The Tea Party

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Problem being that the direct 'vote for or against taxes' system doesn't really work either. Whenever it's been tried, no one really ever voted for taxes and the administration in question was incapable of doing anything. What we need is a happy medium whereby government can get what it needs to do what it does but people have a say in the matter...

If only we could think of some such system... /sarcasm

In all seriousness though, I think we can tackle this 'not enough say' stuff if 1) more people were genuinely interested and active in their local and federal government and 2) better avenues of discussion opened up between constituents and politicians.

I fancy the idea of a monthly or even weekly chat day. Where, for a few hours, a politician either sits down with or over the phone/ and IM talks one-on-one with interested constituents. It happens to an extent in some areas, but IMO it should be standard practice.

All of that aside, the Tea Party isn't against taxation without representation, rather taxation in general. They're also not against authoritarianism at large, just liberal authoritarianism.

[smileyeagle1021]

"government doing stuff that works" ??!!?!

Government programs:
* Social Security -bankrupt (or going bankrupt)
* Postal Service - bankrupt (or equivalent)
* Medicare - bankrupt (or equivalent)

Name one program that is governmnet provided that works (expect the military) and NOT going bankrupt.

Social security would be working fine had the republicans not raided it to fund their pet programs.
The postal service is only going bankrupt because they are still running on rules over a decade old, considering the constraints they are under they are a model of efficiency. UPS and FedEx have both point blank said that they simply could not compete with the postal service with the service because of how efficient of a system the USPS already has set up.
Medicare is bankrupt not because of inefficiency but lack of funding.

Programs that work incredibly well.
From personal experience.
UDOT- in the last 5 years every project has been completed on time and under budget.
UTA- Ditto, on time on budget for all projects.
FAA- do you think that pilots just magically know what clearance they have and what routes are safe...
IP Relay- while not directly provided by the government (it is all contracted out now), deaf persons can 24 hours a day 365 days a year call any 10 digit number within the United States, with over 90% of the time having zero wait for a connection and roughly 98% of the time having to wait less than 10 seconds.
k-12 is often time looked at as being second best, but considering how little we spend per child compared to the rest of the first world, the fact that we have children graduating is a miracle. The government does for often times less than $2000 what private schools will take over $5000 for.
Higher Education while not perfect is still a great service, look at how many people will wait in line to be admitted to the country for no other reason than to attend our public universities.
I also don't hear too many complaints about the fire department, nor the police department (sans corruption, which Wall Street has proven isn't a trait limited to government).

You asked for one, I've named several and those are just the ones I've had experience with and can name off the top of my head.