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President Trump has thrown down a major challenge for the tea party and its congressional bloc, known as the Freedom Caucus. He is proposing to Congress a massive budget-busting plan that increases military spending by a whopping $54 billion, slashes domestic programs, and leaves Social Security and Medicare intact. And a significant tax cut will soon be on the way.

This presents a crucial test to the tea party movement that has reshaped American politics since 2008. The most obvious challenge is that Trump has chosen to leave Social Security and Medicare alone, two of the biggest components of the federal budget and two prime targets for conservatives like Speaker Paul Ryan.

Trump is going to assure Congress that the draconian cuts to domestic programs like the Environmental Protection Agency, reductions which tea party Republicans love, will balance out the huge increase in military spending. But the reality will be different.

President Ronald Reagan learned in the early 1980s that cutting government programs is extremely hard in practice. When Reagan slashed income taxes and boosted military spending, promising to balance the budget with domestic cuts, he failed. Reagan also backed away from cuts to Social Security and Medicare when he faced a political backlash for trying.

In the end, deficits skyrocketed in the 1980s. Reagan faced a Democratic House. Yet we have seen that Trump is already learning how hard it is to cut government, even in a moment of united partisan control, as he backs away from eliminating increasingly popular parts of the Affordable Care Act. In his speech to Congress, he also promised to move forward with a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which surely won't sit well with fiscal conservatives in his party.

Finally, this increase in military spending is a significant expansion of the federal government. While tea party Republicans might want to distinguish national security from the rest of government, in reality if they swallow this proposal they are revealing that conservatism really is about what kind of government to support, not whether big government is bad.

Tea party Republicans insisted that they would be different and for much of the time that they have had representation in Congress since 2008 they have been true to the word. They have been an intensely ideological coalition, insisting on a commitment to purity on policy that left the Obama administration deeply frustrated and tied up in knots.

Added to all this is the curveball that the president threw when he announced that he is open to immigration reform that would allow a large number of undocumented immigrants to remain in the country. Despite his continued attacks on undocumented immigrants in his address, the mere mention of a proposal to liberalize policy is anathema to many Tea Party Republicans who represent constituencies that are sympathetic to hardline anti-immigration sentiment.

The Republicans went to great lengths to fight Obama on spending cuts. When Obama sought compromise, they stood their ground in the budget battles of 2011, threatening to send the federal government into default. Hawkish Republicans were equally frustrated with their tea party colleagues when Congress could not reach agreement on spending in 2013 and as a result of the rules put into place in 2011, forced the implementation of budget sequestration that imposed caps on military and not domestic spending.

When Republican leaders like former Speaker John Boehner showed that they were willing to give even an inch to the Democrats, the tea party toppled them from power.

The current Speaker, Paul Ryan, has built much of his career around promising tea party Republicans that he would move forward with "entitlement reform" (meaning Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts) despite the political risks. He has been a zealot on this issue and hoped that this moment of unified government would offer an unprecedented opportunity. A frustrated Speaker Ryan, who said after the election that Trump had a "mandate," has now warned: "I've been a big time entitlement reformer for a long time because if you don't start bending the curve in the out years, we are hosed."

By supporting Trump, tea party Republicans would also put themselves on the record as being in favor of big increases in certain kinds of government spending.

Tea party Republicans will soon discover that President Trump's budget doesn't really add up. They will be receiving numbers from a Republican administration, which generally is sympathetic to their goals on most major issues, that will contradict their promise to the reddest constituents that they would hold firm on the anti-government cause. Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator, said, "America cannot wait any longer before we get serious about balancing the budget."

Trump is putting the Republican Party in a difficult spot at a moment of united government that could easily have turned into a period of triumph. If tea party Republican members of Congress swallow what the President has sent them, they will quickly reveal to their supporters that they are as craven and opportunistic as anyone else in Washington. They will place themselves at risk to be "tea partied" out of office and they will greatly damage their own credibility with the electorate in the coming election cycle.

If they hold to principle, as they did under President Obama, then the Republicans as a party will be facing a dangerous moment. A Republican President, who has shown that he doesn't have much loyalty when it comes to people getting in the way of his success, will be facing off against a huge portion of the congressional Republicans. The Freedom Caucus, with about 32 votes, has the numbers in the House to tie up the administration.

Will Republicans unite and make the most of their control of Congress and the White House? Or will many of them remain true to their small government philosophy and risk war with a White House that wants to reshape Washington?

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Over the course of the last decade, the Tea Party successfully created an infrastructure in Washington engineered specifically to combat Obamacare.

That infrastructure includes both elected muscle a wave of Republicans such as Rep. Dave Brat and Sen. Ted Cruz elected to Congress with the help of the grassroots and activist muscle in the form of nonprofits like FreedomWorks, which were boosted to greater prominence by the movement's influence.

This structure functioned more like a wall during the Obama administration, effectively halting attempts to accelerate the growth of government.

In recent years, the Tea Party's momentum has waned, prompting many to declare it dead. But now, as the Republican presidential administration and the Republican Congress finally have an opportunity to dismantle the very legislation that drew so many people to the movement more than half a decade ago, it's finally the Tea Party's moment to get to work.

No, massive rallies from coast-to-coast aren't springing up to demand action from Washington as they did years ago. But the organizational infrastructure those rallies helped build is exerting its clout to apply pressure to Republican leaders.

After the House released its repeal and replace plan earlier this week, conservative movement groups and elected officials such as the Tea Party Patriots and Rand Paul voiced vehement opposition to the legislation. The threat of heightened backlash from Tea Party players triggered the administration to respond by inviting them to share that opposition with the president and the vice president at the White House.

Whether these Tea Party-backed Republicans will be able to lobby successfully for healthcare legislation that meets their standards is yet to be determined. But those people the movement imported to Washington during the long winter of Obama's presidency have not forgotten what brought them there. Expect them to continue fighting back.

Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

Also from the Washington Examiner

President Trump said it's his "personal belief" that peace is possible.

03/10/17 9:18 PM

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The Tea Party infrastructure is working - Washington Examiner

Senate

IN-Sen: A few Republicans are talking about challenging Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly next year, but Rep. Luke Messer seems to be the most likely to go for it. Messer tells Howey Politics that "we're probably a couple of months away from making a final decision," but he took plenty of shots at his would-be opponent.

Fellow Rep. Todd Rokita has also expressed interest in a bid, while freshman Rep. Jim Banks didn't rule it out last year. Howey also mentions ex-Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke as possible candidates, though there's no word that they're considering. Trump carried Indiana 56-37, and Donnelly can expect a tough race no matter whom the GOP ends up fielding.

UT-Sen: During his successful 1976 campaign against Democratic Sen. Frank Moss, Orrin Hatch asked voters, "What do you call a senator who's served in office for 18 years? You call him home." But the GOP senator has been flirting with seeking years 43 through 48 in office for a while, and he told CNN on Thursday that he's "planning on" running again. Hatch added that seeking an eighth term next year are "what my current plans are" and, to his credit, CNN's Manu Raju noted that the senator could still change his mind. But Hatch says that none other than Donald Trump asked him to stay in the Senate.

Despite Utah's revulsion to Trump, this is still a dark red state that hasn't elected a Democrat statewide in a long, long time, and the GOP nominee should have little trouble in a general election. Some Republicans have made noises about challenging Hatch in the primary, but Trump may have removed one of his most prominent potential opponents from the board. While ex-Gov. Jon Huntsman refused to rule out facing Hatch this week even as he was standing right in front of the senator, he's reportedly accepted Trump's offer to become U.S. ambassador to Russia. However, none other than Mitt Romney didn't rule out running for Utah's Senate seat last month, though he didn't say anything about taking on the incumbent. We'll see if, now that Hatch has made his plans a bit more clear, if other Republicans will talk about running now that they know they'll likely need to get past the senator.

FL-Gov: On Thursday, Democratic Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn announced that he is "not planning to be a candidate for governor in 2018," which isn't exactly a no. Florida is an extremely expensive state to run for office in and the Democratic primary field is already taking shape, so it's unlikely that Buckhorn is just playing games and giving himself more time to consider. But there's nothing stopping him from putting out a much stronger declaration (it's not hard at all to just say, "I'm not going to run for governor" and let that be it), and it's possible he's waiting to see if he'll have an opening to make a late bid. Buckhorn is termed-out of office in 2019 and he said in his announcement that, "Absent extenuating circumstances, I intend to finish the job I was hired to do," which also gives him some wiggle room.

NH-Gov: Because New Hampshire elects its governors to two-year terms, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who pulled off a tight 49-47 win against Democratic Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern last year, will face the voters again soon. Aside from Republican Craig Benson's narrow 2004 defeat, New Hampshire voters haven't fired a first-term governor since 1926. However, Democrats are hoping that Sununu and his allies' conservative agenda, as well a Trump backlash, will give them the chance to retake the governor's office.

It's unclear who is interested in challenging Sununu. A few weeks after his defeat, Van Ostern dodged questions about his 2018 plans, though he doesn't seem to have said anything about the race since then. WMUR's John DiStaso also says there's speculation that state Attorney General Joseph Foster, a former state Senate majority leader who leaves office at the end of the month, could run, though Foster hasn't said anything. In New Hampshire, attorneys general are appointed by the governor to a four-year term and approved by the Executive Council rather than elected statewide, but a few have been elected to higher office. Most recently, Republican Kelly Ayotte resigned as state attorney general in 2009 to launch a successful Senate bid.

WI-Gov: Democrats may have their first candidate for next year's race soon but they can do a lot better than ex-state Sen. Tim Cullen. Cullen, who retired in 2014, says he's planning to announce at the end of April, and says he doesn't know of any reason he'd decide not to run.

Cullen represented a solidly blue seat in the southern part of Wisconsin, but he was far from a progressive hero. During the 2011 protests against GOP Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union legislation, Cullen did leave the state along with the rest of the Democratic Senate caucus in order to deny the GOP a quorum, but he soon said he wouldn't do it again because it "does great damage to the institution." During that confrontational period, Walker took a call from a prankster the governor thought was billionaire David Koch, and Walker told "Koch" that Cullen was "about the only reasonable one" of the Senate Democrats. When the imposter offered to call Cullen, Walker told him not to because "[h]e's pretty reasonable, but he's not one of us. . . . He's not there for political reasons. He's just trying to get something done. . . . He's not a conservative. He's just a pragmatist."

Cullen was fine with the 2012 attempt to recall Walker, and initially planned to run himself. However, Cullen ended up backing down, arguing that better-known candidates would raise far more than him. Cullen had only raised $157 over the previous six months (not a typo), so he probably wasn't wrong. A few months later, after Democrats temporarily won a one-seat majority, Cullen left the caucus, seemingly angry that he didn't get a committee chairmanship he wanted. Cullen still allowed himself to be counted as a Democrat for the purpose of organizing the chamber and he backed down a few days later, but the whole unpleasant incident did not endear him to us.

The good news is that Democrats are likely to have other options next year. Rep. Ron Kind isn't ruling out a bid; while he has a moderate reputation, he's nowhere near as obnoxious as Cullen. State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout (who did run in that 2012 primary and performed poorly) also is considering, while Dane County Executive Joe Parisi hasn't ruled it out. 2014 Attorney General nominee Susan Happ, the district attorney for Jefferson County, has also set up social media accounts ahead of an unnamed statewide bid. Walker hasn't announced he'll seek a third term yet, but he sounds very likely to.

CA-34: Former Obama White House staffer Alejandra Campoverdi is the second Democrat to advertise on TV ahead of the crowded April 4 jungle primary for this safely blue downtown Los Angeles seat. Campoverdi's spot starts with her telling the camera that she helped to pass Obamacare to save lives, but she "never imagined one of those lives might be my own." Campoverdi then says how breast cancer killed her grandmother and almost took her mother's life, and how she is likely to develop it herself.

Campoverdi is then shown comforting her mother as the candidate says the debate is personal for millions of Americans, declaring that "if Donald Trump wants to have a conversation about women's bodies, let's start with mine." There is no word on the size of the buy: At the end of 2016, Campoverdi had $102,000 in the bank.

IA-02: Rep. Dave Loebsack is the only Democrat left in Iowa's congressional delegation, and while he's never had much trouble winning re-election in presidential years, he came close to defeat in 2010 and 2014. The GOP is likely to target his eastern Iowa seat, which swung from 56-43 Obama to 49-45 Trump, but no one has publicly expressed interest yet. State Rep. Bobby Kaufmann has already been mentioned as a possible candidate, and over at Iowa Starting Line, Pat Rynard puts on his Great Mentioner cap and gives us some other names.

Rynard mentions Iowa Republican Party Chair Jeff Kaufmann, a former state representative who is Bobby Kaufmann's father. The elder Kaufmann is well regarded in political circles, which could actually hold him back, since plenty of Republicans would prefer him to stay on as chair. There's also Michael Bousselot, who serves as chief of staff to Gov. Terry Branstad. Branstad has been nominated to serve as Trump's ambassador to China, so Bousselot will likely need a new gig soon. Rynard also name-drops state Sens. Roby Smith, who co-owns a local minor-league baseball team, and Mark Lofgren. As a state representative, Lofgren ran for this seat in 2014 but was not an impressive fundraiser, and he lost the primary 49-38.

NH-01: State Sen. Andy Sanborn has been mentioned as a possible GOP opponent for Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in this swingy seat, and while he hasn't said anything about his plans, he seems to have demonstrated his interest in another way. According to WMUR's John DiStaso, Sanborn recently met with officials at the NRCC about a possible bid. Back in 2013 Sanborn also went to D.C. and talked to the RGA about a possible run for governor but ended up staying out, so this certainly doesn't mean he's decided on anything.

TX-03: Longtime GOP Rep. Sam Johnson announced two months ago that he wouldn't seek re-election to this conservative suburban Dallas seat, but there hasn't exactly been a rush of candidates to succeed him. State Sen. Van Taylor, a wealthy Iraq War veteran who represents almost all of the 3rd in the legislature, said he would decide after the session ends in late May, though he's reportedly planning to run. But that doesn't seem to be deterring Collin County Judge Keith Self, who is the only other Republican we've heard express interest. This week, Self announced that he had formed an exploratory committee, though he said he could take several months to decide. If Self runs, he'd need to resign his post.

Self is the elected head of the Collin County Commissioners Court, the equivalent of a county board of supervisors. Self has long been a major conservative power in Collin County, which takes up the entire 3rd District. However, Self's chosen candidate lost a high-profile 2013 race for mayor of Plano and his appointed county commissioner lost a 2014 contest to stay in office, so his influence may be waning. Trump carried this seat 55-41, and there's no sign that Democrats are preparing to target it.

Charlotte, NC Mayor: Most of the action in this year's mayoral race has been in the Democratic primary, where Mayor Jennifer Roberts is facing challenges from state Sen. Joel Ford and Mayor Pro Tem Vi Lyles. But this week, GOP City Councilor Kenny Smith announced that he would run. Charlotte is a Democratic-leaning city, and Team Blue has run city hall since 2009. However, moderate Republican Edwin Peacock came relatively close to winning in 2013 and he lost to Roberts just 52-48 in 2015.

Still, as we've noted before, Smith is far from a moderate. Smith notably denounced Charlotte's 2016 non-discrimination ordinance as "social engineering" on the part of liberals. However, Roberts has had a tough tenure so far. After Roberts and the council passed their non-discrimination ordinance, the GOP-led North Carolina state legislature responded by passing a piece of anti-LGBT legislation known as HB2, which earned the state national scorn and multiple boycotts by high-profile businesses. There was also unrest in the city after Keith Scott, a 43-year-old black man, was killed by police in September. It's possible that even a conservative like Smith may be able to convince voters that a new direction is needed, especially if there's a nasty Democratic primary that leaves the eventual nominee weakened.

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, and James Lambert.

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Morning Digest: 2014 tea party favorite Chris McDaniel mulls a primary against Roger Wicker - Daily Kos

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BY: Ali Meyer March 8, 2017 1:51 pm

The Internal Revenue Service has located 6,924 documents potentially related to the targeting of Tea Party conservatives, two years after the group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for them.

The watchdog group intended to find records regarding how the IRS selected individuals and organizations for audits that were requesting nonprofit tax status.

The agency will not say when it will make the documents available to the public.

"At this time, the Service is unable to provide an estimate regarding when it will complete its review of the potentially responsive documents," the agency said. "The Service will begin producing any non-exempt, responsive documents by March 10, 2017, and, if necessary, continue to produce non-responsive records on a bi-weekly basis."

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, is calling on President Trump to clean house at the agency.

"The corruption at the IRS is astounding," Fitton said in a statement. "Our attorneys knew that there were more records to be searched but the Obama IRS ignored this issue for years. President Trump needs to clean house at the IRS as quickly as possible."

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Two Years Later, IRS Locates 6924 Documents Related to Tea Party Targeting - Washington Free Beacon

Washington Times

IRS documents may detail Obama tea party targeting uncovered ... Washington Times The IRS admitted in 2013 that it singled tea party groups out for intrusive scrutiny, including crossing lines by asking questions about the groups' associations, ... IRS Admits Existence of 6,924 Unreleased Documents Related to ...American Spectator 2 years later, IRS finds 6,924 docs related to tea party targetingWND.com IRS locates nearly 7,000 "Tea Party" documents - Legal Insurrectionlegal Insurrection (blog) MRCTV (blog) all 6 news articles »

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IRS documents may detail Obama tea party targeting uncovered ... - Washington Times