The New York Times has a pieced called "Jefferson's Tea Party Moment" that ties the policies of today's Tea Party Movement with the limited government agenda of Thomas Jefferson:
America’s first elected opposition party, the Democratic-Republican Party formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the 1790s, promised a “second revolution” whose axioms included “the general principle that payment of debt should take precedence of all other expenditure,” as Henry Adams put it in “History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson,” his monumental study.
The trouble, as Adams noted, was that this principle conflicted with another, “reduction of taxes; and the revenue was not sufficient to satisfy both demands.”
The solution was to trim the size of government. The biggest departments were the Army and the Navy, which were duly cut back. It seemed a sensible solution since Jefferson, along with the public, wanted no more wars. But the Barbary pirates were attacking American merchant ships, and since taxes were needed to pay for a series of naval battles, Jefferson authorized a new federal fund, in violation of his anti-Federalist politics.
Démarches of this kind became the essence of Jefferson’s two terms. He forswore “entangling alliances” with foreign powers, but when Napoleon offered to sell France’s holdings in the Louisiana territory, Jefferson accepted. He raised the $15 million fee by issuing government bonds and taking over payment of the French debt to American citizens. Some objected to Jefferson’s annexing “a foreign people and a vast territory,” Adams wrote. Others protested that Jefferson, the devout anti-monarchist, had recast himself as the virtual king of this new land acquisition.
Thus did Jefferson’s mission to eliminate the debt and repeal taxes — “the foundation for his system of politics abroad and at home,” as Adams described it — yield to the practical demands of governing a young, ambitious nation.
For all this, Jefferson remains the originator of the anti-statist movement, with its aversion to debt and taxes, that is dominating the debt-ceiling impasse and has been a defining and recurrent strain of American politics. He has had many ideological successors, up through today’s Tea Party movement.
I found this interesting:
Former Sen. Tom Daschle and former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., will join former Sen. George McGovern and Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., at the annual McGovern Day Dinner on March 31.
The event is sponsored by the South Dakota Democratic Party and serves as a major party fundraiser.
“I can think of few other people who have changed the course of South Dakota as much as Sens. McGovern, Daschle and Johnson,” said SDDP chairman Ben Nesselhuf.
They are the three most successful Democratic politicians in South Dakota history. McGovern served 22 years in Congress, 18 in the Senate. Daschle served 26 years in Congress, 18 in the Senate. Johnson has served 26 years in Congress and is in his third term in the Senate.
Rebranded in 2002 from the Party’s Jefferson/Jackson Day, McGovern Day is the largest annual event for the South Dakota Democratic Party, an institution shaped by McGovern during the 1950s and throughout his political career.
So it seems that the original Jeffersonian policy of limited government was a Democratic idea and now rejected. And it also appears that the Republican leadership is not willing to accept that rejected Jeffersonian policy:
U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., said she has not yet decided whether to join the House’s Tea Party Caucus.
Noem was confronted by constituents about the issue at a town hall meeting held over the weekend in Rapid City, according to media reports. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., founded the Tea Party Caucus in July 2010. The caucus’ website lists 60 members from the House’s 435 representatives.
Rapid City resident Stephanie Strong announced recently that she plans to challenge Noem in a Republican primary, in part because Noem voted in August for a debt-ceiling increase.
Bachmann did not fair well in this year's GOP primary for president. And we have the leadership of the South Dakota Democratic Party also voicing opposition to his own party's Jeffersonian heritage:
A Democratic Party official criticized Noem’s tea party comments later Thursday.
“After only a year in Washington, Congresswoman Noem has learned how to play the political games,” said South Dakota Democratic Party Chairman Ben Nesselhuf.
“She is going to ride the fence on this one for as long as she can. She has two equally unappealing choices: Join the Tea Party Caucus and show her true colors to the people of South Dakota, or reject the tea party and alienate her base.”
So how have we got to the point where Jefferson's limited government policies have been completely rejected by the political party that carried his heritage and the base of the GOP, who now carries that legacy, is shamed by both the GOP and Democratic leadership? Populists Democrats are being deceived by their Marxist leadership that government is the answer to controlling the ruling elite, when in fact less government is the solution. Conservative Republicans understand that, but they are being deceived by the GOP leadership who claim to be on board with less government.
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