 10% cut from 2010 levels.

That's 0.5% of our total state income just to lock people up and make them worse citizens.

Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.

Troy says

How the hell can we be spending $100,000 per working man on government?

We're not.

First, 43% of the workforce is women, so going by working men is kind of silly.

Second, what we're spending is not "$100,000 per working man". There are ~312M people in this country. We're actually spending a little under $20k per person once you factor in government transfers.

Alternative, go by the number of households: 120M. That gives us about $50,000 per household.

It's actually not hard at all to see where these numbers come from. A third of it is maintaining the military industrial complex (we spend more per capita on "defense" today than at any time in history other than during WWII). A third is going to pay for the social safety net. The rest pays for everything else.

Now, it is certainly fair to ask whether $50k per household is too much, given that this is approximately the median household income. My gut feeling is that we are spending about double what we should be spending, and our priorities with the spending are completely wrong.

Kevin says

so going by working men is kind of silly.

well I figure once you account for all the people paying no taxes and the 15M unemployed, you're about at 60M actual taxpayers in this economy.

We’re actually spending a little under $20k per person once you factor in government transfers.

people don't create wealth, workers do : )

My gut feeling is that we are spending about double what we should be spending

There's also a velocity-of-money effect going on here that is confusing people, including me at times.

Government isn't actually consuming $50,000 worth of wealth per household. It's all passing through them and back into the economy.

So much of the economy is just the exchange of over-priced services.

The doctor looks at the accountant's x-ray and the accountant pushes some buttons every quarter. $5000 changed hands, but little actual capital wealth was consumed in that transaction.

Troy says

Government isn’t actually consuming $50,000 worth of wealth per household. It’s all passing through them and back into the economy

That's true for maybe half of it (social security payments, for instance), but plenty actually does get spent on labor and physical goods.

Troy says

$5000 changed hands, but little actual capital wealth was consumed in that transaction.

Only if you count the value of their labor at zero.

Kevin says

Only if you count the value of their labor at zero.

well, maybe I need to restate that a bit. My point was that service economies create high national income numbers due to the velocity of money and the intangible nature of services (and the durable nature of the capital we use to produce these services).

But I guess my point about the non-troublesome nature of the $6.5T burden of government needs more work.

One thing that is happening is that government is taking 25% of the producer surplus of each transaction via income taxes, and 5-10% of the consumer surplus via sales taxes too I guess.

So $100 spent into the private economy is attrited to $0 in 20-30 transactions via taxation.

I really need to pop in like 64GB and spend a month or two writing a proper economic simulator of this. Fascinating stuff.

I am hoping for cuts in military spending, in farm subsidies and in local "pork" projects (especially in Red states).

Updates on this are greatly appreciated.

I've seen little so far from Tea Party supporters...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/48774.html

But you know, $38 billion is a lot of money! I mean, have you ever seen a billion dollars? Imagine that 38 times over.

Clearly cutting 3% of the budget should fix all of the problems and put us back into a fiscally responsible state.

I assume that most of the Tea Party members are in Red States, but I could be wrong.

Vicente brought up an interesting graph:

http://patrick.net/?p=620293#comment-715697

So it looks like there is plenty of room for some "pork spending" cuts in their own states.

kentm says

But was it that from the beginning with most people who’re into it?

I was on Karl Denninger's BBS-y site for 2008-2009 and saw how his public put together the beginnings of the TP thing.

They had plenty of Obongo/Socialist tinfoil crap but the core protest was their ""Fed Up!" / "End the Fed" thing.

They were short and/or had the cash to want the Fed to let the system liquidate itself, instead of the massive intervention we did get that massively diluted their cash position.

Not that KD didn't make massive bank on his short plays 2008-2009. There were some really awesome setups that somebody of his experience, capital, and analytical setup couldn't help to utterly kill on.

Me, in early October the damn power went out for *3* hours the morning like 20 seconds before I was going to go all-in on SDS.

Still pissed off about that.

updates:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/2/9/942287/-Pro-life-Republicans-go-after-women-and-children-in-budget-cuts

Not actual cuts yet, but a summary of proposed cuts. Nice work guys!

I got some information that cuts to NPR and PBS are being considered. I will get a link.
Nothing on defence spending... :-(

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/12/us-usa-congress-spending-idUSTRE71B0A720110212?pageNumber=2

kinda a joke, really, cutting EPA 50% and killing funding for intercity rail and the health insurance changes.

oh, DOD spending up 8%.

Well, a people get the government they deserve. We are a nation of idiots, and things are proceeding apace.

@Troy

>Well, a people get the government they deserve. We are a nation of idiots, and things are proceeding apace.

I have believed the same, ever since someone I met from New Zealand commented on this idea years ago. It got me to think.
I was in Tottori at the time.

Troy says

kinda a joke, really, cutting EPA 50% and killing funding for intercity rail

Its all good. God will provide:
GOP Lawmaker Mike Beard Claims God Will Provide Unlimited Natural Resources
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/mike-beard-natural-resources-god_n_824312.html

on a semi related note, does this count as info about Republican cuts:
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Faces Backlash For Threatening Public Workers With National Guard
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/wisconsin-governor-scott-walker-backlash-public-workers_n_823901.html

As a lifelong Libertarian with personal ties to the upper echelons of the Libertarian Party, I can tell you the Tea Party movement was intentionally fabricated by the international central bankers and their controlled mainstream media (they ultimately own controlling stakes, if you do the research to figure this out).

Libertarians such as Ron Paul were intentionally grouped under the umbrella of "Tea Party" in order to control public perception of Libertarian beliefs, which in a nutshell are what the vast majority of Americans want (according to studies): Smaller government, less government intrusion, more fiscal responsibility through smaller government, and protected Constitutional rights. Period.

Once public perception was controlled, the Tea Party movement was then made to represent factions of the population who are against international central banker control over government. Then the Tea Party image was effectively destroyed by the central bankers' mainstream media.

Not very complicated, but done very quietly and effectively. Not too hard to do when so many American households use the size and number of their TV sets to determine their socio-economic status amongst their peer group.

Libertarians are not the Tea Party, and vice versa. Libertarians and other third party candidates are no longer allowed televised debates during the presidential election. Libertarians are not Republicans. Ron Paul is a Republican because he would receive no TV air time if he ran under the title of "Libertarian."

Happy to set the record straight for those bending the facts and public perception here. Distorted reality only holds so much water before it breaks.

@a30974

Thanks...best comment on this thread so far.
I often check Mises.org.

a30974 says

As a lifelong Libertarian with personal ties to the upper echelons of the Libertarian Party, I can tell you the Tea Party movement was intentionally fabricated by the international central bankers and their controlled mainstream media (they ultimately own controlling stakes, if you do the research to figure this out).
Libertarians such as Ron Paul were intentionally grouped under the umbrella of “Tea Party” in order to control public perception of Libertarian beliefs, which in a nutshell are what the vast majority of Americans want (according to studies): Smaller government, less government intrusion, more fiscal responsibility through smaller government, and protected Constitutional rights. Period.
Once public perception was controlled, the Tea Party movement was then made to represent factions of the population who are against international central banker control over government. Then the Tea Party image was effectively destroyed by the central bankers’ mainstream media.
Not very complicated, but done very quietly and effectively. Not too hard to do when so many American households use the size and number of their TV sets to determine their socio-economic status amongst their peer group.
Libertarians are not the Tea Party, and vice versa. Libertarians and other third party candidates are no longer allowed televised debates during the presidential election. Libertarians are not Republicans. Ron Paul is a Republican because he would receive no TV air time if he ran under the title of “Libertarian.”
Happy to set the record straight for those bending the facts and public perception here. Distorted reality only holds so much water before it breaks.

Thanks for pointing that out. That certainly explains the problems we have.

a30974 says

As a lifelong Libertarian with personal ties to the upper echelons of the Libertarian Party, I can tell you the Tea Party movement was intentionally fabricated by the international central bankers and their controlled mainstream media (they ultimately own controlling stakes, if you do the research to figure this out).
Libertarians such as Ron Paul were intentionally grouped under the umbrella of “Tea Party” in order to control public perception of Libertarian beliefs, which in a nutshell are what the vast majority of Americans want (according to studies): Smaller government, less government intrusion, more fiscal responsibility through smaller government, and protected Constitutional rights. Period.
Once public perception was controlled, the Tea Party movement was then made to represent factions of the population who are against international central banker control over government. Then the Tea Party image was effectively destroyed by the central bankers’ mainstream media.
Not very complicated, but done very quietly and effectively. Not too hard to do when so many American households use the size and number of their TV sets to determine their socio-economic status amongst their peer group.
Libertarians are not the Tea Party, and vice versa. Libertarians and other third party candidates are no longer allowed televised debates during the presidential election. Libertarians are not Republicans. Ron Paul is a Republican because he would receive no TV air time if he ran under the title of “Libertarian.”
Happy to set the record straight for those bending the facts and public perception here. Distorted reality only holds so much water before it breaks.

Let me get this straight. The "international central bankers" (icber's) created the tea party to find a way to discredit the libertarians by using the MSM to associate them with the tea party while in the meantime the tea party would be also forced to take in the people who opposed the icber's so that ultimately, after the icber's MSM created credibility in the tea party, the tea party, including libertarians and the people who opposed the icbers (who I would think should be one and the same), could be discredited by the icber's MSM. Certainly not complicated at all.

I usually find myself a little cynical about these kinds of grand conspiracies. I would really like to see the gun camera film on this one. What have you got to document all this?

It's a crap thesis.

It is true that the "Tea Party" is an outgrowth of a smaller, more ideologically pure movement against the status quo that got started in 2008 if not earlier.

Karl Denninger was a ring leader of this and he was the first, AFAIK, to assist in the organization of actual street demonstrations against current monetary policy.

He mobilized a couple dozen people to protest in DC and other places in 2008.

Then the Republican power machine noticed that this was a golden angle to move the part in -- Freedomworks was one element, Fox and Beck's 912 stuff, then the April 15, 2009 protests, then the tea party effort to torpedo public assemblies on health care reform the summer of 2009, then Bachmann, Palin, and the christianist wing of the Republican establishment started moving into the Tea Party, since Christianist hate government about as much as libertarians.

The overlap between fiscally conservative Republicans and libertarians is rather large. For the above poster to pretend it doesn't exist is just trying to maintain a "distorted reality".

Christianist, libertarians, and rich Republicans all want to ditch the welfare state, and they are well on the way to succeeding. Well, conservative Republicans have accomplished this. Libertarians haven't done shit, other than waste a lot of people's time on the internet.

a30974 says

Ron Paul is a Republican because he would receive no TV air time if he ran under the title of “Libertarian.”

Excuse me, but how "Libertarian" is Ron Paul's stance on abortion?

Seems like he's pretty Republican on many things, it's merely convenient that he is a high-profile politician who wants to make gov't small enough that you can "strangle it in the bathtub". Which always seemed a funny way to phrase it, having people against abortion evoking imagery of killing ill-behaved children in the tub. Anyhow.....

So on the one hand you want to embrace Ron Paul as Libertarian at heart, a RINO for convenience only. Definitely not a Tea Partier. Ron Paul who quite publicly called Tea Party rallies. Too bad they fizzled hardly anyone remembers about it, they think it started with Rick Santelli who called himself a "Randist" not a Libertarian. But you want to firmly distance Libertarians from the Tea Party. And Ron Paul seems targetted in his next primary by Tea Party locals in his district. Man, this is COMPLEX.

You can be a libertarian and oppose abortion. Where you'd have conflicts with libertarian ideology is if you tried to legislate anti-abortion measures at the federal level.

Abortion is a tricky issue, because it fundamentally boils down to what you believe constitutes human life. For some people that means not until the baby is out of the womb. For others it means the moment the egg is fertalized. For most other people, it's something in between.

Now, I haven't examined Paul's voting record on abortion issues in depth, but it seems to me that he's personally opposed to the practice, but doesn't think the federal government should be legislating about it. That doesn't seem to be at odds with libertarian ideology.

That said, even if Paul is strongly anti-abortion to the point of contradicting his political philosophy (and making lame justifications for doing so), I'd prefer his approach to government to that of most Republican presidential candidates.

Kevin says

Now, I haven’t examined Paul’s voting record on abortion issues in depth, but it seems to me that he’s personally opposed to the practice, but doesn’t think the federal government should be legislating about it. That doesn’t seem to be at odds with libertarian ideology.

Friend, you don't have to research much at all, to know Ron Paul is TOTALLY into the idea of Federal legislation on the topic.

Paul introduced the Sanctity of Life Act of 2005, a bill that would have defined human life to begin at conception, and removed challenges to prohibitions on abortion from federal court jurisdiction.

I wonder what % of TeaPartiers supported the Iraq or even the Vietnam war... but I digress.

And this:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/24/tea-party-movement-growing-weary-gop-budget-plan/#

So am I to understand that Tea Partiers are realizing that the GOP won't really make significant cuts?

I care because I can't stand hypocrisy. If people want to cut then fine...do it!
If cuts need to be made, then cut but be aware of the consequences...

I direct you to Vicente's post:

http://patrick.net/?p=652016#comment-726148 (well said)

------------
This one came from Townhall.com:

I subscribe to it (thought I rarely agree anymore) to see what people are thinking.

"The Tea Party -- Rooted in our Nation's Founding, Not Some New Concept

Understanding the legacy of Samuel Adams, the father of the American Revolution, is key to understanding today’s movement to reclaim our constitutional government. "

---------

"Taxes have frustrated Americans since before the nation’s founding. Recently, the tea party movement has brought renewed attention to how tax rates are hurting families and the companies where they work. "

-------------

With all this talk about the constitution and getting back to it, I wonder if people even know what President Washington said in a farewell address:
"beware of foreign entanglements" (let alone spending half of the world's military budget to manage the world).

Won't they cut anything from the military budget?:

http://247wallst.com/2011/04/14/the-ten-largest-military-powers-in-the-world/

I was watching John Stossel's show the other day and there was a guy from the Heritage Foundation literally defending every single penny we spend on defense. He would not even consifer cutting defense by one penny. Sorry conservatives, but you cannot have low taxes AND a huge military budget. Choose one or the other.

I wonder how many people with opinions about Tea Partiers have been to a rally and met with them. I'm not one but decided to drop in on one in Livermoore last Fall. Mostly to hang out in the sun with a couple of cuties I'd met recently, but also to satisfy my curiosity.

I'm not Catholic but sometimes go to church with my Mom when I'm visiting her. It felt a bit like that. Sort of fraudulent because I don't really subscribe to all of their beliefs, don't belong, don't drink the cool-aid.

I must say though what I experienced is exactly I would have expected given the descriptions I've heard on FOX News and exactly the opposite of what MSNBC and other liberal outlets report.

1. There were tons of minorities. I'd say a good 3/4 of the speakers were minorities, maybe 1/2 of African decent. Lots of folks from Oakland concerned about how the economy would affect their city.

2. Overall I'd say the audience was mostly Caucasian and aged 65 or older. None toting guns. None yelling racial slurs.

3. This one was definitely composed of many different unorganized groups. Turn out was a lot less than the ladies I met there promised.

4. Along the back there were many booths set up by each group. One passing out pocket constitutions, one for the NRA (my favorite) and others.

Only one person said something I didn't like. Actually he didn't say *it* but he eluded to a point something like, "we need to get rid of gays". Good for him (and me I suppose) that he didn't actually say it because I would have slapped him with some verbal abuse - he was an idiot.

Another think I thought odd was many potential candidates for CA govt's kept making comments along lines that hinted, "If we can prevent Obama from being reelected, your property values will all come back". I had to fight hard to chuckle each time I heard that.

Overall mostly nice people, concerned people, pissed off about losing more and more freedom - like myself.

@just_passing_through

Thanks for the info.

@Troy

>"Pure demographics (The youth bulge)

I agree completely. and what a waste of state money.