The tea party movement and its passion arose in response to trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and out of a sense that Washington is in need of dire fiscal reform.
The press secretary who starts to narrow down or close the president's options because he answers delicate negotiating questions no longer serves the president.
The president welcomes peaceful protests - it is a time-honored tradition. The president agrees violence is not the answer in Iraq, and that's why he hopes Saddam Hussein will disarm.
My advice to the tea party freshmen: Slow the galloping horses to a trot. Big government was built over decades; it can't be dismantled in a year, especially when Democrats control the White House.
Having served as the majority spokesman for the House Ways and Means Committee after Republicans took the House in 1994, I've seen the promise and the peril of divided government before.
Today, grass-roots Republicans want to drink a bottle of 2010 small-government wine, but our candidates were bottled in another era, before the tea party's ideas took root.
Make no mistake, if the payroll-tax cut is extended, it will become permanent. Social Security will become another welfare program as the tie between what someone pays and what they receive gets broken.
I favor the abolition of all Social Security, Medicare and estate taxes. In their place, we should create a simple income tax system that has no deductions or credits at all.
After two years of fighting, government shutdowns and little to no agreement on anything except welfare reform in 1996, President Clinton was re-elected and decided it was time for compromise.
