Mona Charen has a great piece on Real Clear Politics on the tea parties, pointing out the tremendous media bias apparent in the coverage and what the tea parties suggest about Americans who still recoil from the idea of government handouts.
Charen makes the point, however, that the GOP can’t expect tax cuts (or the specter of tax increases) to fuel a path back to power because our tax structure has become so progressive that few actually have a real stake in the debate. Yet I believe and hope the tea parties are about more than just taxes and that the GOP knows that. It is about the whole big government culture that seems to increasingly seek to passify the masses with cradel to grave care (and pretend there is no price to pay for it).
This will be particulalry important as we begin a debate about the future of healthcare, since the Dems and universal healthcare supporters have been suggesting that Americans can get something for nothing. The tea parties might suggest that people are becoming a little more skeptical of this overblown rhetoric.