Blog

A new Cato Institute study finds the Tea Party movement “has been dominated by a strong ‘functionally libertarian’ flavor since its inception, downplaying social issues such as gay marriage in favor of reforming entitlements, taxes and reigning in the scope of government,” Red Alert Politics reports.

It establishes that the Tea Party movement grew out of libertarian frustration with former President George W. Bush’s fiscal policies, particularly the TARP bank bailouts and their frustration with the subsequent bailouts – issues polls cited by the study found that libertarians were angrier about than many conservatives.

Even Christian Broadcasting Network political correspondent David Brody  conceded in his recent book  “Teavangelicals”  that evangelical activists and other social conservatives who are active in the Tea Party act like libertarians and have mostly downplayed social issues for the sake of the cause, according to the study.

“[S]ince the Tea Party was “founded on economic bedrock issues, evangelicals typically gloss over these differences for the sake of standing in unison to fight a worthy, fiscally disciplined cause,” the Cato report says.

Study authors David Kirby and Emily Ekins contend that the movement shows that the center of American politics has moved in a more libertarian direction. They cite numerous polls showing that Tea Party members say that economic issues are more important than social issues.