Tea Party Reps Fail

Boehner and Reid

With the recent passage of the extension of payroll tax cut, we have witnessed a major failure by the new Congressmen who align themselves with the Tea Party.  While the Tea Party and other conservatives (e.g., Michelle Bachman) have generally considered the ending of temporary tax breaks as de facto tax increases, many have been strongly opposed to this tax break that benefits mostly lower and middle income tax payers.

Why?  On the record, they say it's because it doesn't really stimulate the economy.  But the unspoken reason is simply that Pres. Obama supports the idea, so they must oppose anything that Obama supports.

Still, Republican leadership knows there's no need to alienate so many middle class voters 10 months before the elections.  That's political suicide.  They know this middle class tax cut is political candy (http://rachy-viewsofalibertariansocialist.blogspot.com/2011/12/political-candy-aka-payroll-tax-cut.html) and you don't steal candy from the voters!  Even some conservative commentators couldn't figure out the hard line opposition by conservatives and Tea Party reps.

We all know that a two month extension passed Congress and was signed by the President only days before Christmas.  But the scandal for every Tea Party voter is how each and every one of the Tea Party Congressmen failed to stop this.

It would have been so easy for just a single one of them to kill the bill.  Speaker of the House John Boehner resorted to some old fashion, quick-gabble methods.  With very little notice, he reconvened the House and put up the bill for passage by unanimous consent.   Granted some Tea Party reps. couldn't make it back to DC in time with such short notice, but some could.  And it would take only 1 Tea Party rep. to show up to stop it by opposing the unanimous consent.

But not a single one of them were there.  

In other words, the entire Tea Party delegation simply did not show up!  Is this not the classic complaint against government and government workers, namely not showing up to do their job?  Clearly, this should motivate all Tea Party voters to vote them all out for this failure to show! 

(Personally, I'm loving observing this dysfunctional family known as the Republican Party!)