Why Did TeaBaggers Wait Unitl Now To Rage Against Deficit Spending

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported yesterday that at least 10 rallies are being planned in the Metroplex and Gov. Rick Perry is scheduled to attend a rally in Fort Worth at LaGrave Field.

"It’s a day to get together with fellow patriots all across the state of Texas... Let them know what you think about the bailouts, all this stimulus, all this runaway spending going on in Washington, D.C.," Perry said in a YouTube video about the rallies posted last week.

Many conservative followers plan to "spontaneously" attend tea bagging party all on their own this week - after Republican billionaires funded and heavily staffed conservative groups organized all the logistical and public relations necessary to set up the protests and conservative media like Fox News so heavily promoted the event.

I too am alarmed by the large national debt the U.S. now owes to China, Saudi Arabia and other foreign interests. I have been protesting this fact for the last several years while Pres. Bush and the Republican controlled congress piled up that debt and facilitated a near catastrophic economic collapse.

Where were all tea bagging conservative followers then? And, where were the conservative interest groups that are now organizing the tea bagging parties? Why did they wait until now to speak out against deficit spending?

Our Republican representatives in Washington were for deficit spending, when Republicans controlled congress and the White House, before they were against deficit spending, now that a Democrats control congress and the White House.

In 2006, when the Republicans still controlled Congress, they actively rejected any attempts Democrats made to control deficit spending. The New York Times reported on March 14, 2006,

"Senate Republicans on Tuesday narrowly defeated an effort to impose budget rules that would make it harder to increase spending or cut taxes, a move that critics said that showed Republicans were posturing in their calls for greater fiscal restraint. ... Republicans said the push to add the rules to the budget was a back-door effort to make it harder to extend President Bush's tax cuts. 'The practical effect of this is to raise taxes,' said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and chairman of the Budget Committee."

And, as tax cuts along side hundreds of billions of dollars of war spending in Iraq pushed the nation ever deeper into long term deficits, our Republican representatives never spoke a word of concern about deficit spending.When Pres. George Bush "tax cut" the nation from an annual budget surplus of $300 billion, as Pres. Clinton left office, to an annual budget deficit of $1 trillion, as Pres. Bush left office, our Republican representatives in Washington fully supported and voted for Pres. Bush's deficit spending policies and legislation without complaint. Now our Republican representatives in Washington and tea bagging conservatives fuss about deficit spending?

This smacks more of political expediency and posturing for the 2010 election than principled government philosophy that we can believe in. This is why fewer and fewer Americans are willing to take seriously staged conservative political stunts and why there is increasing disdain for Republican leaders against a backdrop of Republican bickering and poll results showing approval for President Obama's policies.

71% of Americans have confidence in Obama to do the right thing on the economy. Most have little or no confidence in the GOP Congress - Gallup:

Over two-thirds of Americans -- 71% -- have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in President Obama to do or recommend the right thing for the economy, a much higher level of confidence than is given Republican leaders in Congress.

Barely one-third of the American people have confidence in Congressional Republicans. Of all those tested, only the Republicans had a higher negative rating. When it comes to having confidence in the GOP on the economy, 58% of Americans have "almost a little or none." The Congressional Republicans have earned that lack of confidence. The GOP strategy of saying "NO" and staging the tea bagging event has resulted in NO confidence.