The Tea Party is part of some of the most regressive, backward, anti-worker ideas we have seen in the United States in many years. With large amounts of funding from the billionaire Koch Brothers, here are some the ideas the Tea Party has brought us:
- Abolishing the federal minimum wage
- Privatizing public schools
- Cutting money to public schools
- Denying basic science
- Opposing renewable energy
- Shutting down the government
- Defaulting on out national debt
- No pay equity for women in the workplace
- Opposing the Violence Against Women Act
- Opposing the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts
- Allowing insurance companies to deny coverage for preexisting conditions
- Allow insurance companies to charge women more for insurance
- Repeal provisions of law to allow children to stay on parent's insurance until age 26
- Turn student loans to big banks so they can charge higher interest rates
- Cut Pell Grants for poor and middle class students wanting a college education
- Turn Social Security over to the stock market
- Turn Medicare into a voucher system
- Raise retirement age for Social Security to 70 for those as young as age 59
- Raise retirement age for Medicare to 70 for those as young as age 59
While previous leadership of the Democratic Party was willing to let certain Republicans get away without having to own their ties to the Tea Party extremists, we will not in 2014. We know that certain Republicans have been part of the radical Tea Party agenda from the start, others feel the need to coddle these extreme views to this date. The Harrison County Democratic Party calls on Republican candidates on the ballot to either denounce these far right positions, or run on them. Our local newspapers and media outlets should put candidates on the spot for these positions. We saw in the recent Republican race for Commissioner, District 3, that they failed to do so. A Republican Commissioner was challenged from the Tea Party and far right for working with Democrats. While he narrowly won reelection, local newspapers did not point out his opponent's Tea Party ties. All citizens and candidates are free to support the Tea Party and its ideals to their heart's content, but if they do, voters deserve to know that they do.
We already know that certain Republican local candidates are joined at the hip with the Tea Party by appearing and being featured speakers at Tea Party hosted events. Surely they know what policies they are backing by making themselves part of the Tea Party.
Here are the local candidates are are clearly tied to or members of the Tea Party:
- Gary Davis, County Councilman, who thanked the Tea Party for helping him to
win in 2010 in a paid advertisement in the Corydon Democrat, and has attended Tea Party Meetings and supported their agenda
- Phil Smith, County Councilman, who has a far right agenda on the County Council, and who has supported their agenda
- Otto Schalk, Prosecutor, who attends and has spoken to many Tea Party
meetings, and who made statements at those meetings that are beyond the ethical
rules to which a Prosecutor should speak. Tea Party Leader George Etheridge even thanked him for speaking at one of their meetings (though he probably did not speak on birth certificate issues).
- Joe Claypool, candidate for Judge, who made one of his first formal meetings as a candidate (and as someone whose residency, and length of residency- is in question, as to where he really lives) at a Tea Party meeting
- Rhonda Rhoads, State Representative, who has voted for anti-worker and anti-public education bills in the Indiana General Assembly
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