Radical Right Reality Check

The far right's latest trip through the looking glass  

As with a lot of the "grass roots" actions of the modern American far right, it's been hard to know whether to laugh or cry in recent days at the so-called "tea party" tax protests that have been taking place around the country.

The premise of these events, of course, is that activists are attempting to conjure up the spirit of the original tea protests - the ones in which American patriots first gave what-for to the British Empire for its efforts to establish a crown-run tea monopoly in the colonies. In truth, a more apt analogy is probably to the tea party hosted by the March Hare and the Mad Hatter of Alice in Wonderland - a place in which time stands still and the characters carry on an unending, gibberish-filled conversation.

Let's look at some of the arguments and images advanced by the tea partiers and hold them up to the light.

On America's tax "burden"

Though the groups that inspired the protests (a national organization called Freedom Works and another that calls itself The Tea Party and Revolution) are surprisingly vague in what they're really for (the latter group lists the Bill of Rights as its "platform"), the underlying premise of the events appears to be that Americans are horrifically overtaxed and in need of fewer public services.

Right-wingers at Citizens for a Sound Economy have a website called usateaparty.com in which they have a "quiz" that alleges all kinds of dastardly "facts" about supposedly out-of-control taxes and spending - though the "data" are actually several years old.

The reality of what protesters are actually saying at the tea parties is even less coherent. According to the Winston-Salem Journal's coverage of an event that took place earlier this week, the Forsyth County Republican leader attempted to turn the protest into a partisan rally. Another speaker from the Pope-Civitas Institute accused current leaders of some kind of nefarious commie plot. The Journal reported another's comments this way: 

"‘What's happening right now is just wrong,' said Fred Benson, one of the organizers of the Winston-Salem Tea Party. ‘People's taxes are going up. Services are going down. People are out of work. Small business is getting hammered. And bailout stuff is happening left and right — from everywhere, not just from the federal government…. People are just getting choked to death.'"

Oh. That clears things up.

Reality Check #1

However varied or incoherent the arguments, the truth of the matter is that American taxes are actually low - both as compared to our own past and as compared to the rates much of the rest of the modern world. As was made clear in a report released this week by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, federal tax "burdens" for most Americans are near their lowest levels in decades.  According to the report, "The "effective tax rate" for the median-income family was lower in 2007 than in any year between 1956 and 2002." It also noted that the very highest-income households have seen the sharpest drops in the percentage of income that they pay in federal taxes. 

Hmmm. Maybe that might have something to do with the record federal deficits we're experiencing.

On where the money goes

Though backed up by even less in the way of rational arguments, another complaint heard consistently at the tea parties is that vast proportions of public dollars - maybe even most - are frittered away on waste and giveaways. According to this common mythology, most government spending goes to friends of powerful politicians and/or idle moochers who are too lazy to contribute their fair share to society.

It is for this reason, claim the partiers, that we should "say no" to the stimulus plan and dramatically slash all public spending.

Reality check # 2

The problem with this argument is that the right-wingers who make it overstate the case and in so doing undermine their own argument. Yes, of course there's waste in government - just as there is in any large bureaucratic institution.

But it's simply ridiculous to contend that "most" government spending is waste or that America should simply do away with all kinds of core public services in the name of "turning things back over to the free market."

Here in North Carolina, the overwhelming majority of state spending goes to a few essential, broadly beneficial, core services like education, transportation, health care and public safety.  "Welfare" - the provision of cash assistance to poor households - is virtually non-existent and helps support only a few thousand families. At the federal level, only around 11% of the budget goes to pay for "safety net programs" that provide aid to individuals and families facing hardship. In the real world, there's no slashing government spending without cutting essential public institutions and services that all of us have come to depend upon.

While there certainly is wasteful spending that is worth targeting, much of it actually flows to powerful business interests in the form of subsidies and tax breaks. It's funny how you seldom hear complaints about this kind of spending at the tea parties. Could it have something to do with the corporate interests that typically underwrite the far right's advocacy groups? Or that Dick Armey, the former congressman and head of Freedom Works is a highly paid employee one of the world's largest and best-connected law firms?

On the purpose of the original tea parties

This last point brings us to one of the greatest ironies of the whole tea party idea. As folks at the Oregon Center for Public Policy noted earlier this week:

"The Boston Tea Party, in which American colonists dumped British tea into Boston Harbor, was an act of defiance against the Tea Act of 1773, which gave a tax break to the British East India Company. As noted by the Boston Tea Party Historical Society, the tax break was an effort by the British Crown to help the East India Company establish a tea monopoly in the American colonies." (Emphasis supplied).

Yet, this week's "tea parties" haven't been about protesting tax breaks for corporations, but rather about venting against taxation and government spending in general.  

Reality check #3

The Center's director, Chuck Shetekoff put it this way:

"Sam Adams and the other American patriots must be rolling in their graves. Political operatives have transformed a story of the people standing up to a government that caters to powerful corporate interests into a message that serves the interest of the well-connected and well-heeled. That message ignores how tax-supported public structures create economic opportunity. Good schools, roads and libraries, access to health care and courthouses - these are the basic building blocks of strong communities and a healthy economy."

And this:

"The…protests are also blind as to who has benefited from the drive to cut taxes over the past few decades. As corporations and wealthy individuals have shed their tax responsibilities, working families and small businesses have been forced to pick up the slack….Working families have reason to be upset, but they would be better off protesting against tax breaks and loopholes that favor the powerful and in favor of a more just tax structure."

In short, there's plenty to get mad about out there in the world - maybe even enough to have a "tea party" over. Unfortunately, this week's efforts from the far right were so far off the mark that they bore a closer resemblance to Wonderland than colonial Boston.      

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 8:39 am and is filed under Radical Right Reality Check. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.