Category: social welfare programs

What’s The Difference Between Economist Robert J. Samuelson and a Bucket of Spit?

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

July 29, 2011

Older Americans do not intend to ruin America,
but as a group, that’s what they’re about.
Robert J. Samuelson, 
Why are we in this debt fix? It’s the elderly, stupid.
Washington Post, July 28, 2011

Answer: The Bucket.  Mr. Samuelson, a right-wing economist, in yesterday’s Washington Post POSTOPINIONS column didn’t bury the lede: Why are we in this debt fix? It’s the elderly, stupid.  This (unfortunately) memorable title tells you where this is going, and Samuelson does not disappoint, except one does walk away from his screed a bit more disappointed than usual in how right-wingers think. They relish attacking those who live one crisis away from poverty. Samuelson gives those weakened geriatric gray hairs a good beatdown, like Seinfeld‘s Kramer when he thrashed those prepubescent youngsters in the karate dojo, “I’m dominating the dojo. I’m class champion!” Or the man who plotted to throw his mother off a train, but in that case, decided against it. Samuelson did not.

Jihad Grandpas & Grammas

You may not have known that your seemingly sweet Granny and Gramps were on a jihad bent on burying you and their other children and grandkids under mountains of nationalized debt. I would’ve never suspected my own grandparents, they were always good for a hug and a cookie. (There are exceptions, however. My Aunt Ruth, for example, for my ninth birthday, gave me the 670 page 1955 edition of Emily Post’s Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage. Obviously, by that act alone, she proved that she’d do anything to anyone. Thus, she, now at 89 years, remains suspect of burying us all under mountains of public debt.) 

Samuelson’s point is obvious, a lot of those rampaging elders are gaming the system, many do not need the benefits they receive, especially from Social Security and Medicare. He ignores the fact that a national social welfare program ought to embrace all the elderly; after all, well-off elders may, during their retirement, lose everything. (And don’t be fooled, Samuelson believes that poor Americans in any age group don’t deserve their benefits either.) Statistics show that the majority of elders need social security to live any kind of decent life at all. Medicare to live a healthy life at all.

Of course, Obama and the Democrats are Samuelson’s villains de jour, but he includes his own companions:

“the shunning [of even discussing entitlement cuts] is bipartisan. Tea Party advocates broadly deplore government spending without acknowledging that most of it goes for popular Social Security and Medicare.”

Thus he proves that he is worse than Tea Partiers. He forgets that the vast majority of retirement aged Tea Partiers collect Social Security and Medicare, (rightfully) believe they earned it, are therefore “entitled” to it, and would smack you with their canes should you try to even discuss cutting benefits. Of course, they also believe that other groups of elderly persons do not deserve what they have; funny how that works, eh? Samuelson doesn’t understand politics very well, doe he?

It’s the Social Contract

The social contract which we have includes income and health security, and yet does not eviscerate free enterprise. It’s benefits are for all citizens. Samuelson is no friend of our social contract:

“By now, it’s obvious that we need to rewrite the social contract that, over the past half-century, has transformed the federal government’s main task into transferring income from workers to retirees.”

To him, and the GOP/TP when it suits them, the federal government ought to have few mandates, i.e., foreign relations, border protection, building a national armed forces, and, most of all, cutting taxes paid by those who, by and large, are already doing quite well. For people like Samuelson, doing well is always the best revenge on those whose paths through life are rocky and dangerous. Tea Partiers, in particular, detest those they consider lazy welfare queens and kings, despite the fact that many Tea Partiers collect what the call “welfare,” within which they have been known to include Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. When this wrongheaded enmity is pressed against the elderly, especially those who rely upon those programs, on those who have lived long enough to achieve old age, it’s akin to saying to them, “Thanks for your hard work, and drop dead.”

Robert Samuelson’s Why are we in this debt fix? It’s the elderly, stupid proves he’s comfortable warring on the nation’s elderly. Period. Paragraph. Throw him off a train . . .

White House Debt Summit Tomorrow – Will Obama Cave or Pave?

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

July 6, 2011

Tomorrow morning President Obama hosts some friends and enemies at his big white house. They’ll powwow about bills for this and bills for that. Who will pay for them?  Will we pay for them at all? Can we even afford a weekend summer vacation in Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River? The big question, though, suggested by an unsettling report by WaPo tonight, is whether President Obama is ready to sell the ranch, lock, stock, and barrel.

Cave Or Pave?  The Washington Post reported tonight that “President Obama is pressing congressional leaders to consider a far-reaching debt-reduction plan that would force Democrats to accept major changes to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for Republican support for fresh tax revenue. . . As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal.”

My fondest hope is that he doesn’t really want to put much of Medicare or Social Security on the table, if at all.  I can’t believe – I must not believe – he’d cave again as he did last December.  Or will he pave the way to GOP humiliation?

My gentler angels suggest that the Medicare/Social Security talk is a political gambit designed to highlight the GOP anti-tax jihad, and to further isolate them as the stumbling block to a budget (and debt ceiling) agreement. The President may be betting all-in that he can win on his home field when he meets congressional leaders at the White House tomorrow. 

There, afterwards, he can roll out the bully pulpit and go directly to the American people. Tomorrow, if the GOP resists even the slightest amount of tax revenue increases, he can herald it to a nation where many cannot understand why the wealthiest among them should not pay a fair share. GOP stickiness on taxes is well-known, of course. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), for example, agreed to discuss the elimination of tax breaks like the one for corporate jets, yet – remarkably – he refused to do so if an eliminated tax break resulted in any increase whatever to federal revenues. Here’s how much he’s willing to budge on increasing tax revenue: “If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll be glad to talk loopholes . . . we’re not for any proposal that increases taxes, and any type of discussion should be coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else.”

How generous of him.  In any event, even that “concession” – worthless as it is – was kiboshed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch “We look a lot like Greece already” McConnell (R-KY). 

The hypocrisy stuns, as always. Remember – as a commenter at Political Animal did:

“John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, John Kyle, etc.all voted for multiple debt limit increases and multiple budgets that included deficit spending (before we had a Democrat in the White House). If Mitch thinks we are like Greece, then he can look in a mirror and see the reason.”

Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . .

Cheney Love – House Congressloon Paul Ryan’s Worst Endorsement EVER!

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

May 22, 2011

Yesterday, Ex VP Dick Cheney revealed that he “worships the ground that Paul Ryan walks on.” Mr. Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget Committee, and champion of the embattled “Kill Medicare” budget provision, had no immediate comment. In fact, Mr. Ryan has made no comment on any topic whatever since Cheney’s endorsement. Or was Cheney intimating not so much a political endorsement as a declaration of romantic interest? 

The Cheney Effect.  At a KPMG Global Energy Institute event at the InterContinental Hotel in Houston, Mr. Cheney expressed his devout admiration for the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, whose budget plan created a hornets nest of ill will among nearly 75% of the country’s citizens. Mr. Cheney, however, and nearly the entire GOP, Libertarians, and Tea Partiers embraced the plan warmly. The former VP under President Bush (“Dubya”) obviously embraced it more thoroughly than others, and was seen by reliable sources drooling and panting slightly as he spoke of Mr. Ryan. Mrs. Cheney later told reporters, “I didn’t see it coming. He can barely pull his pants on in the morning to shoot out the bedroom window at some tiny birds and neighbors. I’m mystified; really, totally stunned.”     

Speculation began immediately whether Congressman Ryan, who occasionally expresses interest in a 2012 presidential run, could survive Cheney’s endorsement. Efforts to reach Mr. Ryan for comment were unsuccessful. His Chief of Staff indicated that Ryan’s doctors were with the disconsolate congressional firebrand, and administering intravenous Lexapro, Haldol, Ambien, Cialis, buffalo relaxant, and an experimental tranquilizer dart designed to safely bring rabid monkeys out of trees. “No success thus far,” according to an anonymous source, his wife, Janna Ryan.

Mutt Demands “A Hint of Baked Apple”

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

 April 15, 2011

From the desk of Reginald Delano Roosevelt
April 15, 2011

Dear Winston,

AHEM . . . Sir

“Bone?!? You Expect Me To ‘Gnaw’ On A ‘Bone’?!  I sit upright, my good man. I wear a fez. I read Proust and Pynchon and giggle at the whimsical stylings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. While you slave away for “the man” at your ludicrously meaningless donkeywork, my days pass in contemplation, yoga, bridge with the poodles down the street, and a dalliance with a ravishing little vamp of a Great Dane. Oh, and during your absences I sleep in your bed, oh yes, and quite soundly. So, in summation, you “gnaw” on the bone, sir, if you please. It suits you. Employ those overrated opposable thumbs.

As for my purpose in writing, it is once again regarding the matter of my daily meals. As you know we have fought long and repeatedly over this matter. I’ve often maintained – without rancor, mind you – your choice of nutrition for me borders on barbarous. Kibble I shall not nibble! My entreaties for the addition of a hint of baked apple in my so-called meals have long been unheeded. My warning remains in place since the last time I wrote you about this issue: Unless you immediately respond with action to my reasonable nutritional needs, I shall be forced, quite against my gentle disposition, to bring suit against you in a court of proper jurisdiction for compensatory and punitive damages.

We may, however, settle this amicably, still. Note that the fine canine nutritional company, Kibbles ‘N Bits, has long and successfully offered The Kibbles ‘n Bits Bistro Meals. These rich blends are offered in both Oven Roasted Beef Flavor and Grilled Chicken Flavor, each with a sophisticated mix of vegetables. And, for a palate as educated as my own, each blend features what I desire the most, a hint of baked apple! My associates in the neighboring residences are quite excited and as a result I have been ignominiously “mounted” on numerous occasions as a result. No harm done. Joy is as joy does. See Bistro Meals. Fetch. Good boy, good boy.

Your choice is clear. Endless litigation, or simple common sense. Picture my elation when you bring home my first Bistro Meal. Better this: Picture getting back your slippers, your various wallets, your “little black book,” your iPhone, your hairpieces, and your strangely alluring blow-up girlfriend.

With hopes for a congenial settlement of this endlessly pending matter, I remain, as always, your loving, though somewhat disgruntled, pooch, 

Reginald Delano Roosevelt

cc: Law Firm of Williams & Connoly
     A.S.P.C.A.
     P.E.T.A.
     My veterinarian

More Economic Pain on the Way for States and Local Communities, Courtesy of the U.S. Congress

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

March 10, 2011

Recently, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued a survey of state budget concerns.  Their comments about federal assistance to states and localities are not optimistic: “Federal assistance for states, which has been enormously helpful in allowing states to avert some of the most harmful potential budget cuts, will be largely gone by the end of fiscal year 2011, the current fiscal year. . .”

The GOP/TP fiscal jihad that is taking place in the House of Representatives, using H.R. 1 as its present vehicle, cuts valuable and critical financial resources from federal assistance to states and localities:

“The Fiscal Problems Of State And Local Governments Have Also Had National Implications, As Their Spending Cuts And Tax Increases Have Been A Headwind On The Economic Recovery.” Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke Speech At The Citizens Budget Commission In New York, March 2, 2011.

Challenges For State And Local Governments

A Sampling Of H.R. 1 Cuts
Adversely Affecting States And Localities

• Community Development: H.R. 1 Would Cut The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program From $4 Billion To $1.5 Billion – Nearly Two-Thirds (62 Percent).

• Head Start Early Childhood Education: Head Start Is Providing Comprehensive Early Childhood Services To Almost One Million Low-Income Children And Their Families. The Cut Of $1.1 Billion, Or 14 Percent, Below The FY2010 Appropriation . . . Causing Nearly 218,000 Children Across The Country To Be Kicked Out Of The Head Start Program This Year, A 20% Cut And Close More Than 16,000 Head Start And Early Head Start Classrooms.

• Railroads And Transit: The Bill Cancels Over $3 Billion In High Speed Rail (51 Projects In 22 States) And Surface Transportation Projects (TIGER Grants = 76 Projects In 40 States) That Were Awarded With Fiscal Year 2010 Funds. These Projects Are Estimated To Have Created More Than 100,000 New Construction Jobs.

• Public Safety: The CR Cuts Funding For Justice Department State And Local Law Enforcement Grants By Over $1 Billion, Or 27 Percent (Including COPs, The Office Of Justice Programs And The Office Of Violence Against Women).

With state governments also, by and large, cutting programs and state employee salaries, the GOP fiscal jihad is trickling down to what economists like to call Main Street. Moreover, what is not generally discussed in the media is the fact that states themselves provide assistance and grants to local governments – Main Street as a reality, not a metaphor. As federal aid to states declines greatly for the foreseeable future under GOP plans, states’ abilities to provide funds to localities also will decline, and, let’s face it, many states already are planning these cuts despite the loss of significant federal grant money. Then, of course, on Main Street, community services are cut substantially, everything from law enforcement to school teachers.  That’s trickle down economics, RepubliCut style.

And even without this huge round of federal and state budget cuts many U.S. Main Streets, for years now, have been awash in unemployment, community decline, and rising poverty. The combination of state and federal cuts coming in the remainder of 2011 and 2012 will, I fear, dampen the very mild recovery we are experiencing now, and, to carry the metaphor maybe too far, drown the national economy in another deep recession, or worse, including widespread social unrest, making Madison, Wisconsin seem tame.

A week ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, addressed the Citizens Budget Commission of New York about this growing problem.  As a leading former member of George Bush II’s economic team, Chairman Bernanke is no cheerleader for governmental spendthrifts.  Yet, below, he also appears nervous about the massive cuts in the pipeline; I don’t like our Ben nervous . . .

“The recession’s effects on state governments have been substantial. In calendar year 2009, state tax revenues were about 12 percent lower than they had been in 2008; declines in wages, salaries, capital gains, and profits reduced income tax revenues, and sales tax collections dropped along with household and business spending. Reflecting somewhat better economic conditions, state tax revenues for the first nine months of 2010 were 3 percent higher than during the comparable period a year earlier–a relatively modest improvement in comparison to the earlier decline. Meanwhile, on the spending side of the ledger, demand for publicly financed medical care and other public services soared as the economy weakened. Most notably, Medicaid caseloads rose from less than 43 million at the start of the recession in December 2007 to more than 50 million in June 2010–an increase of nearly 18 percent. . .

“In contrast to the sharp drop in state tax revenues, local tax revenues across the country have held up relatively well over the past couple of years. In part, this difference reflects localities’ greater reliance on property taxes. Changes in real estate values typically feed through to tax assessments and property tax bills with a considerable lag; some jurisdictions have also raised their property tax rates to offset weakness in assessed values. The continued softness in real estate prices, however, does not bode well for local government revenues. Moreover, many localities have been hard hit by reductions in state aid, which in 2008 accounted for about 30 percent of local revenues. Indeed, the fiscal 2011 budgets of more than 20 states contained either outright reductions in local aid, changes to revenue-sharing agreements, or cuts in funding for specific programs that are run by local governments–such as education for grades kindergarten through 12, road maintenance, and property tax relief.

“Assistance from the federal government–mainly through the stimulus grants included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and the additional Medicaid and education grants provided last summer–has relieved some of the fiscal pressure on states and localities. In addition, many of them have tapped financial reserves–or “rainy day” funds–and pursued asset sales and other one-time actions to satisfy balanced budget requirements.  Nonetheless, many governments have laid off or furloughed workers, frozen salaries, and cut other operating expenses. Job cuts have been especially pronounced at the local level, where payrolls have fallen roughly 350,000, or more than 2 percent, over the past 2-1/2 years; nearly half of the loss of local jobs has been in education.

“In addition, state and local governments have cut their capital expenditures. To be sure, construction of highways and transportation facilities has been well maintained over the past couple of years, partly because of the infrastructure grants and the Build America Bond program provided under the ARRA. . .

“Although the economy is recovering, it is still operating well below potential and unemployment remains high. Stimulus grants from the federal government are winding down this year and will largely have ended by 2012. Demands on Medicaid and other social service programs will likely remain elevated. Moreover, reserve funds are low, and the list of unused one-time fixes has been substantially depleted. . .

“. . . the fiscal 2011 budgets of more than 20 states contained either outright reductions in local aid, changes to revenue-sharing agreements, or cuts in funding for specific programs that are run by local governments–such as education for grades kindergarten through 12, road maintenance, and property tax relief.”

GOP/TP Cuts Have Consequences, Too. Republicans like almost any word or phrase that precedes “have consequences.” Holding them to that when they’re the punch line to “have consequences” has generally failed. But extreme budget cuts at any governmental level bode poorly for an economy only slightly on the mend. Recall that despite a mild softening of unemployment last month (and to be revised next month), the ranks of the unemployed do not, by any measure, signal a return to prosperity. The long-term jobless rate is at a record percentage of the unemployed, more than a million of whom have been out of work – and most of them still looking – for two or more years.

A Lexicon. No matter what, this is the place where the rubber meets the road for GOP/TP economic theory which basically features a number of morally and economically suspicious principles. Here are a few of the GOP’s mantras that come to mind:

  • what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine too (Hosanna Ayn Rand!)
  • cut taxes savagely, particularly on the wealthiest 10%
  • cut spending savagely on everything that does not benefit the wealthiest 10%
  • privatize everything to benefit the wealthiest 10% at the expense of the dwindling middle class and the poor, and, the corollary, inevitably run privatized public services poorly with the eye primarily on the bottom line
  • steal whatever tax revenue received via the middle class and the poor and recycle it through federal contracts, privatization, and old-fashioned theft to the wealthiest 10% (this is called Kleptocracy!)
  • financial regulation gets in our way! Period. Paragraph.
  • and bringing things strangely in a full circle, almost all tax cuts increase government tax revenue (Hosanna Arthur Laffer, Peter Stockman, Ronald Reagan, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, etc., etc., ad nasuem)

There’s more, of course, but I’m tired and need to get back on my meds. 

Arizona – No Taxation Without – Or With – Representation!

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

January 12, 2011

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the taxes.”
A (mild) paraphrase of Shakespeare’s “let’s kill all the lawyers”
Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2, 71–78

Ken Silverstein’s July 2010 Harper’s Magazine article, Tea party in the Sonora: For the future of G.O.P. governance, look to Arizona, surveys the political landscape of that Tea Party dominion. It’s relevant today as the GOP has seized control of the House and maintains its unofficial “filibuster majority” in the Senate.

Below are some excerpts:

Since the days of Barry Goldwater, an axiom of Arizona politics, particularly among Republicans, has been that tax cuts generate economic growth in all circumstances. Hence total state taxation has declined during fifteen of the past seventeen years; the individual income tax has taken the biggest hit, but sales, property, and corporate-income taxes have also come down substantially. The legislature has created tax exemptions for everything from country-club memberships to pedicures to food purchases by airlines (the latter at the behest of local airline lobbyists). None of this has produced the hoped-for effect. Although tax cuts “have lowered government revenues,” they “have not had any perceptible effect on the state’s economic growth,” concluded an Arizona State University business-school study, published last November, that examined the past three decades of fiscal policy.

Instead, to raise cash, the legislature has pursued a series of wild sell-offs and budget cuts. It privatized the capitol building and leased it back from its new owner, an arrangement that brought in substantial revenue but over time will cost Arizona far more. The legislature has sold off numerous other state properties at bargain prices, and has put up future lottery revenues as collateral on a $450 million loan. Meanwhile, Arizona removed more than 300,000 adults from state health coverage and terminated one health-care program for 47,000 poor children. Funding was slashed at the agency that deals with reports of child abuse and neglect, and also at Children’s Rehabilitative Services, so that parents of children with cystic fibrosis, cerebral palsy, and a number of other conditions are now required to pay 100 percent of treatment costs. 

The anti-government attitude in Arizona is now reflexive, especially because of its entanglement with the issue of immigration. As one local resident, who didn’t want to be identified because she has a government job, told me: “People who have swimming pools don’t need state parks. If you buy your books at Borders you don’t need libraries. If your kids are in private school, you don’t need K-12. The people here, or at least those who vote, don’t see the need for government. Since a lot of the population are not citizens, the message is that government exists to help the undeserving, so we shouldn’t have it at all. People think it’s OK to cut spending, because ESL is about people who refuse to assimilate, and health care pays for illegals.”

There’s a lot to think about. And not just in Arizona . . .

Incoming Speaker Boehner’s House Threatened by Termites

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

 January 6, 2011

Does he have the punching power?

John Boehner Is In The House!  Ohio Republican John Boehner, sworn in yesterday as the Speaker of the House for the 112th Congress, has come a long way from his simple beginnings in Cincinnati as the second of 11 siblings. Raised in near poverty in a two bedroom house, and forced to share a single tanning bed with his sibs, John Boehner – now Speaker Boehner – is third in the line of presidential succession. Boehner’s well-known work ethic has paid off, but more work lies ahead as he seeks to repair the damage wrought by those Socialist Democrats. He and his fellow Republicans look upon their rivals like the Omega Theta Pi’s viewed the Deltas in Animal House.

As Speaker, he must manage a House, reclaimed through November’s GOP triumph, that needs some fix-up. Democrats, as usual, left a few dozen beer bottles in the sofas, cigarette burns in the carpet, condoms in the trophy case, and a few togas on the floor – but nothing truly threatening to the clubhouse’s foundation.

Never Underestimate the Power of Termites.  It’s the possible damage lurking in the months ahead, however, that is perhaps Speaker Boehner’s most challenging problem. The moribund-on-a-good-day Democrats are little more than an almost supernaturally timid gaggle of pols one may insult with careless abandon without fear of retort.

Just arriving this week and still searching for apartments and low priced diners, are the real dangerous folks challenging Speaker Boehner’s House, and his splintering GOP. This fifth column marching into the House represents a growing number of GOP malcontents. Among them are the rightest of the right wing. Some, they claim, are incorruptible, i.e., the “Constitutionalists.” Almost all of them want to strip the federal government to its underpants. SAnd, boy, do they hate taxes, with or without representation. Yes indeed, they are the Tea Partiers. Numbering nearly 100 House members (approximately 43 of them in the freshman class), these folks wanna rock the House! Bigtime. And imagine, they are too far right for John Boehner’s taste!

Aggressive Tea Partiers, like termites in attack mode, promise to munch on the joists unless treated with respect bordering on worship, which for most of them should be well beyond their “newbie” status. Given their propensity for stubbornness, though, if the Speaker is not careful, they may bring the roof down, with Republicans and Democrats, on the front lawn, mouths agape as their cozy living arrangement collapses.

Party Hearty! As we’ve all observed for almost two years, Tea Partiers view themselves as true believers, in their understanding of the Constitution, the role (if any) of the federal government, succumbs to their allegiance to the sovereignty of the states. They carry a hefty amount of self-purity into a House not known for squared corners or dust-free tabletops. As self-proclaimed purists they most likely will view legislative rules only insofar as they advance their own rather rigid beliefs, and squirm when confronted with the House legislative pecking order and seniority system. As second term Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz stated it when he refused to join the Michele Bachmann-inspired Tea Party Caucus,

“Structure and formality are the exact opposite of what the tea party is, and if there is an attempt to put structure and formality around it, or to co-opt it by Washington, D.C., it’s going to take away from free-flowing nature of the true tea party movement.”

Tea Party Caucus initiation ceremony

We can expect the Tea Party’s “free flowing nature” to resemble an Animal House toga party.

The array of formal and informal House rules are long-standing principles of engagement to protect precedents that, theoretically at least, benefit all club members and often cool off hotter heads. After a brief honeymoon period, these House rules very likely will rankle Tea Partiers who want to quickly get on with it. These rules stand like iron doors to protect an inner sanctum where Republicans and Democrats with ample seniority canoodle and, too often, conspire with the likes of lobbyists and high income bracketeers. Can termites chew through iron? 

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” Mark Twain.  Tea Partiers, among many other of the 87 new GOP House members, are confident and in a hurry. New Tea Party Congressman Allen West of Florida, whose wealth-ridden district 22 stretches from Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale, expressed some of this the other day on NPR when asked about health care reform. The newly minted Congressman spoke of free enterprise solutions and had this to say about about the Obama-inspired health care law:

“But I can tell you, you know, with my limited education, I can probably package that in five to 10 pages. The other 2,490 pages, that’s what we need to focus on.”

Now that’s confidence! “With my limited education,” indeed. 

Another Tea Party freshman, Rep. Frank Guinta, (R-NH), promised Diane Sawyer, “We will not spend more than we take in. Our families live by that rule.” Ignoring the odd conflation of morals with macroeconomics, and his ready illogic that a family budget is equal to a federal budget, Congressman Guinta displayed that earnestness, forthrightness, and moral certainty so common among Tea Partiers. Be cautious here: it’s true, these virtues have too often been built upon a foundation of ignorance, misinformation, grievance, and “Limbaughnian” propaganda, but that doesn’t blunt their importance and power among the Tea Party constituency.  We’re in “belief-based fact” territory here. 

How this will all play out for Tea Partiers during the daily grind of lawmaking will be both interesting and disturbing to watch. Interesting because despite disagreeing with their proposals, one can’t help rooting for a group of people who really believe they can get things done in D.C. and remain unreservedly aloof from the Monopoly game called legislating. Fascinating too will be Speaker Boehner’s approach to a concerted group so far to his right that this stalwart and very arch conservative seems in comparison a Mahatma Gandhi. How will Speaker Boehner fare? Who will he turn to? How strongly will the Tea Party push him? Against all this on his right wing, will he be able to cobble together anything remotely resembling a unified GOP for the 2012 election cycle?

Tea Party performance in the 112th Congress may well have its disturbing scenes as well.  Can they succeed in some of their wilder and, frankly, disgraceful plans like refusing to lift a fiscal finger to assist the unemployed, or cutting benefits and tax breaks for the poorest among us?  Will they succeed in capturing enough media attention – thus far, it’s Tea Party all the time at Fox and other major networks – to, God spare us, successfully launch the likes of a Michele Bachmann, Rand Paul, or Sarah Palin on a third party cruise in 2012?

Or, quite to the contrary, will the trappings that ensnared other “true believers” of the right wing like Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich ensnare and defeat naive or acquisitive Tea Partiers in their first exposure to the lobbying boodle machines on K Street?  After all, free enterprise touting legislators have been ensnared before in the act of offering their power as a marketable commodity that may be freely contracted out. 

This Tea Party, though, is different, more out of control than other iterations, more slack jawed. They are primal. Watch them carefully; take them seriously.