The Trouble with the Tea Party

Paul Krugman explains:

Lawn Guyland Is America’s Future

My homeland is in big trouble (I was born in Albany, but spent my formative years in Nassau County.) A new Tea Party-backed county executive has taken office, gone ahead and cut taxes — and can’t come up with offsetting spending cuts. It looks as if the county may be in receivership soon.

It’s sort of the natural place to go when you’ve got an increasingly powerful movement that demands smaller government — and wants that smaller government to keep its hands off Medicare.

Of course, Krugman would most likely argue that the tax cuts should have never been made. I would argue that spending cuts must be made along with the tax cuts, and therein lies the difference between the libertarian view and Krugman's coercive view.  The Tea Party, because it is an angry crowd without basic understanding of economics or political philosophy, manages to have its feet simultaneously in both camps, as contradictory as that is. It's like they are mixing coffee in their tea and don't even realize it, until they sip and notice that for some reason there is a bad taste to it all.