"It Is Amazing What You Can Accomplish..."

Harry S. Truman once said, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."   That should be the slogan for the Tea Party.  Michael Barone posted an article at the Washington Examiner yesterday detailing the rise of some of the Tea Party candidates.  He lists a few of these candidates, such as Sherron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Ilario Pantano, and Chip Cravaack.  Some of these candidates are running as Tea Party choices and some of them are simply Tea-Party-type candidates.  It is interesting to note that many of them have been characterized by the media (and the old-guard Republicans) as extremists.  Yet, where there have been debates, these candidates have expressed ideas that a majority of Americans agree with.  The problem with the Tea Party candidates is that the usual political operatives who work to make political campaigns successful cannot claim any credit for the success of the Tea Party candidates.  Therefore, you could say that any successful Tea Party candidate is a serious threat to the status quo on many levels--not only in a legislative sense, but in a campaign structure sense also.  There are a lot of people who may have a hard time finding jobs running political campaigns if the Tea Party candidates are successful.

I have been to a few Tea Party events over the past year or so.  They were family-oriented events with a strong message--lower taxes, smaller government, less government intrusion on business. If the Tea Party is successful in putting a number of Tea-Party-type candidates in office next month, I, as a voter, expect to see some changes in the Republican leadership in Congress.  I am not sure whether this will involve a personnel change or not, but I expect business as usual for the past ten years to change.  I want earmarks to end, I want spending cut, I want ideas for helping trim down the size of government to be taken seriously and implemented.  I want our taxes to remain the same (if the Bush tax cuts have not been extended by the time the new Congress is sworn in, I want them extended the day the new Congress is sworn in).  I want to see Republicans with backbones!

We need to understand that as of right now we have a sword of Damocles over our head in the form of tax increases that will be voted on and tax increases that will happen automatically.  In a previous article (rightwinggranny.com) posted on October 3, I listed what will happen to everyone's taxes on January 1st if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire.  Extending the Bush tax cuts does not cut anyone's taxes, it simply allows the taxes to remain where they are today.  If nothing is done to extend the Bush tax cuts, every American will receive a tax increase, and among other things, the marriage penalty will be back and the deduction per child will decrease.  Those two changes alone will raise the taxes for a large percentage of American families.  Those increases will happen automatically if the Bush tax cuts are not extended.  The deficit commission established by President Obama is not scheduled to report its results until December--a month after the election.  Already there are rumors that the commission will propose a VAT (Value Added Tax).  While that may not happen, it is a pretty safe bet (based on the make-up of the commission) that tax increases will be proposed and spending cuts kept at a minimum.

The Tea Party candidates are doing well because they represent a threat to the status quo.  It is time that the status quo was not only threatened but ended.  That is what I will vote for!