Tea Party Trying To Right U.S. Fiscal Ship

 

Here’s my take on the debt-ceiling negotiations: There is no negotiation. Tea Party Republicans are insisting on a balanced budget amendment (BBA) because everything else is just a story to them and it’s not a real and meaningful spending cut.

Nothing has changed, and pundits and financial media are not listening to the Tea Party. I am. Democratic leaders are still insulting and trying to marginalize them. Wake up! They won’t be marginalized or even corralled by Speaker Boehner.

Most investors, pundits and the media feel Congress is “crying wolf” again, figuring Congressmen and women will come to their senses and pass something that works out okay. Well, a deal may not be reached. The Tea Party is dead serious about cutting up the governments’ credit cards and it will not increase the debt limit without clear assurances on major spending cuts and reducing the deficit.

The Tea Party is scared. Even under tremendous pressure of pending default and/or credit downgrade, President Obama, Democrats and many Republicans seek to keep doing business as usual – which means not turning around the escalating deficit. The status quo raises every excuse in the book, including the economy, jobs and morality.

It’s now or never for the Tea Party to seize the fleeting moment while it has minority blocking power. It was the same for Progressive Democrats in the last Congress to strong-arm through Obama Health Care Legislation in the nick of time.

In the Tea Party’s view, if it can block a smoke-and-mirrors deal, the debt ceiling will not be raised, and that is just what some want anyway. The Tea Party prefers its revised Boehner Plan with the BBA. For the Tea Party, increasing the national debt is lunacy, when you consider that much of it was recently purchased by the Federal Reserve under quantitative easing programs (QE1 and QE2). They don’t want QE 3 either.

For the Tea Party, it’s a charade for the government to be issuing debt – feigning repayment with real money – and then arranging for the Fed to print money to buy that debt which debases the dollar and the debt. The Tea Party wants to end this charade now — not in three or six months in the middle of an election season.? Why kick the problem can down the road, when you can start solving it today?

Can the Senate pass a Reid Bill or amend the revised Boehner Bill — which includes the Tea Party’s BBA plan addition — and seek to remove the BBA in conference between the Senate and House? Can it avoid a final vote in the House, or have that full vote with House Democrats joining Republicans to make a winning coalition over Tea Party no votes?

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Tea partiers are only fighting to control debt

Aug. 10 — To the Editor:

In response to Lenore Patton's letter to the editor from the Aug. 9 Hampton Union, I have this to say: You tell me, the "tea party brethren," and Rep. Guinta to listen to our mothers. To this, I say that my sainted mother would be spinning in her grave at the spending that is going on in D.C.

This was a woman who put her family before herself every time. She ate her meals last, bought her clothes last and always made sure that 10 percent of her family's income went into savings after every expense was paid.

Lenore, you brought up "our" mothers, but I can only tell you about my mother, who passed away in January. She taught me and my four siblings to save, live within our means and take care of our friends and family. Mrs. Kilgore taught me to be thrifty, creative and solve problems with a positive attitude. My mother may not have told me to "never say never," but she did tell me to stick to my convictions and stand up to bullies like you and your husband.

My mother would never have put the responsibility of her debt on her children or her 11 grandchildren. When her mother-in-law slipped into Alzheimer's, she did not institutionalize her, but gave up her "golden years" taking care of her and making sure she lived in a rich and loving environment until my father passed away. That is a lesson we all learned: We take care of our own and do not expect others to do what we are here to do.

I have listened to my mother. I have lived within my means, I have not asked for more than I have earned, and I hope that I have kept my promises as best as I could!

Representative Guinta and our tea party brethren have listened to our mothers, and we honor them in our fight to control spending and make the United States a better place for our children. We honor them by keeping our promises and being true to our ideals.

Wally Kilgore

North Hampton

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Tea partyers fault Democrats on downgrade

The blame game on Capitol Hill commenced immediately after Standard & Poor’s unexpected downgrade of its U.S. credit rating late last week.

Republicans pinned the move on Democrats “spend and tax” ways. Democrats said S&P was reacting to the conservative tea party movement’s intransigence in the debt-limit debate.

But tea party backers brushed off the criticism and unapologetically defended their tactics, saying the country’s economic troubles would be even worse without their influence on Capitol Hill.

“For them to blame this on the tea party movement is like blaming the firefighters for the fire. It’s absurd,” said Amy Kremer, chairman of Tea Party Express. “If it were not for the tea party movement, Washington would’ve already gone and spent more.”

S&P on Friday dropped the U.S. credit rating from “AAA” to “AA+,” questioning the ability of leaders in Washington to seriously deal with the nation’s debt crisis.

Tea party critics interpret the rating agency’s explanation as proof the downgrade was the result of the movement’s unwillingness to compromise and refusal to accept tax increases as part of a “balanced” approach to lower the nation’s debt.

Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, and White House senior adviser David Axelrod, both characterized S&P’s action as the “tea party downgrade.”

And Vice President Joseph R. Biden widely was reported as telling Democratic colleagues in a closed-door meeting that tea party supporters were “acting like terrorists” during the debt-limit debate.

Mark Meckler, co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, said it was “radically disingenuous” to infer the downgrade had anything to do with the tea party. Instead, he pointed to S&P’s call for deeper federal spending cuts, a move he said Democrats have stubbornly resisted.

“John Kerry and his ilk are personally responsible for this downgrade,” he said. “It had to do with [government’s] inability to deal with our structural problems.”

Mr. Meckler added the attacks on the tea party show just how out-of-touch Democrats are with mainstream Americans, calling it a “monarchical attitude.”

“I have never seen politicians openly and directly attack a very large swath of the American public. It’s unprecedented,” he said.

Who is truly to blame for the country’s credit-rating downgrade — which was followed by plummeting stock prices this week — is difficult to gauge, as recent polls produced varying results.

“I don’t know if there’s anything that could happen that could change people’s minds” about the tea party, said independent pollster John Zogby. “If you’re an ardent tea party supporter, that’s ideological now, it’s not just a sign of anger and frustration.”

Results of a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey released Monday showed 29 percent of likely voters identified the tea party as “economic terrorists,” while 55 percent said they weren’t. Sixteen percent of poll respondents said they were undecided.

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Tea: medicine in a cup

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Is the tea party over?

Has the tea party peaked? Republican lawmakers affiliated with the upstart anti-tax movement scored big in the nerve-wracking debt-ceiling debacle, but the victory left enough hard feelings to feed the movement's ultimate downfall.

To quote an old Chicago White Sox slogan from the 1980s, their achievement was a case of "winning ugly."

With the nation's credit rating in the balance, they seized the normally routine matter of raising the nation's debt ceiling and held it hostage, gangsta-style: Cut government spending our way, they reasoned, and nobody gets hurt.

In the end, after weeks of partisan fighting, President Barack Obama signed without joy or ceremony a budget bill that avoided a credit default.

It cuts $2 trillion in spending over the next decade, yet shaves barely a sliver off of the expected growth in the national debt during that period.

That's largely because the bill doesn't include tax increases, a tea party no-no.

Instead the savings come entirely from cuts in programs and benefits.

Are there any reasons why this could hurt the teas and their allies?

I can think of three: Disappointment, divisiveness and dangerous disregard.

-- Disappointment. Polls indicate growing numbers of the public think the teas have become part of the problem they came to Washington to cure.

Fully 82 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress' performance in the hard-fought debt limit debate, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

People love to hate Congress, even when they like their own congressman. But this was Congress' highest disapproval rating, the pollsters said, since they began asking the question in 1977.

And public disapproval of the "tea party" doubled to 40 percent from 18 percent when that question was first asked in April 2010.

Four out of five respondents said they thought the debacle was more about gaining political ground than advancing the nation's interests.

On that score, Congress is lucky that pollsters found any approval at all outside of the lawmakers' immediate families.

Forty-seven percent blamed congressional Republicans for the standoff while only 29 percent blamed President Obama and congressional Democrats. Twenty percent blamed both sides.

President Obama, whose approvals slid to a new low of 40 percent in another recent poll, knows how it feels to disappoint the people who sent you to Washington. Now the tea party does, too.

-- Divisiveness. The tea party movement grew out of conservative frustration with a Washington they saw as taxing and spending too much under both parties.

Republican leadership, still shaken from 2006 election losses, welcomed the new energy that led to a comeback in the 2010 midterm elections.

But fissures still show in the uneasy alliance between the teas and the party establishment.

As House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio pushed to strike a deal to increase the nation's borrowing authority, some of the tea party faction argued whether the debt ceiling should be raised at all.

The founding fathers would have quaked.

These issues undoubtedly will be put to the voters in next year's presidential races, reviving divisions between the Grand Old Party's conservative purists and the pragmatists who want a candidate who appeals to independent swing voters.

Tea party freshmen faced a more conservative electorate in the 2010 midterms than the larger turnout that's expected in a presidential year.

Yet they continue to push farther right. Let the voters decide.

-- Dangerous disregard. Even fellow conservatives are beginning to speak out against the frightening radical ax with which tea party folks want to take a wide swing at government spending.

"Don't call them conservatives," fumed conservative Hal Gordon, who wrote speeches for the Ronald Reagan White House and for Colin Powell, in a blog post. "Call them Banana Republicans if you like -- or Republicans-Gone-Bananas."

His beef, that the tea party faction is rewriting the meaning of conservatism in ways unimagined by historical figures like Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, to save short-term dollars.

"First and foremost," Gordon exclaimed, "conservatives pay their bills." Amen.

Grassroots movements are like bees, an old saying goes, they sting and then they die.

The tea party, like the original Boston Tea Party, fits what the founders called a movement of the moment.

Like others, the teas are likely to melt, at best, into one of the major parties.

In the meantime, they can stir up a lot of mischief, even to those who otherwise want to be their allies.

E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.

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Tea export declined by half in March '11

New Delhi, Aug 10 : Export of tea has declined by nearly half in March this year to 11.90 million kg due to low overseas demand and payment problems from importing countries, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya M Scindia said in a written reply that the estimated export of tea from India during March 2011 has declined due to political disturbances in Afghanistan, Egypt and a few Middle East countries, payment problems associated with exports to Iran and non-tariff barriers regarding exports to Iraq.

He said India through the Tea Board is taking various steps to boost its export which include promotional campaigns in the foreign markets, buyer-seller meets, tea tasting sessions, trade fairs, international conventions, incentive to exports and lending promotional support to Indian tea exporters in their marketing efforts.

Responding to another question, Mr Scindia said there is, however, a sharp rise in the exports of Indian tea to Pakistan over the past three years as this is evident from the fact that tea export to that country went up from Rs 57.42 crore in 2008 to Rs 119.57 crore by 2010.

--UNI

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Tea party places bets on Bruning vs. Nelson

Tea party places bets on Bruning vs. NelsonBy Robynn Tysver | Wednesday, May 11, 2011 4:07 AM CDT

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Omaha World-Herald OMAHA - The Tea Party Express has hitched its wagon to Republican Jon Bruning. The national group plans to make an early endorsement in Nebraska's 2012 U.S. Senate race, and Bruning will earn the nod Wednesday despite not yet securing the GOP nomination, said Sal Russo, a spokesman for the Tea Party Express. Russo said the group wanted to make clear with its first 2012 endorsement that ousting Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson will be a top priority. He also said Bruning is the "strongest candidate" in the race, and they wanted to help him early in the campaign. The endorsement will be made at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The group's early entry into the Nebraska race comes with some tension. Local tea party supporters say they believe it's "premature," and they question why the national group did not interview the other top candidate in the race, State Treasurer Don Stenberg.

Bruning is running for the GOP nomination against Stenberg and Schuyler businessman Pat Flynn. In addition, other Republicans have been mulling whether to jump into the race, including State Sen. Deb Fischer of Valentine. Joanne Elliott, co-organizer of Conservative Connections in Lincoln, said her group was "disappointed" that the national group was weighing into a Nebraska race without getting "input" from local groups. Others echoed her sentiments. "It's a little early - 12 months out of the primary," said Patrick Bonnett, the founder of a coalition of about a dozen tea party-affiliated groups in Douglas County, the Conservative Coalition of Nebraska. Bonnett said he has heard of no tea party organization in Nebraska that plans to make an endorsement before the primary. Paul Johnson, Nelson's campaign manager, downplayed the endorsement. He said it appeared to be more about raising money nationally than influencing Nebraskans, noting that the endorsement is being made in D.C. He also questioned the group's influence, saying several of the group's chosen candidates in the last election failed. "They also made Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle and Joe Miller priorities - all of whom lost," said Johnson. Russo did not shy away from his group's 2010 failures. He says that is one reason they are jumping into the Nebraska race early, to help Bruning with his campaign. He said neither the Angle nor the Miller campaigns were as strong as they needed to be to win. The group gave about $1 million each to Angle and Miller, Russo said. "We believe Jon Bruning is a strong candidate," he said. "He's strongly in tune with tea party values. He's also able to put together a first-rate campaign." - World-Herald News Service

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Tea party fortunes are fading even as its star Michele Bachmann shines

Even as tea party idol Michele Bachmann has emerged as a prominent contender for the Republican presidential nomination, the popularity of the tea party movement among the US public is slumping to a new low.

That's the message of a new CNN/Opinion Research poll that asked whether Americans have a favorable opinion of various people and groups.

When it came to "the tea party movement," known for its hard line on federal spending and deficits, only 31 percent of respondents said they have a favorable view. That's down from 37 percent in mid-July, and the lowest level since the CNN poll began asking the question in January 2010.

Fifty-one percent of Americans said their view of the tea party is unfavorable, the most ever and the first time a majority of Americans have held that view in the survey. The poll was taken last weekend, Aug. 5 to Aug. 7.

IN PICTURES: Michele Bachmann

However the downshift in tea party esteem hasn't dimmed Ms. Bachmann's own star, at least so far.

Many viewers saw her as a winner in a televised Republican debate Thursday night, and the CNN poll finds that many Americans would vote for her if she wins the presidential nomination in 2012 (45 percent, versus 51 percent who said they'd prefer to reelect President Obama). For comparison, some polls show a generic "Republican" enjoying roughly that same level of support against Obama, while the CNN poll found slightly stronger support for Mitt Romney (48 percent) and Rick Perry (46 percent). Although various factors may have played a role in the survey results, the declining approval for the tea party comes after one prominent event in which the movement's followers played a big role: the debt talks in Washington that ended recently in a patched-together compromise. Democrats wanted a deal that included increased tax revenues, along with spending cuts, as part of a deficit-reduction package accompanying a vote to raise the ceiling on US Treasury borrowing. Republicans stood against any deal that boosted federal tax revenues, with tea-party-aligned lawmakers among the firmest on that point. Some, including Bachmann, went a step further, saying they would not support any deal to allow the Treasury to go deeper into debt. An impassioned body of Americans agrees with that view, arguing that a radical move to downsize government is needed immediately to liberate a debt-laden economy. Many economists and finance experts, however, while agreeing that the current fiscal path is not sustainable, argue that a refusal to raise the debt ceiling would have caused such deep spending cuts that the resulting jolt would have damaged an already weak economy. They argued, as well, that America's credit rating could suffer as the world witnessed budgetary chaos, with the Treasury wrestling with which bills it would or would not pay. (The US has been borrowing about 40 cents for every dollar of federal spending this year.) As the nation neared that brink, the White House, in an apparent jab at the tea party, argued that "cooler heads" would prevail, and a compromise would be reached. In the end, a deal happened. But it wasn't the "grand bargain" that some had hoped for, which would have reduced deficits by $4 trillion over the next decade, including entitlement cuts and some tax-revenue increases. The final deal is expected to cut future deficits by about half that amount. Many budget experts believe a credible $4 trillion bargain could have averted the recent move by Standard & Poor's to downgrade its credit rating of US Treasury debt.

Fiscal conservatives including tea party members put their stamp on the final deal. The compromise contained echoes of their "cut, cap, and balance" platform (spending cuts, hard limits on the rise of future spending, and consideration of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution).

The debt talks gave some tea party members a chance to espouse their ideas on national TV, but is also exposed them to some criticism from within Republican ranks (the "hobbits" comment, for example, from Sen. John McCain of Arizona) and from outside (words like "terrorist" and "extortionist" surfaced in Democratic circles). Now Bachmann finds herself on the cover of Newsweek, but with what appears to be an intentionally unflattering, wild-eyed look on her face. Meanwhile, if the tea party has taken a hit from the difficult budget battle, so has Obama. According to Gallup polling, the president's approval rating is at a recent low of 41 percent, down from the mid-40s in July.

IN PICTURES: Michele Bachmann

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Tea Party Express ready to roll

What’s being billed by organizers as a “Tea Party Super Rally” is headed to Napa later this month, and event organizers say a few White House hopefuls have already committed to appear.

The event — a kickoff rally for the nationwide Tea Party Express tour — is set to take place on Aug. 27, and has already generated RSVPs from a few GOP presidential candidates, said Pam Silleman, head of the Napa Tea Party.

Silleman wasn’t willing to reveal which candidates were making plans to attend the rally, saying it was up to the candidates themselves to announce whether they would be attending.

Tea party luminaries such as Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain would likely be among those most willing to commit to the Napa rally, although inquiries to their respective campaigns were not immediately returned.

Calls to Sal Russo, a GOP consultant and co-founder of Tea Party Express, were also not returned Wednesday.

While the names of the candidates will remain a mystery for now, Silleman was willing to report that the logistical aspects of the rally had largely fallen into place.

“It seems like it’s going to be quite a big rally,” she said. “It’ll be something Napa’s never seen before.”

Silleman previously said that attendance at the event could be measured in the tens of thousands.

Not everyone gathering in Napa that Saturday will do so to support the tea party movement. Members of the local Green Party have already announced plans for a counter rally that day.

According to Napa County Green Party spokesman Alex Shantz, the local chapter will be hosting what they are calling a “green tea party” at Veterans Memorial Park to protest the tea party’s presence in Napa.

“The purpose of this rally is to show our opposition to the tea party's far right-wing agenda while affirming positive Green Party values, such as grassroots democracy, social justice, respect for diversity, nonviolence, community-based economics and ecological wisdom,” Shantz said in a statement.

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Tea Party Endorsements Have Lost Their Luster

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won a test vote of Iowans on Saturday, a show of popularity and organizational strength for the tea party favorite five months before the state's caucuses kick off the GOP presidential nominating season.

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Patna's Muslims prefer sipping Kashmiri tea after Ramadan fasting ends

Ramadan, the ninth month of the Hijri Lunar calendar honours the revelation of the holy Koran to Prophet Muhammad and has traditionally been a time of religious fervour.

During this month, Muslims do not consume food or water from dawn to dusk. They eat Sehri (a small pre-dawn meal) and at dusk, they break the daylong fast with the Iftar (evening meal).

A large number of Muslims prefer to break their Iftar with 'Shir Tea', rather than water.

This tea has gain popularity in the Patna city, as devotees feel it gives them energy and helps to revitalize.

Mohamad Sabbaruddin, a tea maker involved in this business for the past 40 years, pointed out that devotees fasting during this month feel weak after starving for the whole day and adds that this tea helps them to re-energize. He said the preparation of this tea requires a lot of hard work.

"The tea that we make is made with Kashmiri tea leaves. So, this has been named Kashmiri tea. We also call it 'Shir tea'. We call it Shir tea, as it is sweet and it requires a lot of hard work to prepare this tea," he said.

Devotees asserted that this tea is different from the usual tea as it has a lot of dry fruits and spices added to it, which makes it a delicacy worth fasting for.

"The difference between the other forms of tea and this tea is that, in this tea, various spices and dry fruits are added to enhance its flavour. In other forms of tea, only tea leaves are used. But in this tea also, leaves are added but it is of a different quality," said Mohamad Ilam, Customer.

Several fasting Muslims visit the market to relish the Kashmiri Tea.

Ramadan is a time when Muslims are required to abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex from dawn to dusk.

The festival of Eid-ul-Fitr, a joyous occasion for Muslims all over the world, is celebrated after the conclusion of Ramadan.

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Time 4 Tea for Meningitis UK

12:30pm Saturday 13th August 2011

TEA and cake lovers in Yeovil are being urged to brew and bake next month for a tasty fundraising initiative.

September’s the time to get creative in the kitchen for Meningitis UK’s latest event – Time 4 Tea.

Celebrity cake-maker and best-selling cookery writer Mary Berry has put forward her favourite cake recipe – Ginger and Treacle Spiced Traybake – to encourage everyone to indulge in some culinary action.

All sorts of tasty tea-themed events are possible, from tea dances to teddy bears’ picnics.

Money raised from Time 4 Tea will go towards Meningitis UK’s Search 4 a Vaccine Campaign which funds cutting-edge research to find a vaccine to eradicate all forms of the disease.

Mary, who is appearing as a judge on BBC 1’s Great British Bake-off later in the year, said: “Meningitis is the disease which parents fear most. As a mother and a grandmother, to find a vaccine which would protect future generations would be a wonderful achievement, which is why I’m honoured to be supporting Time 4 Tea." Party balloons, colourful bunting and a selection of Twinings tea samples will be sent to anyone who registers for a tea party pack with invitations, a collection box and a fundraiser’s guide featuring Mary Berry’s cake recipe.

A range of delicious new cupcake recipes kindly provided by Country Cupcakes are also available on the charity’s website www.meningitisuk.org/time4tea.

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Tea planters threaten garden closure

Siliguri/Jaigaon, Aug. 11: Tea planters today threatened to shut down gardens in the Dooars and Terai if workers continued with strikes and embargo on the despatch of manufactured tea to markets to demand a hike in daily wages.

The two apex bodies of trade unions, on the other hand, decided to go ahead with a general strike across north Bengal tomorrow to increase the wage from Rs 67 to Rs 130.

The Progressive Tea Workers' Union will not take part in tomorrow's strike, but has chalked out its own agitation plans for the next fortnight. The union, affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad, has been stalling the despatch of manufactured tea from the gardens since August 5 to press for the demand.

"The CCPA has met among its constituents and have now resolved that if the path of agitation, that is, strikes and road blockade continues, management would have no other option but to consider suspension of operations to limit collateral damage," reads the release issued by Monojit Dasgupta, the secretary-general of the CCPA (Consultative Committee of Plantation Associations).

The planters also said rivalry between unions was also contributing to the troubles of the industry.

"The path of agitation has been further complicated by inter-union rivalry…there is clear evidence that decisions of PTWU central leadership are not percolating to or not being observed in grassroots. Confrontation like situation between union groups is also reported in gardens. It is these conditions that may eventually lead the industry to take precipitate action on the lines already stated."

The CCPA iterated that the strikes and the embargo on the despatch of tea had hit the operations in the gardens and resulted in losses.

"The continuing accumulation of manufactured teas in estates, constrained by limited factory space, is leading to choking of manufacturing operations and consequential delays of dispatching teas to auction centres and other markets is resulting in delayed cash flows, which might cripple a cash-based industry like tea with limited recourse to credit," said the CCPA.

The trade unions, however, are not ready to budge from their stance. "The attitude of tea planters in the six rounds of talks held to reach an agreement on wages was utterly disappointing," said Chitta Dey, the convener of the Coordination Committee of Tea Plantation Workers.

"That is why we are on strike to mount pressure on the planters in the interest of over two lakh workers and their families."

The Co-ordination Committee and another body of trade unions, the Defence Committee for Plantation Workers' Rights, enforced a strike in the gardens in the plains yesterday and today. They have called a general strike across north Bengal tomorrow.

"We have received an overwhelming support from political parties and organisations and expect it to be a complete shutdown tomorrow," said Dey.

The Parishad union has called a strike in the gardens on August 17 and 18 and a bandh in the plains from August 22 to August 24.

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Tea Party Sparks More Antipathy Than Passion

PRINCETON, NJ -- More Americans consider themselves strong opponents of the Tea Party movement than strong supporters, by 20% to 14%, and the ratio is a similar 22% to 15% among registered voters. When factoring in those who support or oppose the movement but not strongly, the opposing groups are more evenly matched, with 25% of Americans in total classified as Tea Party supporters and 28% as opponents. About 4 in 10 Americans as well as registered voters say they neither support nor oppose the Tea Party.

Gallup has previously measured support for the Tea Party movement, but this is the first time it asked a follow-up question that probes intensity.

One of the more striking findings of the Aug. 4-7 USA Today/Gallup poll is that nearly half of self-described liberals, 48%, consider themselves strong opponents of the Tea Party, significantly greater than the 30% of conservatives calling themselves strong supporters. Similarly, by 39% to 31%, there are more strong Democratic opponents than strong Republican supporters. Among independents, 14% are strong supporters and an equal number are strong opponents.

Adults 35 and older are slightly more likely to call themselves strong supporters of the Tea Party movement than are those 18 to 34. Also, consistent with racial differences in party identification, whites are more supportive than blacks of the Tea Party. Gallup finds little difference between men's and women's relationship to the movement.

Residents of the East are less likely than those in other regions to be strong Tea Party supporters, and the East has the highest percentage of strong opponents. The South, however, is the only region where strong supporters outnumber strong opponents (17% vs. 11%).

Tea Party Support Dips to New Low

At 25%, overall support for the Tea Party among U.S. adults is similar to the previous low of 26% found in October 2010. Support increased to 32% last November -- immediately after the 2010 midterm elections -- and held at 30% in January and April of this year before dropping to the current new low.

Overall opposition to the Tea Party movement, now 28%, is about average for where it has been since early 2010, while the 42% saying they are neither supporters nor opponents is a new high.

Bottom Line

The national Tea Party movement appears to have lost some ground in popular support after the blistering debate over raising the nation's debt ceiling in which Tea Party Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate fought any compromise on taxes and spending. Fourteen percent of Americans consider themselves strong supporters of the Tea Party movement, and, perhaps not coincidentally, 12% of the public consists of conservative Republicans who wanted members of Congress who shared their views on the budget to hold out for a deal they could agree with. That is according to a July 15-17 Gallup poll on the debt ceiling debate.

Along with the decline in overall support for the Tea Party from 30% to 25% in recent months, Gallup finds more Americans holding intensely negative feelings toward the movement than intensely positive feelings. It thus appears that, to date, the Tea Party's leadership and activities may have been more successful at galvanizing the movement's opponents than expanding its base of passionate supporters.

Survey Methods

Results for this USA Today/Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Aug. 4-7, 2011, with a random sample of 1,319 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The survey includes an oversample of 376 non-Hispanic blacks, consisting of 88 interviews done as part of the random national sample and 288 interviews with blacks who had previously participated in national Gallup Polls and agreed to be re-interviewed at a later date. The data from the national sample and re-interviews are combined and weighted to be demographically representative of the national adult population in the United States and to reflect the proper proportion of blacks in the overall population.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 376 non-Hispanic blacks, the maximum margin of error is ±6 percentage points.

For results based on the sample of 796 non-Hispanic whites, the maximum margin of error is ±5 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2010 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

View methodology, full question results, and trend data.

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Tea Party Understands Economics Better Than Obama Or Bill Maher

"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."

-- John Maynard Keynes, 1936

John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist of the first half of the 20th century. He is correctly associated with the policy of increased government spending and deficits to combat economic downturns. Keynes is the economic icon of the Obama administration, which uses his multiplier to justify its huge stimulus programs and soaring deficits.

Keynes would be irritated to know that I count him among the "defunct economists" whom he disparaged.

The appeal of Keynesian economics is its simple logic. If government spending for goods and services is part of GDP, then any increase in government spending must raise GDP.

As President Obama explained in a town hall meeting on Feb. 8, 2009:

"Republicans say this is not a stimulus bill but a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? That's the whole point." (Laughter from the crowd).

Keynesian economics is easy, even for stupid people. More thought and analysis are required to understand why it has not worked as it is supposed to. Keynesian skeptics must show that increases in government spending cause other components of GDP, such as consumption, investment, or exports, to fall. Such countervailing forces require more nuanced and sophisticated thought. They are not for the mentally lazy or those seeking simple answers.

Liberal commentators and comedians appear to accept Keynesian economics as such an evident truth that non-believers must be stupid. Keynesian economics has become a liberal dogma, not subject to challenge by reasonable people.

Consider comedian Bill Maher's quip to a former Obama advisor on Aug. 6, 2011:

"Keynesian economists and climate scientists both know real things, but the stupid people who don't know things get an equal vote. Isn't that frustrating?" (Laughter from the audience.)

Liberals target the Tea Party as their favorite nominee for the "stupidity" prize. Tea Party members are not only dunces. They are irresponsible hostage takers who do not care if they bring the country down with them.

Here is a shocker for Obama, Maher and Tea-Party haters: Since the Nobel Prize in economics was established, seven Nobel Prizes have been awarded to economists who cast serious doubt on Keynesian economics. Not one Nobel Prize has been awarded to an economist who advanced the Keynesian agenda. New York Times liberal columnist, Paul Krugman, won his Nobel Prize for trade theory, not for macroeconomics.

Maher's "stupid people" who reject Keynesian economics, it seems, are in rather distinguished intellectual company.

Let me go down the list of Nobel-laureate Keynesian skeptics:

1) Permanent or life-cycle income (Milton Friedman, Franco Modigliani)

This theory says that consumers are forward looking. They base their consumption decisions on income they expect to earn over a longer period of time, not what they earn now. They change their spending only in response to changes in long-term income, not in current income.

This proposition is well accepted by the mainstream of economists. It says that consumer spending is unlikely to be affected by transitory changes in income. A permanent tax cut or increase will affect consumer spending. A temporary tax change will not.

Lyndon Johnson was the first to learn this lesson when his income tax surcharge of 1969 failed to affect consumer spending.? The Obama administration is learning this lesson as consumers try to figure out whether their Bush tax cuts will be extended.

2) Crowding Out (Milton Friedman)

This proposition says that increases in government spending crowd out investment and even consumer spending. In its simplest form, it says that when the government borrows for spending, less capital is left for private investment and for consumers.

3) Ricardian Equivalence (future Nobel Laureate Robert Barro?)

This fancy term -- dating back to the 19th century writings of David Ricardo -- rejects the notion that people are stupid with respect to the effects of government taxes and spending.? Instead, people and businesses are forward looking and understand that increased government spending and deficits must eventually be paid for by higher taxes. Alarming deficits alert households and businesses to expect higher taxes. They respond by spending less to build their balance sheets to prepare for the day of reckoning.

We are now going through our first large-scale test of this proposition, and it appears to hold. Businesses and households are indeed retrenching in the face of soaring deficits. The Obama administration has even encouraged this type of behavior by its constant talk of new taxes. The Tea Party is a creation of? Ricardian equivalence. It proclaims to the world that if we do not stop this spending, the day of reckoning will come soon and it will be brutal.

4) Rational expectations (Robert Lucas, Finn Kydland, Edward Prescott)

Rational expectations came about to explain the stagflation of the late 70s and early 80s. This theory maintains that households and businesses pay attention to government policy. Instead of acting like mindless robots, they try to outguess government policy makers so as to not get caught off guard. If? people correctly anticipate expansionary economic policy, they nullify its effects on GDP and employment.

5) Mundell, Effect (Robert Mundell)

This work shows that in a globalized economy, expansionary fiscal policy sets in motion forces that cause exports to fall, thereby reducing GDP.

We can pardon a comedian like Maher who is simply trying to please his liberal audience. We should not expect him to know anything about the Nobel laureates I listed above. There is no reason not to expect him to be "stupid" with respect to modern macroeconomics.

President Obama is another matter. Presumably he has access to economists of all persuasions. Any number of them can tell him the things I just described. They are well known. No one is keeping them secret. They are found in modern principles textbooks. If he cannot understand what they are saying, then he might qualify for the?epithet Maher directed at Keynesian skeptics.

Perhaps the president simply does not want to hear from those who disagree with the course he has chosen. It could be that the president's goal is not recovery and economic growth but growing the size and scope of government to achieve his goal of a redistributive state.

If that is the case, we are in for trouble.

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