It's time to name the tea party politicians (and their sponsors)--and call them out

This is important for all voters, but especially for those who thought that electing this tea party bunch would help end a business-as-usual Congress controlled by corporate money and lobbyists. After all, the tea party insurgency was not sparked by a hatred of government, but by raw fury at Republicans and Democrats alike for coddling the Wall Street banksters who crashed their casino emporiums into our economy. Arrogant and avaricious bankers were handed multi-billion dollar bailouts in 2008-2009, while workaday Americans were being handed pink slips and eviction notices.

This daylight robbery definitely put the "ugh" in ugly, and it brought the public's general anger about collusion between corporate and political elites into sharp focus. That political moment held bright promise for progressive populism, but it quickly dissipated. Progressive funders, organizations, and media (enthralled by the new Obama presidency and concentrating on Washington) did little outreach to the bubbling rebellion in the countryside, leaving the field to right-wing exploiters.

As a result, the tea party uprising was soon hijacked and transformed into anti-populism. The key player was Dick Armey. A former GOP majority leader in the House, he was a well connected corporate lobbyist for tobacco giants, drug corporations, and others when he noticed reports in early 2009 of some mad-as-hellers brandishing tea bags at a few scattered protests. Armey also was head of a Koch-financed political shop called FreedomWorks. "Eureka!" this career Washington insider must have shouted as he scurried from his opulent office to get in front of this fledgling movement of unattached outsiders.

The tea bag crowd loathed insiders, but Armey has a good line of B.S. -- and he came with a rich goodie bag, including: ample Koch money, an experienced PR machine, savvy Republican political operatives ... and a simple, ready-made agenda for diverting the angry crowds' attention from Wall Street to the bugaboo of Big Government.

With no real competition, Armey established himself as the de facto commanding general of the disjointed tea party army. He created the Tea Party Express and the Tea Party Patriots as astroturf fronts for orchestrating some 600 "tax day" protests on April 15, 2009, creating the image of mass opposition to Obama's health care reforms.

Next came the raucous summer shout-fests choreographed by Armey's team at several town hall meetings, which unsuspecting congressional Democrats had scheduled in their home districts. A FreedomWorks memo schooled local troops (mostly GOP activists) on how to disrupt these usually genial gatherings: "Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive. ... Watch for an opportunity to yell out. ... Have someone else follow-up with a shout-out. ... The goal is to rattle him."

Then, in August, a defining "Tea Party Manifesto" emerged, asserting that the diffused rebellion had coalesced into a national movement with hard-core right-wing principles. It proclaimed adamant opposition to "government ... high taxes... state government employees ... [and] a government-defined health insurance plan." Who wrote the manifesto? Not grassroots folks, but Dick Armey and his top staffer at FreedomWorks. The purpose of the movement, declared the document, is "a hostile takeover" of the Republican Party.

Thus, the rebellion against corporate control of government became a CEO's wet dream: a grassroots constituency unwittingly harnessed to a laissez-faire agenda for establishing a corporate plutocracy over the people.

On the opening day of Congress last January, beaming members of the new Republican majority entered the House chamber. But also entering triumphantly for the swearing-in ceremonies was David Koch, the multibillionaire laissez-faire extremist who bankrolled much of the tea party Republicans' victory last fall. What symbolism! The members were taking office, but Koch and his corporate peers were taking power.

The fresh-faced outsiders quickly morphed into cynical insiders. While they've taken noisy public stands against deficit spending, they've quietly functioned as plodding mules for hauling the corporate wish list through the House. Some examples:

• In an astonishing case of tone deaf overreach, Rep. Paul Ryan, a tea party endorsee last year and now the House budget chairman, proposed to privatize Medicare and slash its health-care payouts to seniors by two-thirds. This would be a windfall for insurance corporations, and it's a top priority of kill-the-government Koch-heads. Ironically, most tea party candidates for Congress in 2010 had bashed "Obamacare" by falsely claiming that it would require "massive cuts" in this very popular, efficient, and effective Medicare program -- all but two tea partiers voted with Ryan to destroy it. As one observer said, "it's a measure of just how far off the deep end Republicans have gone." That was no lefty talking, but David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's budget director.
  
  
• A few days after voting against granny's health care, the GOP (including all tea partiers) did vote to help one of the neediest among us: Big Oil. With gasoline at $4 a gallon and oil profits soaring, Democrats suggested that the annual $4 billion taxpayer subsidy for the oil giants should be eliminated. "No," said all 241 Republicans -- with not a single dissent from tea party lawmakers, who otherwise decry "entitlement" programs.
  
  
• Just like the old Congress, money talks in this "new" one, and the tea party crew is eagerly snagging checks from corporate lobbyists. Steve Stivers of Ohio, for one, landed a coveted seat on the financial services subcommittee, and -- shazam! -- nearly $100,000 in campaign cash fell into his lap in just his first eight weeks -- 85 percent of it from financiers his committee oversees. Steve is now carrying two bills that those interests really, really want passed. One would kill a Wall Street reform requiring banks to disclose the difference in pay between CEOs and average employees. The other exempts billionaire private equity hucksters from regulation. Sheltering greedheaded banksters -- is that what the tea party rebellion was about?
  
  
• How about sheltering children from dangerous toys? Just a few years ago, marketers like Mattel had to pull made-in-China toys, cribs, etc. ... off the shelves because they contained lead, toxic paint, and other dangers. Responding to public outrage, a bipartisan congressional majority voted in 2008 to beef up the staffing and authority of the then-dormant Consumer Product Safety Commission, giving it a firm mandate to protect our children. In one excellent reform, CPSC set up an easily accessible database so parents themselves can report product hazards or read injury reports. Great -- it's effective, consumer-driven, and inexpensive! Kill it, squawked industry lobbyists this year, calling it a government intrusion into the marketplace. The tea party's Mike Pompeo of Kansas sponsored an amendment to cut all funding for CPSC's database. Not for nothing is Pompeo called the "Congressman from Koch." His Wichita business was financed by a Koch Industries subsidiary, he was a trustee for a Koch think tank in Kansas, the Koch PAC was his campaign's top donor (by far) last year, David Koch's own front group (Americans For Prosperity) organized and mobilized tea party support for Pompeo, and a Koch lobbyist is now Pompeo's chief of staff in Washington. Mike's amendment passed 234 to 187, enjoying full tea party support.

Armey's "hostile takeover" of the GOP is effectively complete. Such old right-wing reliables as Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah have jerked themselves even harder to the right this year: "I was tea party before it was cool," he recently asserted, clearly worried that he might face a primary challenger from the tea wing. Speaker John Boehner, long the proper corporatist, has been twisted into some very uncomfortable policy positions by this caucus, which has been dubbed "Boehner's Migraine." And the Republican presidential primary is not merely tilted to the right, it has fallen off the cliff into extreme, religious-like, right-wing fanaticism.

Is this because that's what Americans want? Has the American electorate really gone nuts, demanding the policies that tea party Republicans are insisting on? No.

Rank-and-file tea partiers themselves are beginning to say, "This is not what we meant." As one supporter in Texas put it: "It can't just be kill everything. It's certainly not kill my investments." In fact, a CBS poll in July found two-thirds of the movement's supporters favoring compromise on the debt ceiling conflagration, 53 percent saying some tax increases were needed, and most saying that the most important need is not spending cuts, but jobs.

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