Time the Tea Party was over

When the police arrive at your door at 4 a.m., you know two things about the party: It’s great, and it’s over. It’s time for someone to dial 9-1-1 on the Tea Party. They had a good ride, but it needs to end.

Neighborhoods are a microcosm of the social contract that makes our government, and our country, possible. Your have a right to throw a party. Your neighbors have a right to a quiet night. How do you know whose right is more important and when?

Enter social contracts and government. We give up some of our rights, and some of our money, to have a more impartial mediator. Whether it’s San Diego’s finest at 4 a.m., or the head of your HOA at 11 p.m., they are there to let you know when you’ve crossed the line, and they are rarely interested in an esoteric discussion of your right to “the pursuit of happiness.” They are there to enforce the contract you signed on to, explicitly or implicitly, when you moved in.

Few said it in 2010, but it’s become clear that Tea Party members were elected to change the social contract. Sparked by a rant by Rick Santelli on CNBC, Tea Partiers organized to say that government had overstepped its bounds by using tax payer dollars to bail out banks, and mandating that Americans have health insurance. Their answer is lower taxes and less “government intrusion.” Given the scarcity of taxes or government programs they endorse, the extreme conclusion, tearing up the social contract, seems to be the desired one.

I tend to disagree with those views, but I have no problem with people choosing representatives that espouse them. But once elected, those representatives become part of the other side of the contract – government. Until they can change the rules, they have a duty to do what is best for America. What the Tea Party is teaching us, the hard way, is the danger of electing people who have no interest in governing, and who put their ideology ahead of America. Basically, we hired peace officers who are breaking the law.

There are approximately 60 members of the House Tea Party Caucus, less than 14 percent of the House, and only one-quarter of the Republican House majority. That majority is one-half of one-branch of government. By any sane math, the Tea Party should have been able to move the needle a bit toward lower taxes and less government. Instead, they are extracting trillions of dollars in spending cuts. What happened? They did what most extremists do when they don’t like the pace of change, or the need to negotiate. They took hostages.

First, they took the House Republican majority hostage, threatening Tea Party challenges to sitting members. That’s nothing new in American politics. The idea that a leader like Speaker Boehner would risk his position to do the right thing is so antiquated it’s almost cute. But they didn’t stop there. With Boehner’s help, they used a bizarre fiscal loophole to take America’s credit score, and economy, hostage.

For years, the party in power has raised the debt ceiling, allowing the minority party to vote against in protest. It was never the political safe ground, but leaders didn’t even pretend to put America’s credit as risk. It was one of the distasteful things that became your job when you won the election, because crashing the economy would taste much worse. The Tea Party appears to have a different palate. Their position, “We’re crazy enough to blow up the economy” left the president to pay the ransom, play chicken with America’s credit, or invoke an obscure part of the 14th Amendment and cause a constitutional crisis. No good options, but there rarely are when you have to negotiate with hostage takers.

In 2010, American’s gave the Tea Party members a set of keys to the economy. They grabbed the steering wheel and tried to drive it off a cliff. Even those in favor of lower taxes and smaller government should agree that their methods were unacceptable. The Tea Party didn’t do their duty under the social contract. That must not be forgotten when we, as the electorate, get the chance to do ours. In 2012, we need to take away the keys, and tell them the party is over.