# If The Tea Party Was Actually Serious **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 15, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250 "2010-10-15T15:37:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/101 "2010-10-16T08:29:15Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > Of for crying out loud. They made the changes 9 years ago. If we were talking about a week of tax reductions you’d have a point. Everybody has adjusted their budget accordingly. > > Good grief…how blind can you be? > > The sunset clause was written into the thing 9 years ago. > > This is a surprise to you? Are you paying any attention whatsoever? > > Or did you think the sunset clause actually didn’t mean anything? It was there but everyone would just forget about it or something? > > Seriously…what do you think it meant when they time limited this tax break? (Which is exactly analogous to a store doing a sale for some amount of time.) The sunset clause was written in to garner votes from Democrats who you seem to forget tried to extend it just before the Summer break so as to not raise taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/102 "2010-10-16T09:13:47Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > The sunset clause was written in to garner votes from Democrats who you seem to forget tried to extend it just before the Summer break so as to not raise taxes. The sunset clause was written so that they didn’t _need_ votes from Democrats, as it allowed the bill to pass via reconciliation ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/103 "2010-10-16T11:50:26Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > There is no such thing as a temporary tax reduction because there is no such thing as a base tax rate. It is what it is what Congress votes it to be and the nano-second people see it go up they will see it for what it is, an increase. > > Is there a base rate for a Big Mac? > > It costs McD X-amount to make a Big Mac. It costs the government X-amount to provide whatever they are providing. > > McD sets a price. The government sets a price. Same thing. They take in more or less. They can price it at whatever they want. > > The tax cut was temporary. Sorry if you can’t wrap your head around that. It is no different in principle than McDs putting a temporary decrease on some item they sell. When it goes back up no I have ever known deems it a price increase. Here’s the latest [Big Mac index](http://www.economist.com/node/17275912). Not a real point in this discussion, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to link to it. Anyway, what do the numbers look like if you were to eliminate everything but servicing the debt, Social Security, Medicare, and the DoD? Just get rid of it all. Remember that first this will put a whole lot of people out of a job. No Department of Education means that the states will have to pick up the funding for schools, meaning local taxes will have to go up. No Department of Energy means that you’ve now lost a lot of good scientific research and you’ll have to move the nation’s nuclear weapons programs–the stuff they currently do at places like Los Alamos and Sandia–to control under the DoD. Getting rid of the Health and Human Services will remove a lot of funding for science that other institutions would have to pick up, not to mention all the other things we’ll lose, like the CDC and the FDA, and you’ll have to move Medicare out to its own agency like we did with the SSA. No State Department means we’re now crippled in our relationships with other nations. We went a long time with just an AG and no DOJ, so maybe we can make that work again. I’m sure HUD isn’t that important. Keep on going for all the agencies, just take out all those budgets. Have we actually managed to balance the overall budget yet? Here’s the [2010 federal budget](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget), complete with a handy pie chart. Assuming we only keep the four items listed above, that means we’re getting rid of roughly 44% of the total budget and a total of about 1.59 trillion dollars. The deficit overall was 1.42 trillion, so congratulations! We’ve completely gutted the federal government and now can put back 170 billion to make sure we stay balanced. That’ll get you a few departments back. I could go on, but I’m getting tired of setting up a semi-strawman. Obviously, we’re not going to get rid of everything completely, even if the teabagger candidates often put the whole of the Department of Education and Department of Energy first on the chopping block. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/104 "2010-10-16T18:14:09Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > Anyway, what do the numbers look like if you were to eliminate everything but servicing the debt, Social Security, Medicare, and the DoD? Just get rid of it all. Remember that first this will put a whole lot of people out of a job. No Department of Education means that the states will have to pick up the funding for schools, meaning local taxes will have to go up. No Department of Energy means that you’ve now lost a lot of good scientific research and you’ll have to move the nation’s nuclear weapons programs–the stuff they currently do at places like Los Alamos and Sandia–to control under the DoD. Getting rid of the Health and Human Services will remove a lot of funding for science that other institutions would have to pick up, not to mention all the other things we’ll lose, like the CDC and the FDA, and you’ll have to move Medicare out to its own agency like we did with the SSA. No State Department means we’re now crippled in our relationships with other nations. We went a long time with just an AG and no DOJ, so maybe we can make that work again. I’m sure HUD isn’t that important. Keep on going for all the agencies, just take out all those budgets. Have we actually managed to balance the overall budget yet? Here’s the [2010 federal budget](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget), complete with a handy pie chart. Assuming we only keep the four items listed above, that means we’re getting rid of roughly 44% of the total budget and a total of about 1.59 trillion dollars. The deficit overall was 1.42 trillion, so congratulations! We’ve completely gutted the federal government and now can put back 170 billion to make sure we stay balanced. That’ll get you a few departments back. > > I could go on, but I’m getting tired of setting up a semi-strawman. Obviously, we’re not going to get rid of everything completely, even if the teabagger candidates often put the whole of the Department of Education and Department of Energy first on the chopping block. There is a bottom line to what is going on and we have an armchair view of what it will look like in the US. Greece and France are imploding from the reality of overspending. One way or another we are going to be spending less than we are now. When you talk about cutting back on education that doesn’t mean the children won’t learn, it means we stop building half-billion dollar monuments to fiscal malfeasance. It means parents take back the responsibility of feeding their children and make sure they do their homework. We WILL be spending less money in the future whether we want to or not. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/105 "2010-10-16T19:08:06Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > Why do you think conservatives haven’t been cutting? We’ve had 30 years of cutting, there’s not a lot of stuff left to cut, but perhaps you can identify what you would cut. > > Starting in my town and state, they can cut the high speed rail to nowhere money, and the hybrid bus money, the solar power array that was just built to serve my area, and the money for the stupid signs announcing road construction. Moving on to California, they can cut funding to anymore half billion dollar art school buildings and ignore any suggestions to build a new subway in San Francisco. There is plenty of waste in federal, state and local projects to choose from. When you start adding up all the little pieces of the pork pie the thousands becomes millions which become billions. > > My community can’t afford the Christmas presents sent to other states in the last “stimulus package” any more than the other states can afford to pay for what we got. > Political votes, the other white meat. It sounds like you are talking about earmarks. I thought we had dispelled the notion that we can cut more than a de minimus amount of the budget by eliminating earmarks altogether. And we’re not talking about state and local, we’re talking about federal. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/106 "2010-10-16T19:14:24Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > No you’re not, noone is taxed enough. The difference at the bottom of the scale is relatively minor, someone making 50K might pay about $500 more/year while someone making $5,000,000 might pay an additional $300,000. The tax cuts helped the high income folks a lot more than the rest of us but it helped anyone that pays income taxes. > > I just compared the mid range numbers of married couples [here](http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2010/02/15/2011-federal-income-tax-brackets-irs-income-tax-rates/)and the dollar amount is substantial. Starting with the lower bracket you’re looking at a house payment if the taxes go up. Note that this site does not know what the breakout will be but is guessing on a 3% increase. I don’t see what you are talking about. the median household income is around $50K, I don’t see how taxes go up by much more than $500 for that household (btw I think 3% indexing is kind of high given the year we just had, don’t you?) I’m fine with keeping a 10% bracket if we want to but we CANNOT balance the budget with cuts alone unless we are willing to cut at least half a trillion dollars out of the military, medicare/medicaid or social security. Social security pays for itself and is solvent for at least 30 years, and the teabaggers don’t want anyone to touch medicare and I don’t get the impression that cutting the military budget in half is what they had in mind either. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/107 "2010-10-16T19:17:00Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > If you assume every budget has serious pork in it then removing the pork frees up funds to pay off the debt. > > Getting rid of pork is a good thing. > > But as far as debt and deficit go, it’s insignificant, but several orders of magnitude. > > Note, two separate concepts: [1] eliminate pork, because it’s wasteful, an easy to agree on point. [2] there isn’t enough pork to make a dent in the deficit. > > It’s back to the same point I made about the CATO Institute. They went and suggested cuts for the smallest parts of the federal budget. Keep the number $400billion in mind, that’s the target. If it helps, think of it like $400,000 million. Cutting $1million from a program (by passing it off to the states) just isn’t enough. It’s a good thing to do, and something that should be done. But as far as the deficit is concerned, it’s just a drop in the bucket. > > The reason what I said was significant with regards to the Tea Party (and to a lesser extent the Republican Party) is because those “reductions” are then used as a pretext for tax cuts. As if the two are some how even comparable. > > There is a massive deficit (and has been for a decade), and until that is eliminated, there can’t be tax cuts. Don’t blow smoke up my ass by telling me you’ll pay for those tax cuts by shifting some of the Dept of Ed. to the states, then acting like a champion of reducing the size of the government. > > Which brings us right back to the populist aspect of the movement. It seems to play so well to the entirely clueless. Its like saying you’re going to be able to buy a house and move out of your mother’s basement by cutting the premium channels from your cable bill. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/108 "2010-10-16T19:18:47Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > > [@Ludovic](#): > > > > You can assume that. In this case, you’d have find pork in major parts of Social Security, Medicare, or the Military. That is, if you’re Actually Serious about paying off the debt. You may find it there, but the TP’ers have not. Their actual words show that they will not stop the debt from growing. > > I will admit that at this point, the debt is far beyond our reach. All we can hope for is to stop it from growing. But we’re kidding ourselves if we think it will shrink in our life time. People were saying the same thing at the beginning of the 90’s then we had a tax increase and we cut military spending along with a vibrant economy and we had Alan Greenspan publicly concerned about not having enough national debt to keep the financial markets going. We can do it as long as taxes and the military aren’t sacred cows ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/109 "2010-10-16T19:20:58Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > > There is something temporary about our current tax rate. It was written into the law! Good grief…look it up! It is not a secret. > > > > It was put there by a republican president with a republican congress. Temporary from the get-go. > > > > Why can’t you understand that? And why is it different fundamentally than a store having a sale for a week? > > > > Again I ask you: > > > > If a store has a sale for a week…they spell that out to their customers…do you feel they raised prices on you when that sale is over? > > Of for crying out loud. They made the changes 9 years ago. If we were talking about a week of tax reductions you’d have a point. Everybody has adjusted their budget accordingly. You realize that the folks making 250K/year don’t operate on a budget the same way that someone making $50k/year does right? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/110 "2010-10-16T19:29:32Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > I’ve never worked for a company that couldn’t reduce costs operating costs. With a stroke of a pen Congress can reduce pay scales for Federal workers. > > > > Either we reduce the debt or it will consume us. It’s not an option. > > It just flies right past you doesn’t it? > > It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with civil servant salaries. Not a thing. The money is being spent on transfer payments to private citizens. And to a lesser degree on aerospace purchases, which keep private sector companies going. If you’re cutting, just cutting, you don’t get back into the black until you’ve made cuts in Medicare entitlements, Social Security payments, &/or brought on layoffs in private sector manufacturers for whom DoD is an end user. The civilian federal payroll is about 175 billion dollars. How much of a pay cut do you think we could get away with? How much do you think you can cut a Department of Justice lawyers salary when every last one of them can get a job paying two to three times what they currently earn with VERY little searching. Do we really want the cheapest bureaucracy money can buy? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/111 "2010-10-16T19:30:45Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > > Good grief…how blind can you be? > > > > The sunset clause was written into the thing 9 years ago. > > > > This is a surprise to you? Are you paying any attention whatsoever? > > > > Or did you think the sunset clause actually didn’t mean anything? It was there but everyone would just forget about it or something? > > > > Seriously…what do you think it meant when they time limited this tax break? (Which is exactly analogous to a store doing a sale for some amount of time.) > > The sunset clause was written in to garner votes from Democrats who you seem to forget tried to extend it just before the Summer break so as to not raise taxes. The DEMOCRATS tried to extend it and it failed? Did the Republicans block it? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/112 "2010-10-16T19:31:46Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > The sunset clause was written in to garner votes from Democrats who you seem to forget tried to extend it just before the Summer break so as to not raise taxes. > > The sunset clause was written so that they didn’t _need_ votes from Democrats, as it allowed the bill to pass via reconciliation That’s exactly right, they did it the way they did so that they could do it without the Democrats. It was effectively shoved down our throats. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/113 "2010-10-16T19:32:49Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > I just compared the mid range numbers of married couples [here](http://www.fivecentnickel.com/2010/02/15/2011-federal-income-tax-brackets-irs-income-tax-rates/)and the dollar amount is substantial. Starting with the lower bracket you’re looking at a house payment if the taxes go up. Note that this site does not know what the breakout will be but is guessing on a 3% increase. > > I don’t see what you are talking about. the median household income is around $50K, I don’t see how taxes go up by much more than $500 for that household (btw I think 3% indexing is kind of high given the year we just had, don’t you?) I used the chart showing the ranges and picked the median of each range. In the first range a 5% increase would be $1,751 increase or $33/week. .05\*(70,040/2). I agree that 3% indexing sounds high for the bracket changes but if that moves the brackets up and wages remain the same then it works in our favor. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/114 "2010-10-16T19:35:12Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > [@Simplicio](#): > > > > The sunset clause was written so that they didn’t _need_ votes from Democrats, as it allowed the bill to pass via reconciliation > > That’s exactly right, they did it the way they did so that they could do it without the Democrats. It was effectively shoved down our throats. Oh the horror. Where were the protests then and where are the protests now when it was reintroduced? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/115 "2010-10-16T19:36:51Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The DEMOCRATS tried to extend it and it failed? Did the Republicans block it? Nope. They tried to get it passed as it was. Democrats wanted to screw the rich. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/116 "2010-10-16T19:52:58Z")
So can we conclude that given the current deficit, taxes need to be higher? While at the same time initiatives need to be made to reduce government spending, across the board. And can we also conclude that the Tea Party has no intention of doing either? Which makes them nothing for than a populist movement, offering little more than bread and circuses to the gullible (yet angry) masses? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/117 "2010-10-16T23:28:10Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > > > The DEMOCRATS tried to extend it and it failed? Did the Republicans block it? > > Nope. They tried to get it passed as it was. Democrats wanted to screw the rich. Nobody screws the rich. It is their government and their politicians. The rich could use a good screwing since they have been having their way with us for decades. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/118 "2010-10-17T01:08:01Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > > [@Magiver](#): > > > > Nope. They tried to get it passed as it was. Democrats wanted to screw the rich. > > Nobody screws the rich. The Democratic party tried to restore the tax code except for the upper range. This is not up for debate. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/119 "2010-10-17T04:26:39Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > > [@gonzomax](#): > > > > Nobody screws the rich. > > The Democratic party tried to restore the tax code except for the upper range. This is not up for debate. That is not close to screwing them. They have accumulated enormous fortunes. They have a lobsided share of the wealth. That is not screwing. They have had a decade of feeding the greed. Krugman said it is like writing a check for 1.3 million dollars to the top 1200 richest Americans, once a year, every year for a decade. If that is screwing, I could use some. You are correct. it is not a debate. it is a cold hard truth. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250/120 "2010-10-17T04:46:37Z")
Actually , I think the check was 3.4 mill. But they deserved it. They are better than us and deserve it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-tea-party-was-actually-serious/557250.md?page=7)