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It’s Business as Usual, Says Tea Party’s Meckler

By Rick Ackerman Posted on December 10, 2010, 2:41 am EST Last Updated December 10, 2010, 4:37 am EST

In a rebuke to the Republican Party, Tea Party co-founder Mark Meckler issued a stern reminder yesterday that last month’s GOP landslide was not supposed to usher in a period of pork-laden compromises on Capitol Hill. “If the Republicans choose to go down the wrong path,” Meckler told Fox’s Neil Cavuto, “they’re going to get punished at the ballot box in two years.”  He said the Republicans’ back-room deal with President Obama to extend Bush-era tax breaks is already proving far too costly, since it is being greased with budget-busting earmarks and other costly political goodies. Cavuto himself estimated that when the wrangling was done the deal would hit a trillion dollars, most of it in tax breaks, but he called the proposal beneficial overall.

Would Meckler himself vote for it if it were stripped of all spending provisions except for the 13-month extension of unemployment benefits?  Cavuto asked. “Absolutely not,” Meckler insisted. He told Cavuto that he could never look his kids in the eye if he had voted to burden them with billions of dollars of new debt. The only solution – the one voters resoundingly endorsed in November – is to go “cold turkey,” said Meckler. “It’s time for hard remedies. To [pretend] otherwise is not fair to our children and grandchildren.”

GOP’s ‘Prince of Pork’

Although there are provisions in the deal that would somewhat soften the blow of estate taxes, Meckler said the tax should be eliminated entirely. “I’m just a simple guy,” he said, “and a death tax is wrong.”  He also was critical of the Republicans’ decision to put Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers in charge of the House Appropriations Committee.  Meckler has called Rogers “the prince of pork,” and he regards the Congressman’s new committee assignment as a sign that nothing has really changed in Washington.  Roger’s appointment is “unbelievable,” Meckler said. “It’s a direct message from the Republican leadership that they don’t give a darn about what the American public thinks, and that they are not serious about change.” Meckler said Rogers has been personally responsible for pork allocations amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.

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  • Rusty December 15, 2010, 10:55 pm

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Punish the Republicrats in two years? And do what? Elect the Dempublicans again?

  • Alan December 12, 2010, 11:29 am

    Of course this was going to happen. Republicans used the Tea Party to get what they wanted, which is what Goldman Sachs and all other lobbying industry wanted. When do we the naive realize we don’t have a seat at the table of government any more?

  • Darren December 11, 2010, 1:00 am

    Steve,
    The rule of law is what’s keeping us oppressed:

    “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”
    Thomas Jefferson
    We do not owe it to anyone to follow their rules.

  • ter December 10, 2010, 9:29 pm

    The new Republican House members–numbering 64, I believe– should choose their own candidate for House Speaker and support him. Mike Pence would be a better choice than the weak-witted, orange-complected Boehner. Or, they could select one of their own to challenge the “anointed-one”. They must impress upon their benighted Republican colleagues that Things Have Changed, they will vote as a bloc against: more war; more Big Bank-directed laws, rules, and Fed/Treasury largesse; more absurdly gigantic deficits; and more dirty business as usual, which Boehner intends. In 1994, the last time Republicans sent a host of new members to D.C, the deceitful windbag Gingrich wasted their enthusiasm and energies with marathon sessions to reform House procedures, rather than enacting substantive measures to correct Democratic excesses. Their opportunity then was a consequence of Clinton’s failed health care expansion initiative (ObamaCare I, roughly) and the enacted Assault Weapons Ban. Boehner’s planned diversion is to keep attention focused on repealing, entirely, Obamacare, an utterly unobtainable objective, given the Dems Control the Senate, and B.O. has the veto.

    As observed elsewhere, it would be best for the so-called Bush tax bracket extension bill (actually a Christmas Tree of cured hams, special tax provisions, and, possibly some niceties like Federal law premption of state laws governing real property ownership and foreclosure, compulsory collective bargaiuing with state firemen and policemen, and many et ceteras) to Fail. It won’t, of course. And, like ObamaCare, Pelosi will instruct; ” We have to pass it, so we can find out what’s in it”.

  • carol December 10, 2010, 7:02 pm

    Bloomberg’s article this morning re:poll results. The American citizens want programs protected, no cuts, but the rich to pay for it all through higher taxes. David Walker says the math doesn’t add up. Don’t you think maybe ordinary citizens, even those who are “tea partiers”, really have no clue about how big the funding shortfall really is? So, the tea partiers like this guy can say it’s time for cuts and that’s what people want, but the truth may be quite different, if this latest poll contains even a hint of how the majority of citizens really feel. I laughed when I read the article – you can’t help but laugh. Reduce the deficit, but don’t cut programs, don’t raise my taxes, don’t implement a gas tax, but get all the money we need from the rich. Good plan. Good luck with that, my southern neighbours.

  • John Jay December 10, 2010, 6:57 pm

    MS,PHD
    More of the Same
    Piled Higher and Deeper
    Here are some financial doom headlines.
    “Swiss bank refuses access to client’s physical gold holdings.”
    “Obama pressuring Fannie and Freddie to reduce loan balances.”
    “North Carolina:Unemployed homeowners to receive zero interest loans to pay mortgages.”
    On and on it goes, higher and higher until the pile of debt topples over!

  • Steve December 10, 2010, 6:47 pm

    Gary, a good strike to the head of the nail. Corporatism is the problem. The deficit reduction plan is to benefit the corporate structure by reduction of corporate taxes to serve the upper caste royal court feudal. The really wealthy use trusts and succesion of estate in corporate title. The corporate infringement is enforced by creating a corporate personage inferior to its master creator legislation called u.s. Subject citizenship under the Act of 1868 and military occupation.

  • gary leibowitz December 10, 2010, 6:33 pm

    The tea party message is either influenced by the elitist rich or by the Murdoch ad agency. Who speaks for them? The average Joe (six pack) or a representative of the super-rich. If you look at the facts you will see that the last 10 years has added trillions of dollars to the wealthy in the United States. This is a mind boggling number. The disparity between rich and poor has never been higher since these stats were recorded. You would think that we were in boom town USA the way they carry on about the unfair burden placed on them.

    Let’s look at the agenda for a moment. Tax cuts, spending cuts, dissolve social welfare and place the burden on local charities. Get rid of the estate tax, lower corporate taxes once again, get rid of mark to market accounting, allow corporations to police themselves by disbanding all these wasted government regulations and agencies. For the most part the tea party represents less government intrusion but when it comes to personal benefits, such as social security and Medicare, they believe they are entitled to these perks.

    Call me cynical but what we have here is a total overtake of the government by corporations and the 5 percent of Americans that hold 95 percent of the wealth.

    You would think that at times of deep despair people would lash out on the inequality of wealth and power. Instead we have a diversion campaign that is a masterpiece in design.

    I am reminded of an incident in history that seems eerily similar to today. During the civil war the north enrolled anyone that couldn’t pay his way out of serving. A land owner for instance was excused. In New York there was a riot that resulted. The rioters lashed out on the weakest of the weak instead of the powers that controlled and regulated this unfair system. They lynched and burned blacks.

    So let’s talk about the unfair estate tax, or unfair burden placed on the rich at a time in history when it is quite possibly the onset of another great depression. These arguments will be looked at as an absurd anomaly if we do happen to fall into the economic abyss.

    I know I took liberties and didn’t address the articles main premise, but in truth it was so expected it doesn’t bear too much analysis. The GOP running the carnival and influencing the new members of congress is not exactly a shock.

  • Darren December 10, 2010, 4:10 pm

    The tea Party movement has always been a sham. The question is what will the tea partiers do about it? Will they fall back on the lame vote-them-out cop out or will they actually do something? Let’s see them organize a tax strike. Let’s see them march on the congresscritters’ offices demanding their resignation. Let’s see them being arrested for civil disobedience. We’re long past the time to play nice & by the power elite’s rules.

    • Steve December 10, 2010, 6:31 pm

      Darren, We obey the Rule of Law, they do not. Failure to obey the Rule of Law makes us like them. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but; what you can do for your country”. [insert Tea Party] I think the statement sets an example in regard to how I should act, and what I should do. One may disenfranchise from the democratic corruption. And, one may defend one’s unalienable covenant endowments under the Laws of Nature and Nature’s G-d [unanimous declaration of the thirteen united States].

      I just took a break and made 4 calls to D.C. to object to Obama pressing China to practice democracy because according to Mr. President Madison a democracy is a tryanny run by despots leading to violent destruction. The word democracy does not appear in the constitution for the several States. And, a democracy is generally defined by early American Government as the will of the masses overruling the Unalienable Covenant Endowed Rights of the Individual by anarchy, discontent, mobocracy, mass will, in disregard for the Rule of Law. Will you individually join me in objecting to governmental corruption that does not punish anarchy?

      Now, if one does not believe in the Covenant of Abraham and Unalienable Covenant Endowed Rights. [constitutional requirement] One is only left with individual anarchy instead of the Rule of Law in the Nation of several States union. No one has maintained that the price for enforcing one’s unalienable Covenant Endowed Rights would be painless, or bloodless defense. The Tea Party started something not as a party, but; as individuals of common mind acting. If the Tea Party is corrupted in the future, then the individuals who objected must object again making a stand against the corruption. How did that go, Our Sacred Honor, Our Fortunes. . . and so on.

  • Dave December 10, 2010, 3:48 pm

    Mercury Retrograde began at 7am EST today. Expect increased volatility through 12/30/10 especially with a 12/21/10 lunar eclipse at a major aspect of 0 degree Cancer. The May flash crash happened during a severe Mercury Retrograde period. Mercury Retrograde is reknown for communication problems and confusion of all kinds.

    • mario cavolo December 10, 2010, 6:38 pm

      I never gave such things a second thought until a good friend pointed it out and I’ll be damned how these periods consistently have a different vibe to them…just deal with and implement what’s already been put in place. Trying to create or pursue anything new always seems like doing so against an extra thick wall….which would, by the way, imply rally on!!!

      Cheers, Mario

    • Robert December 10, 2010, 10:45 pm

      My own amateur study of the basis of astrology, astronomy, and astro-physics has led me to the opinion (if not the conclusion) that the coincidental positioning of celestial bodies relative to one-another must create some form of harmonious ebb and flow to the gravitational basis of the Universe- a gravitational tide, if you will.

      If the Mayans really did have it right, then I certainly look forward to January 1, 2013.

      We are beings made only of the stuff of the Universe in a physical sense, so might our spiritual composition also depend on some undiscovered quantum law …?

      The real question for Dave (and others) is:

      How high might the VIX go? There are some juicy out of the money call options floating around out there as the VIX has seemingly gone into a trance these past 3 months. 🙂

  • dan December 10, 2010, 2:13 pm

    TPTB controll both parties ..we are lied to by all ..to get elected then deals are cut and business as usual.. it is time for any politician that really cares about the future of this country and THEIR families to not show up for work ..stay away ,refuse to go into the halls of CONgress and boycott any votes on any legislation..But they are all corrupted even the good ones so down the tubes we go listening to the liars lie and the bought and paid for thieves scheme…time to stop voting and refuse to be part of this ungodly and evil laden mess…do not vote for any more of either parties thieves .. let the democracy crash and burn ,,then maybe we can restore a REPUBLIC once again

    • roger erickson December 10, 2010, 2:30 pm

      That would be my conclusion. There’s an operational issue at the heart of everything. It’s the message Ben Franklin taught at the original Constitutional Conventions. “Gentlemen. We have resources here, and many people. We can make kindling, or we can coordinate and make products.”

      Meckler must be funded by bankers. All he’s saying is “ruthless partisanship forever”. Same thing King George said in 1776 – keep ’em distracted & arguing. It worked in every British colony except this one – up to now anyway.

    • JH December 10, 2010, 3:12 pm

      You are right Dan but can any of us really say we would act differently if elected? When corporate lobbyists are offering our spouses spots on their corporate board of directors or jobs as “consultants”. Or as they are giving your nieces and nephews 6 figure jobs and funneling serious cash into your off-shore account? All while providing spin masters that make their requests sound like the prudent thing to do. I suspect most, including me, wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation or the pressure from our loved ones.
      The solution, as I see it, is to limit congressional power or insure we keep a balance of extremism in place to insure all attempts by congress (i.e. lobbyists) to implement laws that work to their benefit will fail to get enough votes by either the senate or house.

    • Steve December 10, 2010, 5:49 pm

      JH, If we will not stand I cannot stay standing. Look into the mirror and decide. An old hippy said one is either a solution, or a part of the problem. Stand and set an example for the guy looking at you in the mirror. Don’t let the reflection be an excuse. Stand for your children, and your dad’s children. Set a positive example by acting positively against the negativity that is corporate. If we will not make a stand. The legislature will not Stand because they are a simple reflection of the anarchy. The legislative corporation disenfranchised from the Republic by mass rule without regard to Law, or Order. By accepting the thought of inability to learn and change one assents to the conversion by mobocracy.

      Benjamin, I agree that the individual is in anarchy. I believe the legislature takes advantage of that anarchy to practice mobocracy. In my belief it is the mob of republicrats who practice a single intent bounded by words of “The Prince”.

      Tax the corporation, not the individual. It worked. Tax the gain taken from the estate, not the estate. It worked.

  • ricecake December 10, 2010, 11:06 am

    Aftershock with Robert Reich
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUEZtXTDl0Y

  • Benjamin December 10, 2010, 10:15 am

    “It’s a direct message from the Republican leadership that they don’t give a darn about what the American public thinks, and that they are not serious about change.”

    But what does the public think?

    Many would agree that taxes are too high. From there, some would say taxes are too high/low among the poor/rich, while others yet would say the opposite. A zillion points in between. And that kind of variety is just a single, narrow issue. Imagine (as if one needed to, given the internet, especially) the diversity of combining that issue with a plethora of others!

    And even though I’ve been using the word alot of late, the fact is, we don’t really have a mobocracy. A mob is more or less of one mind (such as it isn’t). The public, on the other hand, is of infinite minds on infinite matters. So what we have is really chaos which is all chained together and allowed to pull this way and that, all against each other when all is said and done.

    As I’ve also been saying of late, taxation itself is a very big part of the problem. Despite its long-running status as a cornerstone of civilization, it is incompatible with the nature of the individual. And that being the case, one will seek any way they can to avoid The Tax, whatever it is for, and however much it is. They will cheat, borrow, get political, become special interest, and/or simply avoid the thing being taxed.

    Why humans do this is simple enough to understand. The will of one cannot be over-ridden, lest the will be erased. But since it is very much a real thing, it refuses to do so. But coexisting with contradiction, schziophrenia results. So here we are, in the modern day, nearing the critcal mass of a failing practice. All are chained to many chains, and all chains pull this way and that. Even dead and long gone voices of yesterday weigh upon the current, silent and almost if not entirely undetected (as our host often says, every dime repaid, one way or another). The confusion and bankruptcy increases, along with more reliance on all other coping mechanisms.

    But that is the problem we face today, each and every one of us. We temporarily cope rather than solve, as always man has since the dawn of civilization. Each and everyone of us has the self, but ancient policy and practice fears it and thus always seeks to over-ride it, causing more choking chains to be piled on, for all that it controls nothing, while the tires spin in the mud.

    Even the Constitution contains the flaw of taxation. It tried to compromise with the nonnegotiable, and make it work by making it uniform and introducing checks and balances into government. Granted, it was a superior method, but it was destined to crash back to earth because it does not fully acknowledge and accomodate the one thing that matters in all things. The individual is not really supreme.

    And yet, the Constitution also contains a great part of the answer. If Congress can regulate the value, or weight of the currency, then why even bother with taxes at all? Why not simply open the Mint to the coining of gold and silver, and let the amount individuals are willing to extend to provide government, voluntarily, determine the weight of the currency?

    In short, the government, the public, the whole… is forced to negotiate with the individual. Indeed, they are forced to rely upon each and every individual! If one and all, on the whole, are extending less coined weight, then it falls upon Congress to extend the abstract from the concrete, dollars out of the hard money that any and all can hold. What is not enough for all civilization requires is made into enough (but not ahead of the personal power each and everyone of us holds).

    Based in the axiom “I am”, society would have little room and time, if any, for politics and so-called “mobocracy” (coping with diversified insanity, ie) because there would be nothing to impose and nothing to evade that one does decide to avoid or impose on themselves. And whatever one decides, the court of public opinion and by extension the Congress face only one all important issue: Not how to bring all in line, but rather which way to revlaue based on the sum of all acting in liberty. All else is lobotomized ‘coping’. Even debt, personal and public, would find it quite difficult to exist all, over the long run. Every dime is repaid, either in contracted weight or revalued currency. Nothing snags and holds on forever. Life may proceed to wherever one takes it.

    There is much more to say about it, but the most important point is that there is no way that any so-called “powers that be” could resist this idea, if they were fully cognisant of it. Heck, the bankers have the lion’s share of gold, and silver too, probably. They would be rich for generations to come. And heck, they have no control over anything in this world anyhow! As some pointed out over the past couple of days, gee… Bernanke sure does look and sound stressed out. This is not the image nor the reality of a victorious man, folks. It’s the look of Homer Simpson being ruthlessly beaten by immutable reality (d’oh!)

    So I would say that the odds are good that they would take any way out that is in fact a way out, rather than being against it. I am as sure of this as I am sure that many retirees depending on SSI would suddenly become very loyal to a hard money standard, seeing as how they’ve no hope in any other direction. It would over time enrich and empower them all, where no other compromise can. Not even the most awesome imperial military budget need be directly confronted, as, in a truly bottom-up governance free market, there would be so many better things to do, so many better things available; it would find its balance as a matter of natural course. As for hoards of welfare recipients, every single welfare case out there would delight in receiving a coin or two, and then getting back on their own feet, and going about life as they should’ve been all this time.

    The “enemies”, one must realize, are valuable allies. Whatever threat another poses to you on this side of the pit of despair, they are in fact the best friends one could ever want to have. They want and need what you want and need. And while the downright criminally insane exist, they are, thankfully, the very small minority, the inconsequential. They cannot dam up the exit, versus the vast majoirty whom I believe would want to take the exit out (if only they were aware of it).

    So if there is one thing one should ponder this weekend, holiday season, or rest of ones life… however long must take to reach a solid conclusion… it is how the what and how of bringing society to the policy of “I am”.

    Selfish? Yes, but in a system compatiable with the will of one but at odds with no one, ‘I am’ is the path of greatest good and least harm. And in time, perhaps more quickly than conceivable today, it would be proven beyond all doubt to be the ultimate nurturer of civilization… Not it’s greatest un-doer, as has always been feared, and even realized, by forceful policy.

    • Other Paul December 12, 2010, 8:00 pm

      Benjamin: “Heck, the bankers have the lion’s share of gold, and silver too, probably. They would be rich for generations to come.”

      Exactly.

      As more and more people understand that fiat is only temporarily worth something, more and more will join the bankers in converting fiat to PMs.

      I sometimes believe that the bankers and Nadler welcome the suppression of PM prices in order to give them greater opportunities to accumulate PMs at the lowest possible prices. Bankers’ loyalty to any country, stock, bond, commodity or currency is measured by their opportunities for profit.

    • Benjamin December 13, 2010, 7:32 am

      Hi Paul,

      Didn’t catch this response, so forgive the delay. Anyway, it’s rather silly of them to keep playing the game, at this point. Not when atoms of gold can be a dollar, yen, euro, etc, if that’s what it really came down to. That is what yesterday lacked, the ability to value and transact currency in such small amounts as needed. Today, we’ve got the computers, we have places like Gold Money and Bullion Vault… it’s all there, just waiting to get us out of this needless black-hole.

      They could donate a tonne (or less, even) to the U.S. Treasury, to distribute in some way, and get things rolling. And let them over time spend the gold back to the general public. Before, I wouldn’t have considered that option, for obvious reasons, but now… It’s not likely that that gold and silver will be reclaimed in any other way. And at any rate, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the power to revalue currency weight.

      What that would do is revive the practice of saving, to name one good thing. It would also be much easier to get past periods malinvestment, and limit their extent as well. With growing populations, we simply have little time to do things as they’ve traditionally been done (debt, recessions, depressions, etc). All the more that central banking cannot deal with those problems. And since the central bankers have everyt reason to abandon it in favor of their own personal wealth…

      This is looking more and more real, doable, to me, the more I think about it.

  • Steve December 10, 2010, 6:28 am

    Ya, well the truth hurts. Now, what can we all do to peacefully restore the public trust, and; morality based upon something greater than the mind of a man?


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