The modern Tea Party movement hearkens back to the efforts of the Sons of Liberty more than 230 years ago. In 1773, the earlier patriots boarded the vessels of the East India Company and tossed tea overboard to protest high taxes imposed by the British Crown upon the American colonies.
Today, millions of Americans are fed up with the ever-expanding power of the central government in Washington, D.C. They have organized themselves into ‘Tea Parties” from coast-to-coast to protest out-of-control government spending, ever-increasing taxes, and a skyrocketing national debt. They are demanding an end to wasteful government programs, to the progressive debasement of the currency through inflation, and to the endless string of government “bailouts” of everything from Wall Street bankers to Detroit automobile manufacturers, all using taxpayer money. The TARP bailout of 2008 was probably the catalyst for the rebirth of the Tea Party movement. TARP represented a colossal, unprecedented transfer of wealth from hard-working, productive Americans to Wall Street investment bankers giving themselves million dollar bonuses as a reward for their disastrous financial decisions which drove the U.S. economy to the point of near-collapse.
The new Obama administration does not see one sector of the American economy which should not be ripe for government management and takeover. It has little or no respect for the free market or the U.S. Constitution. The brazen attempt to nationalize one-sixth of the U.S. economy through the health care proposal has only stimulated the Tea Party movement and brought additional Americans to its ranks. Obama’s pork-laden “stimulus” package which claims to have created jobs in congressional districts which don’t exist has further fueled the growth of the movement as has “cap and trade” which threatens to bankrupt American industry and send utility bills into the stratosphere.
“Tea Party” voters are Americans who want the restoration of limited Constitutional government. They embrace the vision of the Founders who saw a powerful central government as the chief enemy of the people’s liberties. They seek nothing more and nothing less than limiting the central government in Washington to its original, limited functions under the Constitution and the restoration of all those powers not delegated to the central government to the states or the people, per the Tenth Amendment.
As President Obama continues to grow government at a pace and scale unparalleled in U.S. history, the “Tea Party” movement could be the new vanguard of the Second American Revolution.
Matt Kokkonen is a Republican activist here on the Central Coast. He has spearheaded the local campaign to Recall Gray Davis in 2003, to stop the Legislature from granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, and to honor America’s armed forces by sponsoring the annual 9/11 rallies to raise funds and supplies for our troops abroad. He has organized the SLO Tea Party and brought hundreds to a health care Town Hall Meeting which outstripped attendance at Congresswoman Lois Capps’ similar forum. A respected SLO financial planner, Matt Kokkonen was the Republican candidate for Congress against Capps in 2008, drawing more than 80,000 votes. He is currently a Candidate for Assembly in the 33rd District.Click here to visit his Assembly candidacy website.
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