‘TEA PARTIES’: THE NEXT GRASS-ROOTS MOVEMENT?

Yes: We conservatives have decided to take our grievances to the streets

By DICK ARMEY

Who is the leader of the conservative movement? Is it Michael Steele at the Republican National Committee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, or even Rush Limbaugh? While they all may be movement leaders, today grass-roots activists across the country will answer the question —- the taxpayer tea party is the movement’s leader.

The tea parties are the shot across the bow as taxpayers defend themselves against out-of-control government spending.

Small-government conservatives felt let down as they watched Congress go on a spending binge and President George W. Bush justify his Wall Street and auto bailouts by saying, “I chucked aside my free-market principles.”

Then President Barack Obama called for his $1 trillion debt stimulus, followed by a $275 billion mortgage bailout. CNBC’s Rick Santelli had enough and called for a “Chicago Tea Party,” inspiring folks to do the same in their communities.

Frustrated Americans began taking their grievances to the streets and the tea party movement was born. Just as the original Boston Tea Party was a grass-roots rebellion against overbearing government, tea party participants are reacting to government that has grown too large.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obama’s budget will leave the United States with a $1.8 trillion deficit, meaning the United States will have to borrow nearly half of the money it spends. The Obama budget will add $9.3 trillion to our already staggering $11 trillion national debt, CBO estimates.

Debt to gross domestic product ratios are a good gauge of a country’s economic health. If Obama’s budget passes, the budget deficit will represent 12 percent of GDP, shockingly higher than the historical norm of 3 percent. The cumulative federal debt to GDP ratio will jump from 41 percent in 2008 to a staggering 82 percent by 2019, CBO says. By comparison, in 2008, France had a debt to GDP ratio of 68 percent.

As Milton Friedman once said, the real rate of taxation is the level of government spending, because there are only three ways for the government to spend money it does not have: print, borrow or tax. Today we are spending, and tomorrow it will have to be paid back with higher taxes and inflation.

The debt burden will be borne by young Americans and future generations, as European tax levels will overburden the economy, and inflation will rob Americans of buying power. This is the recipe for 1970s stagflation.

The tea partiers want to see the cash spigot turned off. With no central organizer of the events, it is impossible to tell how many tea parties will be held, but it is clear hundreds of tea parties are planned with tens of thousands of participants. Groups like my own FreedomWorks are serving as a resource for these activists as this grass-roots revolt has proved a turning point in the conservative movement. Small government activists are taking a page from the president’s play book and becoming community organizers.

The tea parties were organized online, through Facebook and Twitter, the same online networks and communities instrumental in Obama’s campaign. That will be the legacy from the tax-day tea parties, an online network organized to hold politicians accountable for the debt they are pilling up.

Big-spending politicians beware: Organized taxpayers are watching votes and are getting ready for Election Day.

> Dick Armey, chairman of FreedomWorks, was the author of the Contract With America and U.S. House Majority Leader from 1995 to 2003.

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No: This isn’t the voice of the people; this is the voice of Fox News

By KARL FRISCH

Talk to any political organizer and they’ll tell you the hardest part about pulling off a successful protest rally is building a big enough crowd for the press to show up and cover the festivities. Conservatives planning anti-Obama “tea party” demonstrations across the country have found a way around this once-daunting organizer’s dilemma: Fox News.

That’s right. Despite repeatedly claiming its coverage is “fair and balanced,” despite its attacks on anyone who dares claim or imply the cable outlet tilts to the right, despite encouraging viewers to “say ‘no’ to biased media,” Fox News has frequently aired segments imploring its audience to get involved with tea-party protests across the country —- protests the “news” network has described as mainly a response to President Barack Obama’s economic policies.

However grass-roots originated these events may have once been, an issue certainly open to debate, they are now little more than Astroturf laid before the American people by Fox News and powerful corporate-financed conservative interest groups such as Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, which has used staff to organize conference calls among protesters, “take[n] over” the planning of some events, supplied “sign ideas” and “sample press releases,” and provided how-to guides for delivering a “clear message” to the media.

Fox News has provided attendance and organizing information for the events on air and online dozens of times. You name it, they’ve likely done it. Fox has offered viewers and readers such vital organizing information as protest dates and locations and addresses of Web sites where people can learn more. It has even posted information and publicity material for the events on its own Web site. Tea-party planners are now using the planned attendance of Fox News hosts to promote their protests and listing Fox News contributors as “Tea Party Sponsor[s]” on their Web site.

Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Neil Cavuto are all scheduled to broadcast live from tea parties in different cities across the country, and they’ve wasted little time in diligently working to boost attendance levels for these events.

Hannity has told his viewers, “And don’t forget, you can log on to our Web site to get all the details one week from tomorrow, our special, ‘Tax Day Tea Party’ show. You can attend. It’s live. It’s in Atlanta.”

Beck, Fox’s conspiracy-theorist-in-chief, encouraged his viewers to come “celebrate with Fox News” at any of four “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.” He’s even raising money for one of them.

It’s one thing for a news outlet to cover a political protest —- that’s pretty logical. It’s quite another for a news outlet to repeatedly encourage its viewers to attend a political protest. Far from practicing legitimate journalism, it’s blatantly and unabashedly political.

In an interview last month with National Public Radio, Fox News Senior Vice President Bill Shine described the conservative cable network as “the voice of opposition on some issues.” Indeed.

> Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog based in Washington, D.C.