Wednesday, February 10, 2010

There's a piece in the Chicago Tribune...

...today with the title, "Why We're Tea Partyers," written by a couple named Rob and Joy Anderson.

...It is this kind of news, and this kind of expectation, that inspired us — 68- and 67-year-olds whose only previous civic involvement was fighting a local housing initiative 35 years ago — to go to our first tea party meeting in March 2009 near our home in Worcester County, Mass. We went out of senses of patriotism and duty to defend our Constitution.

But we also went out of anger. Anger that our three grandchildren would be faced with the impossible task of turning back government-controlled health care, unthinkable deficits and tax rates approaching 60 percent. We love them too much to leave them that kind of fight.

I'd love to ask this couple (and my 81-year-old neighbor) if they would be willing--for the Tea Party Cause--to give up their "government-controlled health care" (Medicare) and their Social Security benefits. It sure would go a long way to taming those "unthinkable deficits" and those "tax rates approaching 60 percent."

I'm sure the Andersons wouldn't have any trouble finding an insurance company to write them an affordable policy at their age. (You don't have any pre-existing conditions, do you?) And I'm also sure they must feel really guilty receiving more in Social Security benefits than they originally paid into the fund. If they didn't have those pesky Social Security checks to cash every month they could just have their three grandchildren support them directly without all that fuss of going through the federal government.

So how angry are you, Rob and Joy Anderson?

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