Hey Tea Party – Where’s the Fat?

I believe the Tea Partiers would disagree with Obama regardless of his proposals for our economy.  It’s like they wrote a bunch of “anti” speeches last year and whenever Obama says something, they just pull another one out.  It’s getting stupid.  In Obama’s American Jobs Act, he asks Congress to cut taxes, improve the nation’s infrastructure, and cut government spending by an amount equal to the Act’s  “cost” (in Washington, “cost” includes expenditures and reduced revenues). Obama even calls for reducing business regulations.  Now what has the Tea Party been asking for?  Exactly that! 

Every single point of the Jobs Act is pro-business.  The payroll tax cut he proposed isn’t just on the employee’s share like the current reduced rate.  It’s also applied to the employer’s share.  The President's plan would slash by 50 percent the taxes that employers pay on their first $5 million in payroll.  The plan would also eliminate those taxes altogether for businesses that brought on new workers or increased the wages of their existing workers. 

Infrastructure expenditures are also very pro-business.  First, it’s the private sector that will be contracted to do the work.  That means not only jobs, but profits.  Second, the resulting infrastructure improvement will benefit business.  Every day on my way to work I see FedEx trucks, plumbing vans, cable TV installers, and other business people stuck in traffic.  A tremendous number of hours are wasted because of our inadequate transportation system.  Better infrastructure will increase productivity and profits.

The most basic Tea Party tenet is that government spending must be drastically reduced.  With the Jobs Act, Obama invites Congress to cut spending to “pay” for tax cuts and infrastructure improvements – and the Tea Party is arguing against it!  Unbelievable.  If I were at Tea Partier (which I certainly am not), I’d say, “This is our chance.  We want $200 billion cut from Medicare, $200 billion from Defense, $50 billion from Social Security, $50 billion from etc. etc.”  I’d also pounce on the opportunity to list the anti-business regulations I want eliminated, “No OSHA, no minimum wage, no bargaining rights, no drug testing, freedom to hire illegal immigrants, etc.”

However, the only specific cut I heard in the Tea Party debate was to eliminate the Department of Education.  Alright, that’s a start.  I don’t know if that means just elimination of the Department or also includes the elimination of education funding to states and schools.  Assuming the Tea Party would like to eliminate all federal regulation and funding of education, I think that would save about $70 billion.
That still leaves another trillion dollars to identify. The Democrats and Republicans obviously can’t figure out what to cut (or maybe they just don’t have the guts). Hopefully, the Tea Party can do it.  So let’s hear it.  Hey Tea Party, where’s the fat?

It seems to me the Tea Partiers are looking a gift horse in the mouth with this jobs bill.  Obama is saying cut taxes, improve infrastructure, and reduce government spending and regulations.  That’s Tea Party Economics 101.  It’s something George W. Bush could have proposed just as easily as Barack Obama. Forget the politics and pass the bill.