Is it hypocritical that the TEA Party Caucus received a billion dollars of ear marks?

Yes and the examples are many. First Amendment and the Mosque "issue". 14th Amendment and "anchor babies".

Deficit reduction and keeping the tax cuts for the rich. "Less government"--unless it's Gay marriage, abortion rights, Social Security and Medicare. Hypocrites and uneducated people who fear, hate and misinform: the new GOP.

Let me say that Social Security is NOT a socialist program, its original intent was more as a savings account where each person put in a small portion of their earnings into a trust fund so that when they become to old to work they will maintain some sort of income. I am not yet able to qualify for Medicare, I will be in 3 years, but while you call both SS and Medicare social programs, that is not the case. I worked for 48 years paying a small portion into my own social security and my employer matched every cent that I paid in.

This was in anticipation of reaching retirement and maintaining an income. Two different taxes with a specific purpose in mind, clearly it is not a social program. Your normal income taxes have one purpose and that is to pay the expenses of the US Government, you do not pay into a welfare fund, you pay FOR a welfare fund, making welfare and food stamps etc. etc.. social programs.

I don't even have a problem with it if it were more closely monitored to prevent the massive fraud. There are the very elderly fell into a gap in Social Security, these people collected less than those born before the gap and less than those born after the gap. I know my own mother was in this gap, her oldest sister was not in the gap.

Despite the fact that my mom worked all of her life while her sister never had a job, my mom collected $400 a month less than here sister. OK, lets look at tax cuts and smaller government. I don't think you have a CLUE about this.

How many tax increases have resulted in debt reduction? None, nada, zippo. The government, especially the liberal only find more ways to spend the extra money that comes in.

The FY2010 budget is $3.7 trillion, total revenues will be about $2.1 trillion meaning that we will have a deficit of $1.6 trillion (it will be $1.7 trillion despite Obama saying $1.4 trillion). If you leave the size of government where it is today and then increased taxes by 100% (doubling them) you would have revenues of $4.2 trillion leaving you with $500 billion that could be used to pay down the national debt. This would take about 26 years using our current debt and there could be no increases in government spending, not even a raise for those working in government, not supplemental bills it would have to remain frozen for 26 years.

What happens to an economy when taxes are doubled? People do not have the money to buy what the want and only barely able to buy what they need, the economy would tank and unemployment will rise. Tax cuts do raise revenues, more money in the peoples pocket so they will spend and buy things that they want as well as what they need.

These additional purchases pours money into the economy, states collect more in sales tax, businesses pay more in income taxes and more people are needed to produce the products that are being purchased. These new workers are now paying income taxes as well as saving money in SS and Medicare making them more solvent. This seems to be a point that the liberals can not conceptualize.

The national debt is a very serious problem and unless we pay it down we will crumble. It will take a combination of reduced government and increased taxes but the biggest factor will be a ban on borrowing except in extreme situations. It will take the ending of some social programs, perhaps they can be bundled in with other similar programs.

We can not continue to spend $1 and then borrow $0.40 for every dollar that we borrow. I said earlier that revenues were $2.1 trillion, well the truth is that is mostly due to our current unemployment, normal revenues are around $2.5 trillion. If taxes were raised 50% revenues would increase to $3.7 trillion, this is enough presently to keep the national debt at its present rate but does nothing to lower the debt.

Government would need to cut expenses and outlays by 15% just to give us the $500 billion to meet a 26 year payoff plan. This would still require a freeze of all future payments, it would be more likely that a cut of 20 to 25% would be required to allow for expansion. I doubt that any one wants to see paying 50% more in taxes and I think that there would also be a lot of jobs lost which would pretty much negate the extra money the government had hoped to obtain.

I think that you, as well as those in the links you have provided are trying to over simplify the problems, they either do not understand the real issue or just choose to call the TEA party hypocrites. I happen to believe that lowering taxes and reducing government is the least painful way to deal with the skyrocketing debts. You just have to get government spending under control first and that is exactly the message of the TEA party.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.