TEA PARTY: What it is - and isn't

I found the letter from Mr. Tom Blaschka quite comical. He is under the impression that the Tea Party is "willing to borrow billions from China so the wealthy can have extended tax breaks." He wants to hear from the Tea Party "on the growing of the debt to finance the rich." Let me be the first to chime in on the topic.

First, there is a difference between the Republican Party and the Tea Party. The Tea Party is for responsible government spending. The Tea Party is against bailouts, earmarks, corruption, establishment cronyism and the like. The Tea Party is for limited government, the constitution and common sense.

We have become a nation of ever-growing social programs that we simply cannot afford. This is not a new phenomenon. We have gradually had these programs implemented over the past 60 years. Both Democrats and Republicans have pushed us into this nanny state and I believe that we have finally reached our breaking point. The past two years our government has put us in a hole that we literally cannot get out of. It started with TARP, then the OMNIBUS, then the stimulus, then ObamaCare. The people have had enough and it is time to get back to reality. The old world of politics is dead. It will no longer be possible to buy votes with these promises of something for nothing. It is time to make hard choices and, wait for it, actually expect people to become self-reliant again. I know that is hard for some to imagine, such as Mr. Blaschka, but it is not the government that is financing the rich. It is the rich that is financing the government. The government has done a lousy job with the funds they have been given. The government has lost the trust of the people and we are demanding better. Dare I say, we are demanding sanity again.

‘HOOT' GAYLOR

Coeur d'Alene