Capitulati​on and Betrayal



Mike Calpino

 After months of wrangling over continuing resolutions and the threat of a government shutdown, which is a farce all by itself, the ruling class got together and put together their budget deal, a deal they heralded as a significant reduction in spending. All the news organizations were saying what a great victory it was for Speaker Boehner and the new Republican majority in the house, a majority that only exists because of the TEA party. Even the president had been crowing about its significance in reducing federal spending. The amount of this hatchet job to the Federal budget? $38 billion for the next six months.


That, my fellow patriots, is an insult to all of us who understand the dire straights we’re in. That means we will cut a little more than $3 billion a month. Consider that we are borrowing between one and two hundred billion dollars a month and cutting that monthly deficit by three billion is insignificant. $38 billion is only a third of the budget of the worthless department of education. There are stupid earmark projects that cost more that $38 billion. Back when the Republicans said they were going to cut one hundred billion dollars, I derided that amount as insignificant in the face of a $1.5 trillion deficit. This is like deciding to forgo your Starbucks coffee now and then while continuing to run up thousands of dollars in credit card debt every month. It is a worthless gesture.

Consider even Congressman Ryan’s budget. He says he is going to cut the budget by $6 trillion over the next ten years. That sounds like a lot but at our current pace we are going to borrow $15 trillion in those same ten years. That means under this dramatic plan of draconian cuts, ten years from now our children will have a $23 trillion dollar debt instead of a $29 trillion dollar debt. Certainly I give credit to congressman Ryan for making a credible attempt and taking on entitlements in creative ways but this is not going to cut it.

We are in real, serious trouble.. As we approach the third anniversary of the first TEA party demonstration, I am reminded of the words I spoke on April 15, 2009. I stated that we "stand on the edge of the abyss" as a country. As I, and we, have learned, our situation was worse than we thought and rapidly becoming catastrophic. We need $6 trillion in cuts over three years and a complete overhaul in entitlements just to put us back on the edge. We need significant and drastic action, real drastic action, not what counts for "drastic" and "extreme" by Washington standards. We are not going to get it, not now, not with the next budget, not ever with the ruling class still deeply entrenched.

One hundred billion dollars in cuts was insignificant and the Republicans gave away two thirds of that. If they could not resist the pressure from the Democrats for this miniscule amount, what makes you think that the results of the next budget fight is going to be any different? Paul Ryan's six trillion will become two or one or less and even those cuts will probably be applied in years nine and ten, doing nothing to rescue our absurd financial situation. It is obvious that the Republicans are not serious enough to go to the mat and shut things down for the good of our, and our children's future.

The reality is this. The budget "fights" between the Democrats and Republicans are like watching the WWF. Its all fake, its good for show and the winners have been predetermined. The few TEA party Republicans who actually were elected and believed they could do something significant went in like wide eyed children believing the show was real and now realize that the ruling class of both parties have no intention of cutting the money that gives them their power, even though everyone knows that the whole house of cards will fall and its consequences catastrophic for all. Our politicians have been playing Russian roulette for years, hoping that the bullet will find someone else’s head but the odds against them are growing every day.

That all sounds hopeless and it certainly is discouraging. However, the TEA party has had a significant impact in its short two years. In 2009 a lot of people finally woke up. Most Americans remained oblivious to the fact that our country had been moving deeper and deeper into socialism for decades. The huge lurch to totalitarianism precipitated by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi finally opened our eyes. Realizing that something huge needed to be done and done now, we used the tools we had at hand. We organized marches and demonstrations not seen since the sixties to ensure that our voices were heard. We realized we were not alone and by joining together with others all over this great land of ours, we gained in the confidence that comes from numbers. We worked within the system with the tools we had at hand which means we worked to elect Republicans. After all, the Democrats were the ones pushing the destructive agenda. There is no doubt we elected some good men and women. But while we thought the tool we were putting in place was a sledge hammer, it has turned out to be a scalpel, and a dull one at that.
It is time that we realized what is going on. The ruling class, Democrats and Republicans alike, are not going to make significant cuts in their power. The two parties are deeply entrenched in their domain and the show they put on for the rest of us is only to keep us placated while they reduce us to poverty and servitude. As long as we play the game, putting one in charge and then another, we reward this behavior and nothing will change. I understand the need to grab onto the nearest weapon when you feel like you life is in danger. That weapon may not be the most effective however. It is time to soberly consider how we are going to take back our country from the ruling class.
For decades party loyalty has been eroding and the number of registered independents and third party adherents has grown. It is time that we stop giving our support to those who continually betray us. We must stop supporting either major party. If we are going to change the direction of our country we must break the stranglehold the two parties have on it. Are there good men and women in each party? Sure. However, there was a telling interview with congressman Ron Paul a few weeks ago. When asked how many congresspeople were as serious about changing the financial state of the country as he was, he said about a dozen. That means the other 523 have to go. We must start working for and voting for the man or woman who has the courage and integrity to do the hard things to turn our country around. Few of them will be from the major parties because the vast majority of them come up through the "system." We need to find people who have come up through our "system", men and women who have consistently supported freedom, those who understand the precarious situation we are in and have creative ideas for solving it and returning freedom to ‘we the people.’ I know that the conventional wisdom says that voting for a third party or independent is like throwing your vote away. I say it is time we stopped throwing our freedom away by voting for two equally villainous, wretched and unacceptable choices.
We must begin to prepare for the next election now. We are two years wiser and more organized. The first thing we need to do is stop supporting those without real courage to make real changes. No more money to Democrats or Republicans, put it aside to support a real liberty candidate. No more volunteering for either party. Continue to put pressure on your representatives, we’re stuck with them for now but we need to look at them just as we did the statists from two years ago, not as sympathetic allies. We need to continue to connect with each other and talk to our neighbors. Over the next six months, we need to find and develop real, independent TEA party candidates. They may be Libertarian, Constitutional or independent but we need to know them and trust them. We need to be willing to get behind them with our money and our time. Many of us worked on campaigns the last time around, we know what needs to be done.
Will we win? This time around, in most cases, probably not. But if we manage even a handful of wins, it will prove to the nation that a third party/independent can win and provide momentum for the next election. People will stop thinking they are "throwing their vote away" and see non major party candidates as viable alternatives. We, as TEA party adherents, have the opportunity to make that happen. From nothing, the Republican party emerged in the 1850’s and elected a president in less than a decade. As more and more people in this country become disgusted with the current party structure and acutely experience the negative consequences of their stranglehold on power, the opportunity is ripe for the emergence of men and women who actually represent the people and the founding principles of this nation. The time is now, it needs to be now and to make it now we need to make it happen. So as we get together on the third anniversary of our mass April 15 protests, look around for the next congressman, state representative or city councilwoman and be willing to get behind them as though your lives and the lives of your children depended on it....after all, it does.

Mike Calpino