Thank your local Tea Party...

For today's miserable stock performance.  As of 2:15, the S&P was down 3.25% and the Dow was down 3.00%.  Why you may ask?  Due to fears of a double-dip recession. 

Why are investors worried about a double-dip recession in the days after we raised the debt ceiling?  There's a simple answer for that too: by cutting drastically while growth slow we spat on history and ignored every economics textbook in the country.  We did perhaps the dumbest possible thing to spur economic growth.  Demand is low and so we cut spending, lessening demand.  The facts, the obvious and the lessons of history were discarded on the trash heap on lunacy by a movement of people who held our economy hostage, got sensible people to cave into their demands and then set us on a path backwards.  I'm talking to you Tea Party.

And that's why today, I'm looking at all the gains my meager investments have made over the course of the last seven months totally disappear.  In one fell swoop of stupidity, the Tea Party caused panic that erased seven months of (tepid) growth. 

Perhaps this is a one day hiccup.  Who knows, maybe investors will seize on low prices tomorrow and go on a stock bargain-buying binge.  I certainly hope so since my small portfolio took one on the chin today. 

But I don't have a reason to be optimistic, after all, the underlying fears of a double-dip recession today won't have evaporated by tomorrow.  Remarkably ill-timed spending cuts have been enacted and investors have a reason to worry.  Actually, all Americans as well as citizens of every country plugged into the global economy have a reason to worry.  The Tea Party is poison to America, but the world economy is still linked to the United States, so the Tea Party has the power to harm billions of people worldwide. 

Let this be a lesson America.  Federal spending and the deficit are issues that must be addressed in a wise manner, not the wanton approach of 70 idiots with no political or economic experience.  Furthermore, the federal deficit is still secondary to our economic recovery.  Putting people back to work will increase tax revenues without raising taxes and will go a long way towards putting our country back on sound fiscal footing.  Only after we have fixed the economy should we reexamine and revamp federal spending. 

But we've already made that mistake so now the important issue is making sure we don't make it again.  No amount of Tea Party fanaticism and fantasy math, no heavy doses of fool's demagoguery and economic planning by people with no experience is going to fix our economy.  So the next time we have an opportunity to vote, let us make sure we vote for the people who know what is best for America and have some vision of our country that doesn't involve another recession and the decline of America, because that is where the Tea Party is leading us.