According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, the bailouts of banks by the Bush and Obama administrations triggered the Tea Party’s rise. The interviewer adds that the movement's anger centers on two issues, quoting Rasmussen as saying, "They think federal spending, deficits and taxes are too high, and they think no one in Washington is listening to them, and that latter point is really, really important." The movement has no central leadership but is a loose affiliation of smaller local groups. The movement's primary concerns include, but are not limited to, cutting back the size of government, lowering taxes, reducing wasteful spending, reducing the national debt andfederal budget deficit, and adherence to the United States Constitution.

The above is quoted from Wikipedia.org at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement and is a pretty accurate summary of what has brought most of us to become active in the Tea Party movement.

The Tea Party is a very diverse group of American citizens of all races, religions, cultural heritages, economic levels, ages, education, and even of various political persuasions. As long as you feel strongly that there is something terribly wrong with growing government spending and mounting national debt, you can find a home in the Tea Party.

View a number of Tea Party websites and you won't find 100% correlation of their goals. But, you will find a few core agreements among almost all of the Tea Party groups. Almost all want to reduce government spending, stop the growth of government debt, and bring the government back within the limits placed upon it by the Constitution.

If that is what bothers you; if that is what motivates you to join a group like this, then welcome aboard!

If you think the Tea Party needs to be about more than just fiscal responsibility and getting back to the founding principles of the Constitution, then visit: http://contractfromamerica.org/  DO NOT confuse this with the old Republican "Contract WITH America" or the NEW Republican "Pledge To America". The CONTRACT FROM AMERICA came bottom up from a massive survey of Americans about what they want from their government. It did not come top down from the Republican Party telling us what they plan to do for us. The CONTRACT FROM AMERICA is what WE THE PEOPLE are demanding from our government. Tea Party organizations across the country have been endorsing the CONTRACT FROM AMERICA and making it their rallying point.

There are a lot of other issues that you might think are Tea Party issues, but they are not. That doesn't mean that a lot of us don't agree on them, or that a lot of individual Tea Party organizations haven't endorsed them. But these issues ARE NOT what are bringing massive numbers of people together to rally at the capitol and locations throughout the nation.

The following are issues that WILL NOT be part of this group:

Abortion

Illegal Immigration

Drug legalization

Bringing Our Troops Home

Demanding Obama Prove His Citizenship

To be sure, there are signs and groups pushing these issues at Tea Party rallies. But they are not issues that motivated most to participate nor that everyone agrees on. The Tea Party movement is a coalition of conservatives, libertarians, and even John F. Kennedy era Democrats. We all agree on fiscal responsibility and a return to constitutionally limited government. If you bring in these other issues, it will break up the coalition. If you feel very strongly about any of the above issues, there are other organizations in Orange County that may be more appropriate for you, either the Conservative Meetup or the Libertarian Meetup depending on your bent.

Lets get the issues of fiscal responsibility and constitutional limitations settled first. Then we can go our own ways to rally for the issues where we differ.