Rare News Desk
Miss the tea party? The rallies? The protests?
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When the movement began, the tea party was dedicated to one thing—stopping spending.
Or, this lady.
In 2010, polling showed that many Americans, even those who didn’t identify with the tea party, agreed that Washington was spending too much money. Many sympathized with the tea party’s small government message.
Today, majorities of Americans still fear what our now $17 trillion national debt might mean for the future.
But who is going to do something about it?
In a speech some are calling the most important foreign policy address in decades, Senator Rand Paul said Thursday, “Admiral Mike Mullen, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put it succinctly: the biggest threat to our national security is our debt.”
Paul added, “A bankrupt nation doesn’t project power but rather weakness.”
Paul touched on many problems with our foreign policy, but this part directly addressed how fighting unnecessary wars with money we don’t have makes the country weaker.
We can have a strong military able to meet global challenges without bankrupting the next generation and beyond.
Unfortunately, Rand Paul is the only Republican who might be running for president in 2016 who believes this.
If Paul is asking for a different foreign policy that reflects fiscal realities here at home, every other major potential GOP candidate has called for a foreign policy that isn’t much different from our current one, or even that of George W. Bush, and has also called for an increase in spending to fund it.
Here’s Marco Rubio saying we need an even more aggressive foreign policy and we need to spend more taxpayer dollars to foot the bill. Here’s Jeb Bush saying essentially the same thing. Bobby Jindal. Chris Christie. Rick Perry. Rick Santorum is really excited about how much more money we might spend.
All of these potential candidates essentially see nothing wrong with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, how long they’ve lasted, how much they cost, and some of the loudest foreign policy voices in the GOP are eager to do it all over again.
The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is between $4-6 trillion.
This is a third of our entire national debt.
Politically, how can any Republican president ever convince Democrats to compromise on entitlement reform when they want to give the Pentagon even more money? Even Paul Ryan wants to increase this spending.
Obama wants to increase it too, despite what Republicans are saying.
Mathematically, how would a Republican president even begin to tackle a $17 trillion debt if they’re completely comfortable with fighting the same kind of wars that make up a third of that debt.
Remember this lady?
You will never get “smaller government, less spending and lower taxes” if you still think fighting trillion dollar wars is a reasonable foreign policy.
This is not my opinion. It’s math.
And apparently only one potential Republican 2016 presidential candidate has run the numbers and reached the same conclusion.
If the tea party has now moved on, and the movement is now more about immigration, or gay marriage, or nostalgia for George W. Bush (don’t tea partiers remember Bush’s TARP started their movement?) or any other issue that has little to do with the Spirit of 2010, fine.
But if this lady’s poster is still the message that matters most, as virtually every tea partier insisted just a few years ago…
We’re going to have to join Rand Paul in trying to figure out a saner and less costly foreign policy.
Our future depends on it.
Disclosure: I co-authored Senator Rand Paul’s 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington.
