Teabaggers Love The 1%

The teabaggers have always claimed to be a grassroots movement that represents the middle class in their desire to "take back the country" for ordinary Americans. I have never believed that. We have known for a long time now that the movement was organized and funded by corporate interests, who were interested in starting a movement that would benefit the rich and the corporations (such as the Koch brothers). And they succeeded.

The teabaggers take their marching orders from corporate interests and support candidates that favor the 1% of richest Americans. This is clearly shown by their interest in banishing corporate taxes massively reducing taxes for the rich, while attempting to deny workers even a small payroll tax cut.

Now the website Open Secrets shows us why this is. It seems the teabaggers have elected some of the wealthiest members of Congress -- members who would be voting against their own wealthy interests to vote for anything to help workers or the middle class. Here are the facts compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics:

The median average net worth of a member of the House Tea Party Caucus was $1.8 million in 2010. (Financial disclosure forms require lawmakers to value their assets and liabilities only in ranges, so it's impossible to know exactly how wealthy a particular elected official is. However, it's possible to calculate an average net worth for each member of Congress.)


That's significantly higher than the comparable number for the median House member: $755,000. It's also more than 130 percent above the $774,280 average net worth of the median, non-Tea Party Caucus House Republican.  


Furthermore, the caucus, a group of 60 House members founded by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), includes 33 millionaires and six members worth more than $20 million, according to the Center's research. That means a member of the group is more likely to be a millionaire than the average Republican who isn't in the caucus. 


The wealth among the House Tea Party Caucus's membership ranges from Rep. Stephen Fincher's (R-Tenn.) estimated average net worth of negative $3.3 million to the $49.3 million of the richest member of the group, Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas). 

The teabagger representatives are also much richer than the members of the Progressive Caucus (although they are far from poor either). While the teabaggers have an average wealth if $1.8 million, the progressives have an average wealth of about $639,500 (an average of more than a million dollars each for the teabaggers over the progressives).

The truth is that the teabagger voters were long ago co-opted by the rich, and they now vote to support whatever the rich and the corporations want.