The teabaggers and other self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives would have us believe that they're being misunderstood, that the reason why they are threatening revolution and calling Barney Frank a "f***ot" and civil rights hero John Lewis a "n***er" is not because they're bigoted douchebags but because of their genuine, heartfelt concern about federal deficits and government spending.
Bullshit.
A couple months ago I was reading "Flawed Giant: Lyndon B. Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973", historian Robert Dallek's book about Lyndon Johnson's presidency, and I stumbled upon a remarkable passage.
Dallek writes that in late 1963, when Lyndon Johnson took office after JFK's assassination, one of Kennedy's biggest proposals, an $11 billion tax cut, was languishing in Congress. As Dallek explains,
"A debate between conservatives and liberals had kept it (JFK's $11 billion tax cut proposal) bottled up in the Senate for ten months."
Liberals and conservatives fighting over a tax cut, nothing unusual about that. The real shocker is what Dallek writes next:
"Conservatives, complaining that federal budget deficits were a drag on the economy and would become more of an economic impediment with a tax cut dismissed liberal arguments that lower taxes would fuel an economic expansion and 'full employment.'" (Dallek, 71)
Yes, you read that correctly. It was the conservatives who were opposed to the tax cut, because they were concerned about its effect on the deficit.
Remember this was at a time when Americans paid more in taxes than they do today, when budget deficits and the national debt were manageable, when the federal government as a portion of GDP was larger than it is today, and the economy was flourishing. It is hard to think of a more opportune time for a tax cut.
Yet despite all that, it was the conservatives who opposed a huge tax cut. Because to them, 'fiscal conservatism' meant keeping the deficit as small as possible, and cutting taxes would defeat that purpose.
What this should tell us is that the self-described fiscal conservatives we see today are phonies, charlatans, poseurs, and other synonyms for lying sacks of shit. Or they're very, very dumb, and in fact it's probably a combination of the two.
If these dumbasses were real fiscal conservatives genuinely worried about the deficit, then they wouldn't be calling for more tax cuts (which I deduced from the "Taxed Enough Already" thing). Because if they had fully-functional brains, they'd realize that tax cuts are a big reason why the deficit is so large, and that more tax cuts would make it far worse.
But we already had plenty of evidence that these assholes are full of shit. We didn't hear a peep from these teabaggers while Bush and the Republicans were doubling the national debt. I don't remember all these concerns about spending when Bush and the Republicans put a $1.2 trillion Medicare prescription plan and an unnecessary $2 trillion war in Iraq on the nation's credit card. I don't recall these teabaggers being up in arms about the deficit while Bush and the Republicans turned a $250 billion budget surplus into a $1.3 trillion deficit.
And I don't remember them revolting against the bailout when Bush was in office, but the minute a black guy with a (D) next to his Muslim-sounding name became president, they suddenly decide to become born-again fiscal conservatives.
In addition, for some fiscal conservatives they don't seem to want to cut government spending in any serious way, and it seems that quite a few of them are heavily dependent on such spending. Based on the large number of these teabaggers who are on Social Security and Medicare, and all the "keep your government hands off my Medicare" crap we've been hearing from them, I'm assuming those are off the table for any spending cuts. And given their fanatical love of all things military, I'm assuming that's off the table as well. Well there goes 60% of federal spending that's off limits for any spending cuts.
So to recap, 1) they want more tax cuts, but 2) they don't want to cut spending in any significant fashion, yet we're supposed to believe their concerns about the deficit? As President Obama said when he humiliated the entire House Republican caucus on national TV, I'd have to take a look at their math. Of course I'm not sure their math is any better than their English.
To be clear, I'm not saying I agree with fiscal conservatives, in fact I couldn't disagree with them more as I am a big government, tax-and-spend, treehugging liberal.
But when I see these fuckers talking about overthrowing the government because they say health care reform will bankrupt the country, when I see the media taking them seriously, and when I see some liberals sympathizing or calling for an alliance with them, I literally start foaming at the mouth. Because all objective evidence shows that these guys are not fiscal conservatives or just good, hard-working Americans we should team up with in the fight against Wall Street and corporations. They're greedy, bigoted assholes, hiding under the skirt of fiscal conservatism.
The guys who rejected JFK's tax cut in 1963 on the grounds that it would increase the deficit, now they were real fiscal conservatives. The teabaggers and Republicans of today are right-wing anti-tax extremists. They're motivated by willful ignorance, racism, sexism, greed, and hatred of liberals and poor people. They're not potential allies nor are they to be taken seriously, except as possible security risks.
So when you see these teabaggers proclaiming concerns about the deficit and government spending to excuse making death threats against public officials and hurling racial epithets, keep in mind that they're lying through their teeth.