With No Job, Plenty of Time for Tea Party

[Joanne98]

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — When Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.

Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist.

In the last year, he has organized a local group and a statewide coalition, and even started a “bus czar” Web site to marshal protesters to Washington on short notice. This month, he mobilized 200 other Tea Party activists to go to the local office of the same congressman to protest what he sees as the government’s takeover of health care.

Mr. Grimes is one of many Tea Party members jolted into action by economic distress. At rallies, gatherings and training sessions in recent months, activists often tell a similar story in interviews: they had lost their jobs, or perhaps watched their homes plummet in value, and they found common cause in the Tea Party’s fight for lower taxes and smaller government.

The Great Depression, too, mobilized many middle-class people who had fallen on hard times. Though, as Michael Kazin, the author of “The Populist Persuasion,” notes, they tended to push for more government involvement. The Tea Party vehemently wants less — though a number of its members acknowledge that they are relying on government programs for help.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28teaparty.html

It's beginning to look like the entire Teabagger movement is on SOCIALISM!

[janedum]

1. Pathetic SOB. Where was he 2 yrs. ago when B^sh was F^Kng up the country?

[upi402]

2. Republicans use and abuse the social safety net more than anybody

ALL! of the conservatives I know do it. And the only ethical people I know that conserve the safety net programs are liberals who save and live with less.

my .02

[SocialistLez]

3. I don't get it....

They hate government BUT they depend on it.
What hypocrisy.

When Little Rock had the free clinic for the uninsured, some of these people were out there saying, "GET A JOB!!"

On this other forum I'm a member of, it's not uncommon for these tea baggers to tell other people to get a job, save up for their own emergencies, don't depend on the government.

Hypocrisy at it's finest.

[SOS]

4. Lost jobs and low home values

This country switched from a Keynesian to a Friedman economic model 30 years ago.
It is their beloved laissez-faire, deregulated capitalism that eventually ruined them.
But connecting those two dots is beyond the ability of a TPer.

[tammywammy]

5. "Mr. Grimes, for his part, is thinking of getting a part-time job with the Census Bureau."

With no hint of irony. lol

[SoCalNative]

6. Perhaps his state unemployment office

would like to know that he is spending all of his time as a rabble-rouser instead of looking for a job?

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

7. No kidding.