Future of the tea party protests

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The Washington Times ponders the future of the tea party protest movement in Anti-tax crusade to storm Capitol.

One promising sign: “In some areas we’ve noticed tea party activists are getting involved in local government in school boards [and] town councils.”

When I speak to groups and talk about the size of local government, people are astonished to learn that the school district is often the biggest spender. Locally, in round numbers, the budget of Sedgwick Count is $400 million, of the City of Wichita, $500 million, and of the Wichita School District, $600 million. (Except that the school district and the government school spending lobby won’t admit that figure.)

So are these tea parties just a wing of the Republican Party? Here’s more from the article: “Republicans, however, have been just as unsuccessful in tapping into this group of voters Mr. Steinhauser describes as ‘sort of a mixture of libertarians, independent-minded people who lean conservative and even Democrats who are leery of all this spending in Congress.’”