# What has the Tea Party done for the "Little guy"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 4, 2016, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948 "2016-03-04T19:09:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/21 "2016-03-04T21:48:47Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > This is a bit vague. Maybe you could show us somewhere where the Tea Party claimed to actually do something, we can investigate and see if that thing actually happened, if it helped anybody and if the Tea Party can take credit. Perhaps you can show what they have done. Do you have anything? Here is one of their agendas: > **[Contract from America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_from_America)** > > The Contract from America was the idea of Houston-based attorney Ryan Hecker. Hecker states that he developed the concept of creating a grassroots call for reform prior to the April 15, 2009 Tax Day Tea Party rallies. To get his idea off the ground, he launched a website which encouraged people to offer possible planks for the contract. Hecker told The New York Times, "Hundreds of thousands of people voted for their favorite principles online to create the Contract as an open-sourced platform... _Identify constitutionality of every new law: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does (82.03%). Reject emissions trading: Stop the “cap and trade” administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants. (72.20%). Demand a balanced federal budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax modification. (69.69%) Simplify the tax system: 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. (64.9%) Audit federal government agencies for constitutionality: Create a blue ribbon taskforce that engages in an 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. (63.37%) Limit annual growth in federal 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%). Repeal the health care legislation passed on March 23, 2010: Defund, repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (56.39%). Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above’ Energy Policy: Authorize the exploration of additional energy reserves (see Oil reserves in the United States) to reduce American dependence on foreign energy sources and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation. (55.5%). Reduce Earmarks: Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. (55.47%). Reduce Taxes: Permanently repeal all recent tax increases, and extend permanently the George W. Bush temporary reductions in income tax, capital gains tax and estate taxes, currently scheduled to end in 2011. (53.38%)._ ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/22 "2016-03-04T21:49:15Z")
Wasn’t their overall platform primarily focused on: 1. Reducing taxes 2. Shrinking the size of government, and subsequently governmental interference in the lives of individuals ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/23 "2016-03-04T21:52:19Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Wasn’t their overall platform primarily focused on: > > 1. Reducing taxes > 2. Shrinking the size of government, and subsequently governmental interference in the lives of individuals True, and obviously this hasnt worked on the national level. But has it worked locally? At the State level? Have they accomplished anything at the National Level except costing the taxpayers billions due to shut downs, etc? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/24 "2016-03-04T22:51:41Z")
When looking at the clean energy issue there is the surprising fact that many Tea Partiers are in favor of solar power, it is one of the few items were environmentalists that usually come from the left and tea partiers from the right agree. They have helped fight for the right of home owners and some renters against old fossil fuel generated power regional monopolies in several states. Those Tea party groups do think that the old energy regional monopolies are establishment powers that do dislike seeing people becoming energy independent. > **[The Tea Party Wants to Help You Go Solar](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/04/oklahoma-sb-1456-why-the-tea-party-is-fighting-for-solar-power.html)** > > Last week, with little fanfare and even less debate, Oklahoma lawmakers quietly voted to reverse a nearly four-decade-old law that had barred utility... > [@](#): > > “Monopoly utilities want to extinguish the independent rooftop solar market in America to protect their socialist control of how we get our electricity,” blasts the website of Tell Utilities Solar Won’t Be Killed, known as TUSK for short. That’s not the type of rhetoric you expect conservatives to fire at the power industry. Then again, this isn’t your typical renewable energy advocacy group. While it works closely with some of the nation’s largest solar panel providers, TUSK is publicly led by Barry Goldwater Jr., the former Republican California congressman and the son of the GOP icon. The group, as its mission statement suggests, has been much more likely to run one of its utility-attacking ads on conservative radio or the Drudge Report than on Mother Jones or MSNBC. (The ads themselves, meanwhile, are significantly more likely to feature two gorillas wrestling.) > > As unusual as that strategy may seem, it’s been a surprisingly effective one. The group boasts an impressive track record of defeating the utility companies’ effort to make solar panels less appealing for homeowners through a variety of proposals, from imposing user fees to reducing the price at which consumers can sell their surplus electricity back to the grid. TUSK and its conservative allies have repeatedly found success placing those utility-backed proposals within a free-market frame that speaks directly to conservatives. User fees are just another name for a new tax, argues Goldwater and his outfit; a change to the sale price is just another attempt by the government to limit individual choice, they say. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/25 "2016-03-04T23:21:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I can’t see anything they have done so far, but be obstructionist. Now, sure if they obstruct bad things, that’s something, sure. But have they done anything positive? Did they ever say they intended to? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/26 "2016-03-04T23:26:50Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Government spending has not gone up much and as a consequence the deficit has gone from 1.25 trillion in 2010 to 250 billion last year. Can you link this to the Tea Party? How has this helped the “Little Guy”? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/27 "2016-03-04T23:42:28Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > More accurately _it’s over until the next financial clusterf_ck.\* Dunno about that. The movement was never about the deficit anyway. Nor was it ever about Wall Street’s crimes and blunders. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/28 "2016-03-04T23:43:02Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > They claim all sorts of stuff, but what have they actually done to help the taxpayers? _Obviously_ the roads. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/29 "2016-03-04T23:44:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Assisted. Made a better life, better economically. Note the comma. Made a better life. And/or > > Made better economically. > > Do you have anything? Sure - JC’s post #9 is something. Being able to say “fuck you, I hate you” to the government can be deeply satisfying making life better. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/30 "2016-03-05T00:01:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Did they ever say they intended to? “Just asking questions”? Do you have anything to actually, you know- _contribute_? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/31 "2016-03-05T00:11:10Z")
That’s enough with the personal remarks, please. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/32 "2016-03-05T04:41:15Z")
They believe power should be deligated to the most local of authorities which equals greater liberty for citizens. Obstructing Federal government at any turn is all win for them. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/33 "2016-03-05T05:33:05Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > They believe power should be deligated to the most local of authorities which equals greater liberty for citizens. Obstructing Federal government at any turn is all win for them. This tendency has either a close or a coincidental relationship (I’ll let you decide for yourself how you are going to go with it) with slavery, reconstruction, lynching and racism, at least in regards to the South. The closer you have the law enforcement to you the easier it is to have him be one of your own, to control them, or at least to get a pass on things. IMHO that is the real bug up the ass of those who rail at the federal government. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/34 "2016-03-05T06:10:51Z")
Because racism. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/35 "2016-03-05T06:44:44Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > This is a bit vague. Maybe you could show us somewhere where the Tea Party claimed to actually do something, we can investigate and see if that thing actually happened, if it helped anybody and if the Tea Party can take credit. > [@DrDeth](#): > > Perhaps you can show what they have done. Do you have anything? There’s no need to throw it back to **Scylla**. You asserted in your OP that the Tea Party “claim[s] all sorts of stuff.” One needn’t support the Tea Party to recognize that the assertion in the OP does not mention a single one of the things that they supposedly claim (also, I have no reason to suppose that **Scylla** does support them). Pointing out that fact does not obligate the observer to make his own list of the claims that you are the only one who has asserted actually exist. Listing one or more of the items on their agenda (which, by its nature is aspirational rather than declaratory) doesn’t fulfill the request for specifics about what they claim (except insofar as it is a claim that these goals are what they want, but that’s kinda circular). Speaking for myself, I’m happy to invite you to withdraw the first sentence of your OP and resubmit it WITHOUT the vagueness problems that **Scylla** has pointed out. Here it is. Go nuts. > [@DrDeth](#): > > They claim all sorts of stuff, but what have they actually done to help the taxpayers? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/36 "2016-03-05T07:52:28Z")
At least at the Federal level, the issue with the Tea Party is they only control 42 seats in the House, and maybe around 4-5 Senators (the Senate doesn’t have official caucuses like the House so it’s more vague as to who is a true Tea Partier there.) So they really don’t have enough power to enact legislation. They did essentially force John Boehner to retire, and they’ve been a big part of all the debt ceiling and spending authorization/budget fights, in that they represent a bloc that has never agreed to vote for any compromise. They are also often the fount from which periodic Obamacare repeal bills are started. But given their lack of control of the House leadership and their small number in the House and Senate they really haven’t had much opportunity to do anything. Would they do things to help the common man if they had more power? They’d lower taxes, things of that nature. Whether you find that to be net beneficial or not is a political question, not a factual one. In State houses the Tea Party has been more active, they’ve usually been behind: -Expansion of right to work statutes -Passing laws that prohibit municipalities from setting a minimum wage higher than the State minimum wage -Passing Religious Free Restoration Acts -Driving already shaky public pensions into ruin by paupering the State government with huge tax cuts -Shutting down lots of things like DMV offices and etc due to their aforementioned large tax cuts ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/37 "2016-03-05T07:53:43Z")
So I guess as a direct answer to OP–from a “taxpayer” perspective, they have lowered the tax burden in States where they have political power. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/38 "2016-03-05T12:46:18Z")
But based on this list, from a ‘services’ standpoint they’re been a disaster. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/39 "2016-03-05T13:26:38Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > _Obviously_ the roads. And they repealed Obamacare. Don’t forget that. _Kenyanes eunt domus!_ ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948/40 "2016-03-05T14:18:19Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Wasn’t their overall platform primarily focused on: > > 1. Reducing taxes > 2. Shrinking the size of government, and subsequently governmental interference in the lives of individuals Tea partiers are not in favor of cutting medicare, medicaid or social security. > **[Poll: 70 Percent of "Tea Party Supporters" Oppose Medicare Cuts](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/04/poll-70-percent-of-tea-party-supporters-oppose-medicare-cuts.html)** > > I've yet to see a poll that asks this question the right way. The Washington Post's poll found a lot of public readiness for small... > **[Newsflash: Even Tea Party Voters Oppose Cuts To Medicare, Social Security](https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/4/10/1200866/-Newsflash-Even-Tea-Party-Voters-Oppose-Cuts-To-Medicare-Social-Security)** > > Poll: Tea Party Voters Oppose Cuts To Medicare, Social Security > > by Karl Singer, thinkprogress.org -- 11/18/2011 > Newsflash: > > A new McClatchy-Marist Institute for Public Opinion poll shows 81 percent ... It is hard not to get political, but when the tea party talks about ‘shrinking government’ they mean programs that don’t benefit them, but benefit people they don’t like (like minorities). But you really can’t get meaningful savings from government by doing that. About 80% of government spending (local, state, federal) falls into 4 categories. Health care, pensions, security (military/police/prisons), education. Unless you cut spending for those things, you can’t really cut taxes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-has-the-tea-party-done-for-the-little-guy/747948.md?page=3)