The Tea Party ... A Lot of Empty Cups

The Tea Party folks want bigger spending cuts. They don't care what is cut. The number is what matters, and the number has to be bigger. That should tell you all you need to know about the Tea Party. Sound financial policy does not result from focusing only on spending cuts. A few other things, such as the impact of the proposed spending cuts or the possibility of (gasp) raising taxes or the long term outlook, need to be considered. Unless you believe that any government is bad government, then there isn't much justification for the Tea Party's fetishization of spending cuts. Most of us don't believe that any government is bad government. Many of us are reluctant to actually end the programs and initiatives whose demise is the other side of the spending cuts. Most of us get over our anger eventually, and either become unmotivated or more open to reason and logic. This is why the Tea Party folks are probably fated to be a short lived phenomenon, at least as influential political players. The Tea Party agenda is a mixture of knee jerk reaction, broad and unsupportable generalizations, and appeals to fear, hate, and anger. That is why they can't get beyond pushing for larger and larger spending cuts, and that is why they should be aggressively ignored.