Bruce Bartlett on the money

Hatch did not address the fact that following the 1993 tax increase, which he and every other Republican in Congress opposed, federal spending fell from 21.4 percent of GDP to 18.3 percent in 2000. And, contrary to starve-the-beast theory, when Republicans slashed taxes during the George W. Bush administration, it did not put any downward pressure whatsoever on spending, which rose to 20.7 percent of GDP in Bush’s last year Here.

He is pointing to the Big Government element in the Tea Party. The danger here is that the Tea Party ultimately will opt to strangle their own constituents with more bailouts. Basically the Tea Party should be aware that their funders are pushing for socialism, for the oligarchs. That means shifting more corporate expenses onto the taxpayer.

The Tea Party needs to make up their mind, do they want an early default by Congress, or do they want more Big Government subsidies for their funders. If they chose the former, then an orderly restructuring of federal government is great news, but they should say so. Right now they are looking more and more like fools.