Tea Party on Budget & Economy

Against Bush's bailout bill & against Obama's stimulus bill

With the election of President Barack Obama, things only seemed to get worse. On Feb. 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as the "stimulus" bill. A young woman called it by its real name: pork. So did about a hundred other people who showed up at a "Porkulus" protest.

Act of cowardice by lawmakers to inflict generational harm

Government overspending is a self-inflicted problem. Which means we can put an end to this problem by holding our representatives' feet to the fire, getting them to honor the oaths they swore to uphold, and stopping them from inflicting generational harm to America by spending trillions of dollars we simply do not have.

The Tea Party Patriots have to swat the Republican leadership, often several times a week, to stop them from driving America into insolvency at only a slightly slower speed than the Democrats.

OpEd: Congress waives PAYGO even when slightly inconvenient

This is a revolutionary concept for governments, so they praise themselves and wrap it in new, flashy names like PAYGO. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said when Congress passed a new PAYGO law in 2010: "Our majority made PAYGO the rule of the House--that if you wanted to have an investment or an entitlement, you had to pay for it. There was no open-ended spending." Did our government follow its own law? Not according to one budget scholar who observed that "Congress waived PAYGO every time it proved even slightly inconvenient." Congress waived it for the $787 billion "stimulus" bill. And waived it on page 888 of the 2012 budget for the National Infrastructure Bank, which is "not subject to PAYGO."

Fiscal responsibility applies to both Democrats & GOP

Not true. Just ask Republicans.

True, the modern-day Tea Party movement began in February 2009, when the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives were all controlled by Democrats. But the 1st stirrings of our movement started with the out-of-control spending of the Republican George W Bush administration--which gathered steam in his 2nd term and came to a head with President Bush's big government bailouts in September of 2008.

Taxation & regulation replaces wisdom of the market

1. Taxation
2. Regulation
3. Monetary Policy
4. Direct Spending

Let's ask the following questions. If Stimulus 1 was a good idea, why did we need a Stimulus 2 or all those other rounds of stimulus under different names? If Quantitative Easing 1 (QE1) was such a good idea, then why QE2--or, even worse, a proposed QE3? Why are people's homes still being foreclosed upon? Why is the housing market still in collapse? And where are all those jobs we were promised?

Audit the fed: Congressional oversight needed

Stated another way: the entity that controls our money supply, sets our interest rates, and creates inflation or deflation at its whim doesn't even have to comply with the basic principles of accounting oversight that any company has to observe to be listed on a stock exchange. Most people find this fact stunning. And 75% of Americans, according to a 2009 Rasmussen poll, want the Fed audited. We, the Tea Party Patriots, agree with 75% of Americans: the time to audit the Fed is now.

Fed's job has been to print money; that drives up inflation

Lately, the Fed's main job has been to print money, which has debased US currency, driven up inflation, and caused the world to seriously reconsider decoupling itself from the US dollar. The Fed has been doing all this beyond the reach of the people's representatives.

Financial responsibility to cut $61B from budget

Knowing how Washington works, I can already predict that our Democratic president and the rest of the Democratic Party will claim that the Republicans want to cut programs that benefit children, the elderly, and the infirm and that they want to stifle medical research and programs that will create economic growth. The Republicans will claim that the Democrats are addicted to spending and couldn't stop if their lives depended on it.

2009: Tea Party sparked by opposing mortgage bailout

Across the country, disgruntled conservatives perked up. The "Tea Party" symbolism was a perfect rallying point since it brings to mind the original American colonial rebels opposing tyranny by tossing chests of tea into Boston Harbor.

Economic pessimism: Great Recession part of downward spiral

Though members of the Tea Party do not bear the heaviest economic burden, they do have some of the most negative views of the economy, and their worries bleed into broader fears. Overall, fewer than half of Americans said that good jobs are a thing of the past. But for members of the Tea Party, it felt as though the fundamentalist rules about the American Dream had changed. Working hard no longer meant getting ahead.

Don't raise debt limit; already facing economic Armageddon

Budget woes more about coming collapse than redistribution

Tea Party made all politicians look seriously at $15T debt

The media continuously bash the Tea Party. Nothing could be more unfair. The press constantly maligns, ridicules, and mocks the Tea Party folks. The fact is the Tea Party is made up of great citizens of this country. And in the end, I think the Tea Party patriots will get the last laugh because they will go down as having done more to change the country than any other group. They are terrific people, great Americans, and I am proud to have such a good relationship with them.

Tea Party movement reborn based on massive 2008 bailout

On Sept. 29, we gathered to watch the final deliberations on the House floor. We were as surprised as anyone that the House bill failed, 228-205, with 133 Republicans voting against their president.

In retrospect, Sept. 29 is clearly the day the Tea Party movement was reborn in America. There was a massive wave of spontaneous grassroots outrage that rose up against the government's proposed actions, temporarily taking back the people's house from the political elite. We were told by our allies who work in Congress that constituent communications were 100-1 against the Paulson Plan. While the bill would ultimately pass, it had stirred the passion of the grassroots freedom movement.

When times are tough, government should make do with less

In 2000 the US national debt stood at $5.6 trillion. By 2008 that amount had nearly doubled to $10 trillion, which translates to more than $85,000 per household. By 2018 the deficit is projected at $18 trillion.

Bush's Wall Street bailout ignited Tea Party firestorm

They're wrong. The government expansion during Bush's reign provided the fuel. And it was his Wall Street bailout that ignited the firestorm we see today.

As the Democratic Congress pushed through the Bush's bill, our predicament became crystal clear: We the people had lost control of our government. It was now the political class versus the American tax-payers.

Some thought they were voting to change this situation with Obama. But he has doubled down the bad policies of the Bush administration in favor of the political class.

Many of us knew instinctually the bailout was wrong. We got it--our instincts were right. Unfortunately, many of the 535 people we sent to Congress didn't seem to get it. And they certainly haven't accepted their responsibility for creating the problem.

Movement born in objection to stimulus plan

Against all of our expectations, at 2:07 P.M., the first legislation was defeated 228-205, with 133 Republicans voting against their president.

In retrospect, September 29 is clearly the day the Tea Party movement was reborn in America.

There was a massive wave of spontaneous grassroots outrage that rose up against the government's proposed actions, temporarily taking back the people's house from the political elite. The citizens of America--for a few days at least--took their country back. We were told by our allies who work in Congress that constituent communications were 100 to 1 against the Paulson Plan.