The Tea Party Paradox

Ken — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 11:37:36 +0000

Well, I'm sure most of you have heard the election news by now... the Republicans take the House, Democrats retain the Senate; Rand Paul wins but Christine O'Donnell loses. In my home district, Renee Ellmers defeated incumbent Bob Etheridge running on an embarrassing anti-Muslim campaign. So yeah, that all happened and we're going to have to live with it.

Something's been bothering me lately about the Tea Party candidates, and I've finally put my finger on it. I call it the Tea Party Paradox. Here's the flowchart; click on the image below for a larger version.

Here's the crux of it, highlighted by the blue box: if lowering taxes is part of the solution to lowering the budget deficit, then why are we worried that higher deficits will lead to higher taxes? That logic just doesn't add up.

The good news is, having Republicans in the House has probably increased Barack Obama's chances of being re-elected in 2012. For the past two years, there's been no one to blame for everything except the Democrats, and so it's no surprise that they got clobbered yesterday. Over the next two years, Republicans will actually have to create policy and not just politics, and I'm betting it won't be pretty.