Interesting short clip. Transcribed inside.
You already know my thoughts. Clinton is wrong about the power of the Federal government, but he's one of the first Democrats politically astute enough to show respect for the anger driving the tea movement. If Democrats were willing to cut spending and end the stimulus, they would have tea party allies and not enemies.
But they would also lose 50% of their government teet-sucking base overnight.
Note: Republicans love government too. And if they don't cut spending dramatically when they knock off Obama in 2012, you can expect the tea party to explode into revolution.
Clinton:
"There are a lot of real people in this Tea Party movement that are saying something everyone should hear, which is “seems like everyone but average Americans are doing all right here. The people that caused the financial crisis are all back in great shape,” (and its true that the banks have 1.8 trillion dollars in uncommitted cash reserves.) “The government is in pretty good shape – the people who work for the government have good jobs, health care and can pay their mortgages and can send their kids to college. What about us?”
"The problem is that if you look at the financial energy behind the Tea Party movement, its not about restricting abuse of big public and private power, its about destroying the role of government in our life so that private centers of power will be untrammeled, and I don’t think that’s good for average Americans."
Related reading and viewing:
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