Flash forward past the legislative votes, past the mid-term elections to today and it is now the very same people that took up the Tea Party mantle and call to help themselves win an election saying they will cut medicare as a government service. Now the very seniors they tried to scare into voting have used the same tactics they were taught during the 2009 – 2010 Tea Party protests to protest GOP officials that supported the plan Republican House Representative Ryan put forward. It's “The House Republican Medicare plan [that] would convert it into a subsidized program for the private insurance market” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/us/politics/26medicare.html)

The idea there were Tea Party elite using scare tactics just to get votes in place of any power derived from their authentic message to get votes was talked about during the lead-up to the health care reform vote of 2010 and the subsequent mid-terms, and to a certain extent the light shed hurt their chances of repeating a 1990's style coup that they had hoped for. In fact one of the biggest behind the scenes political operators within the Tea Party movement, former House representative Dick Armey, admitted that was his own view of the scare tactics.

He said this during an interview with the New York Times in an article from 2009 that read, “Armey prides himself on his intellect and rationality, but his years in Washington have taught him the political uses of irrationality and even outright fantasy. He told me he does not believe some of the most extreme charges that emerged in the debate over health care reform — for example, that 'death panels' will tell elderly people when it’s time to die — but he welcomes the energy and passion that such beliefs bring to his side. 'You know that expression: The enemy of my enemy is my friend?' he asked. 'Are their fears exaggerated? Yeah, probably. But are Obama’s promises exaggerated? I may think it’s silly, but if people want to believe that,' he said, referring to death panels, 'it’s O.K. with me.'” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Armey-t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1)

Is this a bit of what comes around goes around, chickens coming home to roost or playing voters for nothing more than political gain coming back to bite? Perhaps.

There were people that went to even further extremes than Armey of course as we all remember the ridiculous idea going around by certain political figures that President Obama was intending to set up panels intended to murder people's grandparents? The fact the luminaries of the GOP, at the time, could get behind that was also unsettling. But maybe that was the point.

Had there been actual death panels it would have been something too absurd to think about. Perhaps the next worse thing would be to scare seniors about the existence of such things to get votes. Democrats lied about intending to reduce the amount of spying upon voters and intrusions into Americans lives when they ran in 2006 and 2008. The idea the Patriot Act would have prevented 9/11, as opposed to paying attention to the presidential daily briefing read by President Bush on August 6, 2001 entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US,” is ignoring history. (http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-10/politics/august6.memo_1_bin-conduct-terrorist-attacks-abu-zubaydah?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS) The Patriot Act could not even prevent the Underwear Bomber. They, along with Republicans, have also failed to seriously protect us against the likelihood we will have to bail out giant financial firms again.

Had there been clear language spelling out that the government would never bail out any company prior to the collapse there would never have been subprime mortgage bonds or CDO's or credit default swaps. There would simply have been no long term incentive to do so.

Just like the Democrats failed, at least as of yet, to stand by some of their biggest promises from those years, Republicans, thus far, have failed to stand by their pledges to seniors that they would never short them of that entitlement. The GOP did precisely what so many had been saying they would when they proved to only be using the Tea Party platform to win an election. Like Democrats, regarding no new money to Wall Street beyond the bailouts Democrats said they would enact when they ran, the GOP has said one thing and done another.

Not all of them of course, but a significant majority. That isn't to say entitlements along with defense spending don't need to be cut, because it is unrealistic to say we can reduce our debt without touching them at all. As an article from Foreign Affairs Magazine published in December of 2010 put it, “The U.S. government is incurring debt at a historically unprecedented and ultimately unsustainable rate. The Congressional Budget Office projects that within ten years, federal debt could reach 90 percent of GDP, and even this estimate is probably too optimistic given the low rates of economic growth that the United States is experiencing and likely to see for years to come. The latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff paper comes closer to the mark by projecting that federal debt could equal total GDP as soon as 2015.”

The same article goes on to say, “It is important to understand the impact of all this debt. As it grows, interest rates inevitably rise. As they do, the U.S. government's annual interest expense — the cost of borrowing money — will rise from one percent of GDP to four percent or more. At that point, interest expense would rival defense expenditures. And it would exceed all domestic discretionary spending, a category that includes spending on infrastructure, education, energy, and agriculture — in effect, anything other than entitlements and national security. The U.S. Treasury would need to borrow a staggering $5 trillion every single year, both to finance deficits and to refinance maturing debt.

“Yet the real outlook for deficits and debt is much worse than these forecasts. For one thing, the debt that the United States effectively guarantees but that is not included in official totals is almost equal to the Treasury Department's stated $9 trillion total. In particular, the debt of government-sponsored enterprises is another $8 trillion. The biggest of these are the essentially bankrupt housing finance agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They have been placed into federal conservatorship, and for all practical purposes, their debt is equivalent to U.S. Treasury debt. The American taxpayer stands fully behind it” (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66778/roger-c-altman-and-richard-n-haass/american-profligacy-and-american-power)

So the giant “we” in American life has to be cut back. To say Americans can go without doing so is to ignore facts, to not understand them or to be lying to gain votes as so many from the GOP did in 2010 and 2009. It is a shame the two parties have grown so far apart and become so effectively isolated from each other on so many issues including this. Instead of behaving like children saying, “I'm right” “No I'm right,” they could be doing what the American people pay them to do, which is to come together from different sides crafting legislation in the best interests of our future both long term and short term.

It is a shame that at times like these we only have two voices in Congress. With two or more other voices in the mix it would be much easier to move past such impasses when immaturity reigns supreme and getting the most goodies is the goal of the lionshare of politicians in Washington. Perhaps they should both be ashamed of themselves that at this stage in the game their main goal once again is to out “HA!” the other knowing that with only two parties there is nothing the public can do about it. Thanks for the generosity and understanding at such a time.

To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com.