Yes reduce government spending. Eliminate the EPA and Department of Education? The tea party does not represent the mainstream. The only thing you guys are doing is helping to elect Democrats. 2010 is over. As Repubplicans we need to rise up and reclaim our party from the idiot fringe.

The Republican party needs the tea party to restore its vibrancy. Mainstream Republican leadership has now produced two of the most pathetic candidates possible in the last 2 elections in McCain and Romney. The results befitted these candidates lack of fortitude and fire in their bellies for restoring government to the people. If the Tea Party had congealed behind one candidate, we could have won the last election. Marco Rubio is our man for 2016 and we need to get behind him in a united way between now and then and rid the party of their bland middle over the hill middle of the roaders.

I fully support reducing the size of government. But, how does passing a bunch of things on to the states do that? It is simply passing the buck down to an already overburdened state government. We should assess what our priorities as a nation are cut or eliminate the things which aren't and move forward with the same federal system we've had for the past 200 years rather than moving back to an arrangement similar to the articles of confederation where the states are supreme as the Tea Party proposes.

As for the Federal Reserve, you do know that technically it is a private corporation right? I'm more concerned about this private corporation's heavy influence on monetary policy than I am about the government's power the other direction. Governments always have had the ability to create fiat money and have to use that responsibly to avoid economic problems. The last two administrations have done a poor job of that to be sure. That is what needs to be corrected.

As for McCain and Romney being lame candidates, the Republican party has multiple wings. In large part both of these men were lame because they couldn't reconcile the two main wings of the Republican Party without sounding lame. I'm not sure how Marco Rubio will do that better in 2016 or why he's the darling of the Tea Party other than he's hispanic.

and this is where Ron Paul supporters will never vote or agree with the tea party. The cuts are cuts to American services. That is the first thing the LVTP is suggesting? What about cutting the rebuilding of OTHER countries FIRST. Then after ALL of that is cut, then we can talk about cutting here. But without that as a leading issue and the dismantling of the Fed, those type of republicans will continue to lose elections. For any true conservative to get behind Romney, that is a joke. Mitt was no conservative at all. Big time socialist spender. Should have got behind Paul or Johnson.

chris christie is also a socialist. he couldn't wait to take advantage of the free federal funds for sandy hurricane. that is socialism. taking taxes from other to pay others. christie also has done nothing to reduce property taxes that he ran on. he hasn't cut any programs except for going against unions. he loves spending tax dollars. i.e. helicopter trip on tax payer funds, to his kids baseball game. Rubio is also socialist as well. He believes in social programs. Reagan was also a big spender and socialist. To get away from all this...Ron Paul or Gary Johnson. no soclialists there.

no it isn't. people want less government and want it left up to the states. the states should fend for themselves. just like the tea party movement in texas to remove its self. the definition of socialism is pretty clear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

christie is a socialist, reagan was one too. those are the facts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExiQgJ7U6RQ

youtube can be great to see how the words just flow from their own mouths

The Tea Party is SO out of touch with reality. Thats why their numbers are dwindling. Hopefully we will rid ourselves of the balance these know-nothings in 2014.

Jolly entertainment, watching these wing nuts crush the Republican Party to small pieces.

Tea Party should rename themselves the Tea Bagging Fags

Your taxes will go up to pay off our wars in the Middle East, which were financed on credit.

@Joe- and you want to give tax breaks to the so called job creators knowing that they will most likely use the logic you provided to invest off shore? How is that prudent? How is wealth tricking up not also wealth distribution and equally un American? and shouldn't we, considering the amount of wealth polarization occurring, be seeing unprecedented job creation? I mean, these alleged job-creators have more wealth than ever, yet there doesn't seem to be any return on that "investment" on their part. Where are all these jobs then?

The problem with the so-called job creators is that they don't create any jobs. Demand creates jobs, and there's no demand because the middle class has been eviscerated by the "job creators." As to giving more power to the states, no thanks, not with that bunch of jackasses in Harrisburg, especially Corbett. He's more crooked than Rendell.

@Joe- no, I'm grasping what you're saying about global markets and the affects of costs of labor. What I'm saying is that there is no reason to reward that sort of preditorial capitalism, with tax cuts or incentives of any sort, when it doesn't benefit our domestic economy beyond access to cheap good. Like I said, if putting more money in the hands of the affluent actually created jobs, we should be seeing tons of jobs because the affluent have more wealth than ever. It a failed premise because those with the wealth are focused on ROI for themselves, not the country of the general populous. I do agree with your POV on Walmart, and don't shop there either. It's hard to blame the workers when few options now remain. They could strike if they were allowed to unionize, but that's a dirty word these days. I also agree with Maynard, in that it's the affluent, these so called job creators, who fleeced the country, and in doing so, the middle class as well. Demand creates jobs. The one thing that we seem to over look is how the consumer, as a general premise, has been a willful participant in their own demise.

Mr. Sommers is advocating more supply-side economics. We've had it for a generation and seen the largest decline in median purchasing power and wealth in US history. I think we can safely say that supply-side economics aren't helping most Americans anymore. The Democratic response has been ineffective as well however as it doesn't foster long-term job creation here in the USA either. We need to find a way to tie tax breaks to actual new job creation here in the USA. Giving tax breaks to create jobs overseas only impoverishes us all and makes people have less and less work choices and thus less control over their lives. The Republican plan is an abject failure. Lets find a way to move on from it and bring jobs back to the USA without having to drive our own workers down to the level of Chinese or Indian ones (or worse Burmese -- even China is losing jobs to places worse off now).

And Joe, I know how investments work because I work in the field. Median ROI at companies which have actively traded ticker symbols has risen from 9.7% in the 1980s to 13.4% now. In order to get less than a 4% increase in "efficiency" we've given up more than 15M manufacturing jobs, most of it encouraged by US tax policy passed between 1981 and 1985. None of this was called wealth redistribution because "its just what the marketplace caused to happen". But, without changes in tax policy many of these jobs would not have been lost so that is BS. I'm not saying there is an easy solution. But, we need to start solving and the first key is to tie any tax breaks the wealthy would like to continue to enjoy to actual job creation here in the USA. What is so terrible about that?

It appears that the extreme right wing members of the U.S. House of Representatives are punishing us for re-electing Obama.