Ozombies be Damned
Deficit Is Down, So Thank The Tea Party
By STEPHEN MOORE
Posted 05:46 PM ET
American history has been profoundly shaped by citizen-driven grass-roots movements that spontaneously combust into seismic political change.
This is the story of the Founding Fathers, the abolitionists, the progressives, the civil-rights movement, the 1970s tax revolt and ... it's time to add to that list the oft-maligned tea party movement.
We don't fully recognize the earthquake change brought about by these millions of military veterans, housewives, nurses, schoolteachers, construction workers, senior citizens, investment bankers and clergy who saw the recklessness and immorality of debt, redistribution, Washington waste, federal bailouts and ObamaCare.
Nancy Pelosi couldn't have gotten it more wrong when she snorted that this was an artificial "astroturf" movement controlled by the Koch brothers and the Republican National Committee.
In reality, this was a local and organic movement of mostly political neophytes.
Their tactics and goals were sometimes politically naive and a few times counterproductive. But I was on the Washington Mall on 9/12 when at least a half-million gathered to express their rage against a government that had come unhinged. Their common bond was a healthy contempt for the centralized power, arrogance,ignorance and greed of the privileged class in Washington.
The tea partiers didn't like the policies of George W. Bush much more than those of Barack Obama. This was never partisan, though the anger was directed at the party in power — the Obama Democrats.
What did they accomplish? That question was answered in part by the latest government report on the budget and the debt.
The Congressional Budget Office reports that the budget deficit this year is likely to be at or below $400 billion. That's still way too high but near a $1 trillion gigantic improvement from when the tea party lifted off. As a share of GDP, federal deficits have tumbled from nearly 10% to just under 3%.
It's not a stretch to say that what brought about this abrupt change of fiscal course was the tea party movement that swept fiscal conservatives into power in the House of Representatives — and hundreds more at the state and local level.
And what a difference those newcomers made. Before the 2010 elections the federal budget was expected to hit $4 trillion by 2016. Instead — thanks to budget caps and the sequester — annual outlays, which peaked at $3.598 trillion in fiscal 2011, fell to $3.5 trillion in 2012 and $3.45 trillion in 2013.
This was the first time since the end of the Korean War that federal spending dropped for two consecutive years. This year, spending will rise, but only by 2%, not the double-digit-percentage hikes President Obama has sought.
By my calculations, the tea party has helped reduce the debt level from what it would have been by more than $1 trillion in three years.
OK, yes, the bad news is that due to a rotten budget deal last year — which suspended the caps for a year and then raised them in the future — federal spending will start climbing again next year at pre-tea party rates. It's time to start holding both parties' feet to the fire again.
Another underappreciated triumph was the sequester — the across-the-board cuts, which saved about $80 billion in 2013. The cuts in defense programs were tough, but the domestic cuts were easily absorbed, notwithstanding the moans from government officials and attempts by the White House to scare the public.
(Remember the shutdown of the air-traffic-control towers and the threats to food safety inspections?)
Ironically, the tea party may have saved Obama in 2012. Had it not been for the more fiscal conservative turn in 2011, the economy may have slid into another financial meltdown and Obama would have lost his re-election bid. The spending discipline he fought against — and even closed the government to stop — then became part of his ongoing campaign pitch.
We are not out of the woods yet fiscally, and the deficits may start to turn up again thanks to runaway entitlements that Obama won't touch.
Another worry is that Republicans may flinch again and suspend the hard-fought caps next year so they can continue spending. Already some Republican appropriators are joining with Democrats to call for suspending the budget reforms that ended earmarks for Bridge to Nowhere-type projects.
But for now, the budget is in much better shape than it was three years ago. We aren't staring into the financial abyss. Obama says he deserves the credit. It actually goes to the millions of Americans who rose up and shouted:
"We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore."
And then they voted the bums out. Thank God that they arrived just in time. Rather than ridiculing these 21st-century patriots, maybe Washington and the media should say "Thank you and keep it up."
• Moore is chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.
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Thank the Tea Party!
