"The Swamp Is In A Feeding Frenzy" - 'Tea Party' Resurgent Amid Trillion-Dollar Bailout Bills Tyler Durden Sun, 07/26/2020 - 22:00
Tea Party conservatives are waking up to the lack of fiscal discipline by the Republican establishment over exploding deficits and another round of economic stimulus, according to The Hill.
What's happening today is similar to the Republican backlash in 2008 when they bailed out Wall Street during the financial crash, it's just this time, the bailouts dwarfed the ones a decade ago.
This puts Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, in a tight spot as he is up for reelection this fall. His state is flooded with Tea Party patriots, who have raised the alarm over the Trump administration's reckless deficit spending.
"Just came from Progressive Democrat, whoops, I'm mean Republican caucus," Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted last week.
"The majority of Republicans are now no different than socialist Democrats when it comes to debt. They simply don't care about debt and are preparing to add at least another trillion dollars in debt this month, combined with the trillions from earlier this summer," Paul said.
Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said "hell no" to critical components of McConnell's next stimulus package.
"This is the swamp in a feeding frenzy. Everybody's lobbyist has their hand out, saying, 'Look, if you're spending trillions of dollars, I want to get some.' And it's not right," Cruz said.
GOP Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, another politician who was elected during the Tea Party movement a decade ago, told The Hill that Congress shouldn't authorize "a dime more" until "we've thoroughly taken a look at the $2.9 trillion we've already authorized" and figure out what funds have actually been spent.
"When we were in the minority, we were able to put a brake on Obama's desires," Johnson noted, adding that the Republican establishment has lost fiscal discipline in recent years.
Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, said the pandemic "shouldn't be used as an excuse to spend" his "state's taxpayers' hard-earned dollars" to bailout out other "poorly managed state budgets."
"As we begin looking at another spending bill, we need to know how the money already allocated has been spent. Last month, I wrote to all governors requesting details on how this taxpayer money is being spent. I'm still waiting on responses from most of them," Scott said.
Ten years later, the Tea Party has failed to curtail deficit spending. Republicans, disillusioned by the "greatest economy ever," are beginning to realize in the age of Trump they lost their ways through reckless deficit spending.
Read: Ron Paul: Is The (Tea) Party Over?
President Trump, who appeared to be a deficit hawk as a candidate, and promised to "eliminate the national debt in eight years" has increased the country's debt load by at least $6 trillion, or about 30% in his first term.
In May, the US added a trillion dollars to combat the virus-induced downturn.
For context, here is total US debt since the start of the century.
Republicans are in a Catch-22 situation, one where they must pass the next trillion-dollar stimulus bill or face a crash in consumption. Passage of the bill will drive internal strife among establishment Republicans and Tea Party members.
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