I’d like to believe that we live in a county where “diversity of opinions” is a good thing.  I really would like to believe that.  But I cannot.

With the onset of the Great Recession we saw the origins of the Tea Party movement, ostensibly a group of conservatives who were very concerned about our national debt, the budget deficit and government spending.  They were successful at handcuffing then speaker Paul Ryan from negotiating any progress with progressives in the house.  With a republican majority and speaker, it was all but guaranteed nothing would get done.  Week after week they would appear on the Sunday News shows and express their outrage over government spending!

The problem for the Tea Party now is that they appear to have selective outrage.  When a republican holds the White House, subsidies for farmers is suddenly okay.  The vote for massive tax cuts for the wealthy on the promise that they will pay for themselves with a booming economy.

The problem is twofold.  1)  The promise of the tax cuts paying for themselves was a lie and they knew it, and 2) Republicans suck at math.

Debt and deficits have grown at worse rates under republican leadership since Ronald Reagan introduced his infamous Trickle Down theory.  Tax rates for the ultra wealthy went from 70% down to 39% and with capital gains at 15%, what we’re seeing is the upper tier pays less in percentage (~23%) than their hired help does.

Today they are fully trained in the New Gingrich mold of switching the conversation to “entitlements” as the root cause.  The problem here is, social security isn’t an entitlement.  We paid into that program and are owed the money.

No, the problem is that corporations and the wealthy haven’t been paying their fair share.  70% down to 23%.  Do the math.

But they are the job creators comes the rallying cry from the peanut gallery!  Bullshit.  The lessons of the past 4 decades have told a different story.  They haven’t created living wage jobs.  If anything they have outsourced more.

And now with a Republican holding the White House and record deficits, the Tea Party is conspicuously absent from the conversation about debt and deficits.  In fact, they vote in block to expand the very thing they were reportedly enraged about: big government spending.

I can only draw one conclusion from this: Tea Party Republicans are full of shit.