Tea Party: Serious or Just Pissed Off?

I am one of those Conservatives that has disassociated themselves from the GOP.  The Republicans weren’t manging our money any better than the Democrats.  The only difference is that the Liberals would spend more and tax more, the GOP would only spend more.

Seeing the Tea Party focus so much on the tax side of the equation without spelling out exactly what they want to see on the spend side is disconcerting, if not a total turn-off for me.  Our entitlement spending is more than 75% of our federal costs and I haven’t heard a single candidate talk about cutting any of that.

I have not seen a demand for a delay in Social Security or Medicare benefits until the age of 70 or 75.  I have not heard anyone offer to return unemployment benefits to a six or even nine month period.  I haven’t heard anyone looking at the big spend items for cuts.

Running around saying that we pay too much in taxes is not going to cut it.  We need to get our debt under control with current tax policy before we worry about wanting tax cuts.

I would gladly sacrifice my income at the current tax levels if we could get a commitment to the following:

1. Increase Medicare and Social Security eligibility ages to 70
2. Drop the unemployment benefit to something reasonable.. say nine months for now and reduce to six months next year
3. Repeal the health care reform act.. that thing is an atrocity of spending with no benefit
4. Enforce pay-go  (I call it  pay-fo, but you get the point)
5. Reduction in the pay and benefits for all federal employees (the rest of us took pay cuts, lost jobs.. they can too)

Everyone wants to make excuses for why one thing of the other cannot be cut or why this tax break or another can’t happen.  I say, give up on the tax breaks, but it better come with a plan to balance the budget within a year and some laws to make sure that it’s kept that way.

I want to hear specifics.  What will the candidate cut and by how much?  How will that affect the average person?  If the tea party isn’t pushing for direct answers to how the deficit will be cut, I’m not buying any of it.