Tea Party Express

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Monday, 26 October 2009 13:07

On Wednesday October 28, the Tea Party Express II is coming to Carson City, NV. According to their website, they are meeting to voice their opposition to ‘out of control spending’ and ‘government run healthcare.’ I appreciate that the Tea Party Protesters are speaking out against what they see as injustice.

I encourage mobilization and marches and using our First Amendment rights to voice our discontent at runaway government spending. While I welcome the Tea Party protesters I have to ask; what has taken you so long?

We are in agreement that the government is squandering our treasure through corporate bailouts and bloated budgets. But it is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wall Street bailouts, and tax breaks for the rich that we should be together protesting, not providing health care and tax breaks for working class people. The Tea Party has the right idea, but their protests are misguided. They would be better served directing their angst at the corporate influence in Washington, D.C. that has sold us all down the river. They have fallen prey to the talking heads and the corporate media propaganda that tells them each day that their government is wrong to spend taxpayer dollars on providing medical care for Americans rather than sending them off to war.

Where was their outrage when the federal government handed $20 billion in contracts to ‘Unidentified Foreign Entities’ in Iraq? Where were their voices when George Bush awarded $16 billion in no-bid contracts to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, the highest paid contractor in Iraq? Where were Tea Party protests and marches when the Bush administration, claiming the pursuit of WMD, waged a preemptive war on a sovereign nation sending tens of thousands of our young men and women off to war? Where were their Tea Party marches in the spring of 2002 when the U.S. Congress appropriated $63 billion to Iraq? Or 2003 when the same Congress gave another $87 Billion? Or in 2006 when George Bush asked for another $72 billion for the same failed war?

Through 2008, the Federal Government has spent a staggering $900 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With medical costs for more than 35,000 wounded soldiers, the Iraq War has to this point cost American taxpayers upwards of $2 trillion. The Democratic-led Joint Economic Committee has estimated that the total will rise to $3.5 trillion by 2017.

By way of comparison, the United Nations estimates it would cost $5 billion to teach every person in the world to read and write. For $1.3 billion a year, we could immunize every child in the world against infectious diseases. For $15 billion we could ensure that every developing country on the planet has enough money to fight AIDS. Rather than use our wealth for the good of the planet, for eight long years we allowed Congress and the White House to wage war with no end in sight.

On October 12, I sent a letter to Senate Leader Harry Reid asking for a robust public option. I reminded the Senator that over 340,000 Nevadans have no health care. A robust public option is necessary to create real market competition and lower costs for families and businesses. Health care and education is worth funding. Perhaps someday we will all join together, Conservatives and Democrats alike, and celebrate the day the federal government spends our hard earned money in a way from which we may all benefit.