September 21, 2010 2:45 PM

Tea Party Group to Address Obama's Spending Challenge

By
Stephanie Condon
Topics
Economy ,
Tea Party

In a photo taken from a video screen, President Barack Obama answers questions on jobs and the economy during a town hall-style gathering hosted by CNBC, Monday, Sept. 20, 2010, at the Newseum in Washington.

(Credit: AP)

President Obama yesterday asked Tea Partiers what they would do to get government spending under control.

Now one Tea Party group plans on answering.

When asked about the Tea Party at a town hall yesterday, Mr. Obama said that Tea Partiers were "misidentifying" his administration as the culprits responsible for the national debt, which recently surpassed $13 trillion. Republicans, he added, have offered unrealistic proposals when it comes to spending and saving. He said the challenge for the Tea Party is to come up with more feasible ideas.

"The challenge, I think, for the Tea Party movement is to identify specifically, what would you do?" Mr. Obama said. "It's not enough just to say, 'Get control of spending.' I think it's important for you to say, 'You know, I'm willing to cut veterans' benefits,' or, 'I'm willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits,' or, 'I'm willing to see these taxes go up.'"

The Tea Party Patriots, a coalition of more than 2,800 groups across the country, is taking the question to its supporters. The group has set up a page on its website where it will be accepting responses to the president's challenge. The responses will ultimately be sent to the White House, Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin told Hotsheet.

"If he wants to challenge us, we will step up," Martin said. She added that it's "ironic" that the president, who is elected to carry out his Constitutional responsibilities and sign a budget, "now needs help from ordinary citizens."

Martin said that all of the local Tea Party Chapters agree that there should be no tax increases right now. They are also in agreement that Washington should cut its spending to 2000 levels, she said.

Mr. Obama is urging Congress to extend the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for most Americans but to let the tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans in the name of fiscal responsibility. And while the Obama administration argues that their health care reforms will ultimately curb the growth of health care costs, Martin said the Tea Party Patriots overwhelmingly want the health care bill repealed.

The Tea Party Patriots announced today that they received a $1 million anonymous donation to aid in their local get-out-the-vote and voter education efforts. The group said it will be accepting grant applications from local groups and dispersing the funds no later than the first week of October.

Even as it plans to hand down funds via its central organization, the Tea Party Patriots organizers say they take their cues from their local chapters. Their model of organizing was influenced by some liberal groups, like MoveOn.org and President Obama's presidential campaign, Martin said.

Mr. Obama's campaign "had some good ideas that we've used as a springboard," she said.

Watch the Tea Party Patriots discuss their new funding on "Washington Unplugged":


Stephanie Condon is a political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of her posts here. Follow Hotsheet on Facebook and Twitter.


Add a Comment
by hhandyman September 22, 2010 11:51 AM EDT
T- Party may have a few good ideas to work with the Democratic Majority but are clueless on the agenda of the Main stream Republican Obstructionists.
Thier are conservitive Democrats too when you paint a group with broad strokes of a brush you miss the details of the individual and blur the focus of the over all picture. The world is not simply two stark colors with no varrients between but is full of subtle shades of each Hue Red Black Yellow Blue and White becomes the full set of basics and when combined becomes the varriant shades between. Same is true of the parties
almost no one is totaly any one pure color in heritage or in his/her personal convictions, likes Dislikes taste or opinion. Even the T party will have people that believe for the most part in some basic properties Except for? ,what ever is unique about that individuals values, that is how they are individuals not totaly in lockstep with each other, each willing to "tolerate" something that theyd rather not but as a lesser of two evils are willing do for the good of the group.
Its too bad that the Congress nolonger lives that path trying to pretend its Good vs Evil contest and Prospective is the difference of what is in which stack of values.
The Pendulumn swings and Not just two ways but like a plum bob in oval circling between each point of view of each person.
Reply to this comment
by jeanneyess September 22, 2010 9:15 AM EDT
Why are the Tea Party partiers failing to acknowledge that we are focusing in the wrong direction when we are looking for ways to cut spending on crucial and humane services, when we have the money to handle health care, social security, education, etc., etc., when all we really have to do is open up those offshore accounts and collect the back taxes with interest due to our Treasury? It's that simple. Also, since these rich and wealthy haven't been paying their taxes with their offshore accounts, keeping their Reagan 70% tax cut seems not only excessive, but repetitive if they are taking it into their own hands and stashing their cash in offshore accounts to evade their taxes. Not only is that double jeopardy, but that's FELONY.

Now take Wessly Snipes, he was not hiding his money so in his case it was not tax evasion, it was non-payment, and he got 3 years for 3 years, WOW, that judge set a precedent he is going to have to live down to all those who have commited the felony of actual tax evasion.

It is time that we collect the back taxes that have contributed to our economic crisis, we can no longer ignore their felony of tax evasion. WE ARE IN A DEPRESSION AND WE NEED THE BACK TAXES THEY OWE AND THE INTEREST ON IT. WE HAVE THE MONEY TO TAKE US OUT OF THIS DEPRESSION, AND NOW IS TIME TO COLLECT IT TO SAVE OUR ECONOMY.

The rich and wealthy know we wouldn't force them to pay their back taxes if it were not crucial to our financial survival. And I think they can understand our critical need to collect those back taxes. When we were rich, so maybe we were supposed to go after them anyway, but so the whole country, even the Democrats left them alone to commit the felony of tax evasion, but that was then, and this is now. We are in an economic crisis, with unemployment, in my county here in Florida at 14.5%, and 40% of the public school teachers laid off to leave our schools SOOOOO overcrowded I am sure we have gone from 48th to 50th state in achievement, and worst of all the kids in special ed, the ones with emotional disturbance, the sociopaths and psychopaths that you all will want to put in jeuve or jail or prison, when we told you in Kindergarten or First grade they needed all we could give them and you overcrowded their classrooms so the rich and wealthy could keep their taxless offshore accounts, and we told you don't cheap out on these kids because it is going to come back to haunt you in the end, and you want to blame them at 16 for attempted murder, when they brought their pet hamster on pet day to school and stood their and pounded the poor thing to death as you evacuated the class, and you kept adding and adding students to the class because you "had to cut the funding for education because when the walls started to crumble", you refused to ask the rich and wealthy to pay their taxes, and the Tea Party just kept partying because, well let's blame their teachers, oh let's blame their emotionally disturbed parents we never tried to help either.

Well, now is the time, we have forgiven these rich and wealthy felons for long enough, and our American society are more and more jobless, loosing their homes, becomeing homeless, and their children become indigent students. IT'S TIME.

God bless our victims of this economy, and God help America.
Reply to this comment
by thelastcookie September 21, 2010 5:29 PM EDT
I just went to the TPP webpage and all I can say is good luck to the Tea Party leadership. As their seething constituency enters the world of actual reality, where details really matter, they are going to find out that these befuddled masses yearning to be free are chock full of ill-conceived hare-brained notions about how to easily fix things and hot air.

Prediction: their first step will be encouraging their followers to yell louder. After that, it's all pitchforks and torches.
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by texasborndemo September 21, 2010 5:01 PM EDT
The party of NO won't let things pass to make things better and if the teabuggers think they're smarter with better ideas,then he's listening,nothing wrong about that but problem is they can't,they haven't a clue just like the repigs in Congress and Senate
Reply to this comment
by chonder2 September 21, 2010 3:33 PM EDT
Testing...testing...

Will this post?
Reply to this comment
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