Obama Responds to Tea Party Movement
On his 100th day in office, Obama said he would like to have a “serious” discussion” about how the federal government can rein in spending and meet its long term obligations.
“I know you’ve been hearing all these arguments about, oh, ‘Obama is just spending crazy,’” the president said at a town hall event in Arnold, Missouri Wednesday. “Well, let me make a point. Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit — that wasn’t from my — that wasn’t me.”
“Number two, there is almost uniform consensus among economists that in the middle of the biggest crisis — financial crisis since the Great Depression, we had to take extraordinary steps. So you’ve got a lot of Republican economists who agree that we had to do a stimulus package and we had to do something about the banks.”
First: Inheriting a mess is no excuse for making it worse. If a car is going full steam towards a brick wall, you shouldn’t hit the accelerator.
Second: Uniform consensus among what economists? The same economists that got us into this mess? The same economists that told our economy was great the last few years? How about we start talking to the economists that warned us that we were heading toward an economic downturn, rather than the bipartisan cheer leading economists that uniformly believe the government must manipulate the money supply and that government intervention is required to “stabilize” the economy. Is it possible that the economist parrots we hear on TV are all in agreement and in the public eye because the politicians in Washington don’t want us to hear from economists that have more faith in free markets and free people?
Reducing our arguments to “eliminating programs to those who need them” and “cutting taxes on the rich” is the same demeaning political crap that you said you would rise above in bringing hope and change to the White House. Well, Mr. President, I hope you actually address some real concerns from the Tea Partiers, like where in the Constitution does Washington have the authority to use our money to support failing big business? When you were teaching constitutional law, did you skip a lecture on the 10th Amendment? Mr. President, how do you promote freedom, responsibility, respect for others, and the kind of serious debate you claim we lack, if our government tells the people that we cannot take care of ourselves, that we need you to fix all of our problems, and that if only we went back to sleep and left our wallets on the nightstand, you intellectuals in Washington will fix our problems with just a few more government programs? Addressing these questions would be a nice change.
a real american said:
I don’t know who you people are, but clearly you haven’t been to school, possibly ever. Yes, criticism is a good thing, but only if it is informed, researched, and well-thought, which this is clearly not. Get your shit together and then come to the table, because right now you people look like a bunch of people who deserve being teabagged (see def. 3 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger) (who ever put this together clearly didn’t do his research because you are all making total asses of yourselves with this slogan). And just because you are poor, uneducated and need the money because you let the rich steal from you because you never bothered understanding what it meant to vote for tax cuts doesn’t mean you can throw a hissy fit. Go to school, and not some community college bs, and then think about what you have to say, Mr. Joe the plumber and the rest of you dimwits.
April 30th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Brian and Bethany Saunders said:
Right on Bro!
Below is the entire transcript from the Town Hall where the President took shots at the Tea Parties. It’s a good read, but it should bring us all to even more action.
Obama: I know you’ve been hearing all these arguments about, “Oh, Obama’s just spending crazy. Look at these huge trillion-dollar deficits,” blah, blah, blah. Well, let me make a point.
Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. That wasn’t from — that wasn’t me. That wasn’t me.
Number two, there is almost uniform consensus among economists that, in the middle of the biggest crisis — financial crisis since the Great Depression, we had to take extraordinary steps.
So you’ve got a lot of Republican economists who agree that we had to do a stimulus package and we had to do something about the banks. Those are one-time charges, and they’re big and that’ll make our deficits go up over the next two years, but those aren’t the problem that we face long term.
What we face long term, the biggest problem we have, is that Medicare and Medicaid, health care costs are skyrocketing, and at the same time as the population is getting older, which means we’re using more health care.
You combine those two things and, if we aren’t careful, health care will consume so much of our budget that ultimately we won’t be able to do anything else.
We won’t be able to provide financial assistance to students. We won’t be able to help build green energy. We won’t be able to help industries that get into trouble. We won’t have a national park system. We won’t be able to do what we’re supposed to do on our veterans.
Everything else will be pushed aside because of Medicare and Medicaid. That’s the problem that we really confront.
That’s why I’ve said we’ve got to have health reform this year to drive down costs and make health care affordable for American families, businesses, and for our government.
(APPLAUSE)
So — so, you know, when you — when you see, you know — you know, those of you who are watching certain news channels, that — on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around…
(LAUGHTER)
… let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we’re going to stabilize Social Security. Claire and I are working diligently to do basically a thorough audit of federal spending.
But let’s not play games and pretend that the reason is that because of the recovery act, because that’s just a fraction of the overall problem that we’ve got.
We are going to have to tighten our belts, but we’re going to have to do it in an intelligent way. And we’ve got to make sure that the people who are helped are working American families, and we’re not suddenly saying that the way to do this is to eliminate programs that help ordinary people and give more tax cuts to the wealthy.
We tried that formula for eight years. It did not work. And I don’t intend to go back to it. - END
MR. PRESIDENT, WE ARE NOT PLAYING GAMES!!!!!
April 30th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Anne Harpen said:
What an arrogant idiot. He doesn’t realize that by mocking us he is just stirring an already boiling caldron.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Jim Fraser said:
I agree with Anne.
His speech was typical Blame Bush blah blah blah. I think by now everyone knows Bush was a big spender and ran a big deficit. Problem is Obama is using the Bush Spending as reasoning for way higher spending.
April 30th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Mike said:
wow freedom of speach. only one way. I put a huge blog on here and you guys deleted it in a matter of minuites. I guess you dont care of the constitution either. good luck with your cause….lol
{No blog/comment has been deleted. Perhaps Mike is referring to his comment here and is looking at the wrong post: http://www.reteaparty.com/2009/04/29/president-obama-first-100-days-news-conference/#comments.} - admin
April 30th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Justin said:
the video is mysteriously not working lol
April 30th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Lese said:
I never before understood how people got hot and bothered enough to start revolutions. I’m in my 50’s - too old to be out there screaming and protesting, but this guy is about to put me over the edge. The arrogant, holier-than-thou attitude infuriates me. Truman was President when I was born, and the depths to which we’ve plunged since then makes me glad my life expectancy is only another 20 years or so. I can’t bear to think about where this is leading.
April 30th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Mike said:
You are right you didn’t delete it. I appologize. There is a simular blog title on the page and went to the wrong page.
BUT I just watch the video on your web site and I just had to add. I dont see him Mocking you at all. I see him calmly explaining why he is trying to fix the problem. It just seems you are trying to find more wrong with him if he was to try anything. I mean the last 8 years we had over spending and there were no teabags thrown around and no one in the conservitive party seemed to care and that was over Murder. Now the over spending is to help fix what was broken and a plan to pay 60% back in 4 years and you all are freaking out.
If we dont try and fix the problem then things get worse.
Maybe I should try and explain it a bit easier for you. If you have a leak in your roof you can spend a lot of money to fix the roof. BUT if you let it go and ignore it (bush administration) then the whole gets larger and rots the wood to the point it is unfixable.
What do you think the smart thing to do?
April 30th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
fedup said:
I guess the tax day tea parties didn’t convince him that we are furious about the spending. He won’t be able to down play the Independence Day Tea Party. The revolution continues!
April 30th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
John Gorny said:
For me the tea party fire was sparked by Santelli’s rant which wasn’t necessarily against President Obama, it was against banking enslavement. I have been preaching this all over the place, in regard to the harsh treatment individuals and small business have endured since this problem hit the media in 2008. Its an absurd notion that “economic stability” of the money supply justifies the actions of our largest financial institutions against the people whom they’ve abused trust. Its no wonder tea parties have occurred. This same sort of thing happened when Jackson shut down the 2nd bank-only he was successful! WE NEED OBAMA TO BE MORE LIKE JACKSON.
I myself am furious because of the fact that America went ahead and spent the worlds money consuming rather than building factories, which was great for the people selling the money, but poor longterm investment. THIS IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLE! Banks know the difference between good longterm investments and bad; and the fact they went ahead with this shows a LOT of people that the crisis was staged, with only the banks profiting ultimately-with the only winners on their side of the counter.
The most infuriating part of this ordeal is that responsible spenders and investors have been left with the tab. WE ARE FED UP SUPPORTING A SYSTEM THAT TRICKS THE FOOL AND EXPECTS THE WISE TO FOOT THE BILL. THIS IS EXACTLY AGAINST THE “FOR THE PEOPLE” IDEALS OF OUR NEW PRESIDENT! WE ARE FIGHTING BECAUSE AMERICA IS THE FINAL FRONTIER. THERE IS NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!
Obama invites anyone to have an intelligent conversation with him about this? Lets have lunch mister president! It will be MY TREAT, of course.
April 30th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Minuteman said:
The smart thing to do is to stop the increase in government spending, Mike. And to actually decrease government spending. Lower taxes. If my roof is leaking, I cannot fix it if the government is taking my income to spend on projects that are more pork than stimulus. I cannot support businesses if I have no money to spend. I cannot save money if I have to give a portion of it to pay for manure odor in Iowa.
It is not a conversation if the one you are talking to does not listen but blames someone else and thinks that you are a right wing extremist. There is no dialog in DC and there hasn’t been one in years. Hence the Tea parties.
If non-Tea Partiers would try to view these protest through OBJECTIVE glasses instead of ideological ones, they would see that these folks are not right or left wing zealots. These are hard-working Americans that see a government out of control They see a government that is using illogical means to try to fix our economy. And they get form letters from their representatives that often do not even address their concern.
And these are people that used to give the media and our government the benefit of the doubt. Good loyal Americans that are extremely patriotic and understand our foundres’ foundation and what America should be.
We know how great our country can be if we allow the people to control their own lives and stop the pandering, the political posturing, and the power grab.
We are the ones that would be willing to sacrifice ourselves to keep America free and sovereign.
I hope the media and DC continue to misunderstand us. That just makes us grow and become stronger.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:18 am
Mike said:
I am a registered Libertarian. I do belive in Much less tax if none at all. Which is why I visited your site. But if your cause is not a right wing agenda then you might want to revamp your site and not have FOX NEWS sponcer the tea party.
I belive in the cause. I do. 60% of each persons income goes back to the house and has been for 10 years now.
Maybe its the timing of your cause or the content of your site but at this time and place Obama is doing DRASTIC Mesures to save our country and he is doing the ONLY thing he can do so we as a country doesn’t go belly up.
As for pork spending…Its awful. But in reality 1% of the stimulas package goes to pork. I think that is a great start compared to the last 8 years.
And Im sorry Minuiteman (I sure hope your wife didn’t give you that name) If no one understands the cause, you look off the wall…Like PETA. They are a great movement and I understand what they are fighting for but when they go as far as they do they look ignorant.
If your cause happened 5 years ago I would probibly be waving tea bags all over the place but when people in our own country are starving and homeless due to the economy, I will put my fellow man first and my selfish protests second.
May 1st, 2009 at 6:26 am
linda said:
Well, it’s apparent that most people that are slobbering over Obama have not checked out his background nor his voting record from the past for the short time he was in the senate. He wants to change America alright, right down the path to what the roman empire was before it failed; back to england of the time before America fought the british(red coats) to get away from tyranical rule; the germany who was ruled by a tyrant who believed in the policy that obama believes in–control, control, control—-killing babies—killing Jews—he see’s no distinct difference, maybe it will be the aged, the handicapped or maybe the mentally challenged next—-who knows, he or whoever is at the head of his movement makes up the rules as they go and appoints whoever they want with any kind of background to big and powerful positions…They are not following the Constitution———wake up America—–wake up!!! Quit being so passive and afraid!!!!!! You have eyes and common sense—when someone is saying one thing but is doing the opposite—there’s a problem!!!
May 1st, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Sandy L Staats said:
I do believe we have struck a chord of fear in Mr Obama. Continuing these Tea Partys is important. It may be our only way of being taken seriously by our new administration and the slobbering Main stream media.
May 1st, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Mike said:
lol….well everyone keeps saying this is not a Anti-Obama movement but after Linda’s comments it shows it very much is.
and linda… Killing babies and jews…please. you are an extreemest and would be hurting the tea-party cause.
May 1st, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Theresa Irwin said:
It seems that a number of people have forgotten who exactly was in the majority in Congress for the last two years of President Bush’s administration. It was the democrats, so when President Obama claims that the mess on his hands was inherited, he is being a bit disingenuous. And, as a senator, he actually voted for the bailouts and first stimulus package. At least by 2005, if not indeed a couple of years earlier, the President and Republican members of congress (not all of them, mind you) asked for some oversight to be done on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was the likes of Barney Frank, chairman of the Finance Committee, who felt that things were just fine, and the Republicans and Pres. Bush were over reacting as usual. I guess we can see how that ended up. That is why so many people are angry at Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, etc. They may have actually been able to head off this disaster had they just done their jobs, and conducted some oversight. Obviously, they are being extremely overpaid.
I feel that when we started to pay congress members a salary on which they could make a living, we saw the beginning of the end. Our founding fathers envisioned serving in congress as being a sacrifice, and for a term of maybe two years. When a persons livlihood is at stake, that creates a system fraught with waste, fraud and abuse.
You may say it is all a right wing conspiracy, when anyone dares to speak against the almighty Obama, but I am willing to bet you were not saying the same things against those who spoke out against Bush. Barack Obama just does not come across as being honest, forthright, or indeed truly concerned about us average Americans. I, for one, don’t think he is all that concerned about the struggles of the average American, not when he and Michelle are still having their weekly parties at the White House and they continue to serve beef that costs the taxpayers $100 per pound. That, sir, is the height of arrogance.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Laura L said:
Mike asked what would be the smart thing to do.
My answer is — let the free market work.
First, not re the stimulus — the president and congress said it was an EMERGENCY and therefore could not be read, just had to be passed, because we “had to do something.” I do not agree that we “had to do something” but even if we did — only 23% of it is being spent in 2009 so why are they LYING to us saying it is an emergency? And as smaller part of that is stimulative. Much of the spending is on social programs that not only do not stimulate the economy, they drain it.
Re the free markets — they are not perfect, HOWEVER, when things go wrong, they tend to self correct quickly because the risk involved results in peole losing their money — which motivates them to be PRUDENT. WHen the government steps in however, and starts picking winners and losers and bailing out companies — there is no incentive to take care and make wise decisions. So the government messes the system up, and then tells us they have to mess with it more (with our tax dollars…) because “clearly it doesn’t work.”
What “does not work” is lying corrupt politicians who can’t add 2+2 picking those who supported them with campaign money to be the companies who cannot fail…
May 1st, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Mike said:
Theresa the first part of your comment is just insane. The Bush administration was BY FAR the most corrupt presidency in history. That administration was 1000 x’s more than the current administration. But your second part is right on. We are suppost to be for the people by the people. Where no matter your race, religious, non-religious belives are accepted by the people. And that part has been taken away from us. Every president in the past 60 years have in one way or another should be jailed.
Bush….Crimes of war and murder (many more but keeping it short)
Clinton….white water
Bush sr…. using investments to fund terrorist
Regan…….Holding american hostages for guns to win an election.
and on and on and on.
That is why I support the tea party to give our country back to us, I just belive that many people have joined your cause because they hate Obama and those people are hurting your cause. Freedom of speach. I will support till I die.
As for Laura…..
You are the perfect person I would like to target and educate. The fact that you think “we should do nothing” Shows that your small world hasn’t really been affected by any of this and that is really hard to belive.
-Yea 12% of the population cannot find work.And many more of us have so much less money then we use to make. And that is why the housing crisis happened.
-No one has extra money unless you are the rich that is getting extra taxed.
-America (which is the heartbeat of the world economy) is failing and about to lose its ranking as a top super-power.
And we should do nothing?!!! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. Not only the elete.
Just because your world isn’t immediatly effected its BAD OUT HERE IN THE REAL WORLD. So please wipe the cobwebs from the eye socket and realize our main fiber of our country is to help our fellow americans. Thats where our moral fiber has gone. The biggest thing that killed me about the Bush administration is after 9/11 we were Americans again. Not Republicans not Democrats not black or white. We all respected each other and it reminded me about what it was to be a nation of one again. The Bush administration used it as a political platform and seperated us against each other so far that it created the hateful war even more seperated then before.
I can rattle off a hundred reasons why this is happening and point fingers all over the place.
Your comment about the democrats owning congress when Bush was in office was insane. Anything that they wanted to pass was denied due to pride from bush so dont rush limbal me there.
We have to work together and stop fat cats from throwing away our money and give some of it back. Not only prosicute Democrats for wasteful spending but Republicans for lining there pockets with big business money.
Where I really support the cause is the Declaration of Independance.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
And thats all I have to say about that.
Oh like the privicy act that was passed at 2am in the morning that no one had a chance to read. 100% non-costitutional.
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:09 am
FederalistLady said:
I think that in our haste to be right and support our argruments we are forgetting to true meaning of the Tea Parties. This is NOT about hating Obama. It’s about fearing the changes that are happening to our country. And these changes have happened as early as FDR. Because of the economy, it’s mostly, about letting the people keep more of their own money. especially now, with the economy on the brinks of disaster, the people need to keep their own money. These Bailouts don’t help the economy at all. So long as you and I don’t have a job or have friends or family that don’t have jobs, we are not going to recover. Yet the government, state and federal, think the answer is to tax us more so that they can bailout private businesses. Truthfully, you could help them by taxing them less too. When you and I are short on cash we go through our expenses and cut out wasteful spending. The government doesn’t so this and wasteful spending is run amuck, Their solution is to tax more and waste more as evidenced by the stimulus package. Trust me we will all be paying for that package because the government doesn’t have any of it’s own money. It’s our money! Tax less and spend less!!
So this isn’t about hating Obama or liking Fox News its about THE PEOPLE. We want to return to Gold Standards, ( you can’t print money at will if you follow the gold standard) move the government out of the way of private business and stop interfering with private citizens. We want the government to support us the people not the washington lobbyist and unions and hollywood. We don’t want to be Europe or Asia, we want to be America. Land of the free.
We want our constitution protected not changed. We want legislation to be made by congress and senate not have congress and senate obstruct legislation if they can’t get to play by their own rules.
We want our borders protected so that all immigrants have the same opportunities to be Americans. We want to stop rewarding illegal behaviors.
We want to have all appointed officials to be placed in office because they are the right person for the job and not because they are owed a political favor and suddenly, there is ANOTHER EMERGENCY that requires us to ram then through.
Our country is in great danger of becoming a totalitarian country and we have noticed it over the past 40 years or so but it seems to be on a free ride especially right now. We need to do something now to protect the freedoms that we have enjoyed for our kids and grandkids.
We don’t want to be afraid of our government, we want our government to be afraid of us.
I’m sorry for rambling on. There is so much more I’d like to say. But I think this covers most of it.
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:43 am
FederalistLady said:
OOPs. Yes, I do think we should do nothing to help the banks, the insurance comapnaies, the auto company’s and other company’s too big to fail. They should never have been allowed to get too big to fail. And bad things happen when you make poor decisions. Letting them fail would have been better than what we have now. We don’t need our banks and insurance comapnies and our auto dealers and especially our healthcare, it’s coming, to be run like the local motor vehicle or unemployment office.
This country is full of intelligent innovative people. We will never know what wonderful ideas and businesses might have emerged in response to the failure of these companies. But if you haven’t noticed, those of us on this site have obviously, the government doesn’t think we are intelligent at all and feels they need to nanny us into recovery. This is an insult!!
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:54 am
Michael said:
To Mike, I like how you say you wish to target certain individuals on this forum and educate them. I like it because your spelling and grammar have to be the equivalent to that of a fourth grader. That’s being generous. However, you also posted that you do not believe that Obama was mocking the “teabaggers” (I’m 18, I know the whole thing sounds pretty funny when phrased that way). But, you couldn’t have missed the way he purposely imitated the shaking of a teabag in order to draw laughter from his audience. However, I am glad, despite your negativity and insults towards others in this forum, that you support this cause.
P.S. Please never preach about intelligence when your spelling and grammar mechanics are in the shitter. You just make yourself seem dumber than you are. I mean to be hardly insulting when I say that = )
May 14th, 2009 at 8:25 pm