Definition of TREASON

The Republican Party and Democratic Party have been cooperating to a large extent.  Both sides conceding things that they don’t want to (mostly the left, but to be fair they don’t have as much to fear politically as the right), but it’s the 86 tea folk that are not willing to compromise.  They are not willing to accept any new revenue, they want to take spending back to 1996 levels, and pass a balanced budget amendment to those standards.  To do that they insist on cutting social programs to do it.  Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, funding for schools, infrastructure, and research while continuing to spend money on corporate interests.  There is nothing fair or moral about it.

Why Treason?  When you have a Senator like our own glorious Mike Lee saying flat-out that he’s demanding the Republican’s in the House and Senate to give him what he want’s (and the tea caucus backing him up) or he’s willing to do whatever it takes including defaulting on the debt, destroying the dollar, and crashing the economy…… how is that not extortion?  Do we not have a strict policy about negotiating with hostage takers?  When the hostage is the country as a whole…. how is that not treason?

Look at how all this unfolded:

Bohener had to withdraw his bill because there was no provision for a balanced budget amendment.  He couldn’t get the votes to pass it without teaparty support in the House.  When he added it, it passed and went to the Senate.  What happened there?  The bill was brought to a vote to table (not even vote for or against it, just to ignore it).  The only Republicans to vote yes on the tabling of the bill were; DeMint, S.C.; Graham, S.C.; Hatch, Utah; Lee, Utah; Paul, Ky.; Vitter, La…… ask yourself why.  Why was the amendment provision a necessity for the teaparty in the House but in the Senate the teaparty didn’t want to bring it to a vote?

To be clear, I’m not at all against a balanced budget.  The economy works better, we as tax payers pay out less money in interest payments, and less debt is passed on.  But to compare the federal government to a household, or even an individual state, is nonsensical.  In times on emergency households can fall back on various social services from the state and federal government (and states on the federal government), but as a nation we have an unbalanced budget to fall on.  I’m not saying it should be the norm, just that an amendment isn’t necessary.  What’s needed is cooperation from our elected officials.

Now the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have always had their differences, but they’ve worked through them.  The teaparty on the other hand is not going to negotiate anything, they’ve made that perfectly clear.  They’re tearing the Republican Party apart.  The only way to pass a bill at this point will be for the Republicans and Democrats to negotiate a solution without any support from the teaparty.  There are 535 people in House and Senate, 86 of them won’t vote yes for anything that doesn’t meet all of their demands.  Seriously, this isn’t Republicans against Democrats and their refusal to come together, it’s the teaparty holding Congress, and with it our nation, hostage.

So I ask you, is it political stubbornness or is it Treason?