Our deficit is manageable if we're smart about it.
The Barefoot Conservative Nation descended on Washington in April like a wolf on the fold.
Libertarians, creationists, birthers, Birchers, flat-taxers, string savers, and tin foil collectors -- all the wonderful groups that make up the Tea Party's intellectual wing -- came to town waving signs, shouting slogans, and collaring hapless Congresspersons in their dens.
They may not have achieved their goal of shutting down the government, but in the end, they achieved something even more improbable -- they made you feel sorry for Congress. (Makes you kind of miss the Silent Majority doesn't it?)
At issue was the federal budget, which needed to clear Congress to keep the government going. The protestors think the government is spending way too much and the national debt is too big. They want to cut both of them to the bone. And they intend to use the Republican Party as their knife.
Democrats, on the other hand, are more committed to using government to deal with the problems of the nation and tend to resist cutting programs.
Thus, a civil war seems to have broken out while we weren't paying attention.
For the entire editorial go to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donald-kaul/why-are-we-the-tea-partys_b_853303.html