Help! I'll Be Debating the Tea Party...

[OneAngryDemocrat]

I'll be debating the leader of the local Tea Party at our public library in July. We have agreed to to toss up to 10 questions, each, into a hat, and pool them for the event. The topic is Paul Ryan's budget. Can you DU'ers think of some questions that I haven't already?

PS: That is DEBATING as in DEBATE, not DE-BAT. I don't think anyone can de-bat the Tea Party.

1. If the Tea Party opposes "Big Government" how can the Tea Party support the concept of a military that takes up fully half of the federal government’s operating budget? Is it the nation's job to police the world?

2. Do we truly have a free market system when large corporations and banks can (and do) get hundreds of billions of dollars in tax subsidies, which are little more than taxpayer funded corporate welfare handouts? Isn't government picking winners and losers by awarding tax subsidies to some companies and penalizing others by fully taxing them?

3. The Tea Party insists on 'small' government, rather than upon 'good' government no matter what its size, but is simultaneously calling for more and more legislation that regulates the personal freedoms of individual Americans (gay marriage bans, the curtailing of abortion rights, et cetera). When the Tea Party calls for smaller government, aren't they REALLY saying they want BIG government in the America's bedrooms, but 'small' government in the America's corporate boardrooms?

4. If tax breaks "create" jobs, why didn't the biggest corporations which paid no taxes whatsoever in 2010 experience phenomenal growth? Does the Tea Party believe that companies which have outsourced American jobs should be rewarded with tax breaks, which is precisely what the Ryan plan does?

5. The criminal prosecution, or even investigating America's bankers for mortgage fraud, has been largely ignored by the Tea Party, while a matter of paramount concern for those who describe themselves as liberals or progressives. If the Tea Party is truely concerned with justice and stopping corporate crime, why has the Tea Party demanded less regulatory oversight for corporations, and not made criminal prosecution for corporate criminals a cornerstone of the movement?

6. The word "corporation" or "company" never appears in the Constitution. Do corporations have constitutional rights, as two recent high-profile split-decision rulings by the Supreme Court have suggested?

7. Corporations exercising their Supreme Court awarded "rights" to free speech effectively grants members of corporate entities more than one voice when participating in our elections– individual members of a corporation speaking as private citizens can contribute to candidates or causes of their choosing, and then give again when donating funds as "corporate persons." This practice also allows them to give, large, secret donations to fund politicians and political causes – is this fair to every other American taxpayer who doesn't, themselves, have a 'corporate' identity? If so, why?

8. The Tea Party has supported union-busting legislation across the country. How does legislatively prohibiting government employees the ability to bargain collectively help those American citizens who just so happen to be government employees? Why should government employees be refused a seat at the table when decisons regarding their hours of work, working conditions, and wages and benefits are decided? What do they lose, as government employees, that other American workers do not, and why?

9. The Tea Party has supported "right-to-work" legislation across the country. How can the Tea Party support "choice" in the work place, and not also support "choice" in the corporate boardroom? Why are labor unions targets for the Tea Party's demand that union funds allocated for political purposes be distributed NOT as the majority of union members decide, but as the individual union member decides, while shareholders in a corporation are not afforded the same liberty to pick and choose where their corporate cash is spent when corporations donate to political causes, no matter what the majority of shareholders say?

10. Torte reform is one of the rallying cries for the Tea Party movement, which penalizes the victims of bona fide medical malpractice, while simultaneously protecting the insurance industry, large pharmceutical companies and other corporate medical concerns. While over 100,000 lives are lost per year due to medical malpractice and bad drugs, are Americans being protected against the privations of the Washington DC health industry lobbyists, or simply being preyed upon, with so-called torte reform legislation?

11. Trillions of dollars are speculated on Wall Street without any sales tax, while average Americans pay 6%, 7% or 8% sales tax on the basic necessities we buy in stores. If the Tea Party demands less taxation and lower deficits, why is it not fighting to stop big corporations from escaping their fair share of taxes, and are, in fact, fighting FOR tax subsidies for the speculators?

[OneAngryDemocrat]

1. I have until...

I have until July 9th to prepare for the event, but these questions are to be handed to my Tea Party opposition pronto. We agreed on having one another's questions beforehand to prep.

[Shagbark Hickory]

2. Will there be head stompers there to handle security?

[OneAngryDemocrat]

3. Actually, no...

...we want the goons to look like unruly and violent people. The cameras will be there.

[Welibs]

26. Haha, good one! I laughed out loud and scared myself. I'm sitting in the dark on the porch. Hahah

[Angry Dragon]

4. Why does the republican party and the teabaggers hate women and children so much??

If regulations are so bad for corporations why do the republicans want so many regulations for living, breathing people??



A thought just crossed my mind: According to IRS rulings a person is not considered to be a person until they take at least one breath.
When has a corporation ever taken one breath?? So according to the IRS they are not people.

[bahrbearian]

5. Those are pretty good question that you posted.

[OneAngryDemocrat]

6. Can you think of others?

Can you think of others?

Again, the topic is the Ryan Budget.

[Volaris]

27. those all strike me as really good, and I don't know if the rest of this will help....

but I wanted to play devil's advocate on a few (it might prevent any nasty surprises on the spot).......

Question 1- Make damn sure the gentleman you will be debating DIRECTLY, is actually IN FAVOR of large military operations that in practice turn the US Military into the worlds police force. I know from some friends and family 'baggers that small government actually means SMALL GOVERNMENT in ALL aspects, and that includes the size of the military.

Question 2, 3(kind of)- The answer is flat out no. Anything else, drop the Hammer on him. And to expand, (if he goes there) it is NOT in the Randian philosophy to have the government creating jobs, that responsibility belongs to the free-market he advocates for. In short, don't let him bash the Pres. over the job creation rate, 'cause hands-off means hands-off, motherfucker, and its the Corps. responsibility to create those jobs. If he says they might need some help nowadays, ask him how "helpful" he thinks small government should be, and if that help extends to things like Healthcare, and MEDICARE? more directly (since the object lesson is supposed to be that the Ryan plan pretty much sucks, but what this is REALLY about is the role of Modern Government heehee.)

Question 6-- No, they don't, and Americas Corp. damn-well KNOW they don't. AND (if this is being taped or broadcast in any way), you can get a half dozen of your local corporations to help you PROVE your argument FOR you, and "any argument to the contrary is absolute bullshit and you fucking know it." Then wait for the replay at 11pm, and see if there are still words that Americas Corp. CAN"T broadcast on television, (because they DON'T possess actual free speech in the Public Square)and see if those local affiliates are smart enough to engage in an act of Civil Disobedience. My guess is, probably not, and if the local affiliates don't, than you can be pretty sure that America's Health Insurance Companies (and their lobbyists who helped Mr. Ryan write his "MEDI-we-don't-CARE plan) don't either. You win. (and on-topic=))

I don't know if any of this will help, but I've found the easiest way to kill naive little bunny rabbits is to let them walk into a trap of their own making, that way, they never suspect the killing blow. And it's FUN.
Good luck, give us an update on how things go, and my hats off to you for doing this on an actual stage instead of your crazy uncle's kitchen.

[OneAngryDemocrat]

30. My Response...

Question 1 - the TP has not made cutting military spending a cornerstone of their movement. If he opposes military spending then where is the public demand for it?

[OneAngryDemocrat]

31. Damn Good...

...responses.

[Hamlette]

7. half the "operating" budget?

Not sure that's right and if so, the word "operating" seems to be unfair.

I'd ask:

1. What would you do to balance the budget? It is not acceptable to say "cut waste" as if waste could be cut you'd have thought the GOP would have done it when they had control of everything. So, what would you cut? Remember, you need to cut something like 20% (Whatever the number is).

2. What country in the world to day or historically fits your model for government and what is it about those countries/times that make it better than the US today? Is there any model for your reforms are you doing it alone.

3. What happens in 20 years, 50 years, if we do nothing about health care costs. The US spends more per capita and a higher % of the GDP than any other country but ranks 37th in quality of health care and it is getting worse. We can't afford it. How do we stop the rising cost of health care as it will surely destroy us.

[Bigmack]

20. It's about 60 % of the "discretionary" budget...

Acquaint yourself... OP er... with what's in the discretionary budget. Then tell the folks about the 60% figure, and they will laugh and mock you. Then you hit them with what it means, and how the military budget paints us into a corner. If they bitch that the non-discretionary budget items need to be be cut... tell them to look at the votes in Congress. Nobody... not even the dumbest Repub will touch most of that shit.

[OneAngryDemocrat]

22. Explain...

If defense is 59% of the discretionary budget, how much of the non-discretionary budget is it?

[Bigmack]

29. Problem is...

the numbers can dance. You want to pick the tune, is all.

The Defense budget is a little over 22% of the total budget...
Our real "defense" budget is about $1.2 Trillion in a year.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/11/1807

The federal budget on Education is about 3%.... Foreign Aid, a favorite whine of the Teabaggers, is about 1%.

[Mz Pip]

8. why do people who have such a mistrust

of goevernment seem to be willing to take whatever corporate America has to offer. Why are corporations given such a free pass while government is perceived as some evil that needs restraining at every opportunity

Give some examples as to how corporations have actually made things better without government riding their asses?

[OneAngryDemocrat]

11. I like!

:)

THAT'S what I'm talking about!!!

[Mz Pip]

32. For example

Health care reform - why are people so willing to accept what health insurance companies do? Can an example be cited when a health insurance company funded the cure of one disease, gave one shot, healed one broken bone? Why should companies who have profit as their bottom line be in charge of health care? what do they do other than take your money and pass it out again?

While the government may take money in the form of taxes to pay for medical care for people, its bottom line isn't profit. It doesn't have a CEO that is making over $50,000 a day(I believe this was the salary that was reported for the CEO of Unitied Health Care). And it won't cancel you if you develop diabetes.

[midnight]

9. I think these are strong points that should make clear to

tea party folks.... that they are being used. I had no idea that wall street paid no sales tax...

[stevenleser]

10. A few

1. Since 1980 and Ronald Reagan, we have been operating with dramatically lower tax rates than the prior 40 or so years, i.e. a supply siders economy. If lower taxes and supply side economics are the way to go, why hasnt our economy been much stronger the last 30 years than the 30 years prior to that. Why at the end of the low tax period is the economy as bad as it has been in the last 60 years?

2. If we cut spending on defense by 50%, and roll back the Bush tax cuts, we will have a balanced budget. Isn't it better to do that than put the burden for doing so on our seniors and on the most vulnerable by cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security?

3. Why is it a good thing to have no inheritance tax? I understand widows and underaged children should be taken care of, but why do adult heirs other than spouses have the right to tax free inheritance of millions of dollars that they never earned?

[OneAngryDemocrat]

13. Question #2...

Can you cite sources for that? I'd love to add it to my arsenal.

[stevenleser]

16. When do you have to submit the questions? I did the research some time ago. Need to pull together

the sources.

[stevenleser]

17. P.S., these debates I had with Tea Party folks may help you

Particularly the first one with the Americans for Prosperity VP, but both will give you ideas both from me, and an idea of what they will likely throw back at you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igXjjeTNGTg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SC742Ymb_A

[Hugabear]

12. Here's one I've always wondered - you can add this as a two-parter for Question 1

If the Tea Party opposes Big Government so much, why are they so interested in what people do in their own private lives, in the privacy of their own home?

[OneAngryDemocrat]

14. That's already in there...

It's in question #3.

[ThoughtCriminal]

15. Does the Tea Party think Canada is a Stalinist Dystopia?

Based on their rhetoric, it must be right?

Expect the usual, and easily debunked, claim that Canadians flee to the U.S. for medical care.

[Welibs]

28. Canada is the most peaceful place for me. My family is in the US and I am in Canada and I

love it. No health care worries, no one cares what your politics are or what you come from or what religion you practice. They don't care what colour your skin is as long as your dog doesn't poop on their lawn you're okay. They live and let live and while it's not perfect, it's what Americans want America to be like for them. I know there are lots of idiots the slam their universal but they are too few to matter. Those oldie baggers get a taste of that and they will fight for it over everything. Hell hath no fury like a granny scorned.

[The Midway Rebel]

18. You will need only two things:

1. Dictionary

2. History book

[OneAngryDemocrat]

19. Or...

1. laptop

[Bigmack]

21. Wireless laptop... ooooooo... I can smell the burning Teabagger from here! nt

[dorksied]

23. Solid questions... about #6 though, you should hit them with this

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

-- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)

Highlight their own parties culpability in bringing to life the thing that Lincoln prophesied over 200 years ago, and ask them how they feel about it.

[MannyGoldstein]

24. Two-part question

1. Do Americans, particularly wealthy Americans, pay more or less in taxes than in 2000?
2. How's that working out for the economy?
3. Why on God's green Earth do you think more tax cuts will work better this time?

[Welibs]

25. I have a couple of good ones. If the tea party is pro-life and anti-

abortion, why are they trying to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that helps prevent unwanted pregnancies with affordable birth control? It doesn't make sense to say you're against abortion if you won't support a program that prevents them.


Are tea partiers aware that SS and Medicare are Dem programs and only the Dems defend them for Americans while the party they vote for doesn't and actively tries to abolish them throwing many Americans into poverty and destitution?


Oh and another one.

Why do the tea people complain and tell gov't to stay out of their lives and their business but then tell the gov't to intrude in everyone else's most intimate and tragic moments? Why is it okay for the gov't to intrude in our lives but leave the right alone? It's ridiculous!

I'm done. Good luck and have fun. These people are the biggest liars on the planet and what they don't know they make up. Easy pickin's for you!

[ieoeja]

33. My 2 questions.

1. The United States averaged an economic depression every 12 to 15 years prior to The New Deal. We have experienced zero economic depressions in the 80 years since then. How do you explain that as mere coincidence?

2. Given that money reinvested is deducted from the income before taxes are calculated, how does a tax increase take away money that could otherwise be invested? As an extreme example, if net income over $1,000,000 dollars was taxed at 100%, wouldn't every penny of income over $1,000,000 be reinvested to avoid paying that tax?

[hfojvt]

34. If you are debating the Ryan plan, then I would ask this

The Ryan plan includes many tax cuts, with most of the benefits going to the rich. Those will reduce revenues. The CBO analysis says this

"The path for revenues as a percentage of GDP was specified by Chairman Ryan’s staff.
The path rises steadily from about 15 percent of GDP in 2010 to 19 percent in 2028
and remains at that level thereafter. There were no specifications of particular revenue
provisions that would generate that path."

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/~/~/media/Fiscal-Times/Research-Center/Budget-Impact/Government-Papers/2011/04/05/04-05-Ryan_Letter-new.ashx?pid=%7BCA9A715A-8E6B-42C6-88D8-088B3DA436CD%7D

Without specifications, other than for tax cuts which would decrease revenues, isn't the Ryan plan just relying on magic or wishful thinking to produce those revenue increases? How can we debate or predict the consequences of a plan that does not include specifications?

****

Note the speifications it does include

"Simplifies tax rates to 10 percent on income up to $100,000 for joint filers, and $50,000 for single filers; and 25 percent on taxable income above these amounts. Also includes a generous standard deduction and personal exemption (totaling $39,000 for a family of four).
Eliminates the alternative minimum tax .
Promotes saving by eliminating taxes on interest, capital gains, and dividends; also eliminates the death tax."

The current lower rates on capital gains and dividends, cost over $91 billion in 2005 and about 95% of the benefits went to people with incomes over $100,000 and over 50% of the benefits went to people with incomes over $2 million. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/81

The Ryan plan to "balance the budget" more than doubles those benefits so it would give over $170 billion a year in tax cuts to people with incomes over $100,000 and over $90 billion in tax cuts to people with incomes over $2,000,000.

Then there's the so-called 'Death tax'. That is the ESTATE tax which, it should be well known, is only paid by large estates. If left alone, it could have raised about $700 billion over the next ten years. That's with a $1,000,000 exemption.

"KLEIN: So how much does this cost? With a $1 million exemption and a 55 percent rate—in other words, what will happen if we do nothing—the estate tax would raise about $700 billion over the next 10 years. The Lincoln-Kyl version would raise less than $300 billion. And the compromise most Democrats have coalesced around—which was the 2009 level, with a $3.5 million exemption and a 45 percent rate—would've brought in a bit less than $400 billion." via the Daily Howler http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh121610.shtml

So there's $160 billion a year in tax cuts going to the rich, and this is a way to balance the budget?

I suppose that "simplifying" the top rate from 39% (the old top rate under Clinton) to 25% is somehow NOT going to be a huge gain for the wealthy (and like reading a tax table was so complicated for the rest of us with taxable income below $100,000.

Why would any SANE plan to balance the budget start with huge tax cuts for the richest Americans? Unless, Ryan isn't crazy, and is really proposing a plan, NOT to balance the budget, but really just to give huge amounts of cash to the rich.

[ImNotTed]

35. Why?

It would be a better use of time speaking to a wall.

[OneAngryDemocrat]

36. I'm not looking for converts...

I'm trying to make them look STOOPID.

The local press has been invited. If it pans out, more people will stand up to them.