Tornado Alley (PROG)

[woofer]

I lucked out, DesertDrifter. I could spend an entire day on the subject, but decided to go to Google News to see if there were any good articles to use in response instead. The very first one I came upon was absolutely perfect.....

Part of it:

THE Tax Day Tea Party protests came off about as advertised. They were a peaceful, colorful, full-throated exercise in free expression by thousands in Houston and many thousands more across the country. Message received. Loud and clear.

Or was it?

Wednesday’s protests told Americans that a vocal minority in this country is fed up with big government spending, bailouts, wasteful budget earmarks and the probably enormous tax consequences these will bring somewhere over the horizon.

Many Americans would agree with at least part of the Tea Party refrain, especially the themes of wasteful, often hidden spending in earmarks and the mindless fealty of too many in Congress to moneyed special interests.

“YES to We the People,” trumpeted one sign we noticed Wednesday. But an undisputed majority of “We the People” also elected the president now in office. And though we may bicker about the details of the economic stimulus package, polls show that a majority thinks government should take energetic measures to resuscitate our flat-lining national economy.

A recent national poll by CNN put that majority at 58 percent who support President Barack Obama’s approach on the economy, which relies on deficit spending targeted to problem areas.

Inherent in the broad support the president enjoys is a strengthening belief that government must have a role in pulling us out of the financial ditch. And herein lies the question the protesters have yet to satisfactorily answer: If not government, who?
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/6377804.html

The rest of the article:
Some believe the protests were orchestrated by the Republican Party and its impresarios on cable television and talk radio. It is futile to attempt to read those tea leaves, but useful to examine the GOP’s large role in bringing us to the current pass.

The deficits with which Obama must contend were birthed during the Bush presidency, when generous tax cuts were not matched with equal rigor in controlling Washington’s spending.

That marked a clear failing of the ambitious Gingrich revolution, begun in 1994 with high hopes for limiting government. Alas, many of the erstwhile GOP revolutionaries in Congress were seduced by the very system of permanent incumbency they were sent to reform.

So we find ourselves engaged in this momentous debate. The protesters’ voices and ideas are welcome. But a resolute majority sees things differently.