TEA Party - FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Did the TEA Party movement rise in direct opposition to President Obama?
NO. Citizens had been long silent, but aware of the Bush administrations spending and power grabs. We had tried to tell President Bush back in 2008 that we didn’t want the Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP), and he, along with Congress did not listen. Then, one of the earliest initiatives by our new President, Barack Obama, who as a Senator supported TARP and the bailouts of the banks, was to declare the worse economic crises since the Great Depression and hurry Congress into passing a giant stimulus package.
Remember, the nearly 1,100-page version of this Pork-laden bill that was passed by both the House and the Senate on Friday, February 13, 2009? The final legislative language was not made publicly available by Congressional leadership until late Thursday night, giving Congressmen, Senators and the public less than 16 hours to read the more than 1,000 pages. Seventy-two pages of amendments had been added the night before the vote. Many Congressmen and Senators publicly admitted they did not have time to read it before voting on it. It was this last, final act of contempt and disrespect for the American people and that was the tipping point. Representation requires that members of Congress, at minimum, read the bills. Once they stopped doing this, none of us were represented any longer, and the Tea Party Movement was born.
After representatives and senators ignored the citizens, refused to empty their voicemail boxes, sent back form letters, and stopped taking phone calls, many understood what taxation without representation felt like. The idea of an American tea party seems to have arisen spontaneously, sparked by Rick Santelli's TV broadcast. The tinder had been lit.
2. What does the TEA Party movement stand for?
The Tea Party story and imagery comes from our common bond with our forefathers, taking direct action against a government that refused to represent the people, but still taxed them. What you may not know is that we share some other parts of the story with the original Tea Partiers.
The story goes like this: Parliament had passed a variety of taxation laws and then repealed most of them because of the activism of our forefathers, the first community organizers. The King left the Tea Tax in place as a petty warning to the colonists that he still reigned over them and had the power to tax them at his will. But that’s not the full story. The East India Company was failing and needed a bailout. Seriously. They persuaded Parliament that it was in England’s best interest to save the collapsing tea company. So Parliament refunded the normally imposed duties to the East India Company, dramatically decreasing the price of their tea, and gave them a monopoly in the colonies. Parliament kept the Tea Tax in place, but even with the tax, the new lower price of the East India Company’s tea was less than the smuggled tea from Holland. It was the King’s hope that the cheap price would entice the colonists to buy the tea, regardless of the Tea Tax.
However, our forefathers refused to accept this bribe of cheaper tea because it would have been an acknowledgement of Parliament’s right to impose taxes without giving the Colonies a voice. They refused. The governed revoked their consent and later determined, in a written constitution, the type of government they would embrace.
That is what our Tea Party movement is about. The American people are rising up against being governed in such a cynical, self-serving, and dishonest manner as we have witnessed. Everyday Americans have said, “Enough!” to this Congress and to this Administration…or any future politicians who hope to fill those seats of power. Everyday, hard-working Americans have found a common bond in a hunger for government truly based on the limits set out by our social contract, the U.S. Constitution. Too many of our elected officials have come to regard the public purse as their treasure trove from which to reward special interest groups and voting blocs in order to keep getting elected. Under those circumstances, who needs to read the bills?
Americans who are part of the Tea Party Movement do not agree on all issues and this is okay. The Movement is not about immigration, national security, KSM’s trial in New York City, and so on. Though these and other issues are vitally important, and have extremely significant places in the realm of public debate, they are a subset of the original contract that we have with our government.
3. What is the TEA Party movement expecting to achieve from these protests? Are they content to merely register disapproval, or are they seeking to change what Congress and our president have done?
The goal of the Tea Party Movement is to free the American people, their livelihood, their property – physical and intellectual, their time, their wallets, and their families from a federal government that has, under both parties, grown to be a political phagocyte that sees individual liberty and freedom as so much debris in the body politic.
When we are free to earn a living, take care of our families, and be charitable in the manner of our choosing; when we are not regulated to the point of inaction and stagnation; when we are trusted to make our own decisions about the paths of our lives and about where to spend our money; when all of these things come to pass, it means that we will have elected representatives that finally realize that they work for us and so must listen and act responsively. When multi-millionaires like Nancy Pelosi can no longer tax us into oblivion to pay for private use of military transports for their grandchildren, and cannot use our money to pay for Johnny Walker whiskey and Courvoisier cognac, we will have succeeded. Our aim is to remove the soft tyranny that has gradually eroded our freedoms over the past 75 years and restore the Republic as envisioned by our Founders.
4. Is the TEA Party movement an arm of the Republican Party?
NO. The Tea Party movement is truly an inclusive movement of a variety of voters from diverse backgrounds, political affiliations, and organizations. The Tea Party movement is a groundswell of conservative-minded, Constitution-centered, independence-loving individualists bound together not by party platform but by governing principles. We are united not by affiliation to a traditional party but by affection for traditions borne of a unique set of American principles: Constitutionally limited government, Free enterprise, and a fiscally responsible government.
Once we have achieved the goal of electing officials that represent all of the people and not one particular group over another group, i.e. public sector union members over non-unionized citizens, or specific race or ethnic groups over others, further issues will be easier to address. Once we have representatives that stop bribing each other with our money, stop giving kickbacks to friends, stop wasting our money on useless trips and redundancies, and stop taking our hard-earned dollars out for a night on the town, we won’t mind paying the taxes that the Founders knew would be necessary to fund a limited federal government.
This is why this movement is neither Republican nor Democrat. These rules apply to all of them. This election cycle will bring out many politicians eager to use the momentum and enthusiasm of the Tea Party Movement to propel them into office. In some places in the country the candidates that Tea Party groups support may be Democrats, in other places they may Republican. I can say that here in WashingtonState the Democrats are so radically left that Tea Partiers will probably have to choose from those who run under the Republican banner. My state level representatives and senator are all avowed socialists, with one of them actually admitting to being a communist – and they are all Democrats. But there will be parts of the country where the more principled candidate will be a Democrat, and the Tea Partiers are not afraid to go there.
If a party or a candidate would like the support of the Tea Party Movement, they had better believe in our principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, state’s rights, fiscal responsibility and free markets. Once in office they must live up to these principles with their votes, and if they don’t, they will lose their job at the next election. It’s really quite simple.
Am I worried about the movement being “co-opted” by other causes and established political parties? No. The facts are that many citizens registered as Republicans and Democrats ARE Tea Partiers. Many others are true Independents. Others are Libertarians. Those of us in the Movement are observant, smart, and discerning. We are learning better every day how to distinguish the candidates who, given the opportunity, will roll the Taxpayer like a thief in a dark alley from those who, like a few fine elected officials currently serving, embody and live the Tea Party principles.
5. Is the Tea Party movement more about tearing down government than about building something that can take its place
NO. TEA Party members know that the present “spend and tax” system has turned into a massive political problem. More and more people are waking up to the fact that this just doesn’t work. TEA party members know that we do need good government at all three levels. We understand that what America really needs in this country is a new generation of leaders who can think intelligently and creatively about how to dismantle the old structures and replace them with something that works. The political party that can figure this out and build a constituency for the massive and, inevitably, sometimes painful or disruptive restructuring, will consistently win future elections.
6. Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, FOX news or the Republican Party just who is the leader of the TEA Party
No, we do not have a single person as the grand pooh-bah of the TEA Party movement. TEA Party members draw inspiration and information from many conservative voices in and out of politics, from the founding fathers, and from many historical writers. The TEA Party movement is truly a grassroots people’s movement. There is no leader. There are people who help organize events. There are people who speak at the events. There are people who are involved. But no one person speaks for the tea party movement.
Any attempt to rein in all tea party patriots under one leader and strategy would be a mistake, not to mention impossible. Unquestionably, the power and force of the TEA Party phenomenon grows daily as more and more Americans awaken. The TEA Party movement is bigger than any one person. Patriots driven by their individual passion and talent are needed on all fronts, local and national. Individual initiative, a part of the American national character, powers this movement.
7. Is the TEA Party Movement racist?
It is a common interpretation of the Tea Parties, especially on the political left. NYU historian Greg Grandin, Salon editor Joan Walsh, actress and comedienne Janeane Garafolo and the NAACP, to name a few, all believe that racism is at the very heart of the Tea Party movement. First, of course, it's true that any movement with millions of followers will have some oddballs and worse in the mix. But anyone who has ventured to a rally or paid close attention to the speeches knows the Tea Party fringe does not come close to summing up the whole, that there is nothing racist in its rhetoric.
The Tea Party movement is consciously constructed around the founding principles of the Declaration of Independence — all men are created equal. These words were echoed 87 years after the Declaration of Independence by Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator of African Americans. Liberty and equality under the law are the antithesis of racism. The Tea Party movement has no use or tolerance for bigotry of any kind. That is not to say that there are not bigoted people who use a Tea Party protest to try to spread their hatred. But the heart and soul of the Tea Party movement are appalled and deeply offended by such behavior. In fact, bigotry is antithetical to the Tea Party movement
8. Why Do They Say the Tea Party is Racist?
At first blush, the answer would seem to be that those with an agenda counter to the Tea Party message of a limited Federal Government and fiscal responsibility, a return to the Founding Father’s vision, i.e. the Progressives, simply wish to disparage and discredit the Tea Party movement, which is a threat to the higher taxes and larger government they are pushing.
But, digging a bit deeper, the Progressives are fearful that the message of smaller government, lower taxes and freedom will resonate with African Americans, the majority of whom are not only Centrists, but Conservatives. And, the same is true for many Latinos, the fastest growing demographic in this country.
If African-Americans and Latinos take the time to listen to the Tea Party message, without the filters of the left-wing controlled media, they may like what they hear. And they may get terribly bitter when they find out that Left- leaning Liberals (progressives) have been lying to them.
So now, the Left has begun attacking Blacks and others who dare to open their eyes and make up their own minds and, with some education, become independent minded and less beholding to the Democratic Party.
The relatively small numbers of people of color involved in the Tea Party movement is not “proof” of racism within the Tea Party movement, but rather evidence of the Left’s determination to keep people ignorant of freedom and liberty? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/06/black-tea-party-activists-called-traitors/
I would simply ask that people of color attend Tea Party functions. Come with an open mind and ignore the attempt by the Left to keep you uninformed. The reason there are not large numbers of people of color at Tea Party rally’s is not because they are not welcomed; it is because they don’t come.
Consider this an invitation.
9. Is the TEA Party Movement Dead?
The Tea Party Movement was supposed to die. But it isn’t dead. Instead it has grown nationally and internationally. Then it was supposed to be dismissed, ignored, or mocked. When that didn’t happen, it was supposed to be shunned because, as President Bill Clinton inferred, it was populated by potential domestic terrorists, like the wretched Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh — except the Tea Party rallies have been peaceful, except for some violence on the Left.
Then the NAACP charged the movement with racism. The TEA Party movement has been called “astro-turf,” extremists, racists, but it continues to grow. Why? Too much spending, too high taxes, too soft on foreign policy, too slow on Afghanistan and too arrogant in their governance.
Now Americans around the country are waking up and beginning the process of applying the brakes to the freight train of deficit spending, wealth re-distribution, currency inflation, unending corporate bailouts, medicare cuts, the attempted expropriation of the health care industry and the neglect of the U.S. Military.
The TEA Party movement’s principles of a common sense approach to government, restoring the principles that made this country great and education has re-energized people to get involved, to stay informed and to commit to restoring American principles.
10. What is the Mount Vernon Area Tea Party’s Goals?
The Mount Vernon Area Tea Party’s priority goal is education. Each of us is responsible to inform ourselves and people about issues, processes, and history to name just a few. The Mount Vernon Area Tea party and its members embrace information and education to continually stay informed through facts and research.
Secondly, the Mount Vernon Area Tea party also asks members to get involved. We are asking people to attend meetings locally at city, county or school board and to engage in state government through information gathering, attending meetings at Olympia, and through research on bills to stay informed on government at all levels. We ask people to engage wherever they are comfortable.
The Mount Vernon Area Tea Party plans several activities, trainings and meetings, group gatherings to better educate and inform. Basically, the MV Tea Party is a initial place for people to learn how to undertake their civic duty as responsible, informed citizens.
Note: The majority of information provided is a general overview about the TEA Party movement. For more specific information about the Mount Vernon Area TEA Party, please email mvliberty@aol.com.
1. Did the TEA Party movement rise in direct opposition to President Obama?
NO. Citizens had been long silent, but aware of the Bush administrations spending and power grabs. We had tried to tell President Bush back in 2008 that we didn’t want the Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP), and he, along with Congress did not listen. Then, one of the earliest initiatives by our new President, Barack Obama, who as a Senator supported TARP and the bailouts of the banks, was to declare the worse economic crises since the Great Depression and hurry Congress into passing a giant stimulus package.
Remember, the nearly 1,100-page version of this Pork-laden bill that was passed by both the House and the Senate on Friday, February 13, 2009? The final legislative language was not made publicly available by Congressional leadership until late Thursday night, giving Congressmen, Senators and the public less than 16 hours to read the more than 1,000 pages. Seventy-two pages of amendments had been added the night before the vote. Many Congressmen and Senators publicly admitted they did not have time to read it before voting on it. It was this last, final act of contempt and disrespect for the American people and that was the tipping point. Representation requires that members of Congress, at minimum, read the bills. Once they stopped doing this, none of us were represented any longer, and the Tea Party Movement was born.
After representatives and senators ignored the citizens, refused to empty their voicemail boxes, sent back form letters, and stopped taking phone calls, many understood what taxation without representation felt like. The idea of an American tea party seems to have arisen spontaneously, sparked by Rick Santelli's TV broadcast. The tinder had been lit.
2. What does the TEA Party movement stand for?
The Tea Party story and imagery comes from our common bond with our forefathers, taking direct action against a government that refused to represent the people, but still taxed them. What you may not know is that we share some other parts of the story with the original Tea Partiers.
The story goes like this: Parliament had passed a variety of taxation laws and then repealed most of them because of the activism of our forefathers, the first community organizers. The King left the Tea Tax in place as a petty warning to the colonists that he still reigned over them and had the power to tax them at his will. But that’s not the full story. The East India Company was failing and needed a bailout. Seriously. They persuaded Parliament that it was in England’s best interest to save the collapsing tea company. So Parliament refunded the normally imposed duties to the East India Company, dramatically decreasing the price of their tea, and gave them a monopoly in the colonies. Parliament kept the Tea Tax in place, but even with the tax, the new lower price of the East India Company’s tea was less than the smuggled tea from Holland. It was the King’s hope that the cheap price would entice the colonists to buy the tea, regardless of the Tea Tax.
However, our forefathers refused to accept this bribe of cheaper tea because it would have been an acknowledgement of Parliament’s right to impose taxes without giving the Colonies a voice. They refused. The governed revoked their consent and later determined, in a written constitution, the type of government they would embrace.
That is what our Tea Party movement is about. The American people are rising up against being governed in such a cynical, self-serving, and dishonest manner as we have witnessed. Everyday Americans have said, “Enough!” to this Congress and to this Administration…or any future politicians who hope to fill those seats of power. Everyday, hard-working Americans have found a common bond in a hunger for government truly based on the limits set out by our social contract, the U.S. Constitution. Too many of our elected officials have come to regard the public purse as their treasure trove from which to reward special interest groups and voting blocs in order to keep getting elected. Under those circumstances, who needs to read the bills?
Americans who are part of the Tea Party Movement do not agree on all issues and this is okay. The Movement is not about immigration, national security, KSM’s trial in New York City, and so on. Though these and other issues are vitally important, and have extremely significant places in the realm of public debate, they are a subset of the original contract that we have with our government.
3. What is the TEA Party movement expecting to achieve from these protests? Are they content to merely register disapproval, or are they seeking to change what Congress and our president have done?
The goal of the Tea Party Movement is to free the American people, their livelihood, their property – physical and intellectual, their time, their wallets, and their families from a federal government that has, under both parties, grown to be a political phagocyte that sees individual liberty and freedom as so much debris in the body politic.
When we are free to earn a living, take care of our families, and be charitable in the manner of our choosing; when we are not regulated to the point of inaction and stagnation; when we are trusted to make our own decisions about the paths of our lives and about where to spend our money; when all of these things come to pass, it means that we will have elected representatives that finally realize that they work for us and so must listen and act responsively. When multi-millionaires like Nancy Pelosi can no longer tax us into oblivion to pay for private use of military transports for their grandchildren, and cannot use our money to pay for Johnny Walker whiskey and Courvoisier cognac, we will have succeeded. Our aim is to remove the soft tyranny that has gradually eroded our freedoms over the past 75 years and restore the Republic as envisioned by our Founders.
4. Is the TEA Party movement an arm of the Republican Party?
NO. The Tea Party movement is truly an inclusive movement of a variety of voters from diverse backgrounds, political affiliations, and organizations. The Tea Party movement is a groundswell of conservative-minded, Constitution-centered, independence-loving individualists bound together not by party platform but by governing principles. We are united not by affiliation to a traditional party but by affection for traditions borne of a unique set of American principles: Constitutionally limited government, Free enterprise, and a fiscally responsible government.
Once we have achieved the goal of electing officials that represent all of the people and not one particular group over another group, i.e. public sector union members over non-unionized citizens, or specific race or ethnic groups over others, further issues will be easier to address. Once we have representatives that stop bribing each other with our money, stop giving kickbacks to friends, stop wasting our money on useless trips and redundancies, and stop taking our hard-earned dollars out for a night on the town, we won’t mind paying the taxes that the Founders knew would be necessary to fund a limited federal government.
This is why this movement is neither Republican nor Democrat. These rules apply to all of them. This election cycle will bring out many politicians eager to use the momentum and enthusiasm of the Tea Party Movement to propel them into office. In some places in the country the candidates that Tea Party groups support may be Democrats, in other places they may Republican. I can say that here in WashingtonState the Democrats are so radically left that Tea Partiers will probably have to choose from those who run under the Republican banner. My state level representatives and senator are all avowed socialists, with one of them actually admitting to being a communist – and they are all Democrats. But there will be parts of the country where the more principled candidate will be a Democrat, and the Tea Partiers are not afraid to go there.
If a party or a candidate would like the support of the Tea Party Movement, they had better believe in our principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, state’s rights, fiscal responsibility and free markets. Once in office they must live up to these principles with their votes, and if they don’t, they will lose their job at the next election. It’s really quite simple.
Am I worried about the movement being “co-opted” by other causes and established political parties? No. The facts are that many citizens registered as Republicans and Democrats ARE Tea Partiers. Many others are true Independents. Others are Libertarians. Those of us in the Movement are observant, smart, and discerning. We are learning better every day how to distinguish the candidates who, given the opportunity, will roll the Taxpayer like a thief in a dark alley from those who, like a few fine elected officials currently serving, embody and live the Tea Party principles.
5. Is the Tea Party movement more about tearing down government than about building something that can take its place
NO. TEA Party members know that the present “spend and tax” system has turned into a massive political problem. More and more people are waking up to the fact that this just doesn’t work. TEA party members know that we do need good government at all three levels. We understand that what America really needs in this country is a new generation of leaders who can think intelligently and creatively about how to dismantle the old structures and replace them with something that works. The political party that can figure this out and build a constituency for the massive and, inevitably, sometimes painful or disruptive restructuring, will consistently win future elections.
6. Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, FOX news or the Republican Party just who is the leader of the TEA Party
No, we do not have a single person as the grand pooh-bah of the TEA Party movement. TEA Party members draw inspiration and information from many conservative voices in and out of politics, from the founding fathers, and from many historical writers. The TEA Party movement is truly a grassroots people’s movement. There is no leader. There are people who help organize events. There are people who speak at the events. There are people who are involved. But no one person speaks for the tea party movement.
Any attempt to rein in all tea party patriots under one leader and strategy would be a mistake, not to mention impossible. Unquestionably, the power and force of the TEA Party phenomenon grows daily as more and more Americans awaken. The TEA Party movement is bigger than any one person. Patriots driven by their individual passion and talent are needed on all fronts, local and national. Individual initiative, a part of the American national character, powers this movement.
7. Is the TEA Party Movement racist?
It is a common interpretation of the Tea Parties, especially on the political left. NYU historian Greg Grandin, Salon editor Joan Walsh, actress and comedienne Janeane Garafolo and the NAACP, to name a few, all believe that racism is at the very heart of the Tea Party movement. First, of course, it's true that any movement with millions of followers will have some oddballs and worse in the mix. But anyone who has ventured to a rally or paid close attention to the speeches knows the Tea Party fringe does not come close to summing up the whole, that there is nothing racist in its rhetoric.
The Tea Party movement is consciously constructed around the founding principles of the Declaration of Independence — all men are created equal. These words were echoed 87 years after the Declaration of Independence by Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator of African Americans. Liberty and equality under the law are the antithesis of racism. The Tea Party movement has no use or tolerance for bigotry of any kind. That is not to say that there are not bigoted people who use a Tea Party protest to try to spread their hatred. But the heart and soul of the Tea Party movement are appalled and deeply offended by such behavior. In fact, bigotry is antithetical to the Tea Party movement
8. Why Do They Say the Tea Party is Racist?
At first blush, the answer would seem to be that those with an agenda counter to the Tea Party message of a limited Federal Government and fiscal responsibility, a return to the Founding Father’s vision, i.e. the Progressives, simply wish to disparage and discredit the Tea Party movement, which is a threat to the higher taxes and larger government they are pushing.
But, digging a bit deeper, the Progressives are fearful that the message of smaller government, lower taxes and freedom will resonate with African Americans, the majority of whom are not only Centrists, but Conservatives. And, the same is true for many Latinos, the fastest growing demographic in this country.
If African-Americans and Latinos take the time to listen to the Tea Party message, without the filters of the left-wing controlled media, they may like what they hear. And they may get terribly bitter when they find out that Left- leaning Liberals (progressives) have been lying to them.
So now, the Left has begun attacking Blacks and others who dare to open their eyes and make up their own minds and, with some education, become independent minded and less beholding to the Democratic Party.
The relatively small numbers of people of color involved in the Tea Party movement is not “proof” of racism within the Tea Party movement, but rather evidence of the Left’s determination to keep people ignorant of freedom and liberty? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/06/black-tea-party-activists-called-traitors/
I would simply ask that people of color attend Tea Party functions. Come with an open mind and ignore the attempt by the Left to keep you uninformed. The reason there are not large numbers of people of color at Tea Party rally’s is not because they are not welcomed; it is because they don’t come.
Consider this an invitation.
9. Is the TEA Party Movement Dead?
The Tea Party Movement was supposed to die. But it isn’t dead. Instead it has grown nationally and internationally. Then it was supposed to be dismissed, ignored, or mocked. When that didn’t happen, it was supposed to be shunned because, as President Bill Clinton inferred, it was populated by potential domestic terrorists, like the wretched Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh — except the Tea Party rallies have been peaceful, except for some violence on the Left.
Then the NAACP charged the movement with racism. The TEA Party movement has been called “astro-turf,” extremists, racists, but it continues to grow. Why? Too much spending, too high taxes, too soft on foreign policy, too slow on Afghanistan and too arrogant in their governance.
Now Americans around the country are waking up and beginning the process of applying the brakes to the freight train of deficit spending, wealth re-distribution, currency inflation, unending corporate bailouts, medicare cuts, the attempted expropriation of the health care industry and the neglect of the U.S. Military.
The TEA Party movement’s principles of a common sense approach to government, restoring the principles that made this country great and education has re-energized people to get involved, to stay informed and to commit to restoring American principles.
10. What is the Mount Vernon Area Tea Party’s Goals?
The Mount Vernon Area Tea Party’s priority goal is education. Each of us is responsible to inform ourselves and people about issues, processes, and history to name just a few. The Mount Vernon Area Tea party and its members embrace information and education to continually stay informed through facts and research.
Secondly, the Mount Vernon Area Tea party also asks members to get involved. We are asking people to attend meetings locally at city, county or school board and to engage in state government through information gathering, attending meetings at Olympia, and through research on bills to stay informed on government at all levels. We ask people to engage wherever they are comfortable.
The Mount Vernon Area Tea Party plans several activities, trainings and meetings, group gatherings to better educate and inform. Basically, the MV Tea Party is a initial place for people to learn how to undertake their civic duty as responsible, informed citizens.
Note: The majority of information provided is a general overview about the TEA Party movement. For more specific information about the Mount Vernon Area TEA Party, please email mvliberty@aol.com.
