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ScottC
yellojktWe are on the road in 25 minutes or so, and I won’t check in again until tomorrow night, but I thought TrollMcWingnut would find this NYT column of interest.
Whose Tea Party Is It?
By THEDA SKOCPOL and VANESSA WILLIAMSONNewt Gingrich’s brief turn as presidential front-runner was only the latest paroxysm of a tumultuous Republican primary season. What’s going on? Tensions within the Tea Party help explain the volatility of the Republican primary campaign, as candidates seek to appeal to competing elements of the Tea Party with varying success.
For our new book, “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” we interviewed Tea Party activists across the country over a sixteen-month period and found that the movement is not the monolith it is sometimes portrayed as. The conservative political upsurge has grassroots and elite components with divergent interests and goals. Mitt Romney, no favorite of the Tea Party grassroots, is currently pitching his candidacy to Tea Party elites, while Newt Gingrich and other contenders are vying for the rank-and-file Tea Party supporters.
We learned about grassroots Tea Party groups by attending their meetings, interviewing active members and reading hundreds of their websites and message boards. In early 2011, these Tea Partiers had no consistent favorite for the Republican nominee, supporting everyone from Ron Paul to Mike Huckabee to Donald Trump, but they did have one goal in mind for 2012: beating Barack Obama. As one Tea Party member we met in Virginia put it, “we have to get Obama out. Obama and the Communists he’s surrounded himself with.”
In recent weeks, Gingrich has reached out to these grassroots Tea Party voters, older white middle-class conservatives who remember him from his glory days as an insurgent Democrat slayer. Gingrich’s aggressive style and blistering critiques of the Democrats resonate with Tea Party voters. Gingrich has accused Democrats of socialist tendencies for decades; as early as 1984, he claimed that a Democratic member of the House of Representatives was distributing “communist propaganda.”
But Gingrich has also tapped into what we identified as Tea Partiers’ most fundamental concern: their belief that hardworking American taxpayers are being forced to foot the bill for undeserving freeloaders, particularly immigrants, the poor and the young. Young people “just feel like they are entitled,” one member of the Massachusetts Tea Party told us. A Virginia interviewee said that today’s youth “have lost the value of work.”
These views were occasionally tinged with ethnic stereotypes about immigrants “stealing” from tax-funded programs, or minorities with a “plantation mentality.” When Gingrich talks about “inner-city” children having “no habits of working,” he is appealing to a widely held sentiment among the Tea Party faithful.
What’s more, Gingrich’s comparatively humane stance on immigration reform — offering immigrants a path to legal status with the approval of local community members — is more palatable to Tea Party members than one might expect. First, it reduces federal authority over a key Tea Party issue, a policy that appeals to the “states’ rights” conservatives who fill the seats at Tea Party meetings. Crucially, Gingrich is not offering, as Rick Perry did, taxpayer-funded benefits to unauthorized immigrants, a policy described by one Tea Party activist we spoke to as money wasted on “moochers.”
Immigration was always a central, and sometimes the central, concern expressed by Tea Party activists, usually as a symbol of a broader national decline. Asked why she was a member of the movement, a woman from Virginia asked rhetorically, “what is going on in this country? What is going on with immigration?” A Tea Party leader in Massachusetts expressed her desire to stand on the border “with a gun” while an activist in Arizona jokingly referred to an immigration plan in the form of a “12 million passenger bus” to send unauthorized immigrants out of the United States.
In a survey of Tea Party members in Massachusetts we conducted, immigration was second only to deficits on the list of issues the party should address. Another man, after we interviewed him in the afternoon, took us aside at a meeting that evening to say specifically that he wished he had said more about immigration because that was really his top issue.
Tea Party activists are not uniformly opposed to government social programs, however. Our interviewees were very anxious that Social Security and Medicare be maintained. “I’ve been working since I was 16 years old, and I do feel like I should someday reap the benefit. I’m not looking for a handout. I’m looking for a pay out of what I paid into,” one Tea Party member explained. Their support for these programs was not just self-interested; several Tea Partiers said they would take a benefit cut if the savings stayed in the Social Security fund. One woman, a regular attendee of her local Tea Party, offered solutions that seemed totally out of keeping with the stereotypes of Tea Party members as knee-jerk tax cutters. After suggesting that any benefit cuts be aimed at those in the “upper income brackets,” she went so far as to say that she “would not mind a tax increase to try to get the country right again.”
Given the Tea Partiers’ abiding support for two key pillars of the American social safety net, it is no surprise that Gingrich’s plan for a Social Security overhaul is aimed only at young workers, not the retirees filling the rows at Tea Party meetings. But Mitt Romney has taken a different path, expressing his support for the Ryan budget plan that features huge tax cuts for the very wealthy paid for with relatively near-term Medicare cuts.
Many observers have suggested that Romney’s support for the unpopular Ryan budget was a misstep. But considered from another perspective, Romney is making a strategic move to aim for a different part of the Tea Party, the free-market elites and funders.
Cutting these programs is unlikely to appeal to the grassroots Tea Party, but local Tea Party members are only marginally aware of the national advocacy occurring in their name. Asked about national groups, local activists tended to shake their heads in confusion. In a typical complaint, one leader of a local Arizona Tea Party group told us, “sometimes when you sign up for a site, it puts out tentacles,” sharing information so that visitors receive a bewildering array of emails from other groups.Long-standing elite advocacy organizations that rallied around the Tea Party label in 2009 and 2010, like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, were crucial to the Tea Party phenomenon, providing funding for national rallies and conservative candidates, and focusing attention on well-practiced spokespeople to represent the Tea Party in the media and in Washington. But the national advocates have only tenuous ties to the grassroots Tea Party groups and are in no way accountable to the Tea Party at the local level. Their policy agenda is different as well. FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have sought major reforms of Social Security and Medicare for years — long before the Tea-Party label gained currency.
Tea Partiers also receive their information primarily, or in some cases exclusively, from Fox News and talk radio, outlets that are unlikely to turn a critical eye on conservative advocacy organizations. This lack of connection between grassroots and elite Tea Party-ism may allow Romney to placate the wealthy opponents of Social Security and Medicare without irking the Tea Party base.
For both Romney and Gingrich, appealing to the Tea Party is a bit of a stretch. Both men have been around too long not to have taken positions too moderate for the new, extreme-right, tea-infused Republican Party. In particular, there is little Romney can do to make Tea Party activists enthusiastic about him during the primary season. Though his claims to a businessman’s expertise should appeal to the many small business owners in the Tea Party, no one we interviewed had good things to say about anything but his potential electability.
But Republican primary voters, including those in the Tea Party, want to win the 2012 general election. As one Tea Partier told us, Romney is “not quite conservative enough – but we have to get Obama out.” They will overlook past heresies, even “RomneyCare,” in a candidate they believe can win the general election.
As long as the big Tea Party funders back Romney’s candidacy or stay on the sidelines, Romney has a good chance of riding out other candidates’ surges in popularity and using his vast organizational and financial advantages to beat out his opponents for the Republican nomination. At that point, the grassroots Tea Party members will have little influence; instead, momentum will shift even further towards the elite policy advocates. And these well-funded groups, which benefited from the Tea Party’s momentum in the first years of the Obama administration, will continue to seek their own policy goals, including those at odds with the positions of local Tea Partiers.
Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard University, and Vanessa Williamson, a graduate student in government and social policy at Harvard, are the authors of the new book “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.”
Filed under: Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
Thanks Mark, interesting.Sounds like these Tea Partyers are a bunch of "bitter clingers."I guess if the NYT and the Democrats (BIRM) are hammers, we're just a buncha nails.
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Again, as a lay observer, I've just seen no sign of the Tea Party being a national phenomenon in terms of influencing national elections. They seem to be a serious force at the district level (which is important for more reasons than just the house–I'm thinking state legislatures, city governments, and redistricting to name a few things). But it seems that the Tea Party was a wash when it came to senate candidates–so I'm not expecting them to be a huge influence as to the final outcome of the primaries. But I expect they will remain influential, district by district, for many election cycles to come.
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Our interviewees were very anxious that Social Security and Medicare be maintained. “I’ve been working since I was 16 years old, and I do feel like I should someday reap the benefit. I’m not looking for a handout. I’m looking for a pay out of what I paid into,” one Tea Party member explained. Their support for these programs was not just self-interested; several Tea Partiers said they would take a benefit cut if the savings stayed in the Social Security fund. One woman, a regular attendee of her local Tea Party, offered solutions that seemed totally out of keeping with the stereotypes of Tea Party members as knee-jerk tax cutters. After suggesting that any benefit cuts be aimed at those in the “upper income brackets,” she went so far as to say that she “would not mind a tax increase to try to get the country right again.”Bitter clingers, indeed! Why, those crazy Tea Party folks . . . so unreasonable, so inflexible, so knee-jerk . . .
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Considering the cohesiveness of the R Senators in the last legislature, I'd say the Tea Party had a tremendous effect. The NV and DE nominees, for all their faults, certainly had a huge influence on the likes of the Maine sisters, Luger and all of the other favorite Republican Senators of the Demorats. Do I really care if the Republicans get to control Senate committees? At what point does splitting up the goodies of the Federal budget stop being more important than stopping the fiscal calamity we're heading for?
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"I’ve been working since I was 16 years old, and I do feel like I should someday reap the benefit. I’m not looking for a handout. I’m looking for a pay out of what I paid into"The disconnect between the first and second half of this astounds me. It is a handout.
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This just reinforces that unless voter attitudes change reagrding SS and Medicare all the talk from both sides is going to be just talk. If voters on both sides are as tied to Medicare as they appear to be, it's hard for me to imagine a politician having the courage to essentially tell voters I know better than you. That's especially true when both sides have domogogued virtually any proposed change to the program. And really, we can talk tax cuts and increases all we want, but it is little more than a waste of time (although fun) unless and until we address Medicare in a meaningful way (the ACA does not do so).
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NoVA:The disconnect between the first and second half of this astounds me. It is a handout.I don't see the disconnect at all. The cold, hard math may show that, on average, recipients are indeed getting a handout, at least eventually eventually. But conceptually the program has been sold as an insurance program…pay in now, get back later. It shouldn't surprise anybody that people actually view it as such, and I don't think there is any disconnect at all in thinking that, having paid into the system one's whole life, one is actually owed something on the back end.
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"But conceptually the program has been sold as an insurance program"but that's not what it is. it takes all of 30 seconds of research to know that. "having paid into the system one's whole life, one is actually owed something on the back end." That's the disconnect. you're owed nothing for paying in, regardless of how the program is sold. the fact that he's paid in since he was 16 is meaningless without a contractual right to benefits, which is a feature the program has never had. that said, i do appreciate that he's been lied to his entire working life.
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This may not apply specifically to you, Scott, but many on the Right refer to SS as an entitlement program which, seems to me, is inconsistent with the position taken by the Tea Partier.
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NoVA:That's the disconnect. you're owed nothing for paying in, regardless of how the program is sold.There is a difference between being owed something legally and being owed something morally. Surely this Tea Partier is speaking in moral terms, not legal terms. And I would have a hard time arguing with him. We can debate about how much of what he might get is "owed" and how much would be properly characterized as a "handout". But that a moral injustice would be done to him if he was not paid anything is not, I think, debateable. This is precisely the (inevitable, once the program was invented and implemetned) dilemma faced by anyone trying to "fix" SS. People who were forced to pay into SS for the last half a century are most surely, in a moral sense, owed something by the government that took their money. But the only way the government can make good on that moral obligation is to take more from someone else, thus obligating itself further.
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"But the only way the government can make good on that moral obligation is to take more from someone else, thus obligating itself further."Just don't call it a Ponzi scheme! 😉
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can we pick this up tomorrow? i'm crashing on something right now.
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but that's not what it is. it takes all of 30 seconds of research to know that. It's a socialized, mandatory insurance program, not an an "entitlement", if we're going to the typical contemporary usage of the word as a proxy for welfare. But we generally use "entitlement" to describe wealth redisributed that people, in fact, are not entitled to in the strictest sense, so language gets muddy. But Social Security, like Medicare, are insurance programs–poorly run, poorly funded (to the tune of being fraudulently run and funded, if a private entity operated in that manner), but aren't welfare in the sense that food stamps, welfare, WIC, etc., are. I could also include Unemployment Insurance in the "actually insurance" formulation, though endless extensions beyond any original commitment of a payout makes that more of an entitlement than insurance–so clearly any government managed "insurance" program is, in the end, going to get bailed out by taxpayer money, if necessary. However, I still think there is a clear divide between programs meant for the general good, and socialized insurance. We are eligible, based on our contributions, for some form of SS or Medicare (and our payouts are, in some form or fashion, determined by the level or length of our contribution). Many of us (one would hope that most of us) will never need WIC or welfare or food stamps, but our taxes go to these programs for the benefit of society at large, presumably, but these are not characterized or structured as insurance programs.Whether the government should be running insurance programs or runs them well . . . these are different questions. But I agree that the Tea Partier in question is entirely reasonable to expect a system that he has paid into all his life to have something to return to him, especially when he's been told that is the case. many on the Right refer to SS as an entitlement programSome do, but do many? I've always seen it as something that could use individual accounts, with something to invest in to other than a generalized retirement fund (starting with T-Bills and ending with some top 15 or top 25 index funds). But I don't consider it an entitlement. What I most often here folks on the right refer to SS as is a Ponzi scheme–and it really is, but that has to do with funding more so than the fact of it. Of course, it's a Ponzi scheme with mandatory working-population wide participation, which makes this method of funding, though less than ideal, much more sustainable than the Madoff variety.
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can we pick this up tomorrow? i'm crashing on something right now.No! Comments section arguments are much more important!
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Entitlement has a specific political definition in that there is an expectation of a payment or service as long as certain criteria are met. Medicare is an entitlement in that the rules that were in force when people entered the system should be honored.
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The cold, hard math may show that, on average, recipients are indeed getting a handout, at least eventually eventuallyAs do folks who get $200k to rebuild their house when they've only paid $50k in insurance over the years, I suppose. But, that's why it's called insurance. Contributors who die before they can collect, or only after collecting a small part of their contribution, do not benefit, but SS is an insurance system based on the idea–actuarially sound (or, as much as one could ever hope for the government to get) at the time–that enough people would not survive to collect that those who did could be paid for without busting the bank. Of course, this also involves a certain level of working-age folks working, and a sufficiently growing population (that can also find jobs).
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Thank you, yellojkt, that's more coherent and concise than what I was trying to say.
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kevin:But, that's why it's called insurance.No, it's called insurance strictly as a marketing tool, in order to fool people into thinking it is something it is not. It is not like house insurance at all. actuarially sound (or, as much as one could ever hope for the government to get) at the timeI think you'd have a hard time making the case that it has ever been actuarily sound.
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But we generally use "entitlement" to describe wealth redisributed that people, in fact, are not entitled to in the strictest sense, so language gets muddy.That's a generous and nuanced explanation of when "entitlement" is used. It seems its mostly used to describe a program that someone wants to get rid of or to get an applause at a GOP political event.
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BTW, kevin:As do folks who get $200k to rebuild their house when they've only paid $50k in insurance over the years,You'll note that I said "on average" recipients may be getting a handout. You will be hardpressed to find a non-coercive "insurance" program where the payouts average more than the pay-ins. At least for very long.
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ashot:It seems its mostly used to describe a program that someone wants to get rid of or to get an applause at a GOP political event.In this sense, then, it is akin to the use of the term "investment" to describe a program that someone wants to implement or to get an applause line at a Dem political event. 😉
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I think we have two new entries in The Devil's Dictionary
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In this sense, then, it is akin to the use of the term "investment" to describe a program that someone wants to implement or to get an applause line at a Dem political event. 😉 Well played, Scott. It might an amusing exercise to draft a list of applause worthy terms or political cliches at Republican vs Democratic events. I wonder what, if any, overlap there would be. I'm not sure the significance, if any, of the fact that you all seem to disagree on what SS is exactly, but all seem to agree that it is an entitlement. Based on comments here and in other SS discussions, SS is: insurance, not at all like insurance, a Ponzi Scheme, not a Ponzie Scheme, close enough to a Ponzie Scheme to be called a Ponzi Scheme and I'm sure several other descpritions. Regardless, there is, or appears to be, broad agreement that it is an entitlement which seems politically expedient. That isn't to say that a broad category of programs can't be an entitlement, but given the generally negative view of "entitlements" it seems convenient that the different views of SS seem to fade into the background once this term is uttered.
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It seems its mostly used to describe a program that someone wants to get rid of or to get an applause at a GOP political event.Strictly anecdotal, and based from memory, but I've heard the term "entitlement" used across the political spectrum. Given the potential implication that recipients are genuinely entitled to what they are receiving, I'm not sure the terms origins weren't an attempt on pro-redstributive spin. Of course, that's strictly speculation on my part. In any case, "wealth redistribution" seems like a better applause line. I think you'd have a hard time making the case that it has ever been actuarily sound.Perhaps, but when it first started, many more people cooperated in regards to dying promptly in order to avoid payout. Of course, it's not wise to assume such mortality rates for a never-ending program.
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I wonder what, if any, overlap there would be. I bet they both frequently indicate that it's all the other guy's fault. 😉
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I think we have two new entries in The Devil's DictionarySadly, I did not see entitlement or investment. Or perhaps that's a good thing. Anyway, I did enjoy the following definition:ECONOMY, n. Purchasing the barrel of whiskey that you do not need for the price of the cow that you cannot afford.
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" It is not like house insurance at all."It is for the dependents of people who die young.
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" to the tune of being fraudulently run and funded, if a private entity operated in that manner"When insurance companies find actuarial flaws that increase their liabilities, they raise premiums. Repubs refuse that solution for SS, instead preferring the 'fraudulent' status quo, largely because it helps them get elected. Dens, of course, refuse to cut payouts for the same reason.
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bsimon:It is for the dependents of people who die young.In that sense, charitable donations are exactly like insurance. So is welfare. So is found money. What a revelation.Obviously we were discussing the way in which insurance/SS works, not the usefulness that paid benefits have for recipients.
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bsimon:When insurance companies find actuarial flaws that increase their liabilities, they raise premiums.And customers have the choice of not buying at the new levels.Oh, and on insurance that has a long term contract (like, say, whole life) rather than annual rollover contracts like, say, car or house insurance, they cannot simply raise premiums. You pay the premium agreed to in the contract for the life of the contract.
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When insurance companies find actuarial flaws that increase their liabilities, they raise premiumOr they have to reduce payouts or coverage, which is the other possibility (like increasing age of retirement or, as the Obama admin has done, not signing off on yearly COLAs.
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" In that sense, charitable donations are exactly like insurance. So is welfare. So is found money. What a revelation.Obviously we were discussing the way in which insurance/SS works, not the usefulness that paid benefits have for recipients."Seems to me like you're deliberately ignoring the similarities between SS & insurance in order to maintain a negative view of the program. Is it exactly like auto or life insurance? No, clearly. But neither are auto & life insurance identical. So what? They're still insurance.Kw- I also noted Dem intransigence at adjusting payments.
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To be clear, I don't think either side (due to all the votes in the SS-recipient demographic) are anxious to reduce payments or raise the retirement age.
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bsimon:Seems to me like you're deliberately ignoring the similarities between SS & insurance in order to maintain a negative view of the program.Seems to me that you are searching for any irrelevant similarities between SS and insurance in order to maintain the marketing fiction that it is that.One can, I suppose, call it insurance if one wants. But in most relevant ways it is unlike any insurance program as traditionally understood. "Premiums" are not determined by risk factors. Money paid in is not placed in third party investments. The program is not intended to be, and has no need to be, actuarially sound. And perhaps most significantly, no legal contract between the "insured" and the "insurer" actually exists. The "insurer" can unilaterally alter the (in reality non-existent) "contract" any time it wants.
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""Premiums" are not determined by risk factors."I can only imagine the reaction if they were. "Government is choosing acceptable behaviors! The commies have won!!" I can't help but note, though, that like some 'life insurance' products, premiums do affect payout.
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bsimon:I can only imagine the reaction if they were. "Government is choosing acceptable behaviors!And a perfectly reasonable reaction it would be. When the government coerces people into doing something, how can anyone but the government be sensibly said to be "choosing" anything?I can't help but note, though, that like some 'life insurance' products, premiums do affect payout.To some extent, yes.
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That's the problem with entitlement. If I'm forced at gunpoint to pay into them, and if I want to keep my forced payments as low as possible, it behooves me to try and force you into behavior that would keep my costs low. In fact, it's only fair that I can force you to, for example, exercise daily, or only be allowed to buy "healthy" foods. Further, wouldn't it be fair to decline to provide benefits if I can demonstrate that you engage in unhealthy activities? If not, why not?
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In fact, it's only fair that I can force you to, for example, exercise daily, or only be allowed to buy "healthy" foods.Except there's an entire other argument where, if you subtract the goal of longevity and only include cost control, there's no reason to believe daily exercise and healthy foods decrease overall health costs. So, it would actually behoove you to give away free cigarettes and legalize drugs, and encourage risky behaviors with high death rates. 😉
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Of course, the problem with that strategy is loss of productivity and productive workers can mean loss of tax revenue and GDP.
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kevin:So, it would actually behoove you to give away free cigarettes and legalize drugs, and encourage risky behaviors with high death rates…Of course, the problem with that strategy is loss of productivity and productive workers can mean loss of tax revenue and GDP. Perhaps so. But McWing's broader point remains…given such government spending, there is, to those who are net payers into the system, an optimal type and level of behavior which they are perfectly justified in demanding, via legislation, from net receivers.
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So the question remains, can I, through law, force you to modify your behavior? And if so, could there be any limit?
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The other thing that's interesting to me is that Medicare and SS constitute a massive transfer of wealth from those of working age (who are younger and financially poorer than retiree's) to retiree's (who are the richest set of Americans.) Was that the intent of these programs? How do we correct this rather bizarre situation we find ourselves in where we have the poorest being taxed for the benefit of the wealthiest?
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