From Tea Party to party of Big Government

Washington

AFTER the administration of then-president Barack Obama announced in early 2009 its plans to bail out certain home mortgage holders, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli blasted the bailouts on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and called for the creation of a new "tea party".

Mr Santelli was referring to the 1773 Boston Tea Party during which American colonists protested against taxation by the British government without political representation for the Americans, and his televised battle cry touched some political nerves and helped launched the Tea Party Movement.

The movement, which was affiliated with the Republican Party, was depicted in the media as "populist". It called for a reduction of the national debt of the US and the federal budget deficit by reducing government spending, and rallied against the government-sponsored universal healthcare programme advanced by the Obama administration also known as Obamacare. But while the numerous protests by the movement, including large Taxpayer Marches, were directed against the Democratic Party and Mr Obama (who was vilified by tea partiers as a "socialist"), it also criticised spending programmes that were embraced by the Republican administ…