Just a brief observation over what the effect is so far of the ideologically-driven partisan wrangling by our Congress over the last few weeks.

The markets began to "price in" the incompetence and intransigence of our Congress as early as about a month ago. Just in case you've missed it, the market capitalization of all the companies traded on U.S. stock exchanges have lost about $3 trillion in value since July 7. That's real lost wealth, real money that could have been spent or invested. That's about three months worth of GDP for the U.S.!

If I recall correctly, the Tea Party refused to consider a little less than $1 trillion in "revenue increases". Had some compromise been reached, the grand bargain of $4 trillion in deficit reduction was possible--at least that's what all the parties from both sides of the aisle have said regarding the negotiations. That's the number that Simpson-Bowles recommended, the "gang of six" came up with, and then both the Boehner-Obama and Reid-McConnell negotiations were headed for. All included some tax increases.

S&P said that had a $4 trillion deal been agreed upon, they wouldn't have dropped our credit rating. Presumably that would have avoided $3 trillion in lost wealth.

But the Tea Party had enough votes to block any of those agreements. Enough votes to take the discussions to the very brink of default. Enough votes to totally upset the financial markets around the world. Then in the end they settled for less than $1 trillion in spending cuts over ten years, none of which will happen until 2014 at the earliest. The rest of the cuts, totaling only about $1.5 trillion will either have to be determined by the "super committee" or by an agreed-upon formula. Those cuts may not happen until years in the future. They finally forced a deal that was so inadequate that our debt rating was dropped in only a day or so--all in the sole interest of a far right wing ideology.

The Tea Party didn't get "cap". They didn't get "balance" and they only got a miniscule pittance of spending cuts, sometime way down the road.

So what's the bottom line so far? These 87 rookie congressmen blocked a deal that would have resulted in almost double the deficit reduction and in doing so cost corporations and investors three times the amount being arguing about. They continually created soundbites arguing why would you take money from the pockets of the "job creators", why would you increase taxes in a fragile economy? But then the results of their incompetence took three times the amount wealth from those they argued they were trying to protect. Their intransigence resulted in the first credit downgrade of U.S. debt in the country's history, incalcuable damage to our economy, and almost certain significant increases to unemployment.

While I endorse the objectives of the Tea Party, I certainly don't endorse or support their amateurish, irresponsible and terribly costly approach to statesmanship and governance.

Support these guys in the 2012 elections? Elect more of them? Elect a President who is chairman of the Tea Party caucus who is even farther out on the right fringe than most of them, who said she didn't think a default would be all that bad a thing? That statement makes Joe the Plumber look like a Phi Beta Kappa.

You can't be serious. The answer isn't the Democrats or President Obama, but it sure as hell isn't the Tea Party either.