I'm with you on everything except this, unless you're going to hang your hat on the "some" qualifier. TPers generally want smaller government AND lower taxes. That's not austerity.
To expand on Francesca R's comment, we can interpret government deficit as either insufficient revenue(taxation, nationalization of assets) or else excessive spending, and the deficit can be addressed (austerity) by either means. It's clear enough that government spending has a lower economic multiplier than private spending, therefore we expect tax decreases (which allow greater private sector spending) are a more effective stimulus than added government spending.
So you could have improved austerity with stimulation by decreasing revenues less than spending decreases. You can have smaller government (spending) and less taxes, but not in equal amounts. I think that TPers have divergent views on how to achieve lower taxes and lower deficit(austerity), and these are not well articulated AFAIK.
In some sense, TEA stands for "Taxed Enough Already."
Right. It is a problem that TP is not a centrally organized faction with a well stated position. It allows opponents to scape-goat and demonize in the most outrageous and unfair ways.
The liberal posters here think that the Tea Party is some sort of racist, fascist movement, but I think of it as more libertarian.
I only partly agree.
Racist - Yes, SOME Libs prefer to characterize TP as racist based on the actions of a few. OTOH they blatantly ignore the racism in their own party.
No one would tolerate Obama calling his grandmother a "typical white woman" if the colors were reversed. No one can believe that Eugene Robinson constantly slinging the slur of racism against whites who oppose Obama policies and actions lives up to MLKs criteria of judging by the content of their character and not skin color. Selective editing by the Liberal press to make TP rallies appear more racist is yellow journalism. Snarky insults about Romney's non-Caucasian grandchild in national press shows. Comments about sending Nikki Haley back where she came from by Dem politicians. Then we have a clique of Dems who race-bait for a living; Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton. How abt Harry Reid's comment on Obama as a "‘light-skinned’ African American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one ?!!? Or, “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking!” – Joe Biden.
Here's recent Democratic contribution to a color blind society.
http://newsone.com/3008750/melissa-harris-perry-jim-coughlan/
These are leaders and press on the issue of race - and ignores constant slurs against religion and things like rank&file SEIU members beating up a black TP supporter (a nice mix of racism and political intolerance from the Left).
Despite all that it's wrong to characterize Dems as racist, as the term applies to a minority of Dems and is not generally part of the party platform or positions. If Dems were as decentralized as TPers it would be easy to slander them unjustly, just as they do to others.
Fascist - does involve ultra nationalism, but supremacy of the state and belief in a strong leader is mostly Dem territory recently IMO. It also involves the state indoctrination of culture that seems to mesh with the Dem agenda of stamping out and denigrating religion, slandering alternative political views, and forcing ppl to use clearly defective unionized public schools and unionized public services. They usually seem quite intolerant of political and cultural dissent - like fascists.
The anti-immigration stuff is not particularly libertarian, but put in context with a growing welfare state, I think the usual libertarian principle (e.g. open borders) here is impractical.
TP seems to primarily be about smaller less onerous government, but that is about where the overlap w/ Libertarainism ends IMO. They don't seem committed to a government of limited powers, rights of the individual, or restricting military to defense role. They don't seem to support free markets & less regulation. They seem to be Reps who want smaller government with most of the same features as big government except less deficit and less taxes. There seems a certain "free lunch" aspect to TP (as I understand it) that they need to address with serious policy proposals. Their minor and failed attempts to cut or reduce certain programs I think is a positive step.
I'm not aware that TP has any stand on (anti) immigration, tho' it's probably a common position among TP supporters. But to the extent that we are taxed for social services then immigration can be financially unfair. Canada, New Zealand, Australia and other advanced nations have immigration criteria that require the immigre demonstrate that they have assets or education or skills and are sufficiently young to self-support AND contribute adequately to social costs. I doubt the average US immigre pays enough in taxes to cover their own children primary education. Then we have the acculturation problem with large immigration influx where the new member of society bring their old views to bear on democracy. If I were Mexican I would greatly desire a stronger Federal government for economic and personal rights reasons, but that view seems antithetical to economic interests and liberty in the US. If I were Mexican I would live in mortal fear of getting bound up in the horrific Spanish derived judicial system and want it reformed. Its not the same issue in the US where the main problem seems to be a judiciary ceding massive power to the government on the flimsiest of arguments.
