http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/15/Tea-Party-movement-s-outrage-at-Washington-sears-as-fiscal-fights-drag-on by Matthew Boyle 15 Oct 2013
The divide between the establishment GOP and the grassroots on the right is getting bigger than it has been in years.
Movement leaders feel conservatives had momentum in the negotiations with President Barack Obama’s administration and were could have demanded serious concessions on Obamacare and spending until establishment Republicans stepped in to undercut them. Now, after House Republican leadership’s latest proposal has fallen apart because House Speaker John Boehner did not have the votes, and the focus turns back to negotiations between Senate GOP leadership and Senate Democrats, the Tea Party movement could not be more outraged at the way Washington is working. As The New York Times noted in a piece published late Tuesday, conservatives and establishment Republicans are "nearing open revolt."
“The ruling elite is negotiating with the ruling elite and the voice of the people is left out,” Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin said in an interview Breitbart News executive chairman Stephen K. Bannon conducted on Tuesday afternoon while guest-hosting the Wilkow Majority on Sirius XM Patriot channel.
We are doing everything we can to remind the Senate and the House that real Americans across this country right now today are getting letters saying their health insurance prices are going up, they’re losing their jobs and their hours at work and they don’t have the same access to doctors that they had just a few months ago because of Obamacare. So we are reminding all of these elected officials that this fight is about Obamacare and that the American people need relief from it. You said cave, which is very much at the moment what it looks like the Republicans are going to do. We’ll make sure people understand that this is the Republicans looking out for themselves rather than looking out for the American people, and the same with the Democrats.
ForAmerica chairman Brent Bozell, another leader in the conservative movement, said in a statement, “conservatives have no dog in this fight anymore.”
“Conservatives wanted ObamaCare defunded, or at least delayed,” Bozell said.
They wanted the size of this bloated, bankrupt federal government reduced, or at least kept in check. Neither of these things will happen with this GOP leadership, not in the House, and certainly not in the Senate. This debate is now between moderate and liberal Republicans on one side and radical Democrats on the other, so it’s time for conservatives to walk away. No conservative should carry water for this mess. ObamaCare is a monstrosity and everyone knows it. It is a credit to Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and others that they were willing to fight, and make no mistake: America is on their side.
Bozell called for outright rebellion against congressional GOP leadership for their role in causing this situation after conservatives had all the momentum in the political fight before the establishment undercut the movement.
“The Republican Party position collapsed because ultimately neither John Boehner nor Mitch McConnell had any position on anything,” Bozell said.
It is time for conservatives on the Hill and Tea Party supporters across the country to walk away from this mess and consider options and opportunities for regime change in the Republican Party. The defund effort has re-energized the conservative movement and the grassroots Tea Party uprising, and the GOP can expect the full force of both to be felt going forward.
Martin similarly thinks it is time for the movement to look toward elections and other matters to think about replacing current GOP leadership officials, and Democrats in Congress who are working with them against the Tea Party movement. “When you look at what the Senate has come up with, they clearly are looking after labor unions and not the American people,” Martin said.
And when you look at what the House is coming up with and they’re looking after medical device companies and not looking after the American people. If you’re represented by special interests it’s much easier to have a voice with the politicians than it is if you are standing up because you are a free American citizen. It doesn’t mean we give up; it doesn’t mean we stop fighting. It just means this is the reality and this is what we face and we have to keep on fighting it and fight this much harder going forward from now until next year’s elections and beyond.
Specifically, Martin points to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) as two names in the establishment she deems responsible for caving. “It’s obvious that Sen. [Susan] Collins [(R-ME)] wasn’t with us,” she said.
And it’s obvious that Sen. [Mitch] McConnell [(R-KY)] hasn’t been with us. I think a lot of the frustration that we have and are sensing right now is on the Senate Republicans who have not stood up and backed up what the House has done. The House has sent over 14 different bills to fund the government. Do the Senators get out and talk about how these are the bills that have been sent over and how Harry Reid has been stalling it? Absolutely not. They’re in the backroom cutting deals.
Martin has previously called out House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) for his role in negotiations, too.
Those are hardly the only two leaders of the conservative movement outraged at what congressional GOP leadership is doing right now. “This deal is just like all the other last minute deals, nothing accomplished on any of the legitimate crisis we face and full of fat-cat hand outs to the crony class,” Dustin Stockton, a national Tea Party activist who is helping several Tea Party candidates against establishment figures including attempting to unseat Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said in an email. “At this point Speaker Boehner, Harry Reid, and the administration think that the electorate is too simple and stupid to realize their political tricks but they've used this tactic too often and we're on to their silly little game. The primary players in all of this will be removed by an electorate that is far more sophisticated than the clowns at the Capitol.”
Peter Schweizer, the president of the Government Accountability Institute, told Breitbart News on Tuesday that this situation, and the lack of focus on protecting the American people from Obamacare, is proof the GOP establishment and Democrats alike want to force that healthcare law on the American people but do not want it for themselves. “The biggest point of contention here is the attempt to expect the permanent political class to abide by Obamacare like the rest of us,” Schweizer said. “That’s the third rail that the political establishment does not want to deal with.”
