Tea Party

The Tea Party movement (TPM) is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009. It endorses reduced government spending, opposition to taxation in varying degrees, reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit, and adherence to an originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution.The name "Tea Party" is a reference to the Boston Tea Party, a protest by colonists who objected to a British tax on tea in 1773 and demonstrated by dumping British tea taken from docked ships into the harbor. Some commentators have referred to the Tea in "Tea Party" as the backronym "Taxed Enough Already.Without a well defined plan, how can the American people trust Congress to make the right decisions to curb the overspending, eliminate the deficit, and begin to pay down our massive debt of $14.4 trillion and counting?Last night the President of the United States displayed once again that he refuses to put forth an actual plan, written down, in detail, to keep our country from barreling off of a cliff.The Speaker of the House of Representatives proposed a debt ceiling plan that calls for just over $1 Trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years in exchange for an immediate increase in the debt ceiling. In other words, he is willing to cave and give the President a debt ceiling increase in exchange for a promise of cuts over the course of 10 years that are not defined, that WILL NOT eliminate the deficit, that WILL increase our national debt, and will still risk a downgrade of our credit rating. We've heard it all before: more current spending in exchange for future promises. The American People are tired of broken promises.Today on Capitol Hill many supporters of the President in, response to his call to action last night, are pummeling congressional offices with phone calls to let them know to continue with the unsustainable status quo, to raise taxes, and keep feeding the beast. We MUST respond to this and show Congress how the majority of Americans feel.ABC News has tracked Tea Party Rep. Bobby Schilling from the 2010 Congressional campaign, when he was a pizza shop owner, through his victory over an incumbent Democrat and into Congress with the Republican wave that took back the majority in the House of Representatives.