I'm not a conservative by any stretch and the noisy and ignorant element of the Tea Party movement and their subsequent co-opting by the Republican Party had led me to dismiss the movement as a politically immature knee-jerk reaction to Barack Obama but I am happy to say that they seem to be bucking the Washington Republican establishment. On at least two separate occasions they have thrown a monkey wrench in the works of Speaker Boehner's plans by sticking to Libertarian ideals: voting against the renewal of the Patriot Act and, this week, voting to cut out a big piece of military pork spending in the budget in the form of a new and unneeded jet engine. They seem unafraid to speak some difficult truths, such as when Tea Party aligned U. S. Senator Rand Paul questioned the amount of foreign aid given to countries such as Israel, when the national debt is as high as it is.
While I don't really have much policy agreement with them, it is heartening to see power gravitating away from entrenched incumbents and into new representatives who seem to want to genuinely do what they think is best for their constituents and to challenge the status quo, even when it goes against their party. In the case of voting against the new jet engine, these new reps actually sided with the Obama administration. Strange bedfellows, indeed.
However misguided the Tea Party can appear, they do seem to be truly focused on debt reduction and hopefully this new congress will seek a serious and non partisan approach to the problem. I hope that they realize that they weren't sent to Washington to represent the Republican Party, but the American people. We face serious problems and it is time to put politics aside and to start governing.
Patrick Garone
www.patrickgarone.com
twitter.com/patrickgarone
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