» It’s Not Just Economics–Tea Party is Far Right On Social Issues Liberal Values

It’s Not Just Economics–Tea Party is Far Right On Social Issues

August 26, 2010 — Ron Chusid

Officially the Tea Parties concentrate on economic issues and claim to avoid social issues. It could be a good thing to have a fiscally conservative group which is not reactionary on social issues. (For the sake of discussion we’ll ignore for the moment the fact that Tea Party people tend to be far too ignorant on the economic issues to be of any value, such as in believing Obama raised their taxes when he actually lowered them, and in failing to understand that Medicare is a government program.) Even if they officially are not a part of the Tea Party platform, members still have their opinions on social issues which influence which candidates they support–and these views tend to be extreme right wing. Dana Goldstein provides examples in an article at The Daily Beast.

Posted in Republicans. Tags: Medicare, Taxes, Tea Party. RSS feed for comments on this post.. TrackBack URL.

7 Comments

1

Mike Hatcher b.t.r.m. says:

August 26th 2010 at 9:24 pm

Thanks for ignoring for the moment my Tea Party ignorance that Obama lowered my taxes enough to, I believe as he put it himself, buy some cupcakes. Let me remind you how the government overcame legal challenges to social security when it was first implemented, they won in court saying it wasn’t compelling insurance on people, it was just a tax and they have the right to tax people. This will be how they win the legal challenges to health care reform, by arguing in the courts that mandatory insurance is really just a tax, which the government has the right to impose. So, no Obama didn’t technically raise our taxes, but his lawyers will say they did to beat the challenges made by the states in court. As to your main point of your article, I can’t deny it, Tea Partiers are predominately hard line right wing on social issues, but there are a few like me, pro-choice, want don’t ask don’t tell policy eliminated for a more liberal position, and think civil unions are adequate for gays, but if they want to legally call it marriage, that is fine with me. But don’t forget who jacked the taxes on those obsence profits being made by tanning salons these days.
2

Ron Chusid says:

August 26th 2010 at 10:22 pm

A small tax cut is still a cut–not an increase as claimed by the Tea Party protesters.

The mandate really is a slap on the wrist/tax on those who don’t have insurance, with ways to opt out if they can’t afford to buy insurance. It is primarily directed at those who can afford to purchase insurance but choose to game the system by not buying insurance until they have medical problems. While I would prefer other solutions to the free rider program, having such people pay around $700 is hardly a tax worthy of tea party protests, especially considering that such free riders often wind up costing the tax payers money.

We get quite a few benefits out of health care reform for the rather limited taxes it imposes. Personally I wish Americans were adult enough to agree to a wide based tax on almost everyone (which would then turn out to be small due to being spread around) to finance things which are worth financing, such as health care. Instead we have the Republicans who even fought two wars off the books, knocking up the deficit the pretend to object to.
3

Cathi Peyton Erman says:

August 27th 2010 at 12:22 am

RT @RonChusid: It's Not Just Economics–#TeaParty Far Right On Social Issues #p2 #p21 #topprog http://bit.ly/dkWBUI so true & disgusting.
4

Captin Sarcastic says:

August 27th 2010 at 9:47 am

This is the same game Republicans have been playing for years. They call every manner of paying for anything a tax increase when it is done by Democrats, but then ignore the payment for their own new policies. You gave a great example in the trillions of tax revenue that will have to be raised to pay for the unfunded wars, not to mention the Bush tax cuts, which were so impossibly devious that they had to pass them through reconciliation, and because reconciliation rules require that no bill can be passed that is deficit negative over ten years, they had to sunset the tax cuts before the 10 year mark or the CBO findings on the deficit busting tax cuts would have disallowed them.

The Republicans spend more than Democrats, which as implicit tax hike, because somehow, that spending has to be paid for.

I’ll take tax and spend over spend and tax your children more than they can afford any day.
5

Demetrios Perdikis says:

August 27th 2010 at 10:39 am

» It's Not Just Economics–Tea Party is Far Right On Social Issues … http://bit.ly/deqnhe
6

Ron Chusid says:

August 27th 2010 at 3:10 pm

There is certainly very little connection between Republican rhetoric and their policies.
7

libhomo says:

August 28th 2010 at 10:57 am

The wealthy and corporate interests that own Teabagger Inc. love rightist social policies. The rightist social agenda keeps people divided and too busy to notice they are being robbed.