GOP freshmen have now discovered that what they were elected to do is much harder than they thought. Will the Tea Party back them up?

Ryan Streeter

Republican freshmen came to Washington last November to cut spending. That was their mission. Now, during recess, they have found themselves fanned out across the country in their home districts defending the Paul Ryan budget, which is much harder than defending their votes on spending cuts. Tim Mak at FrumForum has a nice round-up of the heat some of them are facing back home.

What changed? Simply put, the freshmen got schooled on what is really driving Washington over the cliff. They learned from Ryan and the GOP leadership about how small the discretionary part of the budget (home to the dollars you can actually cut at your discretion) is compared to part of the budget over which Congress cannot exercise its discretion: entitlement programs and interest on the debt.

Rather than wielding a knife and cutting away, the fresh crop of Republicans have learned they need to help rewrite arcane statutory codes on health care programs and a tax system that no one even understands.

One might say their overall mission hasn’t changed, but the strategy for achieving it requires much more courage and discipline than they realized when they were campaigning.

I’m sure this part of the mission statement of the Tea Party Patriots has much different connotations for GOP freshmen than when they first read it (assuming they've read it): “Such runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington D.C. compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.”

Republican freshmen have learned that they cannot stop “runaway spending” by cutting the part of the budget they went to Washington to cut.

So, now they are defending entitlement reform and facing a barrage of attack ads the Democrats are using to rile their constituents.

All of this raises an important question I’m surprised more people aren’t asking: where is the Tea Party on the Ryan budget?

• A cursory glance at the Issues page of Americans for Prosperity shows very little having to do with entitlement reform or tax reform, the key pillars of the Ryan budget. There’s little on AFP’s site in general that shows much organizing being done overall on these points.
• The same thing can be said for the Tea Party Patriots’ site. This isn’t to suggest that the Tea Party is opposed to the Ryan budget, or that its main spokespeople haven’t voiced support publicly for the Ryan budget. Rather, it suggests that there’s too little focus on the budget in their activity and public messaging.
• FreedomWorks has a bit more to offer on the Ryan budget issues, but their agenda is a bit broader.

So the question remains: will the Tea Party organize to support the GOP freshmen in what they have to do? Here are some initial thoughts:

1. We need rallies focused on entitlement spending and tax reform. The conversation needs to change a bit, and the rallies are a key part of that.
2. The Tea Party did a lot to mobilize Americans; now it needs to participate in educating Americans. The key elements of fixing the deficit – entitlements and tax code – are more complicated than “cutting spending.” Tea Partiers should wrap their arms around these issues and make them central talking points.
3. Activists need to train their sights on Democratic opposition, not what they perceive as GOP squishiness. Some tea partiers have been threatening to topple John Boehner and other GOP leaders they perceive as soft on spending. The pressure on GOP leadership is healthy, but Boehner got just about all he could get on spending in a divided Congress. The real opponents to progress are those who treat the S&P rating as superfluous or unimportant – and those people are mainly all Democrats. The same Democrats running ads against Republicans.