With the government shutdown behind us, the media are declaring winners and losers. No matter what poll or TV station you turn to, there always seems to be universal disapproval for the House Tea Party Caucus.
Though passionate and fearless, Tea Party politicians lack a clear vision of how to reach their goals. It seems as though their only approach to an issue or specific policy is to attack it head-on unilaterally, regardless of any political ramifications.
The main reason the Tea Party base is so unhappy is because Washington has not embraced a true center-right policy change in decades. Even during the golden age of the Reagan Administration, America experienced rising debt, a continuation of entitlement programs and tax increases. During the Bush years, the government continued to explode with more departments and bureaucracy. The Tea Party base has credible reasons to be unhappy.
But instead of having a comprehensive plan of action and general legislative approach to deal with policy issues, Tea Party politicians simply throw themselves into a fight with no vision of an endgame other than the belief that they should win. Most of these politicians were elected to enact change immediately and refuse to compromise. However, our system of government requires our branches to work with each other slowly to reach legislative solutions.
And most of the policy issues the group brings up are pressing issues. The debt America continues to pile on will continue to negatively affect the nation for years to come. Entitlements are hopelessly mismanaged and costing us more and more every day. And having an inefficient government that continues to grow is not a good thing. There is not necessarily a problem with Tea Party substance; the problem is with the Tea Party strategy.
As we have seen, the government cannot be run from a minority of the minority party. But if you want to become a majority party, you can’t pull off stunts like a faux-filibuster and a shutdown of the government. With the 2014 midterm elections in sight, the Republican Party should be assessing what it did wrong in the past and working to gain a majority in the Senate.
In addition to this, an insane strategy from the Tea Party base is comparing how conservative Republican politicians are. Great Republican politicians like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) — Republicans who are serving in blue and purple states — should not be subjected to questions about their conservativeness. Unlike failed Tea Party candidates such as Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin, Christie and Toomey are in office, governing from the right and, most importantly, winning elections. The base should realize that instead of getting our own incumbent Republican politicians out of office, we should be getting the Democratic politicians out.
It is interesting to also point out that though the Republican Party is viewed unfavorably nationally, on a state-level the party is viewed favorably.
New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal are the true standard-bearers for the GOP. They are governing effectively from a center-right position and have Democrats giving them positive approval ratings. No faux-filibuster or state government shutdown needed. A few bad apples seem to be giving the Republican Party a bad name.
With budget and immigration fights on the horizon, all eyes will be on the Tea Party to see if they have learned anything from the shutdown fight. I, for one, hope they have.
Michael Beato is a UF economics sophomore. His column runs on Tuesdays. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 10/22/2013 under the headline "Tea Party strategy flawed, substance OK"
