- Sep 12, 2008
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I get Goldberg's weekly newsletter. He has an interesting discussion on the similarities and differences between the March on Wall Street and Tea Party people.
Both hate the TARP and government subsides to big business. Both sides are protesting the incestuous relations that impoverish normal people while the connected get fat on graft.
However.....
Both hate the TARP and government subsides to big business. Both sides are protesting the incestuous relations that impoverish normal people while the connected get fat on graft.
However.....
Well, what's sort of fascinating about the Occupy Wall Street/Tea Party comparison is how much overlap there is between their complaints. Scrape off the 31 different kinds of Marxist mold growing on the surface of the 99 Percenters, hose off the stench of urine, bong water, and failure, and you'll find a complaint that many Tea Partiers can appreciate: disgust at corporate bailouts, crony capitalism, and economic mismanagement.
That's a major swath of agreement. The problem? The 99 Percenters' proposed solutions and the Tea Partiers' are absolutely incompatible with each other. The 99 Percenters aren't against taxpayer bailouts -- why would they be? They don't pay much in taxes -- they're just against taxpayer bailouts of the wrong constituencies. After all, if Obama somehow forgave their student loans tomorrow, most of them would go home happy. They want debt forgiveness -- and that's a bailout. Meanwhile, the Tea Parties formed in no small part because, as Rick Santelli put it, taxpayers didn't want to pay for their neighbors' mortgages.
It's really intriguing how the policy differences are informed by cultural differences. The twentysomethings haven't paid much, if anything, in taxes and have received more than they've given. The Tea Partiers tend to be older and have spent a lot of time paying into the system. They resent paying for handouts. The Occupy Wall Streeters resent not getting them. And their definition of greed is not merely wanting to keep your own money, but resisting when others try to take it from you.