The Tea Party

Ideology Revealed

To the Editor:

The Tea Party loyalists have witnessed the poor receive government welfare and the rich granted similar government benefits while the middle class is being squeezed to support a dysfunctional government.

Hence, their rationale to starve the beast (government) and allow Capitalism and “American ingenuity,” free of burdensome regulations, to restore prosperity and the “American dream.”

Republican President Herbert Hoover inherited the Great Depression, and like the Tea Party, was unwilling to let government intervene and relied on the private sector to restore economic stability. This policy failed dismally as the Depression grew deeper and the burgeoning makeshift huts prevalent all over the country were named Hoovervilles.

In contrast, Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt embraced the Keynesian economic model, created numerous public works projects and restored the nation’s hope and human dignity.

In 1937, President Roosevelt was led to believe that debt reduction needed to be prioritized over government spending; leading to a downward spiral of the Depression. He quickly recognized the consequences of his action and reversed course.

The majority of us credit World War II and the subsequent reconstruction as the major cause for ending the Depression.

Few, however, are willing to admit that massive government spending and its effect on the growth of the private economic sector was the reason for a burgeoning economy.

It is ironic that the Tea Party and its various factions rely on rich contributors to push their deceptive ideology and, once elected to Congress, are compelled to reflect the interest of the few powerful profiteers with insatiable thirst for power.

Consequently, they are pushing the rich-man agenda, totally ignorant or unwilling to recognize the consequences to their own well-being. (See my letter to The Newtown Bee editor in the July 15, 2011 issue which elaborates on how voters are being deluded to vote against their own interest by Republicans.)

Their agenda in deluding themselves and the public will only decimate the middle class, while the rich will once again succeed in advancing selfish greed and power over the poorly informed public.

Legislative initiatives by the Tea Party, if complemented by a Republican Senate and a Republican President in the 2012 elections, will scrap or curtail significantly scientific achievements, environmental priorities, including climate change, food safety measures, research and development, Planned Parenthood human services, social entitlements, welfare, the Health Care Act, and more demagoguery.

The Tea Party’s convoluted agenda, if it results in laws by the three branches of government, will inevitably take the US economy irreparably because they will decimate hard-fought humanitarian achievements, critical structural facilities and we may lose the opportunity for future recovery because unabated manmade climate change is already beginning, with increasing intensity, to destroy, irreversibly, fertile land, occupied properties, and displace civilizations and wildlife.

I emphasize that the world economy and ecosystem may very well be subject to irreparable harm and chaos if politicians and the electorate are unable to reverse the deleterious path presently pursued by the Tea Party and the Republican obstructionists.

Peter L. Alagna

55 Head of Meadow Road, Newtown                           August 6, 2011