Tea Party should leave GOP

According to a CNN poll published last week, Congress's approval ratings have sank to a new low.  With only 14% of Americans approving of the job Congress is doing, the numbers are on a fast track to match the current prime lending rate, which according the website bankrate.com is 3.25%.

Please keep in mind that I am not particularly fond of the way our political system works these days.  It seems our elected officials say one thing, but then backtrack after browsing through their campaign finance reports.  It is one of the reasons I strongly support a three, or even four-party system, as opposed to the broken two-party system now in place.  Unless the members of Congress, and the Senate can muster the moral wherewithal to ban PACs and lobbyists, thereby severely limiting campaign contributions, nothing will change.  Don't hold your breathe waiting for that one to happen.

At the least, a three-party system will dilute the flow of campaign funds.  Many corporations and Political Action Groups contribute to both Republican and Democratic candidates.  This is akin to a gambler picking multiple numbers at the roulette table in order to increase his chances of winning.  A third party would dilute the share of campaign funds available, and in theory at least, cause these contributors to pause, and evaluate which candidates best suit their interests.

Yet the main argument against allowing new members to join the exclusive political party club is that new legislative members lack the know-how to "work the system."  If you need a reference, the recent debt ceiling debacle is a good example.  Democrats are expending an awful lot of energy blaming Tea Party Republicans for their inexperience, which they claim led to S&P's downgrading of the country's credit rating.  What they should be doing is trying to find solutions to curb the out-of-control debt they and their Republican counterparts have run up over the past decade.  And yes, you read the previous line correctly, Republicans share a lot of blame for this deficit.  

In fact, Republicans should probably be saddled with more of the blame because based upon the party's supposed fiscal conservatism.  You saw the mortgage bubble grow bigger and wider in 2003, yet only President Bush urged Congress to put limits on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an effort you and the Democrats ignored.  I know politicians have short memories, but the GOP did have control of the House until the 2006 mid-term elections.  You cannot hang this all around the Dems.

We know why liberal members of Congress like Barney Frank and Maxine Waters did not want the money to stop flowing.  Everyone in America it seemed could purchase a house, whether they could financially afford to or not.  But the conservative Republicans?  What was their reasoning in all this?  Money and votes.  GOP members of the House did not have the guts to rein in unscrupulous and reckless mortgage lenders and risk alienating them in the 2006 mid-terms.  By the way, how did that strategy work out for you?

Which brings me to my biggest gripe regarding "Tea Party" Republicans.  You are not Republicans.  Have you not noticed that while Democrats have essentially referred to you and stupid and ignorant, ingrained members of the GOP have offered little in the way of defense.  

It is because you speak in simple terms.  You have shown that not every solution to every problem has to be  complicated.  I know this flies in the face of Washington's standard operating procedure.  Somewhere in some manual given to all freshman legislators (We will refer to it as the D.C. Legislator's Handbook), there is a line which goes something like this; "When confronted with a problem, no matter how small or insignificant, find the most impossibly complicated, and expensive procedure to solve it."  

Could you imagine what would happen if three members of Congress were walking down Massachusetts Ave. and found a cat stuck in a tree.  It would cost the taxpayers no less than a million dollars to get poor kitty down.  That is their thought process; it has to be!  How else do you amass a $14 trillion deficit that is still rising, and call the other side stupid?  (By the way, that is probably another line buried somewhere in the D.C. Legislator's Handbook; "When left with no other viable answer to an opponent's question, make him appear stupid.  If that does not work, just call them stupid.")

But the Tea Party members do not have to sit idly by and take it.  They have everyone's attention now, and Congress's approval ratings cannot go much lower.  Well, they could, but when you are a mere 14 points from hitting the floor, why quibble over semantics.  Take your shot.  There may never be a better time.

And if things do not work out over the next few years, you can always point to how long it took to get in this mess, and absolve yourself of all blame. You weren't here yet.  Blame the other two parties, and along the way, call them stupid. Of course this how Congress's approval ratings got so low in the first place, but you just got here. You gotta start somewhere in learning how to play the Washington blame game.