Tea Party Complains about 36 Billion Dollar Bailout, Ignores Trillion Dollar Military:

It is nearly impossible to divine the political principles of the tea party.  They aren't really Constitutionalists because a literal reading of the Constitution would require the dissolving of almost every branch of government, something they haven't called for.  We can assume they aren't regular conservatives either because they keep opposing the Republican mainstream.  They seem to be gung-ho for wars abroad, welcome immigrants, and have every other flaw of the other two parties.  Do they oppose abortion?  Not really, tea parties stay out of moral issues.  But there's one thing we can count on concerning the undefinable Tea Party:

They are against the bailout, the stimulus, and Obama's health care bill.

Unfortunately, more and more proof keeps rolling in that of all government programs, these are the least justifiable to be upset about.  Trust the hapless tea partiers to summon rallies of millions of people over successful government programs while ignoring the white whales all around them that actually might have mattered.

Let's look at recent news to show what I'm talking about:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/22/politics/main6606694.shtml

"Geithner told the Congressional Oversight Panel at a hearing that banks have repaid about 75 percent of the bailout money they received, and the government's investments in aided banks have brought a return to taxpayers of $21 billion, in income from dividends, sales of warrants and stock, and fees from canceled guarantees."

"The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that taxpayers will lose $36 billion. A large part of the money needed to repay the government will come from the sale of assets."

So the bailout wasn't giving $700 billion dollars away to assorted special interests.  It was paying, ultimately, $36 billion dollars to save this country's confidence in the financial system, restore our stock market, and restart a collapsing economy.  That's a tiny bill for such an enormous achievement.  $36 billion is pocket change, it's less than what was spent on previous financial slides.

Consider the Savings and Loans crisis in 1989: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis

"The US government ultimately appropriated 105 billion dollars to resolve the crisis. After banks repaid loans through various procedures, there was a net loss to taxpayers of approximately $124 billion dollars by the end of 1999.^[21]"

Naturally, $124 billion in 1999 dollars is worth more than 2010 dollars too.  So a recession that was much less severe was cured through government bailouts at four times the expense, and it's labeled a success.  But when the current government does a masterful job of saving the economy for loose change, they get labeled as communists or corrupt parasites, etc.  The electorate has lost its mind, it no longer even checks the facts before driving to Washington D.C. to protest bills that probably saved their retirement funds.

This alone should put conservatives, libertarians, and tea partiers to shame.  They said government intervention in the economy is always a bad idea and always results in worse pain later -- but that didn't happen.  The bailout prevented a private market failure while costing nothing to the taxpayer and causing no damage in the long run.  It is a brilliant success of public, state intervention into the economy and it defies the mathematical laws of libertarianism that say it is physically impossible for the state to make a better economic decision than private individuals.  So much for that 'bedrock scientific law' of economics.

But why stop there?  We may as well look at the stimulus program next:

http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/07/obama-announces-2-billion-for-solar-energy-projects/

Thanks to the Stimulus Program, Obama has given companies the chance to push the research and development of cheap solar power.  Even better, this isn't even a handout, but just another loan.  IE, we'll get the money back someday, and have our solar power too.  Both companies are trying out new technologies, on one hand molten salt energy storage, and on the other completely automated manufacturing of thin-film solar panels.  Investing in research and development traditionally sees a return of 500%, it is the best possible investment.  But private markets rarely invest in it, because of its unpredictability and long timetables.  Only the government lasts long enough to reap the benefits of investments such as these.  Without government spending, we may never make progress with alternative energy.  This would be a real shame, given that someday it could be cheaper, more plentiful, and less polluting than any other source.  The economy is currently locked in a paradoxical relationship with oil.  If the economy goes down, the price of oil goes down, thus helping out the economy.  But if the economy goes up, the price of oil goes up, hurting the economy.  This means the economy is basically a prisoner confined within the walls of oil fluctuations.  If the economy ever started ripping along, oil would jump back to $150 a barrel and cause another recession.  Therefore the economy is stuck in a sort of eternal recession that helps us ration our dwindling supplies of oil and keep the price at the more reasonable $75 a barrel.  This is ridiculous.  We need to get out of oil with new energy technologies.  The private market isn't changing fast enough.  This stimulus package is our best attempt yet at a true solution.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/28/government-to-double-avai_n_627669.html

"Broadband is about investment, innovation, jobs and opportunity, and spectrum is vital infrastructure for broadband," Genachowski said in a statement. "The administration's strong action today is a critical step toward ensuring that America will lead the world in mobile broadband."

My thoughts exactly.  Broadband internet access not only improves standards of living (the goal of the economy), but productivity.  The faster people can move information around, and the more they can move around, and the more places they can move it around from, the better your business will perform.  Obama is moving forward on better broadband internet at the same time as Europe, Australia, and the rest of the civilized world have unveiled their own plans for improvement.  This is thanks to the FCC broadband plan which in turn is funded by the stimulus package.  So our stimulus package just got us twice as much spectrum to carry our iphone traffic with.  Thank you stimulus.  I'm sure people also complained about FDR's electrification program, saying electricity is for wimps and it's just wasted money.  However, electricity increases the hours of light and thus increases productivity, giving gains that far outstrip costs to the business community.  It's due to just this sort of private enterprise short-sightedness that government is always the best choice for infrastructure development.

Next let's turn to news on Health Care --

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65M0SU20100623

When Obama arrived on the scene, America was the worst civilized nation on Earth when it came to health care.

"(Reuters) - Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality, less efficiency and have the least equitable system, according to a report released on Wednesday."

These sorts of reports come out regularly, practically every couple months, but Americans still refused to change, shuddering in fear of 'socialism' and 'handouts' while ignoring their own outrageously priced health insurance and lack of access to care.

"In 2007, health spending was $7,290 per person in the United States, more than double that of any other country in the survey.
Australians spent $3,357, Canadians $3,895, Germans $3,588, the Netherlands $3,837 and Britons spent $2,992 per capita on health in 2007. New Zealand spent the least at $2,454."

"We rank last on safety and do poorly on several dimensions of quality," Schoen told reporters. "We do particularly poorly on going without care because of cost. And we also do surprisingly poorly on access to primary care and after-hours care."

If this is the free market, let's try socialism.  Every other country we're being compared to has some sort of universal public health care.  Not only does it cost half as much, but it treats more people, and the people of those countries have a longer length of life.  There is basically nothing we can point to that explains America's health care system as in any way advantageous.  Sure, we can whine about minorities dragging us down, but the fact is we have these minorities and it's our own fault for importing them out of love of cheap labor.  Maybe Canada and New Zealand aren't composed of total retards and picked their immigrants wisely, and so maybe now we have to pay the price that they don't.  Go figure.

Was Obamacare the solution?  I'm guessing not.  We would have done better to just go fishing for some other country's public plan that is well known to work well, and just implemented that wholesale.  However, Obama did what was politically possible, which always results in ugly and flawed legislation.  If there are problems with Obamacare, you can blame it all on the republicans, for obstructing any more innovative or rational plans.  At least Democrats understand that when something is broken, it needs to be fixed though.  We can't just sit at dead last in all rankings forever while claiming we have the best health care on Earth and the free market miraculously delivers everything at lower prices and higher quality.  Now that health care has been reformed once, maybe the ball has been set rolling, and it can be reformed again and again in the future, until we get it right.  The worst possible answer is to do nothing, so from that point of view, the health care bill was an improvement.

Why does the Tea Party gather together hundreds of thousands of flag wavers and sign bearers over these trivial bills that cost very little and look to be succeeding, while ignoring a military that has produced 4,000 dead Americans over ten years and costs us one trillion dollars a year to fund.  If killing Americans is so worthwhile, I'm fairly sure we could kill more for cheaper.  If that isn't the goal of the military, explain to me what possible other objective it has achieved in the last ten years.  Disarming an Iraq that had no WMD?  Or perhaps it was driving out the Taliban who still control half the country?  Or was it capturing a Bin Laden who's still safe and free?  Our wars and military funding have accomplished nothing.  Nothing but heartache and loss.  It is outrageous that no one is criticizing the military's wasteful spending while attacking programs like NASA.  So long as republicans turn a blind eye to the pork barrel program of all pork barrel programs, how dare they criticize anything the democrats want?  We could pay off the debt, get rid of the deficit, lower taxes, provide free health care for all, or anything else we wanted, if only we would slash military funding and stop invading countries overseas.  But apparently it's 'socialism' unless we pay off the debt via not covering sick children.  The tea party sure has their priorities straight.  Killing innocents abroad = money well spent.  Saving innocent lives at home = a waste of precious tax dollars.  Republicans are a death cult.