Dissecting The Tea Tantrums

Dan Riehl responds:

Yes, there are major financial challenges in America's future precisely because of the issues [Medicare, Medicaid, social security, defense] Sullivan cites. Therefore, isn't it logical that driving up the debt several times whatever Bush did is worthy of protest? And all that while mortgaging our children's futures with more and more bail outs and a budget that will break generations of tax payer's backs? And all before we've even begun to think about tackling the big ticket items Sullivan so half-heartedly laments?

But Riehl's notion that Obama is "driving up the debt several times whatever Bush did" doesn't make any sense. Take the biggest tranch of the future debt - $32 trillion of a new Medicare drug entitlement - that Riehl ascribes to Obama. Nuh-huh. Obama inherited that commitment, with no provision for funding it, from the Republicans. To blame Obama for it is like blaming him for the future costs of the Iraq war. Yes, they will be incurred after Obama took office - but they were guaranteed before then, when the GOP legislated the spending explosion, with the avid support of Fox News.

But again, if this is a protest in favor of slashing Medicare, Medicaid and social security, great. Where do I sign up? But those rallies do not exist. Which leads to an inescapable conclusion:

These people are unserious. But we knew that already.