RSS FEEDS
Recent Research
APRIL 20, 2009 | Commentary by NATHAN BENEFIELD, MATTHEW BROUILLETTE
The Un-Silent Majority
Nearly 10,000 Pennsylvanians rallied on Tax Day, April 15th, against wasteful government spending, high and rising taxes, and burgeoning government debt and deficits. The nonpartisan, anti-establishment “Tea Parties” were held in more than 30 cities across Pennsylvania and close to 800 nationwide, and more are scheduled.
APRIL 15, 2009 | News Release by COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION
Thousands Attend Harrisburg Tax Day Tea Party to Protest Wasteful Spending in Harrisburg and Washington
One of hundreds of events held across the state and nation
MARCH 26, 2009 | News Release by COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION
Dozens of Tea Parties Coming to Pennsylvania
In conjunction with the Tax Day Tea Party Movement, the Commonwealth Foundation is organizing another Harrisburg Tea Party, to be held on the Capitol Steps at noon on April 15. There are are now
Recent Blog Posts
AUGUST 8, 2011
Who's Nutty Now?
There's a ton of chatter out there right now about how nutty the Tea Party is, most recently with 29 percent of voters saying Tea Party members are "economic terrorists." Having returned to Pennsylvania just last year from Washington, D.C., I hear the chatter (and the confusion) more than most: Most of my friends in D.C., whatever their political views, have never met a real, live Tea Party member or gone to a Tea Party meeting. Working at the Commonwealth Foundation, I have done both many times, and so I'm often in the position of explaining "those people" and why I find them not weird, but wonderful—not perfectly atrocious, but profoundly American.
That's why I was delighted to see CF supporter Nick Pandelidis' op-ed in yesterday's Harrisburg Patriot-News. As Nick points out, the facts show that the truly nutty position in today's America is to think the status quo is sustainable, not to challenge it as the Tea Party is doing:
Could reasonable people accept the status quo? The national debt of $14 trillion equals our national GDP. Forty percent of this year's spending is with borrowed dollars stolen from our children.
The 2011 budget deficit alone is 11 percent of GDP. That number pales compared to the estimated $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities that include Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and state and local deficit and retirement liabilities. Add to this the unknown massive liability of the new entitlement: Obamacare.
After an ill-conceived and wasteful stimulus, unemployment is more than 9 percent. Underemployment, those unemployed and those working below skill level and/or part time looking for full time, exceeds 20 percent. And that does not include another estimated 2 million-plus people who have given up looking for work.
The number of individuals who depend on the federal government for basic needs continues to grow. Forty-four million Americans are on food stamps, and 43 million, nearly one in seven, Americans live below the poverty level. More than 10 million people are on Social Security disability. Out of those individuals who filed 2009 federal income tax returns, nearly half paid no income tax.
The size of government continues to increase. Federal employees, excluding the military, now number an all-time high of 1.4 million. All told, there are 17.4 million federal, state and local government (including public school teachers) employees, most of whom have taxpayer-guaranteed salaries, benefits and defined retirement benefits, including health care.
Current levels of deficits, unfunded liabilities and government dependency are unsustainable. The radiant promise of America that brought our ancestors to our shores for the opportunity to work hard and earn a better life for self and family is but a dim glimmer for our children and grandchildren.
The tea party movement was the spontaneous uprising and protest of ordinary tax-paying citizens to this specter of our children being left with a less prosperous and less free America.
Amen to that, Nick. It's our privilege here at CF to help you and others who are challenging the unacceptable—indeed, nutty—status quo in Harrisburg and Washington and demanding a return to fiscal sanity.
posted by CHARLES MITCHELL | 04:33 PM | 0 comment
DECEMBER 23, 2010
So Long, Specter
The Washington Examiner's Tim Carney today reviews Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter's farewell speech to the U.S. Senate, and characterizes it as "20 minutes of self-serving gripes, empty name-calling, and petty meanness." He reports that the desperate party-switcher longed for the good old days:
Recalling his old gang of moderate Republicans, Specter painted a composite picture of the sort of senator he admires, such as the late Ted Stevens, the infamous porker given to bouts of arrogance, who lost re-election in a cloud of scandal and after being convicted of corruption (Stevens was cleared thanks to prosecutorial misconduct). Specter also fondly recalled Sen. Bob Packwood, who resigned under threat of expulsion after facing sexual harassment charges.
Half the moderates Specter invoked in his reminiscence have since cashed out to K Street, including John Warner, Slade Gorton, Warren Rudman, and Jack Danforth.
Carney also provided an illustration of Specter's rank hypocrisy:
Throughout the speech, Specter claimed to hew to some principle, while repeatedly showing disdain for those same principles. Specter assailed the Citizens United ruling as "judicial activism" that would allow corrupting corporate influence in our elections. Moments later, though, he held up the write-in bid of Sen. Lisa Murkowski as the "the way to counter right-wing extremists" like Toomey and Utah Sen.-elect Mike Lee. Murkowski's re-election was fueled by $12 million in outside spending by a group funded entirely from the corporate coffers of lobbyist-run companies that she has enriched with federal dollars through earmarks and special contracting rules.
So we know Specter doesn't really mind corporate influence in politics. We also know he doesn't mind judges making law, because he has called Roe v. Wade "inviolate" and sank Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination in fear that Bork would overturn Roe. There's no principle here. Instead, Specter knows what he likes -- abortion on demand and pro-choice porkers like Murkowski -- and he knows what he doesn't like: the increased public criticism of politicians Citizens United would allow.
So say goodbye to the petulant Pennsylvania senator. There may be no greater example than he of the entitlement-to-power mentality that Tea Partiers agitate against.
posted by PAUL CHESSER | 09:46 AM | 0 comment
OCTOBER 8, 2010
We are All Fiscal Conservatives Now
My remarks at PA Liberty Conference
I'll start with a question I often get...or at least a question that is often proffered to no one in particular, that I will answer anyway. That is, "Why were there no tea party rallies when George Bush was spending like a drunken sailor?"
And I think the answer is simple, no one had any idea that so many of us were not only angry about government spending, but would actively get involved. A rally to protest government spending? Who would show up to that? In fact, when we help put together the first Tea Party in Harrisburg early last year, I was optimistic we'd get 100, maybe even 150, to show up. I never anticipated the crowds we saw. Nor did I expect to see dozens, maybe hundreds, of local grassroots organizations—tea parties, 9/12 groups, and other liberty organizations—form across this state. I've been stunned when I'm invited to speak at forums (which almost never happened two years ago) and see a couple hundred in the crowd to hear a presentation on the state budget or public pension reform. I know it's not because it's fun, and I'm pretty sure it's not because I'm so good looking.
There is little doubt the liberty movement has changed the political debate. There is a new market for folks reading and discussing The Road to Serfdom, Atlas Shrugged, and, of course, the Constitution. There are far more opportunities to engage on policy issues. The fact is, the electorate is more engaged than I've ever seen, and the result is a great awakening of the public on what our politicians at the federal, state, and local level have been up to.
As evidence of this, I'd like to point to a recent interview in which Joe Sestak said, "I'm a Fiscal Conservative." In a Wall Street Journal piece in May, Gov. Rendell said, "I am a Fiscal Conservative." You may not believe them, but they know that's what voters want to hear. The liberty movement has made it cool to be a fiscal conservative. We are all Fiscal Conservatives now.
But there are many challenges. What the movement has accomplished in changing minds and attitudes, and even electoral success, has not yet transformed public policy. And victory will not come in November, or in 2012, or possibly even for decades. What will the Tea Party movement look like in five years, in ten? Will it continue to be a vibrant force?
To be victorious, the liberty movement must not only overcome the institutional left—with, which MoveOn.org, the remnants of ACORN, Democracy Alliance, public employee unions, and the like, will remain both well-funded and politically active—but the unprincipled cronies (from K-Street to businesses that feed on taxpayer funding to self-serving politicians) that only want to control the powers of government, and will try to ride out the wave and bide their time.
We have a long battle ahead, and the liberty movement has not yet proven that it will stand the test of time—but I am far more optimistic about our future than I was two years ago, as I have seen a new force in our political culture dedicated to individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited constitutional government.
posted by NATHAN BENEFIELD | 11:09 AM | 0 comment
