Republican strategists and Wall Street financiers who all thought they could ride the Tea Party to power, now that the Tea Party House members are putting our economy in jeopardy to save the country from big government, are having second thoughts on their choice of mounts.
Tea party role in debt bill raises GOP eyebrows
By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press – 21 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans rode the tea party tiger to power last fall. Now it's turning on them, forcing party leaders to endure embarrassing delays and unwanted revisions to crucial debt-ceiling legislation.
Now, some establishment Republicans are wondering if they got more than they bargained for. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, strongly opposed the health care legislation, making common cause with the tea party. But this month the chamber swung solidly behind Boehner's original debt-ceiling bill. It suffered embarrassment with all the other groups and individuals forced to swallow the tea partyers' demands.
Republican campaign strategists are weighing the tea party's valuable energy against the possibility that it might push the party away from mainstream politics, which appeal to crucial independent voters. A Pew Research poll found that 68 percent of American voters want lawmakers to compromise on the debt ceiling and default issue, even it means striking a deal they disagree with. Fewer than one in four said lawmakers should stand by their principles even if it leads to a default on U.S. obligations.
Veteran lawmakers and congressional staffers are struck by the faith — be it admirable or naïve — that many tea party advocates seem to have in what they consider the moral rightness of their ideas.
"They Sow the Wind, and Reap the Whirlwind"
Since House Speaker Boehner didn't educate Tea Party freshmen on the critical importance of keeping enough borrowing authority to keep the Federal Government running like he promised he would, perhaps the best solution for the Republican leadership comes from a satire in the Onion of all places.
Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington
WASHINGTON—With lawmakers still at an impasse over increasing the debt ceiling, a special team of 40 eighth-grade civics teachers was air-dropped into Washington earlier today in a last-ditch effort to teach congressional leaders how the government’s legislative process works. “We started them off with the basics, like the difference between a senator and a representative, and then moved on to more complex concepts, like what a resolution is,” Bozeman, MT social studies teacher Heidi Rossmiller told reporters as all 535 members of Congress copied down the definition of “checks and balances” from a whiteboard in the House chamber. “It’s been a bit of an uphill battle, since most of them seemed to have no real sense of how or why a bill is passed,
The public is absolutely disgusted by the Republican Caucus' unwillingness to make any compromises. The same Republican strategists and Wall Street financiers who promoted the Tea Party are painfully aware of the gulf between where Tea Party fanatics unwillingness to reach a compromise, and where the vast majority of Americans stand who want to see a compromise solution to this contrived crisis. While Republican leaders worry how the Tea Party is dragging the G.O.P. through the mud, most Americans are more worried about how the Tea Party (with lots of Republican help) is dragging the nation through the mud.