Tea Party Incoherence

Publius (whoever that is), reflecting on the Washington rally, writes:

It's also frustrating to hear angry protests from people who would be
outraged if we actually took government services away from them. The
ironic aspect of the Tea Party movement is that it takes place within a
widely-shared (if invisible) consensus that government should pay for lots of
expensive stuff -- schools, retirement, massive military projects, and health
insurance for senior citizens and poor people.

These costs are the bulk of the budget, but any politician who
proposed serious cuts to them would be chased out of town with pitchforks . .
. by the Tea Party people.

The Medicare demagoguing is a perfect example of how internally
contradictory these protests can be. Think about it -- the GOP is
demagoguing "government-run health care" at the same time it demagogues
imaginary cuts to Medicare benefits. I mean, roughly 30%
of the country is in a single-payer system already, and those programs are
extremely popular.

On top of all this, the Obama administration itself is extremely
pro-market and pro-capital (some would say excessively so). And the
examples cited to justify Obama's preference for "big government" don't hold
up.

The finance meltdown was forced upon them, but they resisted the more
obviously "Leftish" policy of nationalizing banks. Their health care
reform is painstakingly crafted to protect private insurers -- and is premised
almost entirely on market competition. Obama, recall, also ran on a
platform of not raising taxes on virtually anyone in the country. It's
hard to see the boogeyman here.