However, isn't one of the main points of the Tea Party "a plague on both their houses", a desire to cut down on government especially on gov't spending?
^^^^^ CB: This is the Big Lie of the Tea Party: that it is not the Republican Party. All the TPers' are running as Republicans. They are Republicans disguised as non-Republicans.
In '08, the Republican Party was declared down and out. So, they came up with this phony line, aided and abetted by the monopoly media, that the TP was not the Republican Party; because people couldn't just immediately say "we are going to vote for the Republicans', when the RP had just been declared so screwed up." But now it's clear that the TPers' are just Republicans.
Ironically, like the Boston Tea Party, where white men disguised themselves as Indians, the TP is Republicans disguised as anti-government rebels. They aren't rebels. They are pro-Republicans trying to sneak into the government disguised as anti-government people.
Reagan did the same thing; pretended that he was anti-government; got
in and ran the deficit and the debt to higher than they had ever been. At one point , Reagan doubled the national debt from what it had been in the whole history of the US up until the time he was in office.