Tea Party movement facts for kids
The Tea Party was an American populist political movement. Most people say it is conservative and libertarian.
The Tea Party:
- sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009,
- wanted less government spending,
- was against taxation in varying degrees,
- wanted to reduce the national debt and the federal budget deficit,
- wanted a strict interpretation of the United States Constitution, not changing its meaning to fit modern ideas and advances.
The name "Tea Party" comes from the Boston Tea Party, a protest by colonists who objected to a British tax on tea in 1773. They demonstrated by dumping British tea taken from docked ships into the harbor. Some say that the Tea in "Tea Party" also stands for "Taxed Enough Already".
The Tea Party movement had caucuses (groups) in the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. Many of the members of the Tea Party caucus were first elected in the 2010 midterm elections. Some of them had never held any public office before.
The Tea Party movement had no central leadership but was composed of a loose linking of national and local groups that decide their own platforms and agendas.
The Tea Party's most famous national figures include Republican politicians such as Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, and Michele Bachmann.
One of the main positions the Tea Party took was against the debt ceiling (the amount of money the U.S. is allowed to borrow). Many voted against any raising of the debt ceiling. Others demanded large spending cuts and a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
By 2016, Politico wrote that the Tea Party movement had died; however, it also said that this was in part because some of its ideas had been absorbed by the mainstream Republican Party.
Images for kids
-
This iconic 1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier was entitled "The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor"; the phrase "Boston Tea Party" had not yet become standard. Contrary to Currier's depiction, few of the men dumping the tea were actually disguised as Native Americans.
-
Members of Hoosiers for Fair Taxation stage one of the country's first local Tea Party protests against mayor Bart Peterson on July 28, 2007 by putting their tax assessments in an oversize tea bag and dunking it into the Broad Ripple Canal. The Sam Adams Alliance awarded organizer Melyssa Hubbard (née Donaghy) the first annual Tea Party prize for staging these protests.
-
Tea Party Protest in Dallas, Texas, April 2009
-
Michele Bachmann, Republican in Congress from Minnesota, 2007 to 2015.
-
Lois Lerner testifies before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2014.
-
Tea Party rally in Searchlight, Nevada
-
Ron Paul at the 2012 Tea Party Express rally
-
Glenn Beck, Conservative radio commentator
.jpg)
.jpg)
See also
In Spanish: Tea Party (movimiento) para niños
