What’s behind tea party movement?

House cuts spending and subdues regulators, hoping to free businesses from burdensome regulations. Why is protecting the environment and people’s health “burdensome?” We teach children that self-control frees them of parental control. Why expect less from adults and their industries?

The GOP mantra “the American People have spoken,” is catchy but masks the reality. One of America’s top 10 polluters, Koch Industries, wields financial influence in Congress and is waging war on the principle of free elections in America. To succeed, they needed the sacred American vote, available only through influence. They achieved that through the tea party, organizing, training the trainers and funding candidates, they pandered to a public tired of inefficient government.

With a foundation laid by the Supreme Court Citizens United decision and creation of the tea party, they were able to seize partial control in recent elections. Now, greedily focused on reducing regulation of business and support programs for the people, they avow to save money, their own, and at all costs.

Corporate subsidies are not on the chopping block, programs benefiting working people and the disadvantaged are. The congressional pension program is sacrosanct, but Social Security and Medicare, paid by working people’s payroll deductions, are under the cleaver and framed as “entitlement programs” to influence, subconsciously, the fiscally responsible. “Entitlement” does describe Congress’s pension program wherein they are fully vested after only five years, eligible to retire at age 62 and, depending on length of service, eligible for full or partial pensions at age 50.

While distracted citizens focus on Washington’s circus, the Koch brothers gather at covert seminars with the rich and influential to discuss plans moving forward. Americans are spinning their patriotic wheels as the evil smoke curls around their feet.

Gail Talbot

Huntley