Come Together

All around the country and from every walk of life people have come together under the loose umbrella known as the T ea Party movement. Venting their frustrations about the direction their country is taking these folks are demanding a change in the way the United States does business.

It doesn't get more "Grass Roots" than this.

Retirees, stay-at-home moms, small-business owners, corporate executives and everyone in American in between. Alarmed at the rising deficit they are joined by disaffected independents, always pissed of libertarians, Republicans and conservitive Democrats.

The big question is were do they go from here and who exactly are "they".


The National Tea Party Convention held last week included some notable clues to the future of the Tea Party. Organizers of the convention announced on Friday that they were forming a political action committee to raise money and provide political consulting and campaign management for Tea Party-approved candidates. They also outlined plans to take over the Republican Party from the ground up by having Tea Party conservatives fill local Republican committee slots with the power to decide which candidates to endorse and finance.

While a bell weather for some folks feelings the convention did not necessarily represent the views of tea par-tiers across the nation. Tea Party Patriots, another social networking site with ties to FreedomWorks, the Washington advocacy group led by former House majority leader, Dick Armey, had sent its members a note last month saying that it would not support the convention because of the high ticket prices. The National Precinct Alliance as well, announced t would no longer participate.


Philip Glass, the national director of the National Precinct Alliance, said he was also concerned about the role in the convention of groups like Tea Party Express, which has held rallies across the country through two bus tours, and FreedomWorks, a Tea Party umbrella. He called them “Republican National Committee-related groups,” and added, “At best, it creates the appearance of an R.N.C. hijacking, at worst, it is one.

I feared this would happen.

When well meaning folks rally together there is always someone willing to be part of the crowd to further their own agenda or advance their own political career. Beware of Folks that clam to speak for the movement. Chances are they are just using the movement for their own gain.

There are a lot of whats known on message boards as "Attention whores" out there. Particularly in Western New York.

They are easy to spot. They have never met a microphone they dont like and they seem to have endless time to pontificate on local radio about what is wrong with everything and everyone that does not think like them. Usually you will find they have run for political office several times and couldn't get elected dog catcher.

They see this as their big chance using real people with real concerns as a springboard for their political ambitions.

Here is a good test to use to see if the group you might want to become a part of is self serving.

Make a meeting and do/try the following:

• * Ask to speak - if they only allow their chosen few to speak run away.
• * Tell them you want to be involved. If all they want you to do is "Grunt work" or hand them donations, run away. That should be self explanatory.
• * Listen to them speak - If all they talk about is evil democrats and good republicans, run away. If you want to join the Republican party just do it. There are a lot of them that just want to coup their own party.
• * If you here racists remarks run away.
• * If there ranks are full f people that run for election and lose frequently, Run Away. These people will just be begging for your vote next election.

The Tea Party movement started off as a good thing. Democracy in action, people getting their voices heard. The Direction it moves in now will largely be determined by the actions of the participants.

Make sure before you lend your support to any group that the group has America in mind and not just its own leadership.

Today Things get Big

Today is the big day. The House is set to vote on a bill would raise the cap on federal borrowing to $14.3 trillion. That works out to about $6,000 more for every U.S. resident. Already, the accumulated debt amounts to $40,000 per person.

A lesser known bill introduced by Senate Democrats is working its way around ad its one we need to keep an eye on. Senate Bill 6843 makes temporary and permanent changes to Initiative 960, approved by voters in 2007. The initiative reinstated a two-thirds vote requirement to boost taxes.

Senate Bill 6843 suspends the two-thirds requirement until July 2011, which would allow simple majority votes on tax increases. It also makes permanent changes, such as stating any future tax increase that goes toward a voter-approved initiative only needs a simple majority vote, making tax increases much easier in the future.

The Senate bill will get a hearing today in the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and the full Senate could vote on it as soon as next week.

Keep your eye on this bill.......
and your hand on your wallet

Is he or isnt he?

Talk about heavy handed. The news service Reuters withdrew a story last night titled "Backdoor taxes to hit middle class" after the White House reached out and touched them pointing out "errors of fact."

The story claimed the White House's deficit reduction plan relies on raising taxes against the middle class by allowing tax cuts to expire. It was withdrawn at about 8 p.m. Monday, according to Yahoo timestamps, 4 hours after it originally ran.

The White House used these points to get the story pulled:

- Our budget explicitly calls for permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for households making less than $250,000.
- Our budget explicitly calls for allowing the top rate on dividends to increase to 20% for households making over $250,000.
- Our budget accounts for the cost of continuing the AMT "Patch". The last administration's budgets ignored these costs, but we explicitly account for them.
- Our budget extends expiring tax provisions through 2011.

Reuters has pulled the article with only an advisory:

ADVISORY: Backdoor taxes story
Tue Feb 2, 2010 1:35pm EST

The Feb 1 story headlined "Backdoor taxes to hit middle class" is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration's budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6114QK20100202

The original article also included a list of what the author deemed tax increases such as allowing a $250 tax credits for teachers buying supplies to expire, for example.

All the hoopla does raise an interesting question though: If the Obama administration lets tax provisions expire, is that a tax increase? An even more interesting question and one this country has struggled with for a long time is, who exactly is the "middle Class"?

Bill Gates surely is not, but the wall street investment banker that makes 250K a year or the University President or even maybe your own school board president isn't really, "rich" are they?

Is everyone that makes over 250K rich and not part of the so called middle class?