Tea party now finds itself steeped in GOP division
WASHINGTON — The Republican newcomers stunned Washington back in 2010 when they seized the House majority with bold promises to cut taxes and spending and to roll back what many viewed as Barack Obama’s presidential overreach.
But don’t call them tea party Republicans any more.
Eight years later, the House Tea Party Caucus is long gone. So, too, are almost half the 87 new House Republicans elected in the biggest GOP wave since the 1920s.
Some, including current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, joined the executive branch. Others slipped back to private life. Several are senators.
Now, with control of the House again at stake this fall and just three dozen of them seeking re-election, the tea party revolt shows the limits of riding a campaign wave into the reality of governing.
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., who was president of that freshman class, objects to the tea party brand that he says was slapped on the group by the media and the Obama administration. It’s a label some lawmakers now would rather forget.
“We weren’t who you all said we were,” Scott said.
He prefers to call it the class of “small-business owners” or those who wanted to “stop the growth of the federal government.”
Despite all those yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and anti-Obama health law rallies, Scott said the new Republican lawmakers wanted to work with the president, if only Obama would have engaged them.
Yet change Washington they did, with a hardcharging, often unruly governing style that bucked convention, toppled GOP leaders and in many ways set the stage for the rise of Donald Trump.
By some measures, the tea party Republicans have been successful.
Republicans halted environmental, consumer and workplace protection rules, and that rollback continues. Perhaps most notably, the GOP majority passed $1.5 trillion in tax cuts that Trump signed into law, delivering on the tea party slogan penned on so many protest signs: “Taxed Enough Already.” But for- mer Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., said the “most egregious failure” was the GOP’s inability to undo the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature domestic achievement.
Maya MacGuineas, president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Republicans talked a good game promising to balance the budget, but with control of Congress — and now the White House — they failed to tackle the tough tax-andspending challenges needed to get there.
“That’s a whole lot of talk and zero follow through,” she said.
Frustrations within the ranks grew, and the new class splintered. Not all of them had been favorites of their local tea party groups. Some joined other conservatives to form the House Freedom Caucus.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has run into many of the same challenges his predecessor faced in managing a fractured majority. He will retire after this term.
In fact, there are an unusually high number of House Republicans retiring this year, including nearly a dozen from the tea party class.