Tea Party Rips "GOP RINOs" for Debt Limit Sell-Out

TEA PARTY NATIONAL CONVENTION TO RECRUIT HOUSE GOP PRIMARY CHALLENGERS

2012 Congressional Scorecard Unveiled: "It's a Pass/Fail grading system"

Top Tea Party Voices available for Talk Shows

WASHINGTON, July 27, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As House Speaker John Boehner sought Republican votes to raise the national debt ceiling by $900 billion, Tea Party leaders ripped him and other "GOP RINOs" for betraying the movement that put Boehner in charge of the lower chamber last year.

"The moment of truth has arrived," said Tom Trento, National Security Chairman for the Tea Party National Convention and a director of the Tea Party Founding Fathers.  "In their contest with President Obama, House Republicans are either going to prove themselves strong bull elephants who got big cuts and reforms, or wimpy RINOs who sold-out the Tea Party and the American people for peanuts."  In Tea Party parlance, "RINO" means "Republican-In-Name-Only."

Trento, also president of The United West, a national security educational group which sees the debt issue as a national security threat, unveiled a single-issue 2012 Congressional Scorecard on the debt limit: "It's a Pass/Fail grading system," he said.  Condemning any "debt ceiling giveaway," the scorecard is viewable at www.TeaPartyScorecard2012.com  -- and it's not nice to Capitol Hill incumbents who abandon "Cut, Cap and Balance" legislation requiring Congress to send a Balanced Budget Amendment to the states before raising the current $14.3 trillion debt limit.  The Tea Party scorecard also mocks Obama's August 2 deadline for debt ceiling action as "phony," arguing that tax revenues are ten times what's required to make interest payments to U.S. bondholders.

Meanwhile Amy Kremer, chairman of Tea Party Express, was set to rally with activists and their Hill allies at the Capitol at 12:00 noon Eastern.  "The Boehner deal only secures $7 billion in spending cuts, a measly amount that guarantees a downgrade of America's AAA bond rating....Any Republicans that abandon the core values of fiscal responsibility will find themselves being challenged in 2012," she said.  At least two GOP Presidential hopefuls were expected to be at the rally:  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), chair of the House Tea Party Caucus and businessman Herman Cain, also a favorite among grassroots Tea Party activists.  

"We're on the verge of following Greece into a death spiral," said Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, one of the country's oldest and largest Tea Party umbrellas, as his group began robo-calling the constituents of targeted House Republicans.  "Boehner and McConnell are the predatory credit card issuers of the Entitlement State, they're about to renew Obama's cancelled Mastercard, and they want to saddle America's grandchildren with all of the bills," he said.  

Trento said the Tea Party National Convention this fall "will focus on recruiting conservative primary challengers to guilty House GOP RINOs and frosh. Our 2012 Congressional scorecard has just one issue:  Did the Member vote for any cheap giveaway of more national debt?"  Trento said that the currently-undisclosed location for November's Tea Party National Convention "will enable our movement to have the kind of impact in 2012 that we had in 2010.  We'll be unveiling a technology-based strategy for defeating both RINOs and Democrats in 2012."

Kremer added, "Republicans have to hold the line and reign-in out of control spending to save our country and implement their mandate from last year's election.  Cut, Cap & Balance is the only plan on the table that actually solves our fiscal crisis by finally forcing the federal government to live within its means. Now is the time to back up words with actions and not support any plan that does not truly adhere to the Cut, Cap & Balance principles."  

Phillips said recently, "A failed CCB bill gets you no cover.  The ONLY way any Republican may get forgiveness from us is if he obtains a high price tag like $500 billion in 2012 first-year cuts, defunding of Obamacare and Planned Parenthood, sweeping reform of all health care entitlements such as Medicare, and actual Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment."  

SOURCE Tea Party