What Does the Tea Party Stand For?

[native]

There are many "Tea Party" organizations. Here are the top ten issues from "JoinTheTeaParty.us."

1. Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)

2. Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. (72.20%)

3. Demand a Balanced Budget
Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. (69.69%)

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)

5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning. (63.37%)

6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. (56.57%)

7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. (56.39%)

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. (55.51%)

9. Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%)

10. Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. (53.38%)

[mebison]

Agree in theory with most of it. The problem, as with many campaign platforms/promises, is whether you believe electing Tea Party officials will make any of this any more likely to happen.

Also, "change this to something that works" or "replace this with something that works" is, of course, much more difficult when you actually have to define the "something that works" part. (specifically looking at #7 and #5, for instance)

[JohnStOnge]

I don't know if the Tea Party really has an agenda per se but I do agree with all of those listed positions. Some are not that high a priority to me but I agree with them. To me if number 1 were implemented and requiring specific literal Constitutional authorization were enforced some of the other ones would be taken care of.

To me succeeding in establishing a system whereby Congress was required to cite specific Constitutional authorization for anything it does would be great. And I'm not talking about citing what the Courts have to say about the Constitution. What the Courts have to say about the Constitution is inaccurate. I'm talking about citing the Constitutional and making the argument that the words there taken in the context of an honest effort to understand them as they were understood when they were ratified can be reasonably construed as explicitly authorizing what Congress does.

Doing that would go a long way toward putting the Federal government back in the box it belongs in.

[Col Hogan]

I don't know if the Tea Party really has an agenda per se but I do agree with all of those listed positions. Some are not that high a priority to me but I agree with them. To me if number 1 were implemented and requiring specific literal Constitutional authorization were enforced some of the other ones would be taken care of.

+100

[93henfan]

I don't know if the Tea Party really has an agenda per se but I do agree with all of those listed positions. Some are not that high a priority to me but I agree with them. To me if number 1 were implemented and requiring specific literal Constitutional authorization were enforced some of the other ones would be taken care of.

+100

Cool. Then you both join me in supporting Ron Paul 2012?

[kalm]

Yawn.

They stand for Utopia, are funded by corporatists who hire clever ad agencies that know how to tug at the heartstrings of disenfranchised voters, and support puppet candidates with more than foot firmly planted on the dark side of the moon.

Next!

[mrklean]

Tea Party= Sour Grapes

[native]

Tea Party= Sour Grapes

"Sour grapes?" ...maybe in the same way that the victim of a mugging or rape is full of sour grapes.

[clenz]

I participated in this poll, and splitting it was my choice.

I would like to believe that I agree with most of what they stand for. Of the things listed I agree with all of them. However, I can't tell a whole lot about their actual beliefs due to the crazies getting all the coverage, the coverage on them being very skewed, and well I'm pretty apathetic about politics and it's "parties"


Thanks native!

[native]

Yawn.

They stand for Utopia, are funded by corporatists who hire clever ad agencies that know how to tug at the heartstrings of disenfranchised voters, and support puppet candidates with more than foot firmly planted on the dark side of the moon.

Next!

Then you are firmly in Obama's camp in your (mis)perception of the Tea Party and thin grasp of reality, kalm.

Utopic maybe, in the same way that the founders were utopic.

[89Hen]

Who the F voted for "I disagree with all of the Tea Party agenda"?

This is why we need public polls.

[kalm]

Yawn.

They stand for Utopia, are funded by corporatists who hire clever ad agencies that know how to tug at the heartstrings of disenfranchised voters, and support puppet candidates with more than foot firmly planted on the dark side of the moon.

Next!

Then you are firmly in Obama's camp in your (mis)perception of the Tea Party and thin grasp of reality, kalm.

Utopic maybe, in the same way that the founders were utopic.

If Obama agrees with Kalm on this issue it's only rhetorically speaking. He answers to similar masters.

[native]

...If Obama agrees with Kalm on this issue it's only rhetorically speaking. He answers to similar masters.

The ghosts of Lenin, Che and Marx?!???

[kalm]

...If Obama agrees with Kalm on this issue it's only rhetorically speaking. He answers to similar masters.

The ghosts of Lenin, Che and Marx?!???

You are soooo confused.

[ASUG8]

I agree with what's posted being a fiscal conservative. I'm not entirely up on the Tea Party's social views, but I'm much more moderate on those views than government should do more with less.

[AZGrizFan]

I agree with what's posted being a fiscal conservative. I'm not entirely up on the Tea Party's social views, but I'm much more moderate on those views than government should do more with less.

+1.

"Social" views have no place in government.

[mainejeff]

I agree with what's posted being a fiscal conservative. I'm not entirely up on the Tea Party's social views, but I'm much more moderate on those views than government should do more with less.

+1.

"Social" views have no place in government.

Amen.

Unfortunately, it is those "social" views that get people out to vote and get politicians elected. No one wants to touch or talk about shrinking the government and less spending. NO ONE.

[CID1990]

I agree with all of it EXCEPT #1.

The Constitution already provides that kind of oversight in the Supreme Court. Now, that doesn't mean that the high court has not made some goofy rulings, but requiring a 'constitutional' justification on Congressional bills is simply redundant, and ultimately not binding, anyway, because the Supreme Court would still hold the final say on the constitutionality of whatever Congress writes.

Plus, I would think the the constitutionality of the whole rule might be unconstitutional in itself, which is quite an irony.

[CID1990]

BTW- I am confused....

I don't see "Get rid of the darkies and wetbacks" as one of the listed tenets. Did it get edited out?

Herr Olbermann had me convinced it was in there.

[mrklean]

BTW- I am confused....

I don't see "Get rid of the darkies and wetbacks" as one of the listed tenets. Did it get edited out?

Herr Olbermann had me convinced it was in there.

How would they do that??

[Gil Dobie]

Tea Party= Sour Grapes

Sour Grapes would fit right in with the Sour Pusses we already have in Washington.

[free7694]

Then you are firmly in Obama's camp in your (mis)perception of the Tea Party and thin grasp of reality, kalm.

Utopic maybe, in the same way that the founders were utopic.

If Obama agrees with Kalm on this issue it's only rhetorically speaking. He answers to similar masters.

Seriously, are you some kind of anarchist or something? You don't like republicans, you don't like democrats, you don't like libertarianism, you don't like socialism, hell, you don't seem to like anything about this republic we've been going with for the last 234 years. What form of government do you want to see???

[kalm]

If Obama agrees with Kalm on this issue it's only rhetorically speaking. He answers to similar masters.

Seriously, are you some kind of anarchist or something? You don't like republicans, you don't like democrats, you don't like libertarianism, you don't like socialism, hell, you don't seem to like anything about this republic we've been going with for the last 234 years. What form of government do you want to see???

Like most of the non-partisans on this board, I'm a social libertarian/fiscal conservative. But unlike many social conservatives, I'm not a cheap skate. Government has and should continue to spend money on public works, education, environmental protection - things that support a high standard of living and economic growth for individuals and private business.

I don't like either party right now because we have a government that has been captured by monied interests - and both parties must play that game in order to hold onto power.

I guess I'm kind of an Eisenhower Republican.

[Appaholic]

Seriously, are you some kind of anarchist or something? You don't like republicans, you don't like democrats, you don't like libertarianism, you don't like socialism, hell, you don't seem to like anything about this republic we've been going with for the last 234 years. What form of government do you want to see???

Like most of the non-partisans on this board, I'm a social libertarian/fiscal conservative. But unlike many social conservatives, I'm not a cheap skate. Government has and should continue to spend money on public works, education, environmental protection - things that support a high standard of living and economic growth for individuals and private business.

I don't like either party right now because we have a government that has been captured by monied interests - and both parties must play that game in order to hold onto power.

I guess I'm kind of an Eisenhower Republican.

+1

[Appaholic]

I agree with the majority of the Tea Party's STATED positions. However, I believe alot of their reps are nothing but Reps (concerned with religion, "God", social coservatism) in sheep's clothing. But their STATED positions as you have listed I agree with....with one exception. Ther should be more earmarks, not less. The problem with out of control spending is money has been collected, but not earmerked for specific projects/expenses ONLY. That allows Congress to divert this pot of money to their special interests that enable them to maintain power. More earmarks, not less.....