Tag: tea party

The Center for Responsive Politics revealed Thursday that corporate campaign spending has skyrocketed since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission decision in January 2010. The report comes at the same time as the first major state-level challenge to the controversial ruling.

A bill to create health insurance exchanges in Colorado passed out of the Senate today, becoming one of the few bills to make it through the fires of Tea Party and other conservative groups this year. While Republicans largely voted against the bill, it passed with no discussion in the Democratically controlled Senate and is now on its way to the governor's desk.

SB 200, Colorado's health insurance exchange bill, christened "Amycare" after House sponsor Amy Stephens by its detractors, was rushed through committee in a two-day sprint that ended with it exiting the house on a 44-21 vote. The bill's passage came under threats of recalls for Republicans voting for the bill.

A new Gallup poll shows that the tea party has lost major ground in terms of mainstream American support since last year’s crop of tea party candidates took office in January. Almost half of all Americans now have an unfavorable view of the tea party, compared to a third who hold a favorable view.

You just sent thousands of dollars to the U.S. government in an envelope with a tax form inside. Someone in your family may or may not have attended an anti-tax Tea Party rally and you may or may not have heard someone on the news railing about welfare and giveaways. Here's a first fact about your tax money: welfare and giveaways aren't the problem. They make up a fraction of the 3 percent you are paying in taxes for "education, training, employment and social services." Washington is spending most of your tax money, 17 percent, on wars-- even though neither of our recent wartime Presidents Bush and Obama have asked you for a dime to pay for what is now three military campaigns, two of which have been raging for more than half a decade at an outrageous hourly rate.

Tea Party and Koch-funded libertarian organizations took to the Capitol steps Friday in an attempt to call on Colorado legislators and politicians to fight against union rights in Wisconsin and voice their commitment to Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan.

It's tax time 2011, which means it's the second anniversary of the Tea Party. It's also nearly a week after the first great Washington budget battle of the Tea Party-era in what's sure to be a series of similar battles pitting the Republican-controlled House against the Democratic-controlled Senate and President Obama. Indeed, as many of its critics have noted, the controversial GOP budget plan written by Wisconsin Tea Party-Rep. Paul Ryan for the next fiscal year would turbo-charge the trend in U.S. politics of attacking the poor, ignoring the middle class and rewarding the rich. Against that backdrop, Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, a group of dozens of extremely wealthy Americans, is backing the Democrats and calling on lawmakers to end the Republican tax-cuts-for-millionaires experiment in federal government "fiscal discipline."

It looks increasingly as though the Tea Party wing of the Congressional Republican caucus is winning the battle within the caucus on whether or not to avoid budget compromise with Democrats and shut down the government Friday. Republicans cheered the prospect of a shut down behind closed doors this week and some of them have been openly stumping with shut-down rhetoric in their districts. Should it happen, the reality of severely reduced government operations and spending will arrive with a jolt Saturday morning. The Washington Post offers bloggy details.

Congresswoman Diana DeGette says the right wing of the Republican Party is not doing what voters sent them to Washington for.

The Colorado delegation in Washington voted five in favor and two against the stopgap budget passed by the House Tuesday. It was the second temporary fix to the budget passed in the last few weeks and it is even less popular than the first one among Tea Party conservatives, who believe Republicans should hold steady and risk a government shutdown to force compromise from Democrats on spending. House Majority Leader Boehner lost more than fifty conservative votes and had to lean on Democrats to help him pass the measure.