The Billionaires’ Tea Party – How the Koch’s and Other Billionaires Have Bought Mitt Romney and America

Please watch the entire video.

Ronald Reagan Tells Tea Party They are Wrong

You read that right.  The man who started the conservative movement and who all conservatives look to for inspiration and with adulation – Ronald Reagan – agrees with President Obama.

This is what Ronald Reagan said:

“We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that allow some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share….In practice, they [the tax loopholes] made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10% of his salary.  And that’s crazy.”

Today the tea party has been fighting to expand those tax loopholes that allow the richest 1% to not pay their fair share.  The tea party is fighting to expand those tax loopholes that allow the most profitable corporations to avoid paying taxes.  At the same time, the tea party is fighting to increase the debt, fighting to increase the taxes on the working poor and middle class, and fighting against any tax breaks for small and medium sized businesses.

The tea party is effectively owned and operated by the Koch brothers lobbying machine for the benefit of the super-rich 1% and the most profitable big corporations.  They are living in a fantasyland that could take America down with it.

The tea party is so hypocritical that they wear Ronald Reagan’s legacy proudly on their puffed up chests while cynically spitting on his values.  Reagan would not even be allowed into today’s tea party Republicans.

And that is a travesty.

Dispelling Myths the Tea Party Tells Itself

Tea partiers like to convince themselves that they are morally superior to everyone else and the only true “right kind of” Americans.  All despite virtually none of what they argue against being true and none of what they say they are arguing for being true either in practice.  Here are some of the myths tea partiers tell each other, and the reality:

The tea party wants to eliminate excessive taxes

False.  The tea party only wants to eliminate taxes for the richest 1% and the biggest corporations. The tea party refused to continue the tax breaks for 98% of Americans unless the rich got their taxes reduced. The tea party wants to tax the working poor (because they all have refrigerators!) and the middle class in order to pay for tax cuts for the richest few. The tea party has refused tax breaks for small and medium sized companies while fighting to continue and even expand tax loopholes that allow the most profitable corporations to avoid paying taxes.

The tea party wants to eliminate the National Debt

False. The tea party has increased the national debt several times already. The latest was the tea party caused credit downgrade, which increased the interest rates the US has to pay on obligations already incurred during the Bush presidency.

The tea party wants to end deficit spending

False. The tea party turned down at least $3 Trillion in spending cuts, all because they wanted to increase the debt by extending temporary tax breaks the Republican party set to expire for the richest 1%.

The tea party wants to protect free markets

False. The tea party has consistently fought to protect subsidies and corporate welfare for the largest and most profitable corporations, even as they send jobs overseas and use tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes.

The tea party wants our Government to abide by the Constitution

False. The tea party has argued many times to repeal or make moot several Constitutional amendments. The tea party also believes that people should have a right to discriminate against others based on their color, in direct violation to both the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act.

The tea party wants the size of the Government reduced

False. The tea party has been more than happy to increase the size of government, as did Reagan, GW Bush, and other Republican Presidents. The Republican-controlled Congress and Presidency of the first 6 years of the 2000s passed several unfunded government mandates, started two wars, and increased government size.  The tea party argues to increase Defense spending despite well documented waste and abuse totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. The tea party also has called for additional Constitutional amendments that would usurp the powers given by the Constitution to Congress.

The tea party believes in the power of the American people

False. The tea party consistently demonstrates that they believe in the power of the richest 1% of Americans and the most profitable corporations. The tea party is constantly calling on the government to require the narrow views of “the right kind of Americans” to be forced on the rest of Americans. The tea party is constantly attacking the power of Americans to have the right to be free from bigotry.  And the tea party wants to repeal the 17th amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees the power of the American people to vote for their representatives in the Senate; the tea party wants to take that power of the people and give it to state lawmakers who are influenced by corporate campaign funding.

The tea party believes Citizens can set their own platform and agendas at a local level

False. The tea party has been quite vocal about setting their narrow agenda and platform to force all of us to conform to their view of what is “right.” The tea party takes its marching orders, was founded by, and is funded by the rich corporate Washington lobbyists.

The tea party wants to end entrenched political parties that are doing nothing but taking our money to keep power

False. The tea party is fighting to increase the wealth of the richest 1% (like the Koch brothers) and the most profitable corporations (like Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, etc). Everything that the tea party has done has been geared toward helping the wealthiest hide more of their money and forcing the middle class and the working poor to carry more of the burden.

Sorry, but facts and actions show what the tea party conservatives are all about. Not bumper sticker platitudes.

What is (Who are) Americans for Prosperity?

Someone said the following: “That’s from Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group.”

It struck me as so funny that the tea party seems to have missed the boat on why their benefactors are bene-non-facting them.

Yes, Americans for Prosperity is an advocacy group in that they advocate for the prosperity of the Koch brothers, billionaire owners of Koch Industries, a huge corporation specializing in the fossil fuel and deforestation industries.  Americans for Prosperity, like its cousin FreedomWorks run by former Republican majority leader turned super-lobbyist Dick Armey, was spun off from another free market lobbying group set up by the Koch brothers, Citizens for a Sound Economy.  [You have to love the irony of the fake names these guys come up with for their astroturf lobbying groups, since the only citizens involved in setting up all three of these groups were the two Koch brothers and other lobbyists, and the only “sound economy” they were concerned with was their own bank accounts.]

As noted, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are Koch Industries lobbying front groups whose purpose is to ensure massive tax breaks for the richest 1% (including, of course, the two billionaire Koch brothers) and the most profitable mega-corporations (including, of course, the Koch Industries conglomerate).

Which is why these lobbying organizations use the tea party to support the interests of Koch Industries and the Koch brothers.  It explains why the tea party is funded and organized by these corporate lobbying organizations and other corporate lobbying organizations going under various astroturf “tea party” names like Tea Party Patriots and Tea Party Express and Tea Party Nation.  Which is why the tea party turned down trillions in spending cuts because it would have meant closing some corporate tax loopholes and tax breaks that allow the most profitable corporations and the richest 1% of Americans to avoid paying taxes on most of their income (and only 15% on most of the income they can’t hide from taxation altogether).  Which is why the tea party has been working so hard to shift even more of the burden of running this country onto the middle class (while giving more tax breaks to the very rich).  The very rich, by the way, that put next to nothing back into the local economy and who have been sending jobs overseas for the last few decades (usually with more tax breaks that they helped get put into the tax code).

Yes, Americans for Prosperity is definitely an advocacy organization.  They advocate for the shifting of even more riches into the pockets of the Koch family and their lobbyist front groups.

Just curious – does the tea party even care that they are being rubed into working against their own interests?

The tea party corporate billionaire lobbying machine

The biggest corporate lobby right now is the tea party. It is the brainchild of corporate lobbyist Dick Armey at FreedomWorks, which financially supports and controls the activities of the Tea Party Patriots and other front groups. The tea party is also financially supported and controlled by the Koch Industries front group called Americans for Prosperity. In fact, both AFP and FreedomWorks were split off from another free market lobbying group controlled by the Koch brothers.

In short, the billionaire Koch brothers that run the tea party are the biggest corporate profit lobbyists in the country right now.

Which is why everything the tea party does (outside of its bigoted interests) is geared toward protecting the interests of the billionaires and the corporations.

Which is why the tea party is gleefully trying to push the country into default just to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% (i.e., the Koch brothers) and the biggest, most profitable corporations (i.e., Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, etc.).

Which is why the tea party insists that Republican politicians must deny climate science, to protect the CO2 emitting Koch Industries and ExxonMobil’s coal and oil fossil fuel interests.

The tea party turned down $4 trillion in spending cuts in this debt ceiling debate (even though the debt ceiling has zero to do with future spending).  So since the tea party lobby doesn’t seem to actually care about reducing spending, why has the tea party lobby taken America hostage yet again?

Solely to protect the interests of the richest 1% and the most profitable corporations.  After all, the tea party is the biggest corporate lobbying organization in the nation.