People and organizations with a lick of common sense (and in the case of the State of Idaho, organizations that are constrained by the State Constitution) live within their means, and tighten their belt when the going gets tough. By stark contrast, the Fed spends money like never before, in some ill-conceived scheme of "spending our way to prosperity." It's never worked in the past... but by golly, let's try again! And our kids and grandkids can pay all that money back, anyway. No worry!
I was delighted that a grassroots "Tea Party" materialized in Boise (along with hundreds of other places across the Fruited Plain). I was there. I met the marchers enroute and joined in, marching down Capitol Boulevard to the State House.
Are these fringe radicals? Are they anti-government? Maybe a few are. I believe the vast majority are patriotic American citizens who are deeply concerned about the direction we're headed. (And I don't mean the direction starting last January... we've been headed in a bad direction for quite some time. Unfortunately, some people have come to expect that the government should take care of every citizen's every need. And unfortunately, it's not sustainable.)
Is anybody paying attention?
(One comment/criticism... this should have been strictly about deficit spending and fiscal matters. But inevitably there were fringe issues that attached themselves. There was the "Bibles in school" crowd. And the "Pro Life" crowd. And the "Get us out of the U.N." crowd. And I saw one lady with a sign that said, "Show us your birth certificate, Obama." I suppose one view is that the issue we have in common today is government spending. But I can't help but feel that they were a distraction on Tea Party Day.)
