Debt Ceiling Means Pivotal Victory for Local Tea Party Group

As the Republicans and Democrats of the U.S. House of Representatives struggled to reach a compromise over a plan to raise the debt ceiling while still cutting spending, a familiar refrain echoed from freshman congressional members representing the Tea Party and its constituents: There will be no comprise on increased spending.

Even as both the standard political parties presented doom scenarios of the country losing its high credit rating, American consumers facing higher interest rates, and situations in which senior citizens wouldn’t receive social security, Tea Party-aligned legislators mostly held their ground, even bucking party lines by rejecting initial budget proposals from House Speaker John Boehner.

The Tea Party, however, is not an official political party, but rather a special interest group with which some usually conservative politicians affiliate themselves.

That applied locally as well. For Barbara Gonzalez, founder of the Middletown-based Bayshore Tea Party Group, this is exactly what the American public was looking for. To her and her group, any chaos and confusion that resulted was simply the byproduct of the first time a group of elected officials said no to increased spending, despite any and all warnings from their legislative peers.

Ultimately, President Barack Obama signed into law a plan that does include an increase in the debt ceiling, but calls for more than $2 trillion in cuts over two phases in the next decade. Though the Tea Party’s goal of seeing no increase in the debt ceiling fell to bipartisan pressure it became clear just how much influence the oft-maligned Tea Party truly wields.

And, the criticism that the Tea Party faces, in Gonzalez's opinion, only serves as evidence that the establishment is feeling the pressure, that the Tea Party is doing what’s right.

“This is about our children, this is about our grandchildren,” Gonzalez said of the need to cut spending. “I could easily sit back and live the rest of my life, but this isn’t about me, this is about our future.”

The Bayshore Tea Party Group was established in 2009 and has made news in part for its activism and an ongoing lawsuit over local redistricting maps that Gonzalez says are unconstitutional and little more than gerrymandering. Though the group is located in an area that has been dominated by national democratic leadership, Gonzalez said the group and its ideologies are growing.

What it comes down to, she said, is spending. Americans are tired of it and they’ve decided enough is enough. There’s just too much of it coming from a bloated government that supports special interests and failed programs through public financing, she said.

Spending hasn’t helped revive the economy and it hasn’t helped job growth, she said. If spending has failed, then the cure – she believes it’s an obvious one — is doing the opposite of that.

In the interest of finding a balanced budget, Gonzalez said everything should be on the table for potential cuts, including defense and war spending, two areas long supported by republicans that have contributed significantly to the country’s more than $14 trillion deficit.

With a plan in place to cut more than $2 trillion in spending, Gonzalez said the debt ceiling-plan does represent a victory for the Tea Party, but a bittersweet one since it includes an increase in the debt ceiling.

Gonzalez acknowledged that the debt ceiling has been raised more than 70 times in the past 50 years by both democrats an republicans but said, eventually, it needs to stop, especially when the spending fails to generate positive returns.

The Tea Party isn’t against making a stir; that’s exactly what they’re here for, Gonzalez said. What does surprise her, however, is the reaction to the Tea Party and its leaders, who were voted into office, by other elected officials.

Following congressional approval of the debt ceiling plan, Rep. Rush Holt (D-12) issued a statement saying he voted no, in part because he felt the plan was flawed and the product of a Tea Party holding the country hostage.

Several reports from national media outlets also claim that Vice President Joe Biden referred to Tea Party legislators as “terrorists” following the passing of the debt ceiling bill, a charge he has denied. She can accept divisiveness in politics, Gonzalez said, but officials need to realize that Tea Party officials represent the interests of the American voters who put them into office.

“We are citizens,” she said. “It was American citizens who elected (Tea Party-affiliated legislators) to office.”