2013-10-29

Tea Party Exposes Political Fault Line

I don't know if the Tea Party will be the third party people are waiting for, but the Tea Party is making the right enemies.

Big business declares war on tea party
But business leaders argue that the scorched-earth tactics used by tea party Republicans during the 16-day shutdown and debate over raising the federal government’s borrowing limit marked the fourth time since the GOP took control of the House in 2011 that tea party adherents precipitated a governmental crisis that zapped consumer and business confidence, raised uncertainty and exerted a major drag on economic growth.

Besides encouraging more business-friendly candidates in primary contests, business groups are rallying behind establishment Republicans such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is being targeted by tea party activists for brokering a deal to temporarily raise the debt ceiling and reopen the government, while launching a negotiation with Democrats over budget cuts and proposed tax and entitlement reforms.

Business executives agree with many tea party goals such as cutting the deficit and reforming entitlement spending, but they argue that conservative lawmakers have erred in their tactics and wounded the economy by driving the government with increasing frequency into states of crisis and dysfunction — this time for the ultimately unsuccessful cause of trying to force President Obama to cancel his health care law.
They lie. What they want is a smooth economy and anything that deviates from a smooth economy is bad news. The reality is that the Tea Party is the only entity in Washington that is doing anything about spending and entitlement reform. If they really agreed with the Tea Party, they'd infuse it with cash and try to help it win more, not less, with better leaders.

This is an inevitable result though. Big business and big government are joined at the hip. The failure of the Republicans in 2008 and 2012 was their unwillingness to challenge Wall Street. The Tea Party is increasingly anti-big business, anti-Wall Street and against the Federal Reserve. These are positions popular with independents and voters on the left.

The one missing piece of the puzzle is foreign policy. If the Tea Party becomes anti-war, they have a winning formula. If not, they are at least blazing a trail and picking up disaffected voters from the right that will form the core of a new third party.

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