The Tea Party Movement

1. The Tea Party Movement

2. K-W-L The Tea Party - TTYN What I Learned about the Tea Party What I Know about The Tea Party What I Want to Learn about the Tea Party

3. What is the Tea Party? According to TeaParty.org, the Tea Party is a grassroots movement that calls awareness to any issue that challenges the security, sovereignty, or domestic tranquility of our beloved nation, the United States of America. From our founding, the Tea Party represents the voice of the true owners of the United States: WE THE PEOPLE.Many are credited to be the founders of this movement; however, it was the brave souls of the men and women in 1773, known today as the Boston Tea Party, who dared to defy the greatest military might on earth. We are the beneficiaries of their courage.

4. What is the Tea Party? The Tea Party includes those who possess a strong belief in the foundational Judeo-Christian values embedded in our great founding documents. We believe that the responsibility of our beloved nation is entrenched within the hearts of true American Patriots from every race, religion, national origin, and walk of life who share a common belief in the values which made and keep our beloved nation great. This belief led to the creation of the modern-day Tea Party. Many Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents alike identify with the premises set forth by the Tea Party Movement, which is striking a chord and ringing true with the American Spirit.

5. What is the Tea Party? We stand by the Constitution as inherently conservative. We serve as a beacon to the masses that have lost their way, a light illuminating the path to the original intentions of our Founding Fathers. We must raise a choir of voices declaring that America must stand on the values that made us great. Only then will the politically blind see and deaf hear!By joining the Tea Party, you are taking a stand for our nation. You will be upholding the grand principles set forth in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

6. Non-negotiable Core Beliefs

7. Core Principals FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY  TTYN: Respective to your own life, what does fiscal responsibility mean to you? Does the following document look familiar? “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” “and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” TTYN: Who is the author referring to?

8. FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY  • Means not overspending, and not burdening our children and grandchildren with our bills. • Fiscal responsibility is essential to creating a better, stronger, more prosperous nation for the next generation. • The choices we make today -- or fail to make -- will determine what kind of future our children and grandchildren inherit 20 and 40 years from now. • TTYN – Identify and describe examples of how our federal, state, or local government either adheres to principal of fiscal responsibility or does not adhere?

9. FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY  • You Decide…is it wasteful?? • The Department of Agriculture awarded the University of New Hampshire $700,000 this year investigating methane gas emissions from dairy cows. • The National Science Foundation spent $216,000 to study the use of "ambiguous" statements by politicians.  • The government spends $28 million a year just to print "The Congressional Record," a daily chronicle of every word uttered in Congress and countless more words submitted "for the record."  • A report this year found that the Department of Energy could save $2.2 million with more efficient use of electricity in its own buildings. • $10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan. • $764,825 to study how college students use mobile devices for social networking. • $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

10. Core Principals • CONSTITUTIONALLY LIMITED GOVERNMENT • Power resides with the people and not with the government. Governing should be done at the most local level possible where it can be held accountable. America’s founders believed: that government power should be limited, enumerated, and constrained by our Constitution.  • The Tea Party Plan on reducing the role of government includes, but is not limited to: •  Repealing the president's health care reform plan. • Eliminating four cabinet agencies: Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Education, and reducing or privatizing the EPA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and TSA.

11. Core Principals • CONSTITUTIONALLY LIMITED GOVERNMENT • The Tea Party Plan on reducing the role of government includes, but is not • limited to: •  Ending farm subsidies, foreign aid to unfriendly nations, and student loans, or what the Tea Party report called "luxuries we can no longer afford." •  Suspending pension contributions and cost of living adjustments to lawmakers when the budget is running a deficit. • Killing all congressional earmarks. •  Cut federal employee pay by 10 percent and slash employee travel to $4 billion, half of what was spent in 2000. •  Make the Bush tax cuts and the alternative minimum tax permanent.

12. Core Principals • FREE MARKET ECONOMICS • FREE MARKET ECONOMICS made America an economic superpower that for at least two centuries subsequent generations of Americans more opportunities and higher standards of living. An erosion of our free markets though government intervention is at the heart of America’s current economic decline, stagnating jobs, and spiraling debt and deficits. Failures in government programs and government-controlled financial markets helped spark the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Further government interventions and takeovers have made this Great Recession longer and deeper. A renewed focus on free markets will lead to a more vibrant economy creating jobs and higher standards of living for future generations.

13. What They Are Saying Taxes - “the best way to get the economy going and create jobs is to put more money in the pockets of taxpayers. Tax relief encourages sustainable economic growth, innovation and job creation.” Supporters say believe that lowering taxes is the best way to jump-start the floundering U.S. economy. They back cutting capital gains taxes, reducing corporate tax rates, maintaining the Bush tax cuts and repealing the estate tax. Some politicians, including Tea Party leader Sen. Jim DeMint, have called for a single-rate tax system. Bailouts - Activists consider them to be unconstitutional, ineffective, and immoral since they involve the redistribution of wealth from citizens to private entities. Tea Parties are opposed to similar bailouts in the future. According to Rand Paul, “Federal bailouts reward inefficient and corrupt management, rob taxpayers, hurt smaller and more responsible private firms, exacerbate our budget problems, explode national debt, and destroy our US Dollar. Even more importantly, any bailout of private industry is in direct violation of the constitution.” By The Way - the primary event which triggered the Tea Party movement was the federal bailouts of private companies. 

14. More Examples: Core Principals • Eliminate Excessive Taxes • Excessively high taxes are a burden for those exercising their personal liberty to work hard and prosper as afforded by the Constitution. A fiscally responsible government protects the freedom of its citizens to enjoy the fruits of their own labor without interference from a government that has exceeded its necessary size, scope and reach into the lives of its citizens. • Eliminate the National Debt • By implementing fiscally conservative policies at all levels of government, progress can be made toward eliminating the U.S. National Debt. Massive increases in the National Debt have created and continue to create a huge burden for the next generation of Americans, thus imperiling the country’s short-term and long-term economic health and prosperity.

15. More Examples: Core Principals • Eliminate Deficit Spending •  All deficit spending must be eliminated immediately. We insist that government representatives at all levels maintain a fiscally responsible budget and balance the books as would be expected of any American business. • Maintain Local Independence •  The strength and resilience of a grassroots movement is the ability of citizens at the local level to determine their own platforms, agendas and priorities free of an overriding central leadership. Exercising the clearly stated message of the Tea Party movement by its nature involves discourse about which policies and candidates best hold to our stated principles, and these various opinions should flourish and evolve at the local level.

16. Small Group Activity Refer to handout and complete graphic organizer