Tea Party Rep Decries Debt… and Owes $100K in Child Support

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The Chicago Sun-Times has some info on a leading tea party congressman:

Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, a tax-bashing Tea Party champion who sharply lectures President Barack Obama and other Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes more than $100,000 in child support to his ex-wife and three children, according to documents his ex-wife filed in their divorce case in December.

“I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” Walsh says directly into the camera in his viral video lecturing Obama on the need to get the nation’s finances in order…

“Joe personally loaned his campaign $35,000, which, given that he failed to make any child support payments to Laura because he ‘had no money’ is surprising,” Laura Walsh’s attorneys wrote in a motion filed in December seeking $117,437 in back child support and interest. “Joe has paid himself back at least $14,200 for the loans he gave himself.”

In addition to haranguing the president and playing loose with the budget numbers, Walsh has been one of the biggest thorns in John Boehner’s side, rebuffing the speaker’s entreaties to accept a GOP “compromise” bill on the debt ceiling. But the Sun-Times story suggests Walsh’s principled stand on the national debt isn’t all that principled. Unless, of course, he were to buck the tea party and argue that the federal budget is nothing like a family’s checkbook

Drama! Where’s my popcorn?

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In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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