(2nd part of an incisive article by one of the smartest, most knowledgeble writers on the political scene--Michael Barone)
In contrast, the tea party protesters, many of them as fractious and loudmouthed as David Brooks thinks, are interested in substantive political issues. They decry the dangers of expanding the national debt, increasing government spending, and putting government in command of the health care sector.
Their concerns have basis in fact. The national debt is on a trajectory to double as a percentage of the economy over 10 years, and the Democrats' health care bills threaten to bend the cost curve up. Higher taxes could choke off economic recovery and keep unemployment up near double-digit rates for years.
Last year's stimulus bill surreptitiously raised the budget baseline for many domestic spending programs and sent money to state and local governments -- a payoff to the public employee unions who spent more than $100 million to elect Democrats in 2008.
Agree with the tea party folk or not, these are substantive public policy issues of fundamental importance.
Or look at other issues on which Brooks notes, correctly, that Americans have been moving away from positions "associated with the educated class."
The educated class thinks that gun control can reduce crime. But over the last 15 years, crime rates have plummeted thanks to Giuliani-type police tactics and while 40 states have laws permitting law-abiding citizens to get licenses to carry concealed weapons.
"The educated class believes in global warming," Brooks notes. But ordinary Americans have been noticing that temperatures have not been rising in the last decade as climate scientists' models predicted, and they may have noticed those Climategate e-mails that show how climate scientists have been jiggering the statistics and suppressing opposing views.
On these issues the educated class is faith-based and the ordinary Americans who increasingly reject their views are fact-based, just as the Obama enthusiasts are motivated by style and the tea partiers by substance.
As the educated class bitterly clings to its contempt for the increasing numbers not enlightened enough to share its views, other Americans have noticed, even in the liberal heartland of Massachusetts, where Republican Scott Brown seems on the brink of an upset victory in the special Senate election next Tuesday. That would have reverberations for the educated class an awful lot like that tea party back in 1773.
Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washingtonexaminer.com. His columns appear Wednesday and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
Read more at the Washington Examiner:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama_s-rapturous-style-versus-tea-party-substance-8756474-81280502.html#ixzz0cbYquzKC
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