(The image of a teabagger above is from theliberal.com.)There were two significant events that led to the uprising of the movement known as the "Tea Party" (i.e., teabaggers). The first was a $700 billion bailout of the giant Wall Street banks in the waning days of the Bush administration, and the second was the election of an African-American president.
There is nothing they, or their elected representatives, can do about the first. President Obama was re-elected to a second term, and will get to fill out the full eight years allowed an American president. But the second, preventing another bailout, is something that could be accomplished.
Ironically, it was Democrats who took action to prevent another Wall Street bailout. They did it by passing a Wall Street reform bill, that among other things, prevented the Wall Street banks from playing the stock market with their consumer's funds (which are federally insured). They could still gamble on the stock market, but they would have to do it with their own money -- which means they would lose their own money, and if they screwed up, it would take another act of Congress to bail them out (which would be very unlikely in the present political climate).
But in opposition to the stated wishes of their teabagger base (and most other Americans), the congressional Republicans opposed that reform -- and now they are trying to overturn that reform. A provision slipped into the budget bill would let those Wall Street banks use their customer's money to play the stock market.
This would be a huge boon for those banks. If they make money in the stock market, then they would get to keep all of it. But if they lose money, like they did in the past, the taxpayers would have to make up those losses -- because that customer money is protected by the federal government (through organizations like the FDIC). In other words, they would get an automatic bailout, without having to beg Congress for it this time.
My question is -- where is the teabagger outrage over this? Are bailouts OK when it is their own elected representatives that provide it? Their leaders have been bought off by the Wall Street banks. Why aren't the teabaggers raising hell about this? As far as I can see, all the opposition to this future Wall Street bailout (and it is just a matter of time before it happens) is coming almost exclusively from Democrats and liberals.
It just goes to show that the teabagger movement was never real. It was just a Republican Party invention, and never really had any true beliefs (other than to elect more Republicans). The teabagger base has been used and sold out by Republican leaders. Why aren't they outraged?
