Tea Partiers Ignore History (and can’t spell) #fb

Via FOX News, the Tea Partiers are releasing a “Contract From America.” Clearly it’s an allusion to Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” and the effect it had on the midterm election after Clinton became President. As usual, the Tea Partiers put about as much thought into this as they did on their signs.

This gem jumped out at me:

The third priority is demand a balanced budget – chosen by 69.9 percent. This calls for starting a constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike.

What a terrible boneheaded idea.

This is exactly what California has in Proposition 58 and Proposition 13 and look at the mess California is in, running huge deficits, doing all kinds of funny budget tricks, and borrowing massive amounts of money to “balance” the budget. California’s inability to raise revenue combined with the balancing requirement has crippled the legislative process, forcing massive cuts in state education funding and threatening the stature of the University of California system as the number one public university system in the world.

To be honest, Props 58 and 13 are not the only reason for the crappy fiscal situation in California. Gerrymandered districts have led to extremists on both the Democratic and Republican sides to take seats in the California Assembly, reducing any chance of compromise. Can we expect to fare better at the national level? I think not. Representative’s districts are just as gerrymandered on the national level. And look at the party line vote on healthcare. I can’t see either side being able to compromise on spending items to be cut or taxes to be raised.

So to the Tea Partiers, if you really want to do more than Obama ever could to destroy the America, get this amendment ratified.

(I’d also like to point out that Tea Party saint Ronald Reagan spent up a huge deficit, ostensibly to out build the Russians. But look at the type of spending he did. He also funneled huge amounts of money into defense R&D, supporting university research and high technology industries all over the nation, which laid the foundation for one of the greatest decades in the history of America.)