What Would the Tea Party Do?
They object to Obama. Fine—but it’s worth asking how they would handle something like the gulf oil spill.
Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
The Tea Party movement is premised on love for the Constitution. Activists carry a pocket-size copy of the document to underscore their commitment to a strict application of its wise words. They believe that the policies President Obama is putting in place trample on the Constitution and sacrifice American individuality and ingenuity on the altar of a misplaced view of social justice. With Obama getting hit from all sides on his response to the oil spill, it’s time to ask how a government based on Tea Party principles would cope with the assault on America’s way of life in the gulf region.
The Founding Fathers never envisioned dealing with a hole in the bottom of the ocean causing such havoc that the president would feel compelled to get directly involved in stemming the leak and adjudicating whatever claims might arise. Judging from remarks made Wednesday in Washington by Tea Party adviser and booster Republican Dick Armey, Obama’s demand that BP pony up $20 billion (one year’s worth of profits) for a fund to compensate victims of the spill is so out of line with the Constitution that it’s another cardinal sin against the liberty and freedom of the populist movement aligned on the right against big government in Washington.
Armey says there’s nothing in the Constitution that permits a president to decide what compensation should be elicited from a private corporation and how that money is distributed. Invoking the sanctity of property rights, Armey said if damage is done, “you call your lawyer and we’ll settle this in the courts.” Still, the deal Obama struck does not foreclose separate court action brought by individuals or states, and hiding behind the Constitution to defend the rights of lawyers to an even bigger share of the pie will be about as popular with the voters as Tea Party darling Rand Paul calling Obama’s attacks on BP “un-American.”
(More here.)
Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
The Tea Party movement is premised on love for the Constitution. Activists carry a pocket-size copy of the document to underscore their commitment to a strict application of its wise words. They believe that the policies President Obama is putting in place trample on the Constitution and sacrifice American individuality and ingenuity on the altar of a misplaced view of social justice. With Obama getting hit from all sides on his response to the oil spill, it’s time to ask how a government based on Tea Party principles would cope with the assault on America’s way of life in the gulf region.
The Founding Fathers never envisioned dealing with a hole in the bottom of the ocean causing such havoc that the president would feel compelled to get directly involved in stemming the leak and adjudicating whatever claims might arise. Judging from remarks made Wednesday in Washington by Tea Party adviser and booster Republican Dick Armey, Obama’s demand that BP pony up $20 billion (one year’s worth of profits) for a fund to compensate victims of the spill is so out of line with the Constitution that it’s another cardinal sin against the liberty and freedom of the populist movement aligned on the right against big government in Washington.
Armey says there’s nothing in the Constitution that permits a president to decide what compensation should be elicited from a private corporation and how that money is distributed. Invoking the sanctity of property rights, Armey said if damage is done, “you call your lawyer and we’ll settle this in the courts.” Still, the deal Obama struck does not foreclose separate court action brought by individuals or states, and hiding behind the Constitution to defend the rights of lawyers to an even bigger share of the pie will be about as popular with the voters as Tea Party darling Rand Paul calling Obama’s attacks on BP “un-American.”
(More here.)
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