Austerity cuts or Tea Party fright

The AP’s article of August 6^th “The Tea Party exerts its influence on GOP states, “the Tea Party is “driving the conversation” said Republican consultant Danny Diaz. “If you are seeking office in this environment” he said “it would behoove you to discuss the out-of-control spending that’s taking place in Washington”.

And that’s the catch phrase being used, “out of control spending“, but not much is said about where all the money is going, other than Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

David Leonhardt of the NY Times actually said on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show that the biggest driver of the deficit is Medicare. In other words it’s old people causing us huge debt. Old people have always been with us, why blame them now? It’s easier to blame the people than it is to take a real look at where the excessive spending is occurring.

Where’s the mention of the billions we’re spending on supplying the troops in Afghanistan? The leader of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, recently assassinated was a large power broker who had a trucking industry. We pay out billions to people in Afghanistan for the circuitous trucking route necessary to supply the US troops. Now here’s a brother of an ally taking money from us shot by his one of his own men. Come on Wally, how telling is that?

When the US first went into Iraq truckloads of cash and weapons just disappeared, with no questions asked! Here’s two blatant examples of the excessive spending initiated by corrupt wars, yet the Tea Party says nothing about it.

Another area the Tea Party doesn’t mention is the 100,000 contractors the US is currently employing in Afghanistan each with an average salary of $250,000. How much is that costing us? And even if the troops come home, how many contractors will remain?

These questions and the true costs of war will remain hidden in the Tea Party driven search for “austerity” cuts, which include, but are not limited to Medicare and the pensions of military retirees. We have plenty of money for war, we just don’t have money for the retirees who risked it all to fight the wars.

If the Tea Party were really serious about “restoring fiscal responsibility” they would demand a full accounting of where every tax dollar is spent; rather than hiding behind catchy slogans while being too afraid to point out specifics. If we ever had an actual truthful accounting of where each tax dollar goes, the American people would revolt and hang every politician for high treason.